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"So why U.A?" Kendou said, right before shoving a scoop of rice into her mouth. It was loud in the cafeteria, but not so loud that she could not be heard over the clamor.
Tsunitori shrugged from across the table. "It was the farthest place from my old school that I could think of."
"Oh?" Monoma said, grinning as he leaned forward over the bench into Tsunitori's personal space, "Sounds like there's a story there."
Tsunitori pushed him back into his seet, but she was smiling too much to be truly annoyed. "You’re too dramatic!” she said, “There’s not much to tell.”
“But you will tell it?” Monoma said.
Tsunitori nodded, and immediately took a bite of her noodles. It must have been a strange gesture to watch from across the room. Her head was shorter than the cushioned seat, but her horns stuck up and over. From another angle, it would look like she disappeared every time she bobbed her head.
”My old school was fine,” she said, finally done chewing, “but like, Christian private school isn't for me. My dad is a businessman—I've been coming with him on long trips to Japan all my life. One of them lined up with the U.A. entrance exam, so I signed up and took it. After I passed, my parents had to let me come."
“Huh,” Kendou said. One of her hands rested on the table, fingers drumming slowly. Pensive. "That must have been a shock to them.”
Tsunitori snorted—it was a good sound. She did not feel the need to be pretty when she laughed. "Trust me,” she said, “It was less of a shock than, 'Hey guys I hate conservative religion.' There was no better way to get transfered.”
She stuck her chopsticks into her noodles—Tsunitori still had not learned what that meant—and rested her chin in one hand. “You see,” she said, not quite looking Kendou in the eyes, “My parents probably would have let me go somewhere else if I asked. But they would have been sad about it. And I don't want that—they're good people, you know?"
Monoma leaned back against the cafeteria bench to gaze at the ceiling. "Forget all of that—your method had phenomenal presentation."
"I guess so," Tsunitori said. She picked up the chopsticks again and began stirring the noodles in her bowl around, "I think I'll still have to talk to them eventually. Because I care about them, and they're like, a little bit quirkist."
"How does that look?" Kendou said, "Quirkism, I mean. In America."
Tsunitori slammed a hand down on the table, suddenly smiling brightly. "I'm so glad you asked! I have this hilarious story. One time in Sunday School—"
"Sunday school," Monoma repeated blankly.
"Oh, it's a church function,” Tsunitori said. Her next words came rapid, thick and plastered like her expression. “The details aren't important except that the teacher didn't like me and I think it's because I have a mutation quirk. Anyway, she was telling us—I don't even remember actually, but it had something to do with the devil—and she got off on this tangent describing his horns. And I was still like ten, but even I was starting to make the connection."
"That seems—not great," Kendou said. She'd stopped eating to listen some time ago.
"Let me finish," Tsunitori continued, "So little me raised her hand and asked if the devil's horns were anything like Moses'. And my teacher got really confused. Turns out, one of the errors in the Bible says that Moses—this really important guy—had horns. And I used to read the Bible because I thought the words sounded cool, so I pointed her to the passage and she got real flustered. And then I asked her if she thought Moses had a mutant quirk and she got even more flustered."
"What happened then?" Monoma prompted. He was leaning forward again.
Tsunitori shrugged. Her horns bobbed. "Don't remember. I probably got in trouble. I'm glad it happened though. It helped me realize that maybe I didn't want a really old book dictating my life.”
She sighed—her whole story had come in one flow, and now that she had reached the end, she looked unsure how to continue. “Anyway Kendou, I don't know if that answers your question."
"I just wanted to hear about your life,” Kendou said, “About your experience. So this is perfect."
The background noise was louder now. Lunch was almost over, so maybe several people were standing up at once, taking up their trays and scooting their chairs around. Or maybe it was just that nobody at this table was saying anything.
"I just wish my parents could get out of it," Tsunitori blurted. Her free hand gripped the edge of the table like her seat might fall in. "They're good people, but they're super religious. And not that all religion is bad, but their church is super quirkist and they won't leave."
The bell finally rang. Ibara set her chopsticks across her bowl and scooted off the bench so that Kendou could stand up too.
"Anyway," Tsunitori continued, slowly unclenching her hand, "Thanks for listening to me vent about why Christians should be canceled."
"Anytime," Kendou said, gathering the table's trash onto her lunch tray.
Monoma stood up, flamboyantly threw his jacket over his shoulder with one hand, pulled his bangs up from his eyes with the other. "I'm just glad you got out of there. Now I can burn them to the ground without remorse."
"Monoma," Kendou said, but her tone was more caution than repremand.
Tsunitori laughed, loud and wonderful. “I’ll get you the matches."
Snatching her lunch tray from the table, Ibara walked purposefully to the trashcan, set her things on the free space by the rim and began scraping out the remains of her food.
It was not that she really minded conversation—her friends were entitled to whatever opinions they thought best. She just did not feel like listening to any more of it right now.
A little farther through the lunch room was the place to set her empty tray and bowl. Ibara meandered through the crowd, trying to puzzle through the best way back to her homeroom. School had been in session for a month, so she knew the way, but she had not quite internalized the foot traffic patterns of the rest of the students. The direct path was only the quickest if she left lunch early. Maybe it would be better if she went outside and came into the building from the other end.
Maybe it would have been better if she had left lunch early. Her friends would forget by tomorrow, but Ibara would have the tones of this conversation playing on repeat in her brain for the next forever.
"Shiozaki?" It was Kendou, materializing from nowhere to place her hand on Ibara's shoulder. "Are you alright?"
"Of course," Ibara said, "Just deciding how to get back to class."
"I didn't want to interrupt Tsunitori," Kendou continued, "but I can talk to them for you, if you felt unsafe—"
"Never!" Ibara exclaimed. It was true. She had not known her class particularly long, but she was pretty sure that each of them would die for her if the situation ever called for it. "I know they care about me. Not everything is about me."
"Okay," Kendou said, drawing her hand back, "But if you ever feel uncomfortable, you have to say something."
Ibara bit her lip. This was difficult, because uncomfortable did seem like the right word to describe the swirling sensation just shy of her stomach. But what would the solution be? Tell Tsunitori not to talk about her true feelings? To hide a part of herself whenever the two of them were together? That felt wrong—it would take a cut out of their friendship. And Ibara wanted to be friends so badly. This pain was the cost of genuine connection across perspectives, and it was worth it. After all, how would she grow if she lived forever in an echo chamber of her own opinion?
Still, she could not lie to Kendou.
"I didn't feel trapped, if that's what you're asking," Ibara said finally. "I would have spoken up if I wanted to."
"Alright," Kendou said, pulling a stray strand of hair behind her ear, "if you're sure." She paused, hand still cupped around her cheek. There was an energy there, like she was poised and waiting for a heroics exercise to begin. "I just wanted to say—Religion isn't bad, Shiozaki. None of us think that. It's only the zealots who ruin it for everyone else. And you aren't like that. You don't try to push anything on anyone." She smiled then, tilting her head to the side. "You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of the good ones."
Ibara blinked, nodded. "Thank you. I have to go."
"Right!" Kendou said, swinging her arm to form a fist by her shoulder. "I'll see you in class!"
As her friend merged into the swarming crowd, Ibara quietly turned towards the side exit and walked out into the school grounds. The grass was plain here, but there were trees and birds and sky and no people.
She did not have anything to say—everything she wanted to communicate was a second or third story thought. And this was not minecraft. She would not be able to make herself understood without laying a solid foundation. And who had time for that?
Folding her arms, Ibara set off sullenly along the path which wound back towards the classrooms. It was all such a mess. How could she communicate that lumping every not-secular perspective into one bunch called Religious glossed over the fact that agnosticism was the same proportion of truth-claim and cultural construct as the Shinto of her childhood? Even in her own thoughts, that sentence sounded like it came from some kind of textbook.
She really did not want to force anything on anybody. But Kendou's comment about her not being pushy still settled wrong. If she really believed what she said she did, and she never said anything ever, that did not make her a good person. It meant that she did not care if her friends were in danger. What kind of a hero never even tried to save anyone?
Ibara had no idea what was happening in America, but she did not doubt Tsunitori's story. Converting to Christianity involved admitting you needed help, that you could not be fixed without divine intervention. Of course that would attract quirkists. Good people did not need redemption.
That was the worst of it, being called a good one. It made it sound like she had somehow survived the taint of Christianity rather than—well, she had used to think well of herself. Her elementary school teachers had always complimented the strength and versatility of her quirk. She used to think that made her important. More important, maybe, than the other children. And she probably would have gone on like that if she had not read that the church—that a community functions like a body, with each piece gifted to perform its own function. That the person who boasts should not boast in their own strength, but in their knowledge of God. Because isn’t he where power comes from anyway? Did he not make everyone from the same blood?
And so, it was hard to be certain, but Ibara had a feeling that she would not be the good person Kendou could compliment if it were not for the work of Christ in her life.
Lost in thought, she did not notice that she had made it back to the classroom until she was pulling out her pens and notebook and arranging them carefully across her desk. Most of class 1-B was already seated, and Present Mic was at the front of the room, exclaiming something in English that she could not parse the meaning of.
God, she thought, You're the Word, aren't you? Didn't you become like us, so that you could tell us things?
Sitting down at her desk, Ibara took a deep breath and opened her notebook. There was writing there, the English lesson from yesterday carefully transcribed. She could not quite understand that either.
Well, I'm supposed to be like you. That's the point of this. And I obviously don't know how to communicate. So fix that.
Present Mic started writing on the board. The shapes were familiar—she would know them in a moment when she was not carrying on a separate conversation.
Anything I say will sound preachy, at least right now. And I don't think you want that. So make me a word. Change me and keep changing me, until the way I am is the message you told me to carry, until nobody around me can avoid seeing what you are like.