Chapter Text
As soon as Recovery Girl let him, Bakugou returned to the dorms. Which was to say, approximately two hours later, while the idiot brigade left to get dinner, Bakugou hightailed it to the dorms without running into anyone willing to bother him on his way there.
He passed out immediately, which was good for his exhausted brain, finally able to catch a break, but bad for his morning routine, as he slept through all three of his alarms and was about to be marked late for morning classes.
Bakugou grumpily mashed his phone screen as his final alarm ceased its screaming and flashing lights and tugged on his uniform, looking more wrinkled and improper than usual. His only other uniform sat in a pile in the corner, blood-soaked and pitiful—a can of worms for another day. Right now he just had to focus on getting dressed and getting to class.
Crossing campus to the 1-A classroom was more of a struggle today than Bakugou would've liked to admit. He definitely breathed a bit harder than he should have by the time he reached the correct hall.
And just to spite him, the bell rang right as he got a hand on the doorknob.
He sighed. Paused. And pulled open the door.
Every head in the classroom turned to look at him, with varied expressions. He didn't catch them all—he tried his hardest never to pay too much attention to his classmates—but the ones he did see, oh they made him angry.
Pity. Shock. Distress.
Then there were some with smiles on their faces? He didn't know what that was about. He couldn’t read between those lines, no one ever looked that happy to see him walk into a room.
What he did know was shitty Deku's sad little thin-lipped smile made him want to fight him in Ground Beta for a second time, and this time he'd win, no question.
Instead, he set a scowl on his face and slumped into his desk, pettily avoiding everyone's gazes, including Aizawa's.
"Bakugou," Aizawa said, still in his monotonous voice, but even that couldn’t hide the shock laced in there. "Thank you for joining us. Stay after class for the work you missed."
And that was that.
Bakugou stared straight ahead for the whole lecture. He took notes, but they weren't as detailed as usual. He was bored.
Hollow.
Empty.
Again.
He thought the surgery was meant to take away all the feelings, not just the good, unreciprocated ones that made him sad. He thought he'd be done feeling empty and lethargic and exhausted every day. He thought the surgery was meant to make things better, not worse.
All that happened was they took away all the good feelings—at least, he assumed there were good feelings at some point—and left him with all the emptiness, and not even a face to associate the misery with.
If he had to still suffer, why couldn't he know more about why he was suffering in the first place?
Of course he had to be special. Why couldn’t he have gotten the normal Hanahaki side effects? Or be even more normal and just pined idiotically until he grew the fuck up like a real adult?
Class went by simultaneously in an instant and several eternities. He couldn't for the life of him tell you what Aizawa lectured on, though some of it had to be in his notebook, but he definitely watched the wall clock count every single second as it passed by.
"Hey, Bakugou, you coming to lunch?"
He looked up to find Shitty Hair waiting for him at the door, the rest of the classroom completely empty. When did that happen?
"No," he said, returning his staring contest with the clock. He didn't even pack a lunch today, what an idiot mistake.
"You sure?" Shitty Hair asked again, like Bakugou would ever say things he didn't mean. "Ashido made desserts, now that you're out of the nurse's office. We were gonna drop them off to you at your room, but since you're here..."
"Is there a point to any of this?" he growled. He didn't like the way his stomach turned as he said it. Maybe he was hungrier than he'd thought. "I said no."
Shitty Hair's face scrunched, looking almost like a kicked puppy. And Bakugou didn't know where in his brain that image came from.
"Oh, okay," Shitty Hair said on his way out. "Well... we'll be in our normal spot, if you change your mind."
He huffed, like he knew what that was supposed to mean. "I won't."
And the door clicked shut.
"What's his fuckin' deal?" he muttered to himself, alone in the silent classroom.
Bakugou limited his interactions with his nosy classmates, he'd mostly worn them down to a "Hello" before classes and a "Goodnight" if they happened to exist in the same space for longer than thirty seconds, and that contented them enough.
He didn't understand when these idiots decided they deserved the right to talk to him like they were friends. They weren't like this before he had surgery, not that he knew of, so why did they make it their business that he got himself Hanahaki?
They were nosy gossipers, that's fucking why. That's all it was. That’s what he told himself.
"Fuck," he sighed, flopping himself onto his unmade bed, finally in the comfort of his own bedroom—though the actual comfort was minimal.
It was away from all the nosy extras, but that also meant he'd be cooped up constantly by his own thoughts instead.
He'd been avoiding cleaning his room.
That’s the thought that tormented him the most.
It had been two days, and the bloodstained uniform on the carpet and the loose petals and blood in his trashcan still remained. And those were just the immediately visible messes. He didn't know what lurked beyond the surface, he didn't really want to find out.
His mother would've killed him if she found out the state of his room. He had always been an organized kid, he was an organized kid—before this surgery, he had everything in order. His bed, his desk, his grades, his life. He was perfectly fine.
So what the fuck happened to him?
Bakugou got to cleaning.
He organized the crowded stacks of papers that had piled up on his desk, avoiding looking at his cork board hanging above it. He caught glimpses of photos he didn't remember being taken, with people he didn't know he called friends. He didn't like it.
The floor next.
Picking up old t-shirts and sweats. A Crimson Riot sweatshirt that he knew didn't belong to him. Six bottles of nail polish in varying shades of pink. Records with no record player. Traces of a friendship, or many, that he flat out could not remember.
Bakugou glanced at the bloodstained corner.
He made the bed instead.
He did an English essay not due for another two weeks.
He went downstairs for a snack.
He looked at the bloody corner once more.
He went to bed.
And stupid Deku never knew how boundaries worked; Bakugou didn't know why he thought this time might've been different. Of course, he barely got a week of peace before shit came crashing down like usual.
"Kacchan," he said, in that sad, condescending voice, cornering him after class.
Though that wasn't necessarily true, unfortunately. Bakugou stayed late, nowadays, until the last student left, so no one got any funny ideas about waiting for him or catching up to him in the hall to bug him. But he wouldn’t say he’d brought this upon himself.
"What," he grumbled, not looking forward to whatever nonsense was about to spew from the damn nerd's mouth. "I'm busy."
"You don't look busy."
Deku got comfortable, sitting in the empty desk beside his—Ears' seat, he thought, but once the idea fully formed, he wasn't sure anymore.
"I don't have time for one of your lame inspirational speeches today," he said, kicking his feet up onto the desk, putting forth an aura of couldn't-care-less. "Why don't you run along to your little friends?"
"I could say the same thing about you." He didn't miss a beat.
Bakugou sneered. "I don't have any friends. None of these losers know anything about me, and I'd like to keep it that way."
"What?"
Bakugou would've shrugged that off, just like any of Deku's other pitying remarks, but the disbelief in his voice made Bakugou meet his eyes.
"What 'what?'"
"Kacchan, of course you have friends," he said. Deku's wide eyes scanned back and forth across his face, looking for something he couldn't find. The fucking nerd was already tearing up over nothing, too.
"We're not friends, Deku." If that was what he was going for. But Bakugou knew that Deku knew they weren't friends. Maybe it was better between them than it had been in years, but that still didn't make them friends.
Something higher than classmates but lower than friends.
Bakugou knew that, and Deku knew that, but Deku still didn't answer straight away. Not before pausing to furrow his brows and thinking so loud Bakugou could almost hear his brain firing off.
"Okay, we're not friends," he settled on. "But what about Kirishima and Kaminari? Ashido, Sero, Jirou? What about them?"
"What about them?" he said, more than asked. He didn't know whether this conversation bored him or got on his nerves. Either way, he itched to get out of it.
"Kacchan! You can't mean that!"
"I mean it." Bakugou rose from his seat. He's had enough of this dumbass conversation. "Stupid friendships get in the way of school. I'm gonna be the best damn hero, and I'm gonna do it on my own."
"Stop," Deku said, blocking the doorway.
Bakugou had exactly one ounce of patience left in him for the day, so he’d humor him. Just this once.
He set his bag down on the floor. "What."
"Why are you pushing your friends away?" He was definitely close to tears now, no doubt about it this time. "You know, they didn't sleep for days while you were in the hospital. Kirishima made sure at least two people were always in the room with you, so you wouldn't be lonely when you woke up."
"So? They're just a bunch of nosy assholes." He crossed his arms. “Why’s that any of my business?”
"No, you don't get to say that about them!" Deku fell into a fighting stance. Bakugou didn't know if it was intentional. "Last week, you wouldn’t have dared to say that about them with a straight face."
Bakugou fell a step back.
"You almost died," he stressed, and the words seared themselves into Bakugou's heart. "You almost died because you wouldn't talk to anybody, and now that you're healed, you're pushing everyone away again. Of course they're going to worry about you. Let them."
"It's not my fault that some stupid extras pity me because they think they know me," Bakugou sneered. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "It's pointless. For everyone involved."
"It's not pity! People are allowed to show sympathy, especially your best friends!"
He fought down a growl that let its way out of his throat anyway.
"Look, I don't know why it won't get through your thick skull, but I'll say it one more time: I don't know any these losers and I don't care. I don't know why everyone's all of a sudden feeling 'sympathy' for me, but it's shitty and I don't want it. I don't need it. Now get out of my way or I'll make you."
It's silent.
Bakugou thought he'd finally won. But Deku just looked up at him with those sad, sad eyes.
"Oh, Kacchan..."