Chapter 16
They took a detour around their apartments in order to get changed into their training clothes before they reached the gym. Even though Bakugou didn't see it as an urgent necessity, Uraraka had insisted. Mostly because she needed her sports bra, but she wasn't going to say that to him. Luckily Bakugou had agreed in the end, not pushing the matter any further, since Uraraka had promised she would hurry.
"Seems like you're ready, let's go Cheeks," his eyes were smiling more than usual. Actually, scratch that, since it was Bakugou, it didn't take much for that to happen. You could see the smile silently slumber in his eyes.
"Damn, I tried to hurry up, but you sure are fast Bakugou," Uraraka smiled.
"Pfft, of course, I am," he said matter-of-factly.
While they walked the rest of the way, Uraraka was humming silently to herself, while she was never stopped or heard any complaints from Bakugou.
When they finally arrived at the gym, Bakugou instantly threw his bag towards a random corner as he started to stretch his body.
"You get ten minutes of warm-up Cheeks, and then we'll begin training for real," he said with a smile on his lips.
Uraraka nodded in agreement as she gently put her bag to the side as she quickly warmed up her own body, jumping up and down and from side to side before she stretched her body, feeling it heat up slowly like an engine.
Ten minutes had barely passed when Bakugou stood in the center of the gym, yelling: "Cheeks! I hope you're fucking ready by now! Get your butt over here!"
Uraraka, who was currently warming up in her own world, was close to falling when she heard Bakugou's voice.
"Bakugou! It's just the two of us here," she looked around to make sure and sure enough, nobody else was there, "you don't have to yell to get my attention." She walked over to where he was standing, and she could feel her body heat up.
He clicked his tongue, "whatever, just come over here, Cheeks, I have an idea for our training today."
"We're not going to continue the same kind of training as yesterday?"
"We'll do that after some quirk training, that way we'll have to fight during exhaustion as well," Bakugou had a maniac grin on his face, making Uraraka swallow her nerves. She hoped she wasn't going to regret this training later.
The quirk training Bakugou had in mind wasn't complex, it was rather simple when it came to it. Uraraka was going to make a lot of rocks and debris he had created, float, and then release her quirk, so Bakugou could use his A.P. Shot to hit them all before they fell to the ground. She had done something similar with her other classmates earlier. The only difference was that Bakugou wanted her to increase the number of rocks she used her quirk on, making her push her limits all the time.
The more Bakugou asked for targets to come in faster, the queazier Uraraka felt, nausea in her stomach rose slowly but surely.
"This is great, give me more, Uraraka!" Bakugou encouraged with the focused feral grin he usually wore whenever in a fight. The sweat was dripping down his neck and shoulders as he was breathing hard, none of which seemed to bother him.
"Hold on, I'm about to reach my limit," Uraraka almost whispered as she could feel the nausea press on.
"Come on, push through it for one more round, Cheeks. Plus Ultra!"
Uraraka shook her head as she tried to pull herself together. He was right. If she wanted to be a hero, she couldn't just give up because of a stupid limit. She had to do her best, just like Deku.
Uraraka hardly noticed Bakugou click his tongue because when she activated her quirk on a couple of large rocks, she felt her limit pressure her and before she knew it, she fell on her knees and hands, emptying the contents of her stomach right then and there.
Uraraka was getting used to it, but reaching her limit like this in front of someone was never her favorite experience. She could hardly focus on anything but the cramps in her stomach and the blush from the shame.
I guess you cannot really force through your limit that easily.
While Uraraka was focusing on emptying her stomach on the ground, she hardly noticed the steps getting closer until she could see the tip of Bakugou's boots in front of her. He placed a bottle of water on the ground next to her and sat down near her, but away from the remains of her breakfast.
"Well, I guess we can take a break for now," he said with a sigh.
"Ugh, I'm sorry," Uraraka groaned as she reached for the water bottle with shaking hands. The cold water was a cold welcome to get the taste out of her mouth and calm down her stomach. "And thank you," she lifted the bottle up to indicate what she meant.
"It's not important," he came with a bunch of paper towels and started to clean up the mess on the ground.
A few seconds went by before Uraraka realised what was going on.
"Wh-what are you doing?!" she asked with panic and shame in her voice.
"I'm fucking cleaning our mess up, what does it look like?" He said as if she had spilled some orange juice while he didn't stop for a second.
"Yeah but … I-I should be the one doing that. You should not be …" she trailed off as she saw him remove everything quickly and efficiently and she didn't even get to finish her sentence before he got up again, throwing out the dirty paper towels.
"I'm not going to wait for you to clean it up. That's fucking nasty," he grumbled as he walked back to where she still was as he sat next to her.
"Yeah, I'm sorry," Uraraka groaned as she could feel her heat face up and she had to keep her face low so it wouldn't be shown.
"Fuck, stop apologizing already! Shit damn, you apologize all the time, it's like fucking Deku has rubbed his apologetic nature off on you."
"I'm sorr-" Uraraka stopped herself, fiddling with the water bottle, "thank you," she then finally said in an almost whisper.
"Nothing to fucking thank me for. I didn't clean up because of the goodness of my fucking heart or anything."
For some reason Uraraka began to giggle, it came from the deep depths in her stomach and her chest and she could hardly stop again. The sound of her giggles that turned into a burst of light laughter was almost echoing in the gym they were in.
While she was laughing, Uraraka didn't see the small smile Bakugou had on his lips. Because when she finally calmed down again, Bakugou had turned his face away from hers.
"Right, thank you anyway Bakugou, and for training with me tod-" Uraraka's phone interrupted what she was going to say as it started ringing in her gym bag that had been discarded near the entrance.
She stumbled up on her feet again, feeling her legs had been turned into jello, but when she saw that it was the hospital calling her, she felt like a cold chill ran through her body, solidifying her limbs.
"Hey, this is Uraraka Ochako," she answered with a shaky voice.
"Hi Ochako, I'm calling from the hospital. I'm your parents' doctor. I wanted to notify you that your parents woke up a little while ago. Can you come to the hospital? They would love to see you as soon as possible and then we can talk about their condition altogether." The voice on the other line talked in a calming and soothing manner and all Uraraka could feel was a buzzing that was spreading through her whole body. She almost felt dizzy, and she heard a ringing in her ears, but she didn't care, her parents were awake. She had to go to see them. Now, she wanted to see them now.
"Yes, I'll come as soon as I can, thank you very much," When she closed her phone she noticed Bakugou standing right behind her and she turned around to face him.
"What was it?" He asked with a low voice, his eyes softer than usual.
"My parents, they uhm, the hospital called, they're awake," she whispered. It was as if the air from her lungs had disappeared. "I can go to see my parents."
"Then why are you still standing here, Cheeks?"
"Right, right!" Uraraka came out of her daze as she shook her head. She swung her gym bag over her shoulder and without even thinking about it, she grabbed Bakugou's wrist.
"What?" Bakugou looked down at Uraraka in confusion as he raised one of his eyebrows.
"Come with me," she had barely looked him in his eyes as she tried to keep her nerves calm. It hadn't really been a question, more than it had been her telling him and normally Bakugou would have freed his arm from her trembling grip and denied doing anything, but he didn't. Instead, Bakugou just clicked his tongue as he took his own bag over his shoulder with his free hand.
"Let's fucking go then," he said, secretly feeling something bubbling up in his chest as he felt like she relied on him.
xXoOoXx
Not much had been said on the bus ride towards the hospital. Bakugou could feel Uraraka's anxious nerves, it was like his skin felt prickly from the side she sat on and after a few minutes, he took out his earphones and handed her one of them, and put the other in his own ear.
Uraraka looked up at him questionably, clearly not really understanding the reason behind his gesture. She must have been so wrapped up in her own thoughts about her parents she didn't even notice how she was feeling right now.
"Put it in and relax for a bit," he almost whispered with his low voice as he put on the same soothing music as he had just a few days ago.
Uraraka didn't say anything else, she just let herself calm down into Bakugou's shoulder and let the music take over her mind while they rode the bus.
Uraraka almost fell asleep when Bakugou nudged her to get off the bus. They scrambled out of the vehicle, and the fresh air woke Uraraka up as they walked inside the hospital, Uraraka could feel her nerves flooding her system all over again. She knew they would be awake, which meant they were alive. But she didn't know of their condition or anything other than that and it worried her, her mind started to whirl around through her worries where she couldn't keep it under control, everything felt like a thunderstorm, her ears started to ring and her body was buzzing all until-.
"Ochako!" Uraraka's mom called out with that clear voice she had always loved.
Uraraka looked up, she hadn't even noticed they had already arrived at her parent's shared room and all her worries left her when she saw her parents sitting up in the bed.
Not needing to think or anything, Uraraka let her gym bag fall to the floor as she ran over to her parents to hug them and she could feel her heart warm up again and the knot that had been settling in her stomach ease up again as she could feel their arms wrap around her.
"Mom! Dad! You're awake! I was so worried about you."
Uraraka had no idea how long she spent being engulfed in her parents' arms again, they were only interrupted when the doctor came into the room, clearing his throat to get their attention, and they let go of each other.
The doctor talked about what had happened, what they had done to work on their injuries, and what their current conditions were now.
Even though Uraraka tried to listen intensely to what was being said, she didn't get the detail of it all, she was just the gist of it. Essentially it had been a close call for her parents. Especially with her father as the doctors found out he had a weaker heart, making it more difficult for him to pull through the surgeries as well as the recovery, which had been one of the reasons for the long time they had been gone. They had to make sure to take it easy and to make sure to take care of his heart even more from now on.
"You'll be able to stay for observation for a few days, and then you're free to take home again," the doctor said as they left the room.
"Thank you so much, doctor," Uraraka's mom said with a smile. She had been tentatively stroking her husband's hand through the whole consultation.
Uraraka stayed by her parent's side for over an hour, where she had the chance to talk with them about everything. She told them about how worried she had been and how happy she was that they were now awake again.
By the end, Uraraka hugged them both goodbye and they kissed her forehead, telling her to crush it at school and telling her how proud they were of what she was doing.
When Uraraka exited the room, she saw Bakugou still waiting for her and she didn't really know what to think or say to him, so she just let him walk beside her as they left the premises in silence.
While they were walking towards the bus stop, the sun was setting behind them, painting everything a bright orange with a dash of pink, a glowing warmth spreading across the horizon in the sky.
"Thank you Bakugou, for coming with me, I mean. You didn't have to, this is not your mess at all," she said with a shaky voice.
Bakugou looked at her flushed cheeks and her red eyes that were on the verge of tears as he stepped closer. He could feel his soft side was wearing thin already, but he pushed through his last reserves because he knew that she needed him to. And he knew he couldn't forgive himself if he was a reason to make her feel alone in this, so he reached out to softly stroke the first tear away from her cheek.
Uraraka didn't know why, maybe it was because Bakugou was the one who was here right now, maybe it was because he had helped her so much through the last couple of weeks, maybe it was because she just had built up this urge to touch him, but she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face into his chest. The scent of caramel was so strong it was like she was cradled by the soft heat and when felt his arms embrace her small frame, she felt safe. And she felt the tears flow down her cheeks as everything just left her in the warm embrace, comforted by Bakugou. Her tears soaked Bakugou's shirt until there was nothing left but tears, relieving her heart from the worry she had been carrying around for so long.
