Bakugou had been able to avoid most of his class, or more specifically one classmate, until they had to sit in the actual classroom.
He had eaten breakfast at some ungodly hour, gone on a run, showered and been at the school before anyone else, sitting in his seat just mindlessly staring at his phone.
But all good things must come to an end, and eventually the bastard showed up, walking in surrounded by a bunch of people, chatting up a fucking storm.
The pair made eye contact as the group separated and Bakugou's mouth fell open.
Taiya looked at the other boy with a genuinely confused expression. What was he so shocked for?
He took his seat and pulled out his phone, casting Bakugou one more 'what the fuck dude?' look before ignoring him completely.
It was just a haircut?
Actually not really. See, in keeping with the pretty boy image, Taiya had always kept his hair slightly longer, shaggier.
But you know, sometimes you just need the sound of scissors by your ears for a little while to feel better. Its not like he shaved it or anything, it was just a fuckton shorter than it had been.
Really, he didn't understand why this of all things was getting Bakugou's attention. They hadn't seen each other since he was holding the fucker's kidnappers at gun point with his manager you'd think that would be a whole lot more important than some lost dyed ends!
Huffing, Taiya decided it wasn't worth stressing over. He was sick of arguing with the bastard. He could wise up and come talk about it whenever he was ready, but Taiya wasn't gonna wait around like some princess in a tower.
"Good morning.". The class turned to face the front, trying to stay perfectly still as instructed as Aizawa entered the room. "Stand up." The teacher grumbled to himself. The students did so, bowing slightly before they were told to sit down.
"Alright, today's first topic is Cartesian grids." The teacher said as he began writing the name down on the board. "Does anyone know what they are?".
The class remained silent, except for Iida and Yaoyorozu, who both raised their hands. Mr. Aizawa sighed. "Of course the rest of you don't. Rene Descartes was a french philosopher who was alive in the 15 and 1600s. He designed a grid system on an x and y axis that allows you to calculate space using given values on said axes.".
Taiya really wished he could afford to zone out and start brooding about his life and all its stresses, but honestly not going to school for a while meant he was not up to date on his school work.
Seriously though, he was not meant to be an academic. Some people were really good at this, some people enjoyed it, but honestly Taiya wanted to claw his eyes out. Just ugh. He used to get bored just playing a student before. When he was casted in movies where he had to actually sit in a class, or a high school drama, he was often stuck listening to random lectures picked out by the screen writers.
So if he was barely able to act like he didn't hate math, he was never going to be able to actually listen in a math class. Or at least that's how he rationalized how little he wanted to be in the room at this moment.
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Going to class with 1-A had been one thing. They had all gotten in the building amidst the other students pretty unremarkably. But by lunch time, rumors that Taiya was back had apparently spread far and wide, if the people constantly peaking into the classroom and at him said anything.
So class was one thing, and going to a cafeteria full of people was another.
Before Taiya might have tried to school his expression and smile his way through lunch, gritting his teeth to save his image. But honestly he didn't have much of an image left. Right now he just wanted to sleep off his boredom alone somewhere nice and sunny.
The only exception he would make to that plan, he told himself, is if Bakugou decided he finally wanted to talk and approached him on his way out the door. Otherwise, Taiya was running for it.
And when the bell rang, that's exactly what he did.
Of course he didn't exactly run, but he did slip a mask on and walk very briskly down the halls until he found the nearest exit. Once he was outside he was more or less home free. At the beginning of lunch everyone was getting food, so no one really had a chance to start eating outside or playing around.
Taiya trudged onto the lawn towards a more forested area and found himself face to face with a tree he remembered, but couldn't figure out why. It was familiar but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
Sighing, he decided it was as good a napping spot as any. Secluded yet sunny. Pretty perfect.
This was the second time this had happened. It had been months too, but Shinso Hitoshi hadn't forgotten about it.
He remembered finding the guy sleeping there before. He also, embarrassingly, remembered letting him keep napping there because his cat quirk had been so cute. He had reminded him of the stray cats he saw around the campus sometimes.
Hitoshi thought it would feel different seeing him after his whole secret identity was outted but honestly...it felt pretty much the same. He was some thoughtless jerk that took his lunch-time napping spot. Simple as that.
Yawning and deciding he didn't care enough to wake him up and ask him to move, Hitoshi wondered if the guy would freak out when he woke up like he did last time. It had been kinda cute.
The teen put his bag under his head like a pillow and was out within minutes. The thoughtless jerk was lucky that he was cute.
As luck would have it the students managed to not sleep through the whole day again. They were saved by the bell, literally.
Taiya groaned and instinctively moved to cover his ears, trying to go back to sleep. But his ears weren't there.
The left one twitched on top of his head, notifying him that they hadn't suddenly disappeared or something. Someone next to him laughed and Taiya shot up.
"You're not going to run away again, are you?" The person teased. Now Taiya realized why he knew the tree. He had fallen asleep there before and had his ears and tail just out in front of this random purple haired guy.
Looking at him up close now, it was pretty different from the last time. Last time he had just stared at Taiya with wide eyes and a startled expression. Probably because Taiya had just gotten up and immediately run away. Now he was just smiling at him somewhat teasingly.
"You cut your hair." The boy commented.
"And?" Taiya challenged, letting go of his ears. If he was saying fuck it to everything, he might as well give up on pretending his quirk didn't exist.
"Hey, calm down. It looks good on you.".
The teen furrowed his brow and looked the purple haired guy up and down, somewhat suspiciously. "Who are you?".
"Shinso Hitoshi, class 1-C." He answered simply, "Who're you?".
Taiya gave him an unamused look. "You know who I am." He deadpanned.
"Humor me." Shinso shot back. Taiya sighed and relented.
"Enomoto Taiya." The teen sighed, "Class 1-A.".
"Pleased to meet you." Shinso smirked. "You know, I was mad when I first found out you were in 1-A. Thought you cheated your way in there.".
Taiya glared at him. "Is this your idea of small talk?".
"You really can't stay quiet and let someone else talk for five seconds, can you?". Taiya closed his mouth, defiantly not answering that question. "But I mean, after you rescued Bakugou I figured you must just be that good at hero stuff. I'm still pissed you got into 1-A and I didn't though.".
The teen sighed, looking down.
"And my parents call me angsty." Shinso quipped.
Taiya opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself. He literally didn't know this guy. Shinso Hitoshi was a name he had heard for the first time today. He was a perfect stranger.
So Taiya held himself back from saying anything more. "Do you always nap here?".
"Yeah. Right after I finish eating." Shinso confirmed. Taiya thinned his lips into a line.
"You can have it back then. I'll sleep somewhere else.". With that, he stood up, stretching and morphing his ears back to normal.
Shinso was going to say something, but he too held himself back. It'd be weird if he said they could share, wouldn't it?
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I know what you're all thinking.
9/11 was an inside job.
Actually no, you're probably thinking 'all that waiting around for like a month and we get a 1400 word chapter?' but fear not, this is a double update!
Exam season is finally over! I'm free from the clutches of school and am now going into my successful human era (hopefully)
Now, some of you wont remember Hitoshi in this fic, but I don't care because he was there, just go back and double check! This second part of Smoke and Mirrors has a lot of callbacks and answers a lot of the unanswered questions that you might not even know we acquired along the way.
I feel like a little spider pulling threads rn its gonna be fun guys I promise.
By the way, tons of you are probably wondering 'when are the new fics coming out?' and more of you are wondering 'when the hell are you going to end the Just Us hiatus?' and the answer to both of those is very, very soon!
That's an italicized 'very' so you know I mean business ✊