Everyone... wouldn't shut up. They were picking a class representative, and of course, all these idiotic extras had all exploded in noise at the idea. Once he had safely estimated he probably wouldn't get picked, Katsuki pulled out his hearing aids and looked out the window modify. He could still distantly hear enough to guess what was happening, but it didn't concern him.

He wasn't a fan of useless noise; odd, coming from a noisy quirk user.

The one with glasses, whose blue eyes occasionally flashed red, was marshaling the class into a democratic order in order to properly determine who would be the best fit for class president. Katsuki didn't care. He signed his name for his vote and continued to stare out the window.

In the end, the ponytail girl and glasses recieved the most votes: with two in total. At least, that was what Katsuki had been told later. He hadn't been paying attention. He had been staring at the window the whole session, trying to determine if it was his imagination, or if the reflection over his shoulder was warped slightly. Like... a heat haze. Every time he turned and looked, there was nothing to be seen.

Perhaps the window was defective slightly.

Or perhaps it was perfectly level, and there just was a heat haze hovering over his shoulder... right there... just out of sight.

-- later, at lunch --

"I don't need you two here."

Kaminari (the electric one with a stupid face,) pouted. "Aww c'mon man. You can't be like this all the time."

"Yeah!" The redhead with a stupid hair style, Kirishima, chimed in, already plopping into a seat across from Bakugo. He had a large grin plastered onto his face. "You can't push everyone away. It's not really very manly: or heroic for that matter."

"Tch." Bakugo growled. "Whatever, extras." He dug into his lunch, forcefully ignoring the two extras sitting across from him. They had moved on to talking about the crazy reporters outside that morning. Katsuki ate on, listening but not engaging, getting a grasp of what those around him are like: that was a skill he had been honing for years ever since...

Bakugo blinked hard, erasing the foul image from his mind. His flinch was a tad bit noticible, however, and Kirishima turned to him with a slightly concerned, "is everything good?"

"I'm fine."

Neither Kirishima nor Kaminari looked convinced, but thankfully they didn't press. "... annyyyway, Aizawa seems kinda strict huh?" Kaminari tactfully changed the subject.

Kirishima nodded. "Yeah. But I think it's gonna be good Y'know? Force us to become better through tough love... or something?"

"Like military people!"

"Yeah!"

Katsuki couldn't believe that these two didn't even share one brain cell between them both. He felt he had just lost a few himself after that exchange. He was half-tempted to turn off his hearing aides again, but Dumb Hair turned the conversation back on Bakugo again in a forced attemt to make the angry teen to talk. "So what do you think of Aizawa? He's tougher than your previous teachers, yeah?"

The boy growled. "I don't care."

Kirishima pulled a face. "... are you just gonna deny or avoid every single question?" Bakugo didn't answer.

With a great sigh, Kirishima was about to try again, when the dining hall suddenly erupted in noise. Sirens screeched: students yelled in alarm and panic: dishes were dropped or even thrown: heavy footfalls stampede through the hallways. Katsuki found himself on his feet and running before his mind caught up with what he was doing. He could feel panic settling in, but he drowned it out with anger. Simply running with the plan to figure it out later, he wasn't sure where he was going, but he wasn't stopping any time soon. His steps felt heavy and confused: being pushed on all sides, he was having difficulty moving at all.

He was not about to have a repeat of five years ago. He was getting out.

Katsuki wanted to scream and set off an explosion: he wanted anything to stop the noise, really. Everything was probably fine, and everyone one was just over-reacting, and it was in no way, shape, or form like before, and if he could just find his hands he could set off some small explosions to get everyone's attention, and...

Stopping dead in the middle of the hallway, Katsuki fought for breath. His hands were clapped over his ears, forgetting he could make himself nearly deaf. His eyes were wide. Body trembling like a leaf, he could have easily been pushed aside; and when a body crashed into his and they fell into an empty unlit classroom, the two tumbled head over heels, his hearing aides falling out.

The door got snapped shut after it opened: hopefully closed by whoever had tumbled into him, and not by someone or something malevolent. Katsuki fumbled around, fully detangling himself from the other person. His flailing hands smacked up against a desk and he found himself curling up against and underneath it.

His hands found themselves covering his ears again. Bakugo could barely see in the barely lit room. He could almost hear the other person fumbling around, trying to find a light switch. It was a couple tense seconds before light finally flooded the room. Katsuki flinched.

A familiar head of red hair poked around the desk. Kirishima took in the near pathetic sight that was Katsuki Bakugo: his hair had been messed up out of position, his eyes were still wide and dilated, his fingernails were digging into the skin by his ears, and one hearing aide was hanging down from his ear, the other no where to be seen. Kiri did a double take. "B... Bakugo?"

Katsuki didn't answer. It took Kirishima a moment to place what was wrong with the other boy.

A panic attack; or at least, the beginning of one.

Kiri had seen one take place at his old school. He hadn't been a participant in calming down the panic-attackee and hadn't gotten the chance to see the method, but you don't forget these kind of things easily. He scrambled around, whipping out his phone. He hastily Googled "how to help someone having a panic attack," and tapped on the first search.

"Stay with the person and keep calm," was the first bullet point. That was a no brainer. Either be in here, in a spacious room alone, or be outside in a rampaging mob.

"Offer medicine if the person usually takes it around this time."

"Hey! You need meds?!"

"NO!"

Kiri nodded once. "Kay! Good!" He was about to return to his phone when he remembered a tip he had recieved from someone once. Something about holding hands? His face lit up. "Hey! You wanna hold hands?"

Bakugo stilled for one moment, staring at Kirishima. He hoped for a split second that he had gotten through to Katsuki.

The moment was broken when Katsuki repeated his previous "NO" but with more foul language.

"Okay!" Turning back to his phone, Kiri muttered, "what do I do when holding hands doesn't work?" The next bullet point told him to not make assumptions if what the person needed, but to ask. He had been doing that anyway... he was pretty sure. He took another good look at Bakugo: he didn't seem in any better condition. "... Hey Bakugo?"

Katsuki cut a glare at him.

"What do you need?"

Bakugo stilled again. For a second, Kirishima saw vulnerability flash in his eyes, only to then be flooded out by the anger that seemed to always be prevalent. "Go away." It was the first thing out of his mouth that hadn't been shouted or yelled since they had fallen into this room... since they had joined UA, actually.

It still hurt.

But Kirishima had seen that momentary fragile look, and he wasn't going anywhere. Regardless, he shifted over so he was less in Bakugo's line of sight. He checked his phone again.

"Be predictable. Avoid surprises." Well that was no good. They barely knew each other. There was no way to tell what was predicable and what wasn't.

The next bullet point simply said, "help the person slow his/her breathing down by breathing with him/her or by slowly counting to ten."

Now that seemed like some actual advice he could do.

Taking a deep breath in, he was about to do what the article suggested, when the noise outside suddenly ceased. It fell down into a relaxed murmur. Kirishima looked away from Bakugo and tried to peer through the door's window from where he was across the room. "Hey... is it over? Did they fix whatever it was?"

Bakugo stilled as well. With a shaking hand, he plugged his one present hearing aide back into his ear. To his surprise, the world was quiet once again apart from relaxed murmurs and relieved laughter. He took a deep breath and felt his whole body tremble. Ignoring Kirishima's worry, he curled into a ball and focused on lowering his heartrate.

Kirishima noticed what Bakugo was doing, and positioned himself to the side. Slowing his breathing as well, he and Bakugo just sat in silence like that for a minute. Just breathe in... breath out... and do it again.

Eventually, his curiosity got the batter of him, and Kirishima asked, "are... are you good?"

Bakugo snorted. "I'm fine." The blonde's anger returned and he clambered out from under the desk and stood up swiftly. He reached down and hoisted Kiri up to his feet before he could stand by himself. Holding him at eye-level, Bakugo growled, "this never happened," dropped Kiri, and stormed out of the room.

Kiri blinked. "Uhhhh... yeah it kinda did." Katsuki didn't respond. He kicked the door open and stormed out into the now mostly empty hallway. Kirishima followed with an indignant "hey!" He walked behind Bakugo and tried to figure out what was going on: everything had happened so quickly, it felt like it had happened in five seconds rather than slightly less than five minutes. Kiri wasn't the best at figuring out much honestly, he was fine admitting that, but Katsuki didn't seem to make any sense. One minute the explosive blonde was bragging about becoming the best; the next he was curled under a desk having a panic attack; the next trying to convince the one person who tried to help him that nothing concerning had happened when it definitely just had.

Kiri was missing quite a few pieces of the puzzle. He wasn't good at puzzles either.

"... hey?" He jogged a few steps to be side by side with Bakugo, who stopped dead in his tracks.

"I don't need any friends." The sentence was abrupt and cold, but it was wildly different than what Kiri was going to ask that it left him blinking in confusion for a solid second or two.

"Wait... what? No, I was just going to ask if you were cool with walking to the train together? I get to my house by this station anyway so...?" Kirishima hoped he didn't look to hopeful: Bakugo seemed to have negative reactions to positivity.

Katsuki stared at Kiri, and stared, and stared even more: it was like he was a character in a video game whose animation had glitched out, leaving him frozen as the audio soundtrack threw static and abrupt screeches into your ears. Kiri just stood there, highly uncomfortable, staring right back.

'Please be cool, please be cool, please be cool, please-'

Katsuki Bakugo heaved a heavy sigh. "Whatever." He looked away, beginning to walk moodily back to his home.

Kirishima's face lit up in delight. "ALRIGHT!" He whooped in joy. Hurrying after Bakugo, he started a mostly one-sided conversation that meandered from one topic to another with a fluid irrelevant manner. Katsuki mostly didn't respond, but when he did it was with either disinterested grunts or curt one word replies. Kiri didn't mind. He was just happy to have someone to walk to and from school with.

Of course, they eventually reached the train and had to separate. Kiri waved enthusiastically as he half-hopped away to his train. "See you tommorow man!"

Katsuki managed a grunt and a shrug of his shoulders in response. The blonde turned away and sulked onto the train that would take him home. Kiri watched until the doors closed shut, making sure that Katsuki was safe on his way. He wasn't sure why, but after seeing the meltdown earlier, Kiri felt that they hadn't been fully alone: sure, there were other people milling about, but it had felt as though another person had been right there with the two.

As the doors to the other train holding Bakugo slid shut, was it Kirishima's imagination, or was there an unusual heat haze hanging over Katsuki's shoulder?

Kiri shook his head. No. Probably just some steam from the train. Heat hazes don't walk through crowds.

He adjusted his backpack and took his seat on the train. He was ready to crash in bed and ignore his homework.

A/N

Chapter two is up and done! Like the actual first season of MHA (since we're skipping over all the bits with izu) it's going to be pretty fast paced; i.e., the next chapter is either gonna be the USJ or a short filler. USJ is probably going to be two chapters itself: things will get hot for a bit, then it'll calm down with the festival as with canon. And then we're REALLY getting hot.

Also, most of this chapter was from Kiri's perspective and it made me really happy. He is definitely my fav of the UA students, and in the list of fav characters of the show. Also, he isn't dumb. Just a bit naive. Struggling with academics isn't a sign of stupidity and I will fight over this.

As I've said in other works and will say again right here at the beginning, I am non-LGBTQ and if you're thinking that this will be a KiriBaku story you are wrong. I probably won't have romance at all in this story (particularly with Baku) and if there is any it's a side thing.

First comment is from CadB, and the answer is yes. Inko moved in with the Bakugo's about 4-5 years ago when Izuku died. Mr. Midoriya is a git who never came home, so Mitsuki brought Inko over one day and she never really left. Eventually she properly moved in, leaving her previous apartment and bringing only a few items from home (most of which were some of Izuku's items. She sleeps on an All Might bed spread.)

Well, hope you all enjoyed! Please review, mention anything that seemed out of place, or any grammatical errors: I take all these things into consideration and improve my stories accordingly.

So long Lovies!