HANAKO IS SLEEPY.

Grey bags do not look good on her, they're pasted below her eyes like silver eyeshadow highlighted by midnight sky skin and drooping golden eyes. She's leaned her face unto her palms for the first periods, falling asleep at Literature where the teacher is a pregnant lady who's still unable to take her maternity leave.

She wakes up when someone kicks her chair and it's Momoka who's still a little mad, little worried, who mouths physics long quiz at her and that totally sailed over her mind like a Neverland ship sprinkled with pixie dust taking Peter and Wendy, and the rest of the pirates with the Jolly Roger (where'd Captain Hook go, Papa? In the belly of Mr. Crocodile 'course) and oh damn Hanako is screwed.

The test paper is placed on her desk by the haughty teacher who gives her a you got this smile, but you got this smiles are always with their partner, or you're not then you're screwed grins because your scholarship is in jeopardy and Hanako cannot have that, because she has to get close to Todoroki Shouto and U.A. is the way to all that.

Breathe in out in out Hanako. For Papa, you imbecile. She gets her pencil, and sets it on the paper. The lead snaps thwack and she trembles. She doesn't got this. She is utterly and hopelessly screwed. She hears more scribbles of mechanical pencil from the people around her and she did study in the library yesterday, but those were terms and definitions, these are all solutions. She can't figure out the F prime of this mirror or the goddamn center of curvature, was it 2F or F halved?!

"Matsushima, is something the matter?" the teacher asks.

"I broke my pencil lead," she says, careful to maintain her placid face. She can still find a way. She did not create a garden of corpses just to be trampled by a stupid examination.

"I have extra," Momoka announces, her face strewn into a smile again that immediately captivates the teacher (Momoka is a rich heiress, it girl, queen bee). "I can give her some."

Before Hanako can protest because she has some extra lead in her pencil case, Momoka places the new mechanical pencil with a box full of lead and a new eraser unto her table and when her head gets closer to Hanako, she whispers, "Check the eraser."

Hanako nods imperceptibly, and begins to take out the new pencil. She places some lead and in order to direct the attention of the teacher away, Mei stands up from her seat, already finished and asking permission to go into the girl's comfort room to powder her nose. Hanako doesn't know what to feel except satisfied with herself for choosing these brilliant girls as cover. There are formulae and short explanations regarding the test and she scribbles it all on her solution paper, uses the formulae and manages to finish to the test with ten minutes to spare.

More of her classmates continue to pass their papers and Hanako revises her answers, and tries to guess the correct answers in the three items she has no clue what to do. It's problem solving and she can remember that they tackled this during their regular lessons, but she really has no clue since her brain is muddled with thoughts of schemes to wrap Todoroki Shouto around her fingers.

Hanako decides to not be an ungrateful idiot (Momoka's favorite choice of words for her) for once amd thanks the two girls who this time, who really are her saviors while they watch Class 1-A using the school swimming pool in their swimsuits that really leave it to the imagination.

"Don't bother," Momoka says casually, her eyes enraptured by Todoroki Shouto's abdominal muscles (Mei squeals and almost faints when she sees Midoriya Izuku's biceps). "That's what friends are for."

° ° °
i v y ;
friendship