Katsuki Bakugou
The glistening pink of the dawn cascaded through the windows in Bakugou's room. He couldn't remember how long he'd been awake for, but with a sigh, he sat upright and figured he'd make cold soba.
"If it'll get him to gain weight," Bakugou muttered under his breath as the carpet beneath his feet sank from his weight.
After brushing his teeth and washing his face, Bakugou dragged his heavy feet out of his room, plodding towards the kitchen. Yet, as he began to approach the end of the hallway demarcating the main section of the apartment from its two bedrooms, something red drew his eyes to the white tiles of the kitchen floor. That red was accompanied by a white crescent, and by the time Bakugou registered what it was he was looking at, his legs were already cutting through the air.
"Oi!" snarled Bakugou, who promptly dropped to Todoroki's side on the kitchen floor. "Sh…" Like a rusted valve being cranked off, Bakugou's words abruptly fizzled out in his throat when the tips of his fingers met Todoroki's shoulder.
Unable to expel even a breath or a grain of his voice, Bakugou unconsciously held his breath. He slowly moved his hand to Todoroki's neck, but only the warmth of his own body drained through his fingertips. Despite that, in the pounding, blistering silence, he did not move his hand from Todoroki's neck.
"C'mon, I know you're just being an asshole," Bakugou growled while his glistening palms trembled. "Quit fucking around. I know you're not… You're not dead. You're…" Balling his hands into fists, Bakugou bared his teeth and scrunched his eyes shut. "It's all my fault…"
Then, abruptly jerked into the frigid sea of reality, Bakugou jolted upright. He stifled a gasp, and with wide, blurry eyes, his pupils frantically darted from the wall to the floor, and then, to the ceiling. His skin was like the outermost layer of snow on a snowball, but his guts were rent by claws of molten lava.
That fucking dream again, Bakugou inwardly muttered as he inhaled deeply against the urge to continue gasping. Where is he? Glancing over his shoulder, his eyes landed on the same crescents of red and white that he'd seen in his dream. Is he breathing? Yeah. Yeah… Fuck. What time is it? I don't remember falling asleep. All I remember is getting caught up in shit from the past. It's six in the morning? I can never sleep. 'Did he kill himself because of me?' 'Did he starve to death while I just watched him rot away?'
Bakugou shook his head, and in the hue of the birth of dawn steeping the room, a scowl twisted itself into those blue-tinged shadows. He could feel his stomach shrinking into itself like a spider's legs retracting and curling after death. Even taking a breath in caused his stomach to remind him in a low-rumbling gurgle that he hadn't eaten in roughly twenty-four hours.
It'll go away in a bit if I just wait it out, Bakugou told himself while rubbing his eyes. Bet this is nothing, compared to him. 'Him.' 'Compared.' Everything's always a goddamn comparison… I can't stop myself. 'I'm eating more than them.' 'I need to be stronger than them.' 'I'm not as dumb as them.' 'I was slower than them.' Always, always, always… I'm so fucking sick of it. Even if it's enough for them, when's it enough for me?
Then, Bakugou's chest was pierced with a needle of a scintillating, translucent flash of white. He felt as though his teeth had begun to burrow into his gums and tear through his flesh to drill into the folds of his brain. All of his senses were swallowed up by the acid gnawing away at his stomach.
Who am I? Bakugou realized. Where did I go in this craze to be like—or never be like—everyone else? If all I am and all I do is based on everyone else, then…who the hell am I? Just the regrets, anger, ego, hatred, jealousy, and sorrows that I hate so much? That's…all I am now? But at the same time, I'm none of that but my anger and ego to everyone else. I'm not the pathetic good-for-nothing who breaks down and cries over not being able to be better than someone else no matter what he tries, according to everyone else. But I'm also not the invincible man who's nothing but excellent at everything immediately. I work my ass off just to make it look like I can do everything effortlessly. So, if I'm both, but I'm neither, then who…
Bringing his face that was licked with sweat to his knees, Bakugou felt two invisible hands shaped from the air begin to claw at his eyes. He crushed the breath in his throat and forced the liquid threads swimming over his corneas to cease their flow, but above all, he wanted to squeeze his heart into scarlet silence.
Pieces of shit like me deserve to die, he snarled at himself. I'm not gonna fucking cry again. I've had enough… I suppress everything as much as I can in front of everyone else, but I just end up exploding and breaking down. I try, I try, I fucking try! But nothing's ever good enough… I always fall short… I try so fucking hard, and all of it's just for nothing, it's overshadowed by someone else, it just…doesn't fucking matter if it'll never be good enough, no matter what I do or how hard I try. Even if it's enough for someone else, what's it matter if it isn't enough for me? And I'm the only one to blame for it all.
"Sometimes, writing poems just helps me to empty out my brain. Over the years, though, my writing style has changed."
Bakugou could recall the poem Todoroki showed him on the day from his memory:
Luminescence
Just as no amount of paint
Can stitch up the hole in the wall,
No carpet can conceal
The dirt wedged inside plank crevices.
Just as makeup cannot penetrate
One's graying, wrinkled flesh,
The sun cannot asphyxiate
The shadows spilt in its wake.
Just as a prism serves to splinter
White light into six identities,
A mask divides dancer from dress
Until plastic and human melt into one.
Bakugou lifted his head from his knees and unlocked his phone, pulling up a new digital document. You kept telling me how you didn't like that poem, he inwardly growled. 'I wish I could write shit like that,' I thought. I even started to write poems just to try and be better than you. I always failed. 'Guess I'll just take some inspiration from Shouto and try to mimic his style. Mimic… What a fucking joke.' You kept telling me how you hated the things you made or did, but I was jealous of you for being able to do them at all. Even after practically copying you, I still…
"Katsuki, are you okay?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Don't let any fucking tears fall. Keep it together.
"You're really unfazed by getting death threats? I don't believe that."
"Didn't you see my post?"
Bakugou forced a smirk. In the moment, I really thought I was right… I don't know anymore. All I did was cause a mess for everyone else to clean up from that battle 'practice' in public. I've dented my image, and now it looks like I can't do anything myself. And then the death threats came in. I'm being torn apart by opinions that used to never mean a single thing to me. I just…
Todoroki squinted his eyes. "You're crying. Kat, it's—"
"I'M FUCKING FINE. I DON'T NEED TO HEAR 'IT'S OKAY' WHEN…" Bakugou grit his teeth and scrunched his eyes shut as two silver rivers poured from his eyes. "When it's not… " He felt his insides burn when his voice cracked at the start of his fractured sentence. "I don't…care about what they say to me. I—"
Todoroki wrapped the quaking Bakugou into his arms. "You're lying to yourself. I know you know that. You don't have to wear layers upon layers of masks to protect yourself. You're not weak. You're human. You're only human. But you don't see yourself that way, do you? I mean, who you try to paint yourself as just isn't human."
Shut up… Shut up, shut up! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT BULLSHIT FROM YOU OF ALL FUCKING PEOPLE. YOU, THE SUPERFICIALLY PERFECT MOTHERFUCKER WHO DOES NOTHING BUT LIE TO MAINTAIN THAT FLAWLESS APPEARANCE. YOU CAN DO IT. I TRY, AND I FALL APART. WHY CAN'T I?WHY CAN'T I, SHOUTO?! WHY CAN YOU? YOU'RE ALWAYS BETTER THAN ME. WHY? WHY?! WHY CAN'T I JUST BE BETTER THAN YOU AT ONE FUCKING THING?! And I can't even be happy for your accomplishments, and I just want you to acknowledge mine. I'm jealous of all your accomplishments. I hate that about myself… They're right about me. The 'real' me is better off dead.
I love you with all my heart, and yet, you're also the person who's hurt me the most… I let you in after so fucking long of not being able to trust anyone with that privilege, and you backstabbed me. Despite that… Despite that, I just can't hate you. How could I? You're also the person who made me so damn happy. But it hurts. It hurts, Shouto… Bakugou winced and began to type on the document he'd created:
Sweet Silk
White cocoon in a hexagonal quilt
Her sugar
Colored words embrace my body
My eyes are fixed
On the red hourglass she swallowed
I love you
Oh, another glistening noose
My lips, sewn
Shut, twitch like pink maggots
I can't breathe.
I love you hugs me again
Her fangs sink
Deep into my neck, injecting
Toxins like but
Into my blood, rewiring neurons
Haptic hypocrisy
Resist the hand-made strings
Another noose
Bite the leg which supports her
Intoxication
Live inside her scalding cocoon
Bitten
Distort from fly to butterfly
Salvation
After all, she loves me
With a heavy, aching chest, and quaking hands, Bakugou wrote yet another poem:
Forbidden Fruit
When was it that your white sheen wilted
Into squishy dirt stains
Denting the crimson flames
Concealing your organs and spine?
You beckoned to me
With your summer peacock veil
Like sugar to an ant.
Beneath the burning veil,
I didn't notice the rotting flesh,
The maggots squirming from your orifices,
Or the bone-dust webs of mold
Crawling up your brown tongue
Until the maggots in your skull
Plopped into my dirt-smeared hands.
Despite that, your heart-colored shell
Always drew my hands back
To your spores. I'd unknowingly
Rubbed them into my eyes,
Allowing you to fester in my retinas.
Tomorrow, I'll throw you
Into the pile of bruised apples
You lured me into.
Bon appétit.
Then, Bakugou slowly began to make his way towards the bathroom. He softened his steps, but the ringing reverberations of his heart were only amplified. Those reverberations were like the ticking of a bomb in his ears as he scooped up the pencil sharpener at his desk and proceeded into the bathroom.
After pinching the lock on the door, pushing it back with enough force to shift the door ever so slightly, and twisting it between his thumb and index finger, Bakugou flicked on the ceiling light. A waterfall of saffron drenched his pupils, smearing the floor with a squiggly yellow haze. He blinked away the initial glare eating at his eyes, and then, he utilized his Quirk to melt away the plastic separating him from the silver sheen he sought out. A soft pool of orange and yellow oozed from the palm of his hand.
I hurt you so much, but you won't complain, Bakugou reminded himself while plucking his rectangular reflection from the glistening puddle of pastel red in his hand. Yet, I'm screaming at the top of my lungs over a few cuts and bruises. Even before you cheated on me, I was still a shitty person. Do you even know how empowered I felt when you finally opened up to me? He transferred the liquid remnants of the pencil sharpener onto a few pieces of toilet paper, and then, he folded it over and tucked it away in the trash.
Knowing I was the person you picked to seek comfort and support from, and I was the one you trusted so much… Bakugou sank to the floor and rolled up his right pant leg. It felt so fucking good. You'd tell me secrets you trusted only me with, and I craved that feeling of honor and recognition. Turn to me, pay attention to me, let me know I'm worth it… I wanted to hear it all from you. But now, karma's coming back to bite me in the ass, because I feel so fucking guilty for all of it.
Pressing the cold edge of the blade to his leg, Bakugou swallowed thickly and took in a long, shaky breath. I want to die, but not before I punish myself with all the pain I burdened you with. I want all this shit to be over in an instant, and I want to run away from everything I did, but… Closing his eyes, he gripped the blade fast and angled it to draw out the crimson guilt flowing through his being. It's time I taught myself a lesson, huh?