Chapter Text
Katsuki’s head swirls as he walks back to the dorms. Sparks fall onto the pavement in front of him only to be extinguished by the shitty early winter snow the clouds coughed up that afternoon. Anything to peel off the tension clinging to his muscle. He can feel the pull of his diaphragm with every breath. The cold stings.
He’ll never get that diagnosis. Not anytime soon, at least. Is there a time limit to this sort of thing? Will it even matter once he’s graduated? Before today, Katsuki hadn’t thought about how he would feel if a doctor looked him over and told him he has ADHD. That his struggles are real and more common than he ever would have guessed. The weeks have been passing by so quickly, Katsuki hasn’t had time to think about the long term.
It’s not even an option anymore.
He knows what would happen if he tried. His parents would come dressed up, having just got off work. Tired from the train. He would be pulling them out of their normal routine. Mic-sensei would smile at them and try his best to be kind about it. Katsuki would see the exact moment their faces changed as they realized what his teacher was talking about. As they realized their son was a fucking whiner, and he was dragging his innocent parents into his mess again. Then his dad would try to figure out how he felt, but he wouldn’t really understand. His mom wouldn’t either and it would make her so angry.
And then…even if Katsuki got to the point where he was seeing a doctor, would it even be different from last time? It keeps ending the same. Sleeping pills that make him feel numb in class. Fighting with his family. Quirk-proof straps tying him to a pedestal. A knee pressing into the middle of his back. Quiet hands.
A loud SNAP breaks his spiral and he shakes the smoke off his sleeves. Stupid quirk.
“He’s back!” Mina says from ahead of him. “Hi Bakugou!”
Mina waves at him, sitting next to Yaoyorozu on the porch with their legs dangling off the edge through the railing.
“Hey.” Katsuki grunts.
He doesn’t want to go inside yet. It’s busy in there and quiet out here. So he sits next to Mina. She holds out a bag of sweet potato chips and he takes one.
“So, how’d it go?”
“Fine, I guess.” He shrugs, and then catches the worry on her face. “It was like I told you, they just wanted to talk about how they could help.”
“Who?” Yaoyorozu asks.
“Mic and Aizawa-sensei.”
Yaoyorozu’s eyes grow wide, then she looks down at her feet.
“Yeah,” Mina looks to Katsuki for approval. “Do you mind if I tell her?”
Katsuki stares at Yaoyorozu, mulling over how much he feels like talking about it. A part of him wishes he could talk to her more openly, because if anyone is going to have answers to his questions, it’s Yaoyorozu. The other part of him doesn’t know enough about her yet. There something familiar enough in her eyes though.
Katsuki nods.
“Bakugou told them he thinks he has ADHD. They had a meeting about it today, which is why he’s back late.”
“Oh, and it was okay? I mean of course it was, they’re good teachers. Kaminari told me about them last semester when I was tutoring him.” Yaoyorozu fiddles with her hair, which is out of its signature ponytail and pooling around her shoulders.
Katsuki tries not to think about that too hard. He knows Kaminari went through something at the start of the year, but it was before the sports festival. When Katsuki was too far up his own ass to be something anyone considered a friend. “They just told me about stuff I can ask for.”
“Did they…happen to mention me at all?”
“No, it was my meeting dumbass.” He rolls his eyes, which is his way of telling her the question is no big deal. He’s not going to mess with her about it like last time, not in front of Mina.
Yaoyorozu scoffs and kicks in the direction of Katsuki’s shin. She’s no longer staring at him like she’s going to turn him into stone, which is what Katsuki wanted. Yaoyorozu is alright. He wonders if she means it when she’s nice to him. He wonders if they’re friends.
“Did they talk to you about getting a diagnosis?” Mina asks.
Of course she was going to ask that. Katsuki told her this morning he’d be having that stupid meeting and she made him promise to tell her how it went.
“Yeah. Mic will help you, said he’d do all the talking with your parents if you want.” Under his fingernail, paint starts chipping away from the wooden railing.
“Fucking based, I love Mic-sensei.” Mina grins. “Hearing about from you Blasty…I’m feeling really confident now. I’ll ask him about it on Monday.”
Just like that, Katsuki feels better. Maybe the meeting wasn’t a waste after all, because even if Katsuki isn’t sure about what he’s doing, just telling Mina is helping her. He can mend the harm he’s caused.
“You’re fucking right you should be confident. You should ask him tonight.” He says.
Yaoyorozu sucks in a breath too quickly and coughs as she scrambles to her feet. “Oh my god, I forgot. I forgot. I have to get ready.”
“It’ll be fine Yaomomo!” Mina calls after her.
The front door closes behind her and it’s just the two of them again. Katsuki takes another sweet potato chip when Mina offers. A cold breeze floats through the porch and Katsuki shivers. Fucking winter.
“Does that mean you’re coming to the group tonight?” Mina asks.
“Tch. Of course. I’m not missing this trash fire for anything.”
He tries to play it so cool but his promise only makes Mina smile harder.
“Hey Bakugou?”
“Eh?”
She kicks her legs against the bench in front of the porch. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk about it with Momo here, but the way you phrased it made it sound like you weren’t sure about getting a diagnosis for yourself.”
Katsuki’s eyes narrow in on the peeling paint again. It feels small under his thumbnail. Fragile. He’s done so much talking today.
“Mic-sensei said I didn’t need one.” He slides his legs out from under the railing and stands up. “I have to shower before group.”
“Oh. Yeah, good idea.”
She doesn’t seem mad. Katsuki knows she probably wanted to talk about it more but that’s as much as he can give right now.
—
He wasn’t lying when he told Mina he wanted to come to the group tonight, but by the time he finished showering the toll of having two (three?) emotionally intense conversations made Katsuki’s every step feel like he was walking across flypaper.
He made a promise though. So he finds himself walking to the gym with Kirishima in tow. The redhead is intensely focused on something he’s reading on his phone. Every few minutes his text to speech goes off as Kirishima makes it read out particularly long words. After the sixth or seventh word that ends in -saurus Katsuki has a pretty good idea what Eijirou is reading about.
“Have you ever been to Fukui?” He asks.
“I’ve been to Kyoto.” Mostly on business trips with his dad, but Katsuki still thinks fondly of what he can remember.
“Oh same, my mama has family in Shiga. Last time we visited was a while ago but we took the train out to Kyoto for one day and Fukui the next. I was really into dinosaurs at the time so they took me to the museum.” Kirishima grins.
Katsuki hums in affirmation, not sure what he’s supposed to get out of this but whatever, he likes being included.
“Where in Shiga?” He asks.
“Takashima.”
Katsuki blinks. “I’ve gone camping in Kutsuki before. And snowboarding. Nice area.”
Kirishima’s face lights up. “Dude no way! You should come with me next time!”
“Sure. Could be fun.” Katsuki truly can’t think of anything he’d want more than that.
In the gym, the other kids are having fun playing kemari in the corner. Katsuki notices Deku immediately. Jirou is leaning over Yaoyorozu and talking to her in a hushed tone.
“Are you okay?” Kirishima’s ears prick up in an instant.
Momo glances up with wide, and slightly bloodshot eyes. Katsuki winces internally, at least Eijirou is here to help with whatever is happening.
“Yes.” Momo snaps, running her hands along her bangs and averting eye contact. “How are you, Kirishima?”
Jirou points a strained expression at the two of them and quickly motions across her throat for Kirishima to drop it.
“Uh. I’m okay I guess.”
Katsuki grinds his teeth in silence. On one hand he has a gut feeling as to what Momo might be going through. On the other hand…he wishes she could have gone through his last few weeks of experience with Mic. Mic is cool, he wants her to feel that way too.
So he opens his stupid mouth. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“I don’t know if—“ Jirou starts.
“What? Are you talking to me?” Yaoyorozu shifts with unease.
Shit. This isn’t what he expected. “I mean it’s Mic-sensei. What’s the worst that can happen right?”
Yaoyorozu opens her mouth and closes it. “Excuse me for a second please. I’ll…be right back.” She stands up and walks away.
“Dude.” Jirou says over her shoulder, following Yaoyorozu out the door.
It bites. Katsuki steams.
“I was just—“ his teeth clack shut. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. “Fuck.”
“I’ll talk to her later.” Kirishima promises. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding, dude.”
His head is on fire. Katsuki’s tongue solidifies into coal. “I—I don’t want you to fucking—”
“Heads up Kacchan!”
Katsuki turns with his hands first and the rubber playground ball explodes before it can slam into his head. There’s a loud crash as the ball slams into one of gym’s skylights and continues on into the atmosphere. He hears the other kids’ sighs of disappointment before the smoke clears. Glass shards taunt him where they glitter.
He tried. He really tried this time.
“Ah, Bakugou is still keepie-uppie champion, I see.”
Mic-sensei enters the gym and stares up at the ceiling. His teacher has his hair down and tied back, glasses on, and is half out of his hero uniform.
The kids cry out in unison upon seeing him and Yamada smiles as they crowd around him. Katsuki trails behind the group and doesn’t join in the pestering of their beloved teacher.
“Hi, hello, yes it’s good to see you all—why is there glass on the floor? Oh shit you broke the window. I mean oh darn—everyone stop for a second!”
Katsuki helps them clean up the glass shards from the window he broke. His fault. It’s not that bad right? Sero hands out pieces of his quirk tape that makes the clean up go faster with much less margin for unseen pieces. They all saw Katsuki lose his shit again, but no one points fingers. No one counts him out. Yet?
He wants to ask Kirishima for clarification, but his stomach curls at the thought after relying so heavily on him this past week. At some point Katsuki has to be able to figure this shit out himself.
His head is starting to hurt from all this.
“Hey, you good kid?” Mic-sensei sweeps his eyes over him.
”Whatever.” That doesn’t make sense! Not what you’re supposed to say!
”I don’t see any scratches, pretty lucky.” Mic laughs.
No one else does, which makes Katsuki think they might be avoiding the topic on purpose.
“It’s about time we replaced a tile in here anyway. When I was a student, I regularly took out the whole ceiling.” He continues.
“Whoa.” Mina says in awe.
Maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal after all. Katsuki takes a deep breath.
The gym doors open and Yaoyorozu slips in with Jirou at her arm. She looks considerably less shaken. He wants to say something to her, but it feels too soon, too close to everyone else and their enjoyment of the moment.
Katsuki lifts up his hand, it’s almost a wave.
Yaoyorozu sees him move. She waves back.
Katsuki takes a deep breath. Maybe he can do this after all.
“Yaoyorozu! It’s good to see you little listener. Thanks for inviting me to your study group!” Mic holds his fist out for a fist-bump and Yaoyorozu tentatively returns.
“Good evening sensei, thank you for coming.” She squeaks, awkward and not knowing what to do with herself.
“Alright, I’m following your lead tonight, how can I help?”
Yaoyorozu starts to relax as she explains to Mic-sensei the irregular structure of how their study group usually goes, the whole time their sensei listens with a smile on his face. Katsuki helps them set up the room for Around The World, a class all-time favorite. The topic is English, which Yaoyorozu chose with Mic in mind of course. Katsuki’s English sucks, but once they start playing he has as much fun as everyone else.
Well, not everyone. Kaminari kicks everyone's asses to the point where most of the room silently teams up against him. Until Mic flips the cards around and has them translate from Japanese to English with spelling, effectively nerfing Kaminari’s advantage.
Deku breaks Kaminari’s win streak and Katsuki catches him off guard when he goes in to high-five Midoriya. He doesn’t even realize he’s done it until Deku grins from ear to ear and slaps his hand hard. No one else sees the little crackles of static that follow Deku as he moves on to stand behind Katsuki’s chair. Little shit.
Katsuki’s favorite part was when either Deku or Kaminari started going on consecutive winning streaks and made it all the way back to their rival’s chair only to lose to them. The two were drenched in sweat by the end of the game.
“One more thing before everyone goes back to their dorms.” Yaoyorozu announces. “As you all know, second semester midterms are coming up in a few weeks!” She waits for the groaning to stop. “Yes, so I’ll be putting together additional meetings at the same time in the common area on Wednesdays.”
He helps Mina, Yaoyorozu, and Mic-sensei pick up after the study group ends. The chairs go back in the closet. The flash cards go back in Yaoyorozu’s bag. He sweeps one more time over the spot where the glass fell.
When Mic says goodbye, Mina goes to follow him. She gives Katsuki a nervous thumbs-up before she disappears through the door.
“Hey.” A finger grazes his arm.
Yaoyorozu stands shyly next to him. “Hi. Sorry for freaking out on you earlier. I know what you were trying to do and I appreciate the sentiment. I just—” Her voice cracks. She breathes in, wet and forced. “Shit. Okay so you guessed right that tonight was stressing me out. There was…something else that happened earlier today that Jirou was helping me with, but I was also freaking out about Mic-sensei a little bit.”
Katsuki shrugged. “I should have read the room better.”
Yaoyorozu tilts her head. “Maybe, but I appreciated it. This was one of my worst-nightmare scenarios and it turned out to be really fun.”
He blinks, not sure what to say. “Okay.”
Yaoyorozu smiles. “See you next time, Bakugou.”
There’s a warmth in his chest that follows him until he climbs into bed.
—
Katsuki’s eyes snap open. The first thing he tries to do is breathe but he can’t. Something grips the back of his neck. Something presses down on his chest from the swirling darkness. He can’t see anyone or hear anything outside of his own shallow gasps.
It’s happening again. His heartbeat punches into his skull like a migraine. It’s fucking happening again. He can’t move his body and he’s suffocating and something he can’t see has their hands wrapped around his neck.
This time he tries to call for help. Kirishima is right there. Nothing happens.
He swears he sees something out of the corner of his eye. Someone left the hall light on. There’s a faint glow coming from under the door and Katsuki swears he can see two feet standing in front of it.
Katsuki tries to cry. Nothing happens.
I’m sorry I was a bad kid.
He doesn’t know what he did wrong this time.
I’m ready to be good now.
The fingers on his left hand twitch slightly. A spark dies in his bedsheets. In his mind he’s blowing the whole room apart. His breath catches his throat and choking, raspy, terrified, sound comes out of him. That’s all he hears for what feels like hours, like a dog begging to be put down.
BANG. His left palm releases, hot and deafening. It takes him a few seconds to realize it was his own quirk that made the noise and flash. Nothing burns, but Katsuki’s ears are ringing and it startled him back into silence.
He hears Kirishima knock gently on the wall. He fucking hears it. He wants to scream. If he could move Katsuki would be tearing through drywall, but all he can do is flex his fingers. Kirishima isn’t coming.
Eventually he flexes his elbow and that breaks the spell. Katsuki flies at his door, palms glowing and the stench of his fear-sweat promising a threat.
There’s nothing there.
He turns the lights on and stands with his back against the wall, staring at the emptiness in his room with a rising tide of dread in his gut.
Just like last time, nothing there.
“Kuroiro?” He hisses. “Monoma? If I catch—hk—you anywhere near this dorm they will never fucking find your bodies.”
No one answers him. Nothing moves. Not the textbooks on his desk or the double locked balcony door. Just the swift rise and fall of Katsuki’s chest and his red, wild eyes.
He’s alone. The realization hits him and leaves him feeling stupid and embarrassed. Of course he’s alone. It’s such a dumb fucking thing to be scared of. He was such an idiot for getting Kirishima involved last time.
Katsuki collapses against the side of his bed, legs still shaking. He drags his hoodie off the back of his chair and wraps himself up in it. His face leaves wet splotches on the sleeves. Something crinkles in the front pocket. Katsuki sniffles and reaches inside. It’s a little packet of chocolate candy Denki gave him earlier. He rips open the packaging. The chocolate is bitter and goes from a sharp lump to dissolving sweetness on his tongue. Katsuki feels a little less like he’s going to explode. He wishes he had more. His fingers curl around the lip of the box he keeps under his bed. He’s not even hungry but the idea of trying to go back to sleep makes his chest squeeze.
He won’t bother anyone tonight.