Chapter Text
Tamura-sensei clapped his hands together and called for everyone’s attention. “Alright, we’ve got a new student joining us, so please give him a warm welcome.” He scanned the room, fixing Kurosawa with a withering stare, and Hitoshi bit his lip to keep from smiling. Satisfied his warning was heard, Sensei turned to the door and said, “Come in and introduce yourself.”
A blond kid with one hell of a glare stalked forward and made eye contact with anyone looking at him as he stood next to Sensei.
“I’m Bakugou Katsuki,” Stink Eye said, voice low and gravelly. “I like cooking.”
Huh? Hitoshi blinked and looked over at Tamura-sensei, who seemed pleasantly surprised.
“Welcome to our class, Bakugou,” Tamura-sensei said, smiling warmly. “Take the third seat from the front, please.”
There were five open seats, two of them were Kurosawa’s neighbors and the only open ‘third from the front’ was the one right in front of Kurosawa’s desk. Sitting in range of Kurosawa was just asking for trouble, and Tamura-sensei knew that, so why?
As if to prove a point, Kurosawa’s oil slick smile rested on the back of Stink Eye’s head as he sat down, and Hitoshi could practically feel the shiver that ran down the guy’s spine.
But Tamura-sensei was watching, so the bastard did nothing more than smile.
A week after their new addition walked in, the inevitable happened when the lunch bell rang, and their history teacher left for the staff room.
Kurosawa leaned forward, head practically resting on Stink Eye’s shoulder as the guy bent over to get something out of his bag, and started talking. Stink Eye stiffened and his hand convulsed, snapping in and out of a fist.
Hitoshi had seen it so many times, and it still made him feel nauseous. Their Quirks were somewhat similar, in that it required the voice—and maybe that was why he hated the guy so much—but Hitoshi couldn’t alter people’s brains with just his words. He could only control their bodies—
“Shut the fuck up.”
The snarl echoed in the room, everyone going stalk still. Slowly, they turned as one to look.
Stink Eye was standing, hands flexing like they suddenly itched and he was trying not to scratch at them. He had his back to Kurosawa, and his eyes were hidden, but Kurosawa looked positively mortified.
“Hey now,” the bastard started, swallowing hard and slipping back into that honey sweet tone, “that’s not nice—”
“I said,” Stink Eye snapped, “Shut. The Fuck. Up.” Eyes blazing, he turned a scathing glare on Kurosawa. “I may have promised Aizawa I wouldn’t blow your shitty face off, but he never said anything about punching you and if another word comes out of your fucking mouth, I’ll break your damn jaw.”
The guy could resist his Quirk. Hitoshi felt a cruel grin spreading on his face and he did nothing to stop it. Was that why Tamura-sensei had put him in that seat?
Taking in and expelling a deep breath, Stink Eye grabbed something out of his bag, marched up to Nakamura’s desk, and plopped down a bento box without so much as a word before returning to his seat and opening his own lunch.
Everyone watched as Nakamura tentatively opened the box and shot a glance over his shoulder at Stink Eye. Shrugging at Hitoshi’s questioning glance, Nakamura took a bite and chewed.
And then he stopped, curling up around the box, and his shoulders shook. It almost looked like he was crying. Hitoshi looked over at Stink Eye and found him thoroughly engrossed with his book and his own food (behind him, Kurosawa still looked like he’d been slapped, a sight which, he would no doubt treasure for years to come).
Curious and a little suspicious, he stood and went to check on Nakamura, who had been the only half-way decent person in this class as far as he was concerned.
“Oh, hey Shinso.” Nakamura said, scrubbing at his face with a sleeve. “Is, uh. . . is he watching?”
“No,” he assured him, glancing back in Stink Eye’s—Bakugou’s—direction. Most of the class was watching them, but that wasn’t important. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just. . . this is homemade. I—” He swiped another tear out of his eye. “I don’t know if I’ve ever, you know, had homemade food before.”
Hitoshi’s frown slipped away, and he looked at the box. It was simple enough, but it also wasn’t an effortless lunch, and it made him think back on that weird introduction. Okay, maybe this guy was pretty cool after all.
He grabbed his own lunch—bought from the convenience store on his way to class—and leaned against the nearest desk to shield Nakamura from everyone else’s eyes. He glanced at Bakugou occasionally and, eventually, went over to talk to him.
“He never brings food,” Bakugou told him the moment he opened his mouth.
Oh. “Well, yeah, his parents don’t really do the whole school lunch thing.”
He grimaced and shut his own now empty box. “What about you?”
Hitoshi blinked and huffed out a laugh. “I don’t need any help, thanks. Besides, what’s your story? I know you said you like to cook, but do you, like, live alone or something?”
Bakugou met his eyes. “No. I just make everyone’s lunches at home because I like it.”
“Huh. Cool. Well, he’s too shy to tell you himself, but he’s grateful.” He glanced around the room, thinking. “I know it doesn’t really look it anymore, but this is technically the ‘trouble class.’ Delinquents and other ‘disruptive’ kids are assigned here so Tamura-sensei and the others can straighten us out.” He settled his gaze on the guy’s face. “You’re a good student and, other than shutting the bastard down, you haven’t messed with anyone. How’d you end up here?”
Bakugou huffed and turned his head away, glaring out the window. Figuring that was the only answer he was getting, Hitoshi shrugged and turned to go back to his own seat.
“. . . still have a history.”
He blinked and looked back. Bakugou was staring down at one of his hands. “Huh?”
“Nothing, Eyebags. Buzz off.”
He snorted and shot back, “Sure thing, Stink Eye.”
He made it back to his seat just as their class started back up and the day continued. If any of their teachers noticed Kurosawa’s silence, they didn’t comment on it.
Bakugou stared at him and then at Nakamura. “You can’t be serious.”
Hitoshi grinned. “Oh, come off it, Stink Eye. We’ve been wanting to meet this ‘Aizawa’ you and Midoriya keep mentioning.”
“And we asked Midoriya yesterday, and he said it’d be fine,” Nakamura put in. “He even put a good word in for us already, so Aizawa knows we’re coming.”
Midoriya was in the other class, but he and Hashimoto hung out with their little group at lunch now that Bakugou had introduced them. It might be baffling arrangement, but Bakugou never seemed able to dissuade Midoriya from anything and Hitoshi was willing to use that to his advantage.
Unsurprisingly, Bakugou growled and said, “Fine, do what you want. Don’t blame me if you get dragged into anything.”
Nakamura smirked and high-fived Hitoshi behind Bakugou’s back as they left the campus. After about a block, Midoriya and Hashimoto both caught up with them, wearing matching grins that promised mischief.
Like a sixth sense, Bakugou just sighed without looking back at them and asked, “What are you two up to?”
“Remember our, uh, experiment plans?” Midoriya said, unusually cryptic. Bakugou whirled around, something almost like glee flickering across his face. “Hashi-chan wants to see if she can counter Mr. Yamada's Quirk.”
Hashimoto tapped him on the shoulder and motioned with her hands. Hitoshi caught a few signs, mostly referring to ears and sound, but he wasn’t fluent enough to understand her fully yet.
Midoriya signed back, echoing his words aloud for their benefit: “We won’t do it today. First, I want to see if he can hear you or not, then we can try the actual experiment. Though, we wouldn’t do it at the apartment anyway, since we have the neighbors to think about, so we’ll have to convince him to go with us to an uninhabited area.”
“His Quirk is that strong?” Nakamura asked, brows furrowed.
“He’s the real deal,” Bakugou confirmed, smiling somewhat maniacally. “Even if she can’t counter him, I’ve been wanting to see just how loud he can be. I’ll have to collect some bugs, to get us the best result.”
Nakamura paled and glanced at Midoriya for confirmation.
“We won’t pit her against that level,” Midoriya assured him, apparently misreading his horror. “Just some controlled stuff for the cancellation. But after that, we can do the bugs.”
Bakugou laughed. “Excellent.”
“I. . . won’t be coming to the experiments then.”
The others all turned to Nakamura and Hitoshi pat him on the back sympathetically. “He doesn’t like bugs either,” he explained, before spotting the glint in Bakugou’s eyes at that revelation. “That is not an invitation, Stink Eye.”
Midoriya snorted. “Don’t worry, he won’t. He’s still on probation.”
“Oh?” Bakugou’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Like you’ve got any room to talk about probation, nerd.”
Midoriya waved him off with a huff. “My probation’s about doing stupid stuff with no regard for my safety. It’s different.”
“But way more troublesome for Aizawa to train you out of, apparently.”
Hitoshi looked between them, as they continued to sort-of-argue. It was stuff like this, banter that bordered on insults, that made him wonder. Midoriya wasn’t like this with anyone else, and yet he didn’t act like Bakugou had special privileges.
It was almost like they had a wall between them that they were trying to break down via poking each other’s buttons.
By the time they’d made it onto the train, they were both laughing and switched to watching Hashimoto rant about the pests ravaging her garden (Bakugou translated for Hitoshi and Nakamura). It felt so normal, so comfortable, Hitoshi found himself wishing he could drag the four of them with him to high school. Whether or not he got into UA, if he could keep this weird group, he could survive any shit other people gave him.
“You know,” Nakamura put in once Hashimoto was done, “I don’t think I ever asked what your Quirk is, Bakugou. You never mentioned it, and I guess I always assumed it had something to do with immunity to Kurosawa’s bullshit.” He looked at Midoriya. “But you just said it was a physical type, so what does it actually do?”
Bakugou held his hand palm up and said, “I sweat nitroglycerine and I can ignite it to create explosions in my hands.” He demonstrated with a small pop of light and caramel-scented smoke before shoving his hands back into his pockets.
Hitoshi stared at him. “You mentioned not blowing the bastard’s face off that day. Now I’m kind of disappointed you didn’t.”
“Promised Aizawa.”
“Yeah, I remember, but he still would have deserved it. Bastard almost talked a kid into suicide last year, and I had to use my Quirk on her to keep her from jumping.” That day, he’d gotten lucky. Kurosawa had walked away to keep from being implicated, so Hitoshi had been able to get an answer out of her without the bastard’s interference.
“He fucking what?” Bakugou snarled, his glare level rocketing up higher than Hitoshi had ever seen it go before and he half wished Kurosawa could’ve seen his face just then.
Midoriya’s eyes narrowed, and a notebook and pen materialized in his hands. “You’ve mentioned Kurosawa before. Tell me everything you know about his Quirk.”
The way she’d cried after he’d released her (once they’d reached the ground floor safely) and the genuine thanks she’d given him before transferring out of the school entirely would stay with him for the rest of his life. As would his deep seated hatred for Kurosawa.
So he told them.
He filled them all in on everything he’d noticed about the bastard’s Quirk and even Bakugou’s rage dissipated enough for him to put in his experience with Hitoshi’s explanation. Midoriya asked pointed questions, slowly paring down to the weaknesses and possible counters. It was practiced and fluid and utterly terrifying to watch.
Fortunately, the train stopped at their station soon enough, so they got off and wrapped up the brainstorming session.
As they stepped off, Midoriya smiled at him—brilliant as a sunrise, like he hadn’t been downright murderous three seconds ago—and said, “You’d be an awesome pro, you know.”
He had to duck his head to hide the way he flushed. “How do you figure?” he muttered.
He wasn’t looking, but he could hear the suppressed laugh in Midoriya’s voice. “Well, just based on what you said before, you could have walked away, but you didn’t. You might not have noticed, but you did. Aizawa told us once that that’s the foundation of hero work: poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Midoriya chuckled to himself with something that sounded like nostalgia. “You’re already that girl’s hero, even if you don’t have a license yet.”