Uraraka was feeling unbearably awkward and nervous as she almost tiptoed through the gates of the park. A summer sunrise was just beginning, painting the sky a soft purple color. She'd gotten here earlier than he had instructed with a hope it would help calm her nerves. As she made her way over to where they trained yesterday, she wondered if Bakugo was serious about helping her train. 'Would he even show up?'

As she came over the top of the hill and looked down, she saw Bakugo had beaten her there. He had his back to her as he crouched and stretched his legs. She blinked in surprise and checked the time on her phone.

5:50 AM

She breathed a sigh of relief at the time. 'Well at least I'm not late!'

She hurried down the hill and came up behind him, forcing a smile on her face to cover her nerves.

"You're late, shit-for-brains." Bakugo unmistakenly grumbled.

Uraraka was baffled, "W-what? I am not!"

Bakugo stood up from his stretches and turned around. "Six AM means you should have been here at 5:45 to warm up. Now I have to wait on your ass."

She dropped her satchel in the grass and placed hands on her hips. "Well you should have told me that."

Bakugo's scowl didn't ease up whatsoever, "You should already know that."

Uraraka bit back a retort, realizing she wasn't going to win this one. "Whatever, I'm here now." She pulled her hair back and began securing it with a ponytail. "What do we start on first?"

Bakugo smirked and pulled a timer from the pocket of his sweats, waving it around tauntingly. "You're going to run laps until I say to stop."

Uraraka tightened her ponytail a bit too roughly as she heard this. "Are you serious?"

"Do I look like I joke around?" Bakugo's smirk fell into a firm line. "Your cardio sucks ass, so you're going to run."

Uraraka groaned audibly and rolled her neck. "Are you going to run too?"

"Hell no." Bakugo replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "I already did my laps today."

Uraraka blinked at him, "What time did you get up?"

"None of your fuckin' business."

Uraraka huffed in exasperation and began stretching her legs. She was already regretting her decision to train with him. Anybody else would have certainly gone a little easier on her. But did she want easy and fun or hard and successful?

Bakugo had marched to the top of the hill and was waiting for her on the sidewalk. When she finally finished warming up and met him, he pointed to his left. "You'll run that way. This sidewalk wraps all the way around the park. Five laps is a mile, so you'd better get to stepping."

Uraraka was really regretting her decision now as she lined up on the sidewalk. This was going to suck so bad.

"Go." Bakugo clicked the timer as she took off running. He mildly wondered if he should advise her to pace herself, but ultimately held off. He didn't do shit like that.

The morning dragged on for Uraraka. She was sweating profusely as she rounded around the final corner of her nineth lap. Her easy jog that she was maintaining at the beginning had slowly come down to to a desperate attempt to keep her feet going. Her arms tiredly swayed at her sides and she also willed them to keep it up.

Everytime she came up to the starting point, she felt a disgruntled remark bubbling in her chest. The entire time she had been running, Bakugo had been laying on his back in the grass uselessly.

He heard her jog up again, her pace slowing as she came closer. He knew she was drained, but he figured she could go one more lap. He checked the timer as she passed behind him. "17:28, roundface. Pick it up!"

She rolled her eyes as she trudged past him, "When can I stop?" Her voice sounded whiny.

"When I fuckin' tell you that you can." Bakugo spat back. He considered making her run two more laps now.

Uraraka clenched her teeth and pushed forward, begging her limbs to continue.

Bakugo glanced to his right to see her rounding the corner. Her ponytail was falling out and she'd long since ditched the tracksuit jacket. Her mouth hung open as it fought for breath. 'Damn, her cardio really does suck.'

He lay his head back in the grass again and listened for her later return. The sunrise was soothing to watch and it had become a habit for Bakugo to enjoy it. It was one of the very few simple pleasures he had. He felt himself relax and tried not to distract himself with the timer's blinking red light.

As he watched the purple clouds regain some of their whiteness, he wondered why his annoyingly bubbly classmate was so intent on training with him. Was she obsessed with him or something? No, she didn't really strike him as the obsessive type. It had to be because Deku was unavailable.

He let the thought string through his mind for a while longer before he heard her footsteps in the distance. As she neared, he could hear her panting hard to breath and it sounded like she was dragging herself through the mud. He groaned inwardly as he sat up and waited for her to make it to the finish line.

"18:54 is your final time." Bakugo almost spat the words as she collapsed in the grass.

Uraraka didn't even bother to wipe the sweat from her forhead as she felt her muscles ache with exhaustion. "I am so glad that's over."

"That's a shit time." Bakugo snarled pointedly.

Uraraka muffled an exasperated groan, "I'm just glad I actually did it."

He was taken aback by her remark, "That's fuckin' weak."

"Don't care right now," Uraraka lazily waved a hand as she began to regain her breath.

The blonde ignored her comeback and stood up. "If you thought that sucked, then you'd better leave now."

"Whaa?" Urarka lifted her head as he began walking down the hill. "Where are you going?"

"Hurry the hell up and get down here." Bakugo barked in response.

She groaned and wanted to whine about needing another minute. Her muscles screamed in defiance as she stood up and trudged down the hill. 'Why do I have the feeling that this will only get worse?'

…

When Uraraka asked Bakugo to train with her, she had expected more fun stuff. This was not fun at all. This was torture. She could not recall a day in her life that had felt this long. Her legs throbbed, her arms screamed, and her abdomin felt like it had been ripped in half. If she though UA's workouts were hard, she was sorely wrong.

The day had turned into the early afternoon as she struggled through more sit-ups. Bakugo was leaned up against a tree as he played a game on his phone. She eyed him for a moment before she lowered herself to relax in the grass for a few moments.

"I didn't say you could stop." Bakugo snapped without looking away from his phone.

Uraraka huffed and pulled herself up to her knees again before finally asking, "Why aren't you doing anything?"

All Bakugo had done all day was lounge around and criticize her. He had hardly lifted a finger to train himself.

He broke his gaze away from his phone to glare at her, "It's my off day."

She pouted, unsure if she should argue with him. She begrudgingly continued her sit-ups and ingored the sweat that was now drenching her hair.

"You can stop now." Bakugo grumbled as he watched her dramatically struggle.

"Thank goodness," She breathed and relaxed for the few seconds he would likely give her before demanding she perform another exercise.

He stood up, ignoring her as he adjusted his shirt. He stretched his back before heading toward the hill leading to the sidewalk.

Uraraka struggled to sit upright, baffled at his sudden departure. "Where are you going?"

"I'll be back in an hour." He barked, refusing to give her any more explaination than that.

She blinked in confusion as he left. Was she supposed to keep working out? Was she missing something? His blonde hair disappeared over the top of the hill as she wondered. If he wasn't going to be here, she might as well take a break right?

She haphazardly crawled over to her satchel and pulled out a lunch she had made for herself. In the shade of the trees, she broke it open and began wolfing it down. It wasn't a particularly lady-like fashion, but nobody was around to observe. She smeared some of the water from her water bottle on her forhead and let the breeze cool her down as she munched away.

She pondered her day so far and grimaced at what came to her mind. It was brutal. Her limbs that were raging a few minutes ago were now going numb. As tired as she was, she couldn't deny that she felt great. She felt strong.

Bakugo was not a particularly inspiring coach. He had offered her zero encouragement or words of affirmation. All he had done was order her around like a dog and yell at her when she complained. He gave the impression that he couldn't care less, but still pushed her past her limits. Maybe it was because he didn't care that he asked the impossible of her. 'I mean… who could really do 200 sit-ups? All-Might probably...'

She dropped her empty lunch container back on the grass and tried to stretch her battered muscles. They whined at her as she did so. 'I'm not going to be able to walk at all tomorrow…'

After her limbs were stretched as much as she could tolerate, she checked the time. She still had fifteen minutes until her unenthusiastic coach returned, so she opted to work out the one muscle that he hadn't forced her to beat into submission. Her quirk.

She breathed for a moment before popping herself into the air. As she rose a few feet off the ground, she found that the breeze was cooler from higher up. The wind tickled the hair that stuck out from her ponytail, drying the sweat to a crust. A hot bath was certainly going to be a necessity once she returned to Yaoyorozu's.

As she floated with criss-crossed legs, she observed a blob of orange peeking through the trees. She almost laughed at the sight. 'Little Tatsuo has decided he wants some payback, eh?'

She watched as the little boy and his two friends stumbled through the trees noisily and came out into the clearing. Tatsuo planted his tiny hands on his hips and grunted angrily, "He was just here a little while ago!"

One of the other boys, this one with black hair, looked relieved. "I guess he left."

Uraraka smiled at their childish exchange.

Tatsuo brushed off the younger boy's observation. "No way he left. That guy is always here." He glanced around the clearing and spotted the floating girl. "You!"

Uraraka raised her eyebrows at the children.

"You were spying on that freak yesterday too!" Tatsuo pointed an accusing finger at her.

She was taken aback by his proclamation. "I wasn't spying on him!"

Tatsuo grinned menacingly, "Liar, liar, pants on fire. You were spying!"

Uraraka rolled around in the air to hang upside down, "Bakugo is my classmate. We were training."

The little boy scoffed at her reply, "Duh, I know you're his classmate. I watch the sports festival every year."

Uraraka stifled a giggle at the kid. "Do you want to go to UA when you grow up?"

Tatsuo was stunned by her question. "What's it to ya, space-freak?!"

That was a new one for her. "I also wanted to go to UA when I was kid."

"I don't care." The boy shot back and turned to his friends, "Let's just go. I don't want to be around a spying space-freak like her."

Uraraka was still amused as they turned to leave. As they disappeared over the top of the hill she rolled back around to sit up-right.

"Spying space-freak." A voice came from behind her.

She cranked herself around to see Bakugo leaning against a tree a few yards behind her. "Whaa- When did you get back?"

Bakugo was smirking but didn't reply. "At least you got rid of those annoying brats."

"They're just kids, you know," Uraraka released herself and fell to the ground. Her legs struggled to catch her small fall.

"I don't give a shit, space-freak." Bakugo used the nickname again and Uraraka tossed him an unimpressed look.

"At least space-freak is better than big fart."

Bakugo felt his blood begin to boil. "Will you fuckin' quit that shit?" He could barely tolerate that childish nickname that Deku called him, but he wasn't about to add another one to the list.

Uraraka shrugged playfully, "I kind of like it. It suits you."

"Fine then. You can go run another two miles."

Uraraka's face fell at the threat. "Whatever, you win… Bakugo." The name rolled off her tongue begrudgingly.

The blonde immediately felt the satisfaction when she conceded. He wins yet again.

"What's the plan now?" Uraraka asked dumbly.

Bakugo pointed back toward the top of the hill, "I just fuckin' told you. Get going, space-freak."

Uraraka groaned and sat down in the grass, "No way. My legs are going to fall off if I do that again. I also just ate, so I'm not going to risk throwing it up. My quirk does that for me enough as it is."

Bakugo scoffed at her, "That's a fuckin' excuse and you know it."

She stretched her arms for the hundredth time that day, "So are we going to spar or what?"

"If you wanted me to kick your ass again, you should have asked sooner."

Author's Note:

Hello everyone. I know it's been a while, but I'm back now. I apologize for completely ghosting you guys. Back in March when I last posted, my boyfriend of four years got into a terrible car accident coming home from work. Sadly, he passed away and these last few months have been especially difficult for me. Writing was the last thing on my to-do list.

Since then, I have made a lot of changes to my life. I'm taking some time off of school and I've moved to a new state and a new city, a much bigger one than my hometown. I needed some change in order to move on. It's been a few months now and I think I'm starting to finally get to that point.

I thought it was about time for me to try my hand at writing again, so here I am. However, I will not be posting nearly as often as I once did. Maybe once or twice a week. I'm still in the middle of my move, but I just got everything into my new place. I'll be busy the next few days while I search for a job, so I'm not sure when you'll hear from me next. However I am sure it will certainly be within a week.

Thank you all for reading and I appreciate your patience with me. I hope you can understand why it took me so long to come back. Please continue to be patient with me as I try to get back into a normal routine. I just wanted to show that I hadn't forgotten about you all and that I still love this story.

Thank you again.

~NumberSixteen