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“You, me, gym, now.”
Kirishima raised his head to meet the familiar scowl.
“I need to study in library,” he sighed, knowing too well by now that his protests were to crush against the mountains of Bakugou’s heinously selfish attitude. “We have a test next week, remember?”
“You need to study for that shit? Have you tried not being stupid?”
“Have you tried not being a dick?”
Kirishima crossed hands and pouted, looking directly into Bakugou’s face. Bakugou could try dragging him to the gym if he wanted it so badly, he wasn't gonna go without a fight.
They exchanged bullish looks for some time until unexpectedly, Bakugou’s frown faltered.
“Okay, fine, I'll help your sorry ass with it later,” he said to the side, hiding his red eyes from Kirishima’s suspiciously. “Now shut the fuck up and let's go.”
That had to be a new tactic of aggravation. And it worked: “Bakugou said WHAT now?!” still reverberated in Kirishima's head when Bakugou was already pulling him by the sleeve of school uniform into direction of the gym hall. Once there, Kirishima got into training uniform more by a habit than a conscious decision, still contemplating how sincere his classmate was about the proposition.
He was probably going to make a fool of Kirishima, as usual, wasting Kirishima's time on the mock fight and then getting to laugh at him when Kirishima failed the test. Because that was how Bakugou always behaved towards him, right?
The grueling beating sessions Bakugou insisted on calling training was a new thing in his routine of bullying-turned-rivalry with him. Kirishima had to guess that he unfortunately managed to impress his dickhead classmate with advances in mastery of his hardening. He'd be glad if it caused Bakugou to stop bothering him, but no luck. Kirishima intuited that bullies usually dropped their targets to look for someone easier to bother if their victim put up a sufficient resistance, and it confused him when that trick he pulled on Bakugou in library a while ago didn’t do shit to deter him. Bakugou huffed his cheeks and drilled Kirishima with murderous glares for about a week, and then decided to formalize his antagonistic attitude in those so-called training fights. He dragged Kirishima to gym at hours when it was empty and demanded to do hand to hand combat routine with him every week now.
Turned out that Kirishima tripped over his own landmine he spontaneously set for Bakugou back there. Bakugou just stayed on his ass even more now and even insisted that these forced fights were for Kirishima's own benefit. The real awful thing here was that Bakugou was right. Honing reflexes against someone like him resulted in tangible improvements in control over hardening and general physical prowess at astonishing rate. Bakugou left him no option but to get better. And because Kirishima was fair and honorable, he understood keenly that for that, he ought to be thanking Bakugou soon. The idea kind of made Kirishima sick to his stomach.
“Slow!”
A swift punch to his ribs accompanied the mocking snark. It was Kirishima’s own damn fault, he didn’t move to block the hit quickly enough, but it was still a giant dick move on Bakugou’s part to throw punches like that.
More and more frequently, whenever Kirishima spotted Bakugou being an ass to some kids, he just couldn’t stand by and ignore it. He inserted himself between his classmate and the targets of his ill temper without care for Bakugou’s retaliation. It never ceased being true: the closer he got to Bakugou, the less scary Bakugou became, and now that they were seeing eye to eye more than ever with this mutual training routine, what was there for Kirishima to fear? Another sucker punch to his stomach? His hide was sturdy, he could take that with ease.
He guessed that Bakugou was extra mad because Kirishima interrupted him picking up on Midoriya for this morning. He chided Bakugou and told him to pick someone his size, fists raised and ready to fight him right here, and all that. He could swear a ghost of embarrassment swept through Bakugou’s scowl for a second there. Now Bakugou was taking it out on him.
“Stop fucking slacking on me!”
The relentless flurry of punches put Kirishima into deep defense. Bakugou used his speed to full advantage, homing in on the blind zones. Usually Kirishima had time to throw counter attacks there and there, but right now he had to constantly watch his six, and for attempts to trip him, and for nasty sucker punches. Bakugou circled around him like a shark, continously testing his guard, wearing him down with hits to his forearms and shins and occasionally to his ribs. He was so worked up already. His face was colored with an angry blush, strands of his pale blond hair sticking to his forehead and temples within minutes of the fight, eyes tracking Kirishima’s every move with obsessiveness of a homing missile.
Kirishima would like to stop slacking, in Bakugou’s words, but he was cautious of overextending. He remembered well that his attempts at catching his more nimble and smart classmate could cost him - Bakugou punished any opening, any lag in reaction like he was in a fighting game with his combos perfectly memorized. He very much didn’t want to act stupid when Bakugou was so genuinely mad at him. But as Kirishima soldiered up in this endurance test of his defense, he noted that the more he blocked and evaded without launching a counter, the hastier and angrier Bakugou’s movements became.
Rattled and seething, Bakugou launched another one of his mean hooks, fist flying past Kirishima’s deceptively sluggish block, aimed squarely at underside of the chin. Kirishima’s heart skipped a beat, but not because of the imminent collision. The opposite: he was shocked how transparent the move was, how easily he could read it, how his brain mapped out a simple, one-step evasion from the attack that got him closer to the opponent at the same time. Elation phased out the dull ache in his forearms built up from constant blocking and gave him a much needed second breath to swiftly grab Bakugou’s arm and yank him, helping the momentum of his body to throw him onto training mat within blink of an eye.
He caught the sight of Bakugou’s eyes as his classmate plastered on his back on the mat, opened wide in shock, processing how he got tripped so stupidly. They darted at Kirishima and widened even more, spotting Kirishima’s visible eagerness for a payback, already falling fist first onto Bakugou with his full body weight. Bakugou barely made it, lurching to the side in the last moment. Kirishima’s fist still grazed his cheek. The euphoric state didn’t fade out due to this unsuccessful follow up attack - had Kirishima been using his hardening, he knew he’d deal real damage to that pretty face easily.
The thought instantly shut down Kirishima’s brain processes, seeminly even on cerebral level: his inner monologue had what to say about Bakugou’s face?
Before he could unfreeze himself, much less - process his own thoughts, he felt a blinding flash of pain booming in the front area of his head. Bakugou seized the moment and punched him squarely in the face, his fist seemingly propelled forward and enhanced by his explosive quirk.
He heard a crack coming somewhere from his own head, tasted blood in the back of his throat. Stunned, he was completely defenseless against the next hit - that wasn’t coming as he kept shaking his head trying to get rid of the ringing noise in his ears and something wet on his face.
“The fuck is wrong with you? Why didn’t you harden?”
Funny, Kirishima thought, Bakugou’s voice overlapped over this ringing in his ears and sounded almost frightened.
“We can’t use our quirks without license,” he responded mechanically, pawing at his face. Oh, that was blood. A lot of it. He touched his mouth and nose and- “Ow, dude.”
“Don’t touch it, dumbass,” Bakugou chided him. “I broke your nose.”
“You sure did,” Kirishima said, feeling how it was filling with blood and throbbing pain. He hiked up his shirt to wipe his face with its hem, trying not to disturb the damaged area and wondering if there was a pack of ice somewhere around in the gym. “God, you’re such a jerk.”
He didn’t see Bakugou’s reaction - heard him grinding teeth together, though, - and wasn’t particularly surprised when his classmate pulled him up by sleeve to stand up. He wasn’t afraid of whatever Bakugou was about to do.
“The fuck is the point in this training if you don’t train your fucking quirk?!” Instead of continuation of the fistfight, Bakugou exploded at him with words. “Nobody ain’t gonna hand you over a license if you don’t know how to fucking use it!”
Kirishima looked at him in bewilderment. What the hell got him pissed now? He didn’t want to get into argument about state licenses before he got something cold to press against his nose and a hefty dose of painkillers, though.
“If you punch my face like that when I’m hardened, it’ll fuck your hand up,” he retorted instead.
Bakugou’s mouth pursed into a thin line, even though the rest of his face looked like he was about to burst with many, many swear words. Kirishima didn’t know what force won in Bakugou because he didn’t respond and just grabbed him by forearm, yanked him off the mat and dragged him to benches.
“Medical, now. Take your shit.”
A surprisingly sound idea, Kirishima thought to himself. He grabbed his backpack and, for no reason he could imagine, Bakugou went on to drag him out of gym. Fingers firmly locked around Kirishima’s wrist, all that.
During the walk, Kirishima’s emotions towards Bakugou’s strange behavior softened down a notch. Sure, Bakugou was, above else, an asshole, but if one squinted a bit, Kirishima could see a dash of sincerity in his motivation with those fights. It was no secret that Bakugou desperately wanted to get into U.A. High, and was equally desperate to develop and polish his skills to stay on top even when competing against the cream of the crop in the most prestigious hero course in the whole country. He expressed multiple times that Kirishima was a perfect dummy for him to train against, and though that was a very rude way to put it, Kirishima could look at it neutrally and kind of agree. Their quirks naturally tended to cancel each other out. When Bakugou was lacking, Kirishima could put up impenetrable defenses and devastating melee attacks. When Kirishima wasn’t living up to his potential, Bakugou could easily overpower him and crumble him into dust. When one stepped up his game, the other had to follow. Despite almost nonexistent comraderie, their development became symbiotic and mutual.
He guessed that today, it was his turn to be a downer and a bad match in fight, and he understood why Bakugou could be frustrated with him.
The nurse in the medical had a very predictable reaction to seeing Kirishima with face and shirt covered in blood.
“Aight, boys, what happened?” She asked as she gave a first glance at Kirishima’s messed up profile.
“Accident during training. My own damn fault-” Kirishima started.
“I did that,” Bakugou interrupted.
The nurse didn’t pause wiping dried up blood from Kirishima’s face and nose, but still shot Bakugou a suspicious look.
“It’s really not a big deal. I got stupid for a second and paid for it,” Kirishima said while the nurse was examining his nose, even put a dumb, placating smile on his face. He had to throw his head up, so he couldn’t see Bakugou’s reaction.
Nurse took a bit to respond, carefully pinching the bridge of his nose to evaluate the damage. It felt weird, but not very painful.
“Well, it seems like you got off easy, bones are intact, only slight cartilage displacement,” she said as she turned to the cabinet with medical tools and medicine.
“Yeah, my bones are sturdy!” He said with a bit more enthusiasm than necessary to divert the conversation away from Bakugou’s plain admission of guilt.
He heard Bakugou's hushed grumbling about some dumbass with thickest skull in the world.
“That's all good, but I still have to report on your fight to your homeroom teacher,” the nurse said as she fixed Kirishima's nose in place and gave him a pack of ice, which he eagerly accepted.
Though it infuriated Kirishima how Bakugou’s bullying often went unpunished, it didn’t feel fair to get him in trouble over the fight they both eagerly participated on. Worse, it felt stupid and unproductive. He didn’t really understand why Bakugou admitted to being the reason for his bloodied nose instead of just nodding along to Kirishima’s words.
“We were training!”
“I take the responsibility.”
Kirishima and Bakugou exchanged looks. Bakugou lowered his head, bullish. Kirishima was just confused. Why would he say that?
“I'm gonna have to ask that you leave the cabinet for a bit, young man,” the nurse told Bakugou. He obeyed, giving Kirishima one more of those unreadable glares.
Once the door closed, the nurse said:
“I know this boy is a troublemaker. Other kids are scared of him. Did he threaten you to keep quiet about the fight?”
Kirishima blinked, confused even more because while yes, it was an open secret that his classmate instigated a lot of fights and rarely felt the consequences for his behavior from teachers, it was Bakugou who brought him to medical as soon as their fight got a little bit too serious.
“Uh… No. We're training together every week while the gym is empty,” he said, honestly not knowing how to explain the nature of their rivalry because he struggled to understand it himself. “And he dragged my butt here as soon as this happened. I just didn't react in time, that's all.” He pondered on this for a bit. “Oh god, we're gonna get suspended for this, no? I need to train really hard, I want to enter hero course next year! You can tell my mom, but not the homeroom teacher. Please!”
He even put his hands together in a praying gesture.
The nurse considered this information for a moment.
“Aight, kid. I'm calling your mom. And tell your friend not to be so rough next time.”
“Thank you- wait, what.”
They were not friends.
***
Mom took the information fairly well. She asked to talk to her son and calmly heard him out - that's why he loved his mom so much and trusted her with everything that was happening at school. After talking to his mom again then, the nurse dismissed him from the cabinet with a fixating bandage on his nose bridge, a big ice pack to soothe the swelling and a warning to be more cautious next time.
Bakugou was still there waiting for him. Kirishima wasn’t sure why it surprised him, his classmate probably just wanted to confirm he wasn’t in trouble.
“I guess we got off easy,” he said and waved his hand with the ice pack.
Bakugou’s narrowed eyes didn’t convey a relief or reciprocated the conversational approach Kirishima tried. He held hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, even his hair looked spikier and more hostile than usual.
Kirishima wasn't sure how to proceed, if he even needed that. He could ask Bakugou why he acted so weird. But he also kind of didn't want to get into this. It wasn't really his concern outside the context of his training with Bakugou. He headed to leave.
“You're gonna try entering U.A. High, aren't you?”
That stopped him in tracks.
He hadn't announced his intentions. He left the school questionnaire blank. He saw how this morning Bakugou exploded at Midoriya for daring to write U.A. High down as a place he aspired to enter. He stood between Midoriya and him later when Bakugou decided it wasn't enough and tried to take his wrath out on a defenseless, quirkless classmate for daring to dream. As if Midoriya was an actual threat to him, somehow.
“It's not the only school with hero courses.”
Bakugou make a noise, dismissive of this non-committal reply.
“Cut the bullshit. It's the only place worth graduating.”
“And so what if I will try to enter U.A.? You're gonna fight me, too? Or are you only going after those who can't defend themselves?”
Everything about Bakugou annoyed Kirishima today, his behavior towards his weaker classmate, his gloating about Kirishima's need to study for tests, his terrible attitude during their fight.
“My business with that nerd is none of your fucking concern!”
Bakugou caught up with him to look him in the face. His eyes shone with feverish glean, some deep, alien emotion rippling through them as if it was tearing him apart from inside.
“If I don't see your ass at entrance exams, I'll beat it so hard you'll forget your own fucking name,” he told Kirishima, mouth twisting in an ugly snarl, his large canines making him look absolutely feral.
He turned on heels sharply and left without giving Kirishima a chance to respond.
Kirishima watched him walk away, his posture closed off and aggressive. He pressed the ice pack to other side of his nose and tried to comb his feelings about it.
It seemed like wasted effort already. Nothing really made sense with Bakugou anyway.