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Kirishima moves, his fingers twitch, as he opens his eyes. The silence of the room is interrupted by heavy breathing, it takes Kirishima a moment to realize it’s coming from him. He sits up, bringing his knees up to his chest as he stares out the window. His fingers curl into his palms, nails dig into the skin as blood wells up. He looks at the city as he does his best to come up with a plan, but he has never been the most clever. He just… cares too much. He curls more into himself as he admits the truth. He crawls over to the window and opens it, feeling like he is suffocating under the weight of the truth.
His soulmate was kidnapped and Kirishima did nothing to stop it. He couldn’t have done anything, he had wanted to, but one look from Aizawa… and he stopped himself. He does not need to think of that. He needs a plan, but he isn’t-- but Midoriya is. Midoriya is and he knows he can convince the boy to help! With a grin that could rival the sun, he crawls back into bed with a plan in mind and falls back asleep.
Panic still grips him when he wakes, he feels fractured, but he still gets out of bed. He still dresses himself, and most importantly, he still arrives at the hospital with the rest of his class. He still stands in front of Midoriya and he still explains his plan, he isn’t sure how he exactly convinces him, but he does. He does and all of them, the entire group that tagged along with, hide. They hide and Kirishima for a moment thinks everything is going too fast when he is on someone’s shoulders, when he is looking through the window.
Then everything is too slow, everything is too slow and Kirishima is sure that Bakugou is dead. That all the rumors, that all the articles he ever read about soulmates were wrong, and that he was wrong, his body and his soul all torn apart. He cannot tell if the utter terror he feels is from the fear of his death, or from the revelation of this new villain. In the end, he supposes it doesn’t matter much, that all of that doesn’t truly matter. Not when-- a voice. A voice that Kirishima knows too well.
Bakugou is alive, but he does not know if that is for better or for worse quite yet. His hands twitch, they tingle, and he is frozen. Everything around him is going too fast, Izuku’s voice a soft murmur in the background of his mind. He is moved, he is still frozen but he is moving ice. Then everything slows down, he sees Bakugou, he calls out for him. Everything is too much but not enough. And when they land, time does not continue as it should. Being able to hold and be held by Bakugou is nearly not enough. He takes a deep breath, brings the scent of something smokey, of grime and sweat and blood and tears into his lungs where he will never let it go. None of it, not even if it would come for his own death. He would laugh if his head would clear, how funny is it that he feels nothing for his own death but everything for Bakugou’s? He feels all floaty and distant, the only thing bringing him back is his hand in Bakugou’s, his heart in his throat, and the smell of smoke. Distantly, Kirishima wonders if the smell of smoke comes from Bakugou’s quirk or if it is natural. In the end, he decides he probably doesn’t matter. Everything is full of fear, every television and every word that they hear.
Everything hangs in the balance and it makes him feel sick. Not disgusted, but sick with fear, worry. He gazes up at that screen and watches All Might, too distant-- his breath is stolen from him as he watches the fight. The fight that all of them, every single person there has ran from. Why? Why did they do that? Because they thought they would be in the way? Because-- he looks at Bakugou and wills his thoughts to stop. He wills the guilt to stop, at least for the moment. All the fuzziness, the distance, gone. He reaches up, grabbing Bakugou’s face softly as he presses their lips together, a promise on his tongue, even if it does not sound like it.
“This is not your fault,” his words, his voice are soft. The unspoken it is no ones, I will always be by your side weighing heavily on the both of them. They look at the television before back to one another, fear making them cling to one another tighter than ever before. Not only during their interrogations at the police department, but afterwards while they wait for their family.
Kirishima wonders if this is how everything ends, the end of UA, of the two of them-- he is pulled out of his thoughts by a hand on his wrist, the everblooming sprout of affection in his chest that threatens to crawl up his throat. He looks into Bakugou’s eyes, into the crimson depths, and is awakened by the affection, the emotion in them. He feels his heart develop wings as he sees Katsuki smile the first time since his rescue. He leans in close, lips only a hair width away from Kirishima’s own.
“You’re the reason I’m still alive,” he admits, “Your love saved me.”