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Life happens in funny ways. You think you know yourself, how you’ll react in a given situation. Then one day, a man strolls into the room with an entire human arm (one you’re fairly sure he didn’t grow himself) slung across his shoulders, and you start to think that maybe, just maybe, you don’t know anything about anything.
But you’re getting ahead of yourself. It’s best to start from the beginning…
He’s wearing plain black tee, unwrinkled and too-tight around the arms. That, and a deep-set scowl that radiates down towards whatever textbook he’s got spread out in front of him.
It’s so perfectly unfair.
The universe seems to be dead-set on screwing you over. Maybe it‘s payback for the time you stole matches from the chem lab in undergrad (in your defense, it was 10 PM on a Monday and it was your last “hoorah” before you dropped). Maybe you shouldn’t have hogged the library scanner so often copying chapters out of textbooks you didn’t want to pay for, should’ve maybe been a little kinder in your end-of-course review for that one physics TA. Regardless, you don’t deserve your fate.
Not the exhaustion. Not the stress. Not the burden of ending up in the same year as a piece of trash like Bakugo.
Katsuki Bakugo. Second-year medical student in the top 10% of the class. Also a grade A jackass whose jackass-ery is only supported by the fact that he’s sitting in your spot.
Now, you knew assigned seats were a thing for middle schoolers, not 20-something year-olds training to learn to manage actual human lives. Still, when a person occupies the same place in the library for a year and a half, there’s a basic human decency that overrides the need for seating charts and nameplates. Maybe the great Katsuki just can’t grasp that concept. Surprising given the fact that he seems to be picking up on literally everything else with inhuman speed. Genetics. Cardio. Derm. Renal.
Even MSK. Fucking MSK. He was positively thriving in the very musculoskeletal hell that had you retreating to the library for 8+ hours every afternoon after lecture. Which only aggravates the acidic heat you feel brewing in your belly when you see him and Eijiro Kirishima living it up in your study carrel. Kirishima seems to have made himself comfortable standing, resting both of his (positively beefy) arms along the partition dividing to tables. He’s yammering up a storm: something something pen light something no way it’s enough time for a full history. Katsuki is at least seated in his (your) chair, but his eyes are glued to his phone rather than his friend. Or his textbook. Or the laptop open right in front of him.
There’s not a glimmer of productivity in sight. It’s been like this for the past 15 minutes. You know because you’ve been watching, waiting (semi-) patiently in hopes that they’d just pack up and carry on elsewhere. But no, they’re still there. Wasting their time and your space.
What little patience you had left dwindles to nothing in the span of seconds. You gather your things up in your arms and march across the library towards them.
Kirishima sees you first, greeting you with a megawatt grin and a chipper “how’s it goin’?” You hadn’t really interacted with him one-on-one aside from the occasional confused looks you shared during lectures or simulation sessions. All you really know about him is that he and Bakugo are practically joined at the hip, which, up to this point, has been enough to make you keep your distance. Still, Kirishima seems so genuinely kind (unlike his friend who still hasn’t so much as looked at you) that it makes it very hard to stay pissed at him. Which is fine. He isn’t the one in your chair.
I’m doing good. Now, respectfully, I ask that you and your friend vacate the area so I can study in my usual spot, please and thank you.
“You know how it is, same old, same old. School, sleep, repeat.” It’s better than what you want to say. You tug your bag further up your shoulder.
“Ain’t that the truth. At least we have a little bit of a breather, huh?”
“Huh?” Breather? The last “breather” you’d had was when the pulmonology professor coerced you into demonstrating proper technique with an inspiration spirometer. Somehow, you don’t think that’s what Kirishima is getting at.
“You know, in this class.” He clarifies. “It’s pretty easy compared to renal.”
You snort, “yeah, that’s a good one.”
Kirishima blinks.
“MSK…the musculoskeletal system. Being easy. That’s funny.”
Kirishima lets out an awkward sort of laugh, and an uncomfortable silence falls over the study area. The shrill ding of the elevator rings from the other side of the floor. Your classmate’s smile goes deliberately apologetic. You sigh.
“I’m guessing you’re not getting your ass kicked by this class.” You say, placing extra emphasis on the you’re bit. Kirishima scratches at the back of his neck.
As if things aren’t already bad enough, you feel them then. The extra set of eyes settling on you.
“He’s the president of the orthopedic surgery interest group. Bones and the meat attached to them are the only things he actually cares about.” When you fail to respond, he lets out a puff of air from his nose and it’s a wonder the desk doesn’t burst into flames right then and there. “Besides, he isn’t wrong. This class is a cakewalk.”
You stand there, seething. You’re being perfectly polite, keeping the daydreams of concussing him into Glasgow 3 with the underside of your boot securely in your skull.
“Well,” you say, slowly, “I guess everyone has their strengths.”
Bakugo doesn’t take the hint; he pushes.
“How is this harder than renal where things are microscopic?” He rises in one quick motion, resting a knee on the seat. As he leans forward, he lays an arm over the wooden back. He’s nowhere near as toned as Kirishima, but you can see the muscles shifting beneath his skin. Pronounced, like some real-life anatomical model. Triceps, biceps, coracobrachialis—you list them off silently because fuck him.
“Renal is pure physiology,” you say. “Everything has a when and why that you can logic through. MSK is just memorization.”
“Because there’s absolutely no memorization when it comes to nephrons.” His lips pull back into a mocking sort of sneer as he begins to count off on his fingers. “Sodium-hydrogen antiporters, sodium-chloride symporters, Sodium-potassium-chloride—”
“There’s a charge gradient driving that shi—” Not worth it, not worth it and you know it.
What would be the point of attending all those school-mandated mindfulness sessions where you sat in a dark classroom meditating (rather than taking the half-day to do literally anything else) if you let this conversation ruin your day? You had to refocus. Think about the sensation of breathing—in, then out. Your hands, the weight of them hanging at your sides. Your feet and the way they feel sitting within your shoes… aaaaaaand yup, there’s a crinkle in your sock. Now that’s all you’re only going to be able to think about until you can fix it. Thanks meditation.
“You know what, nevermind you guys.” You take a clearing breath. “Everyone has their forte, and I know mine is not muscle origins and insertions. Anyway, I just remembered I have a thing at a place, so I’m going to be heading out.”
And that’s exactly what you plan to do. You ignore the hushed muttering behind you as you trudge towards the elevator, because none of that is actually your problem anymore. You’re mindful and centered and—
And a hand latches onto your shoulder. You lurch forward as momentum does its thing, only spared from a faceplant into the however-many-decades-old carpet by the sheer strength of your assailant's grip. You spin, already expecting who you have to blame and planning out the venomous rant you’ll spit their way (library “quiet please!” sign be damned). But rather than meeting Bakugo’s gaze, it’s his palm that floats mere inches from your nose.
You open your mouth, but he’s quicker to speak than you are.
“I fall on an outstretched palm and fuck up my hand. Four days later I come to you and tell you it still hurts like hell—I can’t move it anymore. What tests do you order?”
There’s silence for a good long moment. Then your senses return to you in one quick rush.
“What the actual hell Katsuki?” A couple other library-goers flinch and shoot your sharp looks towards your outburst, but who even cares anymore?
“Answer the question.”
“No, because like what the actual hell? We already established I’m an idiot, so can you please just leave me alone?”
Bakugo’s grip on your shoulder tightens and you swat it off with a loud smack. His eyes widen as both you and he cast glances towards his hand, now floating off in dead space beside the pair of you. He purses his lips.
“Nobody called you an idiot.” He tries to be casual about lowering both of his hands to his sides, tucking them into his pockets.
“Maybe not using those exact words, they didn’t.” You say, soft but firm. “But the implication was clear.”
Then you stare. Bakugo does too, his eyes wider than usual, lips pulled back in a tight line. You’re no expert in reading people, but he’s also no expert in keeping the emotion from showing plainly in his expression. Surprise, which gives way to confusion, which gives way to something else.
“You’re not an idiot.” He finally says. Neither of you speak, letting the words hang in the space between you. Even as you’re both extremely aware of Kirishima is edging his way towards your spot by the elevators.
You let out a heavy sigh, folding your arms.
“X-Ray.” You say. Bakugo flinches, going so far as to take a full step backwards. Which is rich, given that with all the sucker punches you’ve imagined striking him with, a single word is enough to catch him off-guard. But even Kirishima freezes, mouth caught in shape somewhere between goofy grin and catching flies.
They both stand there, and you roll your eyes and say, “I’d order an x-ray first.”
Bakugo’s gaze narrows, and like that he’s back to his usual self. You swear you even see the corner of his mouth twitch upward. “Why an x-ray?”
“Why not?”
“You’re the doctor—what are you gonna say to your patient when they ask the same question?” He scratches at his head, mocking, all evidence of remorse wiped from his system. “Geeze, I dunno, ‘x-ray’ is 14 points in Scrabble so I guess I’ll order that.”
You should be angry, but something feels…different about the bickering this time. That and—
“How do you know how many points ‘x-ray’ is in scrabble?” You ask, half-mocking. Because while you’re sincerely wondering if Katsuki Bakugo spends his Saturday nights playing Scrabble, you also want him to squirm a bit.
“Why do you want an x-ray?” He repeats the question. There’s a dusting of red across his cheeks creeping towards his ears.
Nice, you think.
“Because an x-ray is the first thing you get when someone comes in after a hand injury.”
“Why’d the patient wait four days to come in though?” You open your mouth and he cuts in with “don’t say ‘because it didn’t stop hurting.’ This is a vignette, not real life.”
“But what’s even the point of all this if not to prepare for real life?”
“Will you just—” He clenches his teeth tight and takes a deep breath. “Think for a second. What’s on your differential?”
You chew at your lip. “Fracture.”
“But which bone?” You hesitate, your mistake, and he shakes his head. “Just think. This is a classic presentation. On every test you’ll ever take. What bone in the hand is supplied by a retrograde blood flow?”
And you don’t know. Shit, you’ll have to look that up when you get home. Still, you’ll swallow a jar of thumbtacks before you ever admit that to Bakugo. You shoot Kirishima, who’s standing over Bakugo’s shoulder now, an exasperated look. He starts to say something, but then he’s getting cut off.
“Don’t help, or they won’t learn.” Bakugo snaps. His red-hot gaze fixes between your eyes. “And you, don’t look at him. This is basic anatomy.”
Anger wells in your chest again. “Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was in lecture right now.”
You were furious at Bakugo, true. But…but also at yourself. You should know this. You’d had a lecture on the hand last week, which was practically a year ago in medical time. Your classmates were soaring through, already on nerve innervations while you struggled to learn the building blocks. School used to be fun, tests like a mini-competition you were guaranteed to win.
You’d never struggled like this before, had never had to grapple with the fact that even after days of forgoing sleep in favor of studying, you were still floundering. Something in your brain was wired wrong, you were sure. Medical school is like trying to drink out of the ocean with a straw, everyone said. It’s the hardest thing you’ll do, they said. Then how was it that nobody else seemed to be struggling like you were?
But again. You could be studying now, could be working on figuring out exactly the shit Bakugo is rubbing in your face. But no. Instead you’re stuck in a pissing match with Mr. Perfect. Mr. Top-of-the-class, God’s-blonde-gift-to-humanity. The conversation isn’t even worth it anymore. You’d meant to leave before and now you were going to follow through. You scoff and start to walk off—
And he’s in front of you. Bakugo has taken one step to his right and effectively placed himself between you and the elevator.
“Move.” You demand.
“Just answer the damn question.”
“No. You’re not my professor.”
“I’m also not failing the only class where you are the cheat sheet.”
You wince. The truth in it stings something fierce.
“Enough, Katsuki.” Kirishima finally cuts in, his normally-cheery voice harder than you’ve ever heard. “You’re being a real jerk right now.”
Bakugo opens his mouth like he’s going to say something sharp, but the words die on his tongue. He looks between you and his friend.
“It’s a scaphoid fracture, Eijiro. They’ve only mentioned it like a thousand times, so imagine how much harder the rest—”
“That’s enough.” Kirishima says it again, louder. He grabs Bakugo by his upper arm and drags him out of your way. The lines between his brow are deep when he looks toward you, making him look years older than he had only minutes before. “I’m sorry about…well about all of that.”
About Bakugo? you want to ask. Or about the fact that he’s actually right for once?
You say nothing and hurry into the elevator. You don’t even try to hide the way to tap hurriedly at the door close button. The sooner you get out of here, the sooner you can get home. The sooner you get home the sooner you can get in bed and wallow, pretending you actually belong—
There’s a loud scuffle, a shout, then something slides between the elevator doors just as they bolt. You stagger, your back pressing flush to the metal wall behind you as a menacing presence invades your space.
“I carry mace.” You sputter, reaching for your keys as Bakugo slams the button for the first floor. The medical library was on the twelfth.
“Meet me in the dry lab on Saturday.” He says, mere inches of space separating his chest from yours.
You blink. Bakugo doesn’t. He stares, not at the neon aerosol pointed directly at his face, but at you in all your terrified glory.
“I’d rather not.” You say, slowly.
He grits his teeth. “Why not?”
“Because you’re kind of an asshole. And I’d rather not spend my free time with assholes.”
“You’d rather fail?”
“I’m already doing that.” You purse your lips. “As you so astutely pointed out before.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but then the elevator door opens on the ninth floor. A shorter boy takes a step as if to get on, but freezes as soon as he catches sight of the pair of you. Bakugo twists to look back over his shoulder. You can’t be sure exactly what he does in that moment, but whatever it is has the other student taking several slow steps backwards. The elevator door shuts and he makes no attempt to get back on.
Bakugo’s attention shifts back entirely towards you.
“Will you put that away before you blind us both?” He asks as he gestures towards your mace with his chin. He asks in the way that exasperated parents ask questions that aren’t really questions. Would you like to play nicely with your sibling, or would you like to explain to the emergency room staff how reenacting ‘Lion King’ ended up with one of you spraining your neck?
“I don’t like the way you talk to me.” You say, the words are more honest than you intend. They’re not what he expects, based on the way his eyes go wide. “I’m an idiot when it comes to most things, but I already know that and I don’t need you drilling the point home every five seconds.”
He grabs at his hair with both hands, tugging as he lets out an exasperated groan. “What is with you?! Nobody is calling you an idiot, so will you stop calling yourself one?”
“Once you stop making me feel like one, then maybe I will.”
“Listen,” he says through gritted teeth, “I’m gonna give you a piece of advice here—”
“Not asking for it.”
“I don’t give a shit, you’re gonna listen because you’re an adult and apparently nobody has told you this much yet.” He holds his arms out wide at his sides, leaning forward. “Not everyone is thinking about you all the time. Sometimes, when people are talking about classes they find easy, it’s because they think they’re easy! They’re not calling you stupid because you don’t—they’re just talking.”
“Yeah? And throwing a dozen questions my way that you know I can’t answer, is that ‘just talking?’”
“How am I supposed to know what you can and can’t answer?”
“Because it’s obvious! How the hell am I supposed to be able to diagnose a scaphoid fracture if I barely know where the scaphoid is?”
“You passed renal!” Bakugo says, like it means something.
“Like that changes the fact I’m flunking a class with a built- in ‘cheat sheet,’ as you so deftly put it.”
“Which is why I’m telling you to meet me in the dry lab tomorrow, so I can show you how to not flunk.”
The tears are hot at the corners of your eyes. “Like I said before, you’re an asshole.”
“That’s right, he shouts, “I’m an asshole! The sky is blue! But sometimes, just sometimes, I don’t mean to be one. It just happens. I say the first thing that pops into my head because the alternative is sitting there agonizing over all the ways I should be saying things. Everyone says ‘think before you speak’ like that’s supposed to fix everything. Well that’s great until you think yourself into a fucking hole. So instead, I say stupid asshole-ish things then chase classmates into an elevator to try and make up for it after the fact.”
The air is heavy with the weight of too many uncomfortable truths. You’re both breathing heavy—him from his rant, you from trying to hold back the tears threatening to spill out.
You will not cry in front of Katsuki Bakugo. It’s a vow you never thought you had to make up until this very moment.
“Are you coming tomorrow or not?” He asks. The elevator doors open, and when you make no move to scurry out, he reaches back and presses another button. The floor lurches upward as you begin your ascent.
“What if it isn’t enough?” You say, just barely.
“What do you mean?”
“What if studying with you isn’t enough?” Your words are clipped, full of the emotion you refuse to express otherwise. “What if I show up and put in the work and I still suck at all of this.”
Bakugo shakes his head. “Why are you worrying about that now? Just deal with what’s in front of you.”
“Because what’s even the point of trying if it’s all gonna go to hell anyway? If I’m just wasting my tuition trying to do something I’m not able to do?”
He sighs, scratching at the back of his head. “Listen, I help you out, but I can’t fix that.”
“Fix what?”
“That.” He gestures absently towards you. “The self-pitying bullshit.”
Despite yourself, you laugh. “Well, fuck me I guess.”
“I—you just—goddammit.” Bakugo shuts his eyes tight and groans long and deep. “How the hell am I supposed to say it without pissing you off. I just told you about how I’m no good at this.
You open your mouth to retort, but he continues before you can.
“You were probably told all about how smart you were growing up, right? How special you were? Big fish in a little pond. Then you get into medical school and suddenly you’re surrounded by hundreds of special people just like you. And somehow their talent makes yours feel a lot less real. The first time you actually have to struggle for something, you find yourself wondering if you were even smart in the first place—if you coming here wasn’t one big accident.” He pauses, half his mouth tilts upward into a knowing sort of smile. “That’s how it was for me, at least. I swear, every other day I get this feeling at the back of my neck like someone is just waiting for me to mess up so they can tell me to pack my bags.”
He looks your way and scoffs. “Well, try not to act so surprised.”
It’s then that you realize your eyes must be the size of dinner plates.
“You hide it well.” You say softly.
“Do I really? Eijiro says I’m like one of those chihuahuas that compensates for his size by acting like the biggest thing in the room.”
“I mean, I’d call it a Napoleon complex, but I think something about the chihuahua fits better.”
“Either way,” he says, “you’re in a rut now. You’ve had to struggle at school for the first time in your life and now you have to deal with all the insecurity it entails. I’m not gonna promise you that if you study my way you’re gonna pass. I’m also not gonna lie and tell you that once you’re through MSK, it’ll all get better. It probably won’t. You’ll keep struggling and feeling stupid, and everyone has their own way of dealing. You’ve gotta find your own reason for pushing through despite it all.” He presses a finger into the left side of your chest as if to emphasize his point. “If it’s that you wanna graduate to be a badass physician, fine. You wanna do it to learn as much as you can, regardless of the grade? Great. Wanna do it just so those idiots back home have to look you in the eyes and call you ‘doctor?’” He grins wide and moves his hand so it rests on your shoulder. “I’d say that’s the best reason there is. But nobody in this field is gonna take the time to tell you how special you are and why you should push through. You’ve got to do it for yourself.”
And that’s it. For some reason that stupid speech, given in an elevator that smells a little like weed soaked in gasoline is what sets you off. What lets loose the insecurities you’ve been clinging to since first-year. You start blubbering like a baby and Bakugo, the six-foot-something grown man that he is, looks absolutely horrified at the fact. He squeezes your shoulder once, a caricature of comfort. Then he thinks better of it and pulls you into something vaguely resembling a hug. His back is rigid and his shoulders raised practically to his ears, but by god, he’s trying if the hand patting at your back every couple seconds or so is any indication.
It’s after a long moment of this (and another confused student peering into the elevator then making the wise decision to wait for the next) that you finally speak.
“It’s just so much sometimes.” You say, giving voice to the thoughts you’ve held for so long. “You have to be practically superhuman to balance everything we do—studying, sleeping, eating, breathing.”
“How do you eat an elephant?” Bakugo asks in the quiet that follows.
You pull back quickly to cast him a confused look, “Wait, why are we eating elephants now?”
“Because that’s the way the saying goes, I don’t know.” He gives you one more pat on the back. “Anyway, how do you eat an elephant?”
“Aren’t they endangered—.”
“One bite at a time.”
You stare at him. Bakugo stares back. Then he throws his head back and groans, long and loud. “God, now it sounds a lot dumber to say out loud. Why do you have to ask stupid questions like that and ruin everything?”
“There are no stupid questions, Bakugo.”
“Yeah, well I disagree.”
“And that’s why you’re going into general surgery.” You punctuate the statement with a quick tap of your finger against his nose.
He swats away your hand and jerks back from you like he’s been shot. “Did Eijiro tell you?”
Despite your goopy eyes and still-snotty nose, you throw back your head and laugh. “Dude, it’s obvious.”
“Just like it’s obvious you’re doing internal medicine?” He says it with a scowl, like it’s supposed to be an insult. One you can’t take seriously given that’s like saying ‘wow, I can’t believe you’re only interested in being a rocket scientist.’ Which only leaves you laughing all that much more.
“How’d you figure?” You ask, playing along.
“Ignoring the fact that you suck at basic anatomy?”
“Yeah? Well check out this metatarsal.” You flip the bird.
Something in Bakugo’s face changes then. He’s smiling, but it’s nothing like Kirishima’s cheery grin. In a practiced move, he thrusts both middle fingers out towards you. He uses one to point at the lower part of the other, right where it joins with his palm. “Metacarpal,” he points to the joint just above it, “and phalange.” The words are arrogance and acid swirled together. His stare is no better. “Unless you’ve got feet attached to your wrists, that is.”
You knew that. Shit, mega-shit, proving-his-point-shit. That was the easiest crap in the world and you knew that. But in your rush to be a smartass, you’d made a dumbass of yourself. You rush towards the elevator door, poking hurriedly at the ‘open the door nownownow’ button. You don’t care if you’re between floors. You don’t care if that’s not how elevators work. You want to throw yourself into the elevator shaft abyss now, please and thank you.
“So,” Bakugo, that super-mega-awful human that he is drawls as he leans a shoulder against the wall opposite to you, “what we can finally agree on the fact that you’re missing so much of the fundamentals that it’ll be useless to try and drill pathology into you.”
You can’t even look at him. If you do, you will smack the ever-loving-shit out of that self-righteous mouth of his.
“We’ve gotta start from the ground up. And that means I better see you in the dry lab,” He leans in and, close enough that he must not fear the consequences of your rage, “starting tomorrow.”
The door opens. You sprint out onto the sixth floor of the library like some crazed animal, ignoring the looks of utter bewilderment from the other students on the floor.
Even so, you know. God, you know you have to show up.
And that brings you to your current predicament on Saturday, 9AM, in a near-abandoned campus classroom.
With Katsuki Bakugo in his signature back tee and gold chain blocking your only exit, a dismembered anatomical arm slung across his shoulder.
You can practically smell the danger in the situation, especially when he bares his teeth like some kind predator.
“What, were you expecting someone else? Kirishima has lacrosse, so he’s not coming to save you anytime soon.” His grin widens, cruel. “Are you ready to learn?”
And just like that, you begin to regret every life decision you’ve made up to this point. But hey, at least it’ll be worth it to not fail MSK, right?
Right?