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Katsuki was used to the late August heat that radiated over Musutafu. Usually, he would close his windows, draw the curtains closed, and sit in his boxers surrounded by numerous fans as they spun with their maximum power. He would run his shower as cold as it could go and sit in the water as it chilled him until his teeth were chattering and his body felt stiff. He would sleep on the floor, too nervous that the sweat creeping down his neck would create a bomb out of the pillow on his bed while he slept. If he wasn’t training, this was his routine, and he had grown used to it. By the time school would have started in September, the heat would have broken, and he could return to dealing with the usual drawbacks of his quirk that had become second nature to him.
That, at least, was what he did before he started hero training at UA and before they had moved into the dorms. Attending the summer training camp was fine. He was away from the Musutafu heat, safely in the cooler summer air of the mountains. That safety hadn’t lasted long, unfortunately, but Katsuki had appreciated it while it had lasted. Now, he was living in the dorms with his other classmates, and he was trying to manage the Musutafu heat best he could with the restrictions of the dorm.
Each dorm room had a balcony, and he couldn’t find curtains long enough or thick enough to prevent the heat from seeping into the room. Iida had spouted off nonsense when he saw Katsuki trying to bring in ten fans - saying something about how so many fans would surely cause an electrical issue for the others. Thus, Katsuki was stuck with only a single fan. While he was lucky UA had let him request tile floors in his dorm, he didn’t have a personal shower to sit in for hours on end while he cooled off his body, and when his showers lasted longer than thirty minutes, his classmates would come into the communal showers complaining that he was taking up all the hot water. Katsuki always scoffed at that. There was no way he would be using hot water right now. Regardless of any discomfort, he felt trying to manage to survive the heat in the dorm, he held out because August was coming to an end and the heat would soon break.
Of course, his luck had run out a long time ago, and when September came, classes started up, and the heat increased. When he checked his phone, he found out that Musutafu was going through an unprecedented heatwave. The weather app said it was nearing 100 outside (37c), but what made the weather dangerous was the humidity. The news warned the elderly to stay inside because extended exposure to the extreme heat and humidity could cause heat exhaustion for those without heat-based quirks. Katsuki knew that he should mention something to Aizawa, but he wasn’t about to miss the first day of the new term. He wasn’t about to ask for help after everything he had put his sensei through. The man deserved a break.
Standing in his dorm on the first day of classes, Katsuki pulled on his uniform despite how hot it made him feel. He thought of going to class in shorts and a tank top, but he wasn’t going to risk the consequences. Plus, everybody else was in the same boat. If they could handle the increasing heat in their uniforms, then Katsuki could, too. He wasn’t weak, and he didn’t like people thinking he couldn’t handle his own quirk.
After dressing, he headed downstairs to grab the breakfast he had frozen the previous night. Sure, he had gotten a lot of weird looks freezing various fruits and an omelet, but he didn’t care. As long as it kept his body temperature down long enough to make it to the school building, he didn’t mind the odd looks he got late at night. It was still dark outside, and Katsuki preferred it this way. Getting to the classroom before the sun had even risen would be the best way he could avoid creating bombs out of his clothes, so he had planned to eat his frozen breakfast once he arrived in the room.
Outside, the heat was still too much, and he had to spark his hands every five minutes or so to prevent the toxic chemical from dripping onto the sidewalk or onto door handles the extras might touch. Katsuki didn’t really care about those faces that filled the hallways when they were heading to lunch or leaving school, but he didn’t want accidental manslaughter on his hero record because he couldn’t control the output of his quirk. The entire process of getting to school was mentally draining him, and he almost didn’t realize he was in the classroom until he found himself pulling out his chair and sitting down.
From there, the school day went rather quickly. He kept his hands under his desk to spark every so often, and the air conditioning of the building really worked overtime to keep the students cool. He chose to forgo eating lunch in the dining hall, worried that people might brush against his arm and collapse soon after. The self-proclaimed Bakusquad didn’t mind so much, Mina and Kaminari taking the opportunity to joke and shout without worrying they were being too loud for a public space. Everybody in the group was still hesitant to touch Katsuki out of worry they might remind him of his kidnapping, and while Katsuki vehemently opposed the idea, he couldn’t help but be grateful.
This went on for a week. Katsuki wasn’t sleeping well, and while his grades weren’t slipping, he felt like he wasn’t performing as well in class. He did his studying in the safety of his dorm, a fan pointed at his hands and ice packs tucked under his arms and knees. The weather was only growing more extreme, and he couldn’t concentrate very well in class because any moment he wasn’t focusing on sparking off his quirk was a moment he might blow the entire building sky high. It got harder and harder to even get words out, and eventually, he had given up on talking to people. He relied on the idea that he was struggling with the kidnapping, and once the heatwave broke, he could finally correct them. Right now, though, he couldn’t find the energy to focus on anything other than quirk management. The class left him alone for the most part, chatting around him rather than to him.
On Tuesday the following week, Katuski had started to let his hands spark constantly. He had to concentrate on making sure the sparks were tiny, and he was sure that he was annoying his classmates with the constant sound of popping coming from under his desk. Honestly, he was surprised somebody hadn’t snapped at him yet.
Pausing his lecture on how to address heatstroke during rescue work (a lecture Katsuki wasn’t really paying attention to for two reasons: he wouldn’t be able to touch people if it was hot enough for them to have heat stroke and he was too busy making sure he didn’t become, you know, a bomb), Aizawa turned around and narrowed his eyes at Katsuki.
“Bakugou,” Aizawa’s voice stated, a silent demand for the blond to raise his eyes to look at his sensei, “I’ve been trying to be understanding because of recent events, but you need to stop using your quirk so much during class. It’s distracting to the other students.”
Katsuki looked around the room, his classmates sheepishly looking away. He knew that Aizawa was right, but he didn’t stop the constant popping coming from his hands. He looked back toward Aizawa, and while he tried to keep the bone-deep exhaustion from his face, he couldn’t cover up the deep-purple dark circles under his eyes and the paleness of his face. He felt like he should respond, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to do so. Instead, he nodded, the weight of his head falling down before he struggled to lift it back up. Looking back at his sensei, he noticed something in Aizawa’s face shifted, expression shifting from annoyance to concern. Katsuki heard muttering start-up in the room as people worriedly looked at each other, but he found his attention being drawn back to the nitroglycerin that slid down his fingers. Katsuki glanced out the window, the sun beating him down and making him sweat more under the heat of the sunrays.
“Bakugou,” Aizawa said softer, moving beside the explosive teen’s desk. Aizawa didn’t touch him, and Katsuki was thankful. “What’s wrong?”
Katuski’s head jerked as he tried to shake his head, and he hoped that Aizawa would recognize the motion as him saying ‘Nothing’s wrong’, but of course, Aizawa was too smart for that.
“Aizawa-sensei,” Deku muttered from behind him, always having the answers when Katsuki didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t cooperate, “I think it’s his quirk.”
“What do you mean?” Aizawa asked, turning to look at where Deku was seated.
“When we were kids, Kacchan wouldn’t ever come out to play with me during the last week or so of August, but who would reasonably play outside when it’s so hot? Then, I noticed that he was acting pretty reclusive in the dorms. At first, I thought it was just because he was just, you know, kidnapped, and even though Kacchan wouldn’t have admitted it, he must have been struggling with it. Though now that I think about it, Iida had gotten upset at Kacchan for trying to bring in so many fans, and I thought it was weird that he’d shower for hours at a time when everybody left to visit their families. It must be his quirk. I mean, he sweats nitroglycerin, and the substance is really unstable, and, I mean, we’re sitting here without any way for him to cool down. It is really hot in here despite the a/c because, I mean, everybody else is sweating. So it makes sense for Kacchan to be struggling because his quirk is dependent on the output of his nitroglycerin sweat!”
Katsuki hated when Deku analyzed him like that, but he was at least grateful he didn’t have to correct him. Aizawa just nodded, and when he looked at Katsuki, he must have realized how severely exhausted Katsuki was if he hadn’t yelled at Deku about trailing off into a series of muttering. Turning to Todoroki, Aizawa requested that the boy use his ice to make a vest of sorts around Katsuki. The boy nodded and moved to do so, but Katsuki glared at him, making the boy stop in his tracks.
Katsuki glanced at Yaoyorozu, signing ‘box’ with his hands. She recognized what he meant even if she didn’t know the sign, and quickly produced a small, explosion-proof box, setting it on the table in front of him. He reached up and pulled off his shirt to reveal a black tank top underneath. It was coated in caramel-scented sweat, and with shaking hands, Katsuki stopped sparking his hands and pulled the tank top off his body. Despite how much Katsuki tried to prevent it, the shirt dripped as he pulled it off and set it in the box. The layer of sweat covering Katsuki would have been clear to anybody close to him, and he reached up and smacked his shoulder, sending a wave of small explosions over his torso and down his back. He closed the lid of the box, locking it, and shook it once, the sound of a large explosion coming from the inside. Once he finished, he turned his tired eyes to Todoroki, nodding his head best he could.
Aizawa had asked Yaoyorozu to make a light shirt to prevent Katsuki from getting an ice burn, and soon enough, Katsuki found himself wearing a vest of ice that covered the shirt protecting him from the extreme cold but letting the cold through nonetheless. For the first time in weeks, Katsuki felt a chill crawl up his spine. He stopped sweating, and a wave of exhaustion hit him. He glanced at Aizawa, signing ‘Thanks’ to him before he felt his vision swim before turning black.
Everybody else watched at Katsuki passed out on his desk. Aizawa stood beside him, shaking his head.
“Problem child,” he muttered, “He could have asked for help.”
The Bakusquad laughed, drawing Aizawa’s attention to the friends the explosive teen had somehow made despite all efforts to push them away.
“When’s the last time you heard Bakubro ask for help?” Kirishima asked, a smile spread on his face.
“Yeah, Aizawa-sensei. You really should know better,” Kaminari quipped.
“We all knew something was wrong…” Mina responded softly, “but Bakubabe doesn’t like help.”
“Though he accepted it in the end,” Sero mentioned. Everybody in the class hummed an agreement to that.
Aizawa knew that this class would be the death of him, but he had to agree. Bakugou didn’t like help. He didn’t like people thinking he was weak, and he didn’t like admitting he had so many quirk drawbacks. He didn’t like it, but in the end, Bakugou accepted the help. He had recognized that he couldn’t help himself anymore, let down his walls ever so slightly, and took the help that was offered. That couldn’t have been said of the teen Aizawa met at the start of the year, but it was clear that Bakugou was growing accustomed to the presence of his friends. Bakugou might interpret that as weakness, but Aizawa knew what it really was. Bakugou was learning to trust those close to him, probably for the first time in his life.
Bakugou spent the next two days sleeping in what could be defined as a cooler that UA quickly built in Recovery Girl’s office, and on Thursday, the heatwave finally broke.