Chapter 19: The Fourth Night (The First Night Apart)
When Bakugou and Uraraka returned to the now-spotless dining hall, they were greeted by the penetrating stares of Iida and Yaoyorozu. The rest of the party, meanwhile, seemed more curious than disapproving, though they tried their best to hide it. Both the princess and her soon-to-be husband were an eye-catching shade of pink.
"Did you get your water alright?" piped up Midoriya, in a less-than-successful attempt to break the awkwardness.
Uraraka vaguely motioned to the pail in her right hand.
"Oh yes, that was no trouble at all. That's not the reason we dallied so."
He walked over, raising an eyebrow. The others put down their cleaning things to listen.
"The Hall of Stars has opened again!" she exclaimed with slight force "Haven't you all wanted to see it for so long?"
His green eyes widened with excitement. Todoroki peeked his head up from under the table, where he had been wiping the floor, and Yaoyorozu trotted over impatiently. Expectation was brimming in their gazes.
"Would you all like to come and see?" she said.
They all agreed that it would be a fine thing to do.
So the princess and her friends (and her non-friends, and the boy promised to her in marriage) all gathered outside the midnight blue doors where she had wept not that long ago, and delicately made their way in.
First Uraraka entered, carefully pushing the doors open and stepping through the magic sapphire smoke, and the hall was dark, and the round ceiling quiet. Then Yaoyorozu and Todoroki, and a small cluster of white illuminated at the western edge, and then Midoriya, whose entrance brought a bright pink splash of light to the north. The two boys looked shyly at each other.
Iida set off a reddish star to the east as he ventured in, and Kirishima and Ashido accompanied a thin purple trail of brilliance that spanned the whole way across. When Bakugou entered last, and declanched his own little amber glow, it was almost unnoticeable amongst the swirling patterns above.
He did not turn to look at the princess, and she did not look at him. Now that they were bathed in the twinkling light of somebody else's love, they felt that they had quite overreacted to lone star between them.
"It's good that we're friends like this." Said Izuku, drawing their attention "Otherwise I'm sure we wouldn't see something so nice."
"Very true." Added Yaoyorozu pensively "It really does make you wonder by what measure the abstract concept of 'love' is quantified, and how the hall is able to passively calculate it."
"You're right! But surely beyond that, there's the issue of categorisation."
"It's clear that different forms of love activate different stars," she hummed thoughtfully as her friends tried to catch up "and that the radiant intensity of the light must also indicate the strength of feeling. That means the findings must be presented in a way that is both continuous and discrete…"
Midoriya, the only one who seemed to have followed this tangential idea, nodded his head vigorously. His green curls bounced as he went.
"The only way to test your hypothesis further would be to play around with the groups of people in the room and observe what happens."
He turned eagerly to Todoroki, who was swept up in his fervour and nodded slowly back. Bakugou, however, shared no such emotion.
"Well, I can only help by getting the fuck out of here." He growled "Whilst you lot natter on, someone has to make dinner."
"Bro, don't be like that!"
"I'll be however the fuck I want." He replied, stalking out. As he left, a single topaz-coloured star disappeared, and when Kirishima followed him a trail of violet vanished from the flickering night sky above.
Midoriya and Yaoyorozu noted the losses with conspiratorial determination, and continued to build their theory. The princess watched them with a smile. It would be nice, she thought, if love was not such a mystery after all. If her friends could pull it apart, dissect it perfectly and discover its inner workings, then perhaps she would have nothing to fear from it.
XXX
At dinner-time, they all sat along the wide table in the dining hall and ate stew.
Bakugou, having appointed himself head chef and refused to back down, had added enough spices to their meal to disguise its essentially bland nature; the eaters' tongues were so preoccupied with the heat that they did not notice the dismal quantities of yak meat they had been offered compared to the heaps of dry root. The stew was bright red, a steep contrast against the dark grain of the table's wood, and its fragrant steam rose inside the cold room.
The spiciness of the food was a welcome diversion, but it was not quite distracting enough.
Uraraka, sat at the far end of the table beside Iida, was staring at the endmost chairs. They were exquisitely carved, and achingly unoccupied. Her parents' seats. Though she was surrounded by those who she loved, she still felt it sacrilegious to eat when her mother and father were not there, and the sight of the carved wood called out to her calmly. She wondered almost whether the old oak was watching her, looking over her friends as they ate silently around a table that had once been so lively, and she knew that it would be saddened by the scene. Her throat felt tight.
Todoroki had turned pale, paler even than he usually was, so that he was almost blue, and was pushing the lumps of meat around his bowl with shaky chopsticks. The three candles that had been placed along the table barely cut through the evening dark, and made of his face an unsettling, angular mosaic of shadows. He looked as though he might be ill.
Midoriya and Yaoyorozu, sat next to and across from him respectively, watched him with unease. They withheld words of encouragement and sympathy with bit lips. They did not know what they should say to him, save that they knew what he felt, that they saw it too.
Friends gathered around a long table. The darkness of the night-time, the shadows that hung in the folds of their clothes; the pliant meat, the red stains around their lips. That terrible night was born again, mirage-like, in the towering castle halls. The monsters had reunited to feast.
Kirishima and Ashido, with the perfect ignorance of strangers, observed all this from over their cleanly-finished bowls. They noticed, too, how Bakugou's eyes kept steady on his wife-to-be, and how he ate far more slowly and methodically than they were used to. They looked at each other, then back to their friend.
"Hey, bro," said Kirishima "can I get seconds?"
"Why're you askin' me?"
He turned to look at the Uraraka, hopeful.
"Hey, um, your highness, can I get seconds, please?"
She was a little surprised by the request.
"Oh, yes, um, well, if nobody has any objections?"
Nobody had any objections. Kirishima escaped from the domineering silence, clutching his wooden bowl between his hands. There was very little talk after that.
XXX
At bed-time, the girls all lay down in Uraraka's room and shifted about in cold silence. Yaoyorozu, who had drawn the unlucky lot, was settled in a futon on the floor, whilst Ashido lay beside the princess in the bed. They avoided looking at each other.
They had lain stiff, trying to and failing to be carried off to sleep, for a while, when the hush was finally broken.
"Hey," said Ashido, and her voice was muffled by the pillow as she looked away "do you guys hate me? Honest, do you guys not want me here?"
From beyond the bed-curtains, Yaoyorozu spoke up. Her voice was croaky.
"I would not go that far."
"Should I just go?"
"There's no need for that."
The pink girl sat up and pulled back the curtains, looking down at the girl in the futon. The princess warily shifted to watch.
"Listen, I get it, okay? I get you don't like me. But can you just let me explain myself? I'm sick of this passive silence. I don't want to face you girls' anger. It's harder than fighting, and for what? To avoid awkwardness? We've gone too far for that already."
Yaoyorozu rolled over, and crossed her arms.
"Fine. What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I have to say that I don't think I'm a bad person. I don't think you can blame us for what we thought."
"And what did you think? What did you think that could justify murder?"
"We thought we were doing the heroic thing! We thought we were deposing a tyrant! We thought that it was Ochaco who had killed the adults and starved the citizens whilst living in luxury. And even when we first met you, and you invited us into the castle -even though you were sad for our friend, who you thought was bound to die- I thought you were guilty."
"Why? Guilty of what?" said the princess.
She pulled the blankets closer.
"Well, it's like- You have a pretty strange haircut, by Capcanish standards."
The princess was suddenly self-conscious, and tugged on the front strands of her fringe. What a strange thing to say, she thought.
"What," she said defensively "short at the back and long at the front? It's a Lasandunian tradition, it keeps your ears warm without getting in your way."
"Maybe so," nodded Ashido "maybe so. But in Capcana, you see, there's only one place that you see hair that's cut in such a way." She fiddled with something unseen in the dark "You only see that kind of hair on the executioner's scaffold. You have to cut the hair at the back of the neck short to, you know, to let the axe get to the neck properly. To make sure you can cut off the criminal's head in one stroke... You don't cut the hair at the front because, well, why would you? The prisoner is guilty, and there's no reason to afford them anything but humiliation."
Uraraka felt a chill run down the back of her neck, and twisted her hair about her fingers, as if to treasure it. She rather liked having her head attached to her body.
"So yeah, it was based on prejudice, maybe, but when I saw you, with that short-cut hair, I thought that you were basically saying 'I know I'm guilty. Just try to cut off my head'. I thought that you were taunting us. I thought that you knew just how evil we thought you were and you were admitting it all to be truth."
Yaoyorozu, from her futon, rolled her eyes so hard that Uraraka could almost hear it.
"You still haven't answered her question." She stated, firm. "Guilty of what?"
"Murder, exploitation. A thousand rumoured things. And I know, I knew when I saw you in the bathhouse and you were still alive, that there was something more going on, and Katsuki must know something I didn't. But I also know that you're not innocent, either. Katsuki told me what you did, and frankly, it's quite hard to see you as human."
"And yet you would still call yourself human if you had murdered a maiden? If you had cut off her head in her own home?"
"I don't know!"
"You lied boldly to my face." Spoke Uraraka, suddenly. "You said that Katsuki would never hurt me. You said that, even though you knew, even though you wanted him, expected him, to cut off my head. Can you still say that you are innocent?"
"I don't know! I never will, because we never got to that stage. In the end, did I not tell the truth? For better or for worse, Katsuki is going to marry Ochaco. And I want to be your friend, alright?" She turned to Yaoyorozu. "I want to get along, because I want to find her to be good. I want her to be good because I want Katsuki to be married happily. I don't want him to throw his life away over a rotten girl."
Yaoyorozu sat up, outraged.
"Ochaco is not a-"
"No, it's alright, Momo. I am, I am a rotten girl." Uraraka interrupted. Bakugou's words rang in her head ('You have to admit that you did both bad and good, that you regret what you did') "But I think that I am also good. And I think that what she wants to say is that she is trying her best to like us, and I think that I must try to prove that I am worth it."
Ashido nodded timidly.
"I already think you're worth it. I already think you're good." Said Yaoyorozu.
"I know. I love you for it."
Ashido shuffled to the end of the bed to lean over, close to the girl on the floor.
"I think you're good." She declared, staring Yaoyorozu down. "I think you're just worried for your friend, and that's perfectly understandable. I'm worried for my friend, too. But I think you should try 'n see the good in us, 's well. We're just the same, really."
Yaoyorozu, startled by the direct confrontation, looked away.
"That's fair…" she mumbled.
"Right!" Ashido clapped her hands excitedly "Well then. Let's get to know each other!"
The princess scrambled to sit on the end of the bed alongside the pink foreigner. They began to talk about all sorts of fanciful things, and by the time that they had tired of chattering, the night was waning short.
XXX
Kirishima's nerves had been just about shot ever since Bakugou had pulled him and Ashido aside to explain the tension at the dinner table. He was having a terribly difficult time pretending not to be unnerved by the other boys as they finished clearing up and headed up to bed, and could scarcely keep his eyes from trailing along their sinewy ribcages as they changed. Really, all that he wanted was to go to sleep, so that he could escape the grim figures surrounding him. He just wanted to forget that he was so far from home, for a bit, and dream his dragon's dreams.
Alas, lady fate kept him waiting.
"Fuck off, Deku!" yelled Bakugou, his voice reverberating through the servants' quarters "We agreed when we were setting up the beds!"
"Kacchan, just this once, can't we swap places? I think everyone would be more comfortable."
Bakugou sneered, and Midoriya bristled. Todoroki had already settled himself in the bed next to the one being fought over, shifting uncomfortably as if he would rather be somewhere else, and Iida watched the proceedings with crossed arms.
"Tough shit, Deku. I'm not sleeping on the floor."
"Why?"
"Because I was never gonna, and you should have planned ahead."
The smaller boy sighed deeply and placed a hand on his pinched brow. Kirishima realised that he hadn't seen Midoriya without his thick brown gloves until then, and that he looked even smaller in a night shirt. His hands and arms were covered in the brown feather-bones of scars.
"What?" snapped Bakugou.
Midoriya shook his head.
"It's nothing."
"Fuck that. You've been holding back ever since you laid eyes on me, I can tell. Fucking spit it out already."
He took his hands from his face and balled them resolutely, narrowing his green eyes. He took a step forward, accusatory, and the movement caught Bakugou by surprise.
"You haven't changed, have you?" said Midoriya.
"What?"
"It's been two years, and you haven't changed at all. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, Kacchan, I was willing to let sleeping dogs lie, because you finally had some friends by your side and you didn't immediately tell me to jump from the castle spire, but I was just being naïve, wasn't I? It's still you above all else."
Bakugou leaned back as he advanced, not daring to meet anyone's eyes. Midoriya continued.
"In Capcana you were- you were just vicious, you were unbelievably cruel, and now you've come here and ruined things for me again. When will you grow up? Just what do you want from me, anymore?"
Bakugou's lip twitched.
"It's not about you." he scorned, just a little too harshly.
Just then Todoroki leapt up, a hand clapped over his mouth, and rushed out of the room looking distinctly green, momentarily distracting them from their argument. Iida followed him, sparing a glance at Midoriya as he went, and a chill fell over the room as Bakugou, Midoriya, and Kirishima stood alone.
"What are you here for, then?" hissed Midoriya.
"Oh, wouldn't you like to know?"
His fists shook at his sides.
"Kacchan, what you did to me, if you ever – ever – do that to Ochaco, I swear-"
"Oh, it's about Ochaco now, is it? Strange, I would have thought you'd moved on to mottled boy."
"You have no right to call her by her name. And don't you dare-"
"I'll do what I want, Deku. She's going to be mine, not yours."
Midoriya's hand rushed out and grabbed Bakugou by his shirt. Bakugou smirked.
"She's not yours, Kacchan."
"Two years, and you're still hung up on her?" he scoffed "Seems like you're the one who hasn't fucking changed."
"You know that's not what this is about!"
"I don't see your fucking problem. Didn't anyone ever tell you to let go of the things that aren't yours?"
Without a second thought, Midoriya slapped him. The whip-crack sound of the impact with Bakugou's cheek echoed off of the stone walls as the blond boy blinked, then broke into a condescending laugh. Midoriya shook with anger.
Kirishima watched all of this with uncomprehending horror. Bakugou, his best friend, who had not been so spiteful for so long, who had never shown any interest in girls, seemed plainly to delight in riling up the poor foreign knight opposite him. And he had said some terrible things – things that he could not possibly mean – and there was a slightly crazed look about him, as if he was bone tired, as if he was backed into a corner. Had he really always been this close to devolving his old self? To turning so prideful and self-destructive?
He licked his pointed teeth and cleared his throat, preparing to break the building pressure, but before he could reach out, Iida rushed past him. Todoroki walked in more calmly, looking healthier than he had before but twice as guilty, and suddenly Kirishima knew that they had heard everything.
"Sir Bakugou," adjured the blue-haired knight, chopping his hands through the air "for your own sake, I would advise you to leave."
He looked up at Iida and clicked his tongue annoyedly.
"I'm not a sir." He snapped.
Grabbing a futon from the floor and hauling it over his shoulder, he stalked out of the room. For a few seconds Kirishima watched him go, dazed, and then upon realising that his friend had in fact left, he promptly picked up his own futon and hurried off, mumbling a hasty apology to the other boys as he went.
He caught up to Bakugou in a dark corridor, following only the sounds of his footsteps as they waded through the gloom. The blond boy occasionally let a spark of magic ignite from his palms to illuminate the halls, making sure that they were headed the right way through the twisting castle paths. Where were they headed?
"Let's go to the kitchen." Said Bakugou, as though he had read his mind "There's the remains of the fire, so you can keep warm."
"Sure." replied Kirishima, and he adjusted his grip on the blankets.
They traipsed through the entrance hall and around the back of the dining room, down the kitchen steps, making sure to raise the futons so that they did not catch along the stairs. Bakugou put down his things near the table, leaving a gap by the fireside for Kirishima to fill. He duly did so, and wriggled under the blankets to find a comfortable position. Though the stone underneath was cold, the embers in the fireplace still radiated a pleasant heat, and he turned his back to them to keep his spiky dragon's spine from poking out of his back. From his position, he could just about make out the sharp silhouette of the back of Bakugou's head. It had been a long time since they had slept alone together.
"Hey, bro." he called out quietly, and his friend stirred a little "Back there, with the green boy, Izuku-"
He clicked his tongue, cutting him off.
"Yeah, it was stupid." He growled.
"Hm?" Kirishima knew better than to ask a full question. He knew that Bakugou already had more to say.
"Everyone here fucking hates me. The girl I'm meant to be marrying in two days seems fucking scared of me." He sighed "It wasn't meant to turn out like this."
"Hm."
"I don't want to live in this cold-ass castle on this middle-of-fucking-nowhere-mountain. I don't want to get married. I don't want to have to deal with fucking Deku all the time."
"Hm?" said Kirishima, but his tone of voice was clearly searching, asking something more. Something like would you have preferred things ended as you thought they would? Would you want to climb down the mountainside with a walnut-wood box in your arms?
"I mean, fuck, they're acting like I'm some sort of fucking… murderer, criminal. And I'm fucking not. And maybe we thought about it, maybe I planned on it, but I didn't. I could have killed an innocent girl, but I didn't, because I knew from the first night that it would be a mistake, and nobody will fucking see that. Nobody is giving me a fucking chance."
Kirishima waited for him to go on, venturing a quiet hum to fill the silence. There was more, he thought, there was something that he wasn't being told. Uraraka had never mentioned the first night, had said she dreamed right through it. Where did he see her innocence, why did he insist upon its existence whilst treating her so distantly?
Bakugou pulled his blankets close and grunted softly. He was done speaking, he sensed, and would not respond to any more probing. Kirishima rolled to face the fire, and sighed softly as he closed his eyes. He always had trouble sleeping in such a cold and unfamiliar land.
XXX
That night, as the spring moon swam high and pale in the sky, and the black frost slowly stretched it fingers outside, Uraraka and Bakugou lay awake.
The promise of sleep was close, so close that dreams flickered before their eyes with each slow heartbeat, and yet neither of them could quite relinquish their hold on consciousness. Something felt wrong, somehow, incomplete; something felt missing.
The ancient eyes in the castle's new-cleaned glass watched them with amusement, whispering quietly in long-forgotten tongues. How fickle, they said, were human hearts. How quickly their grievances proliferated, expanded to fill the cold night air.