Jingle-

  Hotaruuuu's- mini adventures!

  Hotaru:

  "I know! I'll pour some oil into the pan and deep fry the shell!" I say as Bakugo glares at me. "What? It'll work, right?"

  "Right- "deep fried" and "healthy" those are words that go together." He sighs. Looking at my recipe for tacos in my big old-fashioned cookbook. The big dorm room 1-A kitchen was kinda quiet right now. I had chicken, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and poblano peppers. I also had a bunch of seasonings out. I looked at everything. "My home ec assignment only said to make a meal for everyone besides breakfast, it didn't say anything about it being healthy. Tomorrow is my day to cook." I look at the chicken. "I asked for boneless only Bakugo- I can't just shop for myself.

  "You'll probably get more credit if it is healthy," Bakugo said. "C'mon, kid," he says, sitting on a chair behind me as I look at my ingredients. "What do we say?"

  "Always aim to be the best," I sigh. "Bone in chicken may be healthier, but it's harder to cut up."

  "Well- healthy is the best, isn't it? Also, chicken thigh meat is more forgiving when cooking anyway."

  "Does it taste the best?"

  "That's up to you, " he said. "For instance, for your pico, poblano peppers are healthier than green peppers; personally, they sound better to me."

  I look at my cell phone app, a nutrition guide, and check what he's saying: "Actually, green peppers have fewer calories..." I cringe when he raises an eyebrow at me. "Which, at the age of me and the rest of our class, really shouldn't matter?"

  "Veggies aren't known for calories, twerp,"

  "Do I REALLY have to check EVERY ingredient for its nutritional value?"

  "It's a process that gets easier with time," Bakugo points out. He pulls out a set of grippers for exercise while he watches me and explains himself. "For instance, there are only so many kinds of onions, but everything calls for them."

  "I kinda wanted to go with red onions- they're more spicy!" I say excitedly.

  "Should have asked, I'd have gotten them. Stronger flavors often mean more nutrients."

  On the other side of the breakfast nook, Henry gives an exasperated sigh. "Oh, for the love of crap- who cares about any of this stuff?!"

  "I do!" Tori says next to him. "I wanna know how to feed my patients. Hospital food is notoriously crap. If it were good, that would be nice."

  I'm wearing a blue T-shirt, and Bakugo still wears his uniform. Tori and her brother are dressed in purple, but for some reason, as he often does, Henry is overdressed in his full purple hoodie. I guess constantly wearing that hoodie has something to do with a desire to reclaim his past, but I'm not sure.

  "Careful with that idea," Bakugo said. "Sometimes the food sucks because they need to make sure not to have anything that'll kill your patient. Spicy foods might have a lot of nutrients, but they might kill old people, for instance," he says.

  "Really?"

  "Sorta," Bakugo says with a shrug.

  Henry rolls his eyes. "Again, who cares? Salt and pepper one of those chicken thighs over there, fry it on both sides and boom—you've got a tasty main course."

  "I mean... he's technically not wrong..." Bakugo says with a shrug. "And there would be reasons to go with that- but it's C material." Bakugo tapped my cookbook. "Tacos from scratch is A material. Even if you mess it up a bit, you'll get a B."

  I look for soft wheat tacos in the cookbook. "Let's see..."

  Henry puts his chin on his fist as he goes back to watching me. "Sucks I can't cook..." He says, looking down.

  "Seriously?" Bakugo says, looking at him as I get back to work. "Cooking? You're gonna let cooking be your final boss? Really?" he lowers his eyebrows at the preteen.

  "Well, it's not like that's something Charles or foster care were big-"

  And then Bakugo actually smacks Henry on the head. "Can't believe I consider you even a potential rival if it's that easy to make you give up!" Henry rubs his head, showing that one hurt. "Your old father, we blame for your dumb criminal record, not your education; that's on you. What's going on? You weren't this lame last week."

  Henry sighs. "Last week, I didn't know half my talents were due to being born with a messed-up brain."

  Bakugo hits his head. "Are you serious?" He holds his hand next to Henry's face. "I have explosions as my quirk. It's super awesome until I have to do virtually anything that isn't destructive. Your quirk is useful in way more situations—so should I call Explosions a disability like you're calling your brain condition?"

  "It's not like-"

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "Yeah, it is. " An explosion goes off in Bakugo's hand, inches from Henry's face, and the younger boy falls to the ground. I raise a hand of my own, and electric energy surrounds Bakugo.

  From behind her math textbook in a corner of the kitchen, Ochaco looks up, keeping her eyes on Bakugo.

  "Watch it hot head..." I say as Henry recovers.

  "I was only making a point," Bakugo says, but he seems to calm down, stepping back as Henry gets back up. "Developmental amnesia isn't a disability. Especially the dysmnesia version. I looked it up when I heard that Henry had it. It's just a neurodivergence- probably everyone has one of those." He grumbles. "Theoretically, anyway."

  "Wait... you know psychology theories?" I gawk at Bakugo.

  "What?" he says, raising an eyebrow at me. "If you want to be the best, you gotta learn what your tools are. " He leans down to me and taps his head. "Your brain is your most valuable one, so it's best to know how it works." He then stands back up and leans against the fridge in the kitchen. "I would have figured that would be obvious."

  "Still a lot of work..." Henry notes.

  "You better stop worrying about that if you want to get ahead, dufis," Bakugo says back.

  Henry glares at him. "Really? You think my problems are just down to not working hard enough?" he folds his arms, too. "Okay, what if YOUR brain was screwed up?" He pulls a paper with science vocabulary words out of his shirt pocket and slaps it on the table. "Well?"

  "You really don't have to answer..." I note to Bakugo.

  "Oh no..." he says with a smirk while walking over to the paper and looking at it. "I do. I never back down from a challenge." Bakugo looks at the paper and scratches his chin. "How dumb are you, first off? Can you understand what you're reading?"

  Henry grits his teeth but nods. "I understand everything; I just can't remember everything. At least not in time for the next test."

  "Why not play the odds?" Bakugo asks, pulling the paper to himself on the nook and turning it around.

  "Bakugo- you told me not to do that unless it's urgent. You're only barely ALLOWING me to do it in a few subjects-" I start, but he cuts the air with his hand.

  "Dummy, this IS urgent. The guy has a mental issue, and if he keeps letting it fail him, he'll wash out." Bakugo pushes the paper back and turns it around again. "You know what playing the odds is?"

  Henry shakes his head.

  "It's simple. Stop playing according to the rules as written, and play to your strengths to maximize your GPA. Then, take every chance you get to make up a point. Many people do this last minute, but the idea is to plan on doing it from the start. For instance, on a test, read all the questions, then answer the questions in order from easiest to hardest for you. That should help with your math acumen and ability to think so fast. I bet you read faster than even I do." Henry looked off to the left and shrugged while Tori folded her arms and glared at him, letting me know that's a sore spot between them. "Never skip questions, not even extra credits- UA doesn't take points away for wrong answers, so you can only help yourself even with partial points."

  Henry blinks a few times, then unfolds his arms. "I... I mean, that could help a lot..."

  "Duh," Bakugo says, rolling his eyes. "Half the kids in this school do that kind of thing. Not everyone is born a freaking genius, but hard work can make up for a lot of talent deficit."

  "Still... what about my vocabulary words?" Henry asks.

  "What about them?" Bakugo puts his hands on Henry's vocabulary list and tears the paper in half, tossing half of it in the trash behind the nook. Henry looks absolutely mortified, then glares. "What's that look for? I just helped you, you ungrateful brat." Henry tries to get up, but Bakugo pushes him onto his seat again by grabbing the younger boy's shoulder. I bite my lip, wondering if I should try to step in for real this time... like I would stand a chance if I did. I hold off... even if I am afraid that makes me a coward.

  Bakugo continues. "Just memorize the definitions and don't look at the words. Those were science words, anyway. The words are harder to memorize because they're entirely new material, but the definitions are just new concepts from words you already know. By focusing on the definitions, you'll increase your understanding of the subject matter in general, you'll be able to guess the words that go with them from their spellings since everything comes from the same Greek crap anyway, and you'll be set to get at least half credit on essay questions."

  "That helps on multiple-choice and essay questions. But when I have to fill in the blank on a definition, I'll be at a complete loss!" Henry says through clenched teeth.

  "Yeah? So that's like- 25% of a test at worst? So you can't get less than a C." Bakugo takes his hand off Henry's shoulder and folds his arms. As Henry gets up, he points his finger at Bakugo and freezes.

  Everyone freezes except Bakugo, who looks around at us expectantly. "I mean, I get that you're all slow, but- you're getting it right?" he asks.

  "I... I..." Henry stutters. He sits back down and looks at his torn paper. "That... that's genius..." His eyes roll over the paper a few times. "Technically, this way, nothing is new; it's just concepts based on what I already know..."

  Bakugo smiles and folds his arms again, this time with some pride. "It's called "concept learning." All this crap is a stopgap, of course. I would be searching for something better, but a passing grade is a passing grade in the meantime."

  Henry just stares at his definitions paper. "That... that... you mean to not even try on the hard stuff..."

  "It's not the best solution, but doing what you can is better than sitting there beating yourself up about what you can't do." Bakugo raises an eyebrow. "Two things are bothering me now. First- why didn't you just think of that yourself? Isn't out of the box thinking like- your thing?"

  Henry just keeps staring at the paper. "It's... it's possible..." he says. "I don't have to accept failure..."

  "Duh."

  "I... I... thanks?" Henry says.

  "Don't mention it- just don't let me catch you giving up like that again. For our next fight, I want to be up against the best version of you that can be managed. Got it?"

  "I mean... yeah..." Henry is so mesmerized by the new opportunity that he doesn't even look nervous when Bakugo talks about fighting him again.

  "Yeah- you better give me a freaking challenge brat. Cause if you don't..." Bakugo tries to give the kid a dark glare, but Henry isn't even looking at him now. So my mentor shrugs and looks at what I'm doing, cutting tomatoes. "Hey, the heck are you doing?" he grabs both of my hands and pulls them apart, yanking away my chef's knife. He then manhandles my left hand and slams it on the cutting board. "Curl your fingers when you cut food so you don't cut into them. Tori doesn't need a live test subject THAT bad." He then lets go of me and folds his arms. "Well?... Get back to work."

  "Right!" I say. This time, I try to be more mindful of my fingers because I don't want to get grabbed again, but... is it weird that this guy is helping me and my friends?

  "What's your other question?" Henry asks.

  "Hm?" Bakugo raises an eyebrow.

  "You said you had two questions."

  "Oh, right," my teenage friend says. "I'm just wondering how you learned math and science."

  Henry shrugs. "I mean, I stole a few textbooks from the foster care facilities and figured it out myself. It took a while, but once I realized everything just builds on addition and subtraction, it was the easiest subject in the world."

  "Wait- you STOLE textbooks?"

  "Everyone thought I was handicapped so they wouldn't teach me- I had to figure things out somehow." Henry defends, putting his hands up.

  "Yeah, but... are we sure your criminal record is down to Mr. Miles?"

  Henry grins. "Theft is a skill, dude. " He pantomimes pridefully, cleaning his nails. "It's not my fault you all assume Charles taught it to me."

  We all blink, looking at him. Should... is that a thing to be ashamed of or proud of? On the one hand, it's theft... but on the other its his education... but... but...

  Jingle-

  Hotaruuuu's- mini adventures!

  Hotaru: My head hurts...