Chapter Text
His sight spun for a second, letting a kick to this torso's left side slip beyond his awareness, which sent him tumbling down. He felt the gravel on their school's ground tear his gakuran's sleeve and graze his right arm's skin.
'Well fuck', he thought, 'I can already hear the old hag's screeching.'
"Stay down, Bakugo." A haughty voice laced with feigned boredom tries to order him. Like hell, he'd follow what a shitty extra tells him to do.
He chuckles darkly before abruptly standing up with a barely hidden wince when he felt his wounds and bruises strain with each of his movements. His legs are swaying under his weight and there is ticking behind his right eyeball, a countdown he infers, of either the moment he let's go of his dwindling patience or when he'd finally pass out. These little shits just had to choose this day, this week, to fuck with him. He hasn't been sleeping and eating right. He can't remember the last time he didn't feel like a deadweight. The only thing that's keeping him standing right now is the sheer adrenaline and rage he feels for these wastes of space.
"You... You bastards. Sucking up to me doesn't get you off anymore?" His words dripped with venom, pure spite making him disregard his exhaustion and pounding migraine. He can see his enemy's jaw stiffen through his dimming sight.
"I just realized you're not shit, Bakugo. We all did. You're all bark but no bite."
Bakugo scoffed. These idiots are unbelievable. They all flocked to him and sang his praises so they can get crumbs of his infamy and now, they think they're somehow better than him!?
"What do you shitty mutts know about biting? I'll send you off to your mothers with your panties and tails between your asscheeks. Ha." Fuck, that one was good but as their gazes hardened, maybe it was too good.
"I'm going to kill you."
"Feeling's mutual, bitch." Katsuki spat on his face.
Consciousness washed over Katsuki like ice-cold water, violently yanking him from the comfort brought by his body finally shutting down.
He opens his eyes, well tries to but fails due to them swelling badly. Those pricks did quite the number on him. He did worse of course. But now that there's no adrenaline numbing his senses from pain and rationality, he feels like utter hell. He's aching all over and his vicious migraine makes him want to roll his eyes into the back of his head and pass out again. He looks around to try to pinpoint where exactly he is. However, it's too dark and silent that he can't even begin to make out what he's looking at right now. Wait, that's a pole.
Getting on his arms and knees, he crawls over to it, not without groaning while he feels his body protest. He decides at that moment that God doesn't exist and even if he does, the bitch probably doesn't like him.
When he finally reaches the pole, he used the strength that he's slowly gaining to pull himself up and leaned against it. Now he can think about his plan of action. What time is it anyway? This place is awfully quiet. Fuck, it's too chilly too. Should he call the old hag? Although he would have to decide which one he'd rather be killed by; his demon of a mother or hypothermia.
Exhausted, he sighs and rests his face against the metal surface, when he felt the tell-tale texture of paper on his cheek. Forcing his eyelids to open wider despite their painful state, he tries to decipher what's written on it. Fortunately, his sight is adjusting to the dark and there's a lamppost just a few meters ahead, albeit it's still too dim.
He finds himself looking at a picture of a fluffy white cat and the word 'MISSING' in big bold letters above it. At that moment something clicks, his mind putting two and two together to figure out where exactly he is. A couple of steps forward, he'll turn right and his house should be the sixth in the row. Thank fucking god, he's closer than he thought.
With a renewed will, he picks up his bag, wincing while doing so, and begins his journey to his home. The distance is short but this walk is so agonizing, he swears it's been hours since he woke up from that cold and hard asphalt road. He keeps on stumbling on his steps and he has to lean against a surface to catch his breath a couple of times. However, the image of finally lying on his All Might bedsheets is so damn appealing for his beaten-up body and mind. And FUCK, Bakugo Katsuki does NOT give up.
His determination is rewarded when he finally reaches the gate to their home. He peeks above it to see that their lights are still on. Ah shit, guess he'll have to climb the tree next to his balcony and sneak in. Perfect, shit is foolproof.
He opens their gate as silently as possible and steps inside. With the same slow careful moves, he closes it again. When suddenly, he hears their door open with so much force that it slammed onto the wall next to it. He whips around and sees his mom frantically exiting. She closes it back and locks the thing, puts her keys and phone in her pockets, panic still evident with the way she's rushing.
'Fuck, there goes my plan on escaping her wrath for tonight.' Katsuki thinks to himself with a click of his tongue and waits for the moment when his mom turns around. He tries to stave off the dread that's trying to make a home in his stomach, which is upsetting it.
Mitsuki stops in her tracks when she sees her son just dumbly staring at her. Her expression turned into something unreadable and Katsuki takes that as bad fucking news. It gets worse when she starts walking in fast and wide steps toward him. His stance is now rigid and his eyes closed as he braces for the worst once she's near. Fuck it, he can take another hit or two.
Except none of it comes and instead, warmth envelopes his body. He immediately flinched when it made contact with him.
'Ha!? What the fuck is she doing!? Is she gonna pull my hair this time??' Katsuki thinks to himself, confused and suspicious about the turn of events. Maybe she'll pull his hair this time. But there's no rough tugging on his scalp either. Instead, he feels his mom's chest's distressed heaves against his face. He can also hear sniffling. Is she... crying?
Mitsuki pulls away and held Katsuki's face between her palms with so much tenderness, that his eyes automatically burn at the sensation for no reason. She carefully tilts his head this way and that way as she inspects him with tears still streaming down hers.
"Oh Katsuki, this is really bad." She says while tracing his bruises and scratches with feather-light touches. A lump forms in his throat at the lack of any demeaning nicknames. He turns away to avoid her gaze that seems to permeate through him.
And he's still subconsciously waiting for a slap.
"I'm fine, old hag. You should see the others." He says with no real heat, in fact, his voice came out quieter than he liked.
He leans away from her when she still doesn't relent so she can stop touching him so... fucking gently. Her hands leave his face and he doesn't hear any response from her for a few seconds.
Katsuki gulps.
He dares himself to look back at her, widening his eyes at what he witnessed.
Mitsuki's face is scrunched up, twisting into a horrid look of pain like she's the one who just got beaten up. Did what he said hurt her? That was not even the worst shit he's ever said to her!
"What old hag!? If you got some shit to say, fucking say it now so I can leave..." He trails on his words when she starts sobbing harder. His guts squirmed and he feels like somebody just put a gun against his head. All he can think of doing right now is to fucking run away. Fuck it, he's gonna do it--
"I'm sorry, Katsuki. I'm so so sorry." She says in between her sobs, voice cracking as it goes up beyond her normal pitch.
What. The. Fuck. Is going on!?? This shit is NOT helping his fucking headache.
She must be expecting for her son to say something with the way she's looking at him but Katsuki is just scowling at her while he tries to wade through the confusion and nausea that's already threatening to spill over beyond the surface. She doesn't hear him utter even a syllable so she takes a deep breath and wipes her tears with the sleeve of her cardigan.
"Come inside, Katsuki. Let me look at the damage, brat." There was a ghost of a smirk on her face, her lips twitching momentarily. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her nose flushed, and more tears waiting to flow but she keeps them at bay. Katsuki realizes this is his mom's attempt to change the weird atmosphere that blanketed them and is suffocating him. He drops his shoulders, relaxing them. He didn't even realize that they were slightly raised due to the tension.
He didn't answer. He's still looking away from her, glaring at some shrub like it did the largest offense to him while contemplating. He breathes out an exasperated sigh and starts walking in Mitsuki's direction through rigid steps, obviously guarded. He also didn't realize that he put some distance between them. He almost decided to run away just to escape whatever the hell she was doing.
Katsuki feels a pang. He knows exactly what she was doing, or is trying to do. His guts churned involuntarily again, pleading unacceptance at the thought.
He staggers right in front of her when he felt another wave of nausea, forcing him to drop to his hands and knees. His stomach and throat clenched in pain, the pounding in his head picking up its pace as he began retching bile and small chunks of his school lunch on the stone path. A presence appears beside him, preceding a hand on his upper back. He can't help but close his eyes when it starts rubbing circles, reveling in the comfort despite the urge to refuse it that he's only ignoring because he's too exhausted. He hears something being whispered to him, but he can't piece the words together.
There's a tug on his right arm and he gives way to it with reluctance. His arm is placed around something. He glances at his side to see his mom putting it around her nape, securing it with her hand. She uses her other free arm to wrap around her son's lower back and waist, her hand gently pressing on top of his abdomen. With her supporting him, she starts pulling him up.
Katsuki's knees buckle under him. He groans and whines in his true gruff fashion. Mitsuki encourages him by telling him he can rest inside their warm home. He lets her support his weight while they walk towards the door. His bag suddenly slides from his shoulder and falls onto the ground with a soft thud. He reaches out for it but she tells him that she'll get it later.
Once they arrive at the entrance, Mitsuki unlocks it and helps Katsuki tug off his shoes at the genkan. They clumsily make their way to the couch in the living room, fortunately not hitting any edges. She slowly lowers him to the soft dense surface, placing a pillow against an armrest, and leads Katsuki to it with a slight push. Katsuki can feel the tension in his body seeping out like it's being siphoned from him, but his brain is still beating in the confines of his skull.
He groans again when he feels Mitsuki pulling the blazer of his gakuran off of him, the movements putting pressure on some of his wounds and bruises. She starts unbuttoning his polo but he swats her hands with a weak utter of "... Cold..." She only shushes him like a petulant child and tells him that she needs to check his injuries and promises to bring a blanket. He doesn't answer or move, she takes it as her cue and continues to undress him, leaving him in his boxer briefs.
Katsuki curls up in a fetal position to preserve some heat. A hand pushes his greasy bangs off of his forehead and rests there for a few seconds before it leaves, along with his mother's presence.
Her footsteps walk beyond what he's allowed to hear in his foggy consciousness and it was silent for a while. He can only hear his labored breathing.
He jolts awake when he felt soft taps on his shoulder, not realizing that he dozed off. He opens his eyes and squints at what appears to be an eggroll between chopsticks held by his mother. He whines at it and shakes his head slowly, afraid of agitating his headache more.
"You need to eat, Katsuki so you can take your medicine. C'mon brat. I don't want you to be in pain."
Katsuki would think of a snarky reply, but he's too tired and hungry. He hasn't eaten dinner yet and he only ate a melon pan as his lunch.
He takes a bite from the eggroll, the taste exploding on his tongue. His face brightens up instantly and he starts chewing faster. He greedily eats the rest. Mitsuki chuckles at that.
"Careful now. Don't eat too fast."
He finishes eating all the five eggrolls his mother had got him. She helps him take his medicine, placing a cup of water against his lips so he can swallow the bitter tablet. He lies back on the pillow again and she starts treating him. He winces and hisses while she disinfects his scratches and wounds. She rubs some cream on his bruises after, the light touches a stark contrast to the stinging pains. By the time she finished patching him up, he was already half-asleep.
The last things Katsuki felt before slumber completely pulled him away from the world are a heavy warm blanket around his hurt body and soft lips on his forehead.