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Iida adjusted his raincoat so it would stop choking him just as another clap of thunder echoed through the street. The storm was still far off, but it had been raining unpleasantly since morning. Most of the UA students were already on their way home, but he was still lingering in Professor Aizawa’s office as they worked together to compile a list of supplies for their first school training camp. Judging by the number of items their homeroom teacher was ordering, plenty of challenges were surely waiting for them ahead. Although his professor was vague and didn’t tell him anything that might reveal his intentions, he was still certain that this week would be a great opportunity to improve again. He’d been studying at UA for almost three months now, and he still felt like he was at the starting line. Midoriya was constantly improving and surprising everyone with new tricks, Uraraka was trying to manage her vomiting after using her Quirk, and Todoroki had even spoken to them without radiating that coldness and desire to slaughter everyone around him. His classmates were gradually becoming friends, spending time together even outside the school walls, and even Ashido wanted to exchange phone numbers with him so she could get extra English tutoring from him for Professor Mic class! He felt like he finally belonged somewhere. He had always just been the one with good grades and strange, stiff behavior. Here, it didn’t seem so strange. On the contrary—they appreciated his diligence so much that he became class representative. He felt pride and a sense of accomplishment in his heart, even though that didn’t suit a hero, and he tried to fight those emotions. So far, he hadn’t succeeded.
He rolled up his pants so he could start his engines and get home as quickly as possible when he noticed a familiar face sitting at the bus stop. He pushed his glasses further up his nose and squinted. Of course—Bakugou. He’d recognize that spiky, almost peroxide-blonde hair anywhere. He glanced at his watch. He frowned. By this time, Bakugou would have been long gone from campus, back at his parents’ house. He didn’t live far away; surely he wouldn’t have to wait for the next bus if, for some reason—unknown to him—he’d missed it.
He decided to find out. After all, he was the class representative! He had to know everything about his classmates. He was their voice, but also their support. If Bakugou was sitting alone at a bus stop where he shouldn’t have been, frowning as if he wanted to murder everyone around him—even though Iida told himself it was probably just his face, which had likely been contorted like that since birth and sometimes scared him—he had to find out why.
His engines roared. The rain didn’t slow him down, and fortunately, most metals don’t rust. They let out a couple of loud bangs—something he still needed to work on—and he sped off toward the bus stop. He was there in a matter of seconds. As he pulled up, he carelessly stepped into a puddle, which splashed all over him. “What are you doing, four-eyes!?” Bakugou shouted, growling like a wild animal.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d drop that nickname, Bakugou,” Iida said, quietly scolding him. The rain was getting heavier. So he decided to walk under the shelter and take off his hood. Bakugou shifted on the bench so that not a single drop from his raincoat would land on him. “Is something wrong?”
Bakugou was still frowning. “Why do you care, four-eyes?”
This time, Iida ignored the nickname. “At this time, you’re usually already at your parents’ place; your bus always leaves five past the hour or seven past the half-hour. Why are you still here? School ended an hour and a half ago.”
“Are you stalking me or something?” His gaze darkened even more. “You’re hanging out with that fucking nerd, Deku, aren’t you? Are you both some kind of fucking stalkers?”
“Bakugou!” Iida shouted, waving his hand in front of him. “Please don’t talk like that!”
Bakugou curled his lip. “Or what?”
“I’ll have to deal with this.”
“Deal with it?” Bakugou chuckled. “Are you my dad or something?”
“I’m your class representative until the end of our junior year, and besides defending your rights and being your voice, I’m also supposed to look out for you as my classmates—which includes keeping an eye on how you behave and how you affect the class. And believe me, Bakugou, you, of all people, could really use some work on your behavior and your language.”
“Fuck off.”
Iida crossed his arms again. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about!”
The bus pulled up and drove through a puddle. Drops of water splashed right in front of them. Some of them soaked Bakugou’s pants. He clicked his tongue in annoyance, looked at the wet spot on his pants, and muttered something under his breath about the fucking rain. Neither of them got on, and the bus drove off in a moment.
Bakugou looked at Iida. “Aren’t you going?”
“I’m running home; I’m training my Quirk.”
“Then why the hell are you still here?”
“I want to know if anything’s going on. You should be home by now.”
“My curfew isn’t until ten, Mom,” Bakugou growled at him. That surprised Iida. He’d expected someone like Bakugou wouldn’t stick to a curfew. Interesting, he thought. “And since you’re so fucking curious, there’s some kind of accident on my route. Rocks fell onto the road or some shit. They’re trying to fix it, but the access is shit, and even the heroes are having trouble clearing it. Just great. The weather’s getting the better of the heroes. Motherfuckers.”
Iida sighed. They’d have to do something about his way of speaking. If he talked to Aizawa about it, would he be able to give him some advice? For now, he decided not to say anything. After all, they weren’t on school grounds anymore. “How long have you been waiting here?”
“You know my bus routes better than I do, Class prez.”
“Since the end of class?”
Bakugou clicked his tongue. “Yeah,” he growled, “my mom texted me about it during the last class, but I was hoping the heroes wouldn’t be such pussies that a handful of rocks could beat them.” Judging by how long it took, it was probably something serious. Bakugou admired the heroes just as much as everyone else who had chosen to study heroism. It probably wasn’t the situation they were in, but…
Iida fell into thought. Immediately after, he glanced to his side. After a long time, thunder rumbled. The storm had probably passed them by and was heading straight for Tokyo. He put his finger to his chin. Could it be…? “Bakugou, are you afraid of the storm?”
“What the fuck did you just say!?” Bakugou growled at him haughtily. “Afraid? Of a storm? Are you fucking kidding me!?”
He must have been wrong. “Well—rain?”
“How the hell could I be afraid of something as shitty as rain?”
Iida shrugged. “I’m afraid of cats in heat, for example. They scream horribly. It feels like someone’s torturing them at that moment. It always gives me goosebumps.”
“What the hell are you babbling about?” Bakugou sighed. As if the day couldn’t get any worse. He’d gotten a bad evaluation from Aizawa on his training because, apparently, he wasn’t a good enough team player. In the cafeteria, his meal had fallen on the floor, and since he was too embarrassed to go get another one, he just cleaned it up and went straight to class. He was hungry, his stomach was growling, and he felt so sick during the last class that he had to excuse himself and go to the bathroom to fill his gurgling stomach with at least a little tap water. He was looking forward to going home, but instead he found out there was an accident on the way that would take several more hours to clear. His mother didn’t have a driver’s license and was visiting a friend in Osaka, and his father was on a business trip in South Korea. No one from his immediate family could pick him up because none of them lived in Musutafu. Those fucking parents just had to pick the most stupid place to live; we should have stayed in Tokyo—that would never have happened there, he raged in his head. But what was the worst part? The rain. That fucking rain that restricted him so much and that he hated with a passion.
“I just wanted to tell you that people can be afraid of a lot of ordinary and sometimes even pretty innocent things.”
“Fucking cats don’t seem innocent to me.”
“B-Bakugou,” stammered a flustered Iida. He cleared his throat. He adjusted his glasses on his nose. “I’ll let it slide this time, but please don’t ever mention mating—”
“Fucking.”
“—mating,” Iida emphasized, noticing Bakugou smirking triumphantly at him, “cats. It’s inappropriate, out of place, and completely off-topic.”
“You started it.”
Iida sighed. He didn’t know if Bakugou was so clever that he could rattle him, or so childish that he couldn’t keep a normal conversation at even a human level. “That rain—”
“If you need to know that badly, fine, fuck it. It’s because of the rain. But I’m not afraid of it!” He pointed a finger at Iida and scowled. “Don’t you dare say I’m scared or any other bullshit, got it!? It just… slows me down. When I get wet, I can’t use my quirk. It pisses me off so much.”
Ah, so that was the problem. Bakugou loved his quirk. He wasn’t surprised by that. It was admirable. Powerful, dazzling, captivating. He knew how to use it exactly as he wanted. He was one of the best in the class, if not the very best. Even the teachers looked at him with admiration, and he was certain that at the upcoming sports festival, plenty of professional heroes would take notice of him, eager to see what this promising young man had in store.
Apparently, though, he loved his ability more than Iida cared to admit. The truth was that the quirk had become such a natural part of him that he couldn’t imagine being without it either. He always suffered when he had to wait three days for his torn-out engines to grow back. It must have been the same for Bakugou. Especially since he was so fixated on his palms.
“Don’t you have an umbrella?”
“Damn, sure. I didn’t even think of that, Prez. When it rains, I should bring an umbrella,” Bakugou said ironically, opening his brown bag, looking inside, and sticking his hands in. “Here it is!” He pulled his hand out. With his middle finger raised.
“Bakugou!” Iida shouted at him indignantly.
“I don’t have one,” he growled at him, “I don’t carry it when they don’t say it’s going to rain. It’s fucking June. It never rains at this time of year.”
It was true that the weather was very strange right now. It was as if someone were controlling it. Or as if it were predicting that something bad was going to happen and trying to warn everyone to stay home. “Wait,” said Iida, “I’ll lend you mine.” He unbuttoned his raincoat, took it off, laid it on the bench next to Bakugou, took his backpack off his back, and—“Oh no, I forgot,” he said and sighed, “I lent it to Kaminari.” Bakugou frowned. He didn’t seem to know who he was talking about. “That guy with the lightning bolt in his hair.”
“I don’t care,” Bakugou said honestly, “do you have one or not?”
“Unfortunately not, Bakugou.”
“Thanks a lot for the help,” he said, offended, crossing his arms over his chest. He leaned his back against the glass panel and tried not to look at his watch, which showed the long minutes passing by, and his situation seemed just as annoying as it had been a moment ago. “Why are you still here?” he asked Iida when he saw that he wasn’t about to leave.
Instead of answering, Iida just clapped his hands together and shouted happily. “Aha!” Bakugou would never admit that his loud shout had startled him and made him jump. “Let’s go together!”
“What the fuck—”
“Look, I’m taller and bigger than you.”
“What the hell do you mean by that!?” Bakugou stood up and stepped closer to Iida. Yes, he was almost a head taller and twice as broad as him. But that didn’t mean a thing! In a fight, he’d overpower him in an instant. He was stronger, faster—ignoring the fact that the kid had engines in his legs and would never catch up to him even if he tore every ligament in his hands to unleash his most powerful explosions—smarter, more agile. What the hell did that bespectacled kid think he was doing to him!?
“I meant that we’d definitely both fit under my raincoat,” Iida said proudly as he put his backpack back on his back and pulled the hood of his raincoat over his head. With one hand, he lifted the loose corner and pointed to the space it created. “See?” Bakugou could fit in there about twice.
He gave him a strange look. “I don’t want your fucking help.”
Iida sighed. They’d only known each other for a few months, but in that time he’d learned how much Bakugou hated help and anything associated with it. As if it offended him. “Don’t you want to get home?” That piqued Bakugou’s interest. He continued, “All you have to do is stand behind me. I know where you live.” This didn’t surprise Bakugou. Class representatives always had access to their personal files. They had to make sure everyone attended school, and if someone didn’t show up, find out why. That was why they were there, after all. This wasn’t a teacher’s job. Bakugou looked again at the space Iida had cleared for him. It was strange. He didn’t know him. Apparently, he’d gotten way too friendly with Deku. That offended him. He didn’t want help from someone who hung out with that fucking nerd. “I promise I’ll walk slowly so you can keep up.”
“Stop acting like you’re better than me,” Bakugou growled at him, slung his bag over his shoulder, and stepped under Iida’s raised arm. He fit right in there. His head was right next to Iida’s armpit. He smelled as if he’d just sprayed on deodorant. At least he didn’t stink like most boys going through puberty. So the walk might not be so terrible after all. “Come on, four-eyes,” he said—hmm, well, sounding slightly defeated.
Iida smiled contentedly. He finally felt like a proper class representative! He had taken care of his classmate, who had accepted his help! He felt so proud!
They walked slowly. Iida tried not to let on that he was slowing down so Bakugou could keep up with him. He was shorter, and his strides were shorter. He was careful to avoid getting rained on and getting unnecessarily wet. Occasionally, he tilted his raincoat more toward him to shield him from the raindrops. He could feel his own pants and school jacket getting wet. He didn’t mind. It was a small sacrifice to ensure his classmate got home safely.
Soon they were in front of Bakugou’s house. Iida didn’t let up, even when Bakugou unlocked the main gate and walked to the front door. It wasn’t until he noticed there was a canopy over the door that he took the raincoat off his classmate. Bakugou shook his head from side to side, as if there were drops of water in it, but he was completely dry. He looked at Iida and thought for a moment. What now? Should he thank him? Just the thought of it made his stomach churn.
“Well, I’ll be going. I’m glad I could—” A massive flash, a deafening crash. Suddenly, the wind picked up. It seemed the storm had changed its mind, shifted course, and was heading back toward Musutafu. Iida stared in disbelief at the space in front of him. He swallowed. It would take him twenty minutes to get home even at top speed. At that speed, the lightning would surely strike him. He swallowed. It didn’t look good.
“Damn it,” Bakugou growled, rolling his eyes. “Come in,” he said as he unlocked the door and left it open.
“R-Really, Bakugou?” Iida stammered in disbelief. “Won’t your parents mind?”
“They’re not home.”
“That makes it even worse! I shouldn’t enter a home without an invitation.”
“I’m fucking inviting you,” Bakugou said, taking off his school shoes. Right after that, he slipped on white slippers with fur on them. They looked very comfortable. Iida looked at them with interest. It liked cute and fluffy things. He had several stuffed animals in his room. It was one of his biggest secrets. “Come inside or go out into that storm and die when lightning strikes you. I don’t give a damn.” With that, he turned and walked into the room, since—it seemed—he really didn’t care.
Iida didn’t hesitate for long. When another clap of thunder rang out, he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He hung his raincoat on a hook, placed a mat underneath it so the hallway wouldn’t get soaked, took off his shoes, and looked at the slippers waiting right by the entrance—in his exact size. When had Bakugou managed to get them ready? He hadn’t even noticed. He slipped them on and breathed a satisfied sigh. They were so soft!
He walked down the hallway and immediately entered the main room, which served as a living room, featuring a massive fireplace. On one side was a huge TV that Bakugou had managed to turn on and immediately switch to a sports channel. Ice hockey. He would never have guessed that this of all things would be something that interested Bakugou.
Something clicked. Iida looked to the other side, where there was a counter separating the living room from the kitchen. Bakugou was standing next to a kettle that was steaming. He poured hot water into two mugs containing tea bags. He turned irritably toward Iida, who was fiddling with the buckle of his backpack. “Sit wherever you want.” Iida sat down at the dining table, where Bakugou placed a mug of hot tea. “I don’t use sugar,” he told him as soon as he handed him the bitter black tea.
“I don’t mind,” he said honestly, warming his palms contentedly against the hot mug. “Thank you,” he said, slightly surprised. He hadn’t expected this from Bakugou. In fact, he was surprised that he’d even let him into his house.
Bakugou started rummaging through the fridge until he found a plastic container. He opened it, sniffed it, grimaced, but shoved the whole thing into the microwave anyway. Iida jumped at his every move. He did everything so loudly!
When the food was heated, he divided it between two plates, walked over to Iida with them, sat down across from him, and began to eat. “Y-You didn’t have to do that, Bakugou,” he said, but his stomach immediately growled. He blushed.
Bakugou chuckled. “Your stomach disagrees, Four-eyes.”
“Thank you,” Iida whispered finally and began to eat.
They ate in silence. The wind howled unpleasantly outside, and raindrops pounded against the windows so hard it seemed they might shatter at any moment. Loud claps of thunder echoed in the distance, and flashes of lightning illuminated the otherwise dark sky. It looked as if night had fallen long ago, yet it was only three in the afternoon.
When they finished eating, Bakugou stood up without a word, took both plates, and went to wash them. Iida didn’t even have time to offer to wash them. Bakugou placed the wet dishes in the dish rack and sighed. “Do you need some clothes?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not going anywhere dressed like that, and look at how wet your pants are. That must be uncomfortable.”
“A little,” Iida admitted. Especially since the wet pants were rubbing uncomfortably against his engine pipes. They were sensitive.
“Wait here.” With that, he ran up to the second floor.
Three minutes later, Bakugou was back. He was wearing loose black sweatpants and a tank top that revealed his muscular arms. Iida had seen them in his hero costume, but almost his entire arms had been hidden under sleeves and gloves. Now he got a full look at them and caught himself examining them with interest. They looked—very good. Iida didn’t understand why he was suddenly thinking about his arms and why he was so interested in his muscles. “Here, these are my dad’s. My stuff would be too tight for you.” With that, he slapped him on the chest with the hand holding his father’s clothes.
Iida thanked him and let himself be led to one of the bathrooms—as soon as he saw what their house looked like, he realized Bakugou wasn’t from a poor family, and the number of rooms in the house only confirmed it—where he changed.
He soon returned to the main room; Bakugou was standing behind the couch watching a hockey game. It wasn’t until Iida focused more on the camera work that he realized it was some kind of TV series. “What are you watching?”
Bakugou jumped. His face flushed slightly. This reaction surprised Iida. He wasn’t sure if it was the jump or the fact that Bakugou’s flushed face looked—very adorable. Iida had to clear his throat. What was he thinking? Had he caught a cold on the way here?
“That’s some cheesy shits my watch.” He immediately switched the channel.
“We could have watched it. I haven’t seen a show set in the hockey world yet.”
“You wouldn’t like this one.”
“How can you be so sure? I like sports.”
“It’s not really about sports.” Iida tilted his head to the side in confusion. Bakugou’s cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red. “Never mind,” he growled and finally turned off the TV. It was starting to annoy him. Bakugou looked everywhere but at Iida. The blue-haired boy didn’t understand his reaction at all. He was about to ask him what had happened when Bakugou suddenly chuckled. He’d never heard that sound from him before. Iida’s heart skipped a beat. What the hell was going on with him? “You look like you could be my uncle.”
Iida looked down at the clothes he was wearing. Yes, they were looser on him and made him look a few years older. “That bad?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood a little.
“Awful,” he laughed, “I don’t get how my dad can be a designer and wear this crap.”
“Your father is a designer?” Iida asked with interest.
Bakugou smacked his lips. “Yeah. Because being a hero was obviously way too embarrassing.”
“Your dad wanted to be a hero?”
“Is this some kind of fucking TV quiz show or something?”
“I’m just curious,” Iida said honestly, “we don’t know much about each other, so I thought maybe we could—”
“Shit, don’t tell me you want to be friends?” When Iida didn’t say anything, Bakugou laughed. “With you? Keep dreaming.”
Iida wasn’t offended. Instead, he walked closer to Bakugou and sat down on the couch. His thighs were a little sore from today’s training. He needed to rest. Bakugou frowned, but didn’t comment on it. “You don’t have many friends, do you, Bakugou?”
“You can go anytime you want; it’s beautiful outside.” As if to prove his point, thunder rumbled again.
“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Iida said honestly, “just that I don’t have many friends either, and I never have.”
“How surprising.”
“It would be nice to get to know everyone in Class 1-A.”
“You’re not very good at it.”
“I’m trying to fix that.”
“By hanging out with Deku and Round Face? You’ll never find anyone better than them; they’ll ruin the reputation you don’t have—and now you won’t even have that.” Bakugou sat down at the other end of the couch; there was almost a meter of space between them.
“Why are you always so…” Iida struggled to find a word that would describe Bakugou.
“Perfect?” Iida shook his head. “Awesome?”
“Angry,” Iida finally said when he found the word.
Bakugou blinked and shrugged. “This is just me.” He said it with such sincerity that it surprised Iida. He wasn’t ashamed of it. He didn’t ask himself if it was right. He simply accepted himself. Iida had never been able to do that. He was always dwelling on what he’d done, how he could have done things differently, what else he could have said, how he could have tried harder. Bakugou seemed like his true self—content.
They sat there in silence for a moment, Bakugou occasionally growling in annoyance.
Iida looked around the room and finally examined it in detail until his gaze settled on a board game he’d been playing since childhood. “Do you play Hunters too?”
Bakugou turned to him sharply. “You know that?” He sounded surprised.
“Of course. It’s the best superhero game they’ve ever come up with.”
Bakugou frowned. “Really?”
“I know it’s up against ‘The Ladder’ and ‘The Origin,’ but I think this one has a lot more heart. It treats heroes not just as pawns, but as people. It talks about their abilities, but also about what those quirks can take away from you. To play it, you really have to think about it a lot.”
“Right,” Bakugou said appreciatively, “that’s why I like it.”
“Do you play it often?”
“There’s no one to play with.”
“We can play together.” Bakugou raised an eyebrow. “The storm should let up in an hour, and the rain might not stop until evening. We could finish one game by then.”
Bakugou looked like he was really considering it. Finally, he sighed and stood up. “I’ll set it up. In the meantime, get your tears ready—you’ll need them when I destroy your entire base and kill your hero on the third move.”
“I’m really curious about that, Bakugou,” Iida said sincerely.
Bakugou failed on his third move, but he won in the end. After five hours, with the rain long since stopped and night approaching, they finally played the last move, and Bakugou raised his hands triumphantly above his head. “I told you so!”
“You said you’d beat me much earlier,” Iida said, but he wasn’t disappointed by the loss. He’d enjoyed it. It was pleasant. Finally, he’d played with someone who took it as seriously as he did. “Congratulations, Bakugou, you’re really good.”
Bakugou looked at him and immediately looked away when their eyes met. Red spots appeared on his face again. Iida blinked in confusion. Especially since his heart skipped a beat again and his hand trembled, because the only thing he wanted to do was reach out to Bakugou and stroke his cheek to see if his skin was as hot as it looked. He choked on the thought. Bakugou looked at him. “I-I’ll go,” Iida said, standing up. “Thanks for the game, Bakugou. I’ll return your clothes tomorrow.” With that, he bowed and quickly walked back into the hallway so he could put on his still-soaked shoes and take his raincoat off the coat rack. When he turned around, Bakugou was standing behind him, hands in his pockets, a relaxed expression on his face. “See you tomorrow, Bakugou,” he said and—waited for something. He had no idea what that something was. He didn’t understand himself at all right now. It was making his head spin.
“See you later, Iida,” Bakugou said with a slight smile. As if, thanks to a few hours of playing together, he had earned his respect.
Iida needed to leave and get some fresh air. Something in that house had changed him, and he was afraid to figure out what the hell it meant.