A.N.
I'm back again, and uploading this between bouts of psychologically exhausting homework due tomorrow which I only just started this morning because I procrastinate to an unhealthy degree.
I hope this contributes to your day being much funner than mine is =
Chapter 6
Katsuki tossed restlessly in his bedsheets, gaze drifting from the ceiling, to a bookcase, a desk, then back to the ceiling. He could hear muffled music hammering through the wall, like a giant pulse that made his UA dormitory feel almost alive.
But he didn't need it to feel alive, he scowled, snatching his phone off the nightstand. He just needed to sleep.
He squinted against the sudden burst of light from the small screen, cursing under his breath as he quickly found Eijiro Kirishima's number in his contacts.
Bakugo K.
- Turn that shit off, im trying to sleep dickhead
A moment later his phone buzzed in response.
Kirishima E.
- Cant sleep?
Bakugo K.
- No I can't thanks to you
- Just cut the damn music
Kirishima E.
- Sorry man didn't mean to keep you up
- Hope you get some rest before the test tomorrow, doesn't look like all mights gonna cut us any slack lol
- Gnight
Bakugo K.
- Night
Katsuki groaned at the reminder of the next day's test, chucking his phone onto a pile of laundry on the floor.
The steady thrum of music disappeared all the same, though Bakugo found he could still hear the bass if he strained his ears.
He doubted there would be any sleep tonight. Tossing off the covers with a groan, he got up and opened his window, closing his eyes as a cool breeze tickled his face. The moon was almost full in the sky, bathing the entire landscape in a strange, eerie light. Across campus, the twin silhouettes of the UA towers rose tall and black against the sky.
It was far too perfect a night to stay awake on, and although he wished he could sleep, Katsuki knew it wouldn't come to him for hours yet. That had been the case rather more often than he would care to admit, lately. The night terrors had mostly subsided a handful of months ago, nights where he would jolt awake in a cold sweat, clawing his skin red and choking on his own spit, images of pulpy, suffocating slime seared into his mind.
And while such episodes were rare now, insomnia often persisted. Many a night found him gazing out the window, his tumultous mind only beginning to settle with the grey light of dawn.
Tonight is probably one of those, Katsuki thought glumly as a gust of wind tossed his crop of flaxen hair.
Well, no point in trying to force it then.
Stuffing a change of clothes and a towel into a bag, he pulled on a pair of shoes and crept out of his room into the dark halls, pausing a moment to press an ear to Eijiro's door, finding the music had stopped entirely. He was probably the last person awake in the entire block.
His soft, sock-muffled footfalls seemed to echo in the empty hallways, and more than once Katsuki froze when a floorboard or stair creaked under his weight.
It really was a nice dorm, he mused as he padded gently through the common room. Everything the students could have wanted had been seen to: luxurious bathrooms, spacious bedrooms and plenty of room for activities during their admittedly sparse of late free time.
It all seemed rather eerie in its' dead, nocturnal silence as Bakugo drew a beeline to the gym, by far his preferred place to spend his leisure hours, an uncannily stark contrast to the lively centerpiece of student life it took on in the daylight hours.
But the blond thought he might actually prefer it this way; although his classmates (especially his next-room neighbor Eijiro) would probably never believe him if he were tell, he enjoyed peace and quiet far more than the buzz of constant activity.
It let him think.
When he reached the gym, he found the doors open a crack with dim light filtering from inside. He frowned as he nudged through. Who else could be up at this hour?
The gym seemed empty as he walked in, a single neon strip shining at the far end of the room, illuminating a variety of machines and weight racks that must cost a fortune.
Only UA would have that kind of money to spend, mused Bakugo as he stripped his shirt off and began stretching. At times it still felt surreal to him, that he had made it into the country's most prestigious hero school. It was everything he had ever dreamed of, he grinned to himself, and he had made it ALL on his own.
The barbell bent under the copious plates he stacked onto it, before settling on the bench and heaving it off it's rack. He probably should have done a bit more to warm up his muscles, he thought as he gritted his teeth under the weight. But if he couldn't even bench this, then how the hell did he expect to surpass All Might one day?
He laughed to himself, and it echoed through the gym between his grunts as he pressed the weights up 16, 17, 18, 19.. 20 times.
Dropping the barbell back onto it's holster, he sat up and wiped a towel over his face, breath ragged.
"That's.. more like it.." He muttered to himself, his eyes catching a poster on the backside of the door. A gigantic, muscle-flexing rendition of All Might sported his signature dashing smile with the words PLUS ULTRA etched in grand yellow letters. It was incredibly cheesy but, although Katsuki would never be caught dead admitting to it, he rather liked it.
He pushed a hand through his hair. It was, all things considered, pretty amazing that All Might actually taught at UA.. it had been the only thing to shock him after the news came that he'd made it through the entry exam.
The world's greatest hero, teaching at the world's greatest hero school, and somehow he got to stand in the center of it all. It almost seemed too good to be true.
Deku would have loved it here.
The thought was jarring, almost startling, and Bakugo felt guilt run icy and grey through his veins.
Thoughts, memories of the green-haired boy still kept him awake some nights, as he relived in his head the days where his life seemed to grind to a halt all those months ago. The days after the disappearance.
"Take a swan dive off the roof and pray you're born with a quirk in your next life."
His own words still made him cringe in shame. Of all the things he'd ever said, those were perhaps the ones he regretted the most. But Deku, stupid Deku, reckless Deku hadn't hesitated to help him in a moment of need, or at least try. Against all odds, with no hope of succeeding, yet he didn't hesitate.
The sirens and cries of heroes still rung in his ears as he remembered the younger boy's frantic dash to his rescue that day, the desperation on his face as he tried in vain to claw Katsuki from the slime that had slowly choked the life from him.
"You looked like you needed saving!" There was no veiled motive behind the words, no search for public recognition, just.. a boy deluding himself with ideas of heroism.
Or maybe he wasn't deluded, pondered the blond, but that.. would be more confusing than anything.
When he came to school the day after that, Katsuki had avoided him. And the day after that one. The usual teasing, ideas of tossing his backpack out a window or burning pages from his books suddenly sat ill with Bakugo.
Deku had seemed so quiet in the days that followed, strangely detached from everything surrounding him. He stuttered less, then not at all. He spoke quietly, if ever, and a handful of teachers spoke in hushed whispers about his involvement in Bakugo's incident.
And then, a week later, he was just.. gone.
Katsuki remembered the night of the call. He'd been doing homework at the kitchen table, when the phone rang in the living room where his mother was.
Perfect silence reigned for a few moments, followed by a shatter that sliced through the quiet.
When he rushed to the living room, he found a glass in pieces on the floor at his mother's feet, and when she turned, her face was deathly pale as she uttered the words that would split his life into the before and the after.
"Katsuki, where.. did you see Izuku last?"
The days blurred together after that. The police came to his school, questioned teachers thoroughly and students more so.
He remembered the man in the trench coat that sat facing him in a white room in the police station, talking sternly and watching him with calm, honest eyes that seemed to see right through him.
"While I'll admit that all your classmates agree you had a.. tenuous relationship with young Midoriya at best, it was unanimous that you were closer to him than anyone else."
The blonde scowled, a tinge of guilt seeping into his expression. The detail was not lost in the detective.
"Did he seem.. strange at all, lately?"
"No."
"Could anything you said have pushed him have prompted such an abrupt disappearance?"
Take a swan dive off the roof.
"No."
"A couple of your classmates said you manifested abusive behaviour on several occasions, including physical violence and destruction of personal belongings, is that true?"
The muscles in his jaw strained as he clenched, eyes narrow as he glared daggers at the man across the table, who eventually held up a hand dismissively.
"This is and will remain an entirely objective investigation into your relationship with young Midoriya. I repeat: is there truth in the aforementioned claims?"
"..Yes."
He had hated the questions most of all.
His mother had come to pick him up that night, and the drive home had been shrouded in thick silence. His mother's eyes had seemed red, like Deku's after he cried at the playground when they were kids. But that was ridiculous, because.. his mother never cried.
"What the hell is happening, mom?.." He remembered stammering as the car flickered under the yellow glow of streetlights. "Where's that idiot gone?" He found his voice was shakier than he'd hoped.
His mom hadn't answered, or even reacted at all. Only stared straight ahead at the road. Katsuki thought her lip trembled.
Weekly visits to Mrs Midoriya soon became the order of things. The little woman had taken things the worst of everyone, by far.
When Katsuki was first dragged to the second floor apartment, the woman who answered the door hadn't looked like anything he'd remembered from younger years.
Dark bags had formed beneath wide, bloodshot eyes in a pale face, strands of hair escaping a messy ponytail.
The sight of her had rattled something in Katsuki's very core, and somehow driven home the reality of the situation.
The reality that.. Deku was gone.
The reality that the woman that stood before him, that he towered above, a shadow of the person he remembered, was somehow the mother of his lost classmate.
His lost.. friend? The shame he felt at calling him that changed his mind. Deku had never been a friend. Had never even been an enemy, just.. Deku.
Crybaby Deku.
Quirkless Deku.
God, he had only wished the nightmare would end.
In time, that wish had become to sleep a full night without jolting awake, images of a corpse filling his mind, a corpse with green hair and lifeless eyes.
And in time, both wishes had come true. To an extent, anyway.
The uproar had died down after some months, the only lingering reminder being his mother's weekly visits to Deku's mother, and the detective Tsukauchi's number in his contact list.
And in time, he learned to sleep again. The night terrors subsided, though mostly for the few months where his only concern was the entrance exam to UA and his days were filled with training and studies.
Now.. sleep was a gamble and a hope, a wrestling match with his own conscience.
Training helped. As much as anything, or anyone could.
"Can't sleep?"
The voice startled him, and loosed weights rattled against the rack as his head snapped around.
"The fu-"
"Relax silly, it's just me." A voice laughed softly as familiar head of pink hair met his gaze. Crisp, amber irises in pitch-black eyes met his own as his classmate seated on a bench and crossed her legs in a single, fluid motion.
"Mina." Katsuki grunted in acknowledgement, leaning back onto his own bench and beginning a new set. "The hell are you up at this hour for?"
The pink girl shrugged. "I woke up hungry, and went to grab a bite in the kitchen. And, well, it looks like I found myself a whole snack.." Cherry lips curled into a grin that would make anyone weak in the knees.
Well, anyone else.
"Not now, pinky." The blonde sat up, snatching his towel and wiping the sweat from his face.
He hadn't considered wearing a shirt.
The girl pouted slightly, leaning towards him. "What about you? First time I've seen you up at this time of night.. well, to crank weights, anyway." Another soft laugh.
Katsuki stared at the floor, focusing on the warm ache in his abdominal muscles. "Don't know.. my thoughts won't shut up."
"Dreams?.." The girl asked quietly, moving next to him on the bench.
"None for now." Katsuki murmured without looking up.
At any other time he might indulge his temper to her, but right now.. he was too tired.
To her credit Mina didn't pry, having learned through experience when the blond was best left to his thoughts.
When he glanced up at her and found her staring, he held her gaze until she looked away, fidgeting with her hands.
"How long've you been down here?" Her eyes flickered to meet his.
"I didn't keep track." Shrugged Katsuki. "What time is it?"
"Well, not too late to try for a bit of sleep.." Probed the rosehead. "You're cranky when you don't sleep enough."
She'd noticed? Most would chock it up to his foul temper.
"Hmm."
Maybe she did care.. a little.
He stood slowly, heading for the changing rooms adjacent to the gym, and paused a minute to gaze at another All Might poster plastered to the door.
Mina was still watching him.
"Do you ever.. wish you could take back things you've done?"
Her gaze was level, and he could tell she had questions.
"All the time."
They were both silent for a moment, the air between them heavy with unspoken words.
Finally, Katsuki sighed, and Mina thought it was the most defeated she'd heard him.
"Me too."
"Hey, is there something you'd li-"
"Leftover Mochi in the back of the fridge if you're hungry."
The girl began closing the distance between them. She could feel the blond regressing farther into his own mind, becoming distant and distrustful.
"Katsuki, I know there's something you're not telling m-"
"Go to bed, Ashido." A heated crackle echoed through the room, and Mina stopped cold. As far as the blond was concerned, it was the end of the conversation.
One of the Katsuki's hands gripped the doorframe, and when it pulled away a charred, blackened hand-print stained the white wood.
"Just.. go to bed." The flash of anger in his voice evaporated into exhaustion, and the door clicked shut behind him, leaving Mina alone in the dark.
As jets of icy water soaked his hardened body, Katsuki wondered why he couldn't will away the image of two eyes watching him from a shadow in his window.
Eyes of emerald green, from a time he tried so hard to forget.