The following day before class starts I find myself seated at my desk listening to my classmates talk about the end of term exams.
"I haven't studied at all!" Mina and Kaminari exclaimed. Kaminari doubles over with the impending stress of the up coming assessment. Mina, however, seems far too relaxed for someone who came nearly last on the midterms.
"Kaminari-kun, Ashido-chan, lets do our best on the exams! I'd like for everyone pass!" Midoriya said encouraging the two. I smiled. He's such a genuine guy. Iida nods behind him.
"Hey, I might be able to help you with the class work," Momo offered kindly.
"You'd do that for us Yao-Momo?" Mina asks. Suddenly Momo has a cluster of students around her. She grows a warm smile.
"I've never had a study group before! I'm so excited." She says.
"Yo, Haruki-chan. Will you come to?" Kaminari asks.
"Nah I'm all good," I say waving my hand.
"Oh-ho, you think you'll do well? That's a little presumptuous isn't it?" Mina teased. I frowned.
"You realise I came 5th in the midterms, right?" I say. I'm a little offended that they seem to have perceived I was slacking off all this time.
"No way," Kaminari says, honestly shocked. "I totally thought you were one of us."
"I'm annoyed that this is a surprise for you," I reply flatly.
"I, for one, am not shocked to hear this at all. I know Nakashima-kun to be a very hard worker," Iida says, gesticulating robotically. I smile warmly at him.
"Thanks, Prez." I say. Our classmates look at us confused. Our reconciliation was still fresh.
Despite Iida and I now being on good terms again I had become accustomed to sitting with Mina, Momo, Kyoka and Toru at lunch. It felt strange to suddenly leave them so I still ended up sitting with them. Besides, we'd grown close during the last few weeks.
"So what do you think the physical exam will be?" Mina asked as we sat down. My arm was still in a sling so she'd carried my food for me on her tray.
"Hmm well Aizawa-sensei said it would be an amalgamation of what we'd learnt so far. Which I guess is combat, rescue and basic training," I said. Mina laid out my lunch for me.
"I guess that doesn't really narrow it down though," Momo said, sighing.
"Whatever it is, it should be fine right? We're all strong. I'm sure we can handle it," Mina says. I smile. She's a super positive person.
"I think we should ask Midoriya-kun. He's good at analysing and guessing this kind of stuff," I suggest.
We do this after class. I sit on Midoriya's desk as he reveals that he heard from a student in class 1B that it would be similar to the entrance exam. Mina and Kaminari let out a sigh of relief. I frown.
"If it's robots that'll be easy," Mina says. I see Bakugo stand abruptly in my periphery.
"Tch. Who fucking cares. It's all the same when they're exploded," He says. I roll my eyes. He's such a single minded kind of guy.
"That's easy for you to say, my quirk is useless on robots. I'll have to adjust my technique to account for the fact I'm essentially fighting quirkless," I groan. Bakugo glares at me.
"Shut up, Seaweed Head. You don't need to bother about adjusting. People or robots, just go all out!" he says. I sigh, I guess he's not wrong. Robots or otherwise, I just have to give it my best shot. He shifts, looking at Midorya.
"You got that! Deku!" He growls. Midoriya looks up surprised. I frown. Bakugo looks angry. Actually he looks furious! I haven't seen him ready to rage like this for a while. I guess it's because of how Midoriya was copying his technique earlier.
"Oi, chill man," I say, exasperated with the explosive teenager. Bakugo ignores me.
"You're really starting to piss me off Deku. Don't think about holding back in the exams. We'll see from our grades who the better man is. I'll destroy you," he spat. Midoriya looks taken aback. Bakugo begins to walk to the door.
"That fucking goes for you too, Todoroki," he growls. Todoroki looks genuinely surprised at the confrontation. Bakugo storms out of the classroom. I hop off Midoriya's desk.
"He's a real asshole," I say. I stretch out my unrestricted arm. "Well I'm supposed to get Recovery Girl to look at my shoulder. I guess I'll head out too."
I wave goodbye to my friends and head out.
Truthfully speaking I was kind of worried about Bakugo. He truly has a terrible handle on his anger. He's competitive to a fault and seems to be holding onto this redundant rivalry with Midoriya. He can't be happy, right?
—-
I don't think I could thank recovery girl enough. She healed up my shoulder, allowing me to move it properly for the first time in days. The next morning I wake up and stretch. Damn it feels good to do that. With my sling now off I feel like I can move normally again (although Recovery Girl had told me not to do anything strenuous.)
I find myself at the station earlier than usual. As I arrive at the platform I notice the familiar spiky blond hair of Bakugo. He hasn't seemed to notice me. I walk as quietly as I can up behind him. He's definitely deep in thought. I reach out, chopping on the back of his head. He turns dramatically, glaring at me.
"What the fuck?! You wanna fucking die, Seaweed head?" He shouts. People around us turn to stare. I smirk.
"I just wanted to come say hello," I say. I twirl on my heals. "Notice anything different about me?"
I tried baiting him to comment on my new healed shoulder but got nothing from him.
"You're a fucking idiot," he growls.
"Wow, are you saying I wasn't before now? That is pretty high praise from you but not the answer I was looking for. Guess again," I say. The train pulls up. Bakugo pushes pass me to get on. I follow him on.
"You're no fun," I tease. I grab hold of a handle.
"You're fucking annoying," he grumbled. Geez, is he still pissed off from yesterday? He really needs to learn to relax. I stop pestering him. We commute in silence for several minutes.
"Are you doing much training for the physical exam?" I ask, trying to make conversation.
"I always do training," he replies flatly. Why does he always have to act so dismissively. He's making it hard to have a conversation with him.
"I've been trying to work on my upper body strength recently. My triceps and stuff that is. Shroud, the hero I interned with, had me climbing up buildings the whole time. Ah man, it really highlighted how far I have to go before I'm any good. I wish I had been born with a more powerful quirk. But I guess I just have to work with what I've got," I ramble, trying to fill the silence. Bakugo ignores me but at least he's not yelling.
"It's been hard though. Recovery Girl told me to take it easy with my shoulder. It kind of means I can't do any pull-ups or anything," I groan. Silence continues. Does this guy not know how to have a normal, conversation?
Now I was kind of annoyed. Why do I even try? I'd thought we'd been getting along recently. Sure he's mean but most of the time his cutting comments or explosive outbursts were funny more than anything. Typically he didn't seem to take me teasing him to heart so I thought he didn't mind me that much. But right now he was just ignoring me and I found this kind of hurtful.
I stopped talking. Clearly he wasn't in the mood for it. I frown and turn away from him slightly while we rode the way in. After sometime I hear him sigh, swearing quietly under his breath.
"What the fuck is wrong?" he growls. I look at him confused.
"What do you mean, dude? You're the one whose not talking," I reply sourly.
"I'm fucking thinking about stuff," he replies, incredulously.
"That's fine. If you just want to chill out and not talk that's fine. Or you know, if something is bothering you could confide in your friends," I reply. I hear him mutter a quiet 'whatever' in response. We arrive at the school station, I follow him off the train.
"You know what's bothering me? The fact that you're really fucking pestering me all the time," he says. I laugh. It's not the type of response I was looking for but it was something at least.
"My bad... but let me guess, you're thinking about how much you wanna kill Midoriya-kun, right?" I ask. Bakugo glares at me. We swipe our way through the barriers. I hear him 'tch'.
"Personally I think you'd be much happier if you just let go of the whole thing but I don't see that happening anytime soon." I say. We walk our way along the walled school exterior to the entrance.
"This isn't like you and glasses face," he growled. I smirk at this. An idea springs to mind. I think I know a way to get him out of his foul mood.
"I wasn't so much talking about you becoming friends with Midoriya-kun. I was talking about you accepting that you're weaker than him," I said. At that he grabbed my shirt collar and shoved me against the school wall. His knuckles pushed hard against my collarbone. I winced.
"I'm not fucking weaker than that bastard Deku," he shouted angrily.
"Great to know. If you know that then stop fucking brooding over who is stronger," I replied. He looks at me incredulously. His knuckle was still digging into my chest. I grimace. "You're kind of hurting me, Bakugo-kun."
He releases me and continues walking to the entrance, leaving me behind. I jog back into stride.
"Why do you say shit like that? I don't need your fucking sympathy," he growls.
"Dude it's not sympathy. It's called caring about your friends wellbeing," I reply. He side eyed me, not happy with my response. I frowned.
"We are friends, right?" I ask, hesitantly.
"Tch, whatever." He muttered. I grinned, taking that as confirmation. I was going to try teasing him more but decided against it. I didn't want to push my luck after this exciting development.
—
The week comes and goes. We have our written exams which I felt reasonably happy with. Next was the physical exams. We were getting kind of nervous. We were scheduled to go to a training camp over the break but we're told that anyone who failed wouldn't be able to go.
The day of the physical exam came. Aizawa surprised me that morning by asking me to drop by his office during lunch.
"Ehhh, What do you think he wants?" Uraraka asked as I packed away the materials from the morning classes.
"No idea," I replied.
Truthfully I was kind of nervous. It was made clear to me when I was suspended for punching Iida that I was hanging onto my spot in UA's hero course by a thread. Any further incidents would be handled critically. So to be suddenly asked to see him in my office made me anxious. Have I done something I shouldn't have?
I nervously headed over to the teachers office space and knocked on the door. Midnight opened it.
"Good afternoon, Nakashima-chan. What can I do for you today?" She asks, smiling pleasantly.
"Aizawa-sensei asked me to drop by. Is he here?" I ask. She opens the door wider to let me in.
"He's not back from his last class yet. But you can come in and wait," she says. I enter the office. Midnight directs me to Aizawa's desk. I hang back against the wall behind it.
While I wait, a teacher I hadn't seen before caught my eye. He was a tall, sickly looking man. He had blond hair, with a fringe that stuck out and down. Something about him seemed eerily familiar. A sense of déjà vu? No that's not it. But maybe I have seen him around school before and didn't realise it. There was something about him, a presence perhaps, that was really throwing me. He notices me staring at him. I avert my gaze. Who is that guy?
Suddenly Aizawa enters the office. I push the teacher out of my mind.
"Good afternoon, Aizawa-sensei." I say, bowing slightly.
"Ah, Nakashima-chan," he says as he sits at his desk. He pulls out a file from his draw.
"Shroud reached out to me. She explained what happened during your internship," Aizawa explained. I look away. "Technically speaking, what she involved you in was a breach of conduct."
"It wasn't Shroud's fault... it was an emergency," I say abruptly. Aizawa sighed.I notice the other teachers in the office were silent.
"Emergency or otherwise, you were directly involved in a villain fight. You could have been severely injured... your shoulder was dislocated. That's a liability. And we all know the school doesn't need another news story after USJ," he said. I clench my fists.
"I don't regret it," I say. I think of Natsuki's body. I look up back at Aizawa. "I learnt an important lesson. I know I can't save everyone like All Might. I just want to save who I can."
Aizawa eyes me carefully. The sickly looking teacher from earlier accidentally snaps a pencil. I look at him briefly. He mutters a quiet apology. I turn back to Aizawa who reaches back into his draw, pulling out a small box.
"You sound very much like Shroud," he replies. He opens the box revealing a pair of black gloves.
"She sent these to the school for you. Apparently she took the liberty of requesting a costume change for as well so they're already approved for you to wear," Aizawa explains. I pick up the gloves. They're the fingerless ones I wore when on my internship. I feel my eyes sting.
"I-I'll have to thank her!" I say. Aizawa pauses.
"Don't let this go to your head. You still have your exam this afternoon," he says flatly.
"Yes sensei!" I reply. I give him a large smile.
On my back to the classroom I wipe my eyes. I've been super emotional lately. I guess a lots happened recently. I hold the gloves Aizawa gave me. Now that I think of it, when was the last time I even received a gift? This thought gets the tears started again.
"Fuck," I mutter quietly to myself.