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There is nothing ambiguous about the scene.
Absolutely nothing. It cannot be misinterpreted, it cannot be mistaken for anything else, and even if it could, Deku is shit at lying, so a few well-places questions would have shattered whatever stupid excuse he could’ve made up to explain it away. But in any case, he isn’t even trying; he is just standing there, hiding his forearms behind his back, blood dripping onto the floor.
There’s blood in the sink too, and, worse, there is a razor blade lying on the side of it, its metallic colour dulled by the dark crimson.
Bakugou freezes in the doorway.
He isn’t the type to freeze when head to head with an uncomfortable situation. He is the type to yell and throw explosions in faces and come up with strategies he doesn’t share. He doesn’t freeze.
Except, apparently, when he finds his – classmate – rival – target – friend? – slitting has his wrists over the bathroom sink at one in the morning.
In Deku’s defence, no one is usually awake at one in the morning. They all know the value of sleep if they want to keep up with everything high school throws at them. But also it is hardly a defence at all, because no one should really be defending... this.
(The words self harm do not sit right in Katsuki’s mind. He tries to focus on them, and they slip out clumsily, because Deku and self harm shouldn’t even come within the same sentence).
“Hi, Kacchan,” Deku manages in a squeak. He’s still hiding his arms, but the blood is dripping onto the bathroom tiles in a steady, maddening rhythm. “Can’t sleep?”
“What the fuck,” Katsuki says. He is vaguely proud of managing to keep the volume below screaming levels. He really wants to scream.
“Uh,” Deku says, eloquently. Then sighs and lets his arms drop to his sides; then lifts them above the sink so the blood now drips there instead. “Yeah. Care to pass me the bandages?”
He gestures towards the shelf next to Katsuki’s head. There, true to his word, is a roll of white bandages. They definitely aren’t the brand bought by the school, which means Deku brought them with him, which means he was going into the bathroom with a conscious intent to– to–
Bakugou passes the bandages. Deku takes them gratefully and then sticks his still-bleeding wrists under the tap. They stop bleeding slowly. Deku squirms under Katsuki’s gaze.
“You can go,” he says, and it sounds more like Please leave and forget this ever happened.
Bakugou is pretty awful at following orders.
“For someone who lands himself in the healing centre every two weeks or so,” he says, “you’re pretty fucking shit at first aid.”
“It’s kind of hard to do one-handed,” Deku blurts out, and then looks at him uncertainly. Katsuki doesn’t know what he wants to do more – roll his eyes or scream.
He does neither.
“Gimme that.”
He pushes Deku backwards until he’s seated down on the lid of the toilet and grabs the bandages out of his hand. First aid comes easy – with a quirk like his, with a character like his, with coping methods like his he has mastered at least the basic wound treatment before he ever took the Yuuei entrance exam – so he has Deku’s wrists bandaged in less than two minutes. It‘s a ridiculous sight – he’s kneeling on the bathroom floor while Deku is looking anywhere but at him, and there’s still blood in the sink and some on the floor, and it feels surreal like things often do at one a.m. – but he doesn’t dwell on what they must look like to an outside witness. There shouldn’t be one in any case.
“Done, and done,” Katsuki says. He sounds calmer than he feels as he gets back up to his feet. Deku pokes at the bandages.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Both of them pause. “Actually no. No. Do mention it. What the fuck, Deku?!”
He lets himself be a little louder this time. Not as loud as to wake up anyone else on their floor, but still loud, to appease the... something pulsing in his temples. It’s painful, and suffocating, and somehow wrong.
He isn’t meant to– Deku isn’t meant to–
Deku shrugs. It’s kind of feeble.
“I plead the fifth?” he says.
“We’re in Japan.”
“Don’t we have a right to silence here?”
“No. You watch too many American TV shows.”
“Well, you know what it is.”
“Deku, stop trying to fucking distract me,” Bakugou hisses. He turns on the tap and watches as the red-tinted water washes the blood down the drain. “I found you in a bathroom at one in the morning cutting your wrists, I am entitled to a fucking explanation!”
“You are not entitled to anything!” Deku exclaims, and it’s suddenly fierce. He stumbles up to his feet and then looks down at the floor tiles; wipes the drops of blood away with his fluffy socks, Shadow Chicken’s gift last Christmas. “You are not entitled to anything,” he repeats, quieter this time. “But I appreciate the help.”
“Cut the fucking bullshit,” Katsuki growls. He is surprised to find himself quite so mad, but at the same time is not surprised at all. “I just want to know what this shit is about, Deku. You were cutting your fucking wrists.”
“So what?!” Deku screams. Bakugou cringes and hopes the walls are thick enough that no one is woken up by it. “What is your fucking problem? You hate me, Kacchan!”
And he does. In his weird, painful, twisted manner he really does. But in the same weird, painful, twisted manner he loves him too, and because he loves him, he cannot bear the thought of Deku slitting his fucking wrists in a crammed shared bathroom at the end of a Yuuei corridor.
“Well, I’d be a shitty fucking hero if I let my classmates hurt themselves, wouldn’t I?” he says.
It’s the wrong answer. He gave it knowing it would be the wrong answer, but that doesn’t mean watching the determined light crumbling in Deku’s eyes is any less painful. Still, the boy shrugs and looks away.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he mutters. “Are you looking for a reason? Because there isn’t one, not really.”
Katsuki knows what Deku looks like when he lies, and this isn’t it.
“There isn’t really a reason,” he repeats. “It’s a habit. An addiction if you will, except not really an addiction because I can–“
He goes silent. Bakugou knows what he was going to say anyways.
“You do know that every addict says they can stop, right?” he says. Deku huffs, crossing his arms, careful to avoid putting too much pressure on the bandages and the wounds beneath them.
“Well, I can!” he says heatedly. “I... I could if I wanted to, it’s just... it feels... nice?”
Katsuki cannot for the love of him imagine what is so nice about a razor blade to the wrist.
“You hurt yourself in training every other day,” he remarks. “Is that not enough?”
“This is... different,” Deku whispers. “I control it, most of the time. I... I want it.”
Bakugou wants to say that it’s fucked up. He cannot, not really, because he understands at least partially, because his quirk doesn’t leave him with scars but the stinging pain of an explosion against the bare skin of his forearm is sometimes grounding enough, is sometimes punishing enough, but he wants to. Instead, he says,
“Well, stop.”
It comes off harsh. Katsuki knows that Deku knows that he doesn’t mean it that way.
Deku laughs.
“What?” Bakugou says. “You said you can stop if you want to. Stop then. You’re a smart kid, Deku. You know it’s fucking you up. So quit doing this shit if you can. Can you?”
Deku laughs louder. There are tears streaming down his cheeks. Typical.
“You know damn well I can’t, Kacchan,” he whispers. “I can’t. And I don’t want to.”
“I want you to!” Katsuki growls. He has to bite back on the anger in his voice, but it works only barely. “I want you to stop, Deku. You can’t keep – you can’t just – you shouldn’t–“
There is a beat of silence.
“What do you fucking care?” Deku says finally. It’s hollow. “Out of all people, Kacchan, what do you fucking care? Don’t give me the hero spiel. You told me to jump off the roof once. You should be happy.”
Another beat.
Bakugou really wants to storm out of the room. He doesn’t know why. He tries to convince himself that it’s because he doesn’t want to deal with Deku’s bullshit, but he’s not a liar.
“You have the rights to hate me,” he says. “But don’t, do not for a second suggest that I want you dead, Deku.” He pauses to catch his breath. He feels like he’s suffocating. “I could make excuses for middle school. I won’t. A neat explanation won’t change the shit I’ve said and done. And I won’t say I didn’t mean it back then, because I probably fucking did. But I–“ he shakes his head and scowls down at the tiled floor. “I’m sorry. I wish I could take it back.”
This is, perhaps, the longest speech he’s given Deku in the last seven years. He should really have given it earlier. There are a lot of things he should have done earlier. But he hasn’t, and he has to deal with the fallout.
Deku looks up at him, then wipes his tears with a bandage.
“Thank you,” he says. His voice is hoarse and trembling, but god, is it ever sincere. Bakugou wants to hate this sincerity because of how much it hurts. He doesn’t. “Thank you, Kacchan.”
He moves Bakugou aside gently, and the touch of his hand against the bare shoulder almost burns. Katsuki bites his lip.
“Hey Deku?” he says. Deku stops. “Next time, if you wanna – when you wanna... that–“ He nods at the bandages. His throat itches with the words cut, words hurt yourself, words self harm, but he doesn’t say them, can’t say them, not to Deku. “Come knock at my door. Wake me up. I don’t give a shit. We can spar downstairs, I’ll bet that’ll hurt too. Just don’t...”
“That,” Deku says, ironically. Katsuki wants to set off an explosion in his face.
“That,” he confirms, grinding his teeth. “I’ll see you in class, Deku.”
“Goodnight, Kacchan.”
He watches as Deku walks to his room. The white of the bandages is all too visible in the dim green light of the fire exit signs. He opens the door and disappears inside.
Bakugou wants to scream.
***
In the morning, before the start of maths, Deku is sitting at his desk just behind Bakugou and chatting to Pink Cheeks who is leaning against someone else’s table. Bakugou doesn’t know what he hates more – that he tries to catch Deku’s gaze, or that Deku doesn’t let him.
***
The next two weeks they go on like normal. Katsuki doesn’t forget – too good of a fucking memory to forget something like that – but Deku never gives a single indication that the late night interaction ever happened, and the only thing that hints at it is, in retrospect, the glaringly obvious fact that he refuses to wear short sleeves. He always insists on wearing the hoodie of the school sports kit, even during sparring, even when it should be too hot to have it on. Everyone else has just accepted it as a quirk of Deku’s personality. Bakugou now knows better. He hates it.
The next two weeks go on like normal, and then, on a Wednesday night going on Thursday morning, Bakugou is dragged out of his sleep by a quiet knock at his door. He grumbles quietly, rolling out of bed, and pulls on the first shirt he finds in the darkness. When he opens the door to ask whichever unfortunate asshole decided it was a smart idea to bother him in the middle of the night what the fuck do they want, he sees Deku. Deku isn’t looking at him, he is looking at the floor, and his right hand is curled into a fist around something small, sharp and metallic.
Bakugou reminds himself to breathe.
“Knock louder next time,” he says roughly. “Give me that.”
Deku complies, then squirms nervously.
“Could we– I mean, if you want to, because I understand if not, it’s the middle of the night–“
“Just let me put on the sports kit.”
It’s funny how they understand each other without having to finish sentences. And by funny Katsuki means that it really fucking hurts.
They are in the training hall down in the basement seven minutes later. Deku flips the light switch, and the room is flooded with light. Katsuki shields his eyes, then goes to the opposite end of the room and turns to face him.
“No quirks,” he says. And then, as if to justify himself: “Too loud.”
“You are,” Deku scoffs, but at least he sounds teasing now, bold, no longer hollow. “Three, two, one.”
They dash towards each other.
In the end, Deku wins. Bakugou wants to be mad over it – he should be – but lying on the floor, wood too hard against his shoulder blades, his right arm itching and his vision trying to readjust itself to a new angle, he can’t bring himself to feel a spark of anger. Instead, he smirks, looking up at Deku’s flushed face, too pleased with himself, too lively.
“Not bad, Deku,” he says. “But your swings are clumsy.”
“And your kicks are predictable,” Deku shrugs, rolling off him and flopping down on the floor to catch his breath.
“Well, I was trying to learn them from your style, so joke’s on you,” Bakugou snarls, no malice behind it. He can’t bring himself to think about just what that implies.
Deku clearly can, because he’s quiet for an almost too long a moment.
“If,” he says finally, voice uncertain, “if you want, I can show you why I could predict them. You have this tell, just before you’re about to kick, where you sorta lean to the side– look.”
He is up on his feet, trying to copy Katsuki copying him, and Bakugou can actually tell what he means, now, pushing himself up on his elbows to watch him. Deku demonstrates the kick as Katsuki does it, and then switches to show his own style, and Bakugou thinks distractedly, for a second, that he should have asked him for a demonstration a long time ago. He knows that he wouldn’t have, but it’s a nice thought to play with.
All he says is,
“I’ll take it into account.”
He knows that Deku knows that he means Thank you.
***
The next day during the sparring session he kicks Kaminari in the jaw. Aizawa-sensei doesn’t even tell him off, just raises his eyebrows at Pikachu who is rubbing his jawbone dejectedly while lying on the ground.
“You can usually deflect his kicks.”
“Yeah, well, I usually see ‘em coming,” Kaminari grumbles.
Bakugou tries really hard not to catch Deku’s eyes when the nerd glances over at him from where he is trying to defeat the rich girl. When he fails, Midoriya gives him a happy grin.
Bakugou is glad his face is already flushed from all the fighting.
***
They do the whole midnight sparring session twice more over the next month. Midoriya apologises for dragging him out of bed when they stumble up and down basement stairs, but Bakugou cuts him off each time, saying that he doesn’t want to hear his whining. He means to say that he’s glad they’re doing this. He means to say that it is better than–. He doesn’t say it. He thinks Midoriya knows anyways. Midoriya knows way too much.
And then, one Thursday afternoon, Bakugou fails his English test.
It’s fucking embarrassing. He forgot they had the stupid paper, he didn’t even open his damn book to study, and it wasn’t an important test, it wasn’t, and Mic isn’t a harsh teacher, he lets him off with a warning and a question about his study habits, and it should be fine, but it isn’t fucking fine. Bakugou is meant to be better than this. Bakugou is meant to be the top student. Bakugou is meant to be–
Bakugou is staring at the ceiling, barely visible in the faint moonlight streaming through the window. He clutches at his forearm and feels the itch of nitroglycerin. He almost detonates it. Then he curses, loudly, but hopefully not loudly enough to wake Kirishima on the other side of the wall.
He is a lot of things, but he is not a fucking hypocrite.
“Kacchan?” Midoriya asks when he opens his door. His voice is thick with sleep and he is rubbing his eyes and for a moment Katsuki feels that burning his arms would have been better than waking him up. He wonders if this is what Midoriya feels too.
“Want to spar?” he asks quietly, wiping the nitroglycerin on the front of his shirt. Midoriya looks at him wide eyed but doesn’t ask – of course he doesn’t ask, damn his fucking empathy.
“Give me five,” he says instead. “I’ll just change.”
Bakugou is especially violent that night, but he pulls his punches just enough, at the last moment, not to hurt. He thinks there was a time when he wouldn’t mind hurting Midoriya. He thinks he’s glad it’s not that time anymore. They are still not using quirks, and Midoriya is still more agile, but Katsuki is the one suppressing self harming urges this particular night, so Deku is the one who ends up banging against the floor three times.
“I give up!” he rasps out. And then: “Kacchan, that was amazing! Can you show me that throw again?”
Bakugou does. And then Midoriya suggests an improvement. Ana then they’re suddenly discussing how efficient this move would be with a two-people team, if one of them just – and the other – and– Midoriya’s eyes are twinkling with excitement as they always do when it comes to anything heroic, and he suggests they try it out, at least see if it could work, and Katsuki doesn’t see why he should refuse so they do, and it turns out it could work, it does work, rather well actually, and if they were to add their quirks, then–
So, in retrospect, Bakugou does know, down to the day, when their spontaneous midnight sparring sessions turned into spontaneous midnight practices of combination moves. They’re so easy to come up with once they start brainstorming that it’s a miracle, Midoriya proclaims, that the two of them have struggled as much as they did against All Might during the final exams. Katsuki knows, of course, exactly why they struggled, but he doesn’t say it, he prefers to interrupt Midoriya’s rambling with another suggestion which the boy immediately takes on board, and before they know it they have at least fifteen combination moves they can perform with their eyes closed on invisible opponents in a gym lit by electric lamps.
Katsuki thinks it’s scary how quickly it becomes second nature.
Before he knows it, their unscheduled practices become scheduled, and they actually decide on a more appropriate time than the middle of the night for when one of them can book out one of the training halls which seem to be at every corner of the Yuuei grounds and where they can use quirks to their heart’s content. They polish their moves, and they suddenly end up with inside jokes, and Katsuki feels like someone has stuck his head underwater and told him to learn to breathe, except it’s simpler, it’s so much simpler. Midoriya is everything he isn’t, they are polar opposites in everything but their drive to become a hero, but instead of grinding each other’s gears to dust, instead of breaking the buttons they push, it actually works out this time, works out better than Bakugou can ever have expected. They always knew what the other thinks, except now they put it in practice, they play with it in the field, if only in the training one, and fuck, does it ever work.
Katsuki doesn’t care if his lungs are full of water. He dives straight overboard. Midoriya meets him halfway.
They stumble back to their dorms after training, day after day, panting and tired and red in the face, and they wish each other goodnight, and they don’t see each other again until the morning.
Bakugou doesn’t even try to pretend he isn’t happy. Midoriya knows him way too well to fall for pretence anyhow.
(Besides, it’s not like he isn’t).
***
“Out in the world of pro heroes,” All Might says, “there is a small perk which school hasn’t so far offered you. In the real world, you not only get to pick your battles, but you get to pick your comrades too. For the final exams last summer and for all of the sparring sessions so far we have chosen your partners for you. This afternoon you get to make the choice yourself. The pairs will be put up against each other in a ten minute fight. Aizawa-sensei and I will choose who fights whom after you select your partners. You have ten minutes to do so – starting now!”
Class 1-A immediately breaks into excited murmurs. People tug on each other’s uniform sleeves, make faces when they are refused politely or just take a second to consider the potential candidates. Bakugou doesn’t need to consider, he knows who his top choice is, but he also knows that Midoriya will most likely go with Round Face or Four Eyes or even Icy Hot, so he turns around to face Kirishima–
And catches Midoriya’s eyes across the field. Midoriya waves to catch his attention, then makes a universal gesture familiar to every student who has ever had to do a group project, a motion of a finger which means “Wanna pair up?”, and suddenly Bakugou is all too aware of the water in his lungs, and all he can do is nod curtly. Midoriya beams, positively beams and begins to make his way through the excited crowd of students.
Bakugou feels a weird sort of satisfaction when Round Face tugs at Midoriya’s sleeve only to receive an apologetic smile and a wave in his direction. She raises her eyebrows at him, and he smirks. At least in this, he thinks, I am his first choice.
When he reaches him, Midoriya babbles about finally getting to try out their moves in combat. It shouldn’t be endearing. It is.
When the pairs are decided, Aizawa-sensei and All Might survey them critically, and Katsuki wants to laugh in their faces when they see him and Midoriya talking strategy. If Eraserhead is a little more conservative in his expression of surprise – he quirks one eyebrow up and spends a second longer looking in their direction than he does with other pairs – then All Might’s confusion is almost comical. But then again, it’s mirrored by most of their class, so perhaps Aizawa-sensei is the outlier here.
“Dude,” Kirishima whispers to him while the teachers decide which pairs to pit against one another. “Did you run out of options? You didn’t even ask me!”
Bakugou scowls at him. Kirishima interprets it all wrong.
The opponents are announced. He and Midoriya get Class Prez and Half and Half who are currently discussing something calmly in the additional five minutes they were given to finalise their strategies in the light of their opponents’ quirks and styles. It’s fair enough – they are by far the closest in ability – but Katsuki can’t help but feel, smugly, that the other two won’t be expecting much teamwork.
“They’re in for a surprise,” he tells Midoriya. Midoriya giggles.
Their fight is the fourth one, so first they get to watch Round Face and the Frog Girl beaten up by the new brainwashing kid and Kaminari, then Shadow Chicken and Octopus Guy as they completely hammer Charmander and the invisible girl, and then the long, drawn out battle that is Mina and Kirishima against the rich girl and Jirou, in which the latter win nine minutes and thirty seven seconds in.
As All Might invites them and their opponents into the designated training field, Midoriya wishes him luck.
“Just do your best, nerd,” Bakugou scoffs in return. It’s no bite and hardly any bark. They take their places.
“Three, two, one, begin!” their teacher commands, and oh, they waste not a second after.
Their enemies are good, darn good, but they don’t have the added advantage of having practiced combination moves for the last couple of months, and as such they are really no match for him and Midoriya. He feels like laughing when he launches Midoriya in Half and Half’s direction, at how easy it all is, how well it flows and fits together, like pieces of a puzzle. Midoriya does laugh when he trips up Four Eyes and sends him flying right in Bakugou’s arms. In the sound of battle, amidst explosions and roar of fire and engines, it is a beautiful sound. Katsuki doesn’t dwell on that thought for too long – it is for later, for late at night when he lies awake and feels not like burning his forearms, but like covering his face and screaming into his pillow.
It’s a strange feeling.
They win six minutes in, when Midoriya manages to kick Icy Hot in the stomach and send him tumbling towards Class Prez for Katsuki to finish them off. It’s even easier to do with enemies than it is in a training hall with no targets in sight, and when their opponents are lying on the ground, restrained, Bakugou’s hands are itching to fight more. But the fight is over, and he’s trying to catch his breath, and Midoriya next to him laughs again, then raises his arm for a high five.
Bakugou doesn’t think twice before giving him one.
When he turns back to face the spectators – the teachers and the classmates – he snorts at the shock in their eyes. All Might is blinking as if he had just seen something he hasn’t quite managed to process yet. Aizawa-sensei’s pencil is hovering over the pages of his notebook as if he isn’t quite sure how to access what just happened. Kirishima is outright gaping. Mina is whispering something to Sero furiously. Round Face is frowning deeply, eyes narrow, hand over her mouth. Frog Girl’s head is tilted to the side curiously as she bites at the tip of her tongue. And so on, and so forth.
Katsuki gives them all the best scowl he can muster.
He is standing right next to Izuku, so it really isn’t much.
***
“Dude, what was that?!” Kirishima exclaims, after. Mina and Kaminari and Sero are there too, eyes wide and full of questions, as Bakugou is chugging water, leaning against the lockers just outside the changing rooms. The lesson is over, and Izuku was dragged off somewhere by his friends, and Katsuki can’t help but feel smug over the fact that they are probably questioning him too right about now. He shrugs.
“A sparring lesson, Hair for Brains,” he says. “I thought that was damn obvious.”
“You know what we’re asking!” Mina exclaims. “You and Midoriya-kun – you just – you guys were so in synch, I can’t even–“
“Just because you two lost your fight,” he nods at Kirishima and Mina who give him an identical pout in return, “doesn’t mean all of us had to. I wasn’t gonna fail against those two losers.”
“I mean, sure, but that kind of stuff – what you and Midoriya-kun did – that takes practice!” Mina insists. “You can’t just pull it out of thin air on the spot, you – have you been training?!”
“Have you been taught not to stick your nose in other people’s business, Raccoon Eyes?” he retorts. “What Izuku and I do is hardly your concern.”
He isn’t exactly sure why they’re suddenly gaping two times harder after his words until Kaminari whispers “Izuku?”, and then he wants to fall straight through the ground.
***
“Hey, nerd.”
“Oh, hi, Kacchan!” Izuku beams, stepping aside to let him in. “Great job during the lesson today – I think we did amazing!”
“You fucking bet we did,” Katsuki grumbles. “Don’t know about your friends, but mine wouldn’t get off my case afterwards. Yeah, shitheads, this takes fucking practice, get over it.”
Izuku laughs.
“Uraraka-chan spent fifteen minutes ranting about how I don’t tell her things,” he admits. “Iida-kun and Todoroki-kun were mostly baffled their strategy didn’t work. They relied on us not getting along, you see.”
“Joke’s on them,” Bakugou smirks, and then blurts out, “Can I call you Izuku?”
Izuku blinks. Katsuki scoffs defensively.
“You can tell me no, Deku. I ain’t gonna be offended.”
“No, I–“
Bakugou watches as Izuku blushes bright red, suddenly, eyes anywhere but on him, and thinks for a short moment that maybe, maybe –
if they both works shit out, if they both find the courage, if they both live to see another day, another month, another year –
that they could live to see them together.
But that, he thinks when the moment passes, will be later. For now Izuku just grins, as bright as the sun, and finally meets Katsuki’s gaze, and of course his eyes are brimming with tears – typical.
“Of course, Kacchan,” he says. “Kacchan? Katsuki? What should I call you then”
Bakugou thinks that if this, if hearing his name in Izuku’s voice, is something he can have, something he can deserve having, then learning to breathe underwater was worth it.
He smiles back. The smile feels natural on his lips.
“Whatever you want,” he says. “Just call me.”
***
They get top marks for the sparring lesson. In the Teacher’s Comments section of the feedbacks forms they receive, where tons of their classmates have lines upon lines of detailed reprimands and advice, they read, in Aizawa-sensei’s messy handwriting –
I don’t know what the two of you worked out. I don’t know how you worked it out. I don’t want to know any of those things. JUST KEEP IT THAT WAY.
They exchange a gaze and impulsively start laughing.
Needless to say, class 1-A has a fucking field day that lesson.