Katsuki's first time actually interacting with Frog-Face ended in a shitshow.

Of course, he could've said the same thing about most of his classmates. The sandy-haired teenager certainly wasn't one for making good first impressions, and he was well-aware that his brusque attitude put people off. Hell, he got into a squabble with Four-Eyes on the first day of class, with everyone else as an audience. The opinions of extras simply didn't matter to him, and he had bigger things to worry about than something superficial like his high school image.

But this time, it was different.

Of course, he still considered the frog girl to be one of the extras. What was her name — Asui? She was certainly one of the more capable and intelligent ones; his conversation with her at the dining hall, admittedly, was engaging enough that he was able to forget his troubles. But only for a moment.

"That's pretty weak of you, Bakugou-chan."

Weak. It had only taken that one word to return Katsuki to that damn state of mind where he overthought everything on a perpetual loop. Even worse, she didn't actually mean it — his shitty brain had just decided to hone in on that singular phrase, out of all the lousy insults she tried dishing out. And of course he had to storm out of there right after, like Frog-Face's subpar trash-talk offended him that much.

Dumbass, he berated himself. When had it gotten so bad that unrelated conversations were enough to set him off? He was starting to become as weak and sensitive as Deku… but try as he might, he couldn't help the way he reacted. His classmate's words — despite being in a completely different context — brought to mind the things his mother had said during his teachers' intervention.

"We wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't been so weak and gotten caught in the first place!"

"People were fawning over him whether he deserved it or not. It's probably why he ended up like this."

Though Katsuki managed to maintain his argumentative attitude (the damn hag's incessant head-smacks helped), her comments still weighed on him. She had pretty much put into words all the shitty thoughts that were swirling around in his head since the beginning of his home confinement. But he knew that she didn't mean much of it — his dynamic with his mother had always been loud and bickering, with the underlying subtext that they weren't too serious about what they said.

No, Katsuki didn't feel like she despised him or anything. She was crying rivers over him when he came back. But saying those things in front of Aizawa, and especially All Might, was the real kick in the guts. His homeroom teacher had to face the public ire because he was weak. His childhood hero was in that dishevelled, pathetic state because he was weak. And being forced to confront those realities tormented him to no end. Heroes were supposed to be strong, and if he wasn't strong, then what was he?

"Oi, earth to Bakugou! Anyone in there?"

Katsuki, once again, was interrupted from his brooding by the grating noise of his classmates' voices. He blinked, looking at his surroundings. To his right were Kirishima and Soy Sauce Face, who were lounging on the same couch he was sitting on. Across from him was Dunce-Face, slouching in a chair. They were all staring at him blankly, like they were waiting for a reply. That's right— he had just gotten back to the dorms. "The hell do you want?" he scowled.

"You were staring into space for a few minutes, man," Sero observed. "Me and Kaminari were just asking why you went out for food so late. We all texted that we were going earlier."

"Yeah, you trying to keep up some loner streak or something?" the other blond questioned. "It's not happening dude, we all know you're a softie at heart."

Katsuki flung a throw pillow at Kaminari's head. "I ain't trying to be a loner, Dunce-Face!" he retorted. "I was just finishing up my dorm room instead of slacking off." To his right he could see Kirishima giving him a pointed look. He grimaced — it was a bullshit excuse in the first place, and the red-haired boy easily saw past it, seeing as he was the one who helped set up his room by noontime — but thankfully, he didn't push the issue. Earlier, the two had a talk (which turned into more of a one-sided rant) during the move-in. Shitty-Hair told him he was acting weird and insisted that he "open up" and talk about his feelings or whatever, but Katsuki didn't want any of it. He was way past his patience when it came to talking about Kamino, and his problems were his own. Despite his loudmouth demeanor, Katsuki tended to be on the reserved side when it came to discussing personal matters, and he had already done his fair share of it with that dumb therapist his parents brought in (not that he paid much attention to the sessions in the first place). Even after giving Kirishima a piece of his mind, he could tell that the idiot wasn't going to let it go. But at least he respected his wishes — for the time being.

Kaminari hummed, accepting his answer at face-value. "Man, I still need to put up my shelving... by the way, did you happen to bump into Tsuyu-chan back at the dining hall? Pretty sure she was going out for food before you came back."

Katsuki frowned in confusion. Was that Frog-Face's first name?

Sero coughed, butting himself back into the conversation. "I believe Bakugou refers to her as Frog-Face. But yeah, some of us were talking about it earlier. It's like she's been trying to avoid us all day." Now that was weird. She sure as hell seemed sociable when she walked up to Katsuki's table out of nowhere.

Kirishima absentmindedly cracked his fingers. "Wonder if it has anything to do with…" he trailed off pensively. The three of them shared knowing looks, like there was something more to the situation that was better left unspoken. Oh… now he remembered.

Katsuki briefly glanced at Kirishima, who met his eyes with a concerned expression of his own. When the red-head had been helping him unpack his belongings, he mentioned something about Asui acting weird ever since she told them off at the hospital for their batshit-crazy rescue plan. Katsuki initially wrote it off as petty class drama, so he didn't listen too carefully, but after his strange run-in with her at the dining hall and seeing the others' worried faces, it seemed it was a bigger deal than he first thought. "Well, did ya see her there?" his friend prodded.

Katsuki hesitated for a split-second before responding. "...That frog chick? Nah," he lied, feigning nonchalance. "She probably sat at a different table." Kirishima raised an eyebrow at that. Dammit. When did Shitty-Hair get so good at reading him? He really didn't want to talk about his awkward encounter with her right now, especially with Dunce-Face and Soy Sauce Face in the room, but he knew he wouldn't be able to shake off that rockheaded idiot so easily. Katsuki crossed his arms and sunk back into the couch, trying to look aloof.

Sero eyed the two of them curiously, but he at least seemed to get the message. "Oh, okay. Hopefully she's just feeling under the weather." Kaminari nodded in assent, and the two fell back to a prior conversation about some mobile game, both turning on their phones.

Kirishima scrunched his eyebrows together as he surveyed the others, looking like he wanted to ask more about Asui, but was struggling to figure out how to bring the subject back up. Katsuki sighed. He'd never been very good at keeping conversation, and he certainly didn't feel like it now. "Forgot my own phone in my room," he muttered, taking the silence as his cue to leave as he lifted himself from the couch. The other two boys grunted, now completely engrossed in their own devices. Kirishima huffed, seeming to resign from the conversation as well, but shot the blond a look as he passed by that said, We'll talk about this later. Katsuki bit his lip — he didn't feel too good about shutting Kirishima's attempts to reach out — but he figured he would come barging into his room to talk later, anyway.

Keeping his gaze to the ground as he walked back to the elevator, Katsuki's thoughts returned to the incident with Asui as he jabbed the button for the fourth floor. He still didn't know what to completely make of it. Frog-Face's presence during lunch had actually been a fairly pleasant distraction, though he'd never admit it to anyone. But why she approached him in the first place, he had no idea — the two of them had probably spoken two sentences to each other total during the last term. And if she was trying to avoid social interaction, he mused while stepping into the elevator, she did a damn poor job of it by asking to sit at his table, of all people.

Was it because she was bored? Girls usually liked to talk, but Frog-Face didn't seem like the kind of person to do it for no reason. Katsuki initially thought that it was some sort of bet, but he'd looked around and no one else was in the dining hall besides them and a few students from other classes (including that gen-ed dumbass). And her behavior seemed genuine enough.

Maybe she was looking for a distraction to keep herself from thinking about... recent events. If so, he could definitely relate.

Leaning against the back wall as the doors slid closed, Katsuki absently watched the number next to them increase at the ding of each passing floor. His level was shared with Kirishima and that tentacle-armed guy, which was a considerably decent arrangement compared to the others. He wasn't at all excited about living with more extras, but at least he wasn't stuck on something like the second floor for instance — which housed Deku, Grape-Perv, and that sparkly kid. Just thinking about it made him shudder.

The hallway, which opened out above the courtyard that seperated the boys' and girls' sides, was considerably more quiet than it was earlier in the day — though Katsuki thought he could hear rock music blaring down in the third floor. As he unlocked his dorm room he made straight for his bed, not bothering to take his shoes off, and rolled onto the comforter with an exhausted sigh. A reach into his pocket and a quick glance at his phone showed the time to be 3:30. It also displayed the battery at 5%, eliciting a quiet curse and a subsequent trek to fish his charger out of his bag. The outlet, unfortunately, wasn't close enough to his bed, but Katsuki didn't really feel like looking at a screen anyway, so he threw his phone on the couch and stared up at the ceiling.

Today, he decided, was a pretty shitty day. Well, he'd been having a lot of shitty days recently, but this one was especially lousy, and the afternoon hadn't even ended yet. Katsuki supposed that the morning hadn't exactly been a good indicator of events to come, what with Aizawa's reprimanding and all, but he'd assumed that things would relax after they settled into the dorms. Apparently though, he couldn't even sit down to enjoy lunch without another incident bothering him.

Katsuki had thought more about his interaction with Frog-Face as he was walking to his dorm, mildly annoyed that an extra like her kept taking up his head space. Despite his... overreaction at the end, it was probably the most normal conversation he'd had in what felt like a while. Well, the staring was pretty damn weird. But he appreciated the fact that Asui hadn't tried to treat him like a sensitive pane of glass that had to be handled delicately, or attempt to make him "open up about his recent trauma." She was a straight shooter, and it earned from him a begrudging respect.

But why were Katsuki's thoughts constantly circling back to her after lunch? He got up and suddenly left in the middle of the conversation, sure. So what? He tended to leave like that anyway when the extras at the dining hall bugged him too much. And if she was just rattling on about his preference for proper spice, he sure as hell didn't need to stay and listen to it.

Katsuki stretched his arms out to his side, spread-eagled on the bed. Of course, he had to concede that wasn't the whole truth. If that frog girl really was trying to avoid everybody, according to Kirishima and Sero, then the fact that she approached him at all probably meant something. He also thought he saw a regretful look in her eyes as he left the dining hall.

...Fuck. That shitty feeling from earlier after Aizawa's expulsion threats was coming back in full force.

Was it guilt? That was a feeling Katsuki wasn't terribly comfortable with. Real heroes weren't supposed to feel guilt — they were supposed to beat up the villain and save the day, after all. And as far as he knew, he didn't do anything to purposely hurt Frog-Face's feelings. So why did this damn thing bother him so much? Maybe he was just getting too soft.

But still… that reasoning didn't sit right with him. Ditching someone because they were irritating was one thing, but he hadn't really minded talking to Asui. Getting worked up from some stupid word was his own fault, and making her feel bad about that was worse. Freaking out about nothing wasn't what heroes did.

A loud knocking at the door shook him from his musing. Probably Kirishima. "It's unlocked, Shitty-Hair," he called, not bothering to get up from his bed.

The door swung open, the red-haired boy predictably sauntering in and making himself at home on Katsuki's beanbag chair. He glanced at the blond's shoes. "Your mom wouldn't be too happy about putting your trainers on your sheets."

"Yeah, well she ain't here, is she?" he retorted, ignoring Kirishima's eye contact.

Kirishima sighed, crossing his arms. "Alright, Bakugou. Fess up. What happened at the dining hall?"

"I told you dumbasses that nothing happened a few minutes ago," Katsuki droned as he continued to look up at the ceiling.

"That's a lousy excuse. Even Kaminari agreed that you were acting weird. Well, weirder than usual."

"And what does Dunce-Face know about anything?"

"You were staring at nothing on the couch for five minutes, man."

He groaned, rolling to his side. "I was thinking about stuff. It's none of your business."

Kirishima was quiet for a moment, considering his next thought. "Tsuyu-chan passed by us in the common room after you left." Katsuki stopped his shuffling, the statement hanging in the air as tense as a bowstring. There was a pregnant pause as his friend waited for him to respond.

Finally, Katsuki sat up, slowly. "Fine. I talked to Frog-Face," he spoke evenly.

The calm facade on Kirishima's face instantly broke. "Seriously!? What'd you guys talk about?" he exclaimed. "Every time I bumped into her during move-in she'd smile and walk away really fast."

The blond rolled his eyes. "It wasn't anything important. She sat down to eat and tried to make small talk. We argued about her shitty food palate."

Kirishima opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, confused. "Wait, then what're you so bent out of shape about?" he asked, brow furrowing.

Katsuki winced, finally meeting the red-head's gaze. He briefly weighed his options — was this too much self-disclosure? "She just said somethin' that… reminded me of a bad memory. Wasn't intentional."

Kirishima sat there in silence as he put two-and-two together. Apparently he'd taken up psychoanalyzing Katsuki as a new hobby, and If he'd come back much earlier than Frog-Face did, it should've been pretty fuckin' obvious what had happened. "Bakugou," he said softly, "you know it's just gonna be worse in the long-run if you keep things to yourself."

He didn't answer, but inwardly, Katsuki swore. Shitty-Hair just didn't understand. The crap he'd gone through had just been a small taste of the real deal; heroes had to go through harrowing situations on a regular basis. If he couldn't handle this on his own now, how could he have any hope of being the strongest hero in the future?

He had to keep that line of thought running through his head constantly — no matter if he felt a stab of pain whenever All Might greeted him, quirkless and emaciated. No matter that he felt those leather straps constraining him at night, that creep's voice urging him to become a villain...

Kirishima stood up from the beanbag, running his hand through his hair. At least he knew Katsuki wasn't in a talkative mood. "...I overheard the girls saying they wanted to do a dorm-judging contest later tonight. You interested?"

Katsuki made a face. "Hell no."

The other boy sighed. "Fair enough." As he made his way toward the door, he paused and looked back before putting one hand on the knob. "And by the way, Bakugou… whatever you're struggling with, I know you can beat it." This time, his smile did reach his eyes. "Winning is literally in your name, right?"

The blond grunted noncommittally, waving Kirishima off as he shut the door. It was true. Too bad it didn't help that he felt like the world's biggest fucking loser.

Katsuki couldn't sleep.

As usual, his anxieties and intrusive thoughts went into overdrive the second he jumped into bed. During class, hero training, he could keep them down — for the most part. Katsuki wasn't that pathetic, at least. One positive about moving into Heights Alliance was that he had less time to dwell on certain thoughts. Just not when he was trying to get some shut-eye.

At present he was staring blankly at the ceiling in his dorm room, half-considering whacking his head with something hard just so he could get some damn rest. Every time he closed his eyes, he would see an image of All Might, bloodied and unmoving at the feet of that shitty villain. If he started drifting off, he'd feel phantom cramps throughout his arms and back, reminding him of being stuck in that dingy hideout. And if that weren't enough, the memory of those constraints binding his wrists and cutting off the circulation certainly was.

Katsuki rolled to the other side in his bed, quietly hissing in frustration. Why couldn't his brain just shut the hell up? He sat up, untangling himself from his blanket and squinting blearily at his alarm clock. 10:00.

It had been over an hour since he went to bed and he was still wide awake.

He hoped this was something he wouldn't get too used to — the lack of sleep had become a recurring thing over the past few weeks. On restless nights like these, he would normally hang out in his kitchen with an herbal tea to calm him down, though he couldn't do that tonight. Some of his classmates talked about playing video games in the common area, and Katsuki didn't feel like bumping into those extras right now. Still, he supposed he could look at some of his homework. That was better than staying in bed and being tormented by more intrusive thoughts.

As he swung his legs off the bed, his thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock. Katsuki glared at his door. Who the hell would be knocking at his room at this time of night? His thoughts drifted to Kaminari and Sero, but even though they were idiots they knew better than to bother him when he was sleeping. Was the rest of their class playing that dumb dorm judging game from earlier, maybe? That wouldn't make sense though, because it wouldn't have lasted thatlong. And didn't he explicitly tell Kirishima that he wasn't interested?

As he sat there, bemused, Katsuki heard hushed voices whispering to each other from outside. His eye twitched. Were they trying to pull some shitty prank? Before he could get up to tell them off, the voices grew louder. Some of them sounded like… Deku and Uraraka. His irritation faded away and grew into confusion. That damn nerd and Round-Face knew better than to try and mess around with him. What could they possibly want? He stayed still, listening intently to the ongoing conversation between them.

"Maybe we should leave him alone. He went to bed over an hour ago, after all."

"Well, we can't just leave now! Tsuyu-chan seemed really upset…"

A third voice which sounded suspiciously like Kirishima's piped up. "Hey, uh, guys? I think I'm on Midoriya's side, here. If he didn't respond to the first knock, I don't think we should press him. Bakugou doesn't take well to having his beauty sleep interrupted." Katsuki scoffed. Wasn't like he was getting much of that nowadays.

A beat of awkward silence passed, and then another, more hesitant knock. Although he wanted nothing more than for them to leave him alone, what Uraraka had said piqued his interest. What was this about Frog-Face, and why were they here in the first place? Did it have anything to do with what happened at lunch?

"Fuck it," he muttered under his breath. Curiosity getting the better of him, Katsuki pushed himself off his bed and trudged towards the door, swinging it open.

"WAH!" Round-Face jumped back, clearly not expecting him to bother getting up. He took a quick scan of the others behind her. There was Deku, Kirishima… and Glasses, Half-and-Half, and the Creation chick, too? His eyes narrowed in realization. Weren't they the ones that had come to Kamino with their dumb plan to rescue him? What was going on?

"Oh, you're actually awake!" Shitty-Hair exclaimed. Katsuki gave the group a half-hearted glare. He wasn't in the mood to yell, so he decided to cut to the chase. "What do you extras want?"

Uraraka cleared her throat, looking down at the ground. "Err… Tsuyu-chan asked us to come outside for a talk. She said she had something to say to the seven of us." She lifted her head up. "Anyways, it seemed pretty important. So we were wondering if you wanted to…"

Her voice trailed off as she met the taller boy's unflinching gaze. "...come with us? Downstairs?" she finished.

Katsuki's face scrunched in confusion. She wanted to talk to allof them? "And did Frog-Face explain why she wanted me to come?" he grumbled in what he hoped was a disagreeable voice. He was actually interested in seeing what this was about, but he didn't want to be pulled in too easily.

The shorter girl rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. "Well, she didn't explain why. But she seemed bothered about something. She said she specifically wanted you to come, too."

Katsuki raised his eyebrows. It must've appeared disdainful, though, because Kirishima decided to cut in. "Bakugou," he said, "I think… Tsuyu-chan would really appreciate it if you came. She's been holed up in her dorm room all day, and whatever the matter is, she's really stressed out about it. And… I think it would be good for your own benefit, too." He looked at Katsuki firmly, refusing to break eye contact. Dammit. It was obvious what he was trying to imply.

A tense silence followed as he considered his choice, the rest of them looking at each other uncertain. Katsuki was pretty sure they were all her friends — did he really want to be there while that frog girl did some sort of group apology? It was bound to be awkward, and if she brought up what happened at the dining hall, he certainly didn't want them around to hear it.

But, despite his reservations and lack of enthusiasm at attending a possible sobfest, his curiosity had gotten the better of him. And it would be a preferable option over sitting in his room, trying to bore himself to sleep with homework.

Katsuki finally relented. "Fine, I'll go. But she better make it quick."