I Don't Smoke (bsdxmha)

Mackerel

Internships. Dazai decides he does in fact want to go on internships because then he won't have to do any schoolwork AND doesn't have to see Mori. Two birds with one stone. He has surprisingly little information about the inner workings of hero agencies. He's sure Mori would tell him if he asked, but... he'd rather not owe that man anything.

They have to pick hero names first, unfortunately. Dazai really has no idea what he wants his hero name to be. Maybe he'll make it really stupid. Omnipotent fingers... or Handsome mummy. Wow, choosing hero names is difficult.

"While these hero names can be temporary..." Aizawa starts.

"You'll have hell to pay later!" Midnight interrupts, swinging the door open and sauntering in. "If the hero names used by students stick with them throughout school, they end up becoming their professional hero names too."

"Yep. Midnight is here to help you pick out your names. When you give yourself a name, you get a more concrete image of what you want to be like in the future, and you can get closer to it. I'm done with this." Aizawa says, zipping himself up into his sleeping bag.

What you want to be like in the future? Dazai has many names given to him, like Demon Prodigy. It seems his names just set him up for failure then. Whiteboards are passed out while Midnight explains stuff about names being friendly and open and whatnot.

Wait. He has an idea. Whipping out his phone, he sends a text.

[Dazai] Chuuya.

[Dazai] Chuuya.

[Dazai] Chuuya. Chuuyaa! Answer me rn

[Dazai] It's very important

[Chuuya] What?! I'm busy. Go die.

[Dazai] My heart...

[Chuuya] What do you want?

[Dazai] Give me a name

[Chuuya] Bandage waster. Mackerel.

[Dazai] Hmm. Fine. Thanks, Chibi!

[Chuuya] Whatever.

[Chuuya] By the way, do you know where my wallet went?

[Dazai] What? No... that's crazy

[Chuuya] DAZAI!?

He decides to turn off his phone after that. All the other hero names are interesting enough. He's still unsure what makes a good or bad hero name, but he doesn't actually care what he's going to be called. He particularly likes Uravity though, if he had to choose. It's cute, sue him.

"The nullifying hero: Mackerel!" He says, a bit too proudly.

He can feel Midnight's confused gaze on him, with cries of outrage from the class.

"Hmm... Why Mackerel? It doesn't have anything to do with your quirk."

"Ah, well, it's to honour a good friend..." Dazai says solemnly, "He's no longer with us..."

Midnight touches her heart and pushes Dazai empathetically back to his seat. Dazai tries to keep a serious face. He loves pretending Chuuya is dead. Maybe he'll make it into a whole thing. "Chuuya would have loved this..." and "I need to throw myself into this river because Chuuya would have thrown me in..."

At least he's got a hero name now. Dazai wonders if he'll actually remember to respond when someone calls him Mackerel. Maybe he'll burst out into laughter. Some of the names are definitely creative.