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Kirishima hits the bathroom door too hard. It bangs once, rebounds, and he catches it by the edge before it can swing back open again, the sound cracking through the room sharper than he meant it to be. The noise lingers, ricocheting off tile and stall doors, and for a moment, he just stands there with his hand still on the door, chest rising too fast, like if he lets go, something else might spill out with it. His breath is loud, he notices that immediately — how it fills the space, how it echoes back at him warped and hollow, like the room is amplifying it on purpose. He doesn’t like that, doesn’t like how it sounds uncontrolled. He moves on instinct, crossing the short distance to the sink and bracing himself there, palms flat against the porcelain, grounding himself in the cold.

Okay, slow down.

He leans forward slightly, shoulders rolling as he tries to force them lower. In through his nose — sharp, clean, almost burning —out through his mouth, longer than feels natural. He does it again, slower this time, focusing on the rhythm instead of the air itself. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, steady and even, and he lets his attention settle there. Steady things don’t disappear, steady things don’t leave. Monoma’s voice threads through it anyway.

It carries down the hallway outside the bathroom, bright and careless, laughter folded into it like punctuation. He was always loud in that effortless way, like he’s never once had to think about how much space he’s taking up or who might be crushed under it. Kirishima exhales deliberately, jaw tightening as he pushes the sound out of his focus, replacing it with the hum of the lights, the faint scent of cleaner, the cool resistance of porcelain under his hands. Not like him, never like good ol’ Kirishima. 

He’s always been careful about that. About reading rooms, for the most part. He can be good at volume control, about knowing when to be loud and when to soften, when to step forward, and when to hold back so someone else doesn’t have to. The thought surfaces gently, almost reassuring, and he lets it sit there for a second because it’s familiar, because it’s true. He learned early how to make himself easy to be around, how to shape himself into whatever was needed without being asked outright.

His fingers curl slightly against the counter, nails scraping faintly as he tightens his grip. His stomach shifts — not sharp, not painful, just a slow, uncomfortable roll that makes him swallow. He breathes again, and it's steadier now, shoulders still tense but no longer climbing toward his ears. The mirror catches his eye in his peripheral vision, and he looks away without thinking, fixing his gaze on the drain instead. Looking at himself feels premature, like it would invite something he isn’t ready to deal with yet. The hum of the lights continues, distracting in a way he relishes in.
In. Out.

Bakugou’s laugh slips into his thoughts without warning, clear and immediate, and Kirishima’s breath hitches into the echoing bathroom just enough that he notices it. He stills, palms pressing more firmly into the porcelain, grounding himself again. The image is vivid — Bakugou walking ahead, posture loose, familiar in a way that settles deep under Kirishima’s skin. Someone beside him this time, close enough that their shoulders nearly brush. Green curls and those damn animated hands. That voice that doesn’t need to rise to be heard. Kirishima inhales too fast, then forces the air back out slowly before it can tip into something worse.

It shouldn’t bother him.

The thought doesn’t come with words exactly — more like a pressure, a practiced correction. He knows better, he’s always known better. He’s not the kind of person who resents people for fitting, for belonging, for being… right. He lets the thought drift past without finishing it, like skimming over a stone he doesn’t want to turn over yet. The hallway outside quiets as voices move farther away, the sound of class resuming filtering in — distant chatter, a chair scraping, footsteps fading. The world keeps moving, revolving, spinning.

Kirishima exhales slowly and straightens just a fraction, testing how steady he feels. His hands tremble faintly when he lifts one from the counter, just enough that he notices. He curls it into a fist, presses his thumb into his palm until the sensation sharpens and anchors him.

Good, solid.

The word settles over him like a rule he’s lived by for years. Reliable. Unbreakable. He always tried to be someone you can lean on without worrying about what might give way underneath. He lets the idea hold him for now, lets it keep everything else in place while his breathing evens out into something manageable. Not calm, just contained. The bathroom is still too bright, entirely too quiet. The hum of the lights feels louder now that his thoughts have slowed, and somewhere beneath the steadiness he can feel something shifting, loosening — not enough to surface yet, not enough to name. Just enough to make his chest feel tight in a way he doesn’t fully understand.

He stays there, hands on the sink, breathing carefully, as the calm stretches thin.

It’s in that quiet, in that stretched-out space where nothing is actively happening, that Monoma slips fully into focus. Middle school. That’s where it started. Kirishima hadn’t needed time to decide how he felt about him; the reaction had been immediate, instinctive, settled somewhere deep and unmovable the moment he laid eyes on him. He hates the thought even now—how fast it was, how visceral—but the memory is stubborn. He remembers hating his face first. He hated the sharp turn of his nose when he sneered, the way his mouth always curled like he was looking down at something dirty. He looked like that at everyone.

Maybe that wasn’t morally correct, maybe it was shallow to hate someone’s face. Kirishima knows that; he knows better than to judge people on sight. He had known never to judge a book by its cover, and still—Monoma had walked into his life like he already owned the place, like the air itself was obligated to make room for him, like other people were props, there to react. What more was there to uncover that could justify that? What more was there for Kirishima to want to see?

Monoma thought he was special, and the worst part was that he was. The thought presses uncomfortably against Kirishima’s ribs, tight enough to make him adjust his stance, palms sliding slightly on the porcelain. Monoma had always been unfairly talented, no matter what anyone ever had to say, Kirishima was able to admit that. His quirk had always been flashy, clever, the kind people whispered about with awe and curiosity. He’d worn nice clothes even then, always looked put together, always carried himself like he knew something everyone else didn’t. That horrible, fucking attitude—sharp and mean and careless in ways that left bruises no one could point to.

What a prick.

The thought flashes hot and unfiltered, and Kirishima doesn’t correct it, he doesn’t try to soften it. He just lets it sit there, ugly and honest, because he doesn’t think that about many people. He doesn’t hold a lot of hatred in his heart, he prides himself on that. He’s generous with the benefit of the doubt, slow to anger, quick to forgive. There are only a few people who ever made it past that line for him. Monoma was one of them, and Kirishima had a reason.

Monoma wasn’t good, not really. There was no denying he was born to be a hero, he could save lives, sure—Kirishima doesn’t deny that. Monoma could stand in front of cameras, could perform heroism with all the right angles and timing, could say the right things, and smile the right way, but it always felt like a show, like something rehearsed, like goodness was something he put on instead of something that lived under his skin.

Kirishima’s teeth grind faintly as he breathes out, slow and controlled. That kind of thing matters to him. Inherent goodness. The quiet kind of good that you recognize in small children, they either have it or they don’t. The kind his favorite heroes had, the kind that didn’t need an audience to exist. The kind that showed up even when no one was watching, something pure and unrelenting. Maybe that was naive, maybe it was a childish outlook, but it was real to him, and Monoma had always felt like the opposite of that—sharp where others were soft, performative where others were sincere.

Maybe—maybe—that means he should hate more people. The thought is uncomfortable enough that his breathing falters for a second before he steadies it again. He stares down at the sink, at the faint scratches in the porcelain, and lets the idea linger longer than he wants to, because if he’s being honest—really honest—there are people in his life who don’t fit that moral purity either.

Bakugou.

The name lands heavily, too familiar, and immediately defended against. Kirishima knows what Bakugou was, he knows what people say about him. He IS mean. He IS explosive. He WAS a bully, back when it counted most. He knows all of that, and still—he pushes it aside without hesitation, without guilt, because he sees the good in Bakugou so clearly it almost hurts. It had been obvious to him from the start, from the very first year, from the moment Bakugou stood at the center of the Sports Festival while people screamed and bitched and whined about him like he was something monstrous instead of misunderstood. Kirishima had seen it then. The integrity, the refusal to be small. The way Bakugou burned toward something better, even when he didn’t know how to name it yet.

He knows that makes him a hypocrite. The realization doesn’t sting all at once—it settles in slowly, like weight added grain by grain. He breathes through it, shoulders tight, chest aching in that dull, compressed way that signals something deeper starting to shift. He doesn’t try to justify it, he doesn’t excuse himself. He just… acknowledges it. He forgives Bakugou because he loves him, because he understands him. The goodness is obvious once you know how to look.

But, Monoma—

Monoma had never wanted to be understood. He wanted to be admired.

The calm stretches thinner still, the bathroom suddenly feeling quieter in a way that makes the thoughts louder, sharper at the edges. Kirishima stays where he is, hands planted, breathing measured, as the line between judgment and jealousy begins to blur in a way he doesn’t quite recognize yet—but feels coming all the same.

The drip becomes impossible to ignore once he notices it. It’s not loud or urgent, just persistent — a thin, metallic sound tapping against porcelain at irregular intervals, like the faucet can’t quite decide when to let go. Kirishima stares at it, at the way each drop gathers first, swelling at the rim until it gives in to gravity and falls.

Tick.

He breathes with it, or he tries to, anyway. He lets his chest rise as the bead forms, fall as it drops. It feels like a deliberate move, something controlled in the whirlwind that is his mind. The kind of grounding trick he’s used a hundred times before, the kind that usually works if he gives it enough patience. The bathroom smells faintly of cleaner and old pipes. The lights still hum in that buzzy manner. The world feels small again, contained to tile and metal and sound.

Tick.

Middle school feels far away until it doesn’t. It creeps in gently, not as a full picture but as sensation — the remembered heaviness in his chest, the way his shoulders used to curl inward without him noticing. The version of himself who took up as little space as possible because it felt safer that way. He hadn’t been unhappy all the time back then, not exactly. Just… muted. Maybe he had been depressed, or something, like he was one bad day away from losing it in one way or another. He’d learned early how to stay quiet so the water wouldn’t ripple around him, just drowning peacefully. 

Then came the change, after he had failed, been so much of a coward, it was revolting. The red hair hadn’t just been a style choice, it had been a line drawn in something permanent. Bright enough to be seen, just like Monoma. Loud enough to announce him before he spoke, just like Monoma. He remembers standing in front of the mirror that first time, fingers still faintly trembling as he pushed it back from his face, heart thudding with a fear that felt dangerously close to excitement, or maybe both feelings bleed into each other, and he picked and chose which one would make him feel right in that emotion. This is me now, I’m going to try.

Tick.

The entrance exams follow naturally after that, memory sliding forward like it knows where it’s going. The way adrenaline had drowned out doubt, the way his quirk had finally felt like something he could trust instead of something he borrowed from a man who didn’t exist in his world. He remembers staring at the results later, blinking hard, convinced he’d read them wrong, and then he read them again anyway, then again, and again, and again.

The laugh that tore out of him had been loud and uncontained and real.

UA’s gates on the first day had felt impossibly tall, sunlight cutting across the concrete in clean lines. He’d walked through them like someone stepping into air after years underwater, lungs burning, chest light, every nerve alive with the knowledge that something had finally shifted. The halls buzzed with voices and footsteps and possibility, and for once, it didn’t overwhelm him. It thrilled him, he had been so damn excited.  This is it, he’d thought. This is the start.

Tick.

He remembers walking those halls taller than he ever had, shoulders back, grin easy, even as nerves fluttered under his ribs. Everything felt sharp and new and bright. He felt earned, because he had worked so damn hard for it. He belonged there because he had fought to. Then—

The memory sharpens. The hallway had been crowded, students brushing past in a blur of uniforms and voices. He’d barely registered the shoulder bump at first, just another body in motion, until something about it snagged in his awareness. He’d turned too fast, surprise snapping his head around hard enough that his neck popped audibly. Blonde hair, perfectly in place except for the few strands in his eyes. A smile already forming, wide and unbothered, like it had never learned how to falter. Long strides carried him forward without hesitation, without apology.

Monoma.

He remembers how easily Monoma had leaned in, how natural it had been, like he’d rehearsed the angle. He had been close enough that Kirishima had frozen, the heat of another body suddenly too near. He had been close enough that the words landed exactly where they were meant to. “What a fucking loser.” Soft, casual, almost bored. 

Tick.

Kirishima’s fingers tighten around the edge of the sink now, the porcelain biting into his skin as the memory settles heavier in his chest. He breathes through his nose, slow and measured, but the air feels thinner, like it doesn’t quite reach where it’s supposed to anymore. It had been obvious, he knows that now, in retrospect. It had been a taunt designed to provoke, to get a rise out of him, to knock him off balance before he could decide who he was going to be in this new place. Monoma had always been good at finding the fault lines and pressing just enough to feel the shift. The question that had lodged itself in him back then still hasn’t loosened. Why him? Why on that day, of all days? Why reach out with something sharp when Kirishima had finally broken the surface, lungs still aching, hands barely steady? Why choose that moment — when everything felt fragile and bright and possible — to try and drag him back under again?

The drip from the faucet sounds louder now, each drop echoing faintly in the hollow space behind his ribs.

Tick.

If that’s talent, if that’s cleverness, if that’s what it means to be special, he didn’t want any of that. The thought doesn’t finish cleanly, like he had more to say, but he cut himself off mid thought, scrounging up anything else to replace that horrible feeling clinging to him. Something bitter settles at the back of his tongue, something that tastes like disillusionment. He knew from that day that goodness isn’t something people just are, maybe it’s something they perform, or something they learn to fake well enough that others stop questioning it. The world doesn’t reward kindness — maybe it rewards sharpness, rewards knowing exactly where to cut. The world honors action.

His breath slips again, shallow this time, and the quiet calm he’d been clinging to thins further, stretched tight enough that he can feel it straining. The faucet keeps dripping, the memory doesn’t fade, god, it never has. Kirishima stays exactly where he is, hands on the sink, as the calm continues to erode — slowly, beautifully, inevitability pressing closer with every sound.

The ticking gets under his skin. Not all at once — it creeps, burrows, starts to feel less like a sound and more like a presence, like a fucking thing staring at him in the corner of the mirror. Each drop lands heavier than the last, no longer grounding but accusatory, counting something down he doesn’t know how to stop. His jaw tightens and clenches. His shoulders inch upward again without his permission. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, the word scraped thin and useless.

He reaches out and turns the faucet on. The sudden rush of water fills the room, loud and steady and immediate, swallowing the drip whole. It splashes against the basin in a constant stream, white noise flooding the space where his thoughts had been circling too tightly. He exhales, long and shaky, relief blooming fast and guilty all at once. Thats too much water, you’re wasting it.

The thought slips in automatically, reflexive and sharp, and it makes his chest tighten again. He knows better. He should turn it down or just turn it off completely. He shouldn’t need something this simple to keep himself from unraveling, and yet — the steady flow is calming in a way nothing else has been. It's predictable, continuous, and there are no pauses for his mind to slip through, so he leaves it running. The guilt hums alongside the water, a low, insistent pressure that refuses to settle. Relief and shame tug back and forth inside him, neither winning, neither letting go. God, why can’t anything ever be simple? Why does even this — breathing, grounding, standing still — have to feel like a negotiation he’s losing?

His hands curl on the edge of the sink, knuckles whitening again. Why is everything so overwhelming all the time? The question doesn’t come gently. It lands hard and messy, dragging others up with it in its wake. Why does every feeling stretch too far, cut too deep, refuse to stay in its lane? Why does his own head feel like a place he has to brace himself against instead of living inside? How is he supposed to be a functioning adult like this? How is he supposed to be a hero? The thought makes his throat tighten, breath hitching again despite the water, despite his efforts. A hero isn’t supposed to be crippled by his own thoughts. A hero isn’t supposed to feel like one wrong noise, one wrong memory, one wrong sentence could knock him clean through the floor.

Maybe Monoma could smell it on him. The idea slithers in uninvited, slick and mean. Maybe that’s what it was — not jealousy, not rivalry, but recognition. Two people standing across from each other, seeing the rot reflected back. Someone with fake goodness looking at someone with fake cruelty, both clawing upward in different directions, both desperate not to be found out.

Kirishima isn’t inherently good, is he?

The question hangs there, heavy and suffocating. He thinks about the anger — the real kind, the kind he never lets anyone see. The kind that lights him up so fast it scares him, heat flooding his chest until he feels like he might crack something open if he doesn’t move. He remembers the way his fists have slammed into bags until his knuckles screamed, until his arms shook, until the need to hurt something finally burned itself out. The truth was that ometimes it was other people he wanted to hurt, sometimes it was himself. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the urge had been there.

He swallows hard, jaw flexing. He never cared if he bruised himself, he had never cared if his hands split or his muscles tore. What he cared about — what he always cared about — was whether anyone was around to see it, whether someone might notice the way his hands shook before impact, the way his teeth clenched too hard, the way the smile disappeared completely. He couldn’t let anyone know, he couldn’t afford to. He’s always been nice, so damn nice. Careful and polite. Apologizing even when it isn’t his fault, smoothing things over before anyone has the chance to sharpen their edges, to make sure they stuck around. He knows — knows — that Monoma saw that too, he probably rolled his eyes at it. He clocked the tension in his shoulders, the restraint wound too tight.

Monoma must’ve known, he must know. He must’ve watched him swallow his anger and thought him weak for it. He must’ve seen how badly Kirishima wanted to punch someone in the teeth and chosen to say it out loud instead. Two losers, standing on opposite ends of the same truth.

The water keeps rushing, loud now, almost too loud, pressing against his ears until the bathroom feels smaller, tighter, like it’s closing in on him. He hates that, hates how even the thing that helped him a moment ago is starting to overwhelm him now. God, he envies Monoma, he hates that he does, because Monoma chose to be sharp. He had a choice to be anything, and Monoma chose to be honest in the ugliest way. He chose to let the cruelty spill out instead of choking on it, and Kirishima chose the opposite — chose calculation, chose restraint, chose to dig the goodness out of himself every single day like it was buried somewhere deep and difficult. He hates that about himself, and he hates how fake he feels all the time.

Is this what being human is? Is everyone doing this — holding back, swallowing impulses, pretending they’re better than they feel? Or is it just him, standing here drowning in noise while everyone else seems to breathe just fine? The thought fractures something.

He shuts the faucet off abruptly.

The silence hits him like a slap, sudden and absolute, his ears ringing as his breath comes faster, sharper now. Too quiet. Too exposed. The hum of the lights roars back into prominence, every sound amplified again. His chest tightens, panic blooming hot and fast this time. The water didn’t help, it just made it worse. His feet start moving before he thinks about it — stomping, grinding into the floor, heels pressing down hard like he can anchor himself through force alone. He needs to feel solid, needs to feel the ground under him, because otherwise it feels like he’s sinking, like the tile might give way and swallow him whole. His breath is coming too fast now, his thoughts are no longer lining up, and the calm — whatever fragile thing he’d been holding onto — finally, unmistakably, begins to splinter.

His heart starts racing before he can fully pin down why, not a sharp spike but a creeping acceleration that makes him suddenly, painfully aware of it. Each beat feels louder than the last, knocking against his ribs with a frantic insistence that makes his chest ache, like his body has decided something is wrong and doesn’t care whether his mind has caught up yet. His breath follows suit, shortening without permission, shallow pulls of air that scrape uncomfortably on the way in, rush out too fast on the way back out, never quite filling his lungs the way they’re supposed to.

Okay, okay—no. Not now, not here.

His fingers fumble into his pocket, and he drags his phone out, the motion jerky and imprecise, like his hands don’t quite belong to him anymore. The screen lights up instantly, too bright against the bathroom’s sterile glow, and for a second, he just stares at it, thumb hovering uselessly as names scroll past without meaning. He could call someone, he should call someone. Mina would answer, Kaminari would. Sero, probably. Bakugou—the thought of it makes something twist hard in his chest, and his thumb freezes.

I can’t.

The certainty hits him all at once, heavy and immovable, settling into his shoulders and locking them in place. He can’t let anyone see him like this, he can’t let anyone know that Monoma did this to him — that a single whispered phrase, tossed out without effort or consequence, managed to dig its way under his skin and crack him open after all this time. All because of words he hasn’t heard from anyone in years. All because of something he hasn’t told himself in just as long, because he thought he was past it, thought he’d buried it deep enough that it couldn’t find its way back out.

He presses the heel of his hand into his sternum, like the pressure alone might force his heart to slow, might convince his body to listen. The bathroom feels tighter now, the walls closer, the hum of the lights drilling into his skull in a way it hadn’t before. He had changed. He knew he had, he’d worked for it, bled for it, rebuilt himself piece by piece until the scared, shaking kid he used to be felt distant, like a chapter he’d closed for good. He believed in that version of himself, he had trusted it, trusted himself, but Monoma was right.

The thought barely finishes forming before panic surges hot and sharp, cutting it off mid-breath, his chest seizing like it’s been grabbed in a fist. No. No, don’t—don’t go there. His mind stutters, skips, tries to veer away, but the word maybe lingers anyway, poisonous and half-formed. Maybe—oh god.

His vision starts to blur at the edges, white spots flickering like static as he squeezes his eyes shut and tips his head forward. Air scrapes into his lungs too fast, too shallow, his ribs aching with the effort of it. He spreads his feet wider without thinking, grounding himself in the pressure of the floor, the solidity of it, as if he can just anchor himself hard enough he won’t float apart. His hands grip the sink until the porcelain bites back, cold and unforgiving. Breathe, Kirishima, just breathe. No more thoughts. Shut them out, shut them out. You’re unbreakable.

The word echoes through him like a mantra, something he clings to desperately as the noise in his head swells. Unbreakable: too strong to fracture like this. Walls don’t panic, walls don’t crumble because someone said something cruel in passing. Walls stand, walls endure, and even if they crack—he swallows hard, throat tight—walls can always be built back up again. That’s what Bakugou told him.

Bakugou.

The name hits him like a blow to the chest, sharp and overwhelming, his heart stuttering before it kicks back into a frantic rhythm. Bakugou Bakugou Bakugou, the thought spiraling faster now, clinging to him because it’s familiar, because it’s safer than anything else his mind could latch onto. He could talk about Bakugou endlessly if he let himself, could lose hours to the thought of him without ever noticing time pass. His Bakugou — the one he would bend for without hesitation, the one who bent for him too, quietly, stubbornly, even when it cost him something.

The thought aches, deep and tender, a different kind of pain threading through the panic. Somewhere beneath the chaos, Kirishima knows he had been special once. He had been chosen like never before, nd that knowledge settles into him like something fragile and warm, something he’s afraid to hold too tightly. Bakugou wasn’t nice to anyone, not easily, not freely — but he had been nice to Kirishima, in his own sharp, sideways way. He had been protective and attentive. Present. That had meant something to him, and it still does.

His grip tightens around his phone, knuckles aching, breath still coming too fast, no matter how hard he tries to rein it in. The panic hasn’t loosened its hold — it’s only shifted, tangled now with something heavier, something that threatens to collapse inward instead of bursting free. Beneath it all, coiling tighter with every breath he can’t slow, the fear finally sharpens into something he can’t push away:

What if being chosen once doesn’t mean being chosen forever?

The sound that comes out of him isn’t a laugh, not really. It catches halfway through, breaks into something hoarse and wrong, a choked wheeze that scrapes his throat and leaves his chest aching afterward. He presses his lips together, jaw tight, like he can force the sound back inside himself where it belongs, but the truth of it lingers anyway, sharp and undeniable, because god—if that isn’t true.

He knows it, deep down, in the quiet place where denial doesn’t reach. He’s felt it happening in increments so small he almost convinced himself it wasn’t real. A step back here, a missed conversation there, a space opening up between him and Bakugou that he kept telling himself was temporary, circumstantial, nothing to worry about. Maybe it was, maybe it still is. There’s been a war, after all. Death and loss stacked on top of loss until no one knew how to breathe right anymore. The world didn’t pause just because something precious between them had started to thin. Kirishima knows that, he’s not stupid. He knows there were reasons.

He knows he was given time, too—two full years, technically, to rebuild whatever had fizzled out between them, to find their way back to something familiar, yet here he is, a year in, standing in a bathroom with his heart in his throat, realizing nothing has actually changed. The distance that grew between them hasn’t closed the way he thought it would. It stretches differently now, awkward and resistant, like it doesn’t want to fit back into the shape it used to have.

He mourns that easy closeness, the way Bakugou used to look for him without thinking, the way their time together felt inevitable instead of negotiated. He mourns being the person Bakugou gravitated toward when things were too loud or too much, the person he didn’t have to explain himself to. It feels childish to miss it this badly, but the ache has never stopped nagging at him, never stopped reminding him of what it felt like to be wanted without question. 

Maybe it’s because Bakugou is changing. The thought slides in slowly, heavy with reluctant admiration. Bakugou is trying—really trying—to be better, in ways that feel deliberate and constant. Every day, he’s pushing himself forward, burning toward something he can finally name. The way he’s doing it, the quiet effort behind the sharp edges, reminds Kirishima painfully of himself. Of the way he’s been doing the same thing for years now, just privately, just without anyone noticing.

Bakugou isn’t doing it alone. He’s spending so much time chasing after Midoriya now, orbiting him with a focus that leaves little room for anything else. Conversations Kirishima isn’t part of, training sessions he hears about secondhand. Shared history deepening into something new while Kirishima watches from the outside, smiling like it doesn’t sting. Maybe that’s unfair, and it’s definitely selfish. Kirishima is just an asshole, projecting meaning where there is none, inventing distance because he’s afraid of sitting with uncertainty. He knows his brain is good at that—at building narratives out of fragments, at filling silence with worst-case scenarios. He tells himself that Bakugou hasn’t stopped caring, that people don’t drift on purpose. That love doesn’t vanish overnight.

Yet, he recognizes unrequited love when he sees it. He has to, it’s been hitting him in the face every single day, quiet and persistent, a reminder that wanting something doesn’t mean you get to keep it, or maybe he doesn’t recognize anything at all, maybe he’s misreading everything, twisting himself up over something that isn’t even happening. The indecision gnaws at him, makes everything feel unstable, like he’s standing on shifting ground. It almost doesn’t matter whether it’s love or not, because Bakugou’s attention is turned anyway.

Toward Midoriya.

God, it aches. It aches in a way that’s hard to articulate without sounding small or petty or cruel. He misses him—misses him so fucking badly it takes his breath away sometimes—but he doesn’t know how to say it without making it sound like an accusation. They still talk, they still see each other. They still laugh, still exist in the same spaces. Nothing has ended cleanly enough for him to point to and say this is where it broke. It’s worse than that.

It’s that he felt special once, and now he doesn’t.

That absence has been eating at him quietly for months, growing heavier, more confusing, until it’s wrapped itself around everything else he’s already carrying. It consumes him in moments like this, when he has nowhere left to look but inward, when all the distractions fall away, and he’s left with the unbearable knowledge that something precious slipped through his fingers while he was too busy telling himself it would be fine.

His breath stutters again, chest tight, and the bathroom feels impossibly small as the weight of it settles in fully—grief without closure, love without direction, and the slow, sinking fear that maybe being chosen once was never a guarantee of being chosen again, and this time, there’s no laughter at all.

God, he hates how suddenly it hits him.

Not tears—he refuses to give it that name—but the pressure behind his eyes swells anyway, hot and humiliating, his vision blurring just enough that he has to duck his head and press his palm hard into the counter to keep it together. His throat tightens, a sharp ache there like something is lodged wrong, and he breathes through his nose on instinct, jaw clenched so hard it hurts. He doesn’t even understand why this is the thing that breaks him. This, of all things. He’s not crying over a breakup, not over a confession gone wrong, not over something clean and obvious. He’s crying over absence, over implication. Over the slow erosion of something he never officially lost.

Then—Midoriya.

The name slams into him with a force that knocks the air from his lungs. His chest tightens further, anger curling in on itself so sharply it almost feels physical, like a band cinched too tight around his ribs. His cheeks burn, heat rushing up his neck, and for a split second, he feels sick with it—this sudden, violent flare of resentment that has nowhere to go. God, Midoriya. The thought tastes bitter, acrid, and he hates himself for how fast it comes, how easily. The worst thought follows before he can stop it.

He’s glad they can’t chase each other anymore.

The realization lands like a punch to the gut, stealing what little breath he had left. His stomach churns violently, nausea rising fast and hot, and he has to bend forward more, shoulders caving as if his body is trying to fold in on itself. He squeezes his eyes shut, horrified. He knows what that means, he knows exactly what it cost. He knows Bakugou is sad about it, knows Midoriya is devastated, no matter how much he didn’t want to admit it, and he knows the weight of it presses down on all of them in different, terrible ways. Kirishima is sad too, he is, because he likes Midoriya, respects him, genuinely admires him in ways he doesn’t even try to deny, and still.

Still, there’s this ugly, selfish relief twisting through him, this sick part of him that wants Bakugou’s attention undivided, wants every scrap of focus, every ounce of intensity, every sharp-edged look and reckless grin aimed at him and no one else. Them chasing each other, them burning toward the same goal, always just outpacing one another—that rivalry, that yearning, it pulled Bakugou away in ways Kirishima couldn’t compete with. It always had, and now it’s gone.

The thought makes him feel vile.

His stomach lurches again, and he presses his forearm to his mouth, swallowing hard like he might actually throw up. God, he’s disgusting, he genuinely is. How could he think that? How could he feel relief over something like this? Over that? Midoriya—the person who saved their lives more times than Kirishima can count, the person who carried hope like it was stitched into his bones—is quirkless now. Right back where he started, stripped of the very thing he fought so hard to earn. Kirishima is standing here in a bathroom, heart racing, celebrating in some dark, rotten corner of his mind because of jealousy.

It makes him feel sick to his core. Midoriya isn’t Monoma. God, he’s not even close. That’s what makes it worse. Midoriya is—unfairly, impossibly good. Born good in a way that feels cosmic, inevitable, like if Kirishima learned tomorrow that he’d come into the world glowing with angel wings and a halo, it wouldn’t even surprise him. He’s kind without calculation, selfless without effort, earnest to the point of pain. Passionate, but gentle. Relentlessly hopeful, so fucking good it hurts to look at him sometimes, especially because he doesn’t even see it. He carries that goodness like it’s nothing special, like it’s just the air he breathes.

Kirishima hates that.

The admission curls in his chest, poisonous and undeniable. He hates how perfect Midoriya is, how naturally heroic he is. He hates how he inspires people without trying, hates how Bakugou looks at him like the world makes more sense when Midoriya is standing in it. The worst part—the part that makes Kirishima’s chest seize, and his breath come ragged—is that he wishes him harm. Not consciously, not deliberately, but in the quiet, unguarded parts of his mind where jealousy rots unchecked. Like a fucking villain.

The thought terrifies him.

At some point, he has to admit this isn’t just about Bakugou anymore. His life doesn’t revolve around Bakugou, no matter how much it feels like it does when the ache hits. It revolves around his insecurities, around the parts of himself he’s spent years trying to bury under kindness and effort and smiles. Midoriya—quirkless or not—is everything Kirishima wishes he could be without trying so hard. Everything that comes naturally to him feels earned through blood and bone for Kirishima, and standing next to that kind of effortless goodness makes all his carefully constructed solidity feel thin.

The bathroom feels too small to hold this truth. His breath stutters again, a quiet, broken sound scraping out of him as his head dips lower, shoulders shaking just slightly now despite his efforts to keep them still. Is this a safe place to admit it? To himself, at least? That he hates Midoriya, too? The savior, the symbol. The one everyone points to and says this is what a hero looks like. The greatest hero of their time.

He hates him.

The thought doesn’t bring relief. It doesn’t feel honest in a way that cleans him out or settles anything into place. It just makes everything heavier, uglier, more tangled than before, like he’s pulled on a thread that only tightened the knot instead of undoing it. His chest aches with the weight of it, pressure building behind his eyes until it burns, until it feels like his skull is too small to hold everything he’s feeling.

The tears come anyway.

At first, he almost doesn’t notice them. Just a sudden blur to his vision, a hot sting he blinks against as he sucks in a breath through his nose, sharp and unsteady. He swipes at his cheek with the back of his hand automatically, irritated, embarrassed, like he’s caught something he shouldn’t have, but another tear slips free, then another, silent and traitorous, tracking down his face no matter how hard he clenches his jaw. He doesn’t understand why he’s crying, not really. It feels like it’s coming out of nowhere, sudden and overwhelming, like his body has made a decision without consulting him. His shoulders tense as he tries to hold it in, breath shuddering once, then again, each inhale coming shorter than the last. The sounds start small—broken little huffs of air he tries desperately to swallow down—but they catch in his throat, stain the breath as it leaves him.

Then he can’t stop it.

The noise tears out of him, raw and breathless, a sound that barely sounds like it belongs to him at all. His chest heaves, lungs scraping painfully as he struggles to pull air back in, the sobs wracking his body with a violence that makes his knees buckle. It’s urgent, uncontrolled, the kind of crying that doesn’t give you time to brace for it, that just takes over completely. His face twists as more tears spill, hot and relentless, soaking into his sleeve as he presses it to his mouth, trying to muffle the sound.

It feels like it’s been building for a long time. Week, months, maybe longer than that, like something he’s been carrying quietly, finally found a crack wide enough to force its way through, and it chose the worst possible moment to do it. He still has class. He still has to go back out there. The thought flashes through him dimly, absurd in the middle of everything, and it almost makes him laugh. He could skip, he knows he could, but skipping is unlike him. Crying like this is unlike him. This whole moment—this panic, this collapse, the way his body is betraying him so completely—is unlike him in every way that matters.

Unless you ask Monoma, then no. This is exactly like him.

The idea cuts deep, sharp, and humiliating. Kirishima curls in on himself as another sob wrenches through his chest, the sound loud enough that panic flares alongside it. He clamps his hand harder over his mouth, pressing his forehead into his arm, desperate to keep anyone from hearing. Don’t let them see, don’t let them know, don’t let anyone walk in and find you like this—weeping in a bathroom stall, choking on your own guilt, your own greed, your own envy and jealousy.

He’s crying over his hatred.

Over how much he hates Monoma. Over how much he hates Midoriya. Maybe he’s crying this hard because he hates Bakugou too, in the same breath that he loves him more than anything, because the love is too big, too sharp, too consuming to exist without turning back on itself. Bakugou is beautiful in a way that makes his chest hurt, and even now, even like this, Kirishima’s thoughts spiral back to him without permission.

He hates Bakugou’s smile. God, he hates it, because it’s perfect. When Bakugou smiles—really smiles—you can see those dimples, the perfect line of his teeth, the way his face softens just enough to feel unreal. Everything about him is perfect, even the parts that aren’t supposed to be. His temper, his sharp tongue. The cruelty he wields like a weapon and the care he hides underneath it. It’s all so fucking beautiful it makes Kirishima dizzy, makes his head spin until he can’t tell where admiration ends, and resentment begins.

His body gives out before he realizes it’s happening.

His legs fold, and he sinks down hard against the stall, back thumping against the cold, solid divider as his hands scramble for purchase. For a second, he nearly tips sideways, shoulder bumping into the door before he manages to scoot awkwardly to the side, curling in on himself on the bathroom floor. The tiles are cold through his uniform, grounding and miserable all at once. His cries come louder now, unrestrained, echoing faintly in the small space despite his efforts to keep quiet. His chest aches, throat raw, breaths coming in ragged pulls that hurt almost as much as the thoughts that dragged them out of him. He presses his forehead to his knees, shoulders shaking violently, and lets it happen because he doesn’t have the strength to stop it anymore.

Everything hurts, everything feels wrong, and somewhere in the middle of it—sobbing on a bathroom floor, drowning in love and hate and guilt all tangled together—Kirishima realizes with a hollow, devastating clarity that he doesn’t know how to put himself back together this time.

He begs himself to pull it together.

The words repeat in his head like orders barked at a failing body, sharp and unforgiving, cutting through the sobs even as they fail to stop them. Be strong. Be manly. Don’t do this. Men like him don’t cry like this — not collapsed on a bathroom floor, not over thoughts he should be tougher than, not over feelings he should’ve learned to beat into submission by now. It doesn’t matter how many times people say it’s okay to cry, how many speeches he’s heard about vulnerability and honesty and letting yourself feel things. Those rules have never applied to him, they’re for people who are allowed to break. He isn’t.

Come on, Kirishima, fucking pull it together.

He drags in a breath that scrapes painfully down his throat, presses his fist hard into his thigh like he can shock himself back into control. The pressure grounds him for half a second — enough to latch onto the word again, the one he’s built his entire life around. Unbreakable. He repeats it silently, desperately, like if he says it enough times it will stitch him back into something solid. An unbreakable wall doesn’t fold in on itself like this. An unbreakable wall doesn’t let some loud-mouthed clown crawl under its skin and tear it apart in a bathroom stall.

Don’t let Monoma get to you. The thought barely settles before it curdles, twisting sharp and ugly in his chest. Because what does that clown know, really? What could he possibly know about Kirishima that Kirishima hasn’t already spent years trying to bury, sand down, polish into something acceptable?

Everything.

The realization hits him like a body blow, knocking the air from his lungs. His breath stutters, then breaks entirely, a raw sound tearing out of his chest as his shoulders hitch again. Monoma knows exactly what he is, not the hero, not the symbol. A fraud. A fucking placeholder. Someone who stood in a space that was never meant to be his, holding it open until the right person grew into it, until Midoriya.

Midoriya got big enough to fit the space Kirishima had been occupying. Bakugou stopped pushing him away long enough for them to finally click into place, slot together seamlessly, the way things do when they were always meant to. Perfect, in the way perfect things are — effortless, inevitable, unquestioned. Kirishima squeezes his eyes shut, forehead pressing hard into his knees as another sob wrenches through him, deeper this time, tearing his chest open from the inside. He can see it so clearly, it makes him sick. The way Bakugou leans toward Midoriya without realizing it. The way their conversations stretch and deepen while Kirishima laughs along at the edges. The way Bakugou’s orbit always curves back, no matter how far it wanders, and Kirishima is just there, a temporary fix.

A joke you laugh with until the real thing is ready.

Maybe that’s all he’s ever been. The thought spirals, vicious and relentless, feeding on the panic already clawing at his ribs. Maybe he should stop trying so hard to be good, stop trying to be perfect. He should stop trying to earn love by being kind, steady, and easy to lean on. Maybe that’s never been enough, and it probably never fucking will be. Maybe if he wants Bakugou’s attention, he has to take it another way — a sharper way, a nastier way.

The way Monoma does.

The idea makes his stomach twist violently, shame and something darker flaring hot in his chest. Show him, show Bakugou the ugly parts. The jealousy, the cruelty, the rot he works so hard to keep buried under smiles and apologies. Monoma wears his nastiness openly, wields it like a blade, and people still listen to him. Maybe Bakugou doesn’t hate him for it if he just shows it, he already thinks Monoma isn’t that bad.

Kirishima knows better.

The thoughts start tripping over each other now, no longer lining up cleanly, crowding in too fast, too loud. His breath stutters, then fractures completely, breaking into short, frantic gasps that echo harshly off the stall walls. He's being too loud, way too loud. Panic spikes sharply and immediately, his pulse roaring in his ears as reality slams back into place. Footsteps and voices. People are moving down the hallway now, laughing, talking, flocking to class like nothing is wrong, like the world hasn’t cracked open around him. The sound punches straight through his chest, a reminder of how close everyone is, how thin the walls are.

Fuck. Goddamn it.

He can’t be here, not like this. Not where someone could hear him, could stop, could see him like this. Stop crying, stop, stop. He scrubs at his face with his sleeve, rough and frantic, trying to erase the evidence before it can harden into something permanent, but it’s like every attempt to force it down only makes it worse, like his body is rebelling now, crying harder in protest. His shoulders shake, breath hitching again, and a broken, furious sound tears out of him — half sob, half curse — as he leans forward, forehead knocking lightly against the stall wall. No matter how hard he tells himself to be strong, to be solid, to be unbreakable, his body keeps betraying him — unraveling further with every breath he can’t seem to catch, every thought he can’t shove back into the dark where it belongs.

Come on, stand up.

He plants his hands on the floor and pushes, muscles trembling violently as he hauls himself upright. His legs wobble beneath him, weak and unreliable, and he has to slam a hand against the stall wall to keep from collapsing again. The divider is cold and solid under his palm, grounding and cruel all at once. His chest heaves, breath still ragged, tears still slipping free, no matter how hard he clenches his jaw.

He staggers to the sink on unsteady legs, palms slapping against the counter as he leans over it, breath still tearing in and out of him in ugly, broken pulls. He twists the faucet hard and lets the water run full blast, the sound loud enough to drown out whatever’s left of the sobs clawing at his throat. He bends closer, shoulders hunched, forcing the noise back down, teeth clenched as he punches the cries inward instead of letting them escape. No more. No more. I’ve let you out enough. Go back inside. Stay down. He swallows hard, jaw aching with the effort, a shaky plea slipping out anyway—please, god, please—just give me until the end of class, just that long.

His breathing refuses to cooperate, jagged and desperate, gasps dragged through his mouth because his nose is completely useless now, clogged and burning. He grabs for the tissue dispenser with trembling fingers and blows his nose loudly, uncaring, the sound harsh and wet and humiliating in the small space. He doesn’t even look at what he’s doing—just crumples the tissues and lets them fall to the floor, one after another, because he can deal with that later if later ever comes. Right now, he’s scrambling, hands shaking so badly he has to brace his wrists against the sink as he turns the water cold and lets it run over his fingers, the chill biting enough to almost hurt.

He cups water in his hands and splashes it onto his face, again and again, cold shock snapping against overheated skin. It erases the tear tracks but leaves everything else behind: the red, glassy eyes that won’t lie for him, the swollen skin around them, the angry flush crawling up his neck and across his cheeks. His chest still heaves, uneven and loud, eyebrows drawn tight together like his face has forgotten how to relax. When he finally lifts his head and looks at himself, it’s worse than he expected.

He looks undone. Not just crying—unraveled—stripped bare in a way that makes his stomach twist. This isn’t the solid version of him, the dependable one, the smiling one people lean on. This is every ugly thing he works so hard to bury staring back at him from the mirror. The jealousy, the envy, the need, the rot he keeps convincing himself isn’t there if he’s good enough, kind enough, man enough.

For a split second, a dangerous thought slips in.

If Bakugou saw him like this—really saw him—would he still be gentle? Would he reach for that quiet kindness he used to reserve just for him, the one that felt earned, the one that felt chosen? Or would this be too much, too real, too ugly to look at without flinching? Kirishima doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if showing the worst of himself would pull Bakugou closer or finally push him away for good. The thought fades as his breathing slowly, reluctantly begins to settle, each inhale still shaky but no longer tearing him apart. In that fragile calm, one truth sinks in so deep it feels carved into bone. Monoma is a fraud, a clown, a joke, but he isn’t a liar.

Not to the one person who would understand him in ways Kirishima never wanted to be understood. Not to the one person who could look at him—really look—and see exactly what he is beneath all the polish and effort and noise. He stares at his reflection, throat tight, chest aching. Monoma’s voice echoes in his head, colder now, stripped of laughter, stripped of cruelty—just fact.

"You haven’t changed at all."