Kirishima was honestly kind of happy with the dorm situation, if he was being honest. In middle school, he would have never thought that he'd enjoy staying in a dorm with his classmates, but well… here he was! It was kind of amazing how UA had flipped his whole world on its head.

Of course, that wasn't to say that they hadn't had their issues while figuring out how to live together with nineteen other disaster teenagers with a wide variety of weird habits. (Seriously, who would have thought that Bakubro went to bed before nine religiously? Sure as hell not him! Although, Midoriya might have known seeing as he had known him prior to UA… But that was besides the point.)

It was a new kind of happiness to be able to learn even more about his classmates, especially after everything they'd been through since they started as first years. It was frankly ridiculous how much they had been through in only a trimester, but it had only brought them closer which made this such a great thing. Nightmares plagued all of them, which was something that he knew logically, but it was especially comforting to come down to the common room at any time of the night and likely find at least one person down there, nursing a cup of tea or making a snack to distract themselves.

And well, he could go and check on his friends when a nightmare was particularly horrible.

All in all, it was fantastic. Even with the issues they were having, they seemed to be easily resolved, like when Tsu had confronted everybody about cleaning with a nice dinner. That was possibly the nicest way someone had ever told him off. It was super manly and he was all for it.

But aside from all that, one of the more interesting things (in Kirishima's opinion) was discovering everybody's workout routines and schedules. It was great how much overlap they all had, meaning he almost never was by himself as he did things. Hell, he even started scheduling group or buddy workouts with Kaminari, Ashido, Sero, and even Iida on occasion., which had been fantastic so far.

But the biggest surprise was how Midoriya's workout schedule never seemed to overlap with anyone else's. Except, of course, one day when Kirishima couldn't get back to sleep, he hit the gym only to discover his green-haired classmate in the middle of a routine.

No wonder nobody ever saw him working out if he always did it that early. It was five in the morning, for fuck's sake!

And well, somehow he got talking with Midoriya and before he knew it, he had decided to join his friend in his ass-o'clock in the morning workouts. Yet, he didn't hate it in the slightest. Midoriya was just so interesting and passionate and driven, and it was hard not to be motivated just by being around his bubbly personality.

Another great thing was how they stayed in separate worlds as they worked out in the gym, only really chatting before and after. Neither of them really had an idea of what the other was doing; they just did what they had to do and enjoyed each other's company and the helpful feeling of not being alone.

Of course, what they talked about around these sessions was about as sporadic as Monoma's temper—which was to say that anything could happen and it still seemed in character.

So it didn't really come as much of a surprise that morning when after their long, individual workouts, they ended up talking about Bakubro. Aside from Kirishima's embarrassing admiration for the guy, Midoriya was probably the only other person in the class who surpassed him in how enthusiastic he was about supporting Bakugou despite his attitude.

It had always seemed strange how Bakugou always yelled at Midoriya. Sure, he yelled at and insulted practically everybody, but the things he said to his green-haired classmate were always… more personal. Maybe that just came with the territory of knowing each other for so long, but well…

Kirishima always made it a point not to judge the strange relationship they had. That would be rude and super unmanly.

"Yeah! Kacchan is always so amazing!" Midoriya cheered, much too bright for the time of day, "I think it's impressive how you can keep up with him!"

Despite his words being a compliment, that sentence almost felt… uncomfortable. That was one of the things he had also noticed, that he was much too nervous to ever bring up. Midoriya was notorious for self-deprecation in the most subtle ways. At the beginning of the year, it had been so blatant, like when he had resolutely declined the position for class president—which, while Iida was so clearly class prez material, Midoriya would have been just as good as a leader… if not better.

But now? Midoriya was so good at tearing himself down through building others up. It was practically seamless how it flowed in and out of his conversations to the point that unless you had been paying special attention to the context and the way he phrased things, you would never even notice.

And he had been doing nothing about it this entire time. Hell, he had practically preyed on that part of Midoriya's nature back when he had been so desperate to save Bakugou from the League of Villains. Kirishima had goaded his injured friend into doing something both reckless and technically illegal just because he felt worthless.

Perhaps that was why he felt himself interjecting now, finally protesting the lies that Midoriya seemed so convinced of every time he spoke. It wasn't enough to make up for it but it was a start, and doing a little was infinitely better than doing nothing at all.

"You say that as if you aren't also keeping up with him yourself, Midoriya," he shot him a lopsided smile, hoping that he didn't seem too obvious in what he was trying to do.

Not that Midoriya would ever call him out on it.

"W-wa-well… I mean, not really?"

"Sure you do! Your full cowling technique is really something!" Kirishima cheered, "And sometimes you yell out a percentage and I can't help but think how amazing it is that you're this good at such a small amount of your power! It's a far cry from the beginning of the year, that's for sure!"

Midoriya just sputtered, trying and failing to come up with a valid rebuttal for that, "I-that's not… I can't… You aren't… But I can only handle eight percent at the moment. How is that any good?"

"Midoriya… we're only first years," he deflated a bit, his mind processing that thought and realizing that even he hadn't really realized the implications of that truth.

It was… a horrible realization to have in the middle of a conversation that was supposed to make his friend feel better.

But! That! Wasn't! The! Point! Here!

"You have time to figure out how to improve, right? Plus, you can at least control it now without hurting yourself, which is so much better than before. Stay positive and I bet you'll eventually kick Bakugou's ass without a sweat!" he cheered, trying once again to brighten the now depressing mood.

But for some reason, whatever he had said only served to make Midoriya more distressed.

"Mmm, well… Kacchan is amazing, s-so I doubt that," he laughed, but it was so fake that it practically grated Kirishima's ears, "I don't really know how much more I can do with my quirk, to be honest… A-and I'm not even sure that I'll ever be able to use its full extent without it hurting me so..."

Shit shit shit. Backing up a minute. How did Bakugou being amazing somehow negate Midoriya's own impressiveness and improvements? There was clearly something wrong here. And not being able to use it all? Kirishima may have had no idea how Midoriya's quirk worked, but that was… that didn't seem right at all.

"A-anyway, I sh-should leave so…"

"N-no! I uh," Kirishima suddenly shouted, wincing when he realized that Midoriya flinched at his louder volume, "I was uh… dared... to do something umm…"

Midoriya's expression did that weird thing that could only be described as a mixture of furrowing his eyebrows in confusion and pinching his expression into a guarded look. Whatever it meant, Kirishima couldn't really be sure because he was never really good at people like Ashido seemed to be, and there was no way that Midoriya of all people would respond so often with those kinds of emotions…

Right?

Ah, hell, Midoriya was still staring at him. Where was he even going with this? Making Midobro feel better? What a joke. He couldn't even make himself feel better half of the time. But well, it was too late now to turn back no matter how awkward he had made it.

"Umm, I was dared to uh…" he shifted his gaze to the side, hoping to figure out how to get himself out of the hole he just dug, when he suddenly got a bright idea, "To have a weight-lifting competition with you! W-without quirks! Yeah!"

Midoriya deflated and gave an exasperated sigh, "Ashido-san, again?"

Oh, thank fuck. Something slightly intelligent came out of his mouth and Midoriya accepted it. Anxiously, of course, but at least he didn't seem too off-put by it.

"Uh, yeah," he laughed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Midoriya huffed a small laugh before shuffling a bit, clearly itching to leave the gym. But there was still something that left Kirishima uneasy...

"So uh… well to make it less of a dare and put actual stakes on it…" Where was he going with this? What was he doing? He could have just left it here, what was he thinking?!

"Um… What do you mean by… s-stakes?"

"How about, uh… whoever wins gets to make one demand of the loser!" OH! That's where his brain was going. He could make Midoriya stop self-deprecating this way! Brilliant!

See, here he was proving Bakugou wrong. He wasn't a complete idiot!

"Uh, s-sure. I just… I really need to go get ready for class," Midoriya's voice sounded off, but Kirishima wasn't exactly sure what it was, so he just let it go.

"Alright, how about we do it tomorrow, since we don't have class!"

"Y-yeah!" Was all that Kirishima got before Midoriya all but sprinted out of the gym, leaving the artificial red-head to stew in the realization of what had just happened.

Well… at least he would probably win this. So at least he didn't have to worry about that…

But what was up with Midobro?

Kirishima was currently regretting all of his life choices. It was technically all his fault, but seriously? What had he ever done to deserve this? Ah, who was he kidding? Being friends with two of the biggest blabbermouths in the class would do it and certainly did.

He made the mistake of opening his mouth at lunch, seeking another opinion on why Midoriya had been acting so… off.

But what had he expected from Ashido, Sero, and Kaminari, honestly? They didn't really take it seriously, and for all Kirishima knew, it wasn't really serious anyway. Yet that didn't matter because he didn't even get the chance to fully explain himself.

Kirishima essentially made it through: "he challenged Midoriya to a quirkless weight-lifting competition and played it off as a dare from Ashido" before they started shouting excitedly in his face.

"That sounds like a riot!" Ashido giggled, "Get it? Riot? Hah! But yeah I'll totally cover for you dude! This is priceless!"

Kaminari cut in, "I know right?! Midoriya of all people accepting a challenge outside of heroics exercises? Wild!"

"I just want to see what Kirishima will make him do once he wins," Sero snickered.

"Hey!" the red-head interjected, slightly offended, "I wasn't going to do anything bad! He was just talking badly about himself and I was hoping to make him stop…"

"Awww, that's just precious. You're such a sunshine child," Ashido cooed, making Kirishima blush heavily.

"What does that even mean?"

"Hey wait, you're right!" Kaminari exclaimed, "That means that this is the Bakusquad's Sunshine Child against the Dekusquad Sunshine Child! Aw man, this is going to be so awesome!"

Sero interjected with a mock-announcer voice, "In the right corner, we have the Green Sunshine Child who breaks bones instead of hearts to make friends. Aaaand in the left corner, we have the Red Sunshine Child that seems soft but will rough you up if you're talking shit about yourself."

"Hey! Cut it out you guys! That's not manly!"

And the squabbling continued all throughout the lunch period, making Kirishima forget all about the weird expression on Midoriya's face. Instead, he was more focused on trying to convince his friends to stop making fun of their soon-to-be competition.

Of course, he really should have known that they were far from quiet in the cafeteria.

By the time dinner rolled around, several of his other classmates had come up to him, asking whether it was true that he had challenged Midoriya to a weight-lifting competition. There were several variations tacked onto the end of their questions, but that was the gist of it.

And apparently, it was Jirou's turn.

With a heavy sigh, he plastered a friendly smile on his face and waved, "Hey Jirou! What's up?"

"Did you really challenge Midoriya to a weight-lifting competition? You're bound to lose, with his quirk and all."

"That's just rude," Kirishima deflated a bit, "It's a quirkless weight-lifting competition. I don't think I'll have any problems."

"Huh, I guess you're right. Kaminari said that there was something about a prize for winning?" she continued curiously.

"I knew I shouldn't have said anything to them. They don't know when to keep quiet."

"Why did you tell them in the first place?"

"I don't know…" he wilted even further, but was caught off guard as Bakugou walked past the pair, smacking him on the head.

"You're a real idiot, you know that?"

"Why is everyone telling me that? It's a quirkless weight-lifting competition! It'll be fine!" he whined.

Instead of ignoring him and leaving the common room, Bakugou just spun on his heel and froze in place, staring at Kirishima with an uncomfortably blank expression.

The explosive blonde finally broke the tense silence before quickly retreating to his room, "You're a dumbass."

Kirishima and Jirou just stared at Bakugou's retreating back in confusion.

"What the hell was that about?" she questioned.

With what felt like the millionth sigh he had given that day, he replied, "I honestly don't know…"

So it turned out that Kirishima was much more of an idiot than he thought he was. He had seen Midoriya all of once after school had ended that day, briefly confirming that they would do their competition in the afternoon the next day. But then he hadn't seen neither hide nor hair of his shorter classmate for the rest of the day, the next morning, or even up until the afternoon.

If he hadn't known better, he would have assumed that Midoriya was purposefully avoiding him. But Midobro wasn't that type of guy, so that couldn't be it…

Maybe he was having second thoughts?

Now Kirishima felt bad about practically rigging this whole mess against Midoriya. Had he pressured him into agreeing somehow? He hadn't intended to make his classmate feel so upset. In fact, that was the exact opposite of what he had been trying to do with this stupid competition. He probably should call it off but...

But when he finally made his way to the gym in the UA gym uniform, he was greeted with a crowd of unwelcome guests.

"Guys? What are you doing?" he yelped.

"Well," Uraraka shouted excitedly, "We overheard you guys talking about it during lunch and word got around. Sooo we all collectively decided to show up and cheer you guys on!"

"Yeah! This is gonna be so much fun!" Kaminari added, as though he hadn't been one of the causes for this entire debacle.

"I don't know about fun," Shinsou interjected.

Kirishima blinked, completely caught off-guard by the fact that he was here for some reason, "Uh, why are you here exactly? I-I'm not trying to be rude but how did you even find out?"

"Like I'd pass up the chance to see the hero course in action," Shinsou drawled tiredly, "And you guys aren't the only ones in the cafeteria at that time, you know."

"You just wanted the chance to see Midoriya in action, kero," A-Tsu interjected playfully, leaving the general studies student sputtering.

So apparently everybody knew about this friendly competition.

He really had screwed up in telling his friends about all this. What was he going to say to Midoriya when he finally showed up? It would all seem like some kind of joke or set-up or something. Or well, that's at least what Kirishima would have thought if this had happened to him back in junior high. So even if that wasn't how Midoriya would react, he still felt horrible about all of this. It just wasn't manly at all.

"Guys… that's not… this isn't manly. You shouldn't-"

He was cut off by Midoriya's voice, which he whirled around to greet with a horrified expression. Probably. He wasn't exactly sure what was written all over his face, but he was quick to zero in on his classmate's good-natured expression and use that to calm his worries.

"What isn't manly?" he chirped, "Oh, you mean the crowd? Yeah… I kind of figured this might happen when I overheard you guys talking about it during lunch yesterday. Aaand well… let's just say that Uraraka-san kind of sort of maybe pressured me into agreeing to let them watch and well…"

"It became a class event, courtesy of Iida," Yaoyorozu interjected, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Y-yeah…" Midoriya grimaced playfully, fiddling with the sleeve of his UA gym uniform, "But that's alright. M-maybe this will be fun!"

He said it placatingly, as if that made it convincing in the slightest. Yeah, this was all Kirishima's fault but well… it wasn't as if they could change it now. Especially since it seemed that Midoriya had already tried and failed.

"I guess we should get started then… haha," he rubbed his neck again anxiously, wondering if this day was about to get a whole lot worse.

He pushed through the door to the gym, scanning his student ID and absentmindedly walking over to the corner with weights. The rest of the class trailed in behind him, all taking the time to scan in their IDs and tease each other about who knew what.

Kirishima scanned the crowd of first years, furrowing his brow as he noticed one person missing. Midoriya finally extracted himself from his group of friends who were excitedly cheering him on, leaving him a blushing, stuttering mess, before he made his way over towards Kirishima.

"Hey Mido, where's Bakugo?"

"Ah well," Midoriya shot him the knowing, apologetic look that he always used when talking about Bakugou, "Kacchan overheard Uraraka and Iida pestering me and decided to loudly interrupt that it was such a waste of time and was very stupid, like me, before storming off. You know, usual Kacchan stuff."

Kirishima laughed awkwardly, hoping that he didn't seem too weird, "Well, uh… I didn't exactly think this through so uh.. How do we want to do this?"

His green-haired classmate shot him an unreadable expression before it quickly morphed into one of his usual smiles, "Do we want to do one round and get this over with, or do we want to put on a show and drag it out for three rounds?"

"Best two out of three, wins?" Kirishima offered, already mentally hoping that he wouldn't embarrass his classmate too much.

"Sure!"

It took an obnoxiously long time to get their classmates to be quiet and help them set up two identical weight stations for the competition.

"Alright! Uh, we're going to do three rounds, whoever gets the best two out of three will be the winner," Kirishima called out.

"U-um, we decided to do a round of bicep curls first: whoever can build up to the highest weight wins. We'll do four reps at each weight level—one rep being ten curls—starting at 5 kilograms and raising the weight by 5 kilograms each time," he gestured to the variety of specialty weights scattered around them in two semi circles.

The red-head interjected, "We'll go at the same pace, to make it fair."

"Ooh! Ooh! Can Kaminari and I spot you guys?! Please please pleeeease?" Ashido begged.

"U-um, I guess?" Midoriya squeaked, "Just don't count ridiculously slow… I don't think that would be fair…"

"Alright then uh… I guess we'll begin?" Kirishima finished lamely.

And begin they did.

At first it was going well. Neither of them were struggling, as was expected for heroes in training. Even the weakest of their class could do the first two or three weight levels without too much difficulty. But both Kirishima and Midoriya were mostly close-combat oriented fighters and spent many hours in the gym to increase their threshold, so it just kept going.

Somewhere in the second weight level, the rest of the class began counting with Ashido and Kaminari, the counting getting louder and more excited as the pair continued working their way up the weights, shouts of encouragement for each of the boys getting mixed in with the numbers. It was like a crescendo of noise, the adrenaline rising to meet the anticipation. Kirishima felt like he was on top of the world even as they made it to the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth weight levels.

He had been so focused on weight lifting, his world narrowing to just the burn in his arms and the sweat beginning to pour down his face, that it felt like nothing else existed.

Someone shouted something that broke him out of his revere, and he finally realized that maybe he should pace himself. He probably wouldn't need to go much further to beat Midoriya, so the goal here wasn't to show off or reach a personal best.

He just had to do enough to win two rounds and then everything would be good. Better than good, actually, with what he planned to ask Midoriya to do.

But when he glanced back toward Midoriya, the weights in his hands almost slipped from his grip out of shock.

Midoriya was… he wasn't…

He was barely breathing hard, much less breaking a sweat. Kirishima wondered what weight level they were on… had he missed something?

But one glance confirmed: Midoriya was practically effortless as he curled 45 kilogram weights.

On the outside, his classmate was clearly keeping up appearances of getting tired, mirroring Kirishima's dramatic rise and fall of his chest, but without the desperate panting that should have come along with it.

It was clearly all for show for the rest of the class, making them think it was a close thing and keeping them pumped and excited. But Kirishima caught the eye of Kaminari, who was spotting Midoriya, and shared a look of bewilderment and confusion as they both realized that this was like nothing for him.

It went on for a couple more minutes, only going up one last weight level before Kirishima reluctantly gave up.

It was best two out of three, after all. He still had a chance!

The class cheered excitedly, Iida striding and Uraraka bouncing forward to hand them each a towel and water bottle to take a quick five minutes break before they started the next round. With the way the class was babbling excitedly about how close it was, it was clear that nobody had noticed how Midoriya had absolutely crushed him. It was… very strange.

Of course, the next round of bench presses went similarly. It was a "close thing" almost the entire time, Kaminari and Ashido still spotting them and adding weights as they went. The excitement was still very present, and Kirishima couldn't help but get caught up in it despite being painfully aware of the fact that Midoriya was solidly crushing his performance.

Which was why it came as a major surprise that Midoriya tapped out just a few presses before Kirishima was about to just give up.

Midobro refused to look him in the eye, too busy stuttering a response to Shinsou's teasing. Kaminari, on the other hand, shared a wide-eyed look at Kirishima, to which the red-head decided to pretend to zip his lips shut and throw away the key, hoping that his friend would get that he wanted to talk about this afterwards instead of now and preferably alone.

Or something.

For the third round, they had decided to do high-bar squats, progressively adding weight after every twenty squats. Somehow, Kirishima didn't think he'd win this.

Honestly, the biggest mystery was how the UA gym uniforms were able to hide muscle definition so well, it made no sense. Because there was no way in hell that Midoriya wasn't buff as hell. Kirishima had never had a reason to really check out any of the guys in the locker room, as he had been determined to be respectful and manly about it but well…

Maybe he should have. Maybe then he wouldn't have gotten himself into this mess.

But either way, as they began preparing for their squats, Kirishima couldn't help but wonder if Midoriya was planning to let him win or if he was going to beat him without remorse. And honestly? Kirishima himself wasn't exactly sure which outcome he would prefer.

Instead of focusing on himself like he had for the past two, Kirishima stared intently at Midoriya, watching from start to finish exactly how effortlessly he seemed to do it, even as the weights began to reach unbearable levels and the red-head's legs began to feel like jello. It was kind of unfair that he wasn't aware of this fact, but also he was in awe of his classmate's ability.

It was just so many, and he aspired to work harder to become more like him.

Of course, his mind also wandered to Bakugou telling him that he was an idiot, and Kirishima couldn't help but wonder how the hell Bakubro was aware of this despite the fact that nobody else seemed to be.

Frankly, Kirishima only lasted for a few minutes before quickly giving up. He barely waited for Ashido to grab the bar from his shoulders before he let himself sink to his knees and all but face plant onto the floor.

Damn, he was totally wasted. Completely wrecked by Midoriya's amazingness.

But before he could even get up off the ground to voice his congratulations or simply get a drink of cool water to soothe his overheated muscles, their classmates were all over them. They gave Midoriya so many compliments and teases that Kirishima honestly wondered if he would just spontaneously combust, because it was clear that he almost wanted to. However, he wasn't given the chance to tell them to back off and give Midoriya some space before things started getting out of control.

"Midoriya, I'm going to level with you. I just have one question," Kaminari blurt out, ignoring Kirishima's frantic signals to shut up and wait for later.

"H-huh?"

"How the actual fuck were you able to do all that so easily?"

Uraraka chimed in, her voice filled with earnest confusion, "What do you mean by easily? He was clearly struggling! Kirishima even beat him in one of the competitions!"

"No, I mean... he wasn't breathing hard or hardly sweating at all from all that. Much less shaking or struggling. I mean, he was expanding his chest frantically and shaking, but like, it was clearly fake…" the blonde finally trailed off, only just then realizing that maybe he should have just shut his mouth.

The class took a minute to reconcile that information before they burst out into even louder shouts than before.

"Dekuuuu!" Uraraka whined, "How could youuuuuuuuu?"

"It's not very sportsmanlike of you to fake something like that. Think of how Kirishima feels!" Iida chopped the air, his tone condescending and a bit too harsh for the situation.

Midoriya stammered, "I-I just, you all were so excited about it that I-I didn't want to, w-want to ruin the fun. A-and I didn't want to make Kirishima f-feel bad… I'm really sorry."

Kirishima was taken aback when he realized that Midobro was about to cry. He had to… had to fix it, because it wouldn't have come to this if he hadn't started this entire debacle to begin with.

"Don't worry about it! I kind of appreciate that you were thinking of everybody while you did this. That was super manly!" He shot a bright smile (or what he hoped was a bright smile and not one that reflected his utter exhaustion) and let his expression convey the rest of what he was too tired to say.

Luckily, that seemed to work.

"But Midoriya," Todoroki finally spoke up after being quiet for literally the entire competition and going largely unnoticed amidst the chaotic crowd of students, "How are you able to do so much? I wouldn't think that… Without your quirk I mean…"

"I work out a lot," Midoriya laughed anxiously, clearly uncomfortable with all the attention and implied compliments

"But why though," Kaminari whined, "Your quirk already makes you way overpowered, dude! You shouldn't even need to work out this much!"

"Oh, wait... you guys didn't know?" Midoriya tilted his head in confusion like a curious kitten, before proceeding to explain something absurd as though it were normal, "I have to build up more muscle mass to safely use my quirk. Otherwise my whole body could explode."

The entire class stared at him incredulously, watching as Midoriya grew increasingly nervous and fidgety in the silence.

"U-um… are-are you guys o-okay?"

"Midoriya, with all due respect," Shinsou cut in, his voice for once filled with emotion instead of its usual deadpan, "What the actual fuck?"

The surprisingly buff sunshine child of Class 1-A simply squeaked in response.

"Midoriya!" Ashido shouted in delight, catching literally everyone off guard, "You won, so you have to pick your prize! What are you going to make Kirishima do?!"

They all began murmuring amongst themselves, only a few voices ringing out through the cacophony of suggestions.

Mineta's expected, "Do something dirty," followed by a quick smack from Asui being the most prominent.

"Um… W-will you…" Midoriya trailed off, stealing a quick glance at Kirishima before looking away bashfully, "Would you go to the movies with me n-next weekend? Th-there's a new documentary ab-about All Might s-so I just… I just didn't want to go alone…"

Kirishima stared at Midobro with a shocked expression, he had honestly been expecting way worse.

…

Maybe he had been playing too much Truth or Dare with Ashido lately.

He couldn't help it when he clenched his fist and held back manly tears, proudly exclaiming, "Midobro! That's so manly!"

Next Chapter: Kaminari Denki