He's tired.
It's no eureka moment, still tangled up in Bakugou's bedsheets while he snores millimeters away, oblivious. It's nothing so revelatory as realizing some essential truth about himself or the world, the kind of thing Red Riot would've delivered as a one-liner before dealing the finishing blow, coat flared behind his shoulders. It is, simply, the last of many pieces falling into place.
Bakugou would've never in a million years told anyone else even if they already knew - which, he suspects, most everyone in the class does. To be fair, he's always been a bit stubborn himself - that was something Bakugou had never needed to impress on him - but really, at this point he wonders what the point is at all. A glance, a hand on the shoulder, the stress on a particular fuck - he thinks he's playing it cool, but when it comes to these situations, Bakugou's never been one for subtlety. Even he can read the meaning loaded in every mundane gesture like a muted explosion - the sound's duller, but you can still see the flash and hear it.
He's tired of the way Bakugou refuses to acknowledge what's between them except when they're pressed together, sweat-soaked and hungry, at his flat or Bakugou's or wherever they can secret themselves away for an hour, two hours at a time. He's tired of the litany of nicknames he's collected, the way Bakugou never says Eijiro or Kirishima except when he's desperate - a rarity, others might assume, and they'd be right, because Bakugou is who he is. To tell the truth, he's tired of Bakugou - his scowl, his nails scraping against his skin, his fingers wrapping around his neck with a singular command: obey. Because Bakugou needs this, and, when all's said and done, he guesses he's partly to blame because he's all too eager to be whatever it is that Bakugou needs.
A man can handle anything. A man is strong. Slowly but surely, Bakugou keeps chipping away and he takes it, lets him spit on him, hardens himself by the slightest degree so as to not feel the burn of Bakugou's hands searing their mark into his back.
Maybe it'll pass, he thinks. Another year comes and goes, and he keeps thinking, next year, tomorrow, he'll wake up from this long dream and it'll be fine. Him, Bakugou, this force that binds them - everything will reawaken whole; he can smile again.
Wishful thinking is its own form of suicide.
Someone said that, once. It could have been Red Riot. It could have been nothing special; just the idle thoughts of an ordinary boy.
He's tired of waiting for something that will never come.
Carefully, he gathers up his things and walks to the door. Before he leaves, he turns around, expecting - maybe stupidly - for Bakugou to stir and ask him where he's going, and he'll be at a loss for words, and Bakugou will seize that chance to pull him back into his arms where it's warm. He thinks he'd like for that to happen. Almost.
But of course, it doesn't.
And so, he steps out into the hallway and, quietly, pulls the door shut behind him.