So a new BNHA fic... What a surprise...

My previous fic got lost in the chaos of college and a reemergence of my One Piece obsession, and by the time I felt a spark to write again, the manga was to the point where Shouto's family was becoming a bigger focus. I want to wait and see what happens with Touya before I fix that up. So this time I wanted to focus on my favorite boy, Bakugou Katsuki. This ain't a happy fic thus far, but maybe we'll get that happy ending. Anyway, my boy is very sad and is having a rough time with it, so be gentle.

I don't have a lot planned out right now outside of my initial premise and some random future events, but I hope you enjoy what's here!

Thanks for reading!

Prologue

Bakugou Katsuki wakes to nothing.

Perhaps that isn't quite correct however. Bakugou Katsuki wakes to nothing that matters; there is nothing in the world that seems to mean anything anymore. There hasn't been anything for a while. He doesn't linger long on that fact; in fact, there is little that ever seems to hold his attention or thoughts these days.

There are tasks to be done, places to go, people to ignore, but everything is met with the same methodical monotony. He is as much a robot as any human is capable of being, the world happening around him, in spite of him, to spite him. And so he prefers not to think about anything he has to do anymore, content (if one could call such bland apathy that) to just let events roll over him, past him, but never allow them to pass through him anymore.

Being connected to events meant being connected to people mean nothing but pain.

Katsuki was quite accustomed to pain, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it, that didn't mean it didn't affect him anymore. Being accustomed to pain meant anticipating pain; it never meant accepting it. So Katsuki did what he could to avoid pain by avoiding doing anything else, by avoiding feeling anything else.

Sometimes though…

Sometimes something would happen to pierce his monotony; something would explode his life into a world of colors and sounds and feelings he thought he had left behind.

He didn't like explosions.

A piece of him found that idea amusing, the part of him that still scoffed at anything that was "lesser." He didn't think he liked that part of himself anymore; in fact, he sometimes thought he hated all of himself simply because of that part of him. If he was only as good as his weakest link then Katsuki thought he must be the sort of shitstain that shouldn't even exist anymore.

But thinking things like that meant imploding. And if anything was worse than explosions, the volatile nature that forced itself into the outside world, it was implosions. An implosion meant that the volatile nature caused him to crumble but took just as much of the outside world with it. Just as much was lost, only he was gone with it. At least at the end of the explosion, Katsuki was still there to linger in the guilt. He deserved that much at the very least.

And so when Bakugou Katsuki wakes to nothing, there is nothing out of the ordinary in that in the very least. Ordinary was safe; ordinary meant the volatile nature of his self and the world were both kept at bay.

Katsuki went about his morning tasks with the same monotony with which he did everything. He spent a long while staring blankly at his open closet before getting dressed. He didn't get a choice in his clothing; he had to wear his school uniform after all, so there was no need to look at the unchanging assortment of clothing for as long as he did, but there was something calming about letting his mind wander as his eyes drifted over shirts he hadn't worn in months. It had been a long while since he had worn anything but his uniform or his sweatshirt.

He packed his backpack. His notebook was there; his phone was there, but most importantly his sweatshirt (the same one he slept in and lingered in on weekends and did pretty much everything else in) was carefully folded and securely placed within its particular pocket. He had to make sure no one saw it. It was his. Personal, meant to be protected, and Katsuki thought he at least could do that much.

Katsuki walked to and from school as he had for years, but in recent memory, he has always gone the long way to school. Sometimes he lied to himself, making up excuses that it was for the extra exercise or that it was such a beautiful day that he had to enjoy it for just a bit longer. That didn't work as well when the thunderstorms raged, and he still refused to take the other route.

Katsuki hated thunderstorms and the concussive booming of thunder and blinding flashing of lightning, but he hated himself when he went the other way just a bit more.

So this morning like every other morning, Katsuki took the long way. He saw the stray cat that they– that he had once named Scrub. He gave the one-eared cat a couple of treats from the bag that he had carried in his backpack ever since. Sometimes Scrub followed Katsuki to school; he didn't today.

It was a good day today all things considered, so Katsuki couldn't really say he minded the lack of cat presence. There were worse days when the cat was sometimes the only reason he could even make it to school.

Instead of focusing on the cat along the way, however, Katsuki followed one of his "recommended exercises" and counted the cement blocks of the sidewalk. At this point Katsuki was fairly certain he had counted everything- from windows to trees to light posts- to school and back to his house at least twice, but he never remembered the numbers. They didn't matter.

Katsuki was meant to ground himself in the world around him in a way that was beneficial and not so "inherently self-destructive." Counting focused the mind and calmed the emotions, and even if he hadn't burst out in anger in months, Katsuki was still wary of that part of himself, so counting it was.

He didn't mind the counting. He didn't always think it really did anything to help him, but he saw nothing wrong in it either. It at least kept his mind occupied with something; his thoughts couldn't drift into darkness as easily. Numbers were too concrete for that.

Katsuki found himself liking numbers a lot more in recent times. They were rational and methodical and unwavering in their meaning and usage such that Katsuki found them far more comforting than any sort of solace human companionship could hope to bring. Numbers wouldn't let him down. And if this obsession stemmed into counting months and weeks and days and seconds then that was alright for him. He never shared that obsession with anyone else, or they'd take that away from him too.

He deserved everything else, but if they removed that necessity, Katsuki feared he would just shut down. He deserved to be so haunted by the passing of moments just like all his other punishments. And so what if this was the only one he could inflict upon himself, he had earned at least this much.

And so Katsuki counted sidewalk blocks as he counted minutes, but the minutes haunted him through the school day while the concrete faded back into the void of unnecessary disintegration of knowledge.

The day passed in the same haze that everything happened in. He thought that maybe someone had tried to speak with him at lunch over something, but for the life of him, Katsuki could not accurately recall who had spoken, what it was they had talked about, or even if it had truly happened. It hadn't.

At the end of the day, Katsuki waited until everyone had left the classroom before he even began packing up his bag. He allowed himself to open the pocket that held the precious sweatshirt and stroke the worn material for a bit of comfort before he completed the simple task. The tensions of the day seemed to ooze into the soft fabric. Sometimes Katsuki thought he relied upon it a little too much; however, he also knew within his soul (as cheesy as that sounded) that he would never be able to handle the world without it.

On his way home after school, Katsuki never went directly back to the house. Sometimes he wandered down streets his parents had long ago warned him away from; sometimes he sat near the park, away from anyone who might strike up conversation, and sometimes he just walked around the school, wandering to places that he knew he shouldn't go, thinking going to things he knew he couldn't change, wishing for changes he knew he wouldn't get.

Those were the hardest days. That meant he wouldn't get back to his house until well after his curfew, tired and sick to his stomach. There would be food left out on the table that he wouldn't touch, and instead Katsuki would trudge up to his room and lay in bed for long hours with only sleepless thoughts for company. He would inevitably give up on sleep all together and go wandering around the neighborhood instead, too early for anyone to bother him. He would think too much there too until he forgot the time again. He wouldn't go to school those days. He would go back to his house after that second set of wanderings and finally crash from the mental exhaustion and emotional anguish.

Those days were becoming less frequent however, and although that sounded as though it should be something to be celebrated, Katsuki feared what that meant which inevitably caused him to agonize over both the forgetting and what was being forgotten. He didn't want to forget; he couldn't; he shouldn't, and so, he wouldn't. He refused to let himself even ponder the idea, and yet he also couldn't keep such thoughts from his mind for very long at all.

Today though had been a good day all things considered, and the skies were clear, the scent of fall crisp in the air. Katsuki went to the park today.

The first thing he did once he got there was bring out the hooded sweatshirt. He pulled the faded green fabric over his head. It fell over his frame in such a way that the material seemed as though it was meant to be stretched out and oversized, but appeared on Katsuki's frame to fit him nearly perfectly. There was a disconnect in just this singular piece of clothing that seemed to reflect the phenomenon present in nearly every part of Katsuki's life.

Still Katsuki huddled himself into the gentle embrace of the worn fabric, dozing on grass as the sun slowly cast longer shadows across the park, alone with his thoughts as always.

Suddenly Katsuki bolted upright, familiar tones of laughter ringing in his ears.

He swiveled his head around, eyes wild and searching for a familiar face alight with that familiar laughter. His body was already moving onto its feet before he had a chance to tell it to do anything outside of instinct. A smile dared to twitch on his lips as his gaze darted around frantically.

No…

The boy was too young, too lanky, too brown and bland and not right.

Katsuki sighed, shaking his head violently to dispel empty daydreams.

Shaking his head turned to clutching his hair turned to choked gasps of sobs that he refused to voice. Tears stung his eyes, but he swallowed them, burying them along with the sobs deep within his stomach. He held them there as long as he could until his stomach churned from the effort, and his lungs burned for air.

He shivered violently from the weight of the raw emotions he refused to express.

"Are you alright?"

Red eyes already pressed into a glare found the face of a nondescript older woman. "Fine." Katsuki managed to scoff out. It sounded unconvincing even to him.

She didn't look like she believed him either, but she didn't press it any further, not vocally at least. She merely kept her eyebrows scrunched together and her lips pursed thinly as she scrutinized him.

Katsuki avoided her gaze, pulling the sweatshirt and his arms closer into his torso, futilely trying to protect himself from a threat that he imagined existed. He squirmed more and cleared his throat as the silence grew long and awkward.

"Well if you're sure…" she trailed off in a way that exaggerated what her eyes had already been saying.

Katsuki forced himself to strengthen his stance at that vocal accusation (though he rationally knew that calling it such made little to no sense) and look directly into her eyes, hoping that his gaze would show defiance he couldn't vocalize or even really convince himself to feel.

It must have been enough for her though as she merely let out a single huffed, "Fine," of her own before turning to walk back the way she came.

Now that he was on his feet and had a bit of strength back, Katsuki decided he might as well go home. He pulled the sweatshirt off carefully and gently placed it away once more before he moved to begin the trek back.

"You know," Katsuki startled; the woman apparently hadn't gone as far as he had thought. "That sweatshirt doesn't really seem to suit you."

If he had the energy and the will, Katsuki might have huffed out a laugh at that. Instead there was just a resigned sigh of, "Yeah, you're probably right…"

She smiled glumly in that way old women do when you know that they know more than even you yourself do. "It was nice to see you again Katsuki-kun."

Katsuki didn't want to think about why she knew who he was. The old lady was frankly rather creeping him out at that point, so he just half-nodded in a sort of agreement, sort of goodbye and brushed past her as quickly as he could.

"I hope you're happier the next time we meet Katsuki-kun."

It was said rather quietly all things considered. He didn't know if he was meant to hear it or not, but regardless, Katsuki ignored the lady's final words in favor of walking faster.

On the way home he counted the people he saw, overtly paranoid that one of them would begin wondering over his mental state and emotional well-being as well. They didn't, but then most of Katsuki's fears were unfounded.

He was home in time for dinner tonight. His dad tried to make conversation and ask about his day. Katsuki sometimes responded. Dinner was a very quiet affair as everything else in the Bakugou house seemed to be these days. Katsuki couldn't say he minded it that way. At least his mother wasn't getting on his case anymore.

Katsuki was almost ashamed that he didn't miss the way she would badger and yell at him before. She barely said a word to him now and made eye contact with him even less. And how sad was that that Katsuki couldn't even recall the last time his mother had even looked at him, and how much worse was it that Katsuki couldn't even say he really cared if she did.

Dad had always acted like a bridge between their vibrant personalities, but the strain was becoming too great these days. Katsuki and Mitsuki's relationship was broken seemingly beyond repair. There was too much that had been said and left unapologetically unaddressed, and even more that had never been said, that now if they even wanted to reach out to each other, they would just inevitably hurt themselves even more struggling through the pieces.

The bridge was thick with daggers of distrust and scraps of broken sentiment that it was a wonder Masaru himself hadn't broken apart from the weight of it all. He was a tightrope at this point, a thread stretched between two irreconcilable plains.

So Katsuki ate as quickly as he dared, excusing himself from the table to clean his dishes before secluding himself to the confines of his room. He sighed as he closed the door behind him, leaning against it as his shoulders relaxed. He was always tense after dealing with his family for any extended period of time.

He pulled the sweatshirt back out, stripping down to only his boxers before climbing into the worn fabric once more. He huddled beneath it and his blankets before beginning to fully shut down.

Katsuki was exhausted from the day in every meaning of the word, and it seemed that as soon as his head hit the pillow, his eyes were slipping shut, and he was quickly following them into the quiet darkness of sleep. He didn't even have the moment to hope that nightmares would stay far away from his peaceful escape into the world of darkened bliss.

He did not often dream, or at least, Katsuki did not often remember them, but when he did. When he did, they were never something he could forget easily, always terrors that lingered when his eyes slipped shut during the rest of the day. He did not dream often, but when he did, they were always nightmares.

And so Katsuki drifted easily off to sleep, leaving the world of nightmares known as reality behind.