Chapter Text
The incessant chirping of birds was the alarm Katsuki awoke to. His body ached, his neck stiff, arms fuzzy. His eyes felt crusty as he tried to open them, reminding him of last night’s events.
From the dim light flooding through the All-Might curtains, he could tell it was early morning. He let out a huff, annoyed at himself for falling asleep in the nerd’s room. Given how early it was though, he had enough time that he could easily sneak into his own dorm, leaving the extras none the wiser. The only trouble with that plan was the heat-sucking octopus that was latched onto him. Katsuki should have known Deku was still a cuddlier, even if it had been years since they’d slept over together. He tried wiggling in the grip. Deku held on tighter.
“Nerd, wake up,” he murmured.
An angry groan was given in response.
“Come on nerd, I got to go before I get caught out of my dorm.”
A softer groan.
Katsuki huffed, before running his hand through the others unruly green bed-hair. He grabbed a fist of it and tugged slightly.
“Nooo, stop,” Deku whined.
“Still hate your hair being pulled huh,” Katsuki smirked.
Deku huffed, but his cheeks were beginning to grow red.
“Five more minutes.”
“No, I have to go now,” his voice was still rough with sleep, and he was tempted to give into the nerd’s request. However, he couldn’t chance getting caught by a teacher sneaking out of the nerd’s room. Even if they had done nothing more than sleep, it would look suspicious, and they could get in trouble.
“Fine,” Deku unwrapped himself, huffing before turning his back to Katsuki.
“Don’t be like that, nerd.”
In response, Deku drew the covers over his head.
“Petty bitch.”
Katsuki sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The bleariness began to fade after a few blinks. He paused before standing, a frown growing on his face.
“Wait, what the fuck was that about cheese last night?”
Deku groaned again.
The day started slowly for Izuku. First, he struggled to get out of bed to go on his early morning jog, so he had to cut that short. Then he was running late for class, so he had to skip breakfast. When it was finally time for lunch, he was starving, his stomach grumbling so badly it disrupted Aizawa’s lesson.
He practically inhaled Lunch Rush’s Katsudon the second he sat down to eat, which left him with plenty of time to sit and watch his friends. Ururaka and Iida were chatting happily about their lesson, but he could tell they were throwing concerned looks his way. Todoroko on the other hand looked uninterested as he ate his cold Soba.
Kacchan was sitting with his usual squad, all of whom were giving him wary, some downright scathing, looks. Katsuki took it all in stride, ignoring the glances thrown his way as he ate. He didn’t even look up when the rest of the group sat straight, eyes to the door of the lunchroom.
Midoriya followed their gaze. Hitoshi Shinso walked with his hands on his pockets, eyes downcast entering the cafeteria. He avidly avoided looking in the direction of the class 1-A tables.
“I gotta go,” Deku jumped up.
“Where are you going?’ Ururaka asked.
“Meddling again,” Todoroki muttered.
“I’ll be back!”
He sprinted over to the doors. When the purple-haired boy spotted him, his eyes widened, and he tried to change direction to avoid the impending storm coming his way. He wasn’t quick enough though. In no time, Midoriya grabbed Shinso by the arm.
“We need to talk,” he said, dragging Shinso back out the door.
He walked them to a hallway on the other side of campus, away from any prying ears. When he finally stopped, Shinso looked both pissed and bored.
“Why the hell did you drag me here, Midoriya?”
Midoriya took a deep breath, before turning to face Shinso, bending into to a deep bow.
“I apologies for Kacchan’s actions yesterday. He shouldn’t have threatened you like that.”
“It’s not really your apology to give, is it?” Shinso glared.
“That’s, uh, not true,” Midoriya stood upright and rubbed the back of his neck.
“You weren’t the one that tried to choke me out.”
“I know,” Midoriya sighed. “It’s hard to explain, but I can’t help feeling responsible for what happened.”
Shinso scoffed.
“You would say that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Please Midoriya. I barely know you and I already know you’re the kind of person to take responsibility for everything. Even the stuff you have no say over, like your shitty boyfriend’s personality.”
“What!” Midoriya shrieked, his face burning like fire. “Kacchan is not my boyfriend. It’s not like that! Not like he would ever feel that way for me, I mean ever since we were kids-”
Midoriya words began to run into each other. Shinso raised an eyebrow.
“That’s what you took away from that?”
Midoriya shook his head.
“Sorry,” he said. “But I’m apologising because I was responsible for why Kacchan acted that way.”
Shinso shook his head and rubbed at his temples.
“How could you possibly be responsible?”
Midoriya cleared his throat.
“Like I said yesterday, the whole thing wasn’t about you. Kacchan just overreacted because of what you said.”
“About you being a hero?” he rolled his eyes, keeping his head down to avoid Midoriya.
“About me jumping off a roof.”
Shinso’s head snapped up.
“What?”
“Look,” Midoriya took a deep breath. “This is going to be really hard to explain. I guess, I should start by saying, when I was in middle-school, I wasn’t exactly popular.”
Shinso scoffed.
“No, seriously!”
“You have one of the most powerful quirks I’ve ever seen and your basically sunshine’s incarnate. As if you weren’t popular.”
Midoriya’s shoulders slumped.
“Please don’t repeat this to anyone, but I was kind of… a late bloomer. I didn’t get my quirk until after middle school and as you probably know but most kids aren’t exactly nice to those that are different.”
Midoriya waited for a response, but Shinso was shocked in silence.
“That’s… the understatement of the century,” Shinso said quietly.
“Yeah,” Midoriya grimaced. “It was mentioned more than a few times… that because I was quirkless, I was useless. I was an easy target. More than once, I got told um… I mean I wouldn’t have done it… But uh, I got told that one of the ways that I could get a quirk, or to stop being useless… was to take a swan dive… off the roof of a building.”
The hallway was silent except for the breath of Midoriya who was trying to steady his shaking body.
“Fucking hell,” Shinso whispered, his face paling. “No wonder Bakugou acted like that.”
“You didn’t know! And I know you didn’t mean it like that so its fine!”
“It’s not fine, Midoriya. What the fuck?”
“It is! Besides, the only reason Kacchan acted like that was because he was mad at himself more than anything. He is one of the people that said that to me.”
“Fucking hell Midoriya!” Shinso shouted in alarm. “He said that? How the fuck are you still friends with him?”
“He didn’t mean it! I know he didn’t. Besides, its more complicated that it seems, ok? So don’t go blaming him when I’ve already forgiven him a long time ago. The guilt he feels is already enough punishment.”
Shinso shook his head in disbelief.
“You really do have a heart of gold.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Midoriya pouted.
“Don’t worry about it,” Shinso spoke in his regular deadpanned voice. “Look, I guess I didn’t know what was going on yesterday after all… and I kinda get why Bakugou reacted that way.”
Sparkles practically flew from Midoriya, as his face lit up with a smile.
“Really? So, you aren’t mad at us?”
“At you? Definitely not,” Shinso frowned. “Honestly, if anything I feel like you should be mad at me. I guess I’ve misjudged you, Midoriya.”
“I’m not mad at you though! I mean, I hope we can move past this and become friends? I think you have an amazing quirk and you most definitely belong in the hero course. In fact, I would love to help you with some training if you have time, I have this theory-”
Midoriya took off rambling, animatedly gesturing while discussing his top theories on how Shinso’s quirk could be utilised. Rather than interrupting, Shinso let him talk. The stayed in the hallway until Shinso’s watch chimed 12, indicating lunch was nearly over.
“Oh, goodness Shinso-kun, I am so sorry I didn’t realise how late it was getting. You need to eat lunch!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Shinso huffed. “You had some good tips. I actually think I might bring them up to Aizawa-Sensei. But we should get back to the cafeteria.”
Midoriya nodded frantically, then hopped along beside Shinso as they walked back, happily discussing the others quirk capabilities.
Once they reached the cafeteria, Midoriya paused.
“I’m going to head to the bathroom, Shinso-kun, but I will see you later yeah? I can’t wait to have a training session with you again, we will win for sure next time!”
Shinso nodded, trying to hide the small smile building on his face as Midoriya smiled brightly before heading off. He schooled his expression before heading into the cafeteria. Once the doors opened, he was met with the curious and concerned faces of class 1-A’s Dekusquad and Bakusquad, excluding of course Bakugou himself who was still fixating on the plate in front of him. Shinso took a deep breath and steeled himself, before making his way to the table the explosive boy was sitting at.
“Baku-bro, Baku-bro!” The boy with shark teeth tried to get the blondes attention.
He didn’t look up from his meal.
Shinso stopped and stood at the top of the table.
Kaminari stared at him wide-eyed. Kirishima was shooting desperate looks between Shinso and Bakugou. Mina whipped out her phone, ready to record in case a fight broke out.
After a moment of no one talking, Bakugou finally raised his head, and stared directly at Shinso.
“I’m not apologising.”
“Dude,” Kaminari said outraged.
Mina and Sero groaned. They all looked ready to launch into a lecture but stopped when Shinso started talking.
“Midoriya explained everything about Middle School,” Shinso said in his monotoned voice. Bakugou’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, before he neutralized his expression. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“No,” Bakugou said. “You shouldn’t have.”
Shinso narrowed his eyes.
“Neither should you.”
Bakugou huffed, shaking his head.
“You think I need you to tell me that? Cause I fucking don’t.”
“Good. Because if I ever hear you say something like that to him again, I’ll fuck you up.”
Bakugou let out a bark of laughter.
“Same goes for you, Extra.”
With that, he went back to eating. Shinso noticed his plate was practically full, which meant he had been pushing his food around most of lunch to avoid his friends. With a soft huff and a roll of the eye, Shinso realised the conversation was done.
“Wonderful. Well, later.”
Bakugou grunted in response.
Shinso walked away from table, pretending to ignore the uproar of confusion coming from the Bakusquad as they demanded to know what the hell had just happened.