Chapter Text
Katsuki Bakugō stared up at the ceiling in boredom as the sliding door clattered open and announced the entrance of the homeroom teacher. Despite his feet being crossed on his desk and his blatant disregard, the teacher said nothing to the explosive blonde and addressed the class.
"Now, I’m sure you’ll find this pretty unusual, especially so late in the term, but you’ve got a new classmate joining you today."
Interest slightly piqued, Katsuki tilted his head so that he was looking forward.
"Come in," the teacher said, eyes on someone beyond the door.
A boy with black, spiked hair entered the room. He was tall, lean and slightly feminine with his pale, delicately chiselled face and long lashes. His emerald gaze scanned the classroom, inscrutable.
"Introduce yourself," the teacher prompted.
"My name is Megumi Fushiguro," the boy — dubbed Sea Urchin — said and, bowing politely, "Nice you meet you."
"Take a seat," the teacher instructed, gesturing to the desk to the left of Katsuki and next to the window.
Sea Urchin approached his seat, placed his bag on the hook and sat down.
An extra, Katsuki concluded and, curiosity gone, returned to staring blankly as the teacher droned on.
***
Sea Urchin was approached by the vice president the moment the bell rang for lunch break but no one else.
Unsurprising, despite all the curious glancing because the extra was sitting right next to Katsuki, and most knew better than to swarm and cause a ruckus around the explosive blond.
"Bakugō," Undercut said, gaining his attention. Jabbing a thumb at Fingers waiting near the doorway, he informed, "We’re gonna drop by the cafeteria to get some food and come back."
"Whatever," Bakugō replied indifferently, already digging into his lunch.
Undercut waved lazily and left.
Katsuki ate, not minding anyone until the topic of quirks was raised between the pair beside him.
"So what’s your quirk, Fushiguro?"
"I don’t have one," Sea Urchin answered.
The other froze.
"What?"
"I don’t have a quirk," Sea Urchin enunciated, his voice louder.
Conversations ceased. The crackle of paper crinkling disturbed the silence, and Katsuki was sure that had been shitty nerd.
"So we’ve got another quirkless loser," Katsuki sneered, voice dripping with mocking contempt.
Sea Urchin looked at him, his expression placid, but Katsuki saw the mild dislike in his eyes. "You seem to have a problem," he noted blandly.
"Katsuki Bakugō," he introduced himself proudly. "You better remember that because I will become the number one hero!"
Sea Urchin’s mouth curled, and he looked at Katsuki doubtfully. "A hero? You?"
The extra next to him had the sense to pale and hastily back away.
Katsuki shot up onto his feet, his chair colliding loudly with the desk behind him. He grabbed the collar of Sea Urchin’s uniform and forced him into standing. "What the fuck did you say, you quirkless freak?!"
Sea Urchin clutched his wrist tightly and pulled his hand away. His face was blank and shuttered, and Katsuki utterly loathed the look as he stared squarely at him like he was nothing.
Gritting his teeth, Katsuki let his hand spark.
No acknowledgement.
No fear.
That gaze did not shift and continued boring steadily into his.
After what seemed like an eternity, Sea Urchin spoke, "I bet with a quirk like that, becoming a Pro Hero will be easy." Katsuki puffed up with smug triumph. "But becoming a true hero?" His grin froze. "From what I have seen, you’re not the type to be interested in saving others. Fame and victory — I bet that’s what you’re in it for. That doesn’t make anyone a hero."
Katsuki curled his hand into a fist. His head was buzzing and heady with fury — but he was unwilling to act on his frustration.
Smoked seeped out and filled the air, his quirk having detonated unconsciously and subsequently stifled.
Sea Urchin, seeing his unresponsiveness, dropped his hand and turned away. After ruffling through his bag and grabbing a wallet, he exited the room.
***
The rest of the day passed by in an incandescent, fiery haze. Katsuki felt like he was burning alive with all the emotion burbling, hissing, building underneath his skin. He needed out, but no way was he missing class or ruining his perfect attendance. He wanted a clean, sparkling record and to make it real fucking clear to anyone looking that he was a bright, blinding star among the filament.
When his classes ended, Katsuki threw his stuff into his bag and hightailed out of the room. Everyone steered clear from him, thank fuck, including Fingers and Undercut.
"Kacchan!" He heard the shitty need yell as the other rushed to catch up to him.
Well, almost everyone.
"Fuck off, Deku," Katsuki spat, walking faster. He was hellbent on going somewhere, anywhere, preferably alone and far from anyone liable to get worried and call the authorities when he blew up a boulder or two.
An extra pair of feet continued to shuffle behind him.
Shitty pest, Katsuki thought unkindly. What the hell do I have to do to lose him? His short temperament was an infinitesimal breadth away from snapping, and Katsuki knew the aftermath would not be pretty. The nerd intimately knew the aftermath was not pretty, but still, he remained sticking to Katsuki like glue.
"Kacchan!" He shouted again, proving the point.
Katsuki felt a hand land on his shoulder, and fed up, the explosive blond whirled around, knocking Deku’s offending arm away. "What the fuck do you want?" Katsuki hissed, glaring venomously at the other.
Everything the nerd had to say seemed to evaporate under his baleful glare, and his previously pitying face grimaced and blanched, probably realising that approaching him was a phenomenal mistake.
Too late — Katsuki was onto him like a shark smelling blood.
"Here to make me feel better, shitty nerd?" He grabbed Deku by the shoulder and let his quirk singe his uniform. "Well, fuck you and that quirkless nobody! I don’t give a shit about what either of you think. I’m gonna become a hero regardless and surpass All Might!"
Deku’s eyes widened with trepidation — and was that fucking relief?
Katsuki was broken out of his affronted bewilderment by another hand grabbing his arm.
"Bakugō," he heard Sea Urchin say. "Let him go."
Katsuki’s thin patience broke, resentment and malice boiling over, and he threw a punch straight for that aggravatingly collected face.
Sea Urchin dodged, and Katsuki’s breath was knocked out of his lungs by a hard kick to his solar plexus. Katsuki stumbled but righted himself in the next second and detonated an explosion at the other.
The impact thundered, powerful and blinding. The displaced air sent shitty nerd toppling onto his ass, but Sea Urchin was not fazed.
He ducked outside the range of his explosion, and then he was rushing back in, faster than before, his shape blurring out into a whirl of colour. He disappeared suddenly, and in the next second, the back of Katsuki’s neck burst with pain, telling him that the bastard managed to somehow get behind him in that small window of time.
The world shook.
Katsuki lost balance, tipping over.
Sea Urchin fell with him, twisting his arms behind him so that both palms were pressed firmly against his back. Katsuki grunted, struggling, but Sea Urchin’s hold was airtight. He was stronger than he appeared.
"Fuck you," Katsuki gritted out, frustrated and humiliated but not backing down.
Grasping at nothing, he accused, "You have a quirk, don’t you?"
The conclusion was more out of disbelief that a quirkless nobody managed to get one over him than out of any solid, logical deduction.
"I told you I don’t have a quirk," Sea Urchin said, and because he was apparently a little shit that liked rubbing salt into a wound, "And even if I had one, I wouldn’t need it to beat you."
Katsuki clenched his jaw and used all of his willpower to stop his quirk from going off. He continued squirming, searching in vain for a leverage he could exploit.
Sea Urchin apparently had the patience of a saint and waited for Katsuki to exhaust himself. His fight ultimately died out, and he slumped. "Get the hell off of me, Sea Urchin," he grumbled lowly.
"I have a name, you know." There was a frown in his tone, but Sea Urchin released him nonetheless.
Katsuki twisted himself into a sitting position and stared morosely at the ground. In his peripheral vision, he noticed as Sea Urchin helped shitty nerd up.
"Are you okay?" Sea Urchin asked.
"Yes!" Deku practically squeaked in reply.
Katsuki glowered as an emotion, hot and constricting, smothered his chest. He stood up and stomped off, filled with the visceral urge to get out.
I am not running away, he tried to convince himself.
Hours later, when the sun was nothing more than an orange-pink smear in the sky, and the forest clearing around him appeared chryselephantine under the dwindling light, after using his quirk until his hands blistered and bleed and his body ached and trembled with the strain to move; with the bitter taste of ash and bile on his tongue, Katsuki finally accepted what had occurred.
At age fourteen, Katsuki Bakugō experienced his first loss.