The door’s drawn-out creak startles Mao out of her reverie. From where she’s sat on the ledge with her bento on her lap, she has to crane her neck a little to see the newcomer, and the sight of a familiar face draws a soft sigh from exposed lips. Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments and she sheepishly lifts a gloved hand in greeting, but he’s already turning away at that point. It’s hard to tell if he even saw it.
Relieved that it’s just him, though, Mao wills her noisy heart to settle. She closes her eyes for a long, calm moment, breathes in deeply and then returns to her lunch.
It’s been like this for weeks now – they would cross paths on the rooftop, an unexpectedly shared refuge from the people bustling around at ground level … at least that’s what she believes he is doing up here, much the same as her if likely for different reasons. There’s a jumpiness to him that is impossible not to notice, and she would be lying if she claimed not to be curious about the why. Were she the type to pry, she would long since have tried to talk to him; however, her desire to push more of her presence onto someone else than absolutely necessary is, frankly, nonexistent, and so she’s left without even a name to go with that timid face.
Mao doesn’t mind, though. What felt awkward at first has by now turned into an odd equilibrium of undemanding coexistence, and without the pressure of forced conversation and aimless, haphazard small-talk she finds herself almost appreciating the company. Almost, but not quite – for now, remnants of her initial unease still linger in her stomach.
Still, that particular feeling isn’t enough to hold her attention for long – not today at least. Today her thoughts are with the reporters who have been crowding the front gates all morning, pestering students and teachers alike on their way to their respective classes. It was her luck that she holds not a shred of involvement with All Might; she had managed to make her way through the obnoxious masses quickly and without being bothered, but the encounter left her feeling a little unsettled regardless. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be fond of the press … or mass media in general, for that matter.
Going by the ruckus they’d been causing all morning, Mao should have expected what happened next.
A shrill noise disrupts the peace, tearing through the silence and startling Mao badly enough that she drops her chopsticks. They sail off the rooftop before she can catch them, but she hardly even notices, focused solely on the disembodied voice crackling from nearby speakers.
SECURITY LEVEL 3 HAS BEEN BREACHED. ALL STUDENTS, PLEASE EVACUATE TO THE INNER COURTYARD. MOVE IN AN ORDERLY FASHION AND REPORT TO YOUR HOMEROOM TEACHERS IMMEDIATELY. ALL OUTSIDE EXITS WILL BE LOCKED DOWN UNTIL THE ISSUE HAS BEEN SOLVED.
“What?” Mao spends a second too long trying to process the sudden announcement. Only when a loud, mechanic whirring noise emanates from the direction of the rooftop door does it fully click, and she slams her bento down beside her and scrambles off the ledge. It’s there that she pauses, with secure ground back beneath her feet, facing the distant door. There’s no point in making a mad dash towards it – she’s too far away to make it in time, and within moments the locking mechanism has closed off their only exit behind a thick metal wall that slots into place with a shocking finality.
Wide-eyed and speechless, Mao stares at the obstacle in stunned silence.
Unsettling, to say the least, is the calamity rising still from the front gates of the school. It was an ordeal this morning to find a way through the crowd of press and strangers and into the school. And were it not for running into other students doing the same thing, Amajiki surely would have turned around and hurried home. But for better or for worse, he made it inside and he made it to lunch, where now, he is certain his presence is for WORSE.
The sound rises from the gates in a muffled racket. And suddenly fearful for what their cameras may pick up, he lowers his head closer to his beef bowl; the longer strands of his hair now dipped in sauce. If this keeps up, he decides, he’ll find a new spot or maybe a new school.
But it’s an entirely different sound that makes his entire body start; sends his chopsticks flying clumsily off the rooftop. Amajiki has no time to mourn them; too busy propelling himself up and towards the door with all the speed he can muster and all the fear the memory of LAST YEAR maintains. Older, and perhaps wiser when it comes to rooftop entrapments, Amajiki has made it to the door before his underclassman is even upright.
He tries the handle; pulls it twice; three times harder. The whirring of the lock mechanism angrily protests and finally wins out with a boastful click. He tries it once more, softer this time; a prayer to the gods or at least to the door. Amajiki winces; turns to face the ground just in front of the girl, back to the door, then again to her. Although he doesn’t dare look at her face, her question; the first things she’s ever said to him; is indication enough that she doesn’t have an answer, either.
A terrible day for him but a great day for conversation, Amajiki is on a one-person streak of strangers he’s talked to this week.
His words of wisdom come out in a lost whisper; smothered by the overwhelming pressure of his nerves and the growing ringing of the alarm. There are few options for escape and fewer that won’t draw more attention to them then is acceptable. He paces the rooftop slowly, giving the girl a wide berth, and glances cautiously over the sides. The inner courtyard is slowly filling with panicked students; the briefest sight of them startles him again, makes him duck back down and rush to the other side.
He’s grown so much since the last time something like this happened; and this time there is someone else stuck with him. his solution is clumsy; terrifying, and risks drawing the wrong kind of eyes (see: any at all). But Amajiki is one-for-one and two for two is within reach. He’s shaking around his lunch box for a key beneath the rice. But of course, his beef won’t help him now; he needs something else. Two shallow breaths later he asks for it.
“ Your lunch--- is there anything left ? “
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