—
June 24th, 2005
Irusu, Japan
—
—1—
Kids were handing over their half-price admission fees at the Aladdin's box-office window and going into the lobby. Looking through the bank of glass doors, Bakugo could see a crowd around the candy counter. The popcorn machine was in overdrive, spilling out gallons of the stuff, it's glass opening clanking against its metal sides every few seconds. He didn't see Sero anywhere. He asked Todoroki if he had spotted him. He shook his head.
"Tch. You really aren't any help, are you half and half?"
"Maybe he already went in."
"He said he didn't have any money. And the Daughter of Frankenstein there would never let him in without a ticket." Bakugo cocked a thumb at Mrs. Kohaku, who had been the ticket-taker at the Aladdin since a time well before the pictures had begun to talk. Her hair, dyed an inky black, was so thin you could see her scalp beneath. Her pink Lipstick was so luminescent it was hard to look at. Wild blotches of rose-red that couldn't possibly be applied correctly covered her cheeks. Her eyebrows were drawn on in black pencil. Mrs. Kohaku hated all children equally.
"If he doesn't show up in the next five minutes we're going in without him." Bakugo said, "Where the hell is he?"
"You can buy him a ticket and leave it at the box-office," Todoroki said, reasonably enough. "Then when he comes-"
But just then Sero appeared around the corner of Main Street and Ori Road. He was puffing, and his thin chest heaved underneath his ratty hoodie. He saw Bakugo and raised one hand to wave. Then he saw Todoroki and made a confused face. He finished his wave and then walked slowly to where they stood under the Aladdin's marquee.
"Hi, Katsuki," he said, and then looked at Todoroki briefly, looking a little put off- and almost... guilty? "Hi, Shouto."
"Hello, Sero," Todoroki responded, and a strange silence fell between the two of them- somewhat awkward, but there was also something else there that Bakugo couldn't pinpoint. He felt the vaguest tinge of jealousy because something had passed between them and whatever it had been, he had been excluded from it.
"Oi, loser, what took you so long?" Bakugo asked. "Thought you went chicken on me. These movies are gonna scare the piss straight out of your bladder."
Bakugo started for the box-office and Sero grabbed for his faux leather jackets sleeve. Sero started to speak, eyes shifting around anxiously. "I was here," he said, "but I went up the street and around the corner when those guys came along."
"What guys?" Bakugo asked, but he thought he already knew.
"Shigaraki. Twice. Kurogiri. Some girl around our age, too."
Bakugo could feel a cruel smile making its way across his face, a feisty blaze beginning to burn in his chest at the possibility of confrontation. "They must have already gone inside the theater. I don't see 'em buying candy."
"Yeah. I guess so."
"If I was them, I wouldn't bother paying to see a couple of horror movies," Bakugo snorted, pulling his sleeve out of Sero's grasp. "I'd just stay home and look in a mirror. Save some cash."
Todoroki smiled softly at that, but Sero's smile was screaming with anxiety. Shigaraki had maybe only started out to hurt him that day last week, but he had ended up meaning to kill him. Sero was quite sure of that. He pulled unconsciously at the athletic's tape on his arm.
"Tell you what, Skeletor," Bakugo said, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels as they waited in line. "We'll go up in the balcony. They'll all be sitting down in the second or third row with their feet up."
"You sure?" Sero asked. He was not at all sure Bakugo truly understood what sort of things those kids were capable of... Shigaraki, of course, being capable of the worst.
Bakugo, who had barely escaped what might have been a really bad beating at the hands of Shigaraki and his dumbass friends three months ago (he had managed to elude them in the toy department of Aizawa's Drug Store, of all places), understood more about Shigaraki and his band of idiot monkey's than Sero thought he did.
"If I wasn't fucking positive, I wouldn't go in," he said. "I'm not one to say no to a fight, string bean, but I'm not an idiot either."
"Besides, if they give us any trouble, we'll just tell Tiashiro to kick them out," Todoroki said. Tiashiro was the charismatic man who managed the Aladdin, and was almost as skinny as Sero himself. He was now selling candy and popcorn, chanting his litany of "Wait your turn, wait your turn, wait your turn." In his red polo shirt with "The Aladdin" printed in gold, curly, script on the breast. Sero looked doubtfully from Todoroki to Tiashiro to Bakugo.
"You can't let those fuckers run your life, skelly." Bakugo said, his tone only the tiniest bit softer as he trained his eyes on his sneakers instead of Sero's anxious, almond-shaped, eyes. "don't you know that?"
"I guess so," Sero said and sighed. He knew no such thing.
"Tch... We'll wait until the show starts before we go in," Bakugo said and punched Sero on the arm. "shit, Beanpole, you wanna live forever?"
Sero's brows drew together, and then he snorted laughter. Bakugo also laughed. Looking at them, Todoroki's small smile grew.
Bakugo approached the ticket booth for the second time that day. Clown-face (he shivered involuntarily) McGee looked at him sourly.
"Gimme three tickets for the half-off double-feature," Bakugo said curtly, slamming his money onto the counter.
"Ugh. No respect for anyone... if it were up to me you'd of been banned years ago." Liver Lips barked through the round hole cut in the glass, and something about the way her painted eyebrows were going up and down unsettled Bakugo so much that he had to avert his gaze.
"Well, it's a good thing you aren't in charge then. You'd go bankrupt without me."
"Unfortunately, I think that's true." The ancient woman drawled, eying Bakugo distastefully. Three tickets popped out of the slot. Bakugo took them. Liver lips rammed a quarterback at him. "don't be smart, don't throw popcorn boxes, don't holler, don't run in the lobby, don't run in the aisles."
"Mhm... mhm... yeah," Bakugo said, backing away to where Sero and Todoroki stood. He said to them, "It always warms my heart to see an old bitch like that who really likes kids."
They stood outside awhile longer, waiting for the show to start. Liver Lips glared at them suspiciously from her glass cage. Bakugo entertained Todoroki with the story of the dam in the Barrens. Todoroki was nodding along, smiling more than Bakugo had ever seen him in his entire life. Even Sero was grinning a little, although his grey eyes kept shifting toward the Aladdin's glass doors nervously.
—2—
The balcony was okay. During the first movie, "The Blob", Bakugo spotted Shigaraki Tomura and his shit-kicking friends. They were down in the second row, just as he had figured they would be. There was a blonde girl their age with the older boys as well, just as Sero had said. All four of them sat with their motorhuckle boots cocked up on the seats in front of them. Tiashiro would come down and tell them to put their feet on the floor. They would. Tiashiro would leave. Up went the motorhuckle boots again as soon as he did. Five or ten minutes later Tiashiro would return and the entire charade would be acted out again. Tiashiro didn't quite have the guts to kick them out and they knew it.
"The Blob" was alright, but Bakugo found the late 50's practical effects to be very distracting. "American Werewolf in London", however, Bakugo found fantastic. The transformation scene had been horrifically grotesque, and Bakugo had adored it all the same- even if it had left him feeling a little ill, imagining himself being forced to go through that unbearable agony every time a full moon rose.
Todoroki sat between Bakugo and Sero, ate popcorn from both their boxes and stared passively at the movie screen, the tiniest hint of excitement shining in his eyes.
Bakugo felt totally satisfied, if a little headachy, once the credits began to roll and the lights flickered on. He let out a loud yawn and stood to stretch out his stiff muscles, leaning backward to crack his back.
Sero twitched at his sleeve. "They saw us, Katsuki," he said in a dry, dismayed voice.
"Huh?"
"Shigaraki and Kurogiri. They looked up here on their way out. They saw us. I'm dead."
"Okay, okay," Bakugo said. "Stop blubbering, Skelly. We'll just go out the side door."
They went down the stairs, Bakugo in the lead, Todoroki in the middle, Sero bringing up the rear and looking back over his shoulder every two steps or so.
"Have those guys really got it in for you, Sero?" Todoroki asked.
"Yeah, I guess they do," Sero said. "I got in a fight with Shigaraki on the last day of school, that's where I got this." He held up his taped arm weakly.
"Did he beat you up?"
"Not as much as he wanted to," Sero said. "That's why he's still mad, I guess."
"Chappie also lost a fair amount of skin," Bakugo snorted, "Not that he ever took very good care of it- the dude's lips are dryer than the Sahara desert."
"Gross."
"Yeah, no shit blank-face."
"... blank... face?..."
Bakugo sighed, "forget it, Shouto- Anyway, I don't think Shigaraki was very pleased with his injuries, either. In fact, I heard he was downright pissed." He pushed open the exit door and the three of them stepped out into the alley that ran between the Aladdin and The Ice Cream Bar. An orange tabby which had been rooting in a garbage can hissed and ran past them down the alley, which was blocked at the far end by a boarded-up fence. The cat scrambled up and over. A trashcan lid clattered. Sero jumped, grabbed Bakugo's arm, and was immediately shaken off. "Sorry, Katsuki."
"Yeah, well-" Bakugo began, annoyance making its way into his tone.
"And what do we have here, hm?" Shigaraki Tomura asked from behind them, a sadistically happy rise in his voice.
Startled, the three of them turned around. Shigaraki, Kurogiri, and Twice were standing at the mouth of the alley. The blonde girl, who Bakugo now realized was Toga Himiko, stood in between Shigaraki and Twice, a malicious grin on her face.
"Oh shit, I knew this was going to happen," Sero moaned.
From the corner of his eye, Bakugo saw Todoroki turn back toward the Aladdin, but the exit door had closed behind them and there was no way to open it from the outside.
"Say goodbye, Ana," said Shigaraki, and suddenly ran at Sero.
The things that happened next seemed to Bakugo both then and later like something out of a movie-such things simply did not happen in real life. In real life the little kids got a good punch or two in and took their beatings, picked up their teeth, and went home- it's not something Bakugo liked to acknowledge (even to himself) but deep down he knew that was just the natural order of things.
It didn't happen that way this time.
Todoroki stepped forward and to one side, face as cool and indifferent as ever, almost as if he intended to meet Shigaraki, perhaps shake his hand. Bakugo could hear the cleats on Shigaraki's boots rapping. Kurogiri and Twice were coming after him; Toga stood at the mouth of the alley, guarding it.
"Go away." It came out in a monotone voice, but Bakugo could sense the dangerous edge trying to creep its way out from behind the dull curtain concealing Todoroki Shouto's true nature.
Shigaraki took on a burst of speed, barreling at Todoroki now- crazed grin widening-
Bakugo stuck out his foot.
Shigaraki ran into it and fell forward. The brick surface of the alley was slippery with spilled garbage from the overflowing cans on the Ice Cream Bar's side. Shigaraki went skidding like a shuffleboard weight.
He started to get up, his shirt blotched with coffee grounds, mud, and expired sundae toppings. "Oh you guys are gonna DIE!" he screamed, his ruby eyes blazing with murderous intent.
Until this moment Sero had been terrified. Now, just as it had that day on the bridge, everything began to slow. He ran at Shigaraki, His face was pale and furious. He drew his foot back and threw all his weight into a kick at his right kneecap, causing the older boy to cry out in pain and crumble to the ground.
Bakugo lurched forward and yanked Sero back by his hood. Sero quickly got the hint and began to run toward the mouth of the alley with him and Todoroki. Kurogiri jumped in front of them. Flashing him his own wide grin, Bakugo lowered his head and rammed it into Kurogiri's middle- causing the teen to groan and collapse against the wall. Bakugo let out a triumphant, mocking, laugh.
Twice was just able to grab a fistful of Todoroki's multicolored locks and whip him smartly against the Aladdin's brick wall. Todoroki bounced off and ran down the alley, rubbing his arm. Bakugo ran after him, grabbing a garbage-can lid on the way. Twice swung a fist at him so hard Bakugo could hear it whistling through the air. Bakugo pistoned out the galvanized steel lid. Twice's fist met it. There was a loud bonnngg!-a sound that was almost mellow. Bakugo felt the shock travel all the way up his arm to the shoulder. Twice screamed and began to hop up and down, holding his swelling hand.
"Moron!" Bakugo cackled, adrenaline rushing through his body. For this one moment, all memories of what had happened in Eri's bedroom, the Kitsune statue in Ukiyo park, the haunting screams during David's on-screen Transformation, and the stories the others had shared down in the barrens the week before completely left his subconscious- for that one instant, he was free.
Kurogiri, who had looped around the back of the Ice Cream Bar and was once again at the mouth of the alley with Toga, had caught Todoroki. Sero was fighting with him, while simultaneously trying to ward off Toga who was rabbit-punching the poor kid in the small of his back. Bakugo swung his foot. It connected with Toga's left hip. The girl howled with pain. Bakugo grabbed Todoroki's arm in one hand, Sero's in the other.
"Run!" he shouted.
Kurogiri let go of Todoroki and looped a punch at Bakugo. His ear exploded with momentary pain, then went numb and became very warm. A high whistling sound began to whine in his head. It sounded like the noise you were supposed to listen for when the school nurse put the earphones on you to test your hearing.
They ran down Main Street. People turned to look at them. Sero's thin legs pushed him forward. Todoroki's peppermint hair bounced prettily. Bakugo let go of Sero and Todoroki's arms and readjusted his jacket back onto his shoulders. His head was still ringing and he believed his ear was going to swell, but he felt wonderful. He started laughing. Sero joined him. Todoroki flashed them both an amused smile.
They took a sharp left onto Machi Drive and collapsed on a bench in front of the police station: at that moment it seemed the only place in Irusu where they might possibly be safe. Todoroki looped an arm around Sero's neck and Bakugo's. He gave them a furious hug.
"That was great!" His eyes sparkled and Bakugo and Sero jumped at the sudden volume and energy in his voice. "did you see those guys? Did you see them?"
"I saw them, all right," Sero gasped, laughing exasperatedly. "And I never want to see them again."
Bakugo kept expecting Shigaraki's gang to come around the corner onto Machi Drive and take after them again, police station or not. Still, he couldn't fight the grin on his face. Todoroki was right. It had been great. He began to laugh along with Sero, not even bothering to throw Todoroki's arm off.
A cop poked his head out of an open second-floor window and shouted: "You kids get out of here! Right now! Take a walk!"
Bakugo opened his mouth to say something and Sero kicked his foot. "shut up, Katsuki."
"Tch." Bakugo narrowed his eyes at Sero in annoyance and kicked him back, but his smile never left. "What do you guys want to do? Wanna go find Shigaraki and ask him if he wants to work it out over a game of Monopoly?"
"Bite your tongue," Todoroki said, shoving the blonde.
"Huh? What the hell does that mean?" Bakugo shoved back.
"Never mind," Todoroki sighed, closing his eyes. "I forget you don't have any sense of tact."
Hesitantly, Sero turned to Todoroki and asked: "Are you okay? That hair pull looked painful."
Todoroki smiled at him gently. "It wasn't that bad. I appreciate your concern, though."
"Let's go down in the Barrens," Bakugo proposed, not knowing what else to do as he watched the officer from before let out an angry huff and begin to march off- presumably towards the stairs to come down and yell at them.
And so that was where they went... or where they escaped. Bakugo would think later that it set a pattern for the rest of the summer. The Barrens had become their place. Todoroki, like Sero on the day of his first encounter with Chappie and the dumbfuck's band, had never been down there before. He walked between Bakugo and Sero as the three of them moved single-file down the path. Even his footsteps against the stick and crunchy leaf-covered ground were quiet.
They crossed the arm of the Shibui the boys had dammed up (the stream divided about seventy yards farther up along its course and became one again about two hundred yards farther on toward town), using stepping-stones downstream of the place where the dam had been, found another path, and eventually came out on the bank of the stream's eastern fork, which was much wider than the other. It sparkled in the afternoon light. To his left, Sero could see two of those concrete cylinders with the manhole covers on top. Below them, jutting out over the stream, were large concrete pipes. Thin streams of muddy water poured over the lips of these outflow pipes and into the Shibui. At one point in time, they'd been connected to Irusu's sewage system, they had been reworked into a draining system sometime in the '70s, but according to Mr. Torino, you could still access the Sewer lines through these manholes if you really wanted to.
"It's so beautiful here," Todoroki finally commented.
"Yeah, not bad," Bakugo agreed. "The blackflies are gone and there's enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away."
Sero looked at Todoroki hopefully. "Got any cigarettes?"
"No," he said. "I had a couple but I smoked them yesterday. I'll have to get Natsuo to grab some more packs when he finally decides to come back home."
"Where's he at?"
Todoroki shrugged. "He got into a fight with our dad Wednesday and left. Might've gone to Fuyumi's or Touya's... he could also be at his girlfriend's house- that one's more likely than the other two due to distance."
"Oh."
The blast of an air-horn saved them from an awkward pause and they all watched as a long freight rumbled across the embankment on the far side of the Barrens and toward the trainyards. 'Shit, if it was a passenger train they'd have a great view,' Bakugo thought, kicking absentmindedly at the dirt. 'First, the poor-folks' houses down in Birch Wood Valley, then the bamboo swamps on the other side of the Shibui, and finally, before leaving the Barrens, the smoldering hell-pit that was the town dump.'
For just a moment he found himself thinking about Kirishima's story again-the leper under the abandoned house on Neibolt Street. He pushed it out of his mind and turned to Sero.
"So what was your favorite part, string bean?"
"Huh?" Sero turned to him guiltily. As Todoroki looked out across the Shibui, lost in thoughts of his own, he had been looking at his profile... and at the bruise on his collarbone.
"Of the movies, Idiot. What was your favorite part?"
"I liked it when the blob swallowed that old man whole," Sero said. "That was my favorite part."
"That was gross," Todoroki said, his nose wrinkling the tiniest bit. "I hate things like that."
"Yeah? And why's that half and half?" Bakugo asked, immediately interested.
"The texture."
"The what?"
"The texture." Todoroki's nose wrinkled again, and Bakugo watched as he pulled his brother's jacket tightly around him. "The thought of something with a jello-like texture consuming me, filling my airways with slimy gunk, making it so my limbs can sort of move but not really, makes me feel sick."
Bakugo made a face. "That's stupid."
"Shut up. I was actually starting to sort of enjoy your company and then you go and do that."
"Do what?"
"Be yourself."
"Asshole. It's not my fault you piss yourself from fear every time you see a jello cup."
"I'm not scared of it. It disgusts me. There's a difference."
"Sure."
"I wish I had a man-eating blob to sick on Shigaraki." Sero suddenly chimed in.
Bakugo laughed a little, and punched Sero harshly on the arm, sending the poor kid stumbling forward. "Good idea, Skelly! Too bad the fuckers skin is so dry the poor creature wouldn't be able to get him down."
"We better watch out for those guys," Todoroki said, though he sounded amused. His fingers brushed the bruise on his collarbone. "My dad lost it on me the other day for missing a dirty dish in the sink. Once a week is enough."
There was a moment of silence that might have been awkward but was not. Bakugo broke it by saying his favorite part was the transformation scene. They talked about the movies-and other horror movies they had seen, Anime, manga, western comics- during that hour, Bakugo and Sero very quickly learned that Todoroki knew next to nothing about pop culture and took it upon themselves to educate him. Todoroki spotted daisies growing on the riverbank and picked them, making a flower crown for each of them as they talked to him about what was popular.
The conversation was fading a little when they heard the crackling sounds of people approaching along the path. The three of them turned quickly toward the sound and Bakugo was suddenly, acutely aware that the river was at their backs. There was no place to run.
The voices drew closer. They got to their feet, Bakugo and Todoroki moving a little in front of Sero without even thinking about it.
The screen of bushes at the end of the path shook-and suddenly Deku emerged. A blonde kid was with him, a kid Bakugo only knew a little bit. His name was Ojirou or something like that and he liked to show off his karate moves at recess. He also had a bit of a lisp- though it was only really noticeable if he had to speak for a long period of time. Bakugo assumed he must also go down to Ashikawa for speech therapy.
"Look who finally got his sorry ass down here!" Bakugo called up at the two newcomers.
Deku looked down at them and grinned-and a peculiar certainty washed over Bakugo as Deku's forest-green eyes looked from him to Sero to Todoroki and then back to Ojirou Whatever-His-Name-Was. Todoroki was a part of them. Deku's eyes said so. Ojirou What's-His-Name was not. He might stay for awhile today, might even come down to the Barrens again-no one would tell him 'no, so sorry, the Losers' Club membership is full, we already have our speech-impediment member-' but he was not part of it. He was not part of them.
This thought led to a sudden, irrational fear so great Bakugo's knees almost buckled underneath him. For a moment he felt the way you did when you suddenly realized you had swum out too far and the water was over your head. There was an intuitive flash: 'We're being drawn into something. Being picked and chosen. None of this is accidental. Are we all here yet?'
No.
Almost. There was only one piece left. Bakugo could feel it in his bones, vibrating under his skin.
Then the intuition fell into a meaningless jumble of thought-like the smash of a glass pane on a stone floor. Besides, it didn't matter. Deku was here, and Deku would take care; Deku would not let things get out of control- he was too much of a baby to let things go too far. Yeah, Deku would stop things if they became to- to-
(Real)
-weird. That was his role in the group. Bakugo was the charming asshole, Sero was the laid-back somewhat shy guy, Iida was the annoying mom, Kirishima was the self-conscious friend uplifter, Todoroki was the mysterious and stoic one, and Deku- Deku was the fixer. The leader.
Bakugo tore his eyes away from Deku and Ojirou and noticed something interesting. Todoroki's eyes were fixed on Deku, a little wider, bottom lip between his teeth- and then farther, to Sero's eyes, fixed knowingly and unhappily on Todoroki's face. Deku was also the strongest of them-and not just physically. There was a good deal more to it than that, but since Bakugo did not know either the word charisma or the full meaning of the word magnetism... he only felt that Deku's strength ran deep and might manifest itself in many ways, some of them probably unexpected. And Bakugo suspected if Todoroki fell for him, or "got a crush on him," or whatever they called it, that weird cloud of sadness... pity?... surrounding Sero would not grow. ('as it would,' Bakugo thought, 'if he got a crush on me') he would see it as nothing but natural. (Though, Bakugo had a feeling it wasn't really Sero who would feel the true weight of an emotional blow that great)
...And there was something else: Deku was good. It was stupid to think such a thing (he did not, in fact, precisely think it; he felt it), but there it was. Goodness and strength seemed to radiate from Deku. He was like a knight in an old movie, a movie that was corny but still had the power to make you cry and cheer and clap at the end. Strong and good. And five years later, after his memories of what had happened in Irusu both during and before that summer had begun to fade rapidly, it would occur to a Bakugo Katsuki in his mid-teens that the charity director who gave him his community service High School credit reminded him of Midoriya Izu-
But his memory, just as Deku had done since the December of 2004, would stutter before he could truly remember the name of the boy who had lived next door to him for eleven years, and it'd fade unrealized into his subconscious once again.
Deku put his hands on his hips, smiled sunnily, and said: "Wuh-wuh-well, h-here we a-a-are... now wuh-wuh-wuh-what are w-we d-d-doing?"
Yes, Deku was good.
Not that Bakugo would ever tell him that, of course. In fact, he's pretty sure he rather die.
—3—
—
June 29th, 2005
Irusu, Japan
—
Five days later, as June drew toward its end, Deku told Bakugo that he wanted to go down to Neibolt Street and investigate under the porch where Kirishima had seen the leper.
They had just arrived back at their homes, standing on the shared plot of grass that separated their driveways. Deku had silver propped up against the transformer. Bakugo's own red and black racing bike laid carelessly in the grass at their feet.
Silver's wire basket was full of play six-shooters, two of them Deku's, three of them Bakugo's. They had been down in the Barrens for most of the afternoon, playing guns. Todoroki Shouto had shown up around three o'clock, wearing faded jeans and toting a very old Daisy air rifle (which had once belonged to his eldest brother, Touya) that had lost most of its pop-when you pulled its tape-wrapped trigger, it uttered a wheeze that sounded to Bakugo more like someone sitting on a very old Whoopee Cushion than a rifle shot. Todoroki's specialty was Sniping. He was very good at climbing trees and shooting the unwary as they passed below. The bruise on his collarbone had faded to a faint yellow.
"What did you say?" Bakugo asked. He was shocked... but also a little intrigued.
"I w-w-want to take a l-look under that puh-puh-porch," Deku said. He sounded determined but he wouldn't look at Bakugo. There was a hard spot of flush high on each of his freckled cheekbones. Bakugo Mitsuki was on the porch, reading a book. She waved to them and called, "Hi, boys! Want some iced tea?"
"No!" Bakugo called back, shooting her a fiery look- which she returned right back before turning to go inside, presumably to make some tea anyways. Bakugo looked back at Deku: "There isn't going to be anything there, idiot. He probably just saw a hobo and got all bent out of shape, for God's sake. You know how much his bitch of a mom's poisoned his dumb little mind."
"Y-Yeah, I nun-know. B-But ruh-remem-member the pi-pi-picture in the a-album?"
Bakugo shifted his feet, uncomfortable. Deku raised his right hand. The Band-Aids were gone now, but Bakugo could see circlets of healing scab on Deku's first three fingers.
And then, as it usually went when things went in a direction Bakugo didn't want it to, fury began to burn at the back of his throat: "Yeah, but-"
"-Luh-luh-listen to me-me," Deku interrupted. He began to speak very slowly, holding Bakugo's blazing eyes with his own. Once more he related the similarities between Sero's story and Kirishima's... and tied those to what they had seen in the picture that moved. He suggested again that the clown had murdered the kids who had been found dead in Irusu since the previous December. "A-And muh-muh-haybe not just t-hem," Deku finished. "W-What about a-a-all the o-ones who d-disappeared? W-What about Juh-J-Jirou Kee-Kyoka?"
"Shit, her fucking stepfather scared her off," Bakugo hissed under his breath, a sick feeling beginning to tap at the back of his mind. "don't you watch the news?"
"W-well, m-maybe he d-d-did, and m-maybe he d-d-didn't," Deku said. "I knew her a l-lih-little bit, t-too, and I nuh-nuh-know her s-step d-dad b-b-beat her. And I a-also k-know she u-u-used to stay out n-nuh-hights s-sometimes to g-get aw-way from h-h-him."
"So what, freckles? Are you trying to say the goddamn clown got her while she was staying away," Bakugo challenged, took a step towards Deku, the sick feeling growing stronger. "Is that it? Huh? Is that your stupid dumbass theory?"
Deku nodded.
"What do you want, then? It's fucking autograph?"
"If the cluh-cluh-cluh-hown killed the o-o-others, then h-he k-k-killed Eh-Eh-Eri," Deku said. His eyes caught Bakugo's. They were like slate-hard, uncompromising, unforgiving. "I w-want to k-k-kill it."
"Jesus-fucking-Christ, you've gone mental." Bakugo breathed, knowing some of his sick-terror was leaking through. "How the hell are you going to do that?"
"Yuh-Yuh-Yagi's got a huh-hunting r-ruh-rifle," Deku said. His eyes were wide, and a little wild. "H-He doesn't nuh-know I know, but I d-d-do. It's on the top sh-shelf in his cluh-cluh-hoset."
"That's great if it's a person," Bakugo hissed, "and if we can find him sitting on a pile of kids' bones-"
"Izuku, are you and your parents coming over for dinner tonight?" Mitsuki called out.
"Yes ma'am!" Deku called back, waving at her. She waved back before walking towards the door to confirm the number of mouths to feed with Bakugo's father. She turned back a few moments later. "You boys better get cleaned up, it won't take long to cook!"
Bakugo waved her off dismissively, and Deku watched over Bakugo's shoulder as his mother's face melted into a mirror image of her son's current expression. A yelling match was on the horizon, it seemed.
"I'm not about to shoot some poor bastard just because he's wearing a clown suit, Deku. And you're not about to either- I'm supposed to be the one making the rash and violent decisions- so stop acting like a stupid bitch and just drop it."
"Wh-what i-if there r-really w-was a p-pile of buh-buh-bones?"
Bakugo said nothing for a moment, eyes narrowed as he eyed the freckled boy furiously. Then he asked Deku, "What are you going to do if it's not a man, Deku? What if it really is some kind of monster? Huh? What if there really are such things? Sero said it was the freaky chic from Elfen Lied and the balloons were floating against the wind and turned into severed heads. The picture in Eri's album... either we imagined that or it was magic, and I gotta tell you, I don't think we just imagined it. Your fingers sure didn't imagine it, did they?"
Deku shook his head.
"So what are you gonna do if it's not a man? Huh? What are you gonna do then, asshole?"
"Th-then wuh-wuh-we'll have to f-figure suh-homething e-else out."
Oh yeah," Bakugo said, laughing incredulously. "I can see it. After you shoot it four or five times and it keeps comin at us, you can try your Bullseye on it. And if the Bullseye doesn't work, I'll throw some of my sneezing powder I was planning to coat your dinner-ware in, And if it keeps on coming after that we'll just call time and say, "Hey now, hold on. This ain't cutting it, Mr Monster. Look, I got to read up on it at the library. I'll be back. Pardon me." Is that what you're going to say, Deku?"
He looked at his neighbor of eleven years, his head thudding rapidly. Part of him wanted Deku to press on with his idea to check under the porch of that old house, but another part wanted-desperately wanted-Deku to give the idea up. In some ways, all of this was like having stepped into one of those Saturday-afternoon horror movies at the Aladdin, but in another way-a crucial way-it wasn't like that at all. Because this wasn't safe like a movie, where you knew everything would turn out all right, and even if it didn't it was no skin off your ass. The picture in Eri's room hadn't been like a movie. He had thought he was forgetting that, but apparently, he had been fooling himself because now he could see those cuts whirling up on Deku's fingers. If he hadn't pulled the idiot back -
Incredibly, Deku was grinning. Actually grinning. "Y-Y-You wuh-wanted m-me to take y-you to luh-luh-look at a p-picture," he said. "N-Now I w-want to t-take you to l-look at a h-house. Tit for t-tat."
"You got no tits," Bakugo said suddenly, having no real idea where it came from or why he had said it at all. Deku shot him a funny look, before laughing a little.
"T-Tomorrow muh-muh-morning," Deku said as if it had been resolved.
"And if it's a monster?" Bakugo asked, holding Deku's eyes. "If Yagi's gun doesn't stop it, Deku? If it just keeps coming?"
"Wuh-wuh-we'll thuh-thuh-think of suh-homething else," Deku said again. "We'll h-h-have to." He threw back his head and laughed like a loon. After a moment Bakugo joined him. It was impossible not to.
They walked up the paving to Bakugo's porch together. Mitsuki had set out huge glasses of iced tea with mint-sprigs in them.
"Yuh-you w-w-want t-t-to?"
Bakugo let out another tired laugh. "Fuck it. Why not?"
"You boys looked like you were having a serious discussion out there," Mitsuki said, sitting down with her book in one hand and a glass of iced tea in the other. Aggression swam behind her eyes as she stared at her son.
"Deku's trying to convince me he knows something about sports," Bakugo said.
"M-Me and my d-d-d-d-dad wuh-wuh-watch s-soccer tuh-tuh-together all t-the t-time." Deku said, and sipped his iced tea. "T-This is veh-veh-very go-good, Mih-Mih-Mitsuki."
"Thank you, Izuku."
"I highly doubt you have any idea what's going on during those soccer matches you watch with Yagi, Mush-mouth"
"Katsuki!" Mitsuki screamed, swatting him on the back of his head.
"Hey! What the hell!?"
"Apologize!"
"I call him that all the time! OW!- WILL YOU STOP THAT!?"
"THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT OKAY! APOLOGIZE!"
"NO! HE DOESN'T CARE!"
Deku let out a quiet laugh behind his glass of tea, watching the exchange amusedly. And for a moment, everything felt as if it were back to how they used to be.
—4—
"Did you get it?" Bakugo asked.
They were walking their bikes up Taiko Street at ten o'clock the next morning. The sky was a dull gray. Rain had been forecast for that afternoon. Bakugo hadn't gotten to sleep until after midnight and he thought Deku looked rather shitty himself; ole Freckle Face was toting a matching set of Samsonite bags, one under each eye.
"I g-got it," Deku said. He pulled lightly on the long, dark blue baseball bat bag with a "Nippon-Ham Fighters" logo printed on it slung over his shoulder.
"Lemme see," Bakugo said, unbearably curious. It wasn't every day that he was this close to an actual gun.
"Not now," Deku said, and then grinned. "someone eh-eh-else might see, too. But l-l-look what else I bruh-brought." He reached behind him, into his shorts pocket, and produced his Bullseye slingshot.
"Oh shit, we're in trouble," Bakugo said sarcastically,
Deku pretended to be hurt. "Ih-Ih-It was y-your idea, K-K-Kacchan."
Deku had gotten the custom aluminum slingshot for his birthday the year before. It had been Yagi's compromise instead of the working, model, ballista he had originally asked for. The instruction booklet even said a slingshot could be a fine hunting weapon, once you learned to use it. "In the right hands, your Bullseye Slingshot is as deadly and effective as a good ash bow or a high-powered firearm," the booklet proclaimed. With such virtues dutifully extolled, the booklet went on to warn that a slingshot could be dangerous; the owner should no more aim one of the twenty ball-bearing slugs which came with it at a person than he would aim a loaded pistol at a person.
Deku wasn't very good at it yet (and guessed privately he probably never would be), but he thought the booklet's caution was merited-the slingshot's thick elastic had a hard pull, and when you hit a tin can with it, it made one hell of a hole.
"Do you even know how to shoot that thing?" Bakugo asked, staring pointedly at the slingshot.
"A luh-luh-little," Deku said. This was only partly true. After much study of the pictures in the booklet (which were labeled figs, as in fig 1, fig 2, and so on) and enough practice in Ukiyo Park to lame his arm, he had gotten so he could hit the paper target which had also come with the slingshot maybe three times out of every ten tries. And once he had gotten a bullseye. Almost.
Bakugo pulled the sling back by the cup, twanged it, then handed it back. He said nothing but privately doubted if it would count for as much as Toshinori Yagi's hunting rifle when it came to killing monsters.
"Yeah?" he said. "You brought your slingshot, okay, big deal. That's nothing. Look what I brought." And from his own jacket, he hauled out a packet with a cartoon picture on it of a bald man saying Ah-CHOO! as his cheeks puffed out like Dizzy Gillespie's. DR WACKY's SNEEZING POWDER, the packet said. IT's A LAFF RIOT!
Deku stared at it for a long time, before looking back at Bakugo confused, laughing a little: "Wuh-why do y-you?-"
Bakugo shrugged. "I was gonna put it on either yours or four eyes clothes- whichever one of you I saw first."
"W-W-We're pruh-prepared for a-a-anything," Deku said finally, still giggling and wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. "Now listen. W-We're g-gonna st-ha-hash y-your b-b-bike down in the B-Barrens. W-Where I puh-put Silver when we play. Y-You ride d-d-double b-behind me, in c-case w-we have to make a quih-hick g-g-getaway."
Bakugo nodded, surprisingly feeling no urge to argue. His twenty-two-inch Raleigh (he sometimes whammed his kneecaps on the handlebars when he was pedaling fast) looked like a pygmy bike next to the scrawny, gantry like edifice that was Silver. He knew that Deku was stronger and Silver was faster.
They got to the little bridge and Deku helped Bakugo stow his bike underneath. Then they sat down, and, with the occasional rumble of traffic passing over their heads, Deku unzipped his baseball bat duffel and took out his step-father's hunting rifle.
"Y-You be c-c-careful," Deku said, handing it over after Bakugo had shot out two expecting hands. "Th-This I-is his old guh-gun- Suh-suh-safety's busted."
"Is it loaded?" Bakugo asked, awed. The rifle seemed unbelievably heavy.
"N-Not y-yet," Deku said. He patted his pocket. "I g-g-got some buh-buh-buh-bullets in h-h-here. But my d-d-dad s-says s-sometimes you l-look a-and th-then, i-if the g-g-g-gun th-thinks y-you're not being c-c-careful, it l-loads ih-ih-itself. S-so it can sh-sh-hoot you." His face uttered a strange smile which said that, while he didn't believe anything so silly, he believed it completely.
Bakugo understood. There was a caged deadliness in the thing that he had never sensed in anything before... it was as if it had been made for the express purpose of shooting people. With a chill, Bakugo realized that was why it had been made- maybe not specifically with people in mind- but it had been made especially to kill animals. People were animals too- technically speaking anyways.
He turned the muzzle toward him, being careful to keep his hands far away from the trigger. One look into the black lidless eye made him understand Deku's peculiar smile perfectly. He remembered his father saying, 'If you remember there is no such thing as an unloaded gun, you'll be okay with firearms all your life, Katsuki.' He handed the gun back to Deku, secretly glad to be rid of it.
Deku stowed it in his bat bag again. Suddenly the house on Neibolt Street seemed less frightening to Bakugo... but the possibility that blood might actually be spilled-that seemed much stronger.
He looked at Deku, perhaps meaning to appeal this idea again, but he saw Deku's face, read it, and only said, "You ready?"
—5—
As always, when Deku finally pulled his second foot up from the ground, Bakugo felt sure that they would crash, splitting their silly skulls on unyielding cement. The big bike wavered crazily from side to side. The cards clothespinned to the fender-struts stopped firing single shots and started machine-gunning. The bike's drunken wavers became more pronounced. Bakugo hissed out a loud curse and waited for the inevitable.
The large bike picked up more speed and finally stopped that seasick side-to-side wavering. Bakugo loosened his death-grip on the Deku's shoulders and shifted into a more comfortable position on the pegs of the back wheel. Deku crossed Taiko Street on a slant, raced down sidestreets at an ever-quickening pace, heading for Shinrinyoku as if racing down a set of geographical steps. They came bulleting out of Cherry Blossom Lane and onto Shinrinyoku at an exorbitant rate of speed. Deku laid Silver damn near over on his side and Bakugo had to lean the opposite way to not fall off.
The wind blew Bakugo's hair back, and he could feel the urge to cheer joyfully rising in his chest. He leaned forwards a little, just over Deku's shoulder, urging him to go faster.
Deku wordlessly obliged, standing up and leaning over the handlebars and pumping the pedals at a lunatic rate. Looking at Deku's back, which was surprisingly broad for a boy of eleven-going-on-twelve, watching it work under his layered shirt, his shoulders slanting first one way and then the other as he shifted his weight from one pedal to the other, Bakugo suddenly became sure that they were invulnerable... they would live forever and ever. Well... perhaps not they, but Deku would. Deku had no idea of how strong he was, how somehow sure and perfect.
Bakugo shook his head, suddenly angry and embarrassed by his own thoughts.
They sped along, the houses thinning out a little now, the streets crossing Shinrinyoku at longer intervals.
"Whoo!" Deku yelled, and Bakugo took the opportunity to tell him to shut up.
Now they were passing green fields that looked flat and depthless under the gray sky. Bakugo could see the old brick train station up ahead in the distance. To the right of it, Quonset warehouses marched off in a row. Silver bumped over one set of train tracks, then another.
And here was Neibolt Street, cutting off to the right. IRUSU TRAINYARDS, a blue sign under the street-sign read. It was rusty and hung askew. Below this was a much bigger sign, yellow field, black letters. It was almost like a comment on the trainyards themselves: DEAD END, it read.
Deku turned onto Neibolt Street, coasted to the sidewalk, and put his foot back down. Bakugo jerked forward a little when he braked. "Let's w-w-walk from here."
Bakugo slipped off the back with mingled feelings of relief and regret. "Tch. You ride like a Maniac anyways. Hope to god you never get a car."
They walked along the sidewalk, which was cracked and weedy. Up ahead of them, in the trainyards, a diesel engine revved slowly up, faded off, and then began all over again. Once or twice they heard the metallic music of couplings being smashed together.
"You scared?" Bakugo asked Deku.
Deku, walking Silver by the handlebars, looked over at Bakugo briefly and then nodded. "Y-Yeah. You?"
"No." Bakugo responded, but he knew he didn't look very convincing.
Deku told Bakugo he had asked his father about Neibolt Street the night before. His father said that a lot of trainmen had lived out this way until the end of World War II-engineers, conductors, signalmen, yard workers, baggage handlers. The street had declined with the trainyards, and as Deku and Bakugo moved farther along it, the houses became farther apart, seedier, dirtier. The last three or four on both sides were empty and boarded up, their yards overgrown. A FOR SALE sign flapped forlornly from the porch of one. To Bakugo the sign looked about a thousand years old. The sidewalk stopped, and now they were walking along a beaten track from which weeds grew half-heartedly.
Deku stopped and pointed. "Th-there it i-i-is," he said softly.
Twenty-nine Neibolt Street had once been a pretty, traditional, Japanese home. 'Maybe' Bakugo thought, 'an engineer used to live there, a bachelor with no pants but jeans and lots of those gloves with the big stiff cuffs and four or five pillowtick caps-a fellow who would come home once or twice a month for stretches of three or four days and listen to the radio while he pottered in the garden; a fellow who would eat mostly fried foods (and no vegetables, although he would grow them for his friends) and who would, on windy nights, think about the Girl He Left Behind.'
Now the cream-colored paint had browned to a dirty dishwater color that was peeling away in ugly patches that looked like sores. The windows were blind eyes, boarded up. Most of the shingles were gone. Ivy grew rankly down both sides of the house and the lawn was covered with the season's first bumper crop of dandelions. To the left, a high board fence, perhaps once a neat white but now faded to a dull gray that almost matched the lowering sky, lurched drunkenly in and out of the dank shrubbery. About halfway down this fence, Bakugo could see a monstrous grove of sunflowers-the tallest looked five feet tall or more. They had a bloated, nasty look he didn't like. A breeze rustled them and they seemed to nod together: 'The boys are here, isn't that nice? More boys. Our boys.' Bakugo shivered and looked away:
While Deku leaned Silver carefully against a tree of rotting limbs, Bakugo surveyed the house. He saw a wheel sticking out of the thick grass near the porch, and pointed it out to Deku. Deku nodded; it was the overturned trike Kirishima had mentioned.
They looked up and down Neibolt Street. The chug of the diesel engine rose and fell off, then began again. The sound seemed to hang in the overcast like a charm. The street was utterly deserted. Bakugo could hear occasional cars passing on Route 2, but could not see them. The wind rustled the trees leaves next to them.
The diesel engine chugged and faded, chugged, and faded.
The huge sunflowers nodded sagely together. 'Fresh boys. Good boys. Our boys.'
"Y-Y-You r-ruh-ready?" Deku asked, and Bakugo jumped internally.
"Of course I am dipshit," Bakugo said hotly, knowing he was not ready at all-he was never going to be ready for this scene.
They crossed the overgrown lawn to the porch.
"Luh-look th-th-there," Deku said softly, pointing.
At the far lefthand side, the porch's latticework skirt leaned out against a tangle of bushes. Both boys could see the rusty nails that had been pulled free. There were old rosebushes here, and while the roses both to the right and the left of the unanchored stretch of latticework were blooming in a lackadaisical way, those directly around and in front of it were skeletal and dead.
Deku and Bakugo looked at each other grimly. Everything Kirishima had said seemed true enough; seven weeks later, the evidence was still here.
"You don't really want to go under there, do you?" Bakugo asked. It came out sounding angry and hostile, but in his head, he was almost pleading.
"Nuh-nuh-no," Deku said, "b-but I'm g-gonna."
And with a sinking heart, Bakugo saw that he absolutely meant it. That dark light was back in Deku's eyes, shining steadily. There was a stony eagerness in the lines of his face that made him look older. Bakugo thought, 'I think he really does mean to kill the damn thing- if it's even still there. Kill it and maybe cut off its head and take it to his parents and say, "Look, this is what killed Eri, now can we stop being so miserable now? Can we go back to how things used to be?"
"Oi, Deku-" he started, but Deku was no longer there. He was walking around to the righthand end of the porch, where Kirishima must have crawled under. Bakugo had to chase after him, and he almost fell over the trike caught in the weeds and slowly rusting its way into the ground.
He caught up as Deku squatted, looking under the porch. There was no skirt at all on this end; someone-some hobo-had pried it off long ago to gain access to the shelter underneath, out of the January snow or the cold November rain or a summer thundershower.
Bakugo squatted beside him, his heart thudding like a drum. There was nothing under the porch but drifts of moldering leaves, yellowing newspapers, and shadows. Too many shadows.
"Deku," he repeated, his voice was tight.
"Wh-wh-what?" Deku was unzipping the bat bag and grabbing for Yagi's hunting rifle. He opened the chamber carefully, and then took four bullets from his pants pocket. He loaded them in one at a time. Bakugo watched this, fascinated, and then looked under the porch again. He saw something else this time. Broken glass. Faintly glinting shards of glass. His stomach cramped painfully. He was no idiot, he understood this came close to completely confirming that shark-toothed bastard's story. Splinters of glass on the moldering leaves under the porch meant that the window had been broken from inside. From the cellar.
"Wh-what?" Deku asked again, looking up at Bakugo. His face was grim and white, making his freckles stand out even more. Looking at that set face, Bakugo mentally threw in the towel.
"Nothing," he said.
"You cuh-cuh-homing?"
"I said I would, didn't I?"
They crawled under the porch.
The smell of decaying leaves was a smell Bakugo usually liked, but there was nothing pleasant about the smell under here. The leaves felt spongy under his hands and knees, and he had an impression that they might go down for two or three feet. He suddenly wondered what he would do if a hand or a claw sprang out of those leaves and seized him.
Deku was examining the broken window. Glass had sprayed everywhere. The wooden strip which had been between the panes lay in two splintered pieces under the porch steps. The top of the window frame jutted out like a broken bone.
"Something hit that fucker hard," Bakugo commenter. Deku, now peering inside-or trying to-nodded.
Bakugo elbowed him aside enough so he could look, too. The basement was a dim litter of crates and boxes. The floor was earth and, like the leaves, it gave off a damp and humid aroma. A furnace bulked to the left, thrusting round pipes at the low ceiling. Beyond it, at the end of the cellar, Bakugo could see a large stall with wooden sides. A horse stall was his first thought, but who kept horses in a cellar? Then he realized that in a house as old as this one, the furnace must have burned coal instead of oil. Nobody had bothered to convert the furnace because no one wanted the house. That thing with the sides was a coalbin. To the far right, Bakugo could make out a flight of stairs going up to ground level.
Now Deku was sitting down... hunching himself forward... and before Bakugo could actually believe what he was up to, his freckle-dusted legs were disappearing into the window.
"What in the ever-loving fuck do you think you're doing, fuckwit?!" he hissed. "Get outta there!"
Deku didn't reply. He slithered through, scraping his shirt up from the small of his back, barely missing a chunk of glass that would have cut him a good one. A second later Bakugo heard his tennis shoes smackdown on the hard earth inside.
"Piss on this shit," Bakugo muttered to himself, looking at the square of darkness into which his neighbor had disappeared. "You've actually gone fucking insane."
Deku's voice floated up: "Y-You c-c-can stay up th-there if you w-want, Kah-Kah-Kacchan. St-Stand g-g-guard."
Bakugo let out an angry huff and rolled over on his front and shoved his legs through the cellar window before his nerve could go bad on him, hoping he wouldn't cut his hands or his stomach on the broken glass.
Something clutched his legs. Bakugo nearly jumped out of his skin, reeling around as best he could, prepared to fight.
"I-I-It's juh-juh-hust m-me," Deku whispered, and a moment later, after giving Deku a good kick in the chest, Bakugo was standing beside him in the cellar, pulling down his shirt and his jacket. "Wh-who d-did you th-think it w-was?"
"The boogeyman," Bakugo bit back rudely.
"Y-You g-go th-that w-way and I-I-I'll g-g-g-"
"Fuck that," Bakugo said. He could actually hear his heartbeat in his voice, making it sound bumpy and uneven, first up and then down. "Without me to save your stupid ass, you'll do something idiotic- like stick your hand in a moving photo."
They moved toward the coalpit first, Deku slightly in the lead, the gun held awkwardly in his arms, Bakugo close behind him, trying to look everywhere at once. Deku stood beyond one of the coalpit's jutting wooden sides for a moment, and then suddenly darted around it, pointing the gun with both hands. Bakugo whirled around the same way the gun was pointing, steeling himself for the explosion. It didn't come. He turned back to Deku, glaring.
"Nuh-nuh-nothin but c-c-coal," Deku said, and giggled nervously.
"Ugh." Bakugo stepped up beside Deku and looked. There was still adrift of old coal piled up almost to the ceiling at the back of the stall and trickling away to a lump or two by their feet. It was as black as a crow's wing.
"Let's-" Bakugo began, and then the door at the head of the cellar stairs crashed open against the wall with a violent bang, spilling thin white daylight down the stairs.
Both boys jumped.
Bakugo heard snarling sounds. They were very loud-the sounds a wild animal in a cage might make. He saw loafers descend the steps. Faded jeans on top of them-swinging hands-
But they weren't hands... they were paws. Huge, misshapen paws.
"Cuh-cuh-climb the c-c-coal!" Deku was screaming, but Bakugo stood frozen, suddenly knowing what was coming for them, what was going to kill them in this cellar that stank of damp earth, and the cheap wine that had been spilled in the corners. Knowing but needing to see. "There's a wuh-wuh-window at the t-top of the c-coal!"
The paws were covered with dense brown hair that curled and coiled like wire; the fingers were tipped with jagged nails. Now Bakugo saw a varsity jacket- not unlike the one Todoroki Shouto always wore. It was white and black-the Irusu High School colors.
"G-G-Go!" Deku screamed and gave Bakugo a gigantic shove. Bakugo went sprawling into the coal. Sharp jags and corners of it poked him painfully, breaking through his daze. More coal avalanched over his hands. That mad snarling went on and on.
Panic slipped its hood over Bakugo's mind.
Barely aware of what he was doing, he scrambled up the mountain of coal, gaining ground, sliding back, lunging upward again, eyes as wide as saucers. The window at the top was grimed black with coal-dust and let in next to no light at all. It was latched shut. Bakugo seized the latch, which was of the sort that turned, and threw all his weight against it. The latch didn't move. The snarling was closer now.
The gun went off below him, the sound nearly deafening in the closed room. Gunsmoke, sharp and acrid, stung Bakugo's nose. It shocked him back to some sort of awareness and he realized that he had been trying to turn the thumb-latch the wrong way. He reversed the direction of the force he was applying, and the latch gave with a protracted rusty squeal. Coaldust sifted down on his hands like pepper.
The gun went off again with a second deafening bang. Deku shouted, "Y-you K-Killed muh-muh-my suh-sister you fuh-fuh-fucker!"
For a moment, Bakugo almost felt like laughing- Deku- Izuku Midoriya- saying "fucker?" What timeline had they just crossed over to-
-For a moment the creature which had come down the stairs seemed to laugh, seemed to speak-it was as if a vicious dog had suddenly begun to bark out garbled words, and for a moment Bakugo thought the thing in the high-school jacket snarled back, 'I'm going to kill you too.'
"Katsuki!" Deku screamed then, and Bakugo heard coal clattering and falling again as Deku scrambled up. The snarls and roars continued. Wood splintered. There were mingled barks and howls-sounds out of a cold nightmare.
Bakugo gave the window a tremendous shove, not caring if the glass broke and cut his hands to ribbons. He was beyond caring. It did not break; it swung outward on an old steel hinge flaked with rust. More coal-dust sifted down, this time on Bakugo's face. He wriggled out into the side yard like an eel, smelling sweet fresh air, feeling the long grass whip at his face. He was dimly aware that it was raining. He could see the thick stalks of the giant sunflowers, green and hairy.
The gun went off a third time, and the beast in the cellar screamed, a primitive sound of pure rage. Then Deku cried: "Katsuki! Help! It's g-g-got me!"
Bakugo turned around on his hands and knees and saw the terrified circle of Deku's upturned face in the square of the oversized cellar window through which a winter's load of coal had once been funneled each October.
Deku was lying spreadeagled on the coal. His hands waved and clutched fruitlessly for the window frame, which was just out of reach. His shirt and jacket were rucked up almost to his breastbone. And he was sliding backward... no, he was being pulled backward by something Bakugo could barely see. It was a moving, bulking shadow behind Deku. A shadow that snarled and gibbered and sounded almost human.
Bakugo didn't need to see it. He had seen it the previous Saturday, on the screen of the Aladdin Theater. It was mad, totally mad, but even so, it never occurred to Bakugo to doubt either his own sanity or his conclusion.
A werewolf had Deku. Only it wasn't that David guy with a lot of makeup on his face and a lot of fake fur. It was real.
As if to prove it, Deku screamed again.
Bakugo reached in and caught Deku's left hand hand in his own. The gun was in the other, and for the second time that day Bakugo looked into its black eye... only this time, Bakugo came to the sickening realization that, with the way it was currently positioned, if it were to go off right now, it'd blow through both his and Deku's brains.
They tussled for Deku- Bakugo gripping his hands, the Werewolf gripping his ankles.
Deku kicked into the darkness, desperately trying to free his legs. "G-Get-"
The face of the Werewolf suddenly swam out of the dark. Its forehead was low and prognathous, covered with scant hair. Its cheeks were hollow and furry. Its eyes were a bright yellow, filled with horrible intelligence, horrible awareness. Its mouth dropped open and it began to snarl. White foam ran from the corners of its thick lower lip in twin streams that dripped from its chin. It threw its head back and roared, its eyes never leaving Bakugo's.
Deku scrambled up the coal. Bakugo seized his forearms and pulled. For a moment he thought he was actually going to win. Then the Werewolf laid hold of Deku's legs again and he was yanked backward toward the darkness once more. It was stronger. It had hold of Deku, and it meant to have him. A wave of Nausea passed over Bakugo as he heard a wet tearing noise, and the sound of Deku's pain-filled shriek- left to wonder if the Werewolf had merely dug in his nails or ripped Deku's legs clean off.
Then, with no thought at all about what he was doing or why he was doing it, Bakugo readjusted his grip and began to talk: "Let go of him! or I'll crack your goddamn skull open! Let go of him now or I'll- I'll- I'll rip your fucking heart out of your chest with my bare hands! Do you hear me, bitch boy?! Do you?!"
The creature in the cellar let out an ear-splitting roar of rage... but it seemed to Bakugo that there was another note in that bellow as well. Perhaps fear. Or pain.
He gave one more tremendous tug, and Deku flew out of the window and onto the grass. He stared up at Bakugo with dark horrified eyes. The front of his shirt was smeared black with coal-dust.
"Kwuh-Kwuh-Quick!" Deku panted. He was nearly moaning. He grabbed at Bakugo's shirt. "W-W-We guh-guh-hotta-"
Bakugo could hear coal tumbling and avalanching down again. A moment later the Werewolf's face filled the cellar window. It snarled at them. Its paws clutched at the listless grass.
Deku still had the rifle-he had held on to the gun through all of it. Now he held it out in both hands, his eyes squinched down to slits, and pulled the trigger. There was another deafening bang, and Deku was thrown backwards on the recoil. Bakugo saw a chunk of the Werewolf's skull tear-free and a torrent of blood spilled down the side of its face, matting the fur there and soaking the collar of the school jacket it wore.
Roaring, it began to climb out of the window.
Moving slowly, dreamily, Bakugo reached under his coat and into his back pocket. He brought out the envelope with the picture of the sneezing man on it. He tore it open as the bleeding, roaring creature pulled itself out of the window, forcing its way, claws digging deep furrows in the earth. Bakugo tore the packet open and squeezed it. "Fuck off, Asshole!" he cried and chucked the envelope at it. A white cloud puffed into the Werewolf's face. Its roars suddenly stopped. It stared at Bakugo with almost comic surprise and made a choked wheezing sound. Its eyes, red and bleary, rolled toward Bakugo and seemed to mark him once and forever.
Then it began to sneeze.
It sneezed again and again and again. Ropy strings of saliva flew from its muzzle. Greenish-black clots of snot flew out of its nostrils. One of these splatted against Bakugo's skin and burned there, like acid. He wiped it away with a scream of hurt and disgust.
There was still anger in its face, but there was also pain-it was unmistakable. Deku might have hurt it with his dad's rifle, but Bakugo had hurt it more... first with his half-delirious threats, and then with the sneezing powder.
'Jesus, if I had some itching powder too and maybe a joy buzzer I might be able to kill it.' Bakugo thought, and then Deku grabbed the collar of his jacket and jerked him backward.
It was well that he did. The Werewolf stopped sneezing as suddenly as it had started and lunged at Bakugo. It was quick, too-incredibly quick.
Bakugo might have only sat there with the empty envelope of Dr. Wacky's sneezing powder in one hand, staring at the Werewolf with a kind of drugged wonder, thinking how brown its fur was, how red the blood was, he might have sat there until its paws closed around his neck and its long nails pulled his throat out, but Deku grabbed him again and pulled him to his feet.
Bakugo stumbled after him. They ran around to the front of the house and Bakugo thought, 'It won't chase us anymore, we're on the street now, it won't chase us, it won't, it won't-
But it was coming. He could hear it just behind them, gibbering and snarling and slobbering.
There was Silver, still leaning against the tree. Deku jumped onto the seat and shoved his father's gun into the bat bag as quickly as he could. Bakugo chanced a glance behind him as he flung himself onto the pegs of the back wheel and saw the Werewolf crossing the lawn toward them, less than twenty feet away now. Blood and slobber mixed on its high-school jacket. White bone gleamed through its pelt about the right temple. There were white smudges of sneezing powder on the sides of its nose. And Bakugo saw two other things which seemed to complete the horror. There was no zipper on the thing's jacket; instead, there were big fluffy orange buttons, like pompoms. The other thing was worse. It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Shimano's Shoe Boat for around 500¥ if you wanted it.
Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolf s jacket, stained but readable, were the words BAKUGO KATSUKI.
It lunged at them.
"Go, Deku!" Bakugo screamed and pushed on his back harshly.
Silver began to move, but slowly-much too slowly. Bakugo finally noticed the sticky red blood streaming down both of Deku's legs, only getting thicker and steadier the more he pedaled.
The Werewolf crossed the rutted path just as Deku made it into the middle of Neibolt Street. Blood splattered its faded jeans, and looking back over his shoulder, filled with a kind of dreadful, unbreakable fascination that was akin to hypnosis, Bakugo saw that the seams of the jeans were giving way in places, and tufts of coarse brown fur had sprung through.
Silver wavered wildly back and forth. Deku was standing up, bloody legs shaking with the effort of supporting his weight, gripping the bike's handlebars from underneath, head turned up toward the cloudy sky, cords standing out on his neck. And still, the Pokémon cards in the spokes between Bakugo's calves were only firing single shots.
One paw groped for Bakugo. He screamed miserably and ducked away from it. The Werewolf snarled and grinned. It was close enough so Bakugo could see the yellowing corneas of its eyes, could smell sweet rotten meat on its breath. Its teeth were crooked fangs.
Bakugo screamed again as it swung a paw at him. He was sure it was going to take his head off-but the paw passed in front of him, missing by no more than an inch. The force of the swing blew Bakugo's sweaty hair back from his forehead.
Deku had reached the top of a short, shallow hill. Not much, but enough to get Silver rolling. The Pokémon cards picked up speed and began to burr along, Deku pumped the pedals madly. Silver stopped wavering and cut a straight course down Neibolt Street toward Route 2.
'Thank fuck, thank fuck, thank fuck...' Bakugo thought incoherently. 'Thank-'
The Werewolf roared again-'oh FUCK- it sounds like it's RIGHT BESIDE ME-' and Bakugo's wind was cut off as his shirt and jacket were jerked back against his windpipe. He made a gurgling, choking sound and managed to grip Deku's shoulder's just before he was pulled off the back of the bike. Deku tilted backward but held on to Silver's handlebar grips. For one horrible moment, the big bike went into a wheelie, and Bakugo could feel himself falling backward with Deku not too far behind- but then his jacket, with its cheap faux leather, parted down the back with a loud ripping noise that Bakugo could have sworn was the loudest sound he'd ever heard in his life. Deku shoved his weight forward, and the bikes front wheel hit the asphalt again. Bakugo could breathe.
He looked around and stared directly into those lamp-yellow murderous eyes.
"Deku!" He tried to howl it, but the word had no force, no sound.
Deku seemed to hear him anyway. He pedaled even harder, harder than he ever had in his life. All his guts seemed to be rising, coming unanchored. He could taste thick coppery blood in the back of his throat. His eyeballs were starting from their sockets. His mouth hung open, scooping air. His legs throbbed from where the werewolf had sunk its claws in. And a crazy, ineluctable sense of exhilaration filled him-something that was wild and free and all his own. A desire. He stood on the pedals; coaxed them; battered them.
Silver continued to pick up speed. He was beginning to feel the road now, beginning to fly. Deku could feel him go.
Bakugo could hear the fast rattle-thud of loafers on the macadam. He turned. The Werewolf's paw struck him above the eyes with stunning force, and for a moment Bakugo really did think the top of his head had come off. Things suddenly seemed dim, unimportant. Sounds faded in and out. The color-washed out of the world. He turned back, clinging desperately to Deku. Warm blood ran into his right eye, stinging.
The paw swung again, striking the back fender this time. Bakugo felt the bike waver crazily, for a moment on the verge of tipping over, finally straightening out again. Deku yelped as his wounded leg slammed against the metal bike frame while he desperately tried to keep the bike steady, but that was distant too like an echo heard just before it dies out.
Bakugo opened his mouth to say something- to warn Deku that his knees were buckling and he was about to fall off- but he didn't get the chance.
—6—
Deku had also heard the running steps and understood that the clown hadn't given up yet, but he didn't dare turn around and look. He would know if it caught up and knocked them flat. That was really all he needed to know.
'Come on, boy,' he thought. 'Give me everything now! Everything you got! Go, Silver! GO!'
So once again Midoriya Izuku found himself racing to beat the devil, only now the devil was a hideously grinning clown whose face sweated white greasepaint, whose mouth curved up in a leering red vampire smile, whose eyes were bright silver coins. A clown who was, for some lunatic reason, wearing an Irusu High School jacket over its silvery suit with the orange ruff and the orange pompom buttons.
'Go, boy, go-Silver, what do you say?'
Neibolt Street blurred by him. Silver was starting to hum good now. Had those running footfalls faded back a bit? He still didn't dare turn around to see. Bakugo had him in a death grip and was making his shoulders ache. He wanted to tell Bakugo to loosen up a little, but he didn't dare waste breath on that, either...
There, up ahead like a beautiful dream, was the stop-sign marking the intersection of Neibolt Street and Route 2. Cars were passing back and forth on Shinrinyoku. In his state of exhausted terror, this seemed somehow like a miracle to Deku.
Now, because he would have to put on his brakes in a moment (or do something really inventive), he risked a look back over his shoulder.
What he saw caused him to reverse Silver's pedals with a single snap-jerk. Silver skidded, laying rubber with its locked rear tire, and it was right about then when Bakugo collapsed and smacked his head painfully into the hollow of Deku's right shoulder.
The street was completely empty.
But twenty-five yards or so behind them, by the first of the abandoned houses which formed a kind of funeral cortege leading up to the trainyards, there was a bright flick of orange. It lay close to a storm drain cut into the curbing.
"Uhhnh..."
Almost too late, Deku realized that Bakugo was sliding off the back of Silver. Bakugo's eyes were turned up so Deku could only see the lower rims of the irises below his upper lids. Blood was flowing slowly from his forehead, matting his platinum blonde hair and dying it red.
Deku grabbed his arm, they both slipped to the right, and Silver overbalanced. They crashed to the street in a tangle of arms and legs. Deku felt his knees and left elbow scrape against the ground and let out a cry of pain. Bakugo's eyes flickered at the sound.
"Do you... ever... shut the fuck up?..." Bakugo asked in a weak gasp. He sounded just as annoyed and angry as he usually did, but his voice's floating, unconnected quality scared Deku badly. He saw several coarse brown hairs clinging to the shallow head-wound on Bakugo's forehead. They made him feel even more afraid, and in a moment of delirious fear, he smacked Bakugo hard across the face.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Bakugo cried. His eyes fluttered, then opened wide. "Where do you get off smacking me around after I just saved your dumbass life-"
"I th-th-thought you w-w-were duh-duh-dying, or s-s-something," Deku replied weakly.
Bakugo sat up slowly in the street and put a hand to his head, glaring at Deku furiously. He groaned. And then he began to truly process what had just happened. His eyes widened in sudden shock and terror and he scrambled around on his knees, gasping harshly.
"Duh-duh-don't," Deku said. "I-It's g-g-gone, K-K-Kacchan. It's gone."
Bakugo saw the empty street where nothing moved and suddenly burst into hysterical laughter. Deku looked at him for a moment and then put his arms around Bakugo and hugged him. Bakugo clutched at Deku's neck and hugged him back, suddenly desperate for human touch- needing something to ground him. It wasn't long after that when tears began to mix in with his hysterics. He wanted to say something clever, something about how Deku should have tried the Bullseye on the Werewolf, but nothing would come out. Nothing except a pathetic mixture of incredulous laughter and broken sobs.
"D-Don't, K-K-Kacchan- I'm s-supposed to be the c-c-crybaby buh-baby luh-luh-loser, ruh-ruh-remember?-" Deku said, rubbing Bakugo's back soothingly. "duh-duh-duh-h-h-" Then he burst into tears himself and they only hugged each other on their knees in the street beside Deku's spilled bike, and their tears made clean streaks down their cheeks, which were sooted with coaldust.