#to give delegations / orders on the battlefield so. yknow. SJKDHKJHDKHSD SO THERE MIGHT BE BICKERING THERE BUT

[gravesung-moving]

@xplosionbomb.

starter call!

IT'S NO SECRET THAT CHIAKI IS a bit of an oddball among their classmates. sure, she gets along with everyone well enough — especially ochako and mina, loud and bubbly and easy to match with her own uptick in energy, and midoriya, a fellow strategizer whose mind moves just as fast as her own. but alone, there is something of a distance to her: either she's staring, mismatched eyes wide and attentive, taking in every detail of a companion's battle tactics to add to her inner database of strategies, or she's staring off into space in a glassy, awestruck reverie, as if she's miles away from everyone else.

in truth, it's hard to stay grounded when possibility stretches out in an endless tapestry all around you.

but there are some people who can shake her out of it simply by existing nearby, and the familiar footsteps that echo into her range of hearing belong to one of them. chiaki isn't afraid of bakugou, not anymore. upon gathering for the entrance exams, his was a face she recognized instantly from the worst days of her middle school bullying, before she transferred schools and started tinting stark-white hair, eyelashes and brows black to fit in better. not that the albinism was the only, or even primary, thing she was teased about: being poor, having a quirk they thought was silly ( what do you mean threads? you gonna wrap villains up in a blankie? ), the strange, drifting way about her that sharpened into focus at seemingly unpredictable times.

never mind that she was an award-winning dancer and gymnast at the age of twelve. as if that mattered.

midoriya's face she recognized too. not as sharply as bakugou's meanmugging, but an echo of a boy with no quirk who was never mean to her. she's glad to see him glow so bright now — she'd always wanted to talk to him more before she transferred.

at bakugou's footsteps, she no longer flinches the way she used to. instead, there is that minute sharpening of the faraway air about her. the glassy, doll-like stare goes calm and focused as she regards him from where she stands at the window, waiting for her tea to cool on an end table nearby.

❝ oh hey, bakugou-san. what are you doing up at this hour? ❞