Chapter Text
There was a note in Denki’s shoe locker again.
He stared at it, frozen in the act of reaching for his school shoes as his classmates pushed past him. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he felt frozen to the spot, staring at the little pastel yellow envelope with a flower sticker pressed over the seal.
What day was it? It was supposed to be Tuesday. They’d been wondering when Todoroki was going to get back from the hospital and if Aizawa was staying with him. He’d been headed to class, same as always, him and Ashido bemoaning their unfinished homework.
A hand reached in front of him to pluck the envelope out of the locker. He twisted to look up into Sero’s grim face as the other boy slid his thumb under the flap to open it.
“Sero…”
“I’ve got this,” Sero said. He tugged out the single sheet of paper and unfolded it, a frown marring his usually cheerful face. “It’s just blank.”
“What?” Denki snatched the paper from him to stare at it, turning it back and forth. It was blank. A single sheet of pale yellow paper, folded up to fit in the envelope. Nothing more. “The envelope?”
Sero turned it so he could see his name written across the front, but no other markings.
“So weird,” he said, starting to crumple the paper up before Sero stopped him.
“We should save this. Just in case.”
He let the other boy take it out of his hand. “Sure, whatever you want.” He tried to sound casual, but the event was nagging at him as they continued to class. A prickling unease crouched in the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite banish away.
Denki stuck close to Sero until they had to separate to sit at their desks, but all the while he felt invisible eyes on him. Judging him. Like some hidden nightmare was waiting just around the next corner.
…
His hand was shaking as he reached for the handle of his locker door, the other boys loud around him as they changed out of their gym clothes. Denki had a system with his friends now, where he kept a piece of a spare uniform in each of their lockers just in case. Someone might catch on and target one of his friends if they snooped around and found two uniforms hanging together, but no one would question Kirishima having an extra shirt or Bakugou keeping a second pair of slacks.
Denki yanked the locker open with more force than was necessary, forcing Kirishima to catch it before it could hit him. His uniform was still there. Still hanging, just as he’d left it. Not in a ball on the floor or torn to shreds or covered in fake blook. No skirt or knee-highs. Everything just as he remembered from before today’s impromptu PE lesson.
Except there was a bow clipped to the collar of his blazer. One of those big, pink, sparkly barrettes with a heart in the center of the bow. Barrettes could be cool—Denki liked to clip his bangs back sometimes—but this was so obnoxious and girly he wasn’t even sure any of the girls in their class would like it.
“Sorry, bro,” Kirishima muttered, spying the bow. “Want your other shirt? Just in case?”
He thought about someone breaking into his locker. Even if they hadn’t taken or damaged everything, they could have touched it. He wasn’t really that squeamish, but the note in his shoe locker had left him a little jumpy. “Thanks, man,” he whispered back as Kirishima handed it over.
“We’ll figure this out, okay?”
Denki nodded. If Mr. Aizawa and the rest of the teachers hadn’t figured it out yet, he wasn’t sure what Kirishima and the rest of their friends could do.
But maybe they could at least try.
He pulled his original shirt off the hanger, deciding to take it back to the dorms to wash it, and a note fell out of the sleeve. Pale yellow envelope, flower sticker over the seal, blank paper inside.
His hands were still shaking when he passed it to Sero to add to the other one.
…
“Hey, Ashido, want a bow?” Denki asked, tossing the obnoxious barrette to his friend.
She snickered and held it up to her hair over one ear. “I dunno. Does it look like my style, Kaminari?”
“Does it look like mine?” he retorted. She raised her eyebrows and he sighed. “Someone left it in my locker.”
Ashido gave a gasp of horror and clenched the bow in her fist. Acid splashed out from between her fingers, and she hastily wiped that away with her handkerchief. “Ew! I don’t want it!” she hissed at him before marching primly up to the front of the room to deposit the dissolving remains of the bow in the trash can.
He grinned up at her as she walked past and she stuck her tongue out at him, sitting back down in her seat as Mr. Yamada strolled in to begin their next class.
Denki could usually keep up in English class, even with his brain scattering in five different directions when he tried to concentrate. Today was different, and he found himself zoning out more than usual as the lecture wound on.
The lead on his pencil broke, and when he reached down to get another out of his schoolbag he knocked his textbook off his desk. Ears burning, classmate’s snickering, he leaned down to scoop the book up and try to straighten the pages. He’d marked so many places with random pieces of paper, and a few of them had gotten loose. There was nothing for it to gather up the ones that had fallen out and try to figure everything out later.
His heart stopped. The corner of a pastel yellow envelope was just visible. Denki hunched low over his desk and pulled it out, finding an identical envelope to the ones that had been plaguing him all day.
“Kaminari?” Yamada’s voice broke through his panic. “Find something interesting?”
He stuffed the envelope back into his textbook and straightened up. “Nothing! Sorry about that!”
The teacher clearly didn’t believe him but turned back to the lesson anyway. He swallowed hard, praying Mr. Yamada would have pity on him. He couldn’t stomach the thought of trying to explain this to another teacher…maybe they’d wait for Mr. Aizawa? That would be safer. Mr. Aizawa knew he was trans. He’d understand why all of this was so upsetting.
His stomach churned and his chest tightened. When Yamada was facing the blackboard, Denki slowly slid the envelope out of the textbook and popped it open.
Just another blank sheet.
…
There was one sitting on his desk when they got back from lunch.
Sero snatched it up as soon as he saw it, but the damage had already been done. Their classmates were whispering about it, Ashido and Jirou were sending him sympathetic looks, Mineta was loudly asking who’d left him a love note.
It was all too much.
He dropped his schoolbag next to his desk and bolted for the bathroom, nearly bowling over Midoriya on his way. Denki barely made it to a stall before his stomach revolted, expelling what little he’d managed to eat at lunch. He gagged and heaved, one hand fisted in his hair and the other propping him up over the toilet.
Up and out. Up and out. Until there was nothing left, and he was choking and crying. It was too much. All too much. All the notes, the stares from the others—everyone would know about them now.
The door to the bathroom swung open, and Denki froze. He hadn’t been thinking. He hadn’t been back in this bathroom in over two weeks, not since that awful day. Not since the gen ed student, Fujino, had attacked him here.
He hadn’t locked the stall.
Denki stood shakily and reached for the door, only for it to be shoved open hard enough to knock him back. He raised his arms with a cry, shielding his face, ducking down and away from the intruder.
“Don’t—”
“It’s me, dumbass.”
He peeked up over his arm into Bakugou’s familiar scowl. His body went limp as the tight coil of anxiety in his gut suddenly snapped, and if his friend hadn’t lunged forward to catch him he might have dropped to the bathroom floor right then.
“I told you to stick with one of us,” Bakugou growled. He reached around Denki to flush the toilet, then maneuvered him to sit on the floor while he grabbed a damp paper towel. “That means everywhere.”
“Sorry,” Denki muttered. He wiped his face, trying to ignore the tears streaming out of his eyes. “I’m so pathetic.”
Bakugou snorted. “What the hell is going on?”
“I keep getting these notes,” he explained shakily. “They look just like the one from Friday, but there’s nothing written on them. Every single one of them is blank but they’re turning up everywhere.”
The other boy leaned against the wall behind him and folded his arms. “Figures. And Aizawa’s too busy with IcyHot to even look at the rest of us.”
“That’s not fair,” Denki said mildly. “Didn’t he almost die or something?”
“Whatever,” Bakugou snorted. “Pretty sure that bastard’s too tough for that. So. What are you doing about these notes?”
He shrugged miserably. “Sero thinks we should save them as evidence. Guess there’s not much we can do otherwise.”
Bakugou rolled his eyes. “That figures. You done puking?”
Denki grimaced and nodded. “I don’t think I have anything left in me after that.”
“Then come on.” Bakugou grabbed his hand to haul him to his feet. “Midnight said you can go to the nurse’s office if you feel sick.”
He thought about that. Recovery Girl might pry a little, but she was usually understanding. He’d been there for anxiety attacks a few times before, but he really didn’t want to be separated from his friends right now. “I think I’m okay.”
Bakugou grunted and stomped toward the door to the bathroom. He yanked the door open, only to curse and take a step back when he saw what was on the other side.
A pale yellow envelope, unadorned except for a flower sticker over the seal, lay on the floor in front of the bathroom door.