Chapter 26: Ch 26: Introspection

*Munch*

Tomomi was eating her lunch beside the window while thinking about her teal-haired friend who had gone to buy her own lunch, it's been 3 days since she met her and had formed an opinion about her

A lot could be said about Oka, her determination to put a smile on her face no matter the situation was commendable, to say the least, and the roots in the samurai and her family's dedication to preserving it through teachings did make her a bit too reserved but she somehow had both the aura of a noble warrior and an assassin.

Although interesting, those were things that she had a hint about already, her ability to read other people was decent in her past life but it somehow increased when she got her quirk. So reading Oka's mood was really easy for her, so a new problem was now present in her mind.

[How the hell did I not notice this earlier?]

Tomomi was baffled at the absurd amount of bullying that Oka suffered through the course of one month, but she was mostly mad at herself for simply not finding out sooner. Tomomi was not stupid at all, she understood that Oka was quirkless and rather shy and scared because of it, but it wasn't as if she was the only quirkless person in school, and those people were not being bullied.

Tomomi had somehow missed Oka's situation even with all the obvious hints that she found, she had read Oka's emotions perfectly yet decided not to look much deeper, she also had heard gossip about her bullying and she still did not move a finger. In her defense, the rumors downplayed it to such a degree that it sounded more like some bad taste jokes thrown at Oka.

[Guess I did too many assumptions] Tomomi thought as she sighed.

"I have returned!" Oka said with a small smile on her face, she was holding what looked like a plate with a hamburger and salad? it was definitely weird for a lunch in her opinion.

"Welcome back!" Tomomi said while questioning Oka's choice of lunch with her eyes but she was eyeing something that she carried in her other hand.

[So that's the legendary melon bread? pretty cool, she is also talking a bit more, that's good!]

Oka sat at her desk and proceeded to eat with Tomomi, while they chatted Oka noticed that Tomomi was looking at the bread from time to time so she simply opened the plastic bag and presented it to Tomomi.

"W-want a bite?"

"Sure!"

Tomomi immediately took a bite out of the melon bread, while Tomomi was busy tasting the melon bread she simply stared at the bread, less than half remained thanks to Tomomi's elastic mouth.

[Tomomi sure likes to eat] She thought while wrapping the rest of the melon bread for later.

"They sell those at the cafeteria right?" Tomomi asked after seeing just how much of the bread she ate.

"There's a vending machine with them, they are cheaper there"

"...We have a vending machine for bread?"

"uh... yes is right beside the cafeteria, it also has other things besides bread"

"Huh... cool I guess. Anyways here, an eggroll for the half melon bread" Tomomi put the eggroll beside her salad without hesitation. 

"T-thanks" 

"No worries!"

Both of them continued to chit-chat, Oka seemed shy but was surprisingly talkative once she got going, Tomomi had to reassure her that she indeed was not a bother when she talked about how cool one-edged swords were for 20 minutes without stopping. Once class started Oka stopped talking as much and concentrated on the class with a genuine smile on her face.

Tomomi on the other hand was doing an introspection.

She was a loner, introverted, and an orphan in her previous life, so she got a lot of time to think about herself during those times, this led her to be at least decently good at looking at herself and questioning her methods of thinking. Normally this came after she realized that she committed a mistake with how she thought and promptly lead her to be rather practical.

This was one of these cases.

[Is it even my fault? Why I'm so shaken about this?]

Trying to find a fault wasn't really productive in her opinion, she would have talked to Oka sooner if she simply listened to her gut feeling and the obvious hints. It took her a bit more thinking, or in other words, a week, to understand what she was missing. During that period she often looked a bit dazed to the point of worrying Oka about her health.

Tomomi eventually realized what was bugging her the entire time when she saw Oka finally making some friends with other kids. She herself never interacted too much with her classmates mostly because she consider them annoying, but the moment Oka pointed out that she actually never even bothered to learn their names. 

[I'm too full of myself]

Tomomi realized that maybe she was just an asshole without justification, it wasn't that much of a surprise once she took her situation into perspective.

[An 18-year-old interacting with kids that he knew were basically no-name background characters of a work of fiction, for it to not develop into some sort of superiority complex would be weird]

She never interacted with her classmates because, in her opinion, they were unimportant people, they were kids that although we're very eloquent, did not have any concept of consequences and thus were annoying to an extent, having children make correct sentences with nonsensical information did get on her nerves. That was the reason that she only really interacted competitively against them to show them that they were not as intelligent as they thought.

Tomomi subconsciously wanted to wait for the canon to start because that was the important part, she ignored everything that did not matter to her. She ignored Oka's troubled smile at the reasoning that they were other quirkless kids that she knew were not bullied, that Oka was a nameless character, and that if she did not raise a fuss about it it would resolve itself somehow.

Tomomi sighed at the obvious realization that people were, indeed, real in her situation, and that treating them like nobodies to not even remember their name was an asshole move.

[Well, better late than never to realize this]

Tomomi thought about how to improve while waiting at the school entrance, she actually had no idea what it really meant to interact with people, so she surmised that being kinder was probably a step forwards... right? as she was thinking about how to interact with people she finally spotted Oka waving in the distance while running towards her.

"Yo!" She waved back at her.

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"Greetings! did you wait a long time?"

"Not at all" Tomomi put her hands on the back of her head and walked alongside Oka "Anyways, What class do we have first?"

"It's been like 3 months... why do you not know the schedule?"

"Too lazy"

"Then print it and stick it in your notebook"

"Still too lazy"

"For the most athletic person in our class, you sure are the laziest"

"Ehhh... don't judge a book by its cover?"

"Why is that question?"

As both of them bickered while reaching the classroom, Oka stopped for a second before simply continuing, Tomomi noticed that and simply eyed the hallway they were passing and saw the three boys that she beat up looking at her with slight hostility. She simply raised an eyebrow causing them to take a step back.

[I'm I that scary?]

Tomomi did beat all three of them up on selfish terms, she was simply angry at herself for not understanding Oka's situation sooner and lashed at them. Tomomi was a bit worried about throwing a kid from across the alleyway towards another, but it seemed like people were tougher than in her past life.

Tomomi thought about the possibility of quirks being the cause for the unreasonable toughness and intelligence of people in this universe, with quirks being a form of extremely fast evolution that somehow had the ability to react to the user's emotional state and the danger they were in.

Tomomi snap out of her train of thought when she heard Yoshihama stomp his feet towards her, even if she was a bit worried about them she definitely was not sorry about what she did and simply asked.

" 'sup?"

"Can you wipe that smug look off your face?" He said while trying to glare at her, Tomomi had actually started with her smirk the moment she saw them, she simply tough for a moment before answering with a big smile.

"That's just my face"

"*Tsk* You damn stupid rubberband"

"Yeah, yeah whatever you say lightbulb" Tomomi said while waving her hands dismissively.

Tomomi and Yoshihama had given each other nicknames based on their quirks, Yoshihama's strengthening quirk works by storing energy from the sun and then applying it to a part of his body while Tomomi is just rubber. The idea of giving names based on quirks is not that uncommon, but 50% of the time they are meant as insults, such as in this case.

Tomomi tried to nudge Oka to say anything towards Yoshihama, in her view, it was important for these two to interact since Oka was still decently scared of Yoshihama and he was scared of Tomomi, which made any sort of closure unsurprisingly nonexistent.

[Whatever it will happen eventually]

Even if Yoshihama was in the wrong, it was at the end of the day, a childish quarrel that happened by the flawed views of a 7-year-old and the attitude of an extremely shy girl that refused to ask for help from anyone, having any long-lasting resentment over this would be quite strange.

Yoshihama himself seemed to be over his little pride grudge against Oka since Tomomi hurt his pride in more ways than one. Tomomi found it quite clear that Yoshihama simply lacked the ability to understand that his actions could have consequences for years to come, after all, a year in his eyes is one-seventh of his total time on this planet.

"Well whatever, have a great day?" Tomomi said as she walked past them.

"Sure we will, we will settle this on another occasion," Yoshihama said as his voice was lower and lower.

""Yeah"" both of his friends said, apparently, one of them had the ability to remove the friction on a certain area and the other one had the quirk to reduce the speed of moving objects.

"Ah" Oka realized that she was left in the middle of the hallway she ran towards her classroom "Wait for me Tomomi!"

Another day in the lives of these kids.

---

 

As both Oka and Tomomi finished another day of school, with Tomomi being mentally exhausted at having to deal with a lot more people due to her trying to be kinder, she noticed Oka was tugging on her shirt.

"Yes?" 

"I actually forgot to ask you something for some time..." Tomomi saw Oka fiddling with her fingers, she simply nodded to let her continue "Would you like to be my friend?" She asked while looking at her.

"What the heck are you talking about Oka?" Tomomi blurted out immediately while continuing walking. Oka trembled and teared up upon hearing Tomomi, she was about to ask something else as she heard Tomomi finish her sentence.

"We already shared food between us, we are friends already!" She ended with a big smile on her face.

"Ah! I see..." said with extreme relief in her voice.

[Maybe I should have worded that better?] Tomomi thought before simply shrugging it off.

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