#my french teachers would be disappointed; especially since i got the highest grades and best accent u_u | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nerdiests · 6 years

Text

Here’s day 4 of Kaminari week!!

Check it out on ao3!

prompt: theories - traitor/backstory/creator’s choice

Denki had never been good with Japanese to begin with, but the fact that it wasn’t his first language definitely didn’t help matters. Sure, he’d grown up speaking an amalgamation of English and Japanese, but he hadn’t grown up writing an amalgamation of English and Japanese. After all, despite his parents speaking Japanese so he wouldn’t flounder when they moved back to Japan, America didn’t prioritize learning second languages until later years. So he didn’t exactly get to learn any written Japanese. Coming back to Japan was definitely a struggle, since he had to pick up a new written language.

After moving back to Japan shortly after his twelfth birthday, Denki had a bit of a crisis. He could speak the language just fine, so everyone assumed he would be able to write Japanese just as well as he could speak. That was not, in fact, the case. Being thrown into Japanese middle school as he had been without any knowledge of written Japanese whatsoever, he was immediately floundering. Denki took it upon himself to try and teach himself how to read Japanese, but it was slow going. Kanji was, after all, much harder to read than English. And Spanish and French. So Denki was barely passing his classes, and his parents were extremely disappointed in his sudden drop in grades.

Eventually, as high school approached and everyone always laughed at his low test scores, Denki decided he was going to shoot for the best school out there. U.A. High School. Everyone was shocked when he said he’d be shooting for the most prestigious school in Japan for heroes, support engineers, business students, and even academically. But Denki was going to blow all of them out of the water with his expertise. He knew what they were talking about, he was learning everything they’d talked about in classes, he just couldn’t read anything anyone wrote. So he was going to especially brush up on his kanji comprehension skills before going in to take the U.A. exam.

For the almost year leading up to the exam, Denki spent all his spare time studying - both for school and how to read written Japanese. They were both slow-going, but he managed. Picking up how to read kanji definitely accelerated his learning process with school, since the more kanji he learned how to read the more words he could read. Though he did a lot more studying of more advanced words as he looked for the material that would be on the U.A. entrance exam, which was a lot more complex than the words he’d been studying for the past year.

The day had snuck up on Denki with almost no warning, though his mom had reminded him about his exam the week prior. It was a tiring day, for sure. He’d almost gone over his voltage limit repeatedly during the practical portion, and he might’ve written some of his answers on the written portion in English instead of Japanese. It’s not his fault he didn’t learn any written Japanese until he was twelve, it’s the American education system’s fault for not prioritizing bilingualism. If they had he’d probably have done a lot better on the entrance exam’s first half, which did not go well.

He, surprisingly, passed with flying colors. All Might - who was teaching at U.A. now, wow - informed him that someone had to specially grade his test because it was an amalgamation of English, Japanese, and a bit of Spanish and French, surprisingly. And the practical exam - which he got 53 points on - was definitely enough to get him into U.A. Thank goodness.

As the year began, and continued to go on, Denki grew close to some of his fellow classmates. Ashido Mina, Kirishima Eijirou, Sero Hanta, and Bakugou Katsuki to name a few. He also might’ve had a few. Crushes on fellow classmates (Read: all of them). And all the events the class went through definitely drew the class closer together. They had to move into dorms after an event at their summer camp, and Denki couldn’t even help because he’d failed the practical final and-! Let’s move past that for now.

The dorms were nice. He’d almost short circuited the whole dorm building at one point because Kirishima decided it was a good idea to get the whole class to watch a movie and someone (Bakugou) decided to take it upon himself to ensure they watched SAW. He’d also almost beaten a level on Geometry Dash when Ashido decided that sneaking up on him while he was sitting in the common room lounge was a good idea! Nope! What made him laugh, though, is that despite living in close quarters with all eighteen of his classmates, it never came up that he was technically American. Well. Not until the joint English/World History project.

“Alright, listeners! We’re doing a joint project with World History! You’re going to be assigned a country and give a basic summary of that country’s history, but here’s the catch! It has to be all in English!” Present Mic explained, and groans chorused throughout the classroom. Denki, however, grinned. Denki felt eyes on him for a moment, Present Mic possibly, before his teacher continued.

“Now, for countries! Aoyama Yuuga… Belgium!” There was a quiet sound of disappointment, but Denki had tuned everyone out for a moment. Wouldn’t it be wild if he got the U.S? Like, man. If he could spend a whole project blathering on about his home country that would be a blast, he could make so many pop culture references…

“Kaminari Denki… United States of America!” Denki froze. Holy shit. He heard someone laugh around him, muttering about how he’d have an easier project. Denki began to laugh lowly under his breath, and someone tapped on his shoulder. Kirishima. Denki turned around to see his friend’s slightly concerned face.

“You okay, man?” he asked. Denki nodded once.

“I’m doin’ absolutely amazing, Kirishima!” Denki said excitedly, unable to keep the manic grin off his face. Kirishima nodded slowly, seemingly not believing him.

“O… kay…” Kirishima said, and Denki turned back around, manic grin still on his face. Denki tuned out everyone else for the assignments, though he heard the explosions that followed Bakugou being assigned France.

The next few weeks were a breeze for Denki. He didn’t have to do a ton of research, since he’d saved all his notes and assignments from American History - he’d tested out of Texas History, thankfully - and he could detail the first half of American History fairly well, plus he just knew random facts about the 1900s because a lot of his favorite movies and games were from the time period, plus it was just an interesting time period. The 2000s were definitely more… Intriguing, though. It took a fair amount of time to get to present day with his research, and he went. Extremely in depth, because who wouldn’t go extremely in depth when you can actually read and understand what you’re reading?

The day before Denki was set to present, he managed to get a pass to leave campus to go shopping. And they let him go by himself. What a blessing. He needed to grab the fashion items - or make them, in some cases - before he presented. He’d already gotten his permission to walk in when he was supposed to present from Present Mic so he just needed to get the clothes he’d need for his presentation. People would get extra credit for wearing the fashion of the country, after all. And he was going all out.

The next morning, when he was set to present, Denki was waiting outside of the classroom.

“Next to present, possibly for the whole class period as I’ve been told, is Kaminari Denki, with his project on the United States of America!!” Denki grinned. Time for his entrance. Denki kicked the door open with his saddle shoe-clad foot and walked into the room with a grin on his face.

“Sup, I’m Denki Kaminari and I lived in the United States for twelve years!” Denki said enthusiastically. Everyone looked at him, shocked for the most part, but he spotted a grin on Present Mic’s face. Denki’s grin grew wider, and he gestured back at the old fashioned Powerpoint he’d made, with cruddy transitions to give the effect that it was, in fact, the early 2000s and not their current time.

“Now, lemme tell you about the wide and varied history of the United States of America, complete with cultural anecdotes, a few Spanish and French bits because I know bits and pieces of both languages, but other than that it’s totally in English. Aka, my first language,” Denki said, before turning around and adjusting his handmade cravat.

“So. U.S. history technically didn’t start with Jamestown and Roanoke back in the 1600s…” And so Denki went on to ramble for the entire class period - all in English, no less - about American history, a subject he’d found to be somewhat interesting.

He ended up getting the highest grade in the class. His… Cross decade ensemble - saddle shoes, legwarmers, ripped up jeans, a graphic tee, a cravat, clip-on disco ball earrings, and a fascinator - got him some extra points, eventually when he revealed that he made half of them himself. Denki spent a month fielding questions about why he never revealed that particular fact, and half as much time being asked to get a translation for the people that hadn’t understood a word. It was a wonderful month.

#nerdiwrites #denkiweek2018 #kaminari denki #kaminari!!#bnha #american denki returns with a vengeance #note: fascinators are those little hats that people wore with the feathers

29 notes · View notes