Previously on Latibule:
"Yeah, today was rough," Mina agreed, her usually upbeat demeanour now a bit sullen. "And I have extra classes in the evening, too!"
I scrunched up my face sympathetically. "Yikes."
Soon after that, I said my goodbyes and goodnights to Mina and the others, brushed my teeth, and collapsed onto my makeshift bed. Usually I'd have to wait for sleep to come, my mind wide awake, analysing my quirk and the day that had passed but that night my mind was as tired as my limbs and I soon succumbed into sleep, a veil of white covering the room.
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Latibule — Chapter 53///Post-Dinner Entertainment
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Surprisingly and yet quite expectedly, I felt like I was halfway in the grave the next morning. My body was begging for time to rest and heal from the past day's endeavours but instead we, as heroes-to-be, had to keep pushing, exceeding our limit one painful cramp at a time.
Mr Aizawa gave a speech, which was actually motivational this time around and not the total opposite, but that didn't make the training any easier. Bakugou beside me was struggling, too, grunting of pain more than he had on the previous day, his emotions a mess. I frowned at the sight but made no attempt to talk about it, for both of us were having a hard enough time without drawing attention from the others or possibly getting scolded by Mr Aizawa for talking.
Slowly and painfully, the day rolled to an end and we were once again instructed to make our own dinner. This time I was partnered not with my — dare I say best — friend, instead working together with some students from class B to get to our goal.
Thanks to the people around me, whom I didn't know, I didn't talk much that evening. Instead, I just observed the air around me, trying to filter what emotions I took in and what I kept out, something I'd discovered I can do during the day. Thus, by the end of the meal, I was feeling pretty accomplished and quite ready to go to sleep and ignore the pain in my limbs when Mr Aizawa walked up to the dining area and grabbed everyone's attention.
"Attention, please," he spoke, as if merely his depressing presence didn't do the trick. "Please don't leave after you've finished eating, we've prepared a game for you."
I sighed, my head falling to the table. I get games but why now?
Kirishima, sitting at the table behind me, looked over worriedly. I could see the tiredness on his face but yet he took the time to ask me, "L/n, you alright over there?"
"I'm too tired for this," I mumbled, raising my head from the table and rubbing my eyes. "Whatever it is, I hope it doesn't turn out to be too long so we can still get some sleep before tomorrow."
Kirishima's face scrunched up. "Yeah, I'd probably die tomorrow if I had to stay up all night today."
In a bit of time, it turned out that Kirishima, who, by that time, had quite woken up, would indeed probably have a shorter night than the rest of us, along with the others who had remedial lessons to take. Sympathetically, I offered, "I could go for you."
Mr Aizawa did not seem to like my joke as he shot me a warning look before dragging Kaminari, Kirishima, Sero, Mina and Sato away. Pixie Bob didn't let that disturb her as she started explaining the game to us, for by that time we had gathered outside of the eating area.
"Okay, so class B is going to start out as our scarers, when they're in place class A will leave in pairs every three minutes. There are tags with your names on them at the far end of the route, your goal is to collect those!"
I sighed at the enthusiasm. It only seemed like a headache, considering that I didn't even know who I was paired with. Besides that, I tended to be more jumpy when I was tired.
Pulling myself together, I stopped filtering the energy I was taking in from the air (as that was actually consuming more energy than I was receiving due to it being a quite new skill) and in a few minutes, by the time the pairs had been decided upon, I was feeling a lot more energetic.
To my considerable luck, I'd ended up being in a pair with Midoriya while poor Jirou ended up alone. For some reason, I would've rather been alone, but despite that I gave a smile to Midoriya.
I hadn't talked to the boy much but I was glad that he wasn't Mineta, at the very least.
"Hey, Midoriya," I greeted the boy.
"Hey, L/n," he gave that ever-friendly smile of his. "How are you?"
"Tired, believe it or not," I joked.
The green-haired boy chuckled. "I know what you feel."
With a sigh, I sat with my legs criss-crossed onto the ground, waiting for our turn. This is gonna be a long night.