The year of the entrance exam, sludge villain arc.

Bakugou heard a small tapping at his window. The hell? He then turned his attention to the clock which read 1:47 AM.

Upon reading the time he realized a few things. First, he had been asleep. Second, he was no longer asleep. And probably most importantly, some idiot had somehow managed to wake him up in the middle of the night by tapping on his 5th story window.

He angrily (as per usual) threw off his blankets and stomped to his window where he could see the unmistakable green hair of his friend clinging to the fire escape.

He opened the window and resisted (barely) the urge to cuss out the boy for waking him up so early.

Instead, he settled for hissing across the distance, "What the hell are you doing?!"

Midoriya simply put a finger to his lips and tapped his phone.

Bakugou slunk back inside and clicked on the notification.

Adrenaline Junkie

Care to join me for some midnight parkour?

Lord Explodo

Auntie's gonna kill you

Adrenaline Junkie

What she doesn't know won't hurt her :)

How about it?

Lord Explodo

It's the asscrack of dawn bastard

Adrenaline Junkie

Awww does Kacchan need his beauty sleep?

Bakugou responded with a string of middle finger emojis, which, in case you weren't aware, is the pictogram version of "fuck you". Why he sent pictures rather than actually typing it out is beyond me, however, Midoriya seemed to get the message as he sent a picture of a face sticking its tongue out in response. Now while this is not the, shall I say, the conventional response to being confronted with such vulgar terminology, it was actually pretty typical for Midoriya.

Lord Explodo

Just this once adrenaline junkie

As he turned to dress in a more suitable outfit he smiled to himself.

The next day Midoriya was acting more energetic than typical as they walked to school. He skipped around Bakugou, jumped up and down, and generally acted like a complete oddity for the Wednesday morning.

Bakugou yawned and sipped his coffee.

"Gosh Kacchan, you look like crap."

Bakugou glared at him and pointed an accusatory finger. "Who's fault is that?"

"Aw, you totally enjoyed parkouring!"

"I'd have enjoyed it more if it wasn't on a school night."

"Next time we'll do it on the weekend."

"There won't be a 'next time' junkie."

"Whatever you say Kacchan." Midoriya teased, before running out of the way of the expected fist. He did a cartwheel while he waited for Bakugou to catch back up.

Bakugou just rolled his eyes at this. "Showoff."

"Me? Never!"

"What's got you so worked up anyway?"

"Hm?"

"Don't play dumb. You've been like 5x more spastic this last week."

"Well, you know me, adrenaline rush and all."

Bakugou sighed exasperatedly. "Just spill it already."

Midoriya absentmindedly scratched the back of his head. "It's just all the talk about careers and the future at school got me thinking…"

Bakugou spun and grasped Midoriya's collar. "You ain't backing out, are you?! You HAVE to become a hero so I can beat you once and for all!"

"Chill! I'm still gonna be a hero!"

"Oh." Bakugou dropped his friend. "So then what's the problem?"

"Well I'm going to have to pass the UA entrance exam to get in, and as useful as this quirk is, that's gonna be tricky. So I guess I'm just worried about not being strong enough."

"Hence the midnight parkour."

"Yup.

Bakugou scoffed. "They'd have to be idiots to not let you in. You're gonna be a hero one way or another, just depends on whether or not we have to threaten them or not."

"Kacchan, we can't threaten them."

"Why not? You got all those stalker notes, I'm sure there's some stellar blackmail material in there."

"That's not the POINT."

"Lame. Why even have stalker notes if you aren't gonna blackmail people?"

"We've been through this before."

"I know, I know," Bakugou said. "Guess you'll just have to get stronger huh?"

"Yeah." Midoriya sighed. "I wish there was a way I could spontaneously develop a strength quirk before the exam."

Bakugou laughed. "While we're dreaming I want All Might to autograph my shirt."

"Like he'll ever touch that sweaty rag of yours."

"I'd have better clothes if you didn't get BLOOD all over them!"

"Wouldn't fix that sweating problem of yours."

"It's my quirk, you bastard!" Bakugou growled at his friend and began to chase him.

They ran like this all the way to the school, Bakugou shouting cusses while Midoriya laughed at him.

"Let's goooooo. What's taking you so long?" Bakugou complained as Midoriya packed up his books at the end of class.

"Go on without me, Mr. Shibata wants to talk to me."

Bakugou looked up at their teacher who was talking to a different student at the front of the class. Upon confirming he was out of earshot he turned to whisper to Midoriya. "The hell does that quirkest bastard want with you?!" He hissed.

Though I am not typically a fan of Bakugou's colorful language I will agree that "quirkest bastard" is an apt description for Shibata. He was a 35-year-old single man who had been teaching for the last 10 years of his life. All 10 had reflected poorly on his character, however, an uncle of his with power in the school board ensured his position. As for his permanent single status, it was entirely his own fault. The man seemed to value powerful quirks over any personality, unfortunate considering his quirk allowed him to change the texture of his skin, which, by all definitions, is a 'lame' quirk.

This quirkest judgment transferred over to his class and caused him to be extremely lenient to those with hero quirks, and far less gracious to those without. From this Midoriya had pointed out several times in the past that Bakugou was seemingly immune to detention because of their teachers' poor morals. A fact Bakugou had been happy to take advantage of by regularly getting into fights, something Midoriya had chided him repeatedly for.

"I don't know what he wants."

"I swear if he gives you shit about wanting to be a hero I'll-"

"It's FINE Kacchan. I'll see you later."

Bakugou ignored the invitation to leave. Midoriya was clearly anxious about the situation, knowing full well the meeting would be about his application to UA. "Hey, wanna meet at my house after? We can watch that All Might movie you like so much."

Bakugou wasn't the best at cheering people up (he didn't DO cheerful), so he typically banked on the knowledge that Midoriya had an unnatural love for All Might. This line of thinking had worked well over the years and Bakugou was confident it would continue to do so for the years to come.

Midoriya smiled slightly. "Sure. I'll walk down after I'm done here.

"You sure you don't want me to wait for you?"

"I'll be fine."

With that Bakugou turned and left and Midoriya found himself alone in the room with Mr. Shibata. He took a deep breath.