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The class had planned a trip to the mall, and Katsuki straight up refused to go. Thankfully, it seemed that his idiots didn't have the energy to try and convince him otherwise, so he didn't feel too guilty when they left.
Katsuki was finally alone in the dorms, and that meant only one thing for him: sketching in the common room.
Now, you may be thinking that this is something that Katsuki could do at any point in time, but that's where you are wrong. He knew that his classmates wouldn't leave him alone to sketch if they ever saw him doing it, and they would definitely tease him about it. Hence the reason he had waited until everyone else had left before taking his sketchbook and a couple pencils and erasers down into the common room.
Katsuki could feel his shoulders drop slightly as he started to sketch out the layout of the room, not worrying too much about the end product unlike how he was in every other aspect of his life. The sound of his pencil scratching against the paper blended in with the white noise of the empty common room easily, comforting Katsuki in a way he didn’t realize he needed comforted in.
He was almost completely relaxed for the first time since the dorms were implicated, until he heard the elevator doors open and someone stepping out of it.
Katsuki felt his breath catch in his throat as he snapped his pencil away from the paper as if he had been burned by it, but he couldn’t move fast enough to shove the sketchbook underneath a throw pillow on the couch he was sitting on before the person stepped into the common. He made sure to school his expression into his usual scowl as he looked over to see who it was.
Four Eyes, Iida…
Katsuki let out a silent sigh as the other boy looked at him in slight surprise. At least Four Eyes wouldn’t tease him about drawing, unless Katsuki completely misread the type of person Iida was.
“Oh, hello, Bakugou,” Iida greeted him in a quieter voice than he usually had, which made Katsuki question if the other figured out how startled he was and was trying to comfort him. “I didn’t realize that you had also stayed behind.”
Katsuki noticed how Iida’s eyes lingered on the sketchbook in his hands, but he didn’t question, or even mention, it before moving into the kitchen. Katsuki took a couple deep breathes in order to not lash out at the other boy (his therapist had said that lashing out when he felt vulnerable was not a healthy coping mechanism, so he was trying his best to get better about it so that he could be a better hero).
When Iida came back from the kitchen with a glass of orange juice in his hand, Katsuki spoke up, also in a quiet voice since it felt wrong to speak loudly in the atmosphere of the nearly empty common room, “I thought I was gonna be alone.”
Iida paused slightly before sitting down near Katsuki. Though he left plenty of space in between them, Katsuki couldn’t help but shift slightly away from him. Iida didn’t comment on it, instead saying, “I had been planning on joining them, but I woke up with a bit of a headache. I’m sure you understand why I decided to stay back, since you know how… rambunctious they all can get.”
Katsuki snorted slightly, “That’s an understatement.” He ran his finger over the edge of his open sketchbook, looking over his sketch before glancing back to the other teen. “Uh, don’t tell the others about me… drawing.”
Iida hummed in agreement as he took a drink. He sat his glass down on the end table beside him after a moment. Katsuki could feel his chest become tight in the same way it did after an intense nightmare. It made no sense to him, since it was just Four Eyes. Even if he told someone, Katsuki could fight both of them and win, no problem. (Of course, Katsuki was starting to get tired of fighting all the time, not that he’d ever tell anyone.)
“I won’t tell anyone. It’s not my place to, even if I think that the class would not react badly to it.”
“Oh please, they would poke fun at it relentlessly.” Katsuki muttered, turning away from the other boy. He couldn’t deal with the openness in the other’s expression. It did things to his insides that he didn’t understand.
“Hm, I suppose you have a point there. Although if you told them to stop, they would.”
Katsuki didn’t have the heart to tell Iida that he was wrong. He had already told the others to stop doing a lot of things, but more often than not it went ignored. Iida seemed to have faith in his classmates that Katsuki couldn’t copy as much as he wished he could.
Katsuki was done with this conversation. He felt vulnerable and shaky, so sketching wouldn’t be as relaxing as it had been before Iida came down. He took another deep breath in order to try and gain control of his tingling limbs, before standing up.
“Yeah, whatever. I’m going back to my room. Don’t tell anyone about this.”
“Of course. If you ever want to talk again, my door is always open.”
“Okay, uh, same to you, I guess.” Katsuki rushed out before practically running to the elevator and pressing the button for his floor. As soon as the elevator doors closed, he leaned against the wall and pressed his sketchbook against his forehead, taking deep breaths and trying to remind himself that Iida had enough integrity to keep his word.
When Katsuki got back to his room and had calmed down enough to look back on the interaction, he felt himself smile slightly at how calming Iida had been, probably without even realizing it. He would unpack the unfamiliar emotions he felt when he thought about the other boy during his next therapy session.