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Tuesdays sucked. Tuesday was the day that Bakugou Katsuki had none of his favorite classes, Midnight (who he hated, for obvious reasons) breathing down his neck for two hours, and had to suffer through All Might’s (always) poorly-constructed lesson plan. For all of Bakugou’s respect for the old geezer… seriously, who signed off on him becoming a teacher?
He consistently ended Tuesdays stressed and silently fuming, and this particular one was no different from the rest. His friends knew when to avoid him, making the journey back to his dorm blissfully quiet. Bakugou replayed his day as he flopped on his bed, his (beloved yet denied) fluffy blanket forming a cushion. Deku had been furtively glancing at him during English, meaning he had something to ramble his ear off about. Bakugou, resolute in his self-preservation, had ignored the cues. He was just gonna wait for the shitty nerd to crawl to him when he had the balls to.
His father wanted to call him later, which had equal chances of either being nice or the worst fucking hour of his life. What else…? Oh. Right. Katsuki felt his heart beat faster. His mother had mentioned coming to the school for parent’s day.
Trying to sort out his feelings about that was like walking through a jungle. A complicated, stupid, emotion-filled jungle. One that made his palms sweat and his stomach hurt––
Fucking hell. Enough.
Katsuki grabbed a few things and stormed out of his room and to the roof. His quiet place. As far as he knew, none of the other extras ever went up here. They probably didn’t even know it was open, but hell if he was gonna tell them.
And… one other thing they didn’t know about.
He flicked open the box with practiced fingers and within a few seconds had a wisp of tar-colored smoke filling the air.
His greatest shame. Embarrassment. Whatever the fuck it was, if anyone found out about his little habit of stress-relief, he’d be mortified.
Maybe because it was so unlike the image he’d carefully curated. People thought of him as the blow-everything-up type, meaning when he was stressed or angry, they believed he turned to a rough activity such as violently exploding a few dummies. They weren’t necessarily wrong –– that is what he did… most of the time.
But sometimes, he just needed quiet and something that forced him to breathe. The spiky blond dragged in another breath of smoke, held its warmth for a few seconds, and then watched the gray cloud leave his mouth. It wasn’t really what you would associate with the top student of his class, mister perfect ‘goes-to-bed-at-eight’ Bakugou Katsuki, but it was still a part of him.
The sun sunk lower in the sky as he continued his contemplations, his stress slowly ebbing away. He really couldn’t explain it any better than that –– smoking, while he often got lost in his thoughts, somehow kept him away from the bad ones. He just felt at peace. Legs dangling over the edge, the city below him… in moments like these, he just had a small feeling that things would turn out okay.
He knows all the shit about smoking being bad, lung health, whatever. He’d come to terms with it a long time ago: he was a hero. His lifespan was already fucked. With death as an all-too-near occupational hazard, he figured cigarettes weren’t going to be the thing that killed him. Not to mention all the actual smoke he inhaled from his Quirk and on battlefields.
So, there. His shitty logic for why he hadn’t stopped after the first, the second, the third. Hadn’t stopped when some old dude in a random back alley had given his middle school self a tired lecture on the dangers of it. Hadn’t stopped when he realized it could be the end of his U.A. career if any adults found out about it. Well, okay. That last one was a bit of a stretch. He didn’t know what sort of trouble he’d get into, but he couldn’t imagine they’d kick him out with the villain bounty on his head. The press would give Aizawa the worst headache of his lifetime.
Whatever. He was gonna fucking die young anyway. Might as well not jeopardize all the hard work he’d put in to get this far.
Another drag cleared his head from that rabbit hole.
But when he heard the sound of the roof door creaking open, he just about met that early death from a goddamn heart attack, because what fucking extra––
“Oh. Hey, Bakugou. I didn’t know you came up here.”
Bakugou absolutely leapt to his feet and covered his ruffled feathers with a bout of his usual, showy rage. Thank fuck my reflexes are top notch. “Yeah, and it’s none of your fucking business, Mindfuck, so––” Internal facepalm. Flawless save, totally, nice one, you fucking idiot.
But the purple-haired (new member of class 1-A) hero student didn’t back up, didn’t turn around, didn’t even look offended. Didn’t show any of the usual reactions to Bakugou’s vitriol, just… stared. And narrowed his eyes.
“Were you… hm. Nevermind.” Mindfuck shook his head. Paused. Ignored Bakugou’s irrational rage and, because he clearly had a death wish, tried to make fucking casual conversation. “I come up here because the breeze is nice. It’s peaceful. All the noise gets a bit much. Your class is very lively.”
“Didn’t fucking ask,” Bakugou snarled. He desperately wanted to leave, but Eyebags was standing by the door. He couldn’t pass without revealing himself––he absolutely reeked. But not only was he irked about that, but this dumbass had come and interrupted his one fucking quiet moment of the day. And on TOP of all of that, forced him to frantically chuck a (half-smoked! There was a lot left!) cigarette over the side of the railing. Fucking hell.
Shinsou just stared at him in slight confusion and amusement. Probably wondering what stick he had up his ass. No matter what Eyebags thought, Katsuki could feel the steam rising off his hands as his Quirk reacted to his emotions. He was frustrated, fucking pissed after his long day, and now… about to be caught.
“Are you gonna fucking move?” Bakugou gritted out. To his chagrin, the other boy only tilted his head in a calm confusion.
“Move?”
”So I can leave, dipshit.”
Whatever the purple-haired boy was thinking, he didn’t like it. Nor did he like that growing smirk. “Why are you being so… cagey? We’ve existed in the same space before.”
“Yeah, well, I want to leave. So fucking move before I make you.” An empty threat, and Shinsou knew it too.
”Bakugou, the door is right there. I’m not stopping you. I’m not even in your way,” he sighed. They were at an impasse. Shinsou still stood by the door, unmoving. Bakugou still stood by the railing, unmoving. Frozen. Unsure of what to do.
“Well, while you’re constipated, I’m just gonna—” Shinsou started to take a few steps forward while Bakugou panicked. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—
“Don’t fucking come near me, I will fucking kill you—” Bakugou bristled like a wild animal, caught and cornered. “Not another fucking step—” Anxious pops punctuated his outbursts as his Quirk flared up.
Unfortunately, Shinsou just looked at him like he was crazy. Because he was. With all the available space for Bakugou to move around Shinsou and leave, he was acting like a petulant brat. It wasn’t even a ‘boundaries’ thing, as Aizawa preferred to call the trauma of some of their class. It was just Katsuki being a brat. As Shinsou came closer, the roaring in his head grew louder.
And finally, he was within distance. He stopped suddenly. An expression of confusion followed by shock overcame the other boy’s face. He leaned in. Bakugou leaned away. “You smell like…” then he laughed, which just made Bakugou angrier. “You come up here to smoke.”
Just who the fuck does this guy think he is? The roaring reached a peak as anger exploded like a fire within Bakugou, spewing heated words out his mouth. But he knew it was just steam. Steam that concealed the true emotion –– shame.
“Holy fucking hell, dude. Calm down. I’m not gonna tell anyone.”
What? No, that wasn’t right. This isn’t…
“That’d be a douchey thing to do. I honestly don’t give a fuck what you do. Just don’t yell at me.” He continues in that strangely measured voice. No, really. What in the world was going on? “You’re looking at me like I’m crazy. Whatever. I come up here to smoke too.”
Oh. Okay, so mutual destruction. But why would Eyebags even share that with him? It was perfect blackmail. Everyone knew he wasn’t a good person; why put yourself in danger? Plus, despite the other boy seeming truthful, he didn’t trust him not to hold this over his head. After all, who wouldn’t?
“If you tell anyone about this––”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll blow me up, I know. Look, dude, I don’t care what complex you’ve got about it, but if you wanna smoke together, I’ve got some good shit.”
“What?” No coherent thoughts formed. This was not how he foresaw the interaction going.
“Yeah. I think…” he paused, thinking for a moment. “I think you’re a good dude underneath all that. Offer still stands.”
“Tch. I’m not looking for some dumbass… smoke club. I’m just fucking–– I don’t know. I’m leaving.”
A raging torrent of emotions gripped Katsuki by the throat so tightly he could barely speak. Shame was a burning emotion, a creeping vine around his heart. It dug its vicious thorns into his lungs and forced him to take shallow breaths. His heart pounded in his ears. He could distantly hear his Quirk popping off.
He was losing it. He was losing control. Fuck. Fuck. If he lost control…
He knew what would happen. It involved chains, a muzzle, and a fucking crowd, just staring at him–– and he couldn’t breathe. He could hear himself wheezing from miles away. This goddamn roof, why was he on the roof? Cigarettes… Shinsou… oh. Everyone would know.
“...hear me?” A blur flashed across his vision. “Bakugou, shit, man––”
He was sitting down against a hard, cold concrete wall. When did he get here? “What… fuck.” Eloquent.
Was it his heart finally giving out on him? He could feel its pounding and he felt so, so dizzy. It was time, anyway. Between all the battle trauma and the nitroglycerin, a heart attack was inevitable.
“Fuck’s right, dude. I got you, though, can you breathe with me?”
Somehow, Katsuki made it through shitty breathing exercises and chants of one, two, three, four… exhale. One, two, three, four… inhale. Shinsou looked calm. The world returned. They had moved from the railing to the wall near the door. Instead of standing, they were sitting. Katsuki realized a crumb of concrete was painfully jabbing into his left palm, so he lifted it up and brushed it off. A cool breeze made him blink and side-eye the boy who had helped him. He was playing some… was that a cat game?... on his phone.
Katsuki shivered a bit in the peaceful moment.
A wave of exhaustion suddenly hit him and his eyelids drooped. He couldn’t… fuck. Whatever. If Shinsou was gonna kill him, he would have done it two minutes ago. Black closed in the edges of his vision and he was gone.
––
He woke up slowly. In the dim light of the nearly-set sun, the concrete of the roof looked blue. The clouds above were taking on their nighttime gray, and the urban sprawl silhouetted in black against the feverish red-orange of the sun.
“Welcome back, buddy,” Eyebags murmured from about a foot away. His phone, which he didn’t even look up from, let out soft game noises. Katsuki just felt weary. Cars moved like little ants in the streets below. Seconds or minutes might’ve passed, he didn’t know. “You had a panic attack.” Hm. So that’s what it was.
When he was a kid, his mother had always left a plate of onigiri on the counter. As he got older, she started to learn his preferences. Spicy tuna, spicy cod roe. No matter what sorts of screaming fights they got into, the plate always sat there with a few marked for him. It became an apology, an offered olive branch, a mending to their relationship. Sometimes, in a bout of pettiness, he would refuse to eat the offered snack while she was there to see it –– instead, he’d sneak into the kitchen after she’d gone to bed and wolf down his portion. Thinking about his childhood stubbornness made him smile lightly. He fucking missed her and that plate.
They wrestled and fought throughout most of his childhood, and the fights only got nastier and nastier the older he grew. The plate was the only apology she knew how to give, and it became the only comfort he knew how to accept. His father, the poor soul, struggled immensely with understanding either of them emotionally. A supposed ‘comforting’ pat on the shoulder was something Katsuki, not fully understanding it, consistently shrugged off. Talking about feelings was never something the Bakugous did. When they cried, they hid their tears.
So this, whatever this was, was completely foreign to Katsuki. He didn’t understand. Words mean nothing; actions are what count. Shinsou had just performed a touching gesture –– and for what? Why? Why bother helping the most abrasive and rude student in the hero course? Especially when he’d done nothing but push everyone away?
Katsuki shifted uncomfortably. He was in uncharted territory.
A quiet click and flicker caught his attention, followed by the acrid smell his cells immediately perked up at filling the air. Eyebags took a slow hit before holding it in front of the spiky blond.
Katsuki wordlessly accepted.
The two sat there for a while in silence, passing Shinsou’s cigarette back and forth with a certain telepathy. Bakugou finally broke the silence.
“Cat game?”
“What? Oh, yeah–– it’s adorable. You have cats making soup.”
Katsuki couldn’t help but snort.
The conversation continued on from there. Turns out, Shinsou wasn’t so bad to talk to. He had a dry sense of humor (with a wicked dark streak, he soon found out) and wasn’t bothered by Katsuki’s crudeness. They had a lot in common, one thing being their love of music. They both listened to rock. Shinsou played the guitar.
The sun had long set by the time their (what number? Katsuki had lost count) cigarette spat its last ashes into the wind. The two boys were now shoulder-to-shoulder, sneakers overlapping. They sat in silence. At peace.
Maybe, Katsuki thought, just maybe –– smoking with someone was better than smoking alone. His spiky demeanor did a good job at keeping people away, but at what cost? He thought he’d be able to stomach that cost, but now that he’d gotten a taste of the other side… he wasn’t sure he could go back.
He didn’t want to go back.
“Hey, Mindfuck. Same time next week?”
“Yeah, Boomboy. Sounds good.”
“Boomboy? I’ll fucking kill you for that.”
“I don’t believe you. Do it right now. Go on, do it.” The taunt caused both of them to laugh.
When did it get so easy to banter with no real stakes? Was this what came after being vulnerable with people? When people in his class had their little cry circles, he always assumed… well, that the person had lost some credibility or respect or some shit. But here was this sleep-deprived, tired, dead-inside boy, treating him the same. No, not the same. Treating him like they were friends.
And maybe… maybe they were. Katsuki Bakugou thinks, maybe, he could live with that.
He could also––maybe––live with that warm feeling filling his heart. Maybe.