To Hold the Stars || BAKUGO KATSUKI

Welcome to Class 1-A! ...Again

The man with the half-burned face was the first thing she noticed when she arrived at the train station that morning.

Nomi was late, as usual. She didn't understand how or why, considering she'd gotten up at her first alarm and left her house at the proper time, but somehow, she always started running behind at a certain point. Her father once gave her the nickname "Glacier," joking that it was because she moved at her own slow pace, regardless of circumstance, but she thought it was rather clever. He didn't make jokes like that anymore, though. Not since her mother left.

She reached Tatooin Station five minutes after her friends' train had arrived. She scanned the crowds streaming out of the station, all students in uniforms or business people in suits, but there was no sign of her three friends in the bodies swarming around her.

Perhaps that was why he had stood out so clearly. Moving in the opposite direction from the crowd, toward her, not dressed in any uniform or suit—just a thin white T-shirt, and a dark jacket and pants. Nomi had become accustomed to Quirks by that point in her life, hardly even sparing them a glance anymore, but there was something different about the half-burned man.

While the crowd bustled to and fro, slightly jostling her and other passersby, the man walked more leisurely, a casual shuffle to his gait, his hands in his pockets like he was dawdling around the mall instead of a busy subway station during the morning rush hour. But the thing that struck her the most was his eyes.

Eyes were one of the first things Nomi observed in people. How could she not? Even the eyes that looked more lizard than human, or the ones with such vibrant, impossible colors, were all normal compared to her own. They didn't have an eye that could pluck people's worst fears from their brains and turn those fears into weapons. They weren't cursed like she was.

The man's eyes were heavy-lidded and a startling shade of turquoise. Pockets of gnarled, purple skin sat below his eyes, matching the skin on the lower half of his jaw that stretched down his neck and chest to underneath his shirt. She couldn't tell if the man had piercings or just actual staples holding the patchwork of his warped skin together with the pale, unblemished flesh on the rest of him, but she thought it best not to look too hard.

Those turquoise eyes locked on her for the briefest second.

She hesitated. Opened her mouth. To say what, she didn't know, but there was no need. The man brushed past her and disappeared along with the rest of the crowd. In ten seconds flat, it was as if he had never even been there.

"Impeding civilian foot traffic during rush, Katsuragi? How very un-hero-like of you."

Nomi tore her gaze away from where the man had vanished and saw her three friends making their way toward her. Rather, it was the giant, broad-shouldered Senzo Watase making his way toward her, his huge frame creating a wide berth around him that allowed their two smaller friends, Tae Momote and Chizuru Sanda, to follow easily in his wake.

Senzo grinned at her, putting his hands on his hips in mock discipline. "My, my, what would Aizawa Sensei say?"

Nomi snorted. "He'd probably tell your fat ass to stop impeding the people, Watase."

He threw his head back and laughed. It echoed, and numerous people turned to stare and frown. No one reprimanded, however; Watase was well over six feet tall and built on the level of All Might. If he wasn't the complete opposite of All Might's golden hair and brilliant blue eyes, Nomi would've thought he was related to the number one hero somehow.

"Quit shouting, Senzo," Sanda drawled. "You're giving me a headache."

He frowned. "I'm not shouting. I'm laughing."