Shouta Aizawa

After their lesson, I'll take a nap, Aizawa thought to himself while sipping from his metal thermos of hot coffee. Slowly, they're making progress towards recovery. It may be excruciating now, but with time, support, and care, things will become easier. He knocked on the door to Bakugou and Todoroki's apartment unit. From suspected abuse from Endeavor to an abusive significant other who killed himself. There are no papers to fill out and nothing to file for that anymore. Todoroki is certainly obfuscating what happened to him, and Bakugou has only provided pieces of information relevant to how he was involved. Once again, I seem to be back at square one. I know so little about the situation, and now, I lack the information to determine the next feasible course of action. He rang the doorbell.

Brrt!

Are they both out? Aizawa pondered after standing in silence for another minute. I'll call Bakugou first. He sighed when the phone rang until he received an automated voice message. Todoroki? He closed his eyes when calling Todoroki yielded the same result. It's mid-morning, so I can't imagine I'm interrupting any indecent activity. What are you boys up to? Pushing out a sigh, Aizawa dialed for Nezu, the principal of U.A. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check the security footage to make sure something didn't happen.

"Hello," Nezu greeted Aizawa in a zealous yet nonchalant tone.

"Can you pull up the security footage for the apartments and tell me when Todoroki and Bakugou were last seen entering or exiting the complex? It's a safety concern."

"I'm on it," chirped Nezu. "Here we are. Let's see…" Silence slithered around Aizawa's bones. "Well, it seems like neither Todoroki nor Bakugou have left the complex today. Todoroki entered the—"

"Thank you. That's all." Aizawa hung up the phone and immediately scraped through his side bag for the master key to the apartment. "This isn't good," he hissed under his breath before slamming his fist against the door three times. "I'm coming in if neither of you answer," he barked, tearing out the gold master key from his bag and waiting in crushing, incandescent silence.

Five, four, three, two, one… Aizawa rammed the key into the lock of the door and promptly twisted the door open, bolting inside the apartment and scanning the main area. Nothing. I don't hear anything, either. Shit. His heart bashed against his chest as he slinked into the hallway, catching the suffocating scent of copper. No. They wouldn't have… Calm down. He knocked on the door to Todoroki's room and waited two seconds before yanking open the door.

Like paint, wet and dried blood was smeared across the tatami mats on the floor, forming roses of blood in a few patches on the mats. The stomach-tearing odor of blood suffused the room like a thick sea of steam. Sitting side by side against the desk of Todoroki's room were two figures Aizawa recognized through the dark stains of crimson mottling their bodies from neck to ankles. The figure with ash-blonde hair had a single crescent of blood slashed across his neck that had vomited out spurts of blood in which some gleamed in the light and others were like tattoos of rust; blood drenched his entire chest. The figure with half-red and half-white hair oozed a flowing red from his wrists, and across his chest and face were streaks and splotches of a deep crimson hue.

"I will never allow suicide to claim another one of my students…"

Gut-wrenching nausea ravaged Aizawa's insides as white shock pumped through his veins with the taste of hot, liquid salt. He crunched down the emotions pulsating through his brain like leeches writhing out of water, sprinting to his blood-soaked students. Immediately, he dove to the floor, pressing his fingers to Bakugou's wrist and Todoroki's neck. He scoured the open, crimson cuts on Todoroki's wrists, noting that the wounds had no visible debris lodged inside. Huffing through the smog of white burning through his senses like flesh dissolving in acid, Aizawa's heart palpitated when he could feel nothing but the faint warmth of Bakugou's flesh, and the faint breaths of Todoroki's pulse against his fingers.

Simultaneously dialing for emergency services and utilizing his capture cloth to firmly compress the lacerations on Todoroki's wrists, Aizawa glimpsed from Bakugou's open yet unblinking and ghost-filled eyes to Todoroki's squinted, glassy eyes. "Hang in there, Todoroki," he sibilated, cautiously laying Todoroki supine on the nearby futon and placing a pillow on Todoroki's chest; he rested Todoroki's cold, shivering arms on the pillow. "Hang in there." He elevated Todoroki's feet with another pillow as his call was received.

Yet, as the call operator on the phone inquired as to what Aizawa's emergency was, Aizawa heard a faint, raspy whisper: "Thank you…" His spinal cord was severed in an eruption of white and yellow when, merely seconds later, he witnessed Todoroki's chin droop to the side; Todoroki's arms abruptly faltered onto the futon.

"Todoroki?" gasped Aizawa in a deep, apoplectic growl. "Todoroki?!" He placed one hand under Todoroki's nose and used the other to take Todoroki's pulse as he spat that he had a student who committed suicide, and another student who was bleeding out from the wrists. "Shit," he huffed when he felt neither Todoroki's breath on his hand nor the lurches of a heartbeat. "He doesn't have a pulse now. I don't know if he has enough blood for CPR to matter right now, but his wounds are compressed to the best of my abilities." With the aid of the operator on the phone, Aizawa laid each of Todoroki's arms on a pillow at both of Todoroki's sides and began to perform CPR.

Why? Aizawa desperately forced the base of his palm against Todoroki's frail, sunken chest in a steady rhythm. Why? I was talking to you both just yesterday. What happened? He sieved Bakugou's body, which was like meat beginning to expire with a slick, red mold. Did Bakugou kill himself, and Todoroki walked in and did the same? His blood is still mainly fresh. He died recently. Did they plan to die together? Or did Todoroki…

"The ambulance should arrive in three minutes," remarked the woman on the phone.

He's lost so much blood, Aizawa thought while his muscles began to eat themselves alive like droves of tightly packed maggots. You need to make it. No. Don't get emotional. Focus on what needs to be done. Keep going. His brow was adorned by beads of sweat. I should have checked in more often. Why? All the progress you both made…

"Thank you…"

Aizawa felt something in his chest shatter as he continued to force Todoroki's heart to pump blood. Two of my students committing suicide? As a whole, three? You were all here to save others, but… He grimaced when he checked for Todoroki's pulse again. None of you could save yourselves first. Bakugou, I never had a strong impression that you were suicidal. Did you mask it extremely well? Always concerned about Todoroki, and whether Todoroki would die, yet… He dared not glimpse again into the unseeing eyes of Bakugou's corpse.

"Have you eaten today?" queried Aizawa.

I understand that Todoroki's hospitalization is likely playing a role in this, but regardless, I don't want his habits to become any unhealthier than they already are.

"Can you fuck off with this shit for one goddamn day?"

"Language. I treat Todoroki the same. I have concerns regarding both your health and his health."

"Tch. He's the one who's actually this close to starving himself to death. Don't look at me. I'm fine. Just…not hungry."

You'll drink, smoke, and get high, but you won't feed yourself.

"Is it difficult to eat when there's so much to be stressed about?"

"In a way. Whatever. Doesn't matter."

Despite the fact that you admitted far more to me than I managed to glean from Todoroki after all my efforts, I feel like I knew less about you than I did Todoroki. Aizawa grit his teeth, unfaltering in his administration of CPR. Why are you dead beside me? Why, Bakugou? What was I missing? What could I have done? What should I have done? What did I miss? I swore to save you both. Now…

All Aizawa could do was bring his hands to Todoroki's chest, ignoring how his arms screamed for clemency until a team of paramedics arrived at the apartment. He'd noticed and taken a picture of two pieces of paper on Todoroki's desk while a team of police officers and forensic units darted into the room stained with deep crimson rivers. Aizawa was escorted outside of the apartment without his capture cloth and was simultaneously provided with the support and inquiries from a few of the officers on the scene.

Aizawa could remember a flurry of students who had been in their apartments rushing outside of the building and pivoting their focus from one point to another. Although his chest rapidly shrunk into a seething pulp before exploding out into frigid fractals of electric pain each time his heart beat, Aizawa informed his students that Bakugou had passed away, and that Todoroki did not have a pulse but still had a chance of surviving. Not a fragment of emotion besieged his visage while his students gasped, faltered to their knees, desperately looked around, and whispered amongst each other. Yet, Aizawa assured each of his students that he would be happy to speak with them if they wanted support.

Once Aizawa and the police at the scene sent the U.A. students back to their apartments, Aizawa sat down on the bench just outside of the building and exhaled slowly. He stared at the vacant spot beside him, flickering between memory and reality. Then, he began to read the longest of the two letters on Todoroki's desk from the pictures he'd taken:

Aizawa,
It's Bakugou. Todoroki and I are committing suicide together. I was the one to suggest it. He actively tried to convince me to keep living. But I'm not convinced there's a 'better' that warrants all this pain, and all the pain that's yet to come. I'm not gonna write my life story, and I'd be too ashamed to do that anyway, but even if this makes me a selfish, cowardly, good-for-nothing piece of shit, I'm choosing to run away from everything. Yeah, I'm choosing to throw away everything you've done for me. And I'm sorry. You were there for me when I had no one else to turn to. You listened to whatever shit I ended up spewing. You reminded me you were there for me. I needed that. I really fucking needed that. I can't explain how painful it was to get backstabbed by Todoroki, and I can't explain how guilty I've felt after finding out he did it so the sick fuck he was with wouldn't touch me. But you were always there for me. You never had to check in. You never had to do anything but dump your lessons and leave. None of this was your fault.

Aizawa flicked to the second image of the letter from Bakugou:

I'm grateful. I'm grateful, Aizawa. But fuck you for making me write that. Asshole. You did a lot for me, even though I tried not to show it. But I'm not selfish enough to kill myself without acknowledging your impact on me. Couldn't have grown as strong as I was in my prime without you. So, thank you. Tell the rest of the class they ain't weak for needing a hand, needing someone to talk to, or crying for any reason. I'm happy I was in your class, and I'll miss all my classmates, but I'll stop pretending and beating around the bush: I just want to die. None of my coping methods are enough, and they're all unhealthy methods. The 'healthy' ones don't do shit for me, and if anything, it makes me feel worse, so I use the unhealthy ones even more. I won't go into detail, but eating was one of them. But honestly, I'm tired. I'm just tired of dealing with everything, Todoroki included. I love him, but it kills me just to think about him, and I hate talking to him. I want him to live, but I'm sick of forcing him to live just to see him suffer and slowly kill himself just to live. We're both tired. Can you call this shit living? I'm grateful for everything, but I can't keep doing this. I'm sorry.

Swallowing down the thick, inky lump of words clumped in his throat, Aizawa closed his eyes. His nerves were filled with a cold, salty mist that dispersed through his body and chilled his digits. He could hear the orders of the police officers on site, the static-caked lines of voices lurching from numerous communicators, the light clomping of footsteps, and the occasional melody of a bird in the distance.

Don't get caught up in unnecessary emotions, Aizawa reminded himself as he gazed back at the apartment complex. Keep going. Now isn't the time. There's still work to be done. He pulled up the third picture he'd taken of the two notes on Todoroki's desk, and immediately, he recognized the handwriting of what he promptly discovered was a poem. Todoroki. What is this poem about? It's unsettling and mildly disturbing. Soap dispenser… And it seems like the poem is supposed to loop back to the beginning every time. 'Blood Bubbles.' Contaminated bubbles? I see. I believe I understand now. Why did this happen to you? This…

"Do you mind if we keep the door open?"

Forcing down the waterfall of feelings boiling in his stomach, Aizawa stood up from the bench in the early afternoon sun. The city is smiling, despite what's happened. It's as if it never happened on this beautiful day. It certainly would be easier to pretend as if it were a dream. His brows were tugged up when he heard his name from the distant commotion. Is he alive? His heart was a geode of thunder as he briskly trudged back to Bakugou and Todoroki's apartment. Todoroki…

Aizawa did not allow a drop of emotion to blight his expression as he approached a round police officer whose forehead had the sheen of an apple in the sun. "Any updates on Todoroki's condition?" inquired Aizawa in a husky sigh.

The officer standing before Aizawa gestured for him to enter the apartment building. Thus, Aizawa nodded, and he filled his lungs just beyond the point of slight discomfort. His skin was coated in an electric frost of numb sensitivity, but his pulse remained at a resting beat.

Then, Aizawa stepped into the entrance of Todoroki and Bakugou's dorm, slowly approaching Todoroki's bedroom. Numbered, yellow markers were strewn about Todoroki's room, and an array of medical personnel were gathered around what Aizawa presumed to be Todoroki. Lying on his back with black, wiry yet smooth stitches clamping the skin of his wrists together, Todoroki was silent. Multiple tubes and wires wove through his body, blood bags dangled on metal racks, and a sea of bruises and scars blotted out his upper body. Aizawa waited, and he held his breath, staring down at the pale, fragile human on the floor.