Time passed with heartbreaking speed.
Just over a year spent maintaining my title as the top student in the entire school while sending Iida’s blood pressure through the roof in real time at Somei Middle School, then clocking in at Ryukyu’s agency after school.
Before I knew it, it was the autumn of my third year of middle school.
I had shot up to 178 centimeters, now built like a decent-sized adult man, and my slicked-back black hair, black inverted-cross earlobe piercing, and rimless glasses had become the signature look of Somei Middle School’s iconic “waste of a face.”
It was a weekend afternoon. As usual, I had both hands shoved into my slacks pockets and was stretched out across the sofa in Ryukyu’s agency reception room, scrolling through stock charts on my tablet.
"Yuuujiiin—!!"
With that refreshing shout ripping down the hallway, familiar wavy blue hair bounced through the air as its owner came diving into the reception room. It was Nejire, now in her second year at U.A. and making a name for herself as one of the Big Three.
"Could you knock, please—"
Before I could finish, a small white hand landed on top of my head and began vigorously tousling my carefully styled black pomade.
"Wow, Yujin, did you get taller again? You’re way taller than me now?! But you still sweep your hair all the way back like a grown-up and wear glasses? You’re hiding that really cute face of yours!"
"…Could you decide whether that was a compliment or an insult?"
Having been through this every time, I gave up resisting and nudged my glasses up. Nejire rummaged through her bag, pulled out a glittering sheet of paper, and thrust it right before my nose.
"Here, take this!"
"What is this?"
I took the paper and looked it over. A title printed in large letters amid a flashy gold-foil border.
[U.A. High School Cultural Festival: 20th Miss U.A. Contest VIP Special Invitation]
"…A beauty pageant?"
I frowned in bewilderment and looked up at Nejire.
"Yep! I’m entering the beauty pageant again at this year’s cultural festival! I sadly came in second last year, but this time I’m really going to win! So you have to come cheer me on, okay?!"
Nejire clenched both fists, her bright eyes sparkling.
Leaning against the sofa’s backrest, I spun the ticket around on my fingertip.
"Oh… a beauty pageant. The VIP viewing fee for an elite, handsome returnee like me must be quite steep. What will you give me if I go?"
"Of course I’ll buy you every delicious thing they sell at the festival! Takoyaki, crepes, yakisoba—everything!"
"Then we have a deal."
With a brazen curl of my lips, I slipped the ticket into my jacket’s inner pocket.
I would be taking the entrance exam soon enough anyway. Getting a taste of prestigious U.A. in advance and watching just how noisily that blue-haired older girl bounced around onstage would make for some excellent entertainment.
A few days later, the morning air on the day of U.A. High School’s cultural festival buzzed with festive excitement.
I took off the non-prescription rimless glasses I usually wore on the bridge of my nose and tossed them into my desk drawer. I remembered how the blue-haired older girl had nagged me endlessly every time we met at Ryukyu’s agency, saying I was hiding my cute face behind glasses.
"Well, I suppose I can grant that sparkling little wish for one day."
Standing before the mirror, I smoothly combed my black hair back with pomade.
Sharp, cool eyes no longer sealed behind glasses; a slim casual jacket draped over my straight, 178-centimeter frame; and a black inverted-cross piercing emanating a subtle matte presence from my left earlobe.
So long as I kept my mouth shut, I was the very definition of a cool, handsome K-pop idol center capable of conquering Tokyo’s entertainment district.
"Damn… a face like this ought to be registered as a cultural asset at the national level."
Satisfied, I ran a hand along my jawline, shoved both hands deep into my slacks pockets, and left the house.
The front gate of the high school was packed with outside visitors and students.
The moment I stepped into the crowd, I could feel the eyes of girls from other schools and U.A.’s General Studies students all converging on me.
"Who is that? Is he a celebrity?"
"That slicked-back black hair and piercing… Wow, he’s seriously handsome. His eyes are so cool."
"He must be a trainee from some agency…"
With their whispered praise as my background music, I leisurely parted the crowd. Just as I started to raise a finger to push up glasses that were no longer there, I withdrew my hand and lightly swept back my black hair instead. This overwhelming attention really did make being an exceptional man rather enjoyable.
Flicking the VIP invitation with my fingertips, I breezed through and looked up at U.A.’s massive main campus.
It was only the autumn of my third year of middle school, and the entrance exam announcement had not even been officially posted yet, but the equation in my head had already reached its conclusion.
"The campus layout is pretty spacious. I like it. Since this will be my school before long, I may as well consider this an advance inspection."
It was absurd arrogance for a middle schooler who had not even received an exam admission ticket, but to me, it was an utterly obvious, absolute fact.
"If I, someone who twists the laws of physics with his frontal lobe, fail to get into U.A.’s Hero Course, then who the hell on this entire archipelago is supposed to get in?"
Tapping the black inverted cross on my left earlobe, I walked leisurely into the campus I had already designated as my future alma mater, hands in my pockets. I opened my phone and checked the map and message Nejire had sent again.
[Yujin! Come to the storage alley next to the staff passage behind the Miss U.A. stage! I’ll get you in right away through a special VIP route!! (≧∇≦)b]
I headed around to a quiet corner behind U.A.’s main building, where the festival’s boisterous noise had faded somewhat. But what appeared before me was a perfect dead end, enclosed by a massive concrete exterior wall.
With both hands shoved into my pockets, I looked up at the blocked wall and let out a hollow laugh.
"…Is that blue-haired older girl overflowing with energy but completely devoid of spatial awareness? What sort of coordinates did she plug in to summon someone right in front of a dead-end wall?"
Then again, she was normally an owner of infinite energy who transcended common sense by a vast margin. It was hardly surprising that she had sent the wrong directions.
"Should I just punch through the wall with spatial compression?"
I touched the black inverted-cross piercing on my left earlobe, about to flip the switch for the shortened-step calculations in my frontal lobe.
Sliiide—
Without the slightest sound of physical destruction, the sturdy concrete wall’s surface began to ripple like a puddle of water.
Then, from the center of that cold wall—
Pop—
A human head suddenly emerged into thin air, defying gravity.
"…?!"
A face floating in the air, having passed through the wall.
The face belonged to a man with spiky blond hair, round buttonhole eyes as though he had been cut straight out of a 1930s American cartoon, and a large nose.
The bizarre cartoon face protruding from the wall spotted my sharp, cool, handsome appearance—glasses off, black hair swept back—and flashed his button eyes before grinning broadly.
"Oho! You must be the ‘idol-lookalike little air-conditioner’ Nejire never stops bragging about?!"
At that cheerful voice pouring from a head dangling out of the wall, and that paranormal-photo-level sight that had thoroughly ground up the laws of physics and common sense before my eyes, my brain cells’ calculation circuits blanked out for 0.1 seconds.
"Holy shit, you scared me."
My native tongue, which I had not spoken in a while and which rolled so naturally off the tongue, slipped out before I knew it.
His entrance was so insane that my frontal lobe’s defensive calculation circuits froze for an instant. Tensing the fingers in my slacks pockets, I reflexively twisted the ground’s friction coefficient and slid back half a step.
The blond cartoon face continued smiling broadly with only his head sticking out from the center of the concrete wall.
For a moment, blood nearly rushed to my brain stem as though I had seen a ghost. But I quickly wiped all expression from my face, tapped the black inverted-cross piercing on my left earlobe, and spoke again in smooth Japanese.
"Excuse me, senior. When someone sticks their head out of a wall, it feels like I could have a heart attack even in broad daylight. Is U.A.’s main cultural festival attraction a haunted-house experience?"
I fired that off with a cool gaze and a self-satisfied, crooked smile, but the man in the wall was not intimidated in the least. He burst into his distinctive hearty laughter.
"Hahaha! Now that’s a reaction! Sorry, sorry! Nejire kept stressing that since you’re a precious guest waiting outside, I had to bring you in directly so you wouldn’t get lost!"
Sliiide—
As if walking out of a swimming pool, his enormous upper and lower body emerged from the wall into thin air.
A bizarre Permeation Quirk that completely disregarded collisions between physical masses.
Having fully extracted himself from the wall, the man squared his shoulders and grinned. He was the pinnacle of the second-year Big Three and Nejire’s classmate—Togata Mirio.
"I’m Togata Mirio! Nejire has told me a lot about you!"
Mirio laughed openly and held out a large hand. Contrary to the bizarre impression given by that cartoon face popping out of the wall, the energy he radiated was one hundred percent that of a straightforward, good-natured guy.
I gave his hand an appropriate squeeze and slightly curled my lips.
"I’m Yujin. I can more or less imagine that Nejire treats me like a cute little youngest brother who also doubles as an air conditioner."
"Hahaha! Seeing you in person, you’re not cute so much as you’re like a beast overflowing with confidence. Now I get why Nejire dotes on you so much!"
Listening to Mirio’s hearty laughter, I put both hands back into my slacks pockets.
I had assumed he was simply the type of fool who was strong because of brute strength, but the weighty core settled deep within his eyes was no ordinary thing. To control a Permeation Quirk to that degree, he had to possess an exceptional understanding of space and physical mass.
"A cartoon muscleman who walks through walls… He’s a more interesting fellow than I expected."
"I was going to take you straight to the VIP seats, but Nejire said she absolutely has to see your face and get fired up before she goes onstage, so she told me to bring you to the waiting room!"
"I can already tell that older girl will be bouncing around even in the waiting room, so I’m tired just thinking about it. Still, I’ll cheer her on with all the dignity of a VIP."
When I shrugged brazenly, Mirio seemed to take quite a liking to my shamelessly bold attitude. He winked his buttonhole-like eyes and gave me a thumbs-up.
"Good, good! A man ought to have that kind of spirit! Follow me—I’ll send you there by the shortcut!"
As we walked side by side through U.A.’s halls, my conversation with Mirio flowed without a hitch.
My unabashed self-praise, devoid of even a trace of awkward humility, and my sly way with words; a second-year senior who returned every line with cheerful positive energy. For a first meeting, we got along strangely well.
Before long, we arrived at the door to the beauty pageant waiting room.
Hearing the familiar blue-haired older girl’s rambunctious voice already ringing from beyond the door, I tapped the black inverted-cross piercing on my earlobe and slowly turned the doorknob.
Creak. The moment I opened the waiting-room door and entered, a bright, delicate fragrance pierced my nose.
A blue-haired girl stood beneath the lights.
Rather than her usual loose training clothes or Hero costume, she wore a pristine white dress neatly prepared for the beauty pageant stage, her wavy blue hair cascading lavishly down her shoulders. The sight was dazzling enough to hurt the eyes.
Her pure yet overwhelmingly radiant beauty made her look exactly like a fairy out of a romance manga when she stood still… but that serene beauty shattered before the door had even closed.
"Ah! Yujin—!!"
The moment she spotted me, Nejire’s eyes widened. Her dress fluttered as she charged at me like lightning.
Then, without a second of hesitation, she threw both arms around the back of my neck—now grown to 178 centimeters—and pulled me into a hug.
"Yujin, you took off your glasses?! Wow, your eyes look so much clearer without them, and you look way better! See? I told you taking them off looked much cooler!"
"…Urk, you’re going to wrinkle your dress."
"And you still swept your hair all the way back, but now that your forehead is showing, you totally look like an idol center! You’re so cool and cute!"
Still hugging me, Nejire reached out with a small white hand and freely ran it through the black hair I had painstakingly combed back with pomade.
Behind us, Mirio broke into hearty laughter. "Hahaha! Nejire, you’re going to wear the kid out in the waiting room!" But it was not enough to stop this blue-haired older girl’s infinite-energy affection.
Trapped in her embrace, I lightly fiddled with the black inverted-cross piercing on my left earlobe.
Then I drew a breath, pulled up one corner of my mouth in a self-satisfied smirk, and calmly began reciting my usual slick sophistry.
"Please calm down. I don’t usually wear glasses because my eyesight is bad. They’re a humanitarian facial-sealing device, meant to contain this dazzling appearance of mine."
"Huh? A sealing device?"
Nejire tilted her head and looked up at me with sparkling blue eyes.
"Yes. If I walked around with these murderous eyes uncovered every day, a hundred thousand public petitions to legalize ‘polygamy exclusively for Yujin’ would flood the legislatures of both the Republic of Korea and Japan daily, paralyzing their administrative systems. I keep them sealed away for national security and peace, but today I released the seal specially to pray for your victory."
At such outrageous self-praise, shameless enough to pierce through Everest and launch into space, Mirio clutched the wall and doubled over laughing as he tore at his stomach.
"Pwahahahaha! A public petition for polygamy?! Yujin, every single thing you say is a work of art!"
"Wow—! A petition for polygamy?! I don’t really know what that is, but you look a hundred times cooler without your glasses anyway!"
Even my self-congratulatory ironclad defense was absorbed as innocent praise by Nejire’s enthusiasm. In the end, I let out a small helpless laugh and shrugged.
Just before the curtain rose on U.A.’s beauty pageant, the waiting room’s atmosphere was a cheerful madhouse, with not a trace of backstage tension to be found.
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