Chapter Text
Bakugou was late this morning.
It’s weird. He’s an early riser, one of the earliest in their class.
By the time Eijirou rolls in, he’d usually be midway through his reps at the squat rack. Eijirou would grin at him and wave. Bakugou would scowl back before glaring at his form in the mirror. Then they’d work through their routines. They’d spot each other. Every so often, Eijirou would catch Bakugou watching him push through the last reps of a particularly hard set.
Bakugou doesn’t like talking during his rests. He’d stare at the clock. He’d vibrate impatiently. He’d put up with Eijirou talking about how manly and cool Asui was in the last training sim, but he wouldn’t respond with much more than grunts.
Eijirou’s worked out with friendlier guys, but no one who drives through like Bakugou does. The dude’s intense. When he’s pushing his 1RMs, he’d roar so loud Jirou says she hears him from across campus. Even when he’s just working on mobility for his light days, he’d manage to make it seem like a life or death fight.
He’s just not the type of guy who skips out. Not for anything.
So Eijirou kinda figured that Bakugou was dying in a hospital somewhere when he wasn’t in the gym by 6:30 AM. He’s a little bit right. Bakugou finally stomps in barely forty-five minutes before class starts, looking beat to all hell. When Eijirou first sees him, he actually double-takes at the sight. Sure, they’ve all taken a good thrashing. Eijirou’s watched Midoriya pulverize what seems like every bone in his body half a dozen times over.
But that kind of stuff just doesn’t happen to Bakugou. Eijirou’s never really seen him truly hurt. Even when the guy does take hits, they’re minor enough that Recovery Girl would have him completely patched up before the day’s even out. So it’s truly something to see Bakugou’s face swollen with bruises. They’re just old enough that they’ve had time to darken to a nasty blue-red.
“What the—”
“I don’t wanna hear shit,” Bakugou snarls.
Eijirou leaves him to it. This would be one of those days where Bakugou comes in touchy as hell and spends the entire workout slamming weights until someone kicks him out for being too rough with the equipment.
There’s a bandage from the infirmary slapped over a cut on his lip, but Recovery Girl hadn’t done anything about the bruises. He seems absolutely wired, like he didn’t sleep at all last night and he’s just running off adrenaline now.
Eijirou sticks to the kettlebell rack and watches Bakugou go straight to his bench presses, skipping his warm-up. That’s usually not really a big deal. Bakugou came late enough that he’s gotta cut stuff out of his routine if he’s going to finish before class. But—well, Eijirou just makes sure to keep an eye on him.
He starts looking wobbly by the end of his third set. He clearly started too heavy, and he’s refusing to drop the reps or the weight. Too gassed but too stubborn to back down.
Eijirou puts his kettlebell down and starts pacing over from behind, out of Bakugou’s peripheral vision. He stands behind Bakugou and watches him start into his last set. He’s so out of it he doesn’t even notice Eijirou’s there. And he’s cutting his rests way too short.
Bakugou manages to make it through most of his reps before his arms start to buckle. There’s a flash of panic in Bakugou’s eyes. Eijirou already has his hands sliding under the bar. He stops the bar’s downward momentum, then he helps Bakugou rack it.
Bakugou pushes upright, looking the most pissed he’s ever been. For a while, he just sits on the bench, clenching his hands into fists, loosening them, then clenching again. He looks up at Eijirou, and there’s a wild moment where Eijirou thinks Bakugou’s about to punch him for stopping the bar from caving his chest in. Then Bakugou looks away and knocks his knuckles into Eijirou’s shoulder.
Eijirou goes back to his rack. Bakugou moves through the rest of his routine, but drops the weights lower than his usual.
Eijirou finds out what happened barely an hour later when he gets to the dorms after his shower and finds Bakugou and Midoriya vacuuming the common area.
Midoriya’s cheek is bandaged, and his left eye’s swollen.
They’d gotten into a fight.
In hindsight, it was kinda inevitable. Ever since Bakugou failed the provisional licensing exam, he’s been going around like he’s got something ugly locked in his chest. It’d been pent up inside him for days, and it was bound to come out one way or another. Eijirou hadn’t seen it coming though.
It’s Saturday morning.
Bakugou’s lying on the floor of Eijirou’s room barking at him to concentrate as he rolls a massage ball under his shoulder. It’s not that Eijirou can’t study, but UA’s on a whole other level of difficulty. He’d never failed an exam before he flunked the semester final. After summer break, Bakugou started barging into his dorm room, growling that if Eijirou had studied properly from the start of the year, he would’ve actually passed.
Still, trigonometry doesn’t make sense to him. He can’t visualize any of it. The numbers just float around his head.
Eijirou pushes back from his desk and flops onto the floor next to Bakugou.
“Hey,” Bakugou snaps.
Eijirou snorts.
Bakugou tosses the massage ball into the air. Eijirou watches it arc up, then catches it as it falls down.
“Let’s go to the bunker,” he says.
He doesn’t have to look over to know that Bakugou is scowling. “Don’t fucking slack.”
“I think better when I’m warmed up. We’ll hit the bunker, then study after.”
Eijirou turns his head to Bakugou. Sure enough, he’s frowning up at the ceiling. The bruises on his cheek have started to yellow at the edges.
“Fine,” Bakugou says eventually.
Eijirou grins and jumps to his feet. Bakugou grumbles something under his breath, then follows Eijirou as he strides out the dorm and into the sun. The air’s still a little cool, but he can already tell that it’s shaping up to be a hot day. Ojiro is running laps around the track, his tail swishing steadily behind him. Uraraka trails after him. Her breath puffs in and out, and her brow is furrowed with concentration.
Eijirou cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “You can do it!”
Uraraka pumps her fist in the air and picks up some speed.
He grins and turns to catch up with Bakugou, who’d paced ahead of him.
“How’s your cardio?” Bakugou says.
Eijirou shrugs. “Okay, I guess. I haven’t really focused on it because I’m more—” he pushes his hands together, thinking of locking down, keeping tight, his entire body crystallizing.
Bakugou grunts.
Kaminari and Sero are kicking a ball around in the field. Ashido’s sitting in the grass nearby, pulling cleats on.
It’s a really nice day.
They make it to the bunker. The building used to be a civilian bomb shelter in some past war. The administration renovated it into a nearly indestructible Quirk training facility. It’s one of the only buildings on campus that can withstand even All Might at full strength.
The entire building is empty as it usually is on weekends. It’s warm inside because the AC doesn’t get turned on outside business hours. Even with UA’s army of cleaning staff, everything smells a little bit like old sweat.
Bakugou starts jogging around the perimeter of the main training room. Eijirou finds a mat and works on his core. They reconvene after they’re done warming up. Bakugou’s worked himself into a good sweat. Eijirou takes off his shirt and dials up the tension in his body until he feels it go rigid.
The first explosion rings like a gunshot. Eijirou feels it rock into him. The vibrations rattle his teeth. Bakugou detonates his palm into Eijirou’s chest several more times before he adjusts to the jarring sensation. He swings out. Bakugou ducks under his arm and sets off another explosion into his exposed side, trying to knock him off balance. Eijirou keeps his feet, tries and fails to land another punch.
He’s slow when his Quirk’s active. He’s heavier. The calcified ridges on his skin scrape against each other every time he moves. Even his tendons become stiff and inflexible. Moving nimbly is hard with so much inertia, but when he does land a hit, it lands harder.
Bakugou skids back a couple meters, shaking his head roughly. Eijirou hadn’t fully followed through on the punch before Bakugou propelled himself away, lessening the impact. But it had landed. Bakugou has to take a breath to recover before he jumps back in.
They keep at it for a while. Bakugou propels himself up and around and behind Eijirou. He uses his momentum and his explosions to drive more force behind his hits. Each detonation is small. The point of the exercise isn’t winning the spar. It’s about endurance. Bakugou has to maintain a consistent level of exertion that allows him to sweat freely to sustain his attacks and mobility. But he can’t push himself too hard or else he’ll tire too quickly and leave himself vulnerable in a fight. If he exhausts himself before Eijirou has to drop his Quirk, Eijirou wins. If Eijirou’s Quirk gives way first, Bakugou wins. Either way, they build up how long they can last in a given fight.
Bakugou’s foot slams into Eijirou’s thigh, and he feels his armored skin creak before giving way. The sudden loss of tension throws him off balance. His leg folds, and Eijirou collapses to the ground.
Bakugou stands over him, chest heaving, a triumphant grin on his face. “Hah,” he says. “Fuck.” Then he drops to the ground next to Eijirou. “You’re so goddamn hard to deal with.”
The first time they’d sparred like this, Bakugou ended up covered in bruises. Motherfucker, he’d said. It’s like punching a brick wall.
They spend a while catching their breath. The room is oppressively muggy now with the day’s heat outside.
Eijirou secretly thinks this might be his favorite place on campus. All the fancy training facilities and specialized equipment, they’re pretty cool, sure. But the bunker reminds him the most of the small training gym back home. It’d been tucked above a restaurant, and at odd intervals, the vents would spit out a blast of humid air that smelled like yakiniku. They put his picture on the wall when he got into UA.
“I was thinking,” Eijirou says, “that I could keep my Quirk up longer in a fight if I focus on hardening only the part where I’ll get hit.”
His stamina’s not very good. He’s not very fast so he can’t dodge most hits. And he knows he wears out a lot quicker the longer he has his Quirk up, and the more parts of his body he hardens.
Bakugou sits up and kicks his feet out in front of him. “You ever get punched without your Quirk up?”
“No, my body hardens automatically when I see it coming.”
He should probably work on that, actually. Have more control about when and where he gets hard.
“So you’ve never actually taken a hit.”
Eijirou laughs. “Guess not. I’d probably cry or something.”
They head back to the dorms to hit the showers. Kaminari, Sero, and Ashido had recruited Iida to their pick-up game. They also seemed to have broken into the athletic equipment shed to pull some small goals out. One of the goals was now hanging from a nearby tree. Apparently, Iida had kicked the ball into it so hard it went flying. Sero is hanging upside down from one of the branches trying and failing to detangle the net from the tree.
Eijirou waves at him. Sero cheerfully flips him off.
After they’ve washed up, Eijirou goes into the communal kitchen to beg Bakugou to share his food. When he was at home, Eijirou kinda just lived off of pre workout, Clif bars, and whatever his mom cooked that day. He hadn’t thought much of it until they all found out in summer training camp that Bakugou talks about macros in his sleep. Then they found out in the dorms that on Sundays, Bakugou turns into a maniac who meal preps everything he eats for the next week. All his food lives in neat little Tupperware containers in the freezer labeled with, “MONDAY: EAT THIS AND DIE.”
So of course, Eijirou leans onto the counter next to Bakugou and says pleading words and makes his face look heartbroken over the idea of having nothing but a protein shake for lunch. Which he is actually heartbroken about. Mostly.
“You fucking liar, you love that shit. You think it tastes like ice cream.”
Actually, it tastes like cookies and cream. He mixes it with his oatmeal to add flavoring. But that’s besides the point.
“Okay, but do you want all my daily nutritional intake to be oreo protein shakes?” Eijirou says. “Because I can do that. I can just live off of—”
Bakugou glares at him before whipping around and slamming the freezer open. He rustles around inside before throwing something at Eijirou’s head. It clunks off his hardened skull before he fumbles to catch it.
It’s a Tupperware container. The label on it says, “KIRISHIMA.”
“Bakugou,” Eijirou says, feeling a swell of manly friendship in his chest.
Bakugou is looking at his forehead. “Huh, so it does harden reflexively.”
Eijirou puts the food in the microwave. Bakugou goes back to chewing on his grilled fish before saying, “Don’t expect this again. You can’t just mooch off someone else’s nutrition plan. You gotta figure out what shit works for you yourself.”
“I will, I will,” Eijirou says, then plucks a piece of braised daikon from Bakugou’s bowl.
Bakugou glowers at him. “I’m going to kill you.”
Eijirou absolutely doesn’t hear any of Bakugou’s threats on his life because his food tastes good. It’s salty and leaves a slightly sweet aftertaste in his mouth. Bakugou used dashi stock. He doesn’t even know how Bakugou got his hands on dashi. Unless he robbed the cafeteria.
He looks at Bakugou. “Dude.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was gonna say.”
Bakugou pulls his bowl close to his chest and scowls at Eijirou. “Fuck no.”
The microwave beeps. Eijirou takes his food out. It’s so hot that his fingers and palm harden when he picks up the container. He looks down at the steaming — holy shit, Bakugou made oden. He loves oden.
“I love oden,” Eijirou says and looks at Bakugou again.
“No.”
Eijirou put the oden in the microwave for too long. It’s so hot that if he tries to eat it, his mouth will calcify to protect him from getting burnt. Which includes his tongue. So he wouldn’t even be able to taste it. Eijirou stares sadly down at his Tupperware container. He’s hungry, and the oden looks delicious.
Then again, they were just talking about how Eijirou could specifically control what parts of his body hardens. And that means he should work on controlling when it doesn’t. It’s training. Eijirou thinks very hard about hardening his toes and only his toes, scoops up a fishcake, and shoves it in his mouth.
It tastes amazing.
“Ach,” Eijirou says when his brain catches up to the fact that his mouth is on fire. He opens his mouth and puffs air in and out, trying to cool off. It doesn’t help much. Eventually, he just gives up and swallows, and feels the fishcake move like a hot coal down his throat. “Agh.”
Bakugou is staring at him with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. “What the fuck.”
The roof of his mouth aches. It’s crazy. He’s never burnt his tongue before.
“You’re a goddamn menace.”
Eijirou tips over until his face is pressed against the nice cool countertop, willing it to radiate soothing cold through his cheek and into his mouth. He looks up at Bakugou.
Bakugou scowls back.
“You’re such a good cook,” Eijirou tells him.
“Oh my fucking god, fine.”
The next day, Bakugou helps Eijirou meal prep for himself.
As in, Bakugou yells at Eijirou for nearly hacking off his own finger while chopping vegetables. It’s such a dumb thing to get mad about. Obviously, that’s why Eijirou hardened his fingers before he picked up the knife.
“Dumbass, you’re supposed to—” Bakugou snatches the knife from Eijirou and mimes a rocking cutting motion. His other hand comes up, his fingers curled in, so only his knuckles are exposed.
He hands the knife back to Eijirou.
“Okay, but—” Eijirou picks up the knife and thunks the edge against his palm. It makes a sort of ringing sound.
For a moment, Bakugou looks like he wants to smash his own head into the wall. Then it passes. He pinches his brow. “What the hell, sure.”
Aside from that though, Bakugou teaching Eijirou how to meal prep is mostly Bakugou doing the meal prepping but double the volume. He mostly seems to prep one big batch of some soup or stew sort of thing, and then one big batch of a fish or chicken protein, whatever vegetables, and a starch. Then he just switches between eating the two throughout the week.
He’s very focused about it. Eijirou watches Bakugou heft a potato in his hand with a scowl on his face. He has a sneaking suspicion that back home, Bakugou weighs all his food with a kitchen scale. He probably uses a calculator too. The guy’s intense about his macros.
They cook a big batch of curry because according to Bakugou, it’s so easy, even a complete moron could make it. And Eijirou’s not a complete moron or anything, but he does find it pretty straightforward. It’s just water and store-bought curry blocks. Then they add vegetables, potatoes, and beef. Bakugou stares at the simmering pot for a long time before getting an apple from the fridge and grating it into the curry.
Bakugou glares when he notices Eijirou watching. “It’s for aroma or some shit,” he says, weirdly defensive.
When the curry’s done cooking, they get out their Tupperware and start dividing everything up. It’s kinda funny watching Bakugou do it. He counts the number of spoonfuls of curry that go into each container. He counts every potato and carrot and bit of meat. By the time he’s done, he has a row of perfectly uniform meals.
Eijirou divides up his own curry. He doesn’t really pay attention to how much he’s putting, but he does end up taking more of the potatoes and carrots and vegetables. Sometimes he runs out of gas by the end of the day if he doesn’t get his carbs. He snacks a lot. He’d smuggled some jars of peanut butter into the dorms. Plus all his protein shakes. And his secret stash of honey-roasted almonds. But he doesn’t really get carbs outside actual meals, so he guesses he should make sure he loads up.
When he looks up, Bakugou is watching him with his arms crossed and his eyebrows raised.
“What?”
“That’s a helluva lot of potatoes.”
“I like potatoes,” Eijirou says with a shrug.
“You don’t want more protein?”
“I dunno?”
Bakugou makes an odd exasperated noise in the back of his throat. “You really—” he doesn’t finish his sentence.
Eijirou furrows his brow. “Should I be getting more protein?”
Bakugou scowls. “Probably not.” Then he turns around and dumps the empty pot into the sink.
Eijirou steps up to help with the washing up. Bakugou did most of the cooking, so it’s only fair that he do the dishes. He turns on the faucet and gets some dish soap in before he starts scrubbing.
Bakugou leans his side against the counter and watches him. “Hardening only the parts of you that get hit, it’s not a bad idea,” he says abruptly. Eijirou glances up at him. “It’s riskier. If you take a direct hit, even if the actual point of contact’s hardened, all that kinetic energy’s still going straight through you. A Strength Quirk’s gonna turn your organs to jelly.”
“I’d probably cry,” Eijirou says.
Bakugou grins wolfishly. “Like a little bitch.”
Eijirou rinses off the pot, then starts on their Tupperware containers. “So what should I do?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Eijirou frowns and looks down at the sink to scrub the pot.
When he glances up again, Bakugou’s bobbing a little on the balls of his feet. He’s not scowling or glaring or posturing like he usually does. He doesn’t even look a little bit annoyed. He just looks—kinda intense. And he’s staring at Eijirou. “Let’s spar,” he says.
“But it’s a rest day.” Eijirou kinda feels bad for saying no because he never really sees Bakugou excited outside, well, school-sanctioned bloodsport. But the request caught him off guard. Rest days are sacred in Bakugou’s world. He tore into Eijirou once for skipping one to do some extra chest work. The guy spent a solid twenty minutes yelling about cortisol levels and fibroblast repairs as he chased him out of the gym. “We should work on mobility,” Eijirou adds.
Bakugou’s brow furrows. “It can be a light spar.”
Eijirou dries his hands. “Okay.”
Bakugou nods. Then he scowls harder and crosses his arms over his chest. After a few seconds, he throws up his hands. “Fucking fine, we’ll do some fucking yoga.”
They do some fucking yoga.
They don’t end up sparring until their Quirk training session that Tuesday.
Whatever it is that got Bakugou all eager on Sunday apparently made him decide to be incredibly annoying. Because he refuses to throw a single freaking punch.
He just stands there and stares at Eijirou with a challenging, mocking smirk on his face. And does absolutely nothing. Aizawa even walks by them and grouses at them to stop slacking. Bakugou still doesn’t do anything.
Eventually, Eijirou has to make the first move. Which Bakugou neatly side-steps.
Eijirou sweeps his leg at Bakugou’s only for the guy to spring back.
That’s pretty much how the spar goes. Eijirou trying to land hits, failing, and Bakugou never even trying to move against him. It’s not that Eijirou doesn’t know how to go on the offense, but his Quirk’s not really built for it. He usually lets the other guy set the pace before wearing them down. Especially when it comes to sparring with Bakugou who does have an offensive Quirk.
Fighting a Bakugou who isn’t just going full-tilt at him screeching “Die!” makes it pretty damn clear that Eijirou really is slow. He grits his teeth. He tries to come in low. He swings wide. He gets up into Bakugou’s space. He uses his longer reach. None of it works. Bakugou just twists and steps and dodges. It’s embarrassing. Eijirou doesn’t even want to look around to check if their classmates are watching him make a fool of himself.
After who knows how long, Eijirou pauses, his chest heaving. He stares at Bakugou, and the guy just looks back at him with his teeth bared. He wants to scream at him. He wants him to stop screwing around. He wants to land one good hit. His hands clench. He lunges forward.
Bakugou dodges again, but instead of backing off like he has been, he drives his fist up at Eijirou’s solar plexus. Eijirou feels himself brace for the impact, his body hardening. The hit lands, but he barely feels it. Bakugou hadn’t used his Quirk to make it hurt.
There’s a moment where it almost looks like Bakugou’s off balance. His weight’s shifted a little too forward. His center of gravity’s off. If Eijirou got a good punch in, he could probably knock Bakugou down. But his joints are stiff. Before he can really do anything about it, Bakugou’s already recovered his balance. He looks steadily back at Eijirou.
Eijirou kicks out at him. Bakugou skips away from it, and in the same movement, swings back at him. Eijirou’s Quirk is already up, so he just takes the hit. Once again, Bakugou looks ever so slightly unsteady. Once again, Eijirou can’t take advantage of it.
He crosses his arms. He looks at Bakugou. He drops his Quirk. His body feels lighter and looser. He bounces on the balls of his feet.
He throws a punch. Bakugou pivots around it and counters.
Eijirou tries to twist away.
Bakugou’s fist slams into his face. The impact is a shock. It rattles all the way through him from his skull down to his stomach. Eijirou reels, stumbles, and lands flat on his backside.
The flurries of movement in Eijirou’s peripheral vision abruptly pause. Yaomomo is looking over with concern. His cheekbone throbs. His ears ring. His vision’s blurry. “Ow.”
Bakugou walks over and drops into a squat next to him. “You didn’t cry,” he says.
“Can’t take a hit though,” Eijirou mumbles.
Bakugou snorts. “Nope.” He holds out a hand and helps Eijirou clamber to his feet.
Aizawa’s on the other side of the training room talking to Mineta. He hadn’t noticed Eijirou absolutely eat shit.
Eijirou breathes through his nose. His head feels floaty. It takes a good couple of minutes before he can find his balance. He shakes his head.
Bakugou’s standing a few paces away from him, waiting.
Eijirou sinks into a ready position, then goes again. Attack. Dodge. This time, Eijirou gets his hardened forearm up in time to take Bakugou’s kick. He feels the impact. The rest of his body isn’t hardened. It’s too lax. If he takes it head on, he’s gonna get knocked on his ass again. He shifts his weight, pivoting his torso. Bakugou’s leg slides off his forearm and past him. Another moment where Bakugou’s balance is just a little shaky. Eijirou shoves his shoulder forward.
Bakugou lurches back. There’s a sharp crack as his palms detonate. He keeps his feet. Barely.
After a moment, he looks up and grins at Eijirou. “Damn.”
Before either of them can say anything else, Aizawa’s voice says, “Kirishima,” from off to the side. They turn. Aizawa’s looking at Bakugou, his mouth pulled into a firm, displeased line.
“Why don’t you go see Recovery Girl?” he continues, not looking away from Bakugou. Bakugou whose face is still mottled with the yellowing bruises from the fight last week. Bakugou who’s still on the dormitory cleaning detail. Because he decided he wanted to try beat the crap out of Midoriya unprovoked.
And Eijirou’s got a big fat bruise blooming just under his left eye.
It’s not that people don’t take hard hits in these Quirk sparring sessions, but it’s not often.
“Sensei,” Eijirou starts to say.
“Have Midoriya go with you,” Aizawa cuts in, his tone brooking no argument.
Eijirou looks at Bakugou. His expression is mulish, but he doesn’t say anything to defend himself. He just stares back at Aizawa, his entire body tensed, waiting for whatever’s gonna get dished out.
Eijirou tries again. “It’s really—”
“Kirishima,” Bakugou says.
Eijirou stops, then sighs and goes to find Midoriya.
The walk to Recovery Girl’s office is kinda awkward.
It shouldn’t be. Eijirou likes Midoriya. He’s nice. He’s smart. He has a really strong flashy Quirk, and he’s probably the person in their class who wants to be a Hero the most. They usually get along pretty well. Somehow, it’s still awkward.
At some point, Eijirou had pointed at his own face and said, “Hey, we’re matching.” All it’d really gotten out of Midoriya was a thin chuckle, and that was it. In hindsight, pointing out the bruises probably wasn’t the best way to break the ice.
The thing is, Midoriya doesn’t seem all that upset about the fight. Eijirou’s seen him look over at Bakugou a couple times since then, and he’s always just looked thoughtful. Intent.
He’s got that same look on his face now, actually.
Midoriya doesn’t really get to saying what he wants to say until after they finish with Recovery Girl. It’s weird getting fixed up by her. She smacks a big one on Eijirou’s forehead, and he feels an ache and a tightness, and then the bruise is gone. Not even a hint of yellowing where it used to be. Like weeks had passed.
Sometimes he doesn’t even want to go to her for things this small. Apparently, there’s only so many times a Healing Quirk can patch you up. Your body can only take so much. And Midoriya burned through most of his gas before he even turned sixteen. So sometimes Eijirou wants to say, Could you just save it for the really bad stuff?
“Can you help me train my legs?” Midoriya says.
Eijirou blinks. “Oh,” they’re already almost back at the training room. “Yeah, of course.” Then his brain catches up. “But y’know, I may not be the best guy to—” he swings out his leg a little. Midoriya’s friends with Iida after all. Even Sero would be a better choice. Midoriya’s been focusing on agility recently, and Eijirou’s never been fast.
Midoriya shrugs. “I’ve been doing some stuff Iida does.” Eijirou nods. He sees Midoriya out in the quad outside the dorms sometimes. He likes to train at night on his own. Ever since his arms got messed up, he’s been running a lot. Sprint drills. Kickboxing. “But I think I should be more targeted.”
“Oh, yeah, okay. That makes sense.”
They’re back inside the training room. Eijirou finds that he’s grinning a little. Deep down, he secretly believes that everyone should do at least a little bit of weight training, even if they don’t have a physical Quirk. Some of his middle school friends would tease him for being a muscle head because of that. But he still thinks this. It’ll be fun training with Midoriya. He works hard, and his Quirk’s cool. It’s like All Might’s.
Midoriya grins back, all big and broad. He even smiles like All Might sometimes. “Thanks, Kirishima.”
Eijirou cuffs him on the shoulder before heading over to where he sees Bakugou gesturing aggressively at Uraraka. “Hey, anytime, man. Always happy to help.”