Kirishima runs on fumes Friday morning. He can't even remember his own name and two blocks away from school he blinks at his surrounding surprised and gets this nagging feeling he forgot something.
Bakugo doesn't look much better off. He still glares at him around the bags under his eyes. Somehow Kirishima mutters through the fog, "Good morning, Bakugo." Lips curling up in his familiar grin.
He feels something tug at the back of his hair.
"You're going to catch a cold." Ah, so that's it. He really did forget to dry his hair. He reaches up and the tips of his hair have frozen solid in places, melting at his touch. He turns around to respond, but Bakugo is doubled over with his face in the crease of his elbow hacking up a lung.
"You're one to talk."
"Shut," cough, "the fuck up." Cough, cough.
By lunch Kirishima has a migraine the size of Texas. He stops by the nurse's office for some pain killers, but the thought of sitting in the cafeteria with all the noise and his friends poking fun at the bags under his eyes makes him cringe.
The quiet of the library is particularly comforting today and he's pleasantly surprised when he opens his bag to find he did pack Twizzlers the night before. He shoves those under a thigh and pulls out his Algebra homework.
Bakugo coughs at least twice a minute but he still reaches for a Twizzler when Kirishima offers so he can't be that sick.
"Why did you lie to your friends yesterday?" He whips his head in Bakugo's direction so fast something pops, but the boy still has his nose in his book.
"Huh?"
The blond looks up at him with narrowed eyes waiting.
"I, uh, started doing some volunteer work after school, and I know they'll make fun of me if they find out." Not entirely untrue.
"I didn't help you with Algebra yesterday."
"I like sitting with you even when you're not helping me with homework." A half-truth, but truthful enough that he doesn't stutter. He busies himself with pulling apart the Twizzler in his hands just to distract himself from the flush of Bakugo's cheeks.
"Whatever." Bakugo huffs and turns back to his book. He stares at Bakugo's pink cheeks. Is that his way of saying he enjoys my company? He's not telling me to fuck off…
"What're you doing after school?" He blurts.
"Not fucking volunteering my time if that's what you're asking."
"No! Uh, the guys and I usually hang out and play some video games! You should join us!"
"Yeah, no thanks." Bakugo shifts in his seat to lean back fully propping a foot on the table, knee bent with his book resting on his knee.
"What if it was just the two of us?" Bakugo looks over the edge of the book with an eyebrow raised. "I don't have any video games, but we could play some basketball or something?"
"Yeah?" Kirishima nods his head grinning. "And none of your idiot friends would be there?" The nodding picks up intensity. "I'll think about it."
The bell ending lunch period rings and they both start to pick up their things, Bakugo snatching a few Twizzlers to go. "Well, I'll see you in Chem! Let me know if you want to hang out after!"
He doesn't see Bakugo in Chem though and he doesn't have Bakugo's number. He waits after class for him at the school entrance, but he never shows. Kaminari and Ashido rib him the whole way to Sero's because to them Bakugo is weird and standoffish and temperamental, and while he knows they're not entirely wrong he wishes his friends would just shut up for once and give the guy a chance. He just needs a little push is all and anyone that can take the time to explain math to Kirishima can't be all that bad.
Bakugo only sorta agrees to hang out with Kirishima because his vigilante clothes are in ashes in some back alley dumpster where he'd exploded them last night too singed to salvage. He probably could use the break anyway, really. He'd refused treatment after the fire and his lungs still burn from the smoke. When he coughs, he coughs up hard strings of mucus that remind him he pushed himself too hard. He had no right to be in that burning building, but the he thinks about those kids… and the cat. Stupid, wretched thing it was giving him a hard time picking it up.
He doesn't want to think about what could have happened if he had not been out on patrol. He replays the instant when he put the kids down and they ran to their frantic parents elated and tear stained, and the look of pure relief when he handed the cat of to the old hag who had cried her eyes out the moments prior. He'd done the right thing.
He coughed so much he didn't really sleep and even though he knew he wasn't sick took his vitamin c at his dad's insistence. And maybe that's why he agrees to think about hanging out with Kirishima. He's spent the day half awake, but two words hit him hard in the chest as students stream out of fourth period Chemistry. Bunsen burner.
He turns around right then and there on his heels, full body pooling with sweat, head pounding. Shit, shit, shit, shit. He moves without thinking and comes back to awareness in the middle of the library coughing and breathing heavily.
He finds an empty corner out of view. His chest feels tight and holy fuck he is so sweaty. He just needs to sit down for a second. He does, hard and fast with a loud thump and stares at his stupid sweaty hands.
He hardly hears Mr. Aizawa over the thrumming of his heartbeat in his ears.
"Bakugo? Bakugo, is everything okay?" He's moving to put a hand on his shoulder, but Bakugo jolts back.
"Don't touch me." He doesn't recognize the voice as his own. The person speaking sounds broken and scared. "Don't touch me. Everything is not okay! I could hurt you!" There's something wet on his cheeks and he's trembling and he knows his stupid, idiot, sweaty body is going to take this all as a threat and fucking explode and how? How can a superhero have so little control over his own power?
"Bakugo, look at me." He looks into Mr. Aizawa's eyes and something flashes. "It's going to be okay. You can tell me what's wrong."
He skips fifth period. His body miraculously stops sweating and he knows its Mr. Aizawa's doing and maybe that's why he spends the next two hours in his office with the door shut tight explaining exactly how he got expelled from his last school.
He gets home that afternoon and immediately heads to bed, and when he wakes up Saturday it's one in the afternoon.