Chapter 29: Pre-Adolescence - 5
"So... what do I look like to you?"
During first period, Toru—who had been curious ever since Isshun mentioned he could see her—finally worked up the courage to ask the question that had been eating at her all class.
"You look like a kid."
"Uh-huh, and...?"
"That’s it."
"What does—" Before Toru could complain any further, the bell signaling the end of first period rang.
As if by divine intervention, she didn’t even get the chance to follow up before their classmates swarmed them.
"Shunkan, how does your Quirk work?"
"Does that mean you’re good at math?"
"Where are you from?"
At first, Isshun was the one crowded, as the person who sat in the aisle seat, but Isshun calmly but quickly answered their questions without much enthusiasm.
"I can solve problems faster."
"I’d say I’m pretty mediocre at math."
"Saitama."
After his short, lackluster replies, some of their classmates drifted over to Toru instead.
"Hagakure, are you permanently invisible?"
"Do you know what you look like?"
"Where are you from?"
Unlike Isshun’s perfunctory responses, Toru answered every question with her usual boundless energy.
"Yep! I don’t think I can turn it off, so it’s kind of a pain sometimes!"
"I was born invisible, so I haven’t got the chance to see myself! But..." Toru lowered her voice at the last part, her excitement barely contained as she remembered Isshun saying he could see her.
Maybe, just maybe, she’d finally get the chance to know.
"I’m from Koto! My dad just got a promotion, so we had to move!"
The questions continued for a while, until their classmates eventually ran out of things to ask and seemed satisfied with the answers they’d gotten.
As everyone returned to their seats, Toru finally found herself free. She raised a hand, ready to poke Isshun’s side to get his attention, only to notice he was already glancing at her.
"So—"
RING RING!
"Ugh!" Interrupted for the third time that day, Toru groaned in frustration. She was dying to know what she looked like.
Inwardly, Toru swore that if Isshun had been lying to her this whole time, she’d do whatever it took to bite him.
--<>--
When the lunch bell rang, Isshun hadn’t even stood up to head toward the food cart before his sleeve was grabbed by an invisible hand.
"Shunkan-kun... I hope you have some time to spare for me?"
"Sure."
"If you don’t—huh?" Toru paused, confused.
"...Aren’t we waiting in line for lunch anyway?" Isshun gestured toward the food cart, which was being manned by four of their classmates.
As transfer students, both of them were exempt from classroom chores for their first week. If there was a single benefit of being a transfer student, then that was it.
"I guess so?"
"See?"
Toru quietly followed Isshun to the lunch line.
"After using my amazing~ brain," she said dramatically, arms moving around her head in a voodoo type motion. "I realized something. How can you even see me?"
She genuinely couldn’t wrap her head around it. His Quirk was just math. How did that let him see her?
Was math that all-knowing?
She wasn’t great at math, but if it could help her visibility, she might (maybe) be willing to try.
"Math is everywhere if you look hard enough," Isshun said, opting to be cryptic.
"...That tells me nothing!" Toru whined.
Isshun grabbed his miso soup, salad, tuna-mayo sandwich, and a carton of milk before heading back to his seat. Toru sat down beside him.
As he picked up his chopsticks with his left hand, Isshun pulled a notebook and pencil from his bag with the other.
He opened to a page while eating his salad, completely unfazed.
Toru froze.
"How are you doing that?!" Toru asked in amazement.
"Math."
"There’s no way math lets you do that!" Toru protested, then suddenly perked up. "Wait, I have the perfect way to prove if you can really see me!"
"Mhm?"
She raised both hands—or rather, from everyone else’s perspective, it looked like she was throwing her hands up in surrender.
Isshun thought it kind of looked like the ’Absolute Cinema’ meme.
"How many fingers am I holding up?!" Toru asked confidently, nodding to herself. I must be a genius!
"Five."
"Oh! You got it right! But that’s not enough!" Toru said quickly. "You could’ve just guessed, right? So we’re doing this a bunch of times!"
"...Okay."
"Two."
"One."
"Six."
"Nine."
"Six again."
After a few more, Toru then put her hands behind her back, now seeing if Isshun could even make a mistake.
"Four."
"Wait wait wait... How did you even do that, I had it behind my back!"
"Math."
"Darn it..." Toru clenched her fists, half-annoyed, half-impressed. What started as verification had somehow turned into a game. "Well... this one grudgingly believes you can see me, hmph!"
She crossed her arms, punctuating it with an exaggerated huff.
Hagakure Toru was born at a young age.
Yet she was born invisible.
Because of that, an entire layer of communication had been taken from her before she ever had a chance to learn it.
People communicated using multiple aspects of their physical body.
They relied on facial expressions, eye contact, subtle movements—things she simply couldn’t use.
Almost all of these were robbed of Toru from the start.
In terms of the subtlety of human interactions, Toru was essentially mute.
To compensate, she’d subconsciously made her voice more expressive and her gestures bigger. Exaggeration became her language.
While it may have required a bit more effort on her end, it was still plenty effective.
Of course, being so young, her ability to convey her emotions perfectly was still limited.
Even so, despite trying to be nonchalant and confident like the heroes she admired, Toru couldn’t help but feel a quiet thrill at the idea that someone could truly see her.
She couldn’t just let that go.
Yet immediately asking for something felt a little wrong, and Toru believed her parents raised her right!
"I said I could see you, and I wouldn’t just lie about that," Isshun shrugged, taking a spoonful of miso soup. "You’re not eating?" He gestured toward Toru’s untouched tray.
Only then did Toru notice the time. After checking the clock and realizing she still had enough, she let out a relieved breath.
She dug in quickly, eating with renewed focus before rubbing her stomach in satisfaction.
"So, Shunkan-kun."
"Hmm?"
"Let’s say... um... someone I knew was invisible..."
"You are invisible." If there was one thing Isshun disliked, it was this ’someone I knew’ bullshit.
"Ehe..." Toru awkwardly laughed at the interruption.
"Uh... What...do I really look like?"
--<>--
A/N: I hope wrote Toru to not be obnoxiously energetic. Also! I really hope some people understand that platonic relationships between opposite genders really do exist.
Also, I finally have 3 advance Chapters after like two weeks oh my days, cause just finished reading vigilantes in a day and my days was that shit peak!
Thanks for reading!
--<>--
2700PS - Not Complete
4900PS - Not Unlocked