Chapter 4: Iida Tenya

Chapter 4: Iida Tenya

...

Alright, here I am. It's 6 p.m., and I'm standing in front of his dorm room.

Why the heck am I so nervous? No! I need to focus—concentrate, Denki! You can't look like a fool in front of the first classmate you met!

Gathering all the confidence I could muster, I mentally prepped myself and put on my best smile before knocking on the door and waiting for it to open.

Finally, I heard movement, and the door opened.

"Hello! Come in, Kaminari," Iida said, gesturing me inside.

I nodded, and before stepping in, I took a quick look around… and, honestly, I wasn't ready for what I was about to see. It was the standard dorm room, similar to mine, but… how to explain it… it had tons of books and a bed pushed to one side, but that wasn't what shocked me. What really got me was that everything was super tidy and arranged in a specific order.

And look, it's not like my room is a total mess! But what I walked into here… was like another world.

From the get-go, the place gave me chills. Literally. Every single thing in Iida's room was perfectly aligned, to the point it felt like I'd stepped into the room of a robot or something. Not saying that in a bad way, but this guy is way too… umm, methodical, you know? This room was so perfectly arranged, it hurt.

First, I glanced at his bed. It was perfectly made, sheets pulled tight and without a single wrinkle, like he'd ironed them directly onto the mattress or something… Honestly, I still have no idea how he managed that.

Oh, and the pillows were aligned with a precision I doubt the average human eye could detect. Actually, I feel like if I moved a pillow half a centimeter, Iida would probably notice instantly, and it would completely ruin his world.

I took off my shoes and finally stepped in, even though every part of me was telling me to run out of here, to just escape while I still could.

But against all my survival instincts, I entered the lion's den.

Next to me was a nightstand with only a lamp placed precisely in the center and a digital alarm clock, also perfectly centered and set at a 90-degree angle to the table's edge. I looked at it cautiously, like it was some kind of dangerous device, making sure not to touch it. I didn't want to be the guy who messed up Iida's room and triggered some kind of mental breakdown in the process… or in his circuits/programming.

I don't know; maybe he actually is a robot with human skin, and setting him off would just activate his killer programming… Alright, maybe I'm exaggerating, but from now on, I swear I'm not coming back in here.

The good part is, if Iida were a robot, I'm kind of confident my Quirk could take him down.

I stopped thinking about that and kept looking around, and now my eyes landed on his bookshelf. And that's when my suspicions that he might be a robot with human skin got even stronger… The books were all aligned, all the same height and in alphabetical order, with identical spacing between each one. Not a single book was out of place, not a single one sticking out more than another. It looked almost… unnatural.

Yeah, I was definitely getting chills now.

I got closer to read the titles, and as I bent down, I noticed that even the line of book spines was perfectly straight, without a single variation.

'Who in their right mind has their books lined up like this?!' I screamed internally. I actually wanted to scream out loud, but honestly, I was too scared to talk loudly in this room. It felt like I'd set off an alarm if I made a noise, or maybe Iida would actually turn into a killer robot…

Yeah, I know, I need to stop watching sci-fi movies with killer robots. But Steel Nemesis was just too good to miss. And the protagonist, Annihilator, was awesome.

Plus, if anyone else saw this place in person, I'm pretty sure they'd be thinking the same.

Even the closet was perfectly organized! Shirts, pants, everything hung on hangers, arranged by color, like there was a military rainbow inside the closet.

The corner of his desk was another level. He had a set of papers and pens arranged in perfect symmetry, with the corners of each paper lined up. There was also a calendar on the wall beside it, with a meticulously written to-do list. You could see the days crossed off with a line so straight it looked like it was drawn with a ruler. In fact, he probably did use a ruler.

"Wow…" I murmured to myself, feeling like my own internal chaos was clashing with all this… perfection. Not that I'm a complete mess, alright? But this is something else! I hadn't realized being in such an orderly room could actually make you feel uncomfortable.

I'd rather go back to fighting those robots in the UA entrance exam than stay here. Actually, that exam was pretty fun, especially since I had the comfort of knowing that U.A. probably programmed the robots not to kill us or cause us serious harm… or at least I convinced myself of that to keep from freaking out while fighting them.

"..."

Then I heard someone behind me, and when I turned around, there was Iida with a serious, almost calculating expression. I guess he noticed I was just standing there, frozen, because he tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.

"Is something wrong, Kaminari?" he asked, staring at me intensely.

"Uh… no, no, not at all. It's just that… wow, your room is… clean." I tried to find another word, something that didn't sound so… weird, but honestly, "clean" was all I could come up with.

He nodded with a sort of pride, like he'd just received a compliment.

"It's essential to maintain focus and discipline. Order in the environment translates to order in the mind, don't you think?"

"Oh, umm, yeah, sure…" I nodded slowly, feeling a little nervous.

'What the hell is this guy talking about?!' In my mind, I could only think about how strange all this felt. Order in the mind? I'm not sure how I'd survive in a place like this without going crazy.

I took a step back, careful not to touch anything, not even with the tip of my foot. Moving around here felt like a sacred ritual. And in that moment, I felt this sort of pressure, like the room itself was watching me, waiting to see if I'd do something out of line. I was so tense, my own body was telling me, "don't breathe too hard, or you'll mess up the damn air."

So I tried to relax, though it was hard when I felt like even my thoughts had to be in perfect alignment in this place.

"Uh… Iida? So… what was it you wanted to talk about again?" I asked, trying to sound casual and end this torture as soon as possible.

But to my dismay, my plan to get out of there quickly was foiled by an Iida who had a thousand things he wanted to discuss, which only made my stay in this torture chamber infinitely worse. The worst part is, I barely understood 5%? maybe 10% of everything he was talking about.

So there I was, trapped in the realm of torture with Iida Tenya as the king condemning me to suffer for what felt like an eternity.

Just kill me…

Please…