"Where there is anger,

there is always pain underneath."

-Eckhart Tolle

The awards ceremony was unpleasant. For all of the positive connotations the common man would associate with such an event, Deku found it to be a, metaphorically speaking, hell on Earth. He felt like he was drowning in disorientation as thunder from the heavens fell down to bestow judgment in the form of applause. There were simply too many people; their chattering and exclamations drowned out his own thoughts, and if there was anything he hated, it was not being able to think.

Just being under public scrutiny was difficult, considering enough people to fill a stadium and more knew his capabilities. It helped that he hadn't shown his true abilities, but each and every gaze felt like a dagger upon his sensitive nerves. He forced himself to calm down and maintain at least an illusion of indifference, but every second was rotting away his resolve like a cancerous tumor.

Just when he felt his paranoia starting to rise and threaten to overcome him, All Might had come. And with him, he brought a wave of awed silence. The noisy imbeciles in the stadium immediately stopped their chattering at his mere presence. He never thought he would see the day he was grateful to that man-

"I-IT'S ALL MIGHT!"

"I LOOOOVEEEE YOU!"

-Never mind, he hated the guy as much as ever. His only salvation at the moment was the knowledge of how the previous award ceremonies had proceeded over the years. Where other organizations took their time with loads of paraphernalia and frills, UA was simple and to the point. This meant that the time he was forced to spend on the platform was downsized as well. What Deku didn't realize was a simple fact: All Might had not been there the years before. If he knew what was about to happen to him, he probably would have surrendered immediately, instructions from All For One be damned.

He was hugged. By All Might.

He stood there, in stunned silence, as All Might talked about something to him. He wasn't quite sure, mainly because he had just been... hugged. Hugged! He hadn't had human contact, specifically hug contact, in years! It just didn't happen. Sure, his mom was an overly emotional ball of goodness, but even then they just. didn't. hug. So to receive one, from his former idol and current enemy...

It was unexpected, to say the least. (He ignored the idiotic, stupidly naive part of him that was happy, and focused on nurturing revulsion.)

The award ceremony flew by at the speed of light as he tried to wrap his head around exactly what had just happened. Needless to say, this train of accelerated thought continued on for a long time, for while it was easy for Deku to see through others' feelings, it took him longer to understand his own. That's not to say that he couldn't understand himself, it just took time. The time that he should have been using to stimulate and imagine the proceedings of Kacchan's meeting, purpose, et cetera. So when the sky turned into a brilliant shade of gold, pink, and orange, he had the same reaction as many students. A rather aptly named feeling of Oh-my-god-there-was-a-test?!

Except in Deku's case, his test was one Bakugo Katsuki.

He threw his panic, his apprehension, and his anxiety away all in one fell swoop. There wasn't any point in obsessing over it now, and he was free to break cover at any time. It made him a touch irritated that he was so far gone that he didn't even take appropriate precautions, but self-loathing could come later. He was in the present now, and he would make the most of it. He just had to focus, and his naturally occurring intelligence and quick thinking would be enough. Probably.

(He hated going into things without a fully fleshed-out plan.)

Bakugo turned to face him with a starkly determined look in his eye.

"I'll just get straight to the point, Allen Bowman. Or rather... Izuku Midoriya."

'So it is like this, in the end. It's odd, but more than Nezu or Eraserhead figuring out the truth, I always thought that it would be Kacchan.'

"I'm sorry, but I think you're mistaken, Bakugo-san. I'm not Izuku Midoriya nor do I know him for that matter."

'I'm not going to give you the answer so easily though.'

The look of outrage and irritation on Kacchan's face was almost funny. It stopped being so when he forcefully repressed his rage, laying it to rest in a far corner of his mind. People high on emotions were easy to deal with: they made mistakes, they were careless, and it was easy to string them around with his every whim. People with cold rage, however, made him cautious instead. They did not become indisposed in their rage; they became all the more powerful for it.

"Don't play dumb. I know that it's you. Right from when you first transferred in, there was always something off about you. And the more I observed, the more you appeared familiar to me. Habits, mannerisms, your fighting style, even that goddamn mumble is still there!"

His mouth curved into a slight crescent. If that was all he had, it wasn't good enough.

"So you're saying I must be another person based circumstantial evidence? I'm sorry to tell you, Bakugo, but I'm really not the person you're thinking of. All of it must just be a coincidence. A lot of people have similar habits, fighting styles, etc. As for me talking to myself... Plenty of people talk to themselves, and judging on this person's name, they must be Japanese, right? I always speak in English."

He fell into silence for a few moments, and Deku couldn't resist further aggravating him. He knew it was somewhat stupid, but seeing the expression on his face, he couldn't help it. Was he becoming a sadist..? Nah, it was just Kacchan.

"What's this guy's quirk? If we have completely different quirks then that should put an end to this whole debate, don't you think?"

"...Y-You have different quirks," His anger broke out of the cage within his heart and manifested itself by grabbing tightly onto Allen's collar. "But I know damn well that you're the same person! I don't know how you managed to masquerade around with this 'Electric Hex' of yours, but I know without a doubt that you're him. You are Deku!"

His brows furrowed in amusement. Kacchan was an excellent stress relief ball-human, as he had just discovered, and he needed it after the long day he was forced to undergo. He had to fight his way through the preliminary rounds of the Sport's Festival, fight Shouto-san, help Shouto-san, deal with Endeavor, fight Shouto-san again, deal with Kacchan's idiocy, have a worrying exchange with a spy on their side (?), had to endure all of the damn peanut gallery members' loudness, and get hugged.

Not his best day by a long shot.

"Kac-, Can't you see that you're... wrong?

Looking back, it was probably because of that. That was why he stuttered out his childhood friend's nickname.

But as they say, hindsight's 20-20.