It took Kazue a few days after the whole USJ incident to finally act upon what'd been rolling around in his mind since the attack. Ever since he'd figured something out about his Quirk.

The sleep spells. He'd been on the verge of having one when Decay—whom he now knew as Shigaraki Tomura after Midoriya had filled him in on what happened once he'd been rendered unconscious—had attempted to use his Quirk on his face. The tiredness had gone away instantly without Kazue falling asleep, and the villain had been unable to decay anything.

"You've been staring at your dinner for five minutes now," Katashi remarked dryly from across the low table.

Kazue's head jerked up at the sudden statement, not having noticed he was lost in his own thoughts. "Four minutes and fifty-seven seconds," he corrected instantly. "Roughly."

"Right," his father deadpanned, twirling some steaming noodles around his chopsticks and lifting them to his mouth. Despite them being quite well-off, the hero still couldn't be bothered to buy anything more than pre-packaged cup ramen for dinner. "What's on your mind?"

Well, there was no point in beating around the bush. Wasting time wasn't exactly something Kazue did often. "My Quirk," he sighed, finding annoyance in how itchy the wound on his forehead had gotten while it healed. "I've used the other half twice now, but can't seem to replicate it during training."

It's starting to piss me off, actually...

The brunet was never confused about pretty much everything. Except for his own goddamn Quirk, which frustrated him to no end.

"Hmm..." Katashi mused, squinting his eyes for a second. "Tell me what happened in detail. Maybe I can be of assistance."

As much as Kazue hated asking the man for help with his own problems, it was unavoidable. "The first time was the first day of school," he muttered, slouching where he sat on his zaisu. "Sensei—Eraser Head—had everyone do a Quirk Apprehension Test. I did what I always do, then he caught me adjusting my arm forwards on the ball throw. He was pissed, obviously, catching my arm in his capture weapon and all, and used his Quirk as an intimidation factor."

His father sighed in exasperation, a small smile playing across his lips. "Only you could not try your best at the top hero school in the country," he remarked, waving his hand in the gesture to continue.

"Right," Kazue stated flatly. He proceeded to tell the man exactly what had happened next, both when he'd felt no effect from Erasure to his almost-sleeping spell resulting in Decay not working. Only... Katashi didn't answer, even once he'd finished recounting the events.

The brunet deadpanned at his father's silence, watching with unblinking eyes as he was ignored and ramen was eaten. Seriously? I ask you for help for once and you ignore me?

Whatever. Kazue didn't need his father's help with something like this. He never had (choosing to ignore that one moment before), and never would. The answer was obvious. His Quirk...

Well shit.

"Never mind," Kazue mumbled, finally beginning to eat his own dinner. Idiot.

"There you go," Katashi praised dryly, pointing with his chopsticks. "You had all the information to draw a conclusion, but failed to connect the dots. You're better than that."

Am I?

The teen sighed under his breath, allowing himself to drift away in his thoughts once more as he ate. It was as if lately, ever since he'd gone to Yūei for the recommendation exam, everything had been flipped upside down. His own Quirk was confusing beyond belief, there was now an organized villain group lurking around in the shadows, and he was helping train the next Symbol of Peace. Oh, and Kazue also had made somewhat of a friend his age. That was also new.

And then there was the matter of Daguchi Ichiro. Kazue's 'rival', so to speak. Despite what had been said in the hall, the brunet was beginning to wonder if beating the third year was still feasible. Yes, Kazue had more experience fighting one-on-one, but Daguchi's Quirk was ranged. If he figured out a better fighting style suited to his abilities, as evidenced by the targeted growth of his Quirk in the past year, then Kazue was somewhat screwed.

Then again, he did have an ace up his sleeve that just needed a bit more work. Well, more of a lot more work, but it was still manageable. And with a Quirk like Daguchi's... the fight would be over fairly quickly.

If Kazue could train the move to perfection in the next two or so weeks, that is. It drained his energy more than anything else, and that was saying something. However, if he did manage to figure out the other half of his Quirk by then...

He really would be the perfect combination of his parents' Quirks.

~-~-~-~

"Ryder shoved me against the wall sexily, slamming his lips against mine as our tongues battled for dominance."

Kazue squinted his eyes at the phone screen he was looking at, then up at the person who was holding it. "Why."

Hamasaki covered her mouth with a hand while snickers escaped, scooting back along the wall's border to where her lunch tray was. "For the comment sections," she answered like it was obvious, scrolling down through the story further.

"Let me guess, it's a 'bad boy x good girl' story," the brunet sighed while pinching the bridge of his nose, half wanting to continue reading it for fun while also wanting to never read something like that ever again.

She gave a thumbs up, snorting at something that was written and presumably typing out a comment. "I mean, the guy's name is Ryder," Hamasaki shrugged.

True. It seemed that the so-called 'bad boys' were always basic white boy names or ones people thought sounded 'badass'. Those could include Jackson (maybe he went by Jax, because having an 'x' in his name was 'cool'), Tyler, the mentioned Ryder, Cole, Hunter, Grayson... the list went on.

"Anyway, are you gonna be-" she began, only to get cut off by none other than the roof access door slamming open.

"THERE YOU ARE!" a very familiar business course student exclaimed exuberantly, a finger pointed straight at Kazue. Now that Kazue got a better look at him, he was only slightly shorter than himself and had amber eyes that gleamed with mischief. Not really worth being called a 'runt', as Daguchi had so eloquently put it. More of an aerodynamic twig, since he seemed to have no muscle mass anywhere in sight.

A rather short girl with medium-brown hair and hazel eyes poked her head out from the boy, a general studies student from the looks of her uniform's buttons. "I'm sorry about him, uh... yeah," she sighed, attempting to drag her friend back down the stairs with two lunch trays balanced on one arm.

Key word: attempting.

The boy grinned, sauntering forward and turning in a circle with his arms spread wide while his companion tipped her head back and groaned. "Nice place you got up here, huh? Lots of space, no freaky third years being dickwads..."

Kazue stared, wondering what the fuck this guy was doing on the roof, whether or not he'd gotten permission (the answer was likely no), and why he was acting like they were friends. "Can I help you?" he asked flatly, noting how Hamasaki had put away her phone and was staring intently at her lunch tray while eating.

Wow. Was she worse at forced social interaction than he was?

The guy laughed. "Dude, you already did, remember? Shoving that arrogant-ass cockalorum against the wall and threatening him with a broken arm. Totally awesome, by the way, how you guys are gonna fight after the Sports Festival."

What the actual... "He pissed me off," Kazue muttered, resisting the urge to throw himself off the roof to escape the very extroverted person. Hamasaki seemed to be having similar thoughts, her eyes darting to judge the distance to the ground and whether or not the jump would be fatal. Likely not, with the way her legs were structured due to her Quirk.

The tallest of the four was rewarded with an even wider grin. "D'you think you can actually beat him? I mean, he did say you were ol' Number Seven's kid—totally didn't Google him by the way—and you're both in the hero course, but the asshole's a third year."

"Why do you care so much?" the green-eyed teen sighed, subtly making sure that his manga was completely hidden beneath his tray. "I don't even know you."

"The name's Furuya Benjiro. There, now we're besties," the other boy announced grandly, leaving two very confused people in his wake and one exasperated one.

Furuya's friend retreated a step out of the stairwell, now balancing the lunch trays on each hand. "Benji, you can't just force friendship on people," she reminded him as though he'd done this before. "I'm Chisaka Hitomi, and again, I'm so sorry about him, and we'll be leaving you guys alone now."

He made a face of mock horror. "But Tomi-chan-"

Chisaka tipped her head back and groaned. "Noooooo. No buts. We're interrupting their lunch date."

Kazue promptly dropped his lunch tray face down on the concrete of the roof, followed close behind by Hamasaki's. "This isn't a date," they said incredulously in sync, the support course student speaking to the newcomers for the first time.

"It's called 'escaping from the crowds'," Kazue hurriedly elaborated, glancing back and forth between his roofmate and the piece of sky in between the two other students.

"We hate people," Hamasaki added, then cringed.

"And are extremely socially awkward at sudden occurrences such as these," the brunet gritted out, pressing his lips together and staring resolutely at the nearest cloud.

Furuya blinked slowly, his mouth slowly stretching into a grin. "That's freakin' adorable!" he gushed, looking to Chisaka for approval only to receive a sigh of disappointment. "I'm surprise-adopting both of you. You're now my children."

Hamasaki stared at him, shared a scared glance with Kazue, and jumped off the roof. All he could do was watch her land on the ground far below with wide eyes, half stretching out a hand as she retreated back into the school without so much as a scratch.

The green-eyed teen forced himself to look back at the other boy with a grimace. Great. Now he was alone with the extrovert and someone who appeared to be in between.

Death would be a kinder alternative.

"Did she just..." Furuya sweatdropped, pointing incredulously at the air where the girl had just been.

Kazue looked him straight in the eyes. "Yes. Yes, she did, and I wish I could do the same without splatting into a mess of blood, bones, and internal organs."

~-~-~-~

Furuya Benjiro was a pain in the ass and Kazue wanted to die. The business course student had ended up staying on the roof for the rest of lunch, subsequently forcing Chisaka to do the same. She was much more tolerable than her taller companion, but their personalities were so opposite that Kazue wondered how they even became friends.

Not that he'd know much on the subject from self-experience, but whatever. All Kazue knew was that he needed to track down the girl that had abandoned him to an extrovert and deliver her left-behind belongings before the afternoon classes began.

The brunet returned the nod of greeting from Todoroki as he passed by Class 1-A without a word, trudging down the hall until he found the door marked with a giant 1-G. Now here came the question of whether or not Hamasaki had returned to class yet. On one hand, Kazue didn't want to open the door to another class, only for her not to be there. On the other, if he didn't at least check, he'd be stuck carrying around her things for the next twenty-four hours.

Kazue shrugged to himself. Well, option two was a hell of a lot better than having an entire room of strangers stare at him. So he just turned on his heel and retreated back to 1-A without a second thought.

~-~-~-~

"So, uh, hi," came the awkward greeting as soon as Kazue exited the classroom at the end of the school day. He glanced to the side to see Hamasaki leaning against the wall with her arms crossed even more awkwardly over her chest. "Do you have..."

"Yeah," he replied quickly, aware of Kaminari's overly dramatic look of shock as the blond did a double take while passing by with Sero. Ignoring the two, Kazue slung his backpack into the crook of his elbow and unzipped it, pulling out a file folder. Having prepared for any situation, the beige paper was perfect to hide the cover of the manga it contained. "Next time you decide to jump off the roof, take me with you. Please."

Hamasaki laughed awkwardly. "Pulling a Dazai, are we?"

The brunet blinked. Pulling a what now? "Who's Dazai?"

Her eyes widened a bit in surprise. "We seriously need to get you interested in another genre."

Wahoo, two more OCs introduced since we know almost nothing about the other first year classes other than Shinsō and Hatsume. 

Also: socially awkward Kazue is fun to write because it's so different from his usually calm/blunt (and bored) demeanor anywhere else. When there's unexpected socialization, that all goes to the wind. Especially around an extrovert.