Tw: eating disorder mention in this chapter
"Rise and shine, riiiiiiiiise and shiiiiiiiiiiine." Came a call from the hallway. "Breakfast. While it's hot. Get it soon or eat it when its not." Came more of the sing-songy voice. A male voice. Very tenor.
"Ugh, Todoroki go turn on the lights." Bakugo grumbled.
After a moment longer in the dark, Katsuki sat up and looked around. "Shoto? Deku?" It occurred to him where he was and why he was sleeping on his tummy. "Aw, fuck." He griped before hearing the breakfast call. When Bakugo appeared in the doorway, he looked down the three-bedroom-hallway and found Midoriya and Todoroki, also popping their heads out.
"Um, excuse me- what's this about?" Izuku asked as the cart came to him.
"Breakfast is about to be served in the rec room." The nurse said, before continuing down the hallway, singing. "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey, if you're nice, you'll get extra rice."
Todoroki shrugged and followed. Bakugo walked behind Mr. IcyHot, and Midoriya swayed nervously in his doorway until Katsuki pulled him by his robe's sleeve.
"Where'd you get a robe?!" Bakugo demanded.
"You didn't get one?" Shoto asked.
"No?" Katsuki replied, offended.
Izuku skipped up a few steps to reach the others. "They were with our toiletries on the shelves. Didn't you look, Kacchan?"
"No." Bakugo admitted. "My ass was on FIRE." He exaggerated. "I had other problems like that to deal with."
"You can address those problems in therapy—" Midoriya suggested.
"We don't have therapy the same as we did at T.T.I." Todoroki said.
"Thank Christ!" Katsuki laughed.
They reached an open room with a television, showing the news and another teen, dressed in scrubs that had an embroidered "8" on them like the three boys had on, was changing the channel. Some dumb anime played on in the background. He sat and greeted the man who pushed the cart.
"Hello, Sato." He said.
"Goooooooood morning, Natsu. Another day, another dollar."
"That's close to my brother's name." Todoroki said. "Why does everyone use first names here? It's weird. We don't know each other." He finished, looking between Midoriya and Bakugo.
"Sato?" Katsuki asked.
"Yep." The young man assured. "Take as much as you want, but you have to pretty much eat all of what you take or you're wasting food." He said, leaning in and waving his finger.
"I'm good." Izuku said, anxiously.
"You're anorexic." Bakugo said, handing Midoriya a paper bowl of rice and an egg. "Sit, eat."
"Why do I have to listen to you?" Izuku asked, annoyed, but still obeying everything Katsuki was telling him to do. Shoto took a bowl of breakfast porridge and added dried ginger. He sipped a cup of almost-not-even-warm-tea from a paper cup and listened while Sato gave out food to the other patient.
"Because." Bakugo began. "I'm protecting your punk ass. Here: you're my bitch. No one will mess with you if they think that I'm not one to mess with."
"I can handle myself." Midoriya grumbled into his mug. He took a sip and looked down, confused. "This tea isn't hot."
"And you're kinda dumb!" laughed that Natsu kid. He sat on the floor cushion that was unoccupied, as the square kotatsu was meant for four. He sat casually. "They wouldn't gove a coupla crazies some HOT water to hurt themselves with."
Todoroki winced and then laughed it off, surprising Bakugo and Midoriya.
"I'm Natsu- heard that was your brother's name, Mr. Double-Quirk band. You boys came in at a weird time- usually there are more people here. The unit holds twelve but just yesterday, four people discharged, leaving two. That is until you three ran away and the hospital went on lockdown. We knew we'd suddenly get an extra three. Nobody really successfully escapes!" He laughed.
"Why do you talk?" Bakugo asked, flatly.
"Huh? ME?!" Natsu asked, unoffended by the obvious attempt at hurting the teen's feelings. He continued on. "OH, I'm Bipolar. Type 1 or 2- don't really know. I tried to throw myself off the roof at my school, but my quirk- it kinda makes that impossible." He admitted.
Now Midoriya was excited. "What's your quirk?!" He asked. Bakugo told him to shut up. Natsu laughed.
"Haha I can walk on walls and ceilings! I tried to jump, but I've never had both feet off the ground at the same time since I was six!"
"Can you do it now?" Shoto asked, trying to be polite by showing an interest.
Natsu responded "Oh yeah, that's a no. I have an erasure band, so I just experience gravity totally normally now. Pretty boring stuff. Hahaha"
"Who's the other boy here?" Bakugo asked. "You said before us, there were two, right?"
Natsu stopped laughing. "That's Ritsu. He stays in his room and counts to four over and over. You won't see him much."
"Lovely stuff." Katsuki said, annoyed. "Well, Natsu- don't you want to go tell Ritsu 'breakfast's here'?"
Suddenly the boy stiffened up. "Uh, yeah, that's the thing… no one really talks to Ritsu."
"Why's that?" Todoroki wondered aloud, asking this time, not out of politeness, but curiosity.
"Ritsu was the head of a group project with four peers. Allegedly after the project, all four classmates died." Natsu said, shaking his head. He looked up. "Hahahaha! I'm just kidding! Ritsu just sleeps late! Bwahahahaha."
"You're mad." Bakugo said, slamming his fist on the table.
"Delusional." Shoto added.
"So we'll meet him later?" Izuku asked.
Katsuki groaned. "ENOUGH with the MEETING people!"
Sato came back in. The boys had mostly finished eating by now. "Recycle or landfill- you decide!" The nurse cheered, pointing to the two separate bins, lined with paper.
"Uhhh- Where's the trash bag?" Todoroki asked.
"What do you mean? It's right there- it's paper. Of course we can't give you adolescents a plastic bag! What if you SUFFOCATED?!" Sato clarified FAR TOO ENTHUSIASTICALLY.
Bakugo was ready to throw out his food and leave for his room when he noticed that Midoriya hadn't eaten.
"Deku." Katsuki said, annoyed, as he sat back down. "You HAVE to eat."
Shoto came and sat down, too. "We'll wait with you. You'll get in trouble if you don't eat."
Sato was counting that he got back the wooden chopsticks and plastic spoons. "Boys- I'm short on a spoon. They're contraband." He said, seriously- a speed the boys were not aware this nurse could do.
Todoroki covered up for Midoriya. "He's a slow eater. We'll bring you the paper bowl to throw away and the plastic spoon to recycle in fifteen minutes."
Bakugo drummed his fingers on the table with his left hand, face propped with the right. "EAT. MIDORIYA."
Finally, Natsu went away, and it allowed Katsuki to say what he wanted to say. "If you don't eat right now and be my competition for the number one hero spot, I will give my squad the commands to BURN all of your precious All Might memorabilia while you're stuck here or in a feeding clinic."
Izuku gulped nervously and sighed before picking up the spoon and eating.
With thirty seconds to spare, they turned in their contrabanded trash, right in time for the "Morning Meeting in the Art Therapy Room, please." Announcement
"Nooooooooooooo!" Katsuki hollered, scraping his fingers down his face, dramatically. "YOU SAID WE WERE DONE WITH THIS SHIT!" He said, pointing a finger on an outstretched hand at Shoto.
Todoroki frowned. "I said nothing of the sort. I said things are different here- LESS therapy. We still have to make GOALS."
Izuku sighed. "I just wanna call my mom."