[zaya]

Zaya Inazuma did not have ‘friends’. Maybe she had friend, singular, in the form of Jun, but even then it seemed like something of a stretch with how little time they had actually spent together.

That made it awkward when she heard someone calling her name.

“Zaya! Zayaaaa!”

The voice was unfamiliar; The goth girl had tried to ignore it at first, hoping that they were looking for someone else with her uncommon name, but the UA halls weren’t very crowded today; No doubt whoever was calling was looking for her.

Sighing, she turned around and saw a brunette teen; He was of average height, with a naïve, dumb looking face, sparkling green eyes full of obnoxious optimism.

“Ok, ok already, what do you want?” Zaya asked, stopping in her tracks and crossing her arms.

The guy had a grin plastered on his face, happy to have finally caught up. “Oh, uh, its nice to finally meet you! We’ve never met, but I figured we should!”


Zaya stared at him with an unimpressed expression. “And…Why is that?” This was a total stranger to her, what could he possibly want?

“Oh, right! I’m Mark Haga!” Mark delivered the statement with incredible optimism; Only to get practically no response.

“…And?” Whoever this guy was, he had no idea how to make an introduction.

“You don’t recognize me from name? I’m Polymorph’s son.” Showing off his quirk to drive the point in, he morphed his hand, making it much larger whilst dripping a bit of mud from it.

Zaya’s heart sunk to the pits of her stomach hearing that name. The absolute LAST thing she wanted was to be associated more with the Thunderbolts than she already was.

“Oh god…Did your dad seriously send you to spy on me after our little encounter? Buzz off.” Best thing to do now was ignore this guy entirely and just walk away.

Unfortunately, Mark didn’t get the memo and started walking right beside her.

“No, no, nothing like that!” He started, moving his hand to its normal size. “My old man just that if UA could help you, maybe it could help me! I thought that since our dads work together, maybe we could hang out!”



“No.” Zaya’s response was blunt and quick. Not only was this guy way too cheery for her liking, but now he wanted to ‘team up’ with her, as in draw more unwanted attention.

“Come on! ShocK-King and Polymorph work really well together, I figure you and I could go together like bread and jam too!”

The girl let out an annoyed grunt. “First off, I’m not your ‘jam’, secondly, stop mentioning their names! I don’t feel like associating with them!” Zaya hissed out the last part, desperate to shut this guy up.



“Ok, I won’t mention them, but lets just give teaming up a try!” Mark was persistent. Obnoxious and persistent. Zaya just wanted a way out of the conversation now; Looking around, she tried to spot someone she knew have an out, before remembering she barely knew anyone.

“Better just pick a stranger I guess…”

[Kupo]

---

| ★Jason Riviera★ | @crystalprincekupo
Location: UA, Tokyo, Japan. | Current Status: Work hard, play harder! Σ:p
Now Playing: Derivakat - Blue

---

Jason Riviera was quick to make friends. Not that he found the actual socialising part easy, but it's a lot easier when people are naturally drawn to you and your bar for 'friends' is more just 'people who are nice to you and who you like spending time with'. It was in the company of two of these friends that Kupo found himself, 5 minutes after the end of an Ethics & Hero Law lecture. "Good work today, Riviera-kun! This was the the first time I've heard a defence like yours for criticism of no-kill policies, almost quieted down the hall during open discussion."
"Seriously bro, I don't know how you get all this theory stuff so easy, it's impressive!"
"Thank you both so much! This kinda stuff is really close to my heart, so I try to speak out about it whenever I can... Oh, I gotta go! Bye-bye Katsumi-sensei, bye Kawahara-san!"
"Bye, Kupo-chan! Cute~"

Kupo exited the lecture hall, out into the mostly-empty corridor. Besides his school uniform, Kupo was also wearing: a grey watch-like band around his left wrist, green & lilac star clips in his hair & fur collar, and a backpack styled after one of the cuter monsters from a pet monster anime. A small, warm smile graced his visage and his bushy tail wagged quickly behind him. A side effect of Kupo's very sensitive hearing was that he was bound to hear anything in such a quiet hallway in perfect clarity. Looking over towards the pair, it was very clear that the girl was not interested in whatever the boy was proposing. He vaguely remembered seeing her in class at some point, but was stalling on the name. With how fed-up/frustrated she seemed, Kupo was about to go and see if he could help when she suddenly turned and started walking towards him! "Oh, hi! You're... Inazuma-san, right? You doing okay?" Thinking on his feet, Kupo tried to think of an out. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that Rescue 102 project, actually. Have you got a minute?" He was bluffing, of course, but from the little he'd heard of the two heroes they mentioned this guy didn't seem like the type to take a Rescue elective.

[zaya]

Thank. God.
Zaya had no idea how this guy knew her name, but she wasn’t about to complain. Whether it was a classmate she hadn’t noticed or a fanboy, it didn’t matter; Anyone was better than Mark.

“Look, Mark, that’s my cue, I gotta go ok? This project is worth a big chunk of my grade this semester.”
The girl had no idea if they even had a project due; If they did, then it was a good thing this guy reminded her of it.
Just as she started to walk towards Jason, Zaya felt a strangely cold hand on her shoulder; It was like a zombie that had been left in the fridge.
“We’ll catch up later, right?” Turning around, she saw that Mark’s happy demeanor had melted away, leaving a scowl.
He was starting to become a very eerie reminder of his father, Polymorph; Someone that Zaya could do with less of.
“Yeah. Sure.” Swatting his hand off her shoulder, Zaya hurried her pace to Jason.

“Hey! I was just looking for you. I’ve already got most of my part of the assignment done, can we compare notes?”
Without giving Jason a chance to protest, the teen put her hand on his shoulder, quickly leading him away from Mark and into the crowd. Glancing back to make sure the ‘stalker’ was out of sight, Zaya noticed the clay man just standing there, staring, looking like he was spacing out, before finally turning and walking in a different direction.
Letting out a sign of relief, Zaya took her hand off Jason’s shoulder. “I don’t know who you are, but you just became my hero. Pretty incredible how you read the room and realized I needed out…”

[Kupo]

---

| ★Jason Riviera★ | @crystalprincekupo
Location: UA, Tokyo, Japan. | Current Status: Work hard, play harder!
Now Playing: OneRepublic - Counting Stars

---

The immediate hand on his shoulder really shouldn't have been a surprise for Kupo, but it managed to catch him off-guard regardless. The boy very briefly froze up, a small gasp escaping his mouth, before regaining his composure and following Zaya down the hall. He looked back as she did, slightly unsettled by the sudden change in demeanour of the other male student. In a tiny voice, he piped up. _{"Hey, please don't touch me without asking, especially from behind."} Kupo smiled, so as not to seem hostile with how he made the request, then looked up at Zaya. "Anyway, are you okay? Like, really, that seemed super uncomfy." He didn't wanna make any assumptions about her being sensitive or anything, but providing comfort and reassurance was one of his strengths, so always good to ask if somebody needed some.

As Zaya spoke, Kupo simultaneously felt proud to have made a difference and concerned that what (to him) was a simple act of kindness seemed so monumental. A hero? Well, he was trying super hard to be a hero (hence attending UA), but that phrasing still seemed off for some reason. "I guess? I mean, I overheard the conversation and saw the whole 'nice guy' bit. You sounded super-duper done, so I felt like I had to do something. What kind of hero just stands by while people do bad stuff, right?" He'd always been taught to be an upstander, not a bystander. Stand up if someone's being bullied, or excluded. Stand up if someone's uncomfortable. Of course, because of Kupo's size and mutations, he was most often the one being teased. Made uncomfortable. Usually Maki stood up for him. Kupo's mind caught up to the first half of that statement, as he realised he'd forgot to introduce himself even when he called Zaya by name. "Oh! And I'm Jason Riviera, by the way. We're classmates in Rescue 102, or at least I'm pretty sure that's the class... We do have an assignment due tomorrow, but it's just an online quiz ahead of the field lesson. Not a big project." Realising he was starting to ramble, Kupo cut that statement short. His smile softened, more natural now.

[zaya]

“Oh, uh, sorry.” Zaya stated apologetically as she removed her hand from Jason; If he knew her quirk, he’d have asked her to get it off even quicker.

Watching as Mark faded into the sea of faces, she waited until she was sure he was out of earshot before speaking up.
“Yeah, his father and mine work together, and for some reason he thinks we need to be the best of friends because of that.” Crossing her arms, Jason’s comment made her wonder if Mark wanted to be more than friends, but it didn’t seem that way; She didn’t get a romantic vibe off of him, he just seemed way too eager.
“Nice to meet you Jason; Honestly I had no idea we were actually in a class together, I usually sleep through a lot of them…But I probably should get my grades up.”
Otherwise, she’d have to leave the safety of UA and back to the public, where the paparazzi would see her as an easy target.
“Oh, if its an online quiz that’s perfect, you can just give me the answers!” She stated happily, hoping her new classmate would go along with the blatant cheating. “I mean, only for this one, I’ll totally study for the next one so you won’t have to do that.”
Pausing, and hoping this wasn’t one of those ‘do everything the honest way’ guys, she realized she hadn’t given her name yet. “And I’m Zaya; Its really nice to meet you.”
Who knew, maybe this guy would turn into a perfect quiz mule.

[Kupo]

---

| ★Jason Riviera★ | @crystalprincekupo
Location: UA, Tokyo, Japan. | Current Status: Work hard, play harder!
Now Playing: Derivakat - Blue

---

"It's fine, Ina- Zaya-san (sorry), at least you weren't petting me without asking, or anything." Although there was a smile, there was no joking tone to that statement of forgiveness. Kupo listened as Zaya described how she and the other boy knew each other, and through context clues managed to piece something together. "Oh, you're a legacy hero too! Crystal King's my dad, I don't think many people here would know him, but back home, he's pretty popular... I get the vibe you don't really wanna talk about that, though. Sorry~" He promptly shut up about the topic, making a ':p' face. Even the semi-whisper that Zaya spoke in earlier could not escape his ears, and Jason connected another pair of dots about who she 'didn't want to associate with'.

Luckily, there was another topic to move right on to. Zaya immediately outed herself as a slacker, but lucky for her, Kupo didn't really care. He very much cared about his own academic integrity, but how other people passed their classes was none of his business. He just really liked helping people out. "Nice to meet you too, Zaya-san! I'm a bit of a teachers' pet honestly, so I'd be happy to help! Let me just get my..." the fox boy's words trailed off, as he got something out of his backpack and held it up. It was a tablet, and much to Jason's dismay, it wouldn't turn on. He started the next sentence with an exclamation in English. "...oh sugarlumps, my tablet's dead! Umm, umm... I guess that won't work then? We could go to the library, or the IT lab, or... maybe to my computer? My place isn't far from campus if you wanna take a walk." He seemed more excited for the prospect of a walk than anything, wagging tail and smile saying more than he did. "Totally understand if you'd rather do it here, though! We should probably find somewhere to sit down, either way."

[zaya]

Great, he was also the child of a hero; At least maybe she could have someone to talk to about the burden that came with; If she got to know him. She still wasn’t very keen on telling the whole school who her ‘famous’ dad was, and thankfully he had the brains to not press about it further.
Sugarlumps? Zaya had to bite her lip to keep from laughing, not wanting to humiliate her new friend. What was he, from the 1960s? This guy was unbelievably corny; But it came off as a bit charming, especially when he started wagging his tail like an eager puppy.

“Sure, I don’t mind walking a bit, as long as your place isn’t too far, and as long as I can rest my feet afterwards.” She stated, knowing it’d get her away from Mark and hopefully into the good graces of Jason.
“So… A teacher’s pet huh?” As she started to walk with Jason, she wondered if he realized the unintentional pun, with the animal like quirk and all. “Did you go to like, one of those prep schools? The ones they send you to as like practice before coming to UA?” With her reluctance to join the hero scene she’d never been to a ‘hero high school’, but was still curious as to what they were like; Maybe Jason could provide insight.
“UA is really my first jump into the hero business; The only experience I’ve had with it is some practice with my dad…”