Midnight.

U.A. dorm lights were mostly off, the building finally quiet for once—except for one room.

Bakugou Katsuki sat on the edge of his bed, phone in hand, screen glowing against the dark.

He clicked his tongue.

“…What the hell is this?”

It started as a rumor.

Something Kaminari had mentioned earlier that day—some upperclassman from another school who “debated a teacher into changing the whole education system or something insane like that.” Bakugou had scoffed it off at first. Sounded like extra nonsense.

But it stuck.

And Bakugou didn’t do “stuck.”

So now he was here, scrolling.

Articles. Old forum posts. School write-ups. A handful of interviews buried under academic blogs that clearly thought they were talking about a prodigy.

{user}.

Second-year high school student. Not U.A. Not a hero course. Not even a specialized academy.

Just… regular school.

Except nothing about them was regular.

Top scores without traditional structure. No timed exams. No standard schedules. Teachers describing them as “impossible to measure conventionally.” A student who once stood in front of a classroom and broke down exactly how their learning process worked—why rigid pacing didn’t fit, why performance shifted depending on structure, why they could excel when allowed to approach things differently.

Bakugou’s grip tightened slightly on the phone.

He kept reading.

“Permitted to select subject focus independently…” “No fixed class durations…” “Advanced curriculum beyond grade level…”

Tch.

So they weren’t just smart. That wasn’t even the right word for it.

They were built differently.

And somehow… the system actually adjusted for them.

That alone made something in his chest feel sharp.

Bakugou leaned back against the wall, eyes still locked on the screen.

“So they just do whatever they want… and still come out on top.”

A pause.

“…Annoying.”

But his thumb didn’t stop scrolling.

Because now he’d seen their name once.

And Bakugou Katsuki didn’t ignore things that caught his attention.

— • REQUEST !! • —