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Imagine this.

Katsuki Bakugo didn’t exactly plan to download the app and meet you online.

After the war against the League of Villains, things had slowly returned to something resembling peace in Japan. There were still villains lurking in the city, but that had become normal now— the background noise of the world still learning to breathe again.

Especially for Class 1-A, who were now in their second year at UA High School.

Katsuki Bakugo, who was lying in his bed inside his dorm, found an app the way he found most things he didn't plan on.

He'd been scrolling after morning training, burning time before his next obligation, when the platform appeared in his recommended feed. HEROVIA. A niche platform for aspiring heroes— quirk analysis, theory debates, international hero system comparisons. Every debate was scored live. Upvotes didn’t matter; consistency did. Argument chains were ranked based on logic, adaptability, and response time. The top contributors had profiles that people actually followed.

He downloaded it for entertainment purposes. That was what he told himself.

His username was GroundZero_1, something fitting for him, he said. For five months, he used it the same way he used most things. He read articles, left comments on posts that deserved them, and occasionally engaged in debates that caught his attention. Most people didn't argue back. He said what he said, and that was that.

Then he commented on a post, a debatable question about combat effectiveness, the kind that attracted a lot of confidently wrong opinions, and waited for the usual silence. That is…

If you didn’t comment back.

Y/N_Hero: Your point about attack range is good, but you're also ignoring something. You need to analyze and adapt to the environment you're fighting in. Power alone doesn't account for everything.

He stared at the comment for a few seconds longer than he meant to, then typed back.

GroundZero_1: Environmental adaptability is nothing without the firepower to back it up. You're describing every mid-tier hero ranked lower than 20 who calls it a career.

Y/N_Hero: And you're describing every ranked hero who retires early. Congratulations on your ceiling.

His eye twitched.

GroundZero_1: You don't know anything about my ceiling.

Y/N_Hero: Oh? Prove it then.

He didn't stop arguing until you stopped commenting that day.

Your username was Y/N_Hero —six weeks on the platform. And here you were, matching him point for point with an irritating precision that he couldn't decide whether he respected or resented.

Both, probably.

The arguments became a regular thing between the two of you. One time, Bakugo dropped a comment on a live quirk analysis stream one evening. You were already there, and within 10 minutes, the comment section had become a two-person debate that the live audience had stopped participating in entirely. Even the person running the stream had gone quiet.

It was, apparently, amusing to observe.

Bakugo didn't particularly care about anything or anyone. He cared about being right. And you made it very difficult.

Somewhere between the second and third weeks, the arguments started drifting into something else.

Y/N_Hero: If you could pick any non-combat skill as a hero, what would it be? Anything unrelated to fighting.

GroundZero_1: Why does that matter.

Y/N_Hero: I'm just curious.

He paused. Then:

GroundZero_1: Cooking.

Y/N_Hero: ...I didn't expect that from you.

GroundZero_1: It's efficient. Unlike whatever soft answer you're about to give.

Y/N_Hero: I was going to say languages.

GroundZero_1: ...Fine. That's a decent one.

A month had passed, and the public threads of both of you arguing had quietly become private messages. Something neither of you two had planned. Through those messages, he learned many things about you. You were a hero student just like him, but from another country. Unlike Japan's hero system, which was built on rankings and quirk-based metrics, yours prioritized moral uprightness and civilian trust. You and Katsuki Bakugo argued about it for forty-five minutes one night.

Y/N_Hero: The ranking system creates unfair pressure more than it creates motivation. You have to at least admit that.

Bakugo typed three different responses and deleted all of them, because the honest answer was “yeah, sometimes” and Bakugo wouldn’t tell you that. The conversation shifted to food. He mentioned he liked spicy food. You responded with enthusiasm, and at 11 PM on a random Friday night, three recipes arrived in his DMs, complete with measurements, step-by-step instructions, and handwritten-style notes in the margins.

Y/N_Hero: Try the third one first. It’s good for a light snack.

GroundZero_1: I don’t need you to tell me that.

Y/N_Hero: I know. Try it anyway.

He made it the next morning.

Kirishima appeared in the kitchen doorway twenty minutes in and asked if he could have some. Bakugo handed him a portion without comment. He never explained where the recipe came from. He made it again the following week. He told himself it was because it was a good recipe.

He also learned that you were unexpectedly funny.

Y/N_Hero: A villain tried to rob a convenience store near my school today.

GroundZero_1: And?

Y/N_Hero: He slipped on a wet floor sign on the way out. The store owner looked at him and said, “That’s what the sign is for…” and called the police.

GroundZero_1: …That’s the most embarrassing villain defeat I’ve ever heard.

He exhaled through his nose— almost a laugh.

One thing that Bakugo could never admit was that he started looking forward to logging on. After class, after training, in the window between dinner and lights-out, he reached for his phone with a specific kind of anticipation that he had long since stopped pretending was about anything else.

Kirishima noticed. He always did. He started asking questions with the careful curiosity of someone who wanted to know but also valued being alive the next day, and when Bakugo turned the full weight of a warning glare on him, he backed off immediately.

There was one time you sent a voice memo by accident, and Bakugo listened to it more times than he would ever admit.

Then, on a random Monday, you stopped.

Y/N_Hero: Hey. I might be slow to reply for a bit. I’ve got a lot of crazy things going on right now. I’ll explain later, okay?

GroundZero_1: Whatever. Don’t be dramatic about it.

He waited for the “okay” the small confirmation you always sent, the acknowledgment that the message had landed. It didn’t come. One grey checkmark. Undelivered.

Days passed. Then days turned into weeks.

He checked the app every morning before training, between classes when he thought no one was watching, after dinner in the elevator back to his floor— sometimes in the middle of the night.

Your account hadn’t posted anything. His message hadn’t been delivered. He opened the DM once, typed and deleted over the keyboard, and closed the app without sending anything. He wasn’t going to send anything.

He just checked. Almost every day.

Class 1-A noticed. They always noticed things about Bakugo— not because they went looking, but because two years of living together had made it unavoidable. They had learned the changes in his mood the way a neurologist studies a brain-damaged patient. And something was off.

It was hard to name exactly. He wasn’t angrier than usual; he was quieter in a way that wasn’t peaceful.

One Saturday morning, the living room was quiet. Kirishima found Bakugo on the couch with an expression he’d been seeing for two weeks and hadn’t yet found the right moment to ask about.

He sat down across from him. “Hey, you good?” Bakugo didn’t look up. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve been on your phone a lot lately.” Something twitched near Bakugo’s eye. “I’m allowed to be on my phone.”

“Yeah, totally.” Then, carefully: “You keep making that face, though.”

Bakugo looked up. “What face?”

Kirishima held eye contact. It was a skill he was quietly proud of. “The one where you’re looking at something, and it’s pissing you off, but you’re not actually mad at the thing. You’re just—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bakugo cut in, the scowl arriving like punctuation. Kirishima looked at him for a moment longer. Then, he wisely decided not to push. “Alright.” He didn’t bring it up again that morning.

Kaminari didn’t mean to pry. He’d simply been walking past when the angle of Bakugo’s phone screen had been visible for approximately two seconds. He reported to Sero and Mina afterward with the breathless energy of someone encountering a near-death experience. “He’s texting someone— or rather, waiting for someone to text him...?”

Mina, who had the instincts of someone born for exactly this kind of information, leaned in immediately. “Weird how?”

“Like...” Kaminari searched for the right words. “Checking it and being annoyed. But not the normal annoyed.”

Sero and Mina looked at each other. They all knew what the other annoyed meant.

Jiro brought it up with Yaoyorozu and Sato on a weeknight, while the rest of the class existed loudly in the living room.

“Have you noticed Bakugo’s been kind of quieter lately?” She kept her voice casual. “Like... differently quiet.”

Both of them glanced through the kitchen doorway at Bakugo. “He’s been less reactive in group settings,” Yaoyorozu said, choosing her words carefully. “It’s noticeable, yes.”

“He used to yell at Kaminari for breathing too loudly..." Jiro said.

Sato nodded slowly. “He didn’t say anything yesterday when Kaminari knocked over a full cup of juice on the living room table.”

Yaoyorozu paused. “He didn’t?”

“Just handed him paper towels.” Sato confirmed.

'Something is definitely going on...' they all thought at approximately the same time.

Midoriya, for his part, had been the most systematic about it. He’d opened a fresh page in his notebook and begun tracking the behavioral shift with the focused attention of someone who genuinely could not help himself— dates, observations, possible variables, cross-references with previous patterns. He didn’t get very far…

“If you write one word about me in that thing,” said a voice that was very close and very quiet in the specific way that meant dangerous, “I will make you eat it.”

Midoriya stopped writing. He looked up slowly into a pair of red eyes that were doing the particular thing they did when Bakugo was angry about something he couldn’t fully explain and was therefore angrier than the situation technically warranted.

“I wasn’t— I mean, I was just observ—” He gestured vaguely.

“Stop observing.” Midoriya shut his mouth.

What followed was Bakugo reaching for the notebook, Midoriya making the split-second decision to run. Kirishima watched from across the gym with the expression of someone who had witnessed this exact dynamic play out for two years and found it, somehow, both exhausting and deeply familiar.

The days continued like that— routine on the surface, something quieter and more stubborn underneath— until the Provisional Hero License Exam arrived. Over the three years, some things didn’t change regardless of how much time had passed.

Bakugo walked with UA’s assembled group through the venue, arms crossed, eyes already moving the way they always moved in crowds. He’d been doing it long enough that it happened automatically now.

Shiketsu High came through the main corridor at the same time, moving in the opposite direction. He swept them the way he swept every school.

He almost missed it.

A voice. He caught maybe four words— not enough for meaning, just enough for the sound.

He stopped walking.

The Shiketsu group kept moving, and he turned slightly and looked at their backs without being entirely sure what he was looking for.

Kirishima noticed immediately. “Something wrong?”

“…No.” He turned forward again. Kept walking. “Nothing.”

During the pre-exam assessment period, Bakugo worked alone. Within the first stretch, he’d already secured two hits and was tracking a third target through the upper terrain when there was a flash of movement to his left.

He adjusted without thinking, swung wide instead of forward, and the strike that would have tagged him slipped past his shoulder by centimeters.

He spun. You were already repositioning, watching him. “...Nice adjustment.” you said.

Your voice. Bakugo went very still, somewhere on the inside where it didn’t show.

He knew that voice. He’d heard it more times than he would ever admit through a memo you’d never meant to send. He hadn’t let himself assume anything, but he hadn’t denied it either. And standing here now, hearing it aimed directly at him, something settled in his chest that felt uncomfortably close to relief.

“You telegraphed the approach. Your left shoulder drops before you commit.” Something shifted in your expression, interested. “Most people don’t catch that.”

“I’m not most people.”

“No…” You spoke. “You’re really not.”

Then you looked at him and found him staring back with something that you didn’t expect. Something direct. “What?” you said, skeptical. He said nothing.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?” Still nothing. You observed him.

He watched it happen: the small crease between your brows, the careful way your eyes moved across his face. And then you went still. You thought he looked familiar before. You ignored it, but now that you looked at him closely…

A memory arrived. Something from months ago— Bakugo had sent a picture to you once, showing something, the image mostly blurry. But just barely in the corner, a flash of blonde hair and a face that could be seen even through a low-quality camera.

“…No.” you said, very quietly. “Yeah.” he said.

“You’re…” You stopped mid-sentence. “Say it.” he demanded.

“…You’re GroundZero...?”

“And you’re Y/N_Hero.” His voice came out flatter than he intended. “Who transferred to Japan and didn’t even think to mention it. Or answer. For six weeks.”

“I can explain—”

“The exam isn’t over.” he cut in. Then turned and walked away.

He found you after the scores were posted. You were standing slightly apart from the Shiketsu group. You saw him coming and didn’t move away.

“Talk.” he said.

You turned to face him fully. “I found out about the transfer three days before it happened. My family had been planning it for months, but they just didn’t tell me until it was settled.” You held his gaze steadily. “I had a week to pack everything, say goodbye, and handle the school transfer paperwork. My phone plan got suspended during the crossover. I lost access to everything for almost three weeks while things got sorted. I wasn’t ghosting you.”

He looked at you for a long moment. “You said you’d explain later.” he said finally.

“I know.” “That was six weeks ago.”

“I know.” Something softened slightly in your expression. “By the time I had access again, I didn’t know how to. There was a lot of time to account for, and I didn’t even know if you’d noticed it.”

“I didn’t notice...” he said immediately. You looked at him. “I didn’t.” he said again, slightly louder. The corner of your mouth moved a bit. “Okay.”

“I’m just saying. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I’m not.”

“Good.”

A pause. The noise of the exam site continued.

“Your shoulder still drops,” he said finally after a moment of silence. “Before you commit left. Fix that before someone slower than me catches it.”

You chuckled a bit, completely amused, but there was warmth behind it. “…Yeah. I know. My old coach never flagged it. I didn’t think anyone here would—” You stopped and looked at him with surprise. “You really noticed that in the first thirty seconds?”

“I notice everything.” he said. Which was true. And also, not entirely the reason he’d been watching you specifically. He didn’t need to tell you that.

You seemed to know anyway, something that you were annoyingly good at.

“Katsuki,” you called out. It was the first time you’d used his name. It sounded different out loud than he’d imagined, and he hadn’t been imagining it, obviously.

“I’m at Shiketsu High” you said. “Which is—”

“Twenty minutes from UA.” “...Yeah.”

He looked at you for a moment longer than necessary. “Fix your shoulder drop." he said.

Meanwhile, Class 1-A was gathered near the parking area when Kaminari grabbed Kirishima’s arm.

“Look...” he said quietly, with the energy of someone who had been waiting to say this for two hours. “Look.”

Kirishima looked. Bakugo was standing slightly away from the group: normal. Arms crossed: normal. But his expression was doing something that was absolutely not normal. And he was talking to someone. Someone they didn’t know, but they knew from the fact that it was one of the Shiketsu students because of the uniform hat and jacket. The conversation looked serious—not actually aggressive nor competitive—in a way that meant both people were entirely comfortable.

“Is that—” Kirishima started. “Shiketsu.” Kaminari confirmed. “I saw him looking at them during the exam.”

“Looking looking?” Kirishima asked. “Looking looking.”

Kirishima watched. The Shiketsu student said something that made Bakugo’s jaw tighten. Then he said something back, and whatever it was made the Shiketsu student smile.

“…I’ve never seen him talk to someone like that,” Kirishima said slowly. “Like what?”

“Like he’s…” He searched for the word. “Like he’s trying, or something like that...”

Kaminari stared at him. Then looked back at Bakugo. Then back at Kirishima. “Do we tell the others?” Kaminari asked. “We absolutely tell the others.” Kirishima said.

After that day, everything went back to normal. Bakugo opened the forum for the first time in six weeks. There was a new DM. Sent four minutes ago.

Y/N_Hero: Your lateral adjustment yesterday was annoying. It was really good.

He read it twice. Typed. Deleted. Typed again.

GroundZero_1: Obviously.

A pause. Then:

GroundZero_1: Your entry approach has improved. Still telegraphing, but less.

Three dots appeared immediately.

Y/N_Hero: High praise from you. I’ll take it.

Y/N_Hero: …I’m glad it was you.

He stared at that for a long moment. He typed.

GroundZero_1: Yeah. Don’t make it weird.

Y/N_Hero: Too late for that.

He exhaled through his nose, making it look like an almost-laugh.

GroundZero_1: Go to sleep. You have a new school tomorrow.

Y/N_Hero: You too.

Y/N_Hero: Goodnight, GroundZero.

GroundZero_1: Goodnight.

He put his phone down, then picked it up again. Saved the conversation. He put it down again, and this time he left it there. And when he finally slept, the checkmark in his memory had turned from grey to blue.

↪ Adapting in Japan