Class 1-A. Geez, why is this place such a maze?

Hitoshi hoped that he didn't look as lost as he was. It didn't seem possible, but somehow UA felt way bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. He found it eventually, just a few minutes before the bell for homeroom was supposed to ring. He could already hear the buzz of conversation on the other side of the sliding door, and resisted the impulse to groan with the impending exhaustion of socializing. Setting his jaw, Hitoshi pulled the door open and stepped inside.

"Get your feet down from the desk! It's disrespectful!" a boy with dark, blue-toned hair and square glasses was shouting at another kid with ash blond hair and a mocking sneer.

"Mind your own damn business ya arrogant bastard," he snorted, ignoring the boy's spluttered response. "Hey, Rocky! What the hell is up with your hair? I'm gonna have to change your contact in my phone it's so ridiculous!"

"Aw come on, man, I think it's cool!" Another boy with bright red hair gelled into spikes and sharp teeth like a shark grinned back. A girl with pink skin and black sclera promptly glomped onto him, grinning at their evidently-mutual crass friend.

"Yep! We're Horn Buddies, see?" she beamed, pointing to the yellow horns protruding from her hair.

"Yeah, whatever Panda Eyes," the blonde snorted, the barest hint of a smirk touching the corner of his mouth. "Just remember I can't stand PDA."

"Wh-What?!"

"D-Dude, come on, you know that's not what we meant!"

Hitoshi blinked at the bizarre interaction, more than slightly overwhelmed by their extroverted-ness and silently vowing to keep himself well away from that social circle. Then he realized that his seat was just a couple of chairs behind the crass blonde's and suppressed a groan because of course it was. Resigning himself to his fate, Hitoshi began to make his way in that direction.

At least, that had been his intention. The small body colliding with him and knocking him off his feet kind of put a damper on that, though. Although somehow, he never reached the floor. Instead, he just floated somewhere halfway between catching his balance and losing it. It was… rather disorienting.

"Ohmygosh, I'm so sorry, are you okay?!" a girl's voice exclaimed, a hand quickly appearing in his field of vision and correcting his orientation with the floor. Hitoshi glanced up with as much indifference as he could muster to meet a pair of anxious brown eyes and bright pink cheeks framed by short brown hair. "I'm so so so sorry; I thought I was gonna be late so I was in a hurry and the door was open a-and I wasn't looking where I was going, and-"

"Calm down, I'm fine," Hitoshi grumbled, folding his arms across his chest. "Although I would like to be let down now."

"O-Oh, right!" she squeaked, pressing the pads of her fingers together with a look of concentration. "Release," she muttered, and he dropped easily back to the floor. Then she shook her head and smiled brightly at him, extending her hand once more in what was obviously an attempt at a clean slate. "Uh, anyway, I'm Uraraka Ochaco. What's your name?"

He blinked at her, at her warm smile and her bright eyes. Oh no. She was one of those types; he could already tell. One of the super peppy ones that was going to be his friend or die trying (at least until she learned what his quirk was). Still…

"Shinsou Hitoshi," he sighed back, taking her hand if only for the sake of appearances. He may not have come to UA to make friends, but he had no intention of making only enemies.

"Well, it's great to meet you, Shinsou-kun!" she replied brightly, her eyes scrunching up with the sincerity of her smile. He was in the middle of deciding whether that was what was making him nauseous or if it was just because he'd skipped breakfast that morning when a voice sounded from the floor behind her.

"If you're just here to make friends, then you can pack up your stuff now. If not, then welcome to UA's Hero Course." Uraraka froze, eyes wide as she turned to gape at the speaker. Frankly, Hitoshi couldn't blame her for her reaction.

Whoever this guy was, he looked more like a caterpillar than a human, encased in a mummy-style yellow sleeping bag and lying on the floor just outside of their room. He had long, scruffy black hair and a dead-to-the-world stare that Hitoshi related to on a spiritual level, and when he pulled down the zipper of his bag enough to finish drinking one of those jelly pouches that grade school kids were all over, he could make out a black top and an over-long, white-gray scarf nestled around his shoulders in dozens of broad loops. He seemed vaguely familiar…

Oh. This was the proctor for his practical exam. The guy who'd explained the test to him and his fellow hopefuls before flatly declaring that ultimately he didn't care what they did or even if they passed as long as they didn't kill anyone. Hitoshi still wasn't sure what to think of him. Maybe this was his chance to decide.

With a weary sigh and rolled eyes, the man pulled the zipper down the rest of the way, slowly making his way to his feet. "It took eight seconds for all of you to shut up. That's not gonna work. Time is precious. Rational students would understand that."

"Who is this guy?" Hitoshi heard someone mumble behind him. When he glanced back, he was fairly certain it was a blond kid with a black streak vaguely in the shape of a lightning bolt through his bangs. "Is he a pro?"

"Must be," another boy with black hair and bulbous elbows shrugged back.

Another tired sigh; somehow, Hitoshi suspected that the man on the floor had heard every word. His next comment basically confirmed it. "Hello, I'm Aizawa Shouta, your teacher."

"T-Teacher?" a few different voices sputtered, and the man rolled his eyes again.

"Right, let's get to it," he grunted, reaching into his sleeping bag and producing a pile of blue, white, and red track uniforms, stylized so that the letters U and A were marked into the fabric, vaguely mimicking the school's logo. "Put these on and head outside. Changing rooms are around the corner. Today if you would," Aizawa added when everyone hesitated.

Muttering uncertainly, Hitoshi and his new classmates stepped forward, accepting the uniforms as they passed through the doorway and headed towards the aforementioned changing rooms. He hung towards the back of the pack, content to watch and observe over being in the thick of the crowd. Of the twenty students in the class, fourteen were boys and six were girls. Most of them didn't look like much, but then again, he didn't look like much either. Still, that didn't keep the giant of a young man with six arms or the boy with a bird head or the girl with pink skin and matching hair from standing out any less.

Nor did it keep him from noticing the crass blonde grab a short boy with purple hair by the ear and drag him away from the girl's changing room with a growl that sounded suspiciously like, "Don't even think about it."

Hm…

He caught a few names while they all changed. That noisy blonde that always seemed to be in the thick of things was Bakugou, and his red-headed, shark-toothed friend was Kirishima (or maybe Weird Hair or Rocky, but probably Kirishima). The blue-haired boy with the square glasses loudly announced himself as Iida Tenya at some point, but before he could insist on everyone else's names, they'd all finished changing and it was time to go. (No one wanted to risk discovering how much of a temper Aizawa might have this early in the game.)

The girls were already out there by the time they arrived. That brown-haired girl, Uraraka, waved cheerily at him, then, slightly bizarrely, she positively beamed at Bakugou, her eyes lighting up with recognition. Even more bizarrely, the grumpy boy sighed and nodded back in reluctant acknowledgement before the both of them turned their focus to their teacher, who stood in front of the group.

"About time you got here. Any later and I would have expelled the whole lot of you," he droned offhandedly. Lightning Blonde tried to laugh, but at Aizawa's glare, it quickly died in his throat. "Anyway, we're gonna have a Quirk Assessment Test."

"A what?!"

"But orientation!" Uraraka protested anxiously. "We're gonna miss it!"

"If you really wanna make the big leagues, then you can't waste time in pointless ceremonies," their teacher bit out, instantly silencing the entire class. "Here at UA, we're not tethered to foolish traditions. That means I get to run my class however I see fit. You've been taking standardized tests most of your lives, but you've never gotten to use your quirks in physical exams before. The country's still trying to pretend that we're all created equal by not letting those with the most power excel. It's not rational. Someday the ministry of education will learn."

Hitoshi felt something sink into the pit of his gut. He could guess where this was going, and he most certainly didn't like it.

"Bakugou."

"Yeah?"

"You got the highest score on the entrance exam. What was the farthest you managed to throw a softball in junior high?" Aizawa asked, and that heavy something settled a little lower.

Bakugou frowned, considering. He seemed… weirdly uncomfortable with this whole situation. Hitoshi would have thought he was the type to enjoy the spotlight. "Sixty-seven meters, I think."

"Right. Try it with your quirk," their teacher continued, offering him a softball that probably had some sort of tracking device in it. "Anything goes, just stay in the circle to pitch it."

Bakugou grunted in aquiecense as he stepped forward. "Right man, you asked for it," he muttered, then took a deep breath and readied his stance. Uraraka perked up with interest, but when Hitoshi glanced at her, all she did was smile knowingly.

A moment later, he found out why.

"DIE!" Bakugou roared as a massive explosion burst from the palm of his hand, smoke streaming like a comet tail behind the ball as it flew into the distance. While his classmates gaped (Hitoshi did nothing of the sort), Aizawa continued his explanation.

"All of you need to figure out your maximum capabilities as they now stand. It's the most rational way to determine your potential." To emphasize his point, he held up his phone, open to an app synchronized with whatever device was wired to the ball.

"Over seven hundred meters?! Dude, that's amazing!" Lightning Blonde gaped.

"I wanna go! Looks like fun!" Pinky squealed.

"This is what I'm talking about: getting to use our quirks as much as we want!" Weird Elbows added, grinning eagerly. All three of their excited expressions vanished with their teacher's next words.

"So this looks fun, huh? You have three years here to become a hero. You think it's all gonna be games and play time? Idiots," he grinned, and the expression was absolutely terrifying. "Today you'll be competing in eight physical exams to determine your potential. Whoever comes in last has none and will be expelled immediately."

"Expelled?!"

"No way; you can't do that on the first day!"

"It isn't fair!"

"Like I said, I get to control how this class runs," Aizawa cut in, still smiling coldly. "If that's a problem, then you can pack up and go home right now."

Yeah, Hitoshi groaned internally, I'm royally screwed.

.oOo.

By the time they reached the halfway point of the tests, Hitoshi had concluded that he'd never felt so humiliated in all his life.

Even after all the work he'd put in, even after UA had changed policy to create a separate entrance exam for students like him with quirks unsuited to combat with robots, he was still essentially being told to give up.

He'd known from the moment Aizawa had announced the test that things would end up this way. His quirk just wasn't suited for application to a physical exam! He couldn't brainwash the ball into flying further, nor could he brainwash his frickin' legs into jumping farther or running faster for the long jump or fifty meter dash. It just didn't work that way!

He grit his teeth as he walked at the back of the class, his hands balled into fists, in spite of his best efforts to maintain a calm, collected air. Get it together, Hitoshi, he scolded himself. Do you want to be a hero or not?

"What's with that look?"

Hitoshi actually jumped, then whirled around, wide-eyed, towards a slight young man standing just to the side of the path, arms folded across his chest, one of his bright red high tops raised to balance himself against the wall, dressed in gray slacks and a black hoodie, pulled low over his eyes so that all he could see was a couple strands of curly green hair, a notebook tucked under one arm. The new freshman blinked at the other boy, more than a little bit bewildered by his sudden appearance. Not to mention his somewhat… lax attention to it.

"What are you doing here?" he managed eventually, hoping he sounded a little more composed than he looked and biting back a wince when he realized he'd forgotten not to phrase his words as a question.

The boy chuckled softly, straightening and turning to face him, although Hitoshi still couldn't see his eyes. "Don't worry. My sensei knows I'm out here."

"That wasn't my question."

"True," came the faint smile. "I was just interested in seeing the results of Aizawa-sensei's Quirk Test this year."

"This year…" Hitoshi frowned. "So this is a regular occurrence."

"Yeah," came the huffed laugh. "Last year he expelled his entire class."

Hitoshi choked. "You've gotta be screwing with me."

"Not all at once, but over the course of the school year. It's kind of a legend among the upperclassmen. But honestly, I saw it coming-they put up a poor showing during their Quirk Assessment. Half of them gave up before they'd even begun, resigning themselves to expulsion. The rest obviously had no strong handle on their quirks, or even much of a willingness to get creative using them. One was a bully, one was a pervert… On top of which, their top performer wanted to be a hero 'just because'." The boy shook his head with a pitying air and Histoshi couldn't help but think that the boy was awfully well-informed. A Management student, maybe? Or Support? And maybe with an information oriented or otherwise analytical quirk? "Honestly, I don't blame Aizawa-sensei for expelling them. I wouldn't worry about it too much, though. This class has a lot of potential. All the students I've seen so far have been incredible; they've really embraced the challenge of applying their quirks to the tests. Although… Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen you use yours yet."

"Yeah, well my quirk isn't exactly anything physical. There's not much I can do to apply it to a test like this."

The boy cocked his head slightly to one side, his slight frown indicating that he was surveying Hitoshi like a particularly fascinating math problem. Then, all at once, the confusion vanished. "Oh, are you one of the students that got in through the new test system?"

He nodded, and even without seeing his eyes the upperclassman(?)'s face instantly seemed to light up. "Hey, that's amazing! So what is your quirk, exactly? If they let you take the secondary exam, then it's something that can't affect electronics, right? Is it biologically oriented, like Midnight-sensei's quirk, or quirk-manipulation oriented, like Aizawa-sensei's?"

Hitoshi hesitated. It wasn't that he minded talking about his quirk, but most people didn't exactly react… favorably towards him when they found out about it. But this boy seemed so open and earnest, it felt like a crime to just… brush him off. "It's more biological…" he said slowly.

"Awesome! Emitter type, I'm guessing? I mean of course; if it was transformation, they'd probably have sent you to the regular exam. Well unless it's like Shishikura Seiji, where he has a transformation quirk with emitter-like properties that only affect biological matter, but that's a rare… uh… Sorry," the boy cut himself off, looking somewhat embarrassed as he raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. If that hood wasn't hiding his face, Hitoshi imagined he'd be blushing. "I get like that when I'm thinking too much. A-Anyway, what's your quirk called?"

"It's… Brainwashing," he admitted finally, casting a nervous glance towards the other boy. He'd gone still, and even though he couldn't see it, Hitoshi could imagine his eyes widening, imagine the fear and the caution leaking into th-

"That's so cool!"

Hitoshi blinked at him. "…What."

The boy was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as he fumbled for a pen and whipped open his notebook. "How does it work? What's the activator? Can you control multiple people at once? Can you only control your targets' actions, or can you control what they say, too? Do they have any memory of what you've done after the fact? Does their willingness or awareness have any effect on your level of control? Can they resist or reinterpret commands, or does it all lie in the intent? Is there any way to break out of it? Can you issue multiple commands at once? Does it give you control over their quirk too? Can you give commands silently, or does it have to be vocal? What-?"

"Oi, Shinsou! Come on; we're about to start without you, man!"

The boy broke off, jumping slightly at the sound of the voice. It was the boy with the obnoxiously red hair, waving at them from the corner of the gym. Kirishima, right?

"Sorry about that!" the green-haired boy called back. "I held him up!" He turned back with a slightly sheepish smile, closing his notebook around the pen. "Sorry if I came off too strong there. It's just that mind-control quirks are really rare, so I don't get the chance to talk to users often. I'd better let you get to class though; Aizawa-sensei's not known for his patience."

"Yeah. Okay," Hitoshi murmured, still a little whiplashed from the boy's unexpected reaction. His quirk… was cool?

"Oh, and Shinsou-san?"

"Yeah?"

The boy had turned back towards him, and just for a moment, Hitoshi caught a glimpse of emerald green eyes, reflecting the faint smile playing around his lips. "Just a word of advice: Aizawa-sensei values creativity and tenacity over orthodoxy."

"…My quirk is brainwashing, not mind reading. You're gonna have to explain that a bit more."

"Your quirk may not be physical in nature, but it might give you access to resources that no one else has. Just thought I'd remind you of that."

"Um. Okay," Hitoshi frowned, watching as the boy turned and walked away in the general direction of the main building. Still a bit bemused by their entire interaction, he ran after Kirishima, who led the way into the gym.

"So who was that guy?" the redhead frowned, cocking his head curiously at him.

"Dunno. An upperclassman I think."

"Huh. Weird."

"Yeah," Hitoshi agreed absently as they rejoined their classmates.

"Now that the slowpokes have joined us," Aizawa droned wearily, "we can continue the test. Next we're demonstrating grip strength. Everyone grab a scale."

Hitoshi stayed back once again as the rest of his class stepped forward to grab a machine, but this time it was because his thoughts were still spinning around what that boy had said. Aizawa values creativity. Creativity? His quirk, while powerful, was pretty one-note if he was being honest. He could take over people's minds, get them to do things they didn't want to do, but he couldn't trick a machine with it. Your quirk gives you access to resources that no one else has.

"Whoa dude, that's incredible! You hit five hundred and forty kilograms!" someone called. Hitoshi glanced over curiously, towards where that giant of a young man with three arms on each side had taken one of the machines with all three arms and used them to increase his overall grip. There were a couple of other students gathered around him, gawking at the score that had appeared on the screen. The boy with the funky elbows appeared to have been the speaker.

Resources that no one else has.

An insane plan formulated in his mind. It was the kind of plan that might get him expelled, but frankly if he didn't try something he was likely to get expelled anyway. So Hitoshi set aside his doubts and stepped forward.

"Hey. You're pretty strong, right?"

"Hm? I guess-" Instantly, his classmate's face went slack, his eyes staring straight ahead. Hitoshi allowed himself a grim smile.

"Do the test for me," he commanded quietly, passing the grip-strength machine to him. Without a word, the other student complied, while Weird Elbows gaped at him.

"Dude how'd you do that?"

Hitoshi shrugged, taking his machine back as he released control. Six Arms blinked and stared at him, then at the machine in Hitoshi's hands with an even higher score than had been on his own. "Did I do that?" he frowned, and Hitoshi shrugged noncommittally, internally bracing himself for the backlash of his classmate's fury, for the ostracization and fear that always followed his quirk. "Huh. Clever."

For the second time that day, all Hitoshi could do was blink. "What?"

Six Arms shrugged. He couldn't see him smile past the face mask he insisted on wearing, but he could hear it vaguely. "You have some kind of control quirk, right? It's a clever way to apply it to a test like this," he clarified. "But how'd you get a higher score than I did?"

"Um… I'm not sure," Hitoshi admitted. "Maybe my quirk helped you to not overthink things."

His classmate considered, then nodded. "That could be it. Might be an interesting way to team up in a battle at some point."

An interesting way to…? Wait… "You're suggesting that you want me to brainwash you again," Hitoshi stared in bewilderment.

"Well I'm not gonna lie, it felt pretty weird," Six Arms acknowledged, "but a quirk like that could be really effective in stopping villains. It'd be a waste not to practice with it, right?"

"Yeah, no kidding!" Weird Elbows suddenly cut in, grinning. "That power of yours is amazing, dude! I'm glad you're on our side!"

"I… I guess," Hitoshi agreed, feeling almost dizzy in the face of his eager smile.

"Alright. We're moving on to the situps," Aizawa called, his voice still the epitome of boredom. "Pick a partner and get moving."

"Wanna team up?" Elbows asked instantly, still grinning.

"Uh. Sure."

Histoshi glanced towards the teacher as he and his classmate-Sero, he soon learned-headed towards the mats, and was slightly surprised to realize that he was side-eyeing him appraisingly as well, the faintest of smiles touching his lips before he hid the expression in his scarf. It was such a stark contrast to his usual basilisk glare, Hitoshi actually stopped walking for a moment to stare.

Looked like he wasn't going to be expelled for quirk abuse, then.

There wasn't much he could do with his quirk to facilitate the situps or the seated toe touch, but the long-distance run, the final event of the morning, was another matter. As the students gathered by the start line, Hitoshi quietly approached Iida. "Hey. How fast can you go carrying another person?" he asked.

"Well it depends-"

Iida's face went slack, and at Hitoshi's command, let him ride piggy-back. The brainwasher did his best to ignore the startled looks from some of their other classmates-he knew that he looked absolutely ridiculous (and he pretended that was all that was making them stare). In the end, they still managed to finish first, even with Hitoshi's added weight. Iida didn't take his manipulation as well as Six Arms-or Shouji, as he'd introduced himself-had, but begrudgingly admitted it was a smart move, and even commented he thought this might have been his best time over this distance, especially considering the added burden of Hitoshi.

Huh. Maybe his quirk really could help people avoid overthinking things.

When the results came out, Hitoshi was honestly surprised-and more than a little relieved-to find he'd placed 15th, just above his situps partner Sero. The last place, Mineta Minoru, was told to go pack his bags. The boy wailed like a siren, tears gushing from his eyes (and a little blood leaking from his scalp), but Aizawa remained utterly unimpressed. As a matter of fact, Hitoshi could see a little more disdain clouding the man's eyes with every word to leave the boy's mouth. When the words 'Yaoyorozu' and 'boobs' appeared in the same sentence, any remaining vestiges of patience vanished in an instant, his eyes suddenly burning red and his seemingly-unobtrusive scarf whipping out to wrap the little pervert up like a mummy. "Did I stutter?" he growled lowly, and his former student released a muffled squeak of fear.

"Wh-What is this?"

"I get it," Bakugou snorted suddenly. "That's your capture weapon. You're Eraserhead, aren't you, the underground hero. I thought you seemed familiar."

Aizawa-sensei (Hitoshi supposed that he'd earned the honorific) shot him an odd look, but didn't deny it. Instead he returned his attention to Mineta, flicking the scarf (capture weapon?) and allowing it to unravel. "If you understand your situation, then pack your bags and get out."

Still sniffling, but too terrified to protest further, Mineta left. Hitoshi did not fail to notice that he shot one more disgustingly hungry glance towards the girls as he did so. Nor did he fail to notice that all of them seemed to press a little tighter around Yaoyorozu, who looked rather pale as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Now that that's been taken care of," Aizawa-sensei sighed, snapping instantly back to his hum-drum demeanor, "there are a few things that I need to give you all before sending you home for the day. So go on; back to the classroom with everyone. Except Bakugou."

"Eh? What'd I do?"

"I want a word."

Hitoshi followed the rest of the chattering crowd back towards the classroom, staying towards the back as usual, casting a curious glance towards where their teacher stood, speaking quietly to the scruffy blonde. They were angled in such a way that he couldn't tell what he was saying by the movement of his lips but it seemed serious judging by his posture and the grim light in his dark eyes.

"So, Shinsou-kun, what'd you think of the test?" Uraraka asked brightly, falling into step alongside him and startling his attention away from them. At first, all he could do was stare at her (Was this the third time today?). She knew what his quirk could do now, and yet she still insisted on being his friend?

"It was alright," he shrugged eventually. "Made me think outside the box a bit."

"I know, right!? I never would have thought of using your quirk that way; getting other people to help you out was really clever! Iida-kun mentioned that when you hypnotized him or whatever it was like you were able to push him past his limits, too! If we ever did team-ups, do you think you could help suppress my nausea reflex? It's not too horrible most of the time, but if I push too hard…"

Hitoshi listened to her chatter on, still processing the fact that, even after learning about his quirk, no one had rejected him yet. In fact, they were encouraging him. It's an interesting group we have here, he thought. Then the thought occurred to him that it might have been him sent home if he hadn't used his quirk on Shouji and Iida. If that had happened, he'd never have the chance to get to know this strange, friendly bunch of kids.

One way or another, he'd have to thank that green-haired boy if he ever saw him again.

Outtake:

Eijirou kept glancing over his shoulder as he trailed after the rest of his new class, waiting for Bakugou to finish his 'word' with Aizawa-sensei. He could tell that his best friend's posture was unusually stiff; Eijirou hoped that he wasn't in trouble for some reason, especially considering that their teacher obviously had no qualms about kicking trouble-makers out of school.

Seriously though, that little bastard had been asking for it. Ashido had told him and Bakugou how that purple-haired punk tried sneaking into the girls' changing room back during the entrance exam. Then talking about the top scorer in the quirk assessment test like she was some kind of porn star? So not manly. Matter of fact, that was probably one of the least many things he had ever seen. Frankly, Eijirou was relieved that punk had been expelled.

Eventually, Bakugou walked away from their new teacher, his face unreadable. He didn't even pause to roll his eyes when he noticed that Eijirou had waited up for him.

"Hey man. You okay?" the newly-redhead asked softly, falling in step with him.

"Fine."

"What was all that about?"

Bakugou sighed deeply, the sound a combination of exasperation, irritation, and resignation. "The school knows I'm in therapy but not why, so they want me to take a psych exam from their counselor."

"Didn't you already have to take one of those when you applied to UA?" Eijirou frowned.

"Yeah, but they want me to take one from somebody with a little more 'familiarity with the stresses of being a pro hero'," the blonde grumbled, making air quotes with his fingers, although by now, Eijirou knew him well enough to tell that the irritation was just a shield for his worry.

"Hey, you'll do fine, man. You've worked so hard the last few years to get a handle on your temper; I'm sure it'll be fine!"

"I don't think it's about that," Bakugou sighed. "I think they wanna know about my trauma therapy."

"Oh," Eijirou blinked, suddenly understanding why he'd seemed so dead-eyed from the conversation. It had taken nearly two years of friendship before Bakugou had told him about the reason why he transferred schools: the death of Midoriya Izuku. He knew that Bakugou blamed himself, and while Eijirou didn't agree that he should, he could empathize with why; it had to be awful to realize your childhood best friend committed suicide and you'd never noticed just how far-gone they were.

He could only imagine how hard it must be for Bakugou to open up to a total stranger about it when it took him so long even to mention it to his friends.

"Well hey," Eijirou smiled, lightly punching his friend's shoulder, "you're one of the manliest people I know. I'm sure it'll all work out."

Bakugou huffed at that, a crooked smile curling his lips, too. "I should smack you for that."

"What? I gave you a compliment!"

"You said 'one of'. If I'm not the best then it's an insult."

"Sorry man, but not even you are as manly as Crimson Riot."

"Like hell, Weird Hair!"

I'm not sure why writing from Shinsou's point of view is so entertaining, but it is seriously super fun.

Anywho! I can't remember if I explained this earlier, so I'm saying it now: part of the point of this fic is a writing concept that I've had for awhile about 'what would happen if you wrote a story that created the main character entirely based on others' perceptions of him?' So basically in this fic, expect everyone's point of view except Izuku's. That means I will not be giving you any spoilers relating to him, but I would love to see/hear your theories about what the heck is going through his head. :D

Next update comes May 1st, courtesy of our sassy punk rocker. Until then! PLUS ULTRA!