perfect // bakudeku

Chapter 10

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Study Room

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Katsuki tapped his deformed pencil on the table repeatedly, trying not to get too annoyed with a phony crack on the side of the table. He laid his head down and tried to keep his twitching eyes on the pencil tip without moving his head. It was until he heard a familiar series of light footsteps when he snapped his head up and turned around with his usual scowl back on.

"What took you so fucking long?" Katsuki demanded as Izuku sat by him. Izuku sighed and smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

"W-Well," Izuku started. He hauled a backpack from the floor with strain and set it on the bench. "This is the school study room, so..."

He zipped open the backpack, and Katsuki's eyes widened in horror at the amount of books in it – and the size of each.

"WHAT?!" he screamed. Other students trying to review their own sources looked to him with annoyed glances. Izuku gave him a look to shut up before he dumped all books on the table. Katsuki swore the table would've cracked.

"The headmaster moved the semester final to two months earlier," Izuku reminded him. "So tighten yourself."

"Okay, okay," Katsuki sighed.

"You are pretty good in normal Japanese," Izuku started. He spread out all the books and sorted them into piles according to the subject. "But math, biology, history, chemistry, and language arts?"

Izuku scrunched up his nose and shook his head. Katsuki sighed, knowing he was right.

"Anyway," Izuku said, bringing the pile of math notebooks and textbooks to the front. He pushed the other books out of the way. "Today we'll start with basic algebr-"

"EVERYONE here knows how to do algebra," Katsuki said, rolling his eyes. Izuku sighed. He flipped through the textbooks and found the hardest algebra problem, pushing it to Katsuki. Katsuki sighed and buried his head in the book, scribbling hard and finishing within a minute.

"Wow," Izuku said. He pulled the textbook back to himself and checked the answer, impressed at how good Katsuki was. He smiled.

"Well, since you know that much," Izuku started. "No problem with algebra and factorizing?"

"Duh," Katsuki grunted. "Want me to climb on top of this table and ask who doesn't?"

"Geometry?" Izuku asked. He flipped open the second book and roamed through the pages. Just as he was about to open his mouth, Katsuki cut him off:

"I have no problem with congruence and similar triangles," he grunted. "Nor proofs and stuff. Those are fucking middle school knowledge."

Izuku sighed before moving on to functions. Now that was finally something Katsuki thought was a pain in the neck.

Two hours passed by with Izuku trying to explain functions to Katsuki, Katsuki throwing a tantrum at not understanding, and finally him understanding after the cycle had repeated for almost a hundred times.

They spent the rest of the three months before the mid-semester exam doing that – each day after school or during free period, they'd meet at the school study room and go over things Katsuki needed help with. Fortunately, the more Katsuki learned, the less books Izuku had to bring, which meant the less heavy that backpack was...

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After

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"Tomorrow is the mid-semester exam!" Izuku squealed nervously. Katsuki rolled his eyes and put his head on his arm.

"Haha, thank you so much for telling me, I didn't know that," Katsuki spat sarcastically. Izuku's excited expression faded away and he sighed.

"What I mean is," Izuku said seriously. "We have to review EVERYTHING today."

"No," Katsuki grunted. Izuku hit him lightly on the back of his head and pushed all books in front of Katsuki. The pile was so high it reached the top of Katsuki's head (when he was sitting down)

Katsuki pushed the pile and it toppled over. Izuku sighed and picked one topic randomly, "Tell me what you learned about this..."

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School Board

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Izuku ran over excitedly to the scoreboard, eager to see which place he got in – or most importantly, which place Katsuki got in. He pushed past all the people crowded in front of him, making them trip accidentally or glare at the messy haired, dirty nerd trying to get in front.

Izuku squinted and grinned at the sight of him being fourth place in the entire grade – not bad! Now where was Katsuki? His eyes trailed down the list, glinting when he saw the name 'Shoto Todoroki' in 6th place and widening when he saw the name 'Ochako Uraraka' in 7th. No matter how slowly he went through the other names, there was no Katsuki. Scared Katsuki was in the last place, he looked to the bottom of the board – no Katsuki.

Sigh, maybe the stupid school forgot to grade Katsuki's paper and thought he would fail as always.

Suddenly a screech came from the crowd:

"KATSUKI BAKUGO GOT FIRST IN THE ENTIRE GRADE?!"

Everyone looked to the top of the board – they either gasped, stared in awe, or whispered to each other suspisciously. Izuku looked – there it was, in bold gold letters, "1st – Katsuki Bakugou".

Izuku's grin grew wider. Their hard work did pay off anyway. He looked to the side, at each of Katsuki's scores.

"Mathematics – 5"

"Biology – 4"

"Chemistry – 5"

"Language Arts – 4"

"History – 4"

(So I searched the Japanese grading system up and apparently they use a numerical system from 1 - 5- 5 is the highest and 1 is the lowest, so oof-)

Izuku couldn't believe his eyes. His head snapped around, his heart beating fast with pride. A flash of familiar blonde hair at the back of the crowd turned away, which Izuku chased with all the might he could feel from his stumpy, clumsy legs...