Archive of Our Own

“Are you on drugs?”

Kaminari spit out his water, “What?”

Jirou looked at him, the rest of the group now actively paying attention to their conversation as well, “I saw you taking a pill at lunch today, one you were freaking out about missing.”

He just shrugged her off, “Oh, dude, that’s just my ADHD meds. I forgot to take them this morning, and was wondering why I was struggling in class.”

She just raised an eyebrow, “Well, then why was it a different color than normal?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, this one was blue.”

Fuck, “It’s a new perscription they have me on a higher dose,” He hoped that was believable enough.

“Uh huh, why don’t you show me the bottle then? I wanna make sure they’re not giving you terrible medications, and side effects and stuff.”

“Look, I appreciate the concern, but I’m monitoring it, so I’m fine.”

“No, give me the drugs, Kami.”

Jirou made a leap for his backpack, however Denki grabbed it in time and took it out of her reach.

Bakugou got up and walked behind Kaminari, who was now holding the bag over his head, and reached in and grabbed the pill bottle. There was no name on it, Kaminari had ripped it off when he got to the dorms just in case anyone ever tried to look up the medication. However, at this moment he could see how it only screwed him over more.

“Here, is this what you wanted?” Bakugou chucks it at Jirou and sits back down, “Don’t think I care, I just won’t be friends with any druggies.”

Kaminari mumbles under his breath, “And yet they all get away with doing pot.”

His mind snaps back to the situation at hand when Jirou gets up and runs from the common room, and straight into the girls bathroom.

Denki runs after her, but can’t follow her in without being called multiple things worse than Mineta. 

When she walks out, empty pill container in hand, “I’m just looking out for you, this stuff is bad news.” 

She smiles at him, but Denki just feels numb inside, “Yeah whatever.”

He gets up and walks away from her, his backpack now forgotten on the couch. However all he wants is to get away from the current situation. 

His antidepressants. Jirou just flushed his antidepressants down the toilet. He hasn’t been off them in a few years so he’s kind of scared to see what happens now.

The easy solution would be to call up his mom, explain the situation and ask for a new prescription. However, the odds of her believing him were low. She’d just think he was trying to stash his pills again. 

When he finally reaches his dorm he crumples into a ball on his bed. He had taken the pill a few hours ago, so he was at least covered until tomorrow afternoon. But after that, there was no telling what would happen. 

For now he just layed in bed and waited for sleep to come.

The next morning he got dressed and went to take his pills, until he remembers yesterday's events. Finding an old bottle of water he takes the ADHD one and grabs a granola bar from his drawer.Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, he heads out the door and down to the common room to find his backpack.

It was still right where he left it, a little sticky note left on top of it, I’m sorry, you’ll thank us later :) -Jirou .

Yeah, sure. He crumples up the note and throws it in the trash can nearby.

He reaches in to find everything else still in the bag, but things were moved around as if someone had gone through it.

He was running late, most people had already made it to class. He still had about 20 minutes to spare, and it takes about 10 minutes to get to class. 

So he takes out his granola bar and starts to walk, Mineta showing up next to him a few moments later.

Denki really wasn’t in the mood, but Mineta would just blabber on about whatever he was saying, so he quickly tuned him out and let his mind wander for the rest of the walk.

When they arrived at class, Denki made sure to put on a smile and act as if everything were fine, when he had an idea, “Hey Mineta, can we switch seats?”

Mineta seemed to think about it for a moment, “Sure, I’d love the opportunity to sit next to Mina and Jirou.”

If Kaminari wasn’t preoccupied with other things, he would have cringed at what Mineta had just said. But instead he went and took his seat behind Midoriya.

Of course this attracted a lot of attention from his classmates, but Kaminari didn’t want to look any of them in the eyes so he just stared out the window instead.

Since there was still five minutes before class started, he felt his phone buzz, and buzz, and more buzzing.

Finally when he went to take it out, Aizawa walked in, “Kaminari phone away, you can wait until after my class to text your girlfriend.”

Kaminari just huffs, turning his phone off and putting it in his bag.

Sero turns around to look at him, his eyebrows raised.

Kaminari just gives a small smile and turns back to the teacher. He can’t focus in class though, all he can think about is how the next few days are gonna go. 

He’s staring out the window when Aizawa appears in front of him.

“Kaminari, were you listening?” 

Now, Kaminari was known as being the class jokester, someone not really smart, nowhere near the top of the class.

However, Aizawa wasn’t stupid, and neither was Denki. He knew how to make it look as if he were paying attention, literally the definition of “fake it until you make it.”

“No, sir. Sorry.” Kaminari didn’t look him in the eyes, still lost in his own head.

Aizawa stared at him for a second longer, “Please stay after class, then. I’ll go over the lesson again.”

Kaminari’s shoulders dropped, he nodded.

The bell rang a few seconds later and the rest of the class got up and went to lunch, a few of Denki’s friends looked back at him before leaving.

Sero walks over to his desk, “Everything okay?”

Kaminari summons up a smile in an instant, “Of course, just tired.”

“Sero you should go to lunch,” Aizawa says while walking over to the two boys.

“Oh, I don’t mind listening to the lesson again.” Sero tries.

“How do you expect to be able to pay attention later if you don’t get food?” He cocks an eyebrow, “Go.”

Sero bites his lip, “Yeah, I guess. See you later, Denki.”

He looks back one last time before heading out.

Aizawa sits on the desk in front of him while Kaminari uncaps his pen getting ready to write some notes down. 

“You can put that away.”

“But how am I supposed to take notes?”

“You can ask your friends for notes,” He pauses, thinking for a moment, “Maybe not all of your friends.”

Kaminari doesn’t say anything, so Aizawa continues, “Is there a reason you and Mineta switched seats?”

Smile appears back on his face, he rubs the back of his neck, “Ah, you know. Just wanted to switch it up a bit.”

Aizawa doesn’t look convinced, “When you decide you need to talk, let me know. Go get some lunch.”

Kaminari blinks and picks up his bag, “Not sure what there is to talk about, but sure, sir.”

He wastes no time leaving the classroom, but he doesn’t go to the cafeteria. If the seating arrangement issue was that big of a problem, he didn’t want to see what would happen if he didn't sit with them at lunch.

Making his way to the vending machine on the second floor, he takes out his phone and turns it on. All the earlier texts flooded in.

From Jirou:

Hey, what’s with the seat change?

Are you mad about yesterday?

Dude, I told you I’m only looking out for you.

I think Mina’s about 3 seconds away from punching Mineta.

From Mina:

Look, if you weren’t high on drugs I’d kill you.

Mineta is looking at my chest.

I’m gonna punch him.

Come back to your seat.

From Mineta:

I so owe you one, this is great!

From Sero:

Dude, what’s going on?

Did something happen?

Denki?

Hope you’re okay :(

From Kirishima:

Any reason for the seat change? 

Mina looks pissed.

Kaminari doesn’t answer any of them, instead grabbing a pack of cheez-its and sitting on the steps while eating them.

Reaching into his bag again he pulls out a pair of earbuds and plugs them into his phone, shuffling a new album that came out. 

He hasn’t had much time or reason to listen to music lately. The class hasn’t had any near death experiences in the last few months, and he’s been pretty content and feeling good.

He zones out in his music so much that he doesn’t hear the bell ring instead he jumps up when he starts seeing kids walking around him on the stairs.

Today was Friday, which means he has english, so he quickly hurried back over to the classroom, pleased to see Mineta was still in the same seat from earlier.

However, this makes a few people raise an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you were already supposed to be in here because of your extra lesson?” Bakugou asks, his eyes piercing Denki's soul.

“I had to eat something, you know. I was let out early to get food.”

“Where, you never came to the cafeteria.”

“The vending machine, asshole.”

Denki knew that was a bad idea, but with everyone thinking he was on drugs he was reaching his wits end, plus he had enough other stuff to deal with.

Bakugou stands up from his desk, “What did you just call me?”

Kaminari just glares.

“So that’s what you were doing, huh? You got more pills that we don’t know about? Maybe your so-called ADHD meds are actually something else?”

Kaminari’s head hurt, there were too many thoughts going through it, and nothing was clear.

“I told you, I’m not being friends with any one who does goddamn drugs.” He grabs the front of Denki’s shirt, “So where are they?”

“I already told you, I’m not on drugs. Let me go!”

Kaminari normally had a pretty good grip on his quirk, he hadn’t had many issues with keeping it disconnected from his emotions since before he was put on his meds.

However, at this point it's been over 24 hours since he’s taken them, and this day has been a lot to handle. So when sparks came out and shocked Bakugou, he was just as surprised as the others in the class. 

Present Mic had walked in at that moment too, just in time to see it happen.

Before anything else could happen, Kaminari felt everyone’s eyes on him. His fight or flight instinct kicked in and he ran. Right out of the classroom, straight past Present Mic, and straight to the dorms.

No one saw him for the rest of the weekend. 

________________________________

When Monday rolls around, he shows up to class, however his skin is paler than normal and he feels sick to his stomach.

Mineta took his old seat back, leaving Kaminari between two people he didn’t want to see at the moment.

Normally he would be all for keeping up appearances, but he just felt like shit. 

“Here.” He looks over to Jirou, who is holding out a piece of toast, “Should help with the nausea.”

Kaminari ignores her and puts his head down, she continues, “Look, I’m sorry you feel like shit, but this is inevitable, you’d have to quit at some point.”

“Just leave me alone.” He mumbles into his arm.

When he hears Aizawa start class he forces himself to lift his head up and take notes. He didn’t want to get held after class again. 

However, despite taking notes on everything Denki had no idea what they actually learned in class. It felt as if his body was just moving on autopilot.

He snaps somewhat out of it when the bell rings and everyone heads to lunch, Sero waits back for him. 

“Hey, you wanna go get lunch?” Sero asks hopefully.

Kaminari reaches into his bag to grab his earbuds, “Not hungry, have fun though.”

Putting them in he sees Sero leave, so he puts his head back down.

He was just listening to the music, when he felt something land on him. Looking up and taking an earbud out he sees a pack of saltine crackers and a water bottle on his desk. 

Sero takes the desk next to him, “You won’t join me, so I’m gonna join you. You need to eat something, dude.”

If he wasn’t feeling so shitty, this might have cheered Kaminari up, “Thanks Sero, I’m not hungry though.”

“Well did you eat this morning with your meds?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you eat?”

Sero wasn’t letting the topic drop, “A bite of a granola bar.”

“Nope, that's not enough. All you gotta do is eat a few crackers. That’s it. I won’t bother you about it anymore.

Denki raises an eyebrow at him, and Sero just nudges the crackers towards him in response. Sighing, Denki starts to nibble on a cracker.

This seemed to make Sero a little happier as he started eating his own lunch.

The two sat there in silence, and Denki was able to get halfway through the sleeve of crackers before the period was near ending. Shoving the rest of the crackers in his back for later, Denki watches Sero throw his garbage away.

“So you wanna tell me what’s been going on lately?”

“Nothing.” Kaminari rests his chin on his arms. 

“Yeah, sorry dude. But I don’t believe that for a second.”

A pause, “I’m fine.”

“Okay. I never said you weren’t but the fact that you feel the need to say so is not a convincing sign.” He tries again, “Denki, I’ve known you since we were like 10. I know you’re only like this when things get bad. So what's going on?”

Denki wanted to tell him. To tell him all about the accusations and assumptions their friends made. How before he could even explain they just shoved a label over his head and flushed his pills down the toilet. 

But he didn't. Because at the end of the day, they were Sero’s friends too, and he couldn’t just ruin everything for him. 

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Uh uh. Doesn’t work like that. See, now I’m going to worry about you. So-”

Sero’s voice was cut off by the bell, Denki grabbed his bag and started walking out of the room. Sero followed not too far behind, the two both making their way to the locker rooms in silence.

Although Sero was almost relieved to see Denki changing in the locker room and not hiding in some stall. However, that didn’t mean the worst isn’t yet to come.

They all file out in their gym uniforms and are swiftly separated in groups. The class would work in a kind of rotation, so by the end of class each group will have done each exercise. 

Denki had almost made it through the last set in the rotation when he felt his stomach churn, between not eating enough with his ADHD medication and the nausea he’d been experiencing for a few days, he knew what was coming up. As he got up and ran to the nearest trash can, he could hear Aizawa calling after him in the background.

So he got sick. It only lasted a minute or two but he didn’t want to return back to his class. Instead he sat against the wall with his knees bent and his head in his arms.

He stayed there until class ended and all of his classmates were walking back inside. Peeking his head up, he saw numerous friends give him looks of pity as they walked by.

He pushed himself up, ignoring Sero’s look of concern.

He could do this, he’s done it before. He only has to last a month before his refill.

______________________________________________

A week passes and Kaminari just falls deeper and deeper into his own head. The nausea had passed, however his appetite was still a bit off. 

His sleep schedule was basically nonexistent at this point, he was lucky to get four hours a night.

Jirou and the others would try to approach him with uplifting pinterest quotes and would just keep saying that “it’s for your own good.”

Sero knew Denki’s past, so he also knew the signs. He knew things were getting worse, he just didn’t know how to help if Kaminari kept denying it or refusing anything was wrong. 

Since it was Monday again the class was scheduled for physical training again. After lunch Sero and Denki made their way towards the locker rooms together. Sero insisted on spending lunch together for as long as he refused to eat in the cafeteria, and while Denki was starting to talk a little bit more Sero was still suspicious.

And as he found out a few minutes later, it was with good reason. 

When they walked in, Denki went straight to his locker and this was when Sero noticed.

First, Denki stood really close to his locker, not even backing away when he hit his arm while taking his uniform off.

Second, he changed in maybe half the time he normally did.

Third, Sero had the locker right next to his, and when he looked over that's when he saw it.

His heart sank, Denki relapsed.

Sero quickly averted his eyes, he knew it’d be worse if he was caught staring. Asking him about it now, would only cause panic (and while it would also cause panic later, it was best not to do it in front of the entire class), so he shoved it down to deal with after school. 

After class had ended Denki had changed even faster than before and rushed out of the room. That’s when Sero heard a “Tch” from Bakugou.

Sero was done trying to be nice. His best friend was suffering and he had no idea what was causing it. He knew something had to be since Denki would barely even spare a glance to any of his friends. 

So he finished changing and caught up with the rest of their group outside the locker rooms. 

The others were all laughing about something when Sero interrupted, “Did something happen with Kaminari? He seems kind of upset lately.”

He then noticed several different reactions. Bakugou rolled his eyes, Jirou glared intensely at the ground while Mina and Kirishima looked anywhere but Sero.

“Okay, well that definitely confirms my theory of something happening. So which one of you is going to tell me what it is that went on?”

That’s when Jirou finally spoke up and said, “We found unlabeled prescription drugs in his backpack. So I flushed them, he’s been so out of it because he’s been going through withdrawal.”

Mina then speaks up, “Yeah and we’ve been trying to help him and be supportive but he keeps pushing us away.”

Sero stopped walking.

Prescription pills, unlabeled. And Denki’s been depressed and falling into old habits.

They didn’t flush illegal drugs.

They flushed his antidepressants.

“Hey, I know this is a shock but-” Mina starts but Sero cuts her off.

“You guys are all idiots! Did you even give him a chance to explain? Or did you just assume?”

Bakugou cuts in, “What’s there to explain? He had the drugs in his possession, Ears saw him take one at lunch.”

“Yeah, and he was really worried about not taking it.”

Sero didn’t listen to anything they said, and despite being exhausted from training he ran the rest of the way to the dorms.

So when he knocked on Kaminari’s door five minutes later, he was out of breath, “Can I come in?”

Denki seemed confused at what was going on, and a little bit reluctant on letting him in, but caved in the end. 

Sero walks in and sits on his desk chair while Denki sits back on his bed.

When Sero doesn’t say anything, Denki asks, “Is everything okay, dude?”

“They flushed your antidepressants didn’t they?”

Kaminari deflated, “Yeah. They did.”

“When? How long have you been off them?”

“Only like a week and a half.”

“Den, that's still a long time, you’ve been consistently on them for almost three years now.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d be mad at them, and they’re your friends too. I didn’t want to cause any trouble.” Denki’s shoulders dropped. 

“Trouble? Dude, I’m more worried about you.”

Denki put on a smile, Sero could see it didn’t reach his eyes, “Don’t be, I’m fine.”

“Denki,” He paused, “I saw your chest. You aren’t fine.”

“I tried,” His voice cracked, “I swear.”

He could see Denki start to cry, “Hey, hey. I know you did. Relapses happen, and I’m gonna be right by your side making sure you don’t do it again, okay?”

A small nod.

“Hey, um, could you come with me to do something? It’s important.”

Denki just stared, his eyes still wet, his bottom lip trembling.

“Now?”

“Yeah we shouldn’t wait any longer.”

Denki agrees a few minutes later, throwing a sweatshirt on over his uniform and pulling the hood up.

Sero leads the way back to campus, Aizawa should still be in the teacher's lounge grading papers, if he isn’t Present Mic could always call him to come.

Denki catches on when they reach the school building and stops, “Oh no, we are not telling the teachers.”

“We have to, what they did wasn’t okay. And there has to be repercussions, and we need to get you new pills.”

He sees that Kaminari still isn’t convinced, “It doesn’t have to be Aizawa, but we do have to tell someone, because what they did needs to be brought to someone’s attention. Who would you rather talk to?”

Kaminari thinks back to the conversation he had the other day, “Aizawa.”

“Okay,” Sero nods and rings the buzzer on the door. 

“Please state your names,” The buzzer asks. 

Kaminari doesn’t speak up so Sero says, “Sero Hanta and Kaminari Denki.”

A few seconds later the door makes a click and the boys go in. Once inside they walk to the stairwell with the vending machine and go up to the third floor, the one dedicated to only teachers. Normally the rule is to never go in unless instructed to do so by a teacher. However, Sero thinks this might be the exception.

When the two walk in the entire room goes silent, it was just Present Mic in the room, and Sero could feel Kaminari move to stand behind him. 

Clearing his throat, Sero asks, “Um, is Mr. Aizawa here?”

Present Mic, who was sitting on the couch, uses his pile of papers to whack the yellow sleeping bag on the floor next to him.

This does in fact wake Aizawa up, “Hizashi what the hell was that for?”

Not even phased, Mic just replies, “Sero and Kaminari were looking for you.”

And with that, Aizawa unzips his sleeping bag, rubs his eyes, and gets off the floor.

Aizawa looked at the two boys in front of him, Sero looked nervous, but Kaminari was almost cowering behind him. While his assumption could be completely wrong Aizawa was assuming this was about.

“Thank you Sero, I think we can take it from here.” 

Sero bites his lip and looks at Denki, “I’ll be okay. Just try not to do anything stupid for my sake, please?” 

Denki lets out a small smile and Sero smiles back as he turns and leaves. 

“Why don’t you go and sit on the couch.” Denki nods and heads over, “Is it okay if Mic is here? I can kick him out.”

Present Mic snorts, “You really have a way with words. But Kaminari, I can leave no problem.”

“No, no. Um. You should probably be here, make sure Mr. Aizawa doesn’t kill anyone.” Denki says.

Trying to lighten the mood from what he just said, Mic jokes, “Well I am half of his impulse control. Especially when it comes to you kids.”

Aizawa just rolls his eyes and takes a seat next to Mic, “So you decided you want to talk?”

Denki looks down, “Well Sero didn’t really give me much of a choice.”

“That's okay. So what is going on?”

“About a week and a half ago my friends and I, beside Sero, were all just chilling in the common room. Jirou remembered seeing me taking a pill at lunch, and made an assumption that I was getting high.”

Both teacher’s eyebrows shot up, “She thought you were on drugs, is this true?”

“No.” He shook his head, “However I wasn’t given much time to explain before she lunged for my bag and I pulled it away. Bakugou then took matters into his hands and grabbed the bottle of pills from my bag. When they saw the pills were unlabeled Jirou took them and ran into the bathroom where she flushed them down the toilet.”

The teachers were silent so Kaminari continued, “Those pills were my prescription of Lexapro, which I ripped the label off of because I don’t exactly want everyone to know that I’m taking antidepressants.”

He continued rambling, “I know you probably think I’m lying, but they’re in my medical file, I swear!”

“Kid, it’s okay. We believe you. And I will definitely be following up with the others later. So you’ve been off your medication for about a week and a half, right?” Denki nods, “Okay, and how long were you consistently on them before?”

“Three years.”

“Wait is this why you electrocuted Bakugou last week?” Mic interrupts the conversation.

“It was an accident. I wasn’t having a good day, and he was accusing me of getting high during lunch. He demanded to know where I was keeping them.” He looked down, “My entire friend group thinks I am just going through withdrawal symptoms. Which I mean, they aren't wrong. But…”

After he trails off Aizawa steps in, “But you’re also dealing with a lot of other things right now, right?”

Denki just nods.

“So what else is going on?”

“I’ve been relapsing. First time in over a year or so.”

Mic speaks up, “Well hey, if you got to a year before, then you can get there again.”

Kaminari just shrugs, “It’s going to be terrible though.”

“Yeah, but it should suck a little bit less when you start your meds again. Speaking of, why didn’t you tell us sooner? I’m sure we could have called you parents and gotten more.” Mic asks.

“Because my mom wouldn’t have believed me, she would have thought I was just stashing pills again. And I was afraid you guys would think the same.”

“Well, lucky for you I’m your teacher, and I am immune to bullshit. So I know when my students lie to me. And I don’t think for a second you are lying. Now why wouldn’t your mom believe you?” Aizawa asks.

Shrugging again, he says, “I don’t see her a lot. I live with my grandparents but I’m still under her insurance so she deals with my medications and doctors.”

“Okay.” Aizawa paused, “Well can I get in touch with her?”

“Yeah, she normally answers pretty quickly. She’s probably gonna ask me to have my therapist call her though. Like I said, she’ll think the worst.”

“Tell you what, I’ll go call your mom, you call your therapist and then we can discuss our next options, okay?”

Kaminari takes out his phone, it's been almost 10 months since he last saw his therapist, and he was pretty sure he knew what she was going to say, she answers on the fourth ring.

“ Hello? This is Dr. Ito. ”

“Um, hi. This is Kaminari, I haven’t been in for an appointment in a while.”

“ Of course, how are you doing? ”

“Not so great, to be honest. I was forced off my meds the past week or so.”

“ And how did that go? ”

Kaminari let out an awkward laugh, “Not so great either. I um.” He paused, “I relapsed.”

“ I’m very sorry to hear that. I hate to ask, but just to make sure, where did you relapse? ”

He absentmindedly put a hand to his chest, “Same place as normal, my chest.”

The line goes silent for a moment.

“ Okay, well. While I don’t have to tell your mom any specifics, I do think me and her need to talk. Because you said you’ve only been off your medication for a little over a week. ”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“ That being said, I think the best course of action would be to check you into a facility somewhere, ”

“Do we have to?” Denki interrupts, he really didn’t want to have to go away again.

“ I can’t force anything, and legally it is up to your mother, so I will be talking about it as an option. But the medication is going to take a few weeks to work, and with how you’ve been responding so far, I think it is safest to monitor you while we put you back on them. ”

“Okay.” 

Present Mic didn’t know what was going on on the other side of the conversation, but it hurt hearing how defeated Kaminari sounded. As his student, Kaminari was always full of energy and always trying to make others laugh. The fact that his friends unknowingly did this to him, it hurt.

Kaminari ended the call a few minutes later, and Aizawa returned soon after.

“Your mother said she was getting a call from your therapist so she’d handle it from here.” He said taking his seat next to Mic.

Kaminari just nodded, he didn’t really know how to phrase the next question, “How much school can I miss without getting expelled?”

“Depends, medical leave is different. How long are you expecting to miss?”

He looks down at his hands, “I don’t know. I have a feeling my mom’s going to sign off on it. So I’d say maybe two to three weeks.” He pauses, “Depends how long the medication takes to kick in and I’m deemed stable again.”

“I can talk to Nezu, I’ll push for it. Is there any way you can do an outstay program?”

“I’ll probably be put in one after, but they’re afraid after last time that I’m too much of a risk at this point.”

“What happened last time?”

“Like I said earlier, I hadn’t wanted to take my medication at first and would stash the pills. Of course this didn’t help my mental state, since you know I wasn’t taking my meds . And well, I think you know what I tried to do,” he rubs the back of his neck before continuing, “And well, obviously I wasn’t successful and when I was taken into the hospital my therapist had a long talk with me, my mom, and my doctors. They decided with the whole hurting myself thing and the swallowing the pills stuff, that I was a risk to myself. I was there for about a month and a half.”

Aizawa thought back to earlier, “You said this is your first relapse in over a year, so the last one happened while you were at UA, as well?”

“Yeah. It was last year when we thought there might be a traitor amongst the students. I don’t think you knew this but many of my classmates actually accused me. Saying that I was faking my wattage limit and everything.”

The teachers go to say something but Kaminari beats them to it, “I’m not blaming anyone! The decision was all my own. It was just my first reaction to cope. Sero helped me through it and I went back to therapy and everything.”

Kaminari’s phone buzzed with a text from his mom, I’m sorry you aren’t doing great. Your teachers seem to have this handled. Your grandparents will be picking you up first thing tomorrow morning, call me then. Love you -Mom

“I’m getting picked up tomorrow. I um, should go pack. I’m sorry about all of this, and for any trouble Nezu might give you for my absence.”

Kaminari goes to get up, but Aizawa puts his hand on his shoulder and stops him, “Thank you for telling us all this. I know it wasn’t easy. And just know, your friends won't be getting off easy for this.”

He nods, “Thank you, sir. Um, if it’s not too much to ask.” He paused and Aizawa nodded at him to continue, “Could you wait until tomorrow to talk to them? I’d rather not be here when they find out.”

Aizawa smiles, “Sure kid.”

“You have our numbers if you need anything.” Mic offers from the couch. 

Kaminari nods at them one last time before leaving and heading back to the dorms. 

While people looked up at him to see who walked in, Denki ignored it and went straight up to his room, texting Sero to meet him there.

He was waiting outside his room when he got there, “Hey bud, how’d it go?”

Denki let out a small smile, “I’ll tell you inside.”

So he explained the whole situation to Sero, while he ran around his room thinking of things he wanted to bring. He knew the rules, so he left out any restricted items, but made sure to grab his pikachu plushie from his bed.

“You still have it?”

“Pfft, of course. It got me through the first stay, and it’s gonna help me get through this one.”

Sero had gotten it for Kaminari when he was brought to the hospital for the first time, they had to do a bunch of tests to make sure he wasn’t smuggling anything in. But once it passed he was able to give it to Kaminari. 

Apparently he had kept it after all this time.

“So how long are they making you stay?” Sero asks.

“Not sure yet. I’m thinking probably three weeks. Aizawa said he was going to talk to Nezu for me.”

His eyebrows shot up, “They can’t kick you out over something like this.”

“Not for the mental stuff, no. But for too many absences, yeah.” Kaminari said.

He'd thought about this stuff a lot in the past few days. He knew once he was caught this would be the outcome.

“You know, I’m gonna be looking forward to our 6:30 calls.”

And Kaminari let out a laugh, a real laugh, “I forgot about those. It got to the point where the nurses knew my schedule. They’d always clear the phone for me at that time.”

“I don’t care if it’s not 6:30, but I better get a call everyday. I’ll keep you updated on all the stupid shit that goes on here.”

“Yeah, you better not have any near death experiences without me.”

Sero’s eyes widened, “Oh god, I hope not.”

The two chatter back and forth for a few more minutes before Kaminari finishes packing and it’s getting close to 11 pm.

Sero gets up to leave, Kaminari says, “Thanks, Hanta.”

Sero’s head snapped back, “You called me by my first name? Finally dude, I was starting to think you hated me or something,” he paused, “But I’ve told you before, and I’m gonna keep telling you. I’ll always be by your side.”

Kaminari hugged him, this past week had been way too stressful.

On his way out Sero said, “6:30?”

“6:30”

And while the next few weeks were going to be rough, Kaminari knew this, but he also knew he’d get through it. And while things with his friends may be rough for a little while. And all the school work he’ll have to catch up on . Sero said he’d be by his side no matter what, so for now all he had to focus on was getting better and getting to the phone at 6:30.