Aizawa passed out the exam papers, tossing the stapled papers onto everyone's table, first Aoyama's:
"Merci."
Then Mina's:
"Ugh."
Then Tsuyu's:
"Kero." Then Bakugo's:
"Give it. This went on and on until Aizawa reached Kaminari's table. "Thank you, Aizawa-sensei." Aizawa gave him a brief look before placing a paper onto Kirishima's table. Kaminari leaned over to him.
"Hey Kiri."
"Hey."
"What do you think you'll get on this?" Kaminari was hoping he would say something like, "Awful", or "I'll be lucky if I get 10%" just so Kaminari knew he wasn't the only one that was absolutely screwed.
"Higher than you.
"Haha, very funny." He turned to Jirou, but before he could even say anything, Jirou pushed him away with her earphone cord.
"Don't."
"Yes ma'am." He turned back to his own desk and focused on the exam paper cover, hoping that looking at it enough would make the answers appear in his brain.
"You have 45 minutes. You may start."
Everyone turned the paper. Some quietly groaned, some eagerly wrote down an answer, and others stared at the question intently. Kaminari did none. Instead, he put his head on the table and sighed. He turned his head to Kirishima.
"Help?"
"Don't look at me, I know just as much as you do! Well, not really, I'm way smarter than you-"
"Noted." He grumbled. Back to trying to peek at the others work. However, it all came to no avail. The only person that he knew would have all the right answers was Bakugo, and he was writing so fast Kaminari couldn't see the answers. The rest were edging away from him, almost as if they knew he would look. He groaned again. In middle school, he probably would have answered half the paper by now. Middle school was just so easy, but THIS? This was 100 times harder. But then again, what did he expect? This was U.A. after all. The most prominent heroes went there. Did he really expect the work to be EASY? God, he was such an idiot if he did.
Time flew by, and he tried to concentrate, but there were so many thoughts in his head about villain attacks and hero training and video games and they were all intertwining and mingling and making exams hell. He couldn't even remember what he wrote. "Ten more minutes." Aizawa notified the class of the time remaining. Denki nearly fell out of his chair. TEN MINUTES? But just now we were 20 minutes in! How did time pass so fast? He was barely done with the first half! He looked around, checking to see if the others were as shocked as he was, but to his dismay, most people were finished, and checking through their work for mistakes. Kaminari's jaw dropped. He knew that he wasn't exactly the smartest in the class, but was he really that behind? No. SOMEONE had to be flying through the second half and trying not to panic, but he didn't see anyone. Kaminari was the only one. So there was only one thing he could do.
Catch up.
Kirishima looked at him. "Done as well?"
Kaminari tried not to panic. "Yup!" he said, popping the p and giving a thumbs-up. He hoped that his smile would be enough to convince Kirishima that he wasn't only 50% done.
Kirishima looked at him. "Good! I'm checking Question 50 now, nearly at the end-"
"WHAT?"
Kirishima furrowed his brow in confusion. "Question 50, I have 10 more questions to go."
Kaminari added the numbers up. That made sixty. He looked at his question booklet. He was halfway through Question 32.
Shit.
"Sorry Kiri, I thought you said fifteen."
Kirishima laughed. "FIFTEEN? I bet everyone is checking Question 35 right now, at least."
"Yeah, I'm on Question 40. Shame I didn't beat you though."
"You are never beating me, and that's a promise." He turned back to his work.
Now, Kaminari was really panicking. If his panic level was at 9 before, it was at 1000 now.
Shit. Shit shit shit, shit.
Kaminari wrote down whatever came to his mind first. Answering the questions, everything was a blur, impossible to comprehend. He threw in some 'Therefore''s and 'Furthermore''s to try and sound intelligent, but other than that he was completely lost. Question 40, Question 45...
As he was writing the most basic answer he could to Question 53, Aizawa said, "Please submit your papers to the front of the class, according to seat order."
Thankfully, the last few questions were multiple choice. Yes. He could do that easily. He drew circles in random places and managed to write his name in an untidy scrawl just as his name was called, "Denki Kaminari."
Heart thumping, he walked to the front of the class and placed the paper on Aizawa's desk. As he put it there, he saw a drawing of a large octopus. "When did I do that?" he thought. But it didn't matter anymore. It had been done. Kaminari hoped that the octopus would make Aizawa-sensei spare Kaminari a few extra marks.
Kaminari doubted it.
As he was walking with his squad, he heard them discussing the exam.
"Question 6 made me want to cry."
"Who in their right mind would do that to a baby?"
"The second passage was bullshit."
"Agreed"
"Talk about Question 6 all you want, the essay was impossible."
Kaminari's heart stopped at Jirou's comment. He couldn't say it, of course, but there was a question screaming in the back of his mind, "What essay?"
Kaminari thought that he should input something as well, so he said, "Question 33 was by far the toughest." Kaminari had forgotten what Question 33 was about, but he could remember that it had a lot of writing space and was worth a lot of marks, so he hoped that someone would agree. Luckily, they did.
"Thank you Kaminari, do you know how long I've been trying to tell these bozos how tough it was?" Mina pulled him closer. "And the double-sided paper, it was so annoying having to turn the paper around everytime just to look at the question. I didn't realize it had two sides until Question 20, and I had to go back to do them. I wasted a lot of time doing that, I thought time was going to run out!"
Kaminari nodded and laughed at Mina's story, but another question rang in his brain, "The paper was double-sided?"
Sero noticed Kaminari looked a bit queasy, so he turned to the others and said, "Hey, let's just forget about the exam. Let's talk about Bakugo's church loafers."
Everyone aside from Bakugo burst into laughter, who yelled, "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU DAMN EMOJI!'
Kaminari joined in. This was something he could talk about. "Those lemon pepper steppers." He was doubling over, clutching his stomach. "He be worshipping the Lord with them shit-coloured shoes." Kaminari cleared his throat. "Our Father, who art in..."
Bakugo choked Kaminari, who was still laughing. "I'LL KILL YOU PIKACHU RIPOFF!"
"Kinky." Kaminari sang, winking at him and laughing even more. He wrestled Bakugo's hands off before commenting, "You won't kill me, or anyone for that matter. And you want to know why?" He cleared his throat again, mimicked adjusting his glasses, and made a book opening motion before saying, "Exodus 20:13. Thou shalt not murder-"
Bakugo chased after Kaminari, who was still maintaining his pastor persona. "The Bible said, if someone slaps your cheek, let them slap the other cheek. If we apply that teaching to this situation, it means that you should let me insult you-"
"The Bible is a LIAR!" Bakugo lunged at Kaminari. "FUCKING PIKACHU!"
"Well, looks like Kaminari's dead." Mina looked at the scene.
"RIP Pastor Kami, I'm sure you'll preach your way into heaven." Sero looked up at the sky and smiled
"Fly high Kamibro, we'll miss you." Kirishima hit his chest. There was a moment of silence.
Then:
"So, should we go to the cafeteria?" Sero asked everyone.
"Yes, thanks for reminding us!" Kirishima got up. Mina followed him.
"I could KILL for some yakisoba right now." She put a hand through her hair.
"Guys, help!" Kaminari was being pinned to the ground by Bakugo. "HELP!" They looked at each other.
"Y'all hear sum'?" Mina looked around.
"Yeah, sounds like a fly to me..." Kirishima shrugged.
"Nah, don't worry, it's just the dead. Now, yakisoba anyone?" Sero gestured towards the cafeteria.
"YES!"
"Wait, don't leave me!" Kaminari called out, as the trio walked into the cafeteria. Kaminari's voice was muffled by Bakugo's hand on his mouth. "NOOOO!"
All in all, it was a 100% successful day.
***
The midterm exam results came out, and Kaminari didn't want to look at his report. Momo came first, (not a surprise), then Iida, (wasn't really shocking), and then Bakugo (Bakugo WAS smart, something many people didn't acknowledge just because of his temper and strong desire to set things on fire).
The rest came, Midoriya, Todoroki... all down the line until where Kaminari lay. Dead last. Not like it was a surprise or anything. He just hoped that he wouldn't have failed this badly.
Reluctantly, his eyes scanned the paper, stopping at where the individual scores were.
Mathematics: 18%
English: 5%
Science: 34%
Social Studies: 22%
Japanese: 67%
Average Score: 29.2%
Ranking: 20th
There was more, but Kaminari was too disappointed to read it. 29.2%? English, FIVE PERCENT? He had known that he probably wouldn't have gotten a good score in English, but FIVE? He was expecting a late 20, say, 28 or 29 but FIVE? The gap was huge.
Kaminari walked out of the classroom looking at the floor. He barely registered what they were saying.
"Hah! You see? I'm better than all you extras! I don't even know why I let you follow me around anymore, I'm clearly superior-"
"Shut up Bakugo, we all did well, except Kaminari, right?" Sero looked at Bakugo. "And besides, you came third. What happened to being number one in everything?"
"YOU AGAIN?" Bakugo snarled.
There was only one thought going on in his head. Except Kaminari. Except Kaminari.
Except Kaminari.
The worst part was that he couldn't fight back. Because Sero was right. He knew Sero was right.
Everyone knew Sero was right.
"But seriously Kaminari, how dumb can you get?" Jirou shook her head. "Everytime I think someone can't be that dumb, you continue to surprise me."
"I know! You really don't know anything." Mina joined in. "Like, didn't you pay attention in class?"
"Bold words from someone who came 19th in the midterm results?" Jirou looked at her.
"Well I'm not the idiot who scored 29.2%!"
Silence. No one said anything. They were all looking at Kaminari. His body was shaking uncontrollably and his hair was covering his face. Kirishima stepped forward.
"Kamibro..."
"I'm fine Kiri!" he smiled a smile that didn't seem genuine and said it too quickly for Kirishima's liking. "Just thinking about a book I read." Kaminari yawned. "Guess I'd better go to bed, it's pretty late after all!"
"It's 8:30pm-"
"Gotta follow in the leader's footsteps, see ya!" He winked and ran to the dorms.
Everyone looked at each other. Bakugo was the first one to break the silence.
"That was a fucking mess."
"No kidding."
They looked at each other again. Blink once. Blink twice.
Blink thrice.
"Should we go to the common room to watch a movie?" Kirishima tried to keep the conversation going.
"Of course not shitty hair, it's 8:30! ." Bakugo replied. "Are you guys going with him or not? Make up your mind."
"We're coming!" Mina dragged Kirishima and Sero. "Come on!"
***
After locking the door, Kaminari let the tears out. He let everything out. All the insecurities and doubts and everything else came flooding out in a stream of tears. He clenched the bedsheets and squeezed them so tight when he let them go what he had squeezed had turned into multiple wrinkles.
Except Kaminari. Except Kaminari.
This wasn't the first time they had said something like this. They'd said it all the time. Little snide remarks about him. "If brains were money, you'd be a hobo." "I would normally say you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed, but this tool is broken beyond repair." They probably didn't mean it like THAT. They were really good friends, so Kaminari guessed they thought it was okay to insult him. Maybe it was some sort of joke. But couldn't they tell that he didn't feel the same way?
The finals were a month and a half away, Kaminari was getting 5% in English and that determined his entire future! He needed to learn, fast. If there was ever a time good enough to sit down and study like his life depended on it, it was this. But who was going to help him. Maybe someone from his class...
He ticked off all the possible options. No one from Bakusquad, for obvious reasons. Maybe Momo. She had helped him before! But she only accepted because there was a group. She might not accept if it was just Kaminari. Plus, he didn't like their tea.
Maybe Iida. Wait, out of the question. He would probably give him a 10-hour lecture on why he was here, and then faint when he told Iida his test scores. Kaminari needed someone to teach him, not to lecture him and make him feel more bad about himself. Besides, Iida was very traditional, which might make him unable to teach him, given the fact that he wasn't a typical student.
If he crossed out Bakugo, that just left...
Midoriya.
Kaminari couldn't see any immediate problems. Midoriya was kind, patient, smart, and what Kaminari considered the best person to help him. Midoriya was very adaptable, so he was sure that he wouldn't have a lot of trouble with teaching him. At least, compared to other students.
Fine. Midoriya it is.
~~~~~~~~
Sorry if it's bad, I was kind of rushing lol
Bye!
2347 words!