Day 2 of training.
Midoriya collapsed right there on the street, unable to keep up with Hakuji even half as well as he had yesterday.
Day 3 of training.
His body still hadn’t recovered, and he made it less than an hour before vomiting again and going down.
Hakuji said it was fine, but Midoriya felt utterly pathetic for not even being able to keep up with a simple run.
That day, after begging and pleading with his mother, Midoriya managed to get a tub of protein powder.
Day 4 of training.
Hakuji got angry while solving a problem and, with nothing but pure grip strength, gouged into the desk. When Midoriya saw a metal pen bend like a paper straw, he cautiously opened his mouth.
“Um, c-could I do that too?”
He asked with a little hope, wondering if he might become like that if he kept training this way.
“If it’s you, yeah. Just.”
“Just?”
“Lock yourself in the mountains and train for about fifteen years.”
“…………….”
Then what about being a Hero?
You can’t do it, obviously.
The last part was a conversation they had with their eyes.
“First finish keeping up with me before you talk.”
“...Ah, yes...”
“And stop using honorifics. I don’t like how it feels.”
“Y-yeah!”
As he went back to studying, Hakuji pressed a hand to his forehead, practically radiating heat.
Seeing that, Midoriya rubbed his own aching legs, still throbbing with muscle soreness, and told himself he had to work harder too.
“Right. First, I just have to keep up!”
Day 7 of training...
He still couldn’t keep up.
Day 51 of training...
He managed to keep up a little, but not for more than three hours.
Day 68 of training...
His thighs had started to thicken little by little.
Midoriya couldn’t help smiling when he noticed the first signs of muscle on his body, but Hakuji...
“I’ve had him running like that for two months, and only now is the grain of his muscles starting to show. What a truly hopeless body.”
When Hakuji had first trained under his master, Keizo, he had cleared this kind of basic conditioning in ten days. But this guy was nearly two months in and only just getting started.
“Well, this is still fun. Turning the weakest of the weak into something useful is a nice diversion.”
“Um... Hakuji-kun?”
“What is it?”
“The weakest of the weak you just mentioned... could that possibly mean...”
“I’m talking about you. Who else would I be talking about?”
“.........”
Midoriya, still being called the weakest of the weak even after running himself ragged for two months, swallowed his tears in secret.
And the fact that he later slipped in a few extra math worksheets behind Hakuji’s back was absolutely not revenge for being called weak.
“Huff! Huff! Huff!!”
“Oh, it’s Midoriya.”
Recently, there had become something of a sight near Orudera Middle School.
After school, a pair of boys could be seen running around town in a truly insane loop, over and over again.
Hakuji ran silently, not even the slightest bit out of breath.
And then there was...
Midoriya, staggering so badly it was almost painful to watch, yet stubbornly forcing himself to keep up with him.
“Hup! Uup!”
“Heyyy, hang in there, Midoriya!”
“Come on, Soyama, catch him!”
The people watching Soyama and Midoriya called out half cheering, half teasing.
“...Hey, what’s that?”
“Huh? Bakugo, this is your first time seeing it?”
“They run every day.”
Bakugo, seeing it for the first time in months, stared at Midoriya running in the distance with a dumbfounded look.
“Huff! Huff! Huff!!”
Midoriya was flailing his arms and legs weakly, sweat pouring off him in streams, running around in nothing but a plain white T-shirt now, not even caring about the stares around him as he trailed after Hakuji.
“What the hell is that idiot doing?”
Bakugo, who didn’t get out of school at the same time and went straight home to study all day, was seeing this kind of scene for the first time.
More than that, he hadn’t been paying much attention to his surroundings lately anyway, because his mood had been terrible.
“I’m... not first in gym class...?”
“Oh, Soyama-kun got first. With a record like that, he’s practically at national level~ Isn’t he amazing?”
Even when he went to complain about the one subject where he had been marked second place.
“I still can’t forget that man... that strength, that kindness that never lets anyone get hurt... truly... Soyama Hakuji...!! I want him!!”
“The club president’s at it again.”
Even after joining the martial arts club, which was supposed to be good for getting into the Hero Course and boosting his grades, he kept hearing that name again.
“Who the hell is Soyama Hakuji, damn it!?”
He had come to middle school thinking he would be an eternal emperor.
But as he felt his place slowly being taken by some weird guy who had appeared out of nowhere, Bakugo finally met the owner of that name.
“...That’s him? The gym class first-place guy.”
“Soyama? Yeah, that’s right.”
Bakugo saw Hakuji passing in front of him and, thinking he’d confirm it for himself, let a vicious smile creep onto his face as he tried to block Hakuji’s path.
“Hey, you there.”
Tilting his head like a delinquent, Bakugo moved to cut him off in a way that was obviously picking a fight.
And then...
“Move.”
“......!!!!”
Just one word.
It was only a tiny word spoken from several meters away, but it rang in Bakugo’s ears with terrifying clarity.
His body wouldn’t move.
Like a mouse frozen in place before its natural enemy, he couldn’t move at all.
“W-what. What is this? Why, why can’t my body move...”
The feeling that his spine had been filled with ice instead of bone crawled unpleasantly up Bakugo’s back.
Hakuji didn’t even glance at whoever might be standing beside him as he passed by.
“Huff! Haaah!”
Midoriya, following behind him, was so exhausted that he didn’t even notice Bakugo standing right beside the path and simply ignored him as he went by.
“.........”
“Hey, Bakugo. What’s wrong?”
“...What was that just now?”
“Huh? It was Soyama and that Deku bastard, wasn’t it?”
“......”
Seeing his lackeys hovering around him, Bakugo realized he was the only one who had frozen up and clenched his fist hard.
“What the hell. What the hell was that!!? I, I got scared by just one word!?”
Bakugo hated admitting that he had been frozen by a single word, but in his mind, the image of Hakuji and Midoriya passing by without even sparing him a glance kept replaying.
“That bastard and that bastard...! They’re ignoring me...?”
Bakugo’s pride had taken a hit, but he still couldn’t move.
Hakuji smiled as he ran again, lightly and slowly by his own standards, watching Midoriya still following behind him today.
At the same time, he remembered the man who had just tried to block his path with a faint but hostile aura.
Compared to that, that guy just now was pathetic. To freeze up from a warning like that...
Hakuji snorted, thinking there were all kinds of strange people in the world, as he recalled that ridiculous display of a man who had come at him with fighting intent only to freeze at a single lightly murderous word.
“Uuub!”
“What, are you throwing up again?”
“N-no...! ...Ghk...! I-I’m not throwing up!”
And then he laughed as he looked at Midoriya, who for the first time in 130 days had made it through four hours of running without vomiting.
So this was how Koyuki felt when she said she sometimes grew especially fond of a sick goldfish.
That was Hakuji, treating Midoriya like a sick goldfish.
TMI.
1. Hakuji’s hobbies are gardening, drawing, and taking care of goldfish, all because Koyuki likes them. Those are all official hobbies...
2. Bakugo went home and trained his muscles like crazy. He didn’t want to admit he’d been scared.
3. Since Bakugo is the king of pride, he managed to withstand the killing intent. If it had been an ordinary middle schooler, there would’ve been nothing strange about them collapsing and wetting themselves on the spot.
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