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Kaminari remembered stepping into class. He walked through the large UA door, talked to his friends for a bit, and sat down when the bell rang for homeroom. He remembered Aizawa walking into the room, taking roll (everyone was there, as usual), and then falling asleep. Kaminari was sure afterwards he began talking to Kirishima, Jirou, and Sero again. So, why was he walking to lunch without any recollection of anything his teachers said.
They had walked into the room, he remembered that. They spoke, wrote stuff on the board. Kaminari remembered pulling out the correct notebooks for each class, his English notebook was on his desk when the lunch bell rang. But, he couldn't remember a single word the teachers said and all he found in his notebooks were random, illegible scribbles of words and mostly doodles.
Of course, he had once again daydreamed through the entire first half of his day. But, he needed to get those notes. He couldn't risk getting another failing grade on a test. However, the problem then became– who could he get the notes from? All of his friends would certainly be willing to, but that didn't mean they helped. Kaminari loved his friends, the Bakusquad if you will, but Kirishima and Sero had shit handwriting (he couldn't understand what they were writing even if he tried) and Mina abbreviated ever word possible and he didn't particularly want to ask her what they all meant. The last option was Jirou or Momo, they were more than willing to help and good notetakers... but the two were no where to be found once Kaminari sat down at the lunch table. So, he had no choice but to ask for– Bakugou Katsuki.
He's borrowerd Bakugou's notes before and they were basically made for anyone to read and copy them. Although, in all of those cases, it was Kirishima who had Bakugou's notes; Kaminari was just able to copy them.
Kaminari was starting to stare at the ash blonde across from him while contemplating how to ask the question and debating with himself if he should. It was at the second time he had to avert his eyes from Bakugou's when he seriously considered just asking Kirishima and figuring it out from there.
"Why do I have to be such a dumbass and zone out for a whole 5 classes!" Kaminari screamed internally.
"The hell do you want, Pikachu?" Of course Bakugou noticed, why wouldn't he. He seemed to notice everything that was wrong with his friends, even though he didn't necessarily show any normal signs of caring.
"Uh– c- can I borrow your notes please?" Kaminari managed to reply despite Bakugou's pinpoint gaze. Usually, he could handle the blonde's glares and angry words but right now they felt suffocating.
"Can't you take your own notes, which fucking ones do you need?" Bakugou looked angry, although he was quick to begin opening up his bag
"I sorta' uh– zoned out? Like... the whole morning." Kaminari awkwardly admitted.
"The hell? Why didn't you say that shit before." Bakugou loudly zipped his bag back up. Kaminari's stomach flipped and his skin certainly paled. Of course, Bakugou thought he was a dumbass, one who zoned out through mutliple hours of the day and couldn't focus for shit anyways.
"I'll take pictures of the shit later and send it to you," Bakugou replied, "and stop fucking staring."
He quickly resumed his somewhat aggressive eating while Kaminari filled with utter relief. Of course Bakugou wouldn't be like that, they were friends, and they've had conversations before about Kaminari's ADHD. Bakugou did almost everything he could in his power to help Kaminari or get him the time he needed. He wouldn't just turn around and fuck him over like that.
"Thanks a lot, Kacchan!" Kaminari replied, luckily getting to avoid Bakugou's explosions at the nickname as the others returned to the table.
Later, Kaminari was sitting in the common room, phone charger in his mouth, and copying down the notes from each subject into their respective notebooks. Bakugou had done like he had said, rather quickly at that, and sent the notes to Kaminari right after school ended. Although, that thoughtfulness for his friend was not enough to get him to come downstairs as they all gathered around and talked or did homework.
The electric blonde had got to Ectoplasm's math notes. He hated math with all his being. Not only was the subject taught in such a boring way, but his math teachers had consistently been complete assholes. Once he had finally worked up the courage to ask his math teachers for some help, they always shot him down. Almost always they, ignored him after saying they'd adjust their lessons, told him it wasn't possible to adjust for "just one student", or blamed him for not understanding and loosing focus. Ectoplasm had been different do far. All of his classes introduced multiple methods to learning a subject to accommodate the different learning styles in the class. And for once, Kaminari was doing rather good in the class. But, years of the experience still left him to feel a bit bitter towards math and his rather kind (but scary) math teacher.
The math notes today were introducing a new concept. Kaminari visibly deflated when he realized that. It would take him forever to figure this one out, especially since he basically missed the class. He had reached a couple of example problems that Ectoplasm-sensei had given. Kaminari would have easily looked over it all if not for one rather small but out of place mistake.
There was a lot of steps to the equation but it was hard to miss that Bakugou had wrote, "9 × 2 = 11" in one of the steps.
"Huh? But, the rest of it is right, I think. Maybe he just miss wrote it. Ectoplasm-sensei's writing can be a bit weird sometimes." And he quickly wrote off the simple mistake, although that was far from the first.
The final notes he had were for English. Kaminari was actually really good at English. He had been learning on his own for a couple of years now– mostly so he could watch American TV shows without having to read a lot. But, he became rather interested in it in the process.
The notes would be a breeze for him since he understood the concepts and the sentences already and–
"Huh?" He didn't realize he said the words outloud, but his friends were rather quickly alerted of his confusion.
"Something wrong Kami?" Mina asked.
"Yeah, it's Bakugou's notes." He read over the small example sentence in English again, but it was still– not correct.
"Oooh, did he write something scandolous?" Sero leaned over Kaminari's shoulder.
"No, it's just an example sentence in the notes. I think it's meant to say 'I went to the store' in English, but it's written more like 'I wendo these tour'." Kaminari replied.
"Weird, maybe he just mis-wrote it? Or Mic-Sensei started erasing, and he just didn't get to finish it before then." Kirishima suggested.
"Yeah, it's probably just nothing. Just thought it was weird since Kacchan's meant to be a 'star student's y'know?" He mocked.
"Ooh, maybe he's bad at English. I wanna' hear him try and speak it!" Mina replied, eventually leading to a rather long conversation about the absent blonde that he would certainly blow them all up for.
It was Aizawa's job to notice when his student's needed help. Sure, it wasn't something he was payed for and often teachers tended to not partake in this duty. But for Aizawa, it was just as important as ensuring their success in the hero field. So, of course, he didn't miss Bakugou's increasingly odd actions.
"Bakugou, read the next passage." Aizawa called out on the student one class day. He hated doing textbook work. Aizawa could tell his students were half asleep and not paying attention, and he was himself. However, it was just part of the way they needed to teach. UA attempted to facilitate a large range of learning styles which unfortunately still included the outdated use of books and long paragraphs hardly anyone cared for.
"No quirk zones are sanctions where heroes are pro... hibited from using their quirks due to..." Bakugou continued reading the section of text without incident, but Aizawa couldn't ignore the first mess up.
Bakugou rarely stumbled over his words or even so much as pronounced something wrong. Aizawa didn't doubt that in the blonde's mind, it was equivalent to death if he did. It was certainly easy to miss that Bakugou said "sanctions" rather than "sections" which is what the text read. Not to mention, he paused (hardly even for a milisecond, but it was still longer than normal) on another word as he continued reading.
"Thank you." Aizawa concluded when Bakugou finished He called on another student to read the next section. Although, his mind was far from the words being read.
Was it possible Bakugou trouble reading the small text? He never indicated so before and nothing of the sort showed up in his academic records when Aizawa looked over them at the beginning of the year. Although, it was possible. He seemed to value his pride and image above anything else, so he could have have certainly masked his dyslexia his whole life just to avoid being seen as "less". He'd have to ask any of the other teachers if they noticed the issue aswell before he brought it up to Bakugou.
Aizawa quickly found himself to be "correct" after his class. Bakugou was struggling in other classes aswell. Most notably, Hizashi had noticed something. English was a rather heavily reading based class. But, it seemed to be the writing portions that Bakugou was starting to struggle at.
"He was doing well at the beginning of the year, I'm not sure what happened. A lot of the work he turns in now has some mistakes. I can see what he's trying to write, but he combines some words, switches out letters, or replaces with a new word all together. It's sort of like– he doesn't really know what to put, so he replaced it with what sounds right or most likely." Hizashi had replied.
"Oh yeah, I noticed it in my class too." Nemuri spoke up, "it's usually on newer topics in essays and worksheets I've given he sort of does the same thing. Do you really think it's dyslexia?"
"It sounds like it to me. He rarely seems to struggle with reading, likely because he already figures out what something says before he says it to the class. But for writing, he seems to have more trouble since he doesn't already know what to write or how to do it. I'll have to talk to Nezu about this and set up a meeting with Bakugou." Aizawa replied.
Meanwhile, Bakugou was only getting worse.
While his teachers were beginning to speculate if the blonde had some form of dyslexia or reading trouble, Bakugou's friends were beginning to suspect Bakugou's eyesight was the issue.
It was mostly small incidents of him knocking something over, running into something or someone, squinting at certain things. It was rather normal behavior for the blonde and his often destructive habits. However, those "instances" seemed worsen or atleast come into light in the dorms.
If Bakugou Katsuki ever left his room it was because the Bakusquad dragged him, or he was making food. Today, it was the latter. Bakugou was in the dorm kitchen, making some warm food as the weather was getting increasingly cold outside. His regular tank tops and tight shirts were quickly replaced by layers of sweaters and hoodies to keep his quirk available.
"Oh, Kacchan, what're you making?" Sero wandered into the kitchen.
"Soup." The blonde replied.
"Cool, can I have some when you're done?" Sero asked.
Bakugou scoffed, "Whatever." It was a clear Bakugou yes.
"Thanks man! I'll go get the others." Sero replied, pulling out his phone to text the rest of his friends. He glanced up occassionaly from replying to texts to notice Bakugou walking towards the fridge, taking something out, and pouring– blueberries into the soup?
"Hey, Bakugou, what kind of soup is that?" Sero decided to ask.
"Are you trying to be picky, it's regular soup!" His hands crackled a bit in anger.
"I'm just wondering, I've never had soup with blueberries in it before. So I just wanted to know." Sero shrugged.
"Did you hit your head or something. I didn't put any fucking fruit in this." Sero could only blink at Bakugou's response. The container of blueberries still sitting on the counter beside the stove.
"But– those are blueberries?" Sero was unsure of how to respond. Bakugou quickly picked up the package he had taken out of the fridge. He squinted at the label for a moment before just replying with, "Whatever fuck face."
Sero decided not to question it or bring it up to the others.
However, it was Mina who seemed to reach the "final straw" in Bakugou's odd behavior. She had been heading towards the dorms' emergency supply closet in search of a heat pack for Uraraka. The closet mostly had spare clothes, medical equipment, and sanitary products for the students in the case they suddenly needed them. Mina had hardly expected to find Bakugou at the closet, looking at a pad with a very confused expression. She paused, watching the blonde for a moment.
"What is he doing?" She wondered. No doubt, in his hand was a pad. The girls used the storage closest most often (for obvious reasons) so someone probably found an extra and put it in the there for anyone who needed it next.
"Does he not know what a pad is?" She wondered, watching as the blonde looked it over again, flipping it around in his hand. "I guess I'm his only girl friend. I didn't think he would be that stupid though."
"This isn't a fuckin' ice pack." She heard him finaly mutter before he continued rustling around the cabinet for probably one of the first aid kits.
"How did he mistake a pad for an ice pack!" Mina finally decided to make herself known, now very curious as to why Bakugou was at the storage closet.
"Bakugou-kun! Whatcha' doing here?" Mina turned the corner and quickly approached him.
"Trying to find a fuckin' ice pack. Shitty hair hit himself in the face with a punching bag." He replied. She almost hesitated to respond because– this had to be a dream.
Bakugou was looking around the other shelves for presumably a first aid kit but– there was one, right at eye level to him with big, white words reading, "FIRST AID KIT"; How was he still missing it? Bakugou wasn't one to act ignorant infront of other people, even if he was being unnecessarily cruel and trying to leave Kirishima in pain for as long as he could. Although, that just didn't seem like something he would do anymore either.
"Uh– here, it might be in this first aid kit." Mina decided to help him out and take the kit out of the closet, and hand it to him.
"Tch." He replied in what was a different gesture of a Bakugou thanks, but Mina still couldn't shake the weird feeling. He seemed to pick up a couple of alcohol wipe packets first before finaly selecting what he realized was an ice pack and leftwithout another word.
Once the blonde was gone, Mina pulled out her phone and didn't hesitate to start a new group chat without Bakugou in it. She sent only one text: "my room. 5 min. we need to talk." Mina ignored the ping notification sound that came from her phone as she delivered Uraraka her heat pack and waited in her room for the squad to arrive.
"So," she addressed the four before her (Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero, and Jirou), "We've all noticed Bakugou has been– off lately, right?"
"Right." They all agreed.
"It happened again today. Like five minutes ago. I was at the supply closet and he acted like he couldn't even see the first aid kit even though it was right infront of him!" Mina explained, "He even had trouble finding the ice pack in the kit, like it says ice pack right on it!"
"Do you think this all some– weird sort of prank he's pulling?" Kaminari suggested.
"I can't imagine Bakugou pulling any pranks, not without any of us, and not something as weird as this if any of us are pretending like we're not in on it." Jirou explained. The others shook their heads or responded with some form of "no" to indicate none of them were trying to play some weird prank on the group.
"Maybe he needs glasses." Sero suggested, "Like, I didn't mention it, but the other day when he made soup. I watched him just dump a handful of blueberries into it. And when I pointed it out, he seemed actually confused and did that squinting thing at the label."
"So– what should we do?" Kirishima asked, the borrowed ice pack still pressed to his face.
"Maybe tell Aizawa-sensei, the teachers will probably be able to do something about it if he is actually having trouble seeing." Kaminari suggested.
"So who's gonna' do it?"
It took a bit of arguing before they all decided they'd tell their teacher together.
After Aizawa had brought up his concerns with several other teachers who directly taught Bakugou aswell as Principal Nezu, he scheduled the meeting. Bakugou was meant to be meeting him in only ten minutes. But, it seemed like that schedule would be changed as said student's friends were now crowding infront of their teacher.
"What's going on?" Aizawa asked in a stern voice. Usually if this group was confronting him, it meant something got broken or they wanted something and were preparing to pull out all the cards to get it to happen. They whispered amongst eachother, a rather familiar sound of "you tell him" and "no you" with some shoves and elbowing. Nothing was out of the normal so far.
"Sensei, we wanted to..." Jirou began the conversation but trailed off for someone else to finish what she was saying.
"We think Bakugou needs help with his eyesight." Kirishima decided to complete for the rest of the group.
"His eyesight?" Aizawa thought aloud. Aizawa hadn't even though of eyesight being the problem. He had been so sure dyslexia was the only cause, but maybe he struggled with written responses and misspelling because he couldn't see the initial information on the board. It only felt more solidified in his mind as his students presented each of the instances they observed with the blonde.
"We just wanted to go to you since, you'd probably convince him more than we ever could to look into it. And he's not– particularlythe best at asking about stuff either." Kaminari concluded.
"I'm meeting with Bakugou in just a moment now. I'll look into if he's struggling to see. Recovery Girl is able to administer eye tests, so we'll see how he does. UA is able to provide anything students need as long as they ask or agree to receive it. Bakugou will likely be able to receive glasses or whatever other help he needs, alright problem children?" Aizawa replied.
He received a mix of positive responses before the students headed off. Aizawa couldn't help but feel a bit happy that even one of his most aggressive of students had support and care from others. But now, came the hard part– convincing Bakugou to accept that help.
Aizawa decided to test the eyesight theory first, and he was glad he did decide to do so and sure did save a lot of time. Bakugou reluctantly took the eye test, pointing his thumb in the direction that the circular symbol indicated. Recovery Girl pointed to the second row, asking him to do them from left to right, Bakugou did fine. The third, he did it good enough with only one mistake. But by the fourth row–
"I can't see the shit." He said.
"Can you try to?" Recovery Girl asked.
"They're too blurry." Bakugou shook his head.
"Can you try the other eye?" She asked, Bakugou covered his other but responded the same.
"Shit." Aizawa thought, why hadn't he noticed this sooner.
"Unfortunately, I'm not an eye doctor. And it might take a couple of days to approve for one on campus and get parental consent for you to do the eye exam. However, you'll likely need glasses." Recovery Girl explained.
"Now, why didn't you come to someone about this! You're boardering blind, and you thought you could continue like this or actively do hero work! Honestly, you 1-A students are going to give me a heart attack." The woman then scolded.
It took a week, as expected. Bakugou kept quiet about the whole thing, even as his friends both discreetly and blatantly asked him what happened in the meeting. He lied and said it was about schoolwork, but they were all aware that wasn't true. When he finally had the appointment, it was less than uplifting.
Aizawa and Recovery Gilr were there both as temporary guardians of Bakugou and supervisors of the stranger on campus as Bakugou received the news.
"Well, it looks like your eyes were actually damaged by your quirk. I can't pinpoint exactly which part, but it could very well be the flashes caused by your explosions, the chemical projectiles from it, or debris caused by whatever you've used your quirk on. Unfortunately, with the amount of damage right now, you will have glasses for the rest of your life. However, your prescription can rather quickly change to much lower and cheaper if you start wearing protective gear with your hero costume and anytime you use your quirk. I can recommend some eyedrops too to start taking..." Bakugou had stopped listening a bit ago.
Had he really been so stupid to nearly blind himself and tank his hero career?
Bakugou still wondered that now as he sat in class, mostly by himself, and hating everything about the "nerd contraptions" on his face. He got the glasses rather quick and even got to customize the frames for both his regular ones and for his hero costume.
"Has Aizawa-sensei's handwriting always been so– decent?" He wondered as he was finally able to clearly read the date on the board at the front of the room.
"And then I finished it in like– less than a minute! I think thats a sure sign I should start my speedrunning career." Bakugou only wanted to sink into non-existence more when he heard them coming.
There was nothing wrong with his friends, he cared for them, but he did not want to deal with their no doubt questioning and talking about his new glasses. He glared daggers at the door for the minutes it took until Kaminari and Sero entered with Mina and Kirishima behind them. He hid his face instantly, but they of course came over the second Kirishima's eyes noticed him existing.
"Hey Bakubro, you left pretty early this morning! I didn't get to talk to you about our study session later!" Of course Kirishima had immediately come up to stand right beside Bakugou's desk despite him clearly ignoring them. That didn't seem to stop him any other time though
Bakugou didn't respond, and Kirishima took that as a sign to keep talking, "We were all going to be in the common room later to group study for the test next week. We could all really use your help!"
"Yeah Bakugou! You're like– super smart and could totally help us pass." Mina was apparently there now and no doubt the rest of his extra friends were there aswell, wishing for him to say yes.
"Whatever, dumbasses. I'll fuckin' be there." Bakugou reluctantly turned to face them, only to get the exact reaction he didn't want.
"Woah! You finally got glasses!" Kirishima gasped.
"You can see better now right? How many fingers am I holding up!" Kaminari added, holding up three fingers.
"Fuck off!" He yelled, setting of explosions, and only alerting the rest of the now mostly full classroom of Bakugou and his new glasses.
"We're glad you got what you needed though! Um– we could sort of– tell your eyesight wasn't really too great! But, it should be getting better now, right?" Kirishima, enthusiastic as ever, replied.
Bakugou stayed quiet, only looking at the red head for a prolonged amount of time. Maybe he was processing what the red head had said, they had known the whole time? Were they really the ones who got Aizawa to get him an eye test? He remembered the teacher sort of mentioned it, not in great detail, but he assumed it had just been the equally as stubborn man's way of avoiding that he cared for his students. Although, even then, Aizawa wasn't one to lie. Or maybe, he was staring at the red head's eyes and wondering, "Since when were they so pretty."
"Hey, let me try out your glasses." Sero reached a hand out to grab the black frames only to get a terrifyingly calm yet threatening, "I'll rip anyone's hands off if they touch the fuckin' glasses, got it?"
No one dared go anywhere near Bakugou's glasses.