Chapter Text
"I miss my boyfriend," Midoriya muttered. Bakugou looked up from staring at the schedule while sitting on his bed. "He always knows how to cheer me up, and I just like talking to him."
"That sucks," Bakugou muttered, staring down the schedule. As he let his eyes drift back to the schedule, he tried to get a good grasp on just how each day was supposed to work. That blond wasn't kidding. Group, room time, meals, that was pretty much all the day consisted of. Oh, with the exception of gym time after dinner, which Bakugou couldn't care less about really.
"He and I call every night and stay up really late together." Midoriya later added. Oh, Bakugou was supposed to keep the conversation in the air.
"That sounds nice. How long have you two been together?"
"Almost a year," Midoriya smiled. "We're childhood friends so it's hasn't really been awkward or anything."
"I couldn't date my childhood friends," Bakugou said, slipping out the pencil he had taken from the group room. "They're like brothers to me, I don't like them like that."
"No, I totally get that. I feel like that with most of my friends," Midoriya said, fixing his hair. "Do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend? Actually what is your orientation?"
"I don't have a label. I wasn't sure if I was gay or bisexual or pansexual. I'm not straight, that's for sure. But eventually, I gave up with labels because everything is bullshit anyway. But no, I don't have a partner."
"Oh, do you have your eyes on anyone?" Midoriya asked. "I could always give some tips or something."
"Nope, not really," Bakugou muttered. "The last guy I liked was someone I played in tennis. He was the only worthy opponent that played me this season. He beat me, but he gave it his all. I never got his number, so it faded."
"Oh, that sucks," Midoriya muttered. "Oh! On the bright side, pretty much everyone here is gay, which is kinda concerning since this is a mental hospital. But I'm sure you'll find someone who catches your eye."
Wouldn't that be fun? Meeting someone in the psych ward, it'd be a fun story to tell. But he wasn't here to interact with anyone, he just needed to lay low and get out. Midoriya seems to be a natural blinding ray of sunshine, which was kinda getting in his way to make it out of here without saying a goddamn word to anybody. But it wasn't like he was annoying or anything, he was actually comforting to talk to.
A knock on the door took him out of his thoughts. "Group, let's go," a nurse shouted. The two of them sighed, getting up and going to the room.
Bakugou felt his anxiety spike when he walked toward the room. Fuck, were they going to fight again? Just scream until Bakugou snapped? If every group was just everyone being angry and not caring, he would surely crack and get himself stuck here for extra days.
But it seemed like everyone had calmed down for the most part. A group, consisting of a yellow-haired guy with a black streak in his hair, a kid with a split dye, a kid with a weird haircut that made Bakugou think of tape, and Tokoyami were all sitting and talking. Bakugou would have completely avoided them if Midoriya didn't usher him to go over with him. With a sigh, Bakugou followed.
"Hey, I haven't seen you around. You're like, really pretty," the yellow-haired kid said. "Also, I'm Kaminari."
"Todoroki Shouto. Also yeah, you are pretty," he muttered.
"I'm Sero, nice to meet you," the tape kid said. Why the fuck did everyone decide that Bakugou was suddenly pretty? He hadn't been complimented on his looks in months, now he was a fucking model?
"Bakugou," he introduced.
"Oh I got one," Kaminari said, turning to Sero. "It's the shit haircut for me."
"It's the gang streak for me," Sero replied.
"I told you it's not because of my gang," Kaminari said. Kaminari quickly turned to Bakugou, analyzing him. "It's the no smiling for me."
"What are you saying?" Bakugou asked.
"You know, how they insult someone by saying 'it's the something for me' and all," Todoroki said. He also looked over Bakugou, seeking to pinpoint something to insult him on. "It's the eyebrow slit for me."
Man, this half and half bastard really just set up Bakugou perfectly for a response, huh?
"It's the wrist slits for me," Bakugou replied without hesitation or a smile. The four of them busted out with laughter as they tried their best to stifle it. Though he wanted to, Bakugou didn't let a smirk calm over his face. If Kaminari wanted to say he didn't smile, he was going to live up to it.
"Oh my god, how do you say that with a straight face?" Kaminari laughed.
"I don't smile," Bakugou lied. Fuck it, he was here, might as well be whoever he wanted to be. It wasn't like he was going to ever see these people outside of this godforsaken prison.
The truth was, Bakugou smiled and laughed a lot. He smiled and laughed to bring up the energy of a room with his friends. When he laughed and joked, they had fun. He could have been thinking of multiple ways to die then and there, multiple ways to wreak havoc and just destroy everything around him, his destruction being the last thing he ever saw. But he just smiled and laughed because he wanted them to have fun, even if he was having a terrible time.
Bakugou did have fun with his friends, don't get him wrong. A lot of the laughs were genuine, he truly did have fun, but sometimes it was truly fake it till you make it type of laughs. He was always the kid in school where everyone knew his name, some kids had problems with him but he never really cared because in a year or so he'd never have to see them again. He was well-liked, he was pretty sure anyway. People said hi and smiled at him in the halls, he was good friends with those in the theater club, but not popular.
He always wondered what it would be like to be the kid who never smiled, the quiet, mysterious kid who everyone was curious about.
Fuck it, he was already bored. This place was a waste of his time, he wasn't going to learn a single thing, he wasn't gaining a goddamn thing. Might as well have some fun with it, right?
"Seriously? You looked like you could kill someone and have no remorse," Sero said. The others agreed, Bakugou almost enjoying the attention he was getting. Again, he wasn't popular in any way, so people showing interest and being genuinely curious in him definitely gave him a small serotonin boost. "What are you even here for?"
"Failed suicide attempt," Bakugou sighed. Everyone else nodded their heads, showing they were in there for a similar reason.
When group started, Bakugou immediately began to drift off. With the fun combination of ADHD and apathy kicking in, he found himself daydreaming and not paying attention to whatever they were saying. In all honesty, he wouldn't even know how to care as the person talked. Though Bakugou planned to keep a relatively detailed journal of his time here (because there was literally nothing else to do), he knew there was no way he could be present enough to remember what the hell they were saying.
Bakugou thought about where his friends would be right now. Looking at his schedule, he'd guess it was somewhere around 4:30 in the afternoon. It would have been nice to confirm that time with a clock somewhere, but he hadn't seen a single one since he walked into that wing.
They're probably both home right now. They might have gone for coffee after school, but who knew? Bakugou wished he could go get some coffee with his two best friends right now, but he was stuck in Schuyler Fields Mental Hospital. He was already the odd one out of the three, he had known that for years, but now he will only be more left out now that they'll grow closer to one another and Bakugou will become even more distant.
He needed to get out of there.
Not knowing what else to do, Bakugou stuck close to Midoriya as they went to the cafeteria. Though he was kind of hungry, he was too bitter to eat whatever they were serving except the chocolate pudding. There were six younger kids, maybe seven to eleven all sitting at the only six-person table. They laughed and giggled and talked like all kids did. Bakugou silently wondered how they ended up there.
There were three four-person tables, the rest were two, each table having a laminated piece of paper saying 'do not exceed x chairs at this table!' making Bakugou roll his eyes. He wasn't sure why, but he hated that piece of paper more than he should've.
He and Midoriya sat down at a two-person table that hugged the wall. Opening up his chocolate pudding, Bakugou looked at the plastic spoon in his hand.
"I'm surprised they let us have these," he muttered. Looking up from his spaghetti, he tilted his head as if to ask why. "This is just a regular plastic spoon. We have these at my school. When I was in middle school, the boys would slam the spoon end onto the table and it would snap off, leaving a sharp piece of plastic that can draw blood relatively easily. They'd stab each other all the time. It's really easy to hurt yourself with this."
"Oh, yeah I get what you mean. I'm surprised too. But, I can't really think of an alternative and I guess anything can be used to hurt yourself with enough force," Midoriya said.
"Guess so," Bakugou said, mindlessly stirring his pudding.
"So tell me about you?"
Bakugou lifted his head, eyebrow raised. "I already told you all about my boyfriend and stuff, I don't know much about you," Midoriya elaborated.
"What do you want to know?"
"Uh... what about... what are you into? Like your interests?"
"Uh, I play tennis, I like writing and drawing, hanging out with my friends. That's about it."
"What do you write about?"
"I write a lot of anime fan fiction."
"I love anime!" Midoriya smiled brightly. "What animes do you watch?"
"Uh, Promised Neverland, Stars align, I just finished Deathnote, I'm trying to get into Haikyuu but I can only watch like two episodes until I get bored and have to take a break. I really need to start demon slayer, I watched the first season of Danganronpa. Oh, and right now I have a hyperfixation on Your Loser Academy," Bakugou said.
"Oh my god!" Midoriya beamed. "I love Your Loser Academy! My favorite 1-A student is Mochi, the love interest."
"She's alright, never really my favorite, she always seemed bland to me, a lot of anime love interests seem to be for some reason. But it's not my anime, I'm not complaining, I still like it. My favorite is Noodle, the one with the scar. I know he's everyone's favorite but I can relate to him I guess. Actually, you remind me a lot of the main character, Leaf. You're just... too sweet and sunshiny, I feel like you're hiding a dark secret," Bakugou said.
"Maybe I am," Midoriya said with a smile.
"No, you definitely cry when you accidentally step on an ant."
Taking a shower meant taking off the gauze the hospital put on his arms and legs. Just looking at the gauze he got annoyed because they put so fucking much.
Taking it off, there was dried blood on the cloth and gray patches of adhesive residue stuck to his arms and legs. Whatever it'll come off eventually.
He definitely didn't like the shower. The dial looked like an old fashion kitchen timer, no metal sticking out that he could hurt himself with. There was no door to the bathroom, just a curtain. The shampoo felt like it was killing his hair, it was impossible to run his fingers. To his dismay, there was no conditioner. Sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt went on as his patience wore thin.
"Bakugou! You have a phone call, phone two."
Bakugou put a towel in his head, walking out to phone two. He went to pull the mental phone off its station. Almost immediately he was met with force when he tried to pull the phone to his ear. The cord was made of metal, no longer than a foot. In order to get the phone to his ear, he awkwardly crouched and rested his head on the wall. "Hello?"
"Hi Katsuki," he heard his father say.
"Hi Honey," his mother said.
"Hi," his brother muttered.
"How are you guys?" Bakugou asked.
"We're good. We miss you a lot," Masaru said. "How are you adjusting?"
"Uh, it's definitely something," Bakugou muttered. "A fight broke out, a lot of the guys here are inner city. Also, a lot of people I just generally don't like and loud and obnoxious. They were all yelling about the fight and arguing with the nurses. Don't they understand that's gonna get used against them and they're gonna get held here longer?"
"You're a smart and clever kid, Bakugou," Masaru said. "You've always been. I'm sure you know exactly how to play the system and get out, these other kids might not."
Bakugou might not be a rockstar in school anymore, but he was clever, or he'd like to think. He was good at chess because he knew how to think ahead, he knew how people would react.
By nature, Bakugou was extremely manipulative, extremely aggressive, short-tempered, hot-headed, rude. From kindergarten to second grade, he saw himself as smarter, better than the other students. From third grade to sixth grade, he got bored of school, not finding the work challenging. So he began manipulating people for his own benefit. Telling lies to make himself more likable, secretly pitting friends against each other so he could come in a week later and be the savior to one of them. Sucked up to the teachers, acted extremely mature, perfected lying through his teeth to them, making them always give him the benefit of the doubt if a kid went to a teacher about what he did. He played the victim to turn people on others. From seventh grade to freshman year, his humor was belittling others. It wasn't until he lost all his friends had he realized that how terrible of a person he truly was. He remembered what happened vividly.
At lunch, he was talking. It wasn't anything new, but another friend had a terrible habit of interrupting people, one of Bakugou's biggest pet peeves. When they opened their mouth and spoke, Bakugou opened his mouth too.
"Oh my God, can I say literally anything without you trying to talk over me?" Bakugou groaned. They shut their mouth, letting Bakugou continue. Conversation continued as normal until it happened again.
"Dude, the same thing happened to me when—"
Bakugou remembered his next actions vividly. He stood up from his seat, leaned over, and clapped. He clapped inches away from their face, only stopping ten seconds after they stopped talking.
Their expression was sadly one that Bakugou recognized. The face where they were trying to look neutral or unfazed, but there was obvious rage and hurt trying to be pushed away.
The bell rang before anyone could continue the conversation. He felt the energy at that table. He had fucked up and he had fucked up bad.
That night, his friends texted him and told him that they were sick of his shit. That he was being an asshole, and he needed to shape up.
The next day was the last day he purposefully manipulated someone. He faked illness to his mother and even got himself to cry because of a 'terrible migraine'. Truly believing that he was sick, she let him stay home from school that day. With his extra time, he made notes on his behavior and what he was going to do to change it. He called each of his friends individually that day, apologizing, crying a little because of the guilt he felt, telling them what he would need from them, that he asks that they call him out immediately if any of them see him being an asshole. He pointed out everything bad about himself, to which his friends reassured him that some of it was not as severe as Bakugou thought it was.
It took time because those shitty behaviors were what Bakugou was used to. Bakugou was always nice to strangers, to people he didn't know well, to acquaintances. But he let his true colors show to his closest friends, they were the ones who made him realize that maybe he needed a new color pallet.
Bakugou decided to ask his parents to go back to therapy. He tried to express his emotions better, worked on not lying just because he could, was overly nice, overly sympathetic, overly compassionate to make up for lost time. And after a couple of months, he had forced himself to be so kind unconditionally, it became a part of his personality.
Bakugou never was aggressive, rude, or manipulative because he found pleasure in seeing others in pain. He hated when people hurt. But he always found himself bored, looking for some sort of chaos or control over others in a sense. A couple of times he had inquired about maybe being a sociopath, but it was determined that no, he was not. But he checked off more boxes than he would've liked to. Bakugou wasn't being challenged, he was bored. Idle hands are the devil's playground after all.
After brute force on his part, he became kind by nature. He challenged his mind in other ways, got control in healthier ways that weren't at the expense of other people. By no means was Bakugou perfect and free from those traits. He slipped up, made mistakes, even caught himself trying to manipulate his dad into not making him go to Schuyler. But he was trying to suppress that to the best of his ability, knowing that it hurts others and that he could keep his mind busy and entertained in other ways.
So when Masaru mentioned that Bakugou already knew how to play the system, Bakugou knew this place would bring out the worst in him.
In fact, that seemed like just the type of entertainment he needed to keep himself sane here.
"Yeah, I'm just trying to get out," Bakugou muttered quietly, trying to make sure no nurses overhead him. "I really want to go to that tennis tournament on Monday."
"In order to do that, you have to do your best and cooperate with the staff," Mitsuki said. "I know you know that, but we would like to see you again too. But we also want you to get better."
"Yeah, I want to go home too," Bakugou muttered, suddenly feeling a lot more alone than he did a few minutes ago.
"Bakugou, wrap it up!"
"They're telling me to get off. Bye, I'll talk to you guys tomorrow," Bakugou said softly.
"Bye Katsuki, we love you."
"I love you too."
The click of the phone going back in its place rang through Bakugou's ears with a lot more pain than he initially expected.