Supernova

Chapter Thirteen - That's Going to Leave a Mark

I trained in the mornings with Kiri every day, but this particular Saturday, the day after he'd dragged Bakugo fucking Katsuki along with us and forever ruined our special morning time, I was the least excited I'd ever been. Regardless, I woke up in the darkness, pulled on my training clothes, and went into the common space. Bakugo was waiting there, but Kiri wasn't. I was immediately pissed off.

"Where's Kiri?" I asked him, crossing my arms.

"Sick," he scoffed, shrugging slightly as he delivered Kiri's horribly irritating lie.

"Cool. Me too," I told him with a nod, taking a couple steps back towards the way I came. "I'll catch you later."

"Wait."

"Ugh," I said. "What?"

"Let's go anyways."

I crumpled my face automatically. "Let me get this straight. You ruined every part of our morning training and now you're asking me to go anyways without the one part you didn't ruin? No fucking way."

"I want to learn," he whispered harshly, leaning forward a bit, motioning towards his own chest. I hated that.

"Cool," I said again, leaning against the doorway between the common space and the hallways that lead to the elevators. "How is that my problem?"

"I know you can teach me."

"Congratulations on having a brain cell," I said, flicking a wrist at him. "Why should I?"

"Tch," he said, shaking his head. "Isn't it your job?"

"Doesn't mean I do it out of the goodness of my heart, especially when I don't have to," I said honestly. "What's in it for me?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He asked, his angry red eyes watching me as they flared with more confusion.

I shrugged. "How much time do you have?"

"Help me," he said, in a surprisingly threatening tone. "Or I'm telling Shitty Hair you were crying like a little bitch yesterday. You clearly don't want anyone to know about whatever the fuck happened at that school, and believe me, he will never fucking drop it if he thinks it made one of his friends sad."

My eyebrows raised. I give credit where credit is due, and that genuinely surprised me. More than that, I believed him. It was a tactic that I could respect, and reasoning that I could follow. I was even a little impressed that he picked up that much from such little context. Maybe I'd underestimated him. Maybe. Probably not. Either way, I'd likely find out for sure by the end of this morning, and at the very least, I'm sure I could scare him enough not to ask me to do this again.

"What do you live for?" I asked, squinting at his eyes.

"To be the fucking best," he answered immediately.

I rolled my eyes and pushed off the doorway. As I walked by him on my way to the front door, I waved for him to follow. He looked at me with uncertainty, as if wondering if he'd answered wrong, which I allowed myself to enjoy enough to curb my annoyance somewhat. He hadn't though. Answered wrong, I mean. It was the right answer. It was the only right answer. That was my answer.

I was also annoyed with how well he could keep up with me. I'm not going to say it would have been difficult, because it wouldn't have been, but he would have been harder to lose than Kiri. When we got up to the spot, which was still poorly lit because of the good time we'd made, he motioned at the stump.

"Do we start here?" he asked.

I ignored him. "Who do you love most in the world?"

"Me," he answered surprisingly quickly again, scoffing as if there was no other answer.