To Stand by Your Side (DekuBaku)

Chapter 1: Start Line

"So, I'm sure you all have been thinking about where it is you want to go to high school by now. If not, well... you've got a nice zero in the gradebook waiting for you. Though, I'd hope all of you have turned in your papers with your top choices for high school by now."

Ugh, could you talk any slower, teach? Wastin' my damn time.

Katsuki's head lolled back over the end of his chair, feet up on the desk. Hell, he didn't need to be here. He knew what he wanted to do. Didn't need some high school dropout with a pathetic quirk ordering him around.

"Looks like we have a few overachievers here though—oh, Bakugou!" His teacher pulled his form out of the stack, eyebrows scrunched up in a way that somehow made him even uglier than before. "You were supposed to write down your top three choices, yet you... you only put one on here." His teacher seemed a little nervous about continuing. "You—you know U.A. only has about a two percent acceptance rate, right? As amazing as it would be for you to get in, you better be planning on applying to other schools as well...!"

I've had enough of this shit for one day.

Katsuki groaned, heaved himself up into a (slightly) more regular sitting position, and stared his teacher dead in the eye. "Oi. Shut the hell up. Who are the hell are you to be telling me what the fuck I can and can't do, hah? I'm going to U.A., and that's a goddamn fact."

If it wouldn't have been a mark on his perfect attendance record, he'd have walked out right then and there.

The rest of the so-called "lecture" was a bitch to listen to, and by the end of the day, he was dying to do anything more productive. With a loud, exhausted groan, he stepped out of the school, debating on whether to head to his house before going to the gym or not—just before being stopped by a couple more of the resident class shitheads. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and kept walking.

Not in the mood today, fuckers.

"Katsuki, you really went off today." The finger-fuck kid jogged over to him. "Dude, the look on his face when you said that...! Shit, that was good, man."

Katsuki clenched his teeth and kept walking. "S'nothing. Shut up."

"Aw, but he was kinda right, you know?" Weird-face said as he came up beside him. "You're amazing as hell, Katsuki, but you should probably apply somewhere other than U.A.—hell, you know that those entrance exams are practically impossible!"

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

"Don't you know who you're talking to?" Bitterness, cold and scathing seared through his words. "I'm gonna be the best damn hero there is, and U.A. is the only starting line I'll accept. S'not that hard to fuckin' comprehend, is it!?"

The two laughed beside him, falling a few nervous paces behind. "You... you sure are something, Katsuki." They paused for just a minute, an awkward silence filling the air as an even more awkward question came up. "Uh... wanna hit up the arcade this afternoon? The prey'll be good right now, y'know..." Finger-fuck trailed off, long past having overstayed his welcome.

"You think I would want that shit to wind up on my record if I was caught? Hell no." Palms sparked at his hips. "Leave me alone, idiots. I have more important shit to do."

How many times do I have to say—

"Training for U.A. entrance exams then, huh?" The other said, a bit of a mocking edge to his words. "You're not—Katsuki, you're not that much better than us. Why don't you ever just do what we do, the same shit that everyone else does? It's weird, man. Why can't you just be norma—"