Katsuki sits with his feet propped up against his desk, head tipped back with his eyes closed. He doesn't give a shit about what his sensei is droning on about—something useless about future high schools or some shit.

He grits his teeth as sensei dismisses their career counselling with the simple fact that everyone wants to apply to some sort of hero program, resulting in the class erupting into cheers that ring in his ears like nails on a chalkboard. Why are the extras always so goddamn loud? He hates always having to scream over them when he talks.

"Sensei, don't compare me to these extras as if I had anything like their crappy quirks." Katsuki yells over the class chatter, hands finally dropping from where they were folded behind his head to drape over the back of his chair. He smirks when they respond with different jabs about his ego—but when you had a quirk like his, and the skill to use it—you had a right to be full of yourself, in his opinion.

"Shut up! Extras should act like extras!" He shouts to the faceless horde of the class, cocky grin threatening to actually swallow his face. He just can't help himself—it was too easy to rile up the nobodies by pointing out the truth to them.

"Ah, Bakugou. You, of course, must be aiming Yuuei." His sensei says.

Easy as it was to rile up the nobodies, it was even easier to find entertainment in it.

"Ah, the stupid chattering of extras!" Katsuki growls as he hops up from his seat and lands atop his desk with a loud bang, bringing the scattered whispers of his classmates to a halt. "I aced the mock exam! I'm the only one here with the stuff for Yuuei!"

"I'll surpass even All Might and become the best hero there ever was!" He yells, hands outstretched before him in what might be his future hero pose. "Not to mention I'll be one of the richest people in the world!"

"Oh, you're also going for Yuuei, aren't you, Midoriya?"

And just like that, the illusion shatters. The extras fall into a deathly silence for a few moments before breaking out into a high-pitched laughter that grates on Katsuki's last nerve. The final straw is Deku's vehement defense that his second in class standing alone will allow him into Yuuei—as if no other work or training was required for the quirkless runt to become a hero. As if all the training Katsuki did didn't matter because good grades alone could make a hero.

"Come on, Deku!" Katsuki hisses, smacking his palm down in the center of Deku's desk with an explosion that has the nerd flying backwards to avoid the fallout of.

"Forget the shitty quirks— you're totally quirkless. You think you can rub shoulders with me?!" He yells down at him, hands twitching in an eagerness to hit the idiot with another burst of explosions until he finally learns his fucking place in this world.

"Wa—Wait, no, Kacchan. I wasn't saying I could compete with you! Not at all!" Deku stumbles over his words, skittering backwards away from him until his back collides with the wall.

"It's just...been my dream since I was little—"

He knows.

"—and well...there's no harm in trying."

Katsuki grits his teeth into a snarl. Did Deku really think he could be a hero just by trying? That he was somehow so much better than someone that's put everything into training to be a hero that he could just try and somehowcome out on top?! Just how far up his own ass was Deku?

" Try? Try what? The entrance exam? You're taking the exam just to try? " Katsuki hisses, sparks crackling in both his palms in fury. "What can you even do? "

"Alright, everyone sit back down so I can continue the lesson." Sensei cuts in from his desk at the front of the class. He keeps his gaze on the quirkless runt until everyone else is back in their seats before returning to his own.

Stupid, shitty Deku still thinks he can be a hero just by trying. If that was true, does that make Katsuki an idiot for pushing himself so hard to be in top shape with finite control of his quirk?

No—because it's not true. Simple as that.

Deku was just a delusional idiot that still hasn't learned where his place in society is.

Katsuki's still simmering with anger when the class is dismissed for the day. His fingers twitch by his sides as he watches Deku scroll through his phone and mutter something he'd seen before class. How was he going to get it through the nerd's thick skull that he could never be a hero, let alone compete with him?

Katsuki scans over Deku's items before he spots his holy grail: Deku's Hero Analysis notebook. If he destroyed that, it'd surely be a big enough message to stay the fuck away.

"We're not done here, Deku." Katsuki hisses, snatching the notebook off the desk before Deku could stop him and taunts him with it as his usual followers laugh at some stupid nonsense he couldn't care less about. He holds the book between his hands, releasing two explosions to burn what he could and ignoring Deku's pleas to give it back.

"The best heroes out there showed signs of greatness, even as students." Katsuki says nonchalantly as he tosses the charred garbage over his shoulder and out the window. "I'll be the first and only hero from this crappy public middle school, and the first to win the honor of becoming a student at Yuuei. Guess I'm just a perfectionist."

Katsuki shrugs off the comments his followers make, focused entirely on Deku as he puts his hand on the nerd's shoulder. He heats his palms to smoking without causing an explosion to burn a hole into Deku's uniform to get his point across.

"In other words, don't you dare get into Yuuei, nerd." Katsuki says with a predatory smile, shoving Deku away as if he'd burned him and turns to walk away.

He ignores the comments his friends make about Deku's inability to talk back. They don't matter in the end. What did matter was that the awful churn of his gut that told him to stay away from Deku would finally be sated, and the stupid crush he's been harboring for two years would finally disappear into nothingness. He'd come out on top of Yuuei and become the Number One Hero— that was the plan, and nothing was going to change it.

Especially that shitty fucking Deku.

Before he can think better of it, he decides to add some salt to Deku's already exposed wounds for good measure: "You wanna be a hero so bad? I've got a time saving idea for you. If you think you'll have a quirk in your next life, go take a swan dive off the roof!"

But the second the words leave his mouth he regrets saying them—the look Deku gives him in return feels like the stake through his heart that he knows he deserves.

Katsuki lights up a few explosions in his palm to deter Deku from saying anything more, smothering up any sign of his regret with intimidation instead. He just wants this conversation to be over. He doesn't want to think more about how much this mistake could've cost him if Deku didn't have such strong perseverance—one of the many, many things he detests about the other.

Katsuki leaves without another word, lackeys following behind him in silence. He knows they're going to speak up about what he said at some point—they, too, knew he went too far. He doesn't look forward to being told shit he already knew.

The warmth of the mid-afternoon sun feels nice against skin, restoring some of the color that had left him after his talk with Deku. It's actually quite beautiful weather outside, perfect for taking a run through the woods near his house—but that held the risk of running into Deku, which he didn't want at all. That quota's already been filled for the day.

"Hey Bakugou, wanna hit up the arcade? I heard they just got in a new shooter game." One of his followers asks, laughter from some stupid joke the other background character still echoing in each word he says.

If there was a new game like that there, then Deku would be heading there as well. The nerd never could resist them, despite being horribly bad at aiming.

Why does he still remember that about him? It's not like Deku means anything more to him than gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe, despite what the trill of his heart says.

Katsuki clenches his fists, denting his soda can with his fingerprints, but refuses to stop walking with his head held high. He was better than Deku in every possible way. He shouldn't have to go out of his way to avoid the nerd like this—Deku should've been cowering in fear from him years ago. The twerp should've ran from him with his tail between his legs.

"I'm gonna go home and train. Yuuei's entrance exam isn't that far away." Katsuki finally answers with grit teeth.

The group walks another block in silence before the other follower of his speaks up.

"You went too far today. I mean, you are childhood friends."

And there it is: the exact conversation he was dreading. He doesn't need them to tell him what he already knows.

"Whatever. It's that nerd's fault for riling me up anyway." Katsuki spits, crushing the can in his palm and blowing it to smithereens. He eyes a bottle of some disgusting sludge on the floor of the alley and punts it as hard as he can. It lands with a clatter between the wall of a store and a dumpster.

"Seeing him so full of childhood dreams like when we were kids...it just pisses me off."

Katsuki gets a whiff of cigarette smoke and turns around to glare at whichever of his dumbass followers decided to smoke around him. "I thought I told you to stop smoking! If you get caught, it'll go on my record."

The lackeys point wordlessly to something behind him, and Katsuki grits his teeth before turning around to see what had their panties so twisted.

A large, gelatinous villain was eyeing him like a piece of meat. Katsuki swallows down the lump in his throat, palms crackling with the first snaps of explosions as he readies himself for a fight. His followers turn tail and leave like the weak background characters they are to go get some Pros.

Unnecessary, in his opinion: he already had the makings of a hero, and the best of the best showed promise early on. Now was his chance to make his name.

"A body with a good quirk." The villain says, eyes narrowing. "You'll make a good meat suit."

Before Katsuki can even get off the first full explosion, his whole body is surrounded by the gelatinous body of his attacker. It wraps his hands first, obviously to prevent the use of his quirk, but Katsuki wasn't stupid.

He unleashes small bursts of explosions, intending to hurt the villain from the inside out, but his barrage does no damage whatsoever. The villains body is entirely liquid throughout, except for its eyes.

If he could just manage to free a hand to jab it in the fucker's face—

The villain enwraps more of Katsuki's body in its own. It forces Katsuki's lips open and shoves itself down his throat.

Katsuki struggles to breath as the sludge fills his mouth and trickles down to his lungs. He claws at the disgusting villain's body, trying to get whatever leverage he can to throw the fucker off him. Finding none, he lets out a fairly sizeable explosion dangerously close to his face from his left palm.

"You're a strong one, aren't you?" The villain chortles, pushing into his throat harder and faster.

Katsuki chokes around the offending liquid as his body lurches, gag reflex forcefully trying to push out what was forcing its way in. His chest aches and burns more than any harsh training session could push his scarred lungs.

Despite the fuzziness of the edges of his vision and the horrible pain of his throat, he releases another assault on the villain.

He won't let this fucker get the best of him. He won't.

Katsuki struggles against the thick binds of the liquid encompassing his whole body, wincing as terrified screams of shoppers all around him grate on his eardrums like a horror movie soundtrack. What he hates the most about it though, is the fact that the villain was actively using whatever assault Katsuki unleashed against it back at the crowds. It was destroying the shopping district with ease.

Katsuki uses the last of his breath to struggle against his confines once final time, snarling as the sludge pulls and rips at his lips. He manages to fight it enough to get a short gasp of air, barely managing to look out at the horrified crowd of people gathered behind police lines before his eyelids become too heavy to keep open.

This is it, he thinks. To die by the hands of some two-bit villain. How pathetic.

"Kacchan!"

Katsuki's eyes fly open again after he hears the familiar yell of his name. He watches in fury, unable to take his gaze off the nuisance, as Deku runs towards him without a thought towards his own safety.

He's beyond angry—he doesn't need saving, especially from this quirkless loser—but what he's most angry over is the twist of his gut as the wretched crush he harbors for the idiot strangles his heart like thorned vines.

Deku launches his backpack at the villain as a distraction, managing to knock the fucker in the eye with all the hero fanboy bullshit he kept stuffed in that yellow sack. It's enough of a surprise that the villain's grip on his throat loosens enough for him to suck in lungfuls of air through coughs.

"What are you doing, shit nerd?!" He hisses in anger and frustration.

"I-I don't know! My feet started moving on their own!" Deku cries back, uselessly clawing at the sludge that keeps melting beneath his fingertips. He looks down at Katsuki with wide, frantic eyes filled to the brim with tears—it's a look that he never wants to see on the nerd's face again.

"You—You looked like you needed saving."

And that was the final nail in his coffin. The absolute thing he hated most about Deku was shoved right in face—that gut feeling that Katsuki always had about the nerd he'd kicked down and shoved into the furthest corners of his mind, yet always lingered on the edge of his thoughts whenever he saw the other:

Deku always had the true makings of a hero.

No matter how much Katsuki denied it to his face, told him to be realistic, kicked him, punched him, screamed in his face—the truth was right here. Deku was a natural hero, despite having no quirk or muscle mass to speak of. Hewas the knight in shining armor, not the damsel in distress like Katsuki's heart always wanted it to be.

Katsuki closes his eyes so hard it hurts—tears threaten to spill in a pathetic mirror of Deku's own. He can't let them fall, no matter what—so he doesn't open his eyes when he hears All Might's voice, doesn't open his eyes when his arm is grabbed roughly and he's dragged out of the sludge villain by force, doesn't open his eyes when he hears the yell of Detroit Smash as wind rushes past his face.

Only after the crowd starts cheering and the pros on scene start asking if he's okay does he open them again. He dodges all questions asked and grits his teeth at all the praise given to him.

For once, he knows he doesn't fucking deserve the praise—but he sure as hell isn't going to stick his neck out for the quirkless nobody. Not when he already felt like he was kicked in the gut twice today.

But he wasn't going to let the fucker go off without giving him a piece of his mind, that's for damn sure.

"Hey, Deku!" Katsuki yells, hands clenching and unclenching before him as he tries to piece together exactly what he wants to say. It's hard—all of his thoughts are muddled with anger and rage and, worst of all, hurt.

In the end, he lets the familiar burn of his ire take control.

"I never asked you to save me! As if you could. I could've beaten him myself!" Katsuki growls through grit teeth, body shaking as he physically restrains himself from laying a hand on the other. "How dare a quirkless failure like you pity me. Don't you dare mock me."

He shoves his smoking palms into his pockets and leaves without another word before things could get violent. He doesn't want to hear any more of Deku's pleas that he wasn't pitying him, that he genuinely cared about him—too much has happened today for him to broach the idea of that being a reality.

Instead, Katsuki goes home and locks himself in his room without a word to his parents. Sleep doesn't come to him as he silently releases the tears from earlier into his bunched up knees, lungs burning.