up in the air
x
a companion to in your orbit.
x
Lately, Bakugou Katsuki found himself staring at the back of Uraraka Ochako's head with an emotion that he racked his brain to find, but he couldn't name. He assumed it was annoyance—he felt annoyance with anything and everyone, but that wasn't quite the feeling that floored through his body when his mind drifted to the bubbly girl with the space quirk. It almost felt like the special annoyance Kirishima gave him—the annoyance he found himself not only tolerating, but sometimes enjoying—but that was a little off. Sometimes, it felt like annoyance he felt when he looked at Deku—the annoyance that he was used to, and sometimes detested. But when he thought about it, the annoyance she produced was distinct to her, a foreign feeling that he was not able to name, much less able to deal with. He stifled a yawn and propped his face up with his hand as he gave up focusing on the lesson and surrendered himself to stare at her for whatever was left of the class period. Before he knew it, his eyes were drooping and he found himself unable to focus on anything except the back of his eyelids.
"You've been really tired lately," Kirishima whispered to him from his desk on Bakugou's right.
"No shit, Sherlock," Bakugou hissed back. Yeah, lately he's been tired because lately Little Miss Space Cadet's been crashing into his window whenever there's a strong enough breeze.
"I don't get why," Kirishima whispered again, "you go to bed at like, nine-thirty." And this is where the annoyance creeps in. Yes, Kirishima was Bakugou's best friend, much to his dismay, and this is why. He was really caring, and he didn't need too much reassurance—he knew his place and why he deserved to be there—but some things, he just didn't pick up on. Like the fact that they were supposed to be in class and not talking to each other.
"You don't need to know why," he bit back, giving up.
"You've been looking at Ochako a lot lately," he whispered, thoughtfully, "Is she keeping you up?"
"You have no idea," Bakugou whispered back, his voice defeated and soft—a surprise to hear in him. This rendered Kirishima silent, and he kept that silence until the end of class. Bakugou didn't know what thought were bubbling in his dear friend's almost empty head, but he knew that it was probably nothing good. Still, he couldn't find the energy within him to care. The only thing he found energy for was to close his bright red eyes and rest his head on his hand, and pray that he wasn't missing important.
x
Turns out, the only thing he missed was the disapproving glare from Aizawa, and the glare—and a strong lecture—was given after everyone else was dismissed. Talks of 'the real world' and 'countless sleepless nights' were supposed to be drilled into his head, and it would've been—had he gotten more than three hours of sleep. It was ironic, he felt, that he wasn't taking in a lecture about sleep because of his lack of sleep. Maybe if he had some time to think on it, he'd be more willing to listen—but right now, all he cared about was getting into bed.
That is, until he ran into the cause of his sleepiness, lurking right outside of the door. If he was more awake, he'd probably had noticed that she was standing there the entire time—but that was neither here nor there. She stood there, looking at him with bright amber eyes, saying nothing—every now and again she'd open her mouth to speak but it seemed like she couldn't find the words to say what she needed to say. Her fingers fiddled with the hem of her dark green skirt, and she looked down at her shoes before she could do anything else. "Look," Bakugou started, yawning, "if you don't have anything to say—"
"I do," she said, loudly. She snapped her mouth shut, and drew back a little, shrinking into herself. He rolled his eyes and yawned loudly, not bothering to cover his mouth. "Is that because of me?" she asked, her voice soft. Her wide eyes looked a little sad, but reached up to touch him, brushing her fingers against the purple bags that were starting to form underneath his eyelids.
"Yeah," he yawned, "After you crash into my window at the ass-crack of dawn, I can't get back to sleep."
"Sometimes, I can't get back to sleep, either," she admitted, loosely intertwining her hand with his and pulling him out of the building. "It makes me sick," she explained, "and after throwing up and dry heaving, I can't find it in me to go back to sleep." The sun burst down on their faces as they exited the building, blinding them to the world outside of the school's walls. Eventually, their eyes would adjust—but for now, they were both blinded to everything and she was following off muscle memory and he was finding his way through the sound of her soft voice alone. "I can go over what you missed in class with you—and give you some tips on staying up, if you'd like."
"It's the least you could do," he replied grumpily. Somewhere down the line he found his fingers tightly holding on to hers—wary of her quirk but not particularly caring.
"I also have some eye cream to reduce the bags."
"The only thing I need to reduce them is to be asleep," he said, offhandledly.
"You can sleep with me," she offered, a light smile on her face. "Keep me from floating away and waking anybody else up."
"Yeah," he hummed, resting his head on her shoulder, "Whatever."
x
Unsurprisingly, Ochako found herself floating outside of her bedroom later that evening, crashing into Bakugou's window once again. He swore she did it on purpose, that she was determined to wake him and only him up from his sleep so he could perform terribly in class—but then he stopped his conspiracy theory and lept out to the window to play Prince Charming and save this almost damsel-in-distress. Both awake and exhausted, the two stumbled back into the dorms, tripping over their own feet and landing on the couches in the common area. Too tired to move after days of combat training and Bakugou pretending to be a rescue hero, they fell asleep where they were, legs tangled and arms wrapped around each other in an almost-sweet embrace.
This is how Kirishima found them the next morning—and this is how Kirishima and Iida became convinced that the two heroes-in-training were pursuing a relationship that they wanted to keep hidden. Kirishima never found it more difficult to keep a secret.