WARNING: There is extreme language in this chapter (courtesy of Bakugo) that led me to bump this FanFiction up to an M rating.
This is NOT due to anything sexual, solely because of language. Just clarifying.
"Get up."
Huh?
Uraraka opened her eyes, her vision barely able to make out the deep voice that was commanding her in the moment.
"Uraraka, what are you doing here?"
"D... Deku?" she said tiredly, with a hope in her voice that didn't make it past her inflection.
"Sorry," the voice responded, coming from a mostly gray and black figure. "I know that's what we all want."
The groggy student sat up and rubbed her eyes, which still felt different from yesterday.
"Mr. Aizawa?"
"We thought you went missing," he said angrily, walking up to her. "You didn't tell anyone you came here last night."
I went where? To bed?
Her eyes met all the All Might memorabilia, the themed curtains, and the oddly familiar bedsheets she was in, now remembering that she had entered Deku's room last night.
Suddenly realizing the situation she was in, she looked around the room and began to blush.
Why... why did... why did he have to walk in on this?!
"I-I-I'M SORRY! I-I... It's just..."
"Don't worry, I'm not going to make a big deal about it," he said. "This is a hard loss for all of us, but I can only imagine how hard it is for you. You two were close since Day 1, weren't you?"
Aizawa's vain attempt at making his student feel better only made her more embarrassed.
She covered her tomato-red face and would have likely begun floating were it not for the gloves she had on.
After an awkward silence, Aizawa coughed. "I... I'm sorry."
She looked up, confused at her teacher's sudden passive response.
"The truth is... I don't really know how to respond to this. I know it's rough, and I'll try my best to not make it worse."
He turned towards the door, walked to it, and turned back around. "Make sure you don't do anything reckless."
After he left, Uraraka got up from bed and looked outside the door to see most of Class 1-A walking away, with Iida running up to her and asking her if she was still okay.
"Uraraka! I was worried sick! I was looking for you all morning! Why did you do that?!"
With most of her sadness drained out from the events of yesterday, she felt sheer embarrassment at the moment.
"Can this day just be over already...?" She plopped onto the floor, looking down to avoid eye contact with people.
Mina ran over and sat next to her.
"Give her a break, Iida. She just lost the love of her life."
"M... Mina!" She looked up, beginning to protest, but her pink friend put her finger to her lips, shushing her.
"You like him, don't you?"
After initially hesitating, she nodded and looked down again.
"That's okay. We're here to help you with that."
"Well... what could we do?" asked Uraraka.
Despite the combined efforts of Class 1-A, nobody could really clear the cloud above Uraraka's head. Getting small smiles out of her here and there were difficult.
Possible, but still difficult. And who's to say if they were real or not?
Many attempts were made. They went out and got her mochi chips: her favorite kind that was her go-to-snack when she could afford to buy them.
It only made it worse though, as it reminded her of the gifts Deku and Uraraka exchanged at Christmas, which included the very same kind of mochi chips.
Asui walked with her a bit around campus, and they were able to maintain casual conversation. But a cloud was over her head the entire time.
Finally, Mina suggested that they try and bake their own sweets to enjoy with Sato, but Uraraka respectfully declined.
Now having lost one of their rays of sunshine in the class and essentially having lost a second due to the loss, the entire mood changed in UA's dorms.
At around 5:00 PM, Uraraka and her group of friends, primarily Iida, Asui, Ashido, Momo, and Jiro, were all just sitting in silence in the lounge, when Bakugo made his entrance.
His commanding presence was subconsciously noted by the students, but nobody batted an eye.
The angry spiky-haired boy stopped and took in the atmosphere, only to growl and unwillingly emit smoke from his palm.
"Hey, man, don't get on them. Now's not the time," said Kirishima, who was in the kitchen making a protein shake after a workout. Partly for the training, partly to kill time, and partly to kill stress.
"I'm not!" he yelled in response. "God, leave me alone."
"Then's what's the problem?" he said, looking concerned for his friend.
"Do I have to say it, fuckface?" The sitting group and Kirishima looked at him with shock. It wasn't out of character for him to swear, but at who is essentially his best friend? And that word in particular?
Not so much.
"This whole place is a wreck now. I can't go somewhere without everyone reminding me that the damn nerd is gone. Can't you just let it go?"
Another moment of rarity: the red-haired student who normally remained calm got angry. "Dude, he was our friend! You can't just say that!"
"Watch me, loser."
The two stared down, now about five feet from each other.
A VERY uncomfortable moment and quite possibly the first real animosity witnessed by Class 1-A between the two.
"Bakugo, I don't think that you're over it either."
"I KNOW I'm not!" he yelled, letting out a small explosion from his hand. "BUT AT LEAST I'M FUCKING TRYING!"
He stormed off back to his room and his friend let out a long sigh.
"I'm sorry about that, guys," Kirishima said. "This is really affecting him too. They were friends before coming here, remember."
The group nodded. Even if "friends" wasn't the best word to describe it, whatever word necessary worked to say that Deku had a past with him. It's as if your next-door neighbor of many years moved away.
And was being hunted down by the Mafia.
As Uraraka witnessed the scene, she thought about their differing responses. Obviously Bakugo was going to be mad.
Just thinking about the peril Deku was in brought her to tears and put her stomach in knots. And this was only after her knowing him for a year.
A seed of pity began to spring in her heart for her explosive classmate. One that was greatly covered by his rude and upsetting behavior, but a seed nonetheless.
1:31 AM
Back in her own room, Uraraka had been staring at the clock for the past two hours. She stayed up a bit later hanging out with her friends because she was afraid she would cry when she came back to her dorm.
Well, she didn't. Instead she was met with a feeling of emptiness which, truth be told, didn't feel much better.
She opened the door and walked around the dorm building. At night, everything looked a lot different. Scary, even.
Uraraka did not have a severe fear of the dark. But simply put, trotting down pitch-black areas is not a sensation she enjoys. But she just did it to get her mind to think.
Come on... think... think...
Why is it always about Deku?
It wasn't just about Deku.
It was about the impact his leaving had on Iida, Bakugo, his mom, and UA as a whole.
It was about how a villain that ended All Might's career, so essentially a godslayer, was about to chase him down.
It was about how he had somewhat lied to his classmates for the entire time he'd known them (though she didn't take offense to this fact, as she understood why it was necessary).
Her thought processes were interrupted by a light popping noise she heard.
What's this?
As she tried to follow the noise, she approached the balcony, which she was able to enter without going through one of the boys' rooms.
It wasn't a booming sound. She only heard it when she was looking out the window at the sky. But when she came closer to it, she knew what it was.
*click*
*creak*
*SLAM*
She saw the winner of the UA Sports Festival, the one who defeated her mercilessly, on the balcony lighting his fingertips with little explosions.
"If you're here to lecture me about how it's okay to be sad, then I don't want to hear it, dumb hair."
She didn't know what to say, and instead just stood and watched as his back was still to the entrance, facing the opposite direction of her.
"Oh, so you're going to ignore me now, huh?!" he said, the explosions getting faster and faster. "I'm gonna blast that smug-ass look off your-"
He turned, expecting to see a chiseled fighter with a fierce expression only to see a round-faced girl with a weak heart, evident in her gaze.
"R... You..." He said, trying to think of a response. "What are you doing out here?"
"Not letting it go," she scoffed, sitting down against a window.
"Oh, this is about that shit?" He asked. "You're gonna get beat again if you keep this up."
"Go ahead," she said, plopping onto the ground. "Make my day."
He stopped in surprise. Nobody typically responded that way to him, and if it was going to be anybody, he didn't expect it'd be the one who was always cheerful and happy.
"Geez, I didn't know it was this bad," he said, turning back around. "I heard you busted into the damn nerd's room last night. You've got a thing for him, don'tcha?"
Uraraka's seed of understanding was now buried beneath anger. "Y-Yeah... what about it?!"
"You're gonna be a hero, you don't have time for that crap!"
"Says you?! You're the one out here dicking around on the balcony, hoping for your boyfriend to come back!"
"Shut your mouth!" he yelled, throwing a small explosion in the air out of frustration. "You think I'd ever look up to that bastard?!"
"Yes!"
"THEN TELL ME WHY, ROUNDFACE!"
"BECAUSE I DID!"
...
"Well... yeah, but I'm not you."
"Then why the fuck are we both out here?"
As another silence broke out, the tears welling up in Ochaco's eyes finally broke free, and her face fell into her knees as she covered it with her arms.
Although she was expecting to get blasted, Bakugo was simply bewildered. He didn't witness many other "cryers" than Izuku, and they typically wouldn't bark back at him.
"I... I think..."
"You think what?!" Uraraka shouted back.
"I think we put too many eggs in one basket."
Uraraka looked up at him, taking offense to the statement.
"Just one damn kid leaves this school and we're out here bitching about it on a balcony way past when we should be asleep."
...
"He's not just some damn kid."
"Oh yeah? Well what if it were you? Or me?" he said. "Would you be out here bawling if I was the one gone missing? Or would you crawl to the nerd in green tights and fall right into his lap?"
...
"You know, he told me shit about One For All. And I was the only person in class that knew," he said. "And I thought that it fucking meant something."
This was news to Uraraka, who had just assumed that he found about it two days ago like she did.
"But NOPE!" he shouted. "He doesn't give two fucks about what we all thought. Because he's just going to walk off, with no warning, with no talking about it either, writing a half-assed letter with shit I already know like it didn't make a difference to him either way."
"GO TO HELL, PRICK!" Bakugo threw a rock similar to how he did the ball on his first day at UA, nailing a tree several hundreds of feet away and probably leaving a small dent in the wood.
Now hyperventilating due to his venting, exercise, and emotions, he grabbed onto the fence of the balcony and leaned on it, out of breath.
B... Bakugo...?
Is this the same person that I go to class with?
He sniffled and turned back to his classmate. "There, you got what you came for. Now leave."
"Bakugo, stop. That's not it."
"It's not okay to cry!" he said, crying as he spoke. "We're gonna be heroes..."
"You're right..." Uraraka unwllingly admitted. "We did put too many eggs in one basket. But that's what heroes do."
"W... What?"
"Heroes will risk everything. Just to be the one that saves you. Just to be the one that beats the bad guy. Don't you agree?"
He nodded his head, avoiding eye contact.
"That's what Deku believes right now. And right now, he's... he's..."
He's... trying to save us...
"He's what?"
"He's t-trying to save us."
"I-Idiot..." he said, wiping his nose. "I don't need saving."
"You think he cares?"
Bakugo nodded his head 'no'.
"Yeah, I didn't think so either."
The two just sat on the balcony, thanking the heavens that nobody else came out there to witness their emotional breakdowns.
Uraraka could've sworn that someone would have come by due to Bakugo's screaming, but she was glad to be wrong about that.
Bakugo had finally calmed down, now breathing only slightly faster than normal, though he could likely blow up a building in a matter of minutes with how sweaty he was.
Uraraka sighed and got up to leave.
"What are you going to do now?"
She paused. "I'm going to cry about it. Because I want to. And you should too."
Opening the door and putting foot inside, Bakugo sighed like a teenage girl.
"Fine, but when we're done," he continued, "we're gonna get our asses back up and be heroes. Right?"
A similar fervor entered her mind with that statement to the one that engulfed her during the sports festival.
"Right."
