Chapter Text
It’s your third year at Yuuei and unsurprisingly the class has pretty much settled itself in its cliques and relationships and other various sappy shit.
You remember your first year, everyone slightly wary, sizing each other up, future-pro hopefuls duking it out. Then, warming up to each other figuring, heck, we’re spending our adolescence together, why waste it glaring down the tips of our noses or behind choppy bangs. You also think that the near death experiences probably helped break the ice.
Second year, everyone started getting comfortable enough to stop letting the rigor of Yuuei interfere with their rosy-colored dream high school lives. They started exploring each other, as gross as it sounds. Working their way through personalities, figuring out who clashes with whom and who lives and breathes on the same wavelengths.
The class had paired or tripled or some poly-numbered off together. A few even mingling down with the gen-eds and the gear heads. Sero most surprisingly found himself a chick in the support department. Six Arms was apparently into edgy birds. Prissy Boobs had wooed every chick in your grade and possibly even the ones above and below it.
Even Deku found himself suitors. The day Kirishima came to you for advice on your “Best Friend,” you’d done a spit take so magnificent it exorcised the shitty hairdo right off his head.
The only time you tried dating was a stint with said Kirishima over summer break, but you quickly found out that it wasn’t your thing. And anyway, he’d found greener pastures over with a different blond. You’d considered dyeing your hair if you didn’t think black would come off more emo on you than half-and-half and bird brain combined.
Of course none of this is coming from a place of jealousy. You were done with insecurities. You’d had enough of them beat out of you your first year, heart to hearts with that freckled bastard be damned. The one cool thing was that Deku had become a bit of a confidant, but you’re not about to spill that long sappy shit. Mr. Chosen One does enough of that for the both of you.
You just noticed these things. A little habit drilled into you from years in the business. Everyone seemed to have some kind of romantic partner or another. But you could be perfectly fine by yourself. You had no need for it.
Or maybe you were just overly aware of the fact after Kaminari had brought it up one lunch period.
“Hey Bakugou, maybe you’d stop pouting all the time if you got yourself a girlfriend or something.”
You give him props for being able to get out an entire sentence between all the gross nuzzling and spoon feeding with Kirishima (you think this is the third time they’ve gotten back together).
“Or a boyfriend,” Kirishima added meaningfully, looking between them and then at you.
“Or a datefriend, if you’re really trying to be all inclusive, you fucks.”
“Wait, you keep up with this stuff?” Kaminari gasped, ignoring your insult. “We assumed you had like zero know-how, hip slang, with the kids.”
“Huh, maybe we had the wrong idea about how you swing,” Kirishima tried.
You interrupt them before they start parroting some asinine teen magazine article. “God, do you two realize you sound like some Big Brother shit.” You choose to ignore their prying in favor of the bigger elephant.
They stared at you with idiotically identical blank stares. Mirror neuron bullshit bouncing off each other like an infinite dunce rig.
Sighing, you explain, “You know, the book, 1984?”
You think you see a fly land inside of Kaminari’s mouth.
You concede because no one wins by letting this go on. “The we-shit, the we this, we that, it’s grossing me out.”
“Oh.” They smirked at each other before turning back to you. Kirishima leaned forward and placed his hand over yours in a mock parental figure parody, Kaminari eyeing him supportively. “One day you’ll understand, young Bakugou.”
Tsk. You yanked your hand away and returned to your noodles.
******
By your third year, Yuuei had loosened up the reins on the dorm situations. Students were allowed to live at home now that the heavy hitters of the Villain Alliance had been eliminated or restrained. And if any remnants were still out there, by nature of your being seniors they’d have a tough time copping any of your asses anyways.
You’d had the chance to go back to living at home, but declined in favor of continuing to have access to top notch facilities 24/7. You’d decided you would focus solely on your Hero studies long ago. Plus you wouldn’t have to deal with the hag’s nagging as much.
It surprised you to find out who stayed and who left. Deku, you thought, would’ve stayed just like you, but it seems that he was the most eager to sign off the release forms and then booked it all the way to Auntie’s. At least it gave you an excuse when you wanted to flake out on family gatherings, and opt to coop up at Deku’s.
Some even moved out and rented apartments closer to their paid internships. Ojiro was up one night “triangulating optimal distances” from Yuuei and his workplace to find a “perfectly equidistant” apartment. You later found out he moved in with Kung-Fu Hands from the other class, which is probably why it took all night to decide. Why his nerd speak attracted anyone at all, though, you probably wouldn’t ever find out.
Frogface, Headphones, Pufferfish, B-is-for-Background kids, and more than half your grade had left, so they combined the third years into one dorm. It was just you, a couple of weirdos, and the kids that didn’t have the luxury to leave.
So it surprised you when, on a Saturday Morning, you found Iida still in the dorms.
You’d woken up earlier than you normally do. Which was saying a lot as you were somewhat of an early bird, unfortunate chemistry with the dark knightingale be damned.
You figured you could sneak in that quads and glutes set you’ve been meaning to get to. A middle finger to Twinky Pikachu that last time he slapped your ass and bemoaned that nothing was there. You had a perfectly decent ass, you swear to god. Fuck you.
You walk over to the dorm gym (they’d renovated the extra floors into an entire facility), not expecting anyone else to be up. But there’s orchestral music playing, Ravel’s Bolero, you note, not exactly my kind of pump up music. Whoever’s in there is probably snoozing off on one of those lame bicycle machines.
But instead of finding a snooty quirk rider, you see Glasses benching for his goddamn life. A quick glance at the weights tells you it’s around 250 lbs. Tsk. That was more than you could bench on a good day. You look on enviously -- today was leg day -- knowing you couldn’t show up Glasses without sacrificing the integrity of your meticulous workout schedule.
He notices you walk into the room, and you wince at the loud clang of the bar against the safety.
“Forgive me, my music is probably a bit too loud!” He shoots up straight from his bench aligning the bar back onto its rest and frantically reaches into his bag to turn down what you figure are his speakers.
You snort to yourself. “If anything, this music isn’t loud enough.”
He shouts back at you, most likely forgetting he doesn’t need to speak over his music anymore, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite catch that!”
“I was just saying, Rach would be better for working out.”
He seems to contemplate this for a moment. Then shakes his head, like he’s suddenly figured out he’s a dopey dingus for striking a conversation with you in the first place. “Yes, of course, Bakugou. I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”
You jerk your chin in response, and head off in the direction of the leg machines.
******
You almost get through the rest of your work out without further incident. Until Iida feels the need to initiate conversation. Again.
“Bakugou!”
You grunt your acknowledgement hoping he has the sense to leave you be while you pump this leg press machine.
"So, how are you? I see you’re working on your quads and hamstrings! Legs are the root of a strong hero, so that’s most advisable.”
Clearly not.
You can see his dorky neon spandex two set from your periphery. A slight sheen, from the sweat of his work out. He’s turned fully towards you clearly expecting a response. You finally give him a once over, hoping it’s intimidating enough to let him know he’s unwelcome at the moment, and wait to respond only after you’ve finished the last few reps.
“Never been better. I’m taking it light today. It’s the weekend after all.”
He nods. Probably missing your little jab and underestimation of leg day.
“Understandable. I’m taking it easy as well, considering the Debris Removal Exercise scheduled for Monday on Cementoss’s syllabus.”
You cough, remembering the weights he was lifting earlier, their sizes and their corresponding pounds flitting across your mind. Your hero training, quick calculation, and observational skills not letting you ignore its whopping sum total. Apparently he takes your hacking as a sign to end the conversation and awkwardly clears his throat.
“Well, I didn’t want to go without greeting you. I have a couple things to take care of, and then I’ll be off. Don’t forget to turn off the lights and lock the doors!”
You turn to see him wipe down the weights he got sweat all over and gather his belongings. You snort finding it odd that he had the consideration to do that, but not the awareness to say his goodbyes when he was actually leaving, instead of while you both were awkwardly stewing in each other’s presence.
He walks off towards the locker rooms humming the motif from Ravel’s Bolero, while you watch silently from your corner. You’re gonna add on those extra glute sets after all.