You leaned against the cold wall of Bakugo’s dorm, arms loosely crossed, watching him scribble on a piece of paper. The pencil in his hand cut across the page in jagged, impatient strokes—too jagged to be the neat, aggressive scrawl you’d grown used to.

“What’s wrong?” you asked finally, your voice even, lips pressed into a measured line. His graphite tore another angry mark into the paper.

“Oh, yeah!” His head snapped up, eyes sharp and blazing. “Guess what the fuck is wrong!” His voice cracked like an explosion in a confined room, daring you to answer.

You opened your mouth—ready to tell him he was being ridiculous, too angry, too irrational for his own good—but he was already out of his chair, voice climbing higher.

“You’ve been distracting me all month.” The words landed like accusations hurled across a battlefield, his shoulders squared, sweatpants hanging loose around tense legs. “You’re the reason I’m off my game. The reason I’m not performing like I should.” His hand slashed through the air, every syllable sharp enough to cut.

God. You’d been hooking up for three weeks. For you, it was nothing more than an easy fix—dopamine in human form. A reprieve from the constant noise in your own head. You didn’t have feelings for him. Or at least, you told yourself you didn’t.

“I got the performance reports from training,” he went on, voice nearly shaking with indignation. “Deku’s in the rotation. He’s ranked four.” His eyes burned into yours, daring you to react. “I’m at three.” Three fingers thrust into the air like a final insult. “Fucking three.”

It was absurd, the way Izuku Midoriya could light such a fire in him—how the idea of being outshined was enough to twist him into this frenzy.

His gaze flickered over you then, sliding down your neck, lingering in a way that betrayed something far from anger. His throat worked, and for a moment you thought he might close the distance. Instead, his jaw locked, and he swallowed the impulse.

Damn it, he thought.

“This is all your damn fault,” he hissed. The volume was lower now, but the cadence was heavier, sharper, like he was testing the edge of a blade.

It wasn’t your fault. You knew that. You’d done nothing but exist in his orbit. But maybe blaming you—your beauty, your pull—made it easier for him to make sense of his split focus. Made it easier to believe he could cut you out and return to the clean, ruthless climb to number one.

Because to Bakugo, being the best was more than a goal—it was the only thing worth bleeding for. And you were a distraction he couldn’t afford.