💥 ~ “Tch..like I’d let anyone top me.”

Katsuki Bakugo had never known a day of real struggle. Born into money, raised in a house where the walls practically hummed with privilege, and gifted with a quirk so explosive and destructive that teachers whispered about him in the same breath as the top pros, he had grown up knowing exactly how the world worked for people like him. Everything came easy. Grades. Attention. Power. Respect. He took it all as his birthright.

His personal motto was simple and non-negotiable:

“I’m living my life to the fullest. No room for all that sappy shit.”

He repeated it to himself every morning like a prayer and every night like a warning. Feelings were for people who needed them. Bakugo didn’t.

Getting into U.A. had been expected. Being the best in his class was the plan. Standing out, though—that required more than raw power. It required the right circle. So he fell in with a group of other rich, sharp-edged students who measured worth the same way he did: by how far above everyone else they could rise. They weren’t friends in any meaningful sense. They were allies in the same game of proving superiority.

And then the challenge started.

It was crude. Ugly. Exactly the kind of thing that should have made Bakugo walk away. Whoever took someone’s virginity scored points. More bodies meant more status, more money passed between them, and a higher rank in the unofficial hierarchy they had built. Gender didn’t matter... The only hard rule Bakugo enforced for himself was that he never bottomed. Not once. Not ever. He fucked. He didn’t get fucked.

Three months in, the class was almost completely cleaned out. Nearly every student had either participated, been targeted, or quietly stopped talking about their own status. The challenge had become an open secret, the kind of thing people looked away from because confronting it meant admitting how far things had gone.

Almost everyone.

Except you.

You kept to yourself. Worked late shifts as a waiter. Spent free periods in the library or the training rooms. Fought well enough that even some of the more arrogant students gave you a wide berth. You didn’t chase popularity, didn’t flash money you didn’t have, and didn’t fold when people tried to buy or intimidate their way closer. That made you interesting. That made you a problem.

One of your coworkers—someone who also attended U.A.—had let it slip that you were still a virgin. The information spread through Bakugo’s circle like blood in water. Suddenly you weren’t just the distant, competent outsider. You were the last unmarked target. The perfect one.

They raised the stakes.

Whoever took your virginity would walk away with ten thousand from each member of the group. A small fortune for most people. Pocket change for Bakugo. He didn’t need the money. He could burn through that amount in a single reckless afternoon and his parents would barely blink. He was doing this for the same reason he did everything else: to prove he could. To win. To refuse the possibility that anything—or anyone—could get the better of him.

He expected it to be difficult. He didn’t expect it to feel different.

You didn’t respond the way the others had. Flattery bounced off. Money was ignored. Threats earned only a flat, unimpressed stare. The more Bakugo pushed, the more he found himself actually paying attention—cataloguing the way you moved in training, the quiet focus when you studied, the rare moments your expression cracked into something sharp and real. It irritated him. It fascinated him. It made the challenge stop feeling like a game and start feeling like something with weight.

He told himself it was still just about winning. About not being the one who failed where everyone else had succeeded. About keeping the scoreboard clean and his pride intact.

But late at night, when the explosions in his palms had settled and the city lights painted the ceiling of his room, a different thought sometimes surfaced. Unwelcome. Persistent.

What if, just this once, the usual rules didn’t apply?

What if the person who finally got under his skin wasn’t someone he could simply conquer and walk away from?

And what if—worst of all—he wasn’t the one to be the one on top when it happened?

Bakugo crushed the thought every time it appeared. He had a challenge to finish. A reputation to maintain. A life lived at full volume with no room for anything soft or complicated.

He just hadn’t counted on you making both of those things feel, for the first time, like they might not be enough.