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Bakugou hated the rain—and it was weird for a boy as proud and strong as himself to hate something as innocent and insignificant as the rain.
Rainy days reminded him of loss. Maybe it all started by the thought that the clouds were losing water as they poured in. The more it rained, the more they were empty. Alone. Lost. And then gone.
Bakugou always had a hard time dealing with loss. No one would have ever thought that such a monotonous feeling would cover his heart and consume him entirely in the middle of the night, but being frightened of loss was a routine for Bakugou. Strangely, though. Him, someone so used to being left behind because he was always pushing people away… It made no sense. No sense at all. How could he suffer once the sun was down and the moon was covering the sky? How could he suffer when the streets were empty and the sound of the birds singing was shut to nothing? How could he suffer when there was only himself, lying in his bedroom, full of his nothingness, full of his meaningless? It was weird, but true. It made no sense.
Then U.A. happened—and U.A. happened so fast that he could barely believe he was escalated to be a part of his dream school once inside of it. At times like that, he could only think that everything was combined in the right way to make his successful hero life happen. He had all he ever wanted, he had all he ever deserved.
Still, Bakugou hated the rain. The nights didn't get better. He still had nightmares when he was able to hear the sound of the rain drops falling outside of his bedroom. He still wished for it to be day again once he realized he was completely unable to sleep. His thoughts got heavier and heavier, a lot harder to deal with. Everything he meant to the world and to himself came to nothing. He was—and is—no one. Alone. Lost.
And then gone.
“Come!”
He heard a scream. It was so loud and noisy that it became impossible for anyone not to hear it. His mind was almost betraying himself when his hope appeared. When he was reminded, at that time, he was not alone anymore. That, maybe, he was not lost either.
His eyes located his savior like there was a magnet pulling him towards that direction. Automatically, thoughtlessly… He just knew he had to turn into that direction. And he also knew that it had to be him the first person he saw when he turned, offering his hand to try to reach him. It had to be Kirishima.
Soon enough, Bakugou was in the air. Everytime he flew, it was not soft and graceful as in dumb movie representations. It was brute and fast, as the air needed to get punished by his powerful hands. And so he did. Everytime. So it was not going to be different at that one specific time. Not at all. He exploded everything behind him to get to his destination. To get to Kirishima.
Bakugou’s body felt like it didn't weigh anything. Until today, long after that event, he could still remember it—how it was the one and only time he felt like he was truly into space, under zero gravity influence. He forgot how to breathe, or the oxygen simply wasn't enough. Everything tricked him. His senses, his body, his feelings. There was no star shining that night, even though there were no clouds in the sky. And that meant there was no rain at all either. No rain. Not a single raindrop.
But it felt like it was raining.
It felt like it was raining as Bakugou’s hand touched Kirishima’s hand and he stared at his shiny red eyes and told him he was the stupidest idiot in the entire world. It felt like it was raining as they got to the floor and Kirishima had the urge to hold his hand, although he didn't make the move—he couldn't make the move—, so he only pressed his lips against one another and avoided eye contact. It felt like it was raining as Bakugou got to the dorms and he couldn't even say thank you , because everyone was exceptionally worried and wanted to talk to him—and he instantly lost sight of Kirishima.
He lost Kirishima.
He was alone again.
Lost.
And then…
There was no hope for a lost person. Life taught Bakugou that. Of course that life had also shown him wonderful things, he couldn't lie about that. He learned that he was made to become the number one hero in the entire world; that he was so powerful he could get whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, just by taking it by force; that there was nothing he was unable to do, nothing he was unable to reach.
That’s why he reached Kirishima’s hand that night. Because he wanted to. And he could. The thing was: he couldn't do anything about keeping their fingers together. He couldn't intertwine his fingers to Kirishima's like that forever—or at least as long as the path they had to follow to go back to the U.A. Even that would be enough—for that moment, anything would be enough. Because if he could, Bakugou would keep his hand touching Kirishima’s hand forever. He would sleep feeling the comfort of Kirishima's fingers stroking the back of his own hand, the heat of the contact certainly making his heart skip some beats. He would laugh and put some pressure over that hand that would be connected to his during a funny movie in a random afternoon. He would shake the whole body of that boy just by the touch of their fingers on a spectacular dance while no one in the entire universe was watching. Forever . Forever and ever. Until the world fell apart and maybe after that too.
It took him some months to accept that. To deal with the feeling of liking someone, to deal with the feeling of being absurdly in love. Understanding that even number one heroes can have their significant other made its way to Bakugou’s brain very recently—as for the assurance that he wanted his other half to be Kirishima. It was not easy, though. It had never been. Especially because it would still rain. It would still pour and pour and pour, the rain drops hitting the walls of the dorms when it got worse. When it got terrifying .
Bakugou was very good at hiding his fears. No one ever suspected that he hated the rain. Kirishima hadn’t been able to find out that he was in love with him.
For a long time, he even kept fears hidden from himself.
It wasn’t long after that that Bakugou found out he was frightened of dying.
"Bakugou? Are you alright?"
He looked like a mess—he knew that for sure. It was right of Kirishima to seem worried about him. Bakugou was almost hyperventilating, desperately trying to control his breath while looking into those big deep red eyes of Kirishima.
He was in front of his best friend's bedroom, already wearing what he considered to be his pajamas. The time? Bakugou didn't know. But it was deep into the night, because otherwise he wouldn't be there. He just wouldn't. Strangely, he didn't have to knock on the door for Kirishima to open it. Maybe his messy self was so loud that Kirishima noticed something was wrong. The breath he couldn't control, the annoying and fast heartbeats. Kirishima just rushed to the door and opened it only to see Bakugou waiting in that completely chaotic state—for what, exactly, if he didn't look like he was ever going to knock on the door?
"No", Bakugou answered after some time, after finally managing to control his breath. His skin was so pale that it was visible that something was wrong. "I don't think I can do this anymore. I don't think I'm able to handle it as well as I was doing it before, as well as I had always been doing. This fucking bullshit. This fucking annoying bullshit."
Even though he was cursing, just as Bakugou would always do, he couldn't stop shaking. Kirishima noticed that he tried to hold his arms to stop his body from the involuntary movements, but he didn't succeed on that. He only looked a lot more desperate; he only looked a lot more scared. It made Kirishima bite his lower lip and sigh.
"Do you want to come inside?", he offered, opening the door a little bit more, as to give Bakugou space to walk in. He seemed calm to handle the situation, but he was good at pretending. Bakugou knew that. "You can sleep here if you want to. I doubt anyone is going to ask anything if they saw you entering my room. By now, you know… That wouldn't be normal, but it would be ok. It would be ok for sure.”
Kirishima didn't laugh, but he smiled. He smiled like the ray of sunshine he was and always had been. For Bakugou, that was enough. He couldn’t remember a time where it was not enough.
And that's why he couldn't do that.
"No", he said again, waking up from his trance, suddenly not shaking anymore. That caused Kirishima to frown. "No, I… No. Forget it. Just fucking forget it."
He didn't give Kirishima any more time to react. In fact, he could only hear his best friend's desperate voice calling out to him as he stepped away, torturing the floor with his aggressive footsteps that soon became an aggressive run. And he ran like his entire life depended on that.
Bakugou wanted to scream. He wanted to shout, to yell, to cry. Soon after he got back to his room and shut the door as strongly as he could, he heard knockings on it. He knew that would happen. He knew Kirishima worried about him more than he ever worried about himself during his entire life. And he knew giving up was something neither of them was able to do quite well.
So Bakugou pressed his back against the door that was being slammed on and dragged his body slowly to the floor. His heartbeat was again so fast that it reminded him of a car on the highway. He didn't know how much time Kirishima was willing to spend like that, unsuccessfully trying to reach him, unsuccessfully trying to call him, but he didn't care.
Bakugou was not opening that door anytime soon.
And at some point he just lost his body's strength and slept, very close to the door, shrinking on the floor, hugging his legs and listening to Kirishima's voice.
On the next day, he didn't know if what had happened was a dream or not, because he woke up in his bed, very well accommodated under his soft bed sheets.
And again, Bakugou felt like crying.
"Hey, Kirishima, what is your favorite weather?"
They were all together in the dorms. Not all of them, of course—only the people that Bakugou, for some reason, could handle. The one that made the stupid question was Ashido. She was holding her legs close to her body on the top of one of the couches, smiling like there was not a single trace of sadness in the world.
Bakugou used to find her extremely annoying. Kirishima was the one to change his mind—or at least the one that made him bare with her existence for the time being.
"My favorite weather?", his best friend asked, looking confused. He had the right to be that way: Ashido was just babbling random sentences to fill in the lack of subject.
"Yeah, dude! It's a simple question. I'm just curious, I don't know", she laughed, bumping her shoulder on Kirishima’s, since they were sitting close to each other. "I’ve been rambling about those things lately. I think the weather has an enormous power on the way we face the world, don't you agree?"
Bakugou snorted in the armchair he was sitting on. He felt like standing up and leaving that room filled with ridiculous people asking ridiculous questions. He couldn't handle all the nonsense, all the we-are-going-to-get-to-nowhere talk. And, of course, Ashido was not the only idiot he had to keep up with. In the middle of that mess, Kaminari sighed.
"Why are you angry again, man? The question was not even to you", he replied, facing Bakugou like he was not afraid of the consequences, being so used to the blond's behavior. "I wonder why you're mad most of the time. Is that a disease or something? That can't be normal. I'm sure you have something strange going on inside your body to be this pissed off about everything.”
Ashido throwed a pillow towards Kaminari in order to keep him from saying anything else. Sero only rolled his eyes looking at the scene, listening to Kaminari complain about Ashido's exaggerated reaction.
Bakugou didn't feel like answering at that time. He only crossed his arms and faced the opposite direction, knowing that Kirishima was probably looking at him at that moment, worrying in a very comprehensive—and annoying—way.
That made Bakugou want to throw up.
"Nowadays, I'm more like a sun person", Kirishima finally answered the question. All of his friend's stopped what they were doing and looked at him, only to find him smiling softly at the floor. "But I used to love the rain. Like, I was a total rain freak as a child. Might seem unlikely of me, but this is no lie."
His tone was so delicate that it got Bakugou off guard. Actually, the tone was not the only problem: the sentence was. Bakugou's body froze so intensively that he was unable to move for a while. He knew his gesture was not as astonishing as it felt, because none of his friends asked him if he was alright.
They only kept on talking.
"That's surprising! I would’ve never taken you for a rain person, Kirishima, you are right on that", said Ashido, proceeding to rub Kirishima's hair as a way of teasing him. "But why did you stop liking it? Is there a reason for it?"
Bakugou still couldn't move when he heard Kirishima's soft laugh. He was too busy trying to focus on random thoughts to regain movement in his body again. It was not a nice feeling that covered his soul at the moment. He hated that atmosphere, he hated that situation.
He should have left when he wanted to. Now it was too late.
At least that's what he thought.
"Someone that I deeply care about hates the rain, so I stopped enjoying it too. That's it."
Kirishima's answer made Ashido frown. It probably made Kaminari put a stupid confused expression on his face and Sero roll his eyes again—as he was very used to doing.
It didn't make Bakugou do any of those things, though.
It made Bakugou slowly regain consciousness and look to his best friend once again. He moved so fast that he felt like his neck would break, but he actually didn't care. He stopped caring about his own safety a long time ago.
But Kirishima didn't.
Kirishima never did—and never would.
He only smiled that stupid beautiful smile he had and looked back at Bakugou, probably knowing that Bakugou would be staring at him. And as they made eye contact, it felt like the world was about to explode, but not in a beautiful, romantic way. There were too many feelings covering Bakugou's heart, and not all of them were nice ones.
Because, even though Kirishima was always Kirishima—and that was in some sort of way expected of him—, Bakugou was also always Bakugou. He was that one little angry blond boy that screams all the time to get everyone's attention, to show everyone that he was the best.
And it didn't feel right.
It just couldn't be right.
Because the way Kirishima was looking at him meant more than it ever did before . It was intense, it was caring, it was soft, it was reckless. And it was also loving . Loving as in love , from the primordial meaning of the word. From latin, from anglo-saxon, from slavic, from fucking God knows what damned language the world love came from. It was so pure and it was so magnetic that Bakugou couldn’t take his eyes off him… Because he didn’t want to. Because, for a moment, it felt like there was some kind of hope in his world. Because, for a moment, that love made him believe everything was real.
“I don’t think I’d be able to stop liking something just because of a special someone”, said Kaminari, laughing a little. “It sounds unreal to me. Impossible, actually.”
“And if that special someone was Jirou, huh?”, asked Sero, listening to a gigantic dramatic scream after that.
“Then of course, my dear friend! Everything for Jirou.” Kaminari raised his head and made a sound of glory escape from his mouth, completely proud of his answer. Sero could only roll his eyes for the hundred time. “You know, I’m a very passionate person.”
“Yes, we know that, Pikachu”, interrupted Ashido, who couldn’t be having more fun. She was still holding her legs on the top of the couch when Kaminari complained about the stupid nickname being used again, and a solid sigh came out of her. “But I would actually like to know what Bakugou has to say about it now. If I asked you that same question, what would you answer, explosive boy? Would it be ‘that’s stupid, get lost’ or something else?”
Ashido was not paying attention to the moment that was happening between Kirishima and Bakugou when she asked that question. She was not a very perceptive person—as all of the people that were in that room, for God’s sake. They were laughing, having fun, enjoying the dumb moment like there was nothing very important happening. Because, damn , that wasn't. It wasn't supposed to be something important happening, for that was an idiot question in an idiot place with the idiotic wrong person. With Kirishima. With Bakugou’s best friend. With the U.A. 's private ray of sunshine.
With the one that disliked rain just because of Bakugou.
With the one that couldn't stop looking at him as the world could fall apart at any time soon.
“Not the rain, raccoon face. Never the rain”, Bakugou finally answered, still frozen in Kirishima’s look. His regular answer made Ashido get shocked, Kaminari gasp and Sero not roll his eyes. And, of course, it made Kirishima smile that same stupid beautiful smile he had—that smile that meant everything to Bakugou. “Never the fucking rain.”
And it felt right for the first time.
For the very first time, it didn’t feel like it was raining.
The sky might’ve been covered, the stars might’ve been hiding under layers and layers of clouds, the humid weather might’ve been indicating what would be coming after that little talk that they had in the middle of the dorms. And, even then, nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter that Bakugou was made to be the number one hero and it didn’t matter that he was frightened of dying. Nothing else mattered. Because, for the very first time, while looking into Kirishima’s eyes and not having the urge to run away, it didn’t feel like it was raining.
And, well, some moments after that it did rain indeed. It poured and poured and poured, the rain drops hitting the walls of the dorms when it got worse. When it got terrifying .
But, for the very first time, Bakugou wasn’t scared. He did not have nightmares when he was able to hear the sound of the rain drops falling outside of his bedroom. He did not wish for it to be day again once he realized he was completely unable to sleep. His thoughts did not get heavier and heavier, did not get a lot harder to deal with. Everything he meant to the world and to himself did not come to nothing. He was not —and is not —no one. Not alone. Not lost.
And never gone.
Because for everything that mattered, he was holding Kirishima’s hand.
And he was never going to let go of him again.