VOID [Katsuki Bakugo x OC]

Rule #7: Find an Exit Buddy

♪

Next stop: Beijing.

Directly after their Kyoto show, elixir's team broke down the set, packed up the tour busses, and drove to the airport in the dead of night. There was no time for congratulations or celebrations. Every second mattered, and every piece of equipment had to be accounted for as they filled up the private jet.

Despite the icy breeze and light drizzle coming down, Ine stood at the cargo hold, checking off each piece of the equipment on a clipboard in her clawed hand as the crew loaded up the plane, barking orders at the slower crew members.

Bryant did the same with each child, running through a list of things each kid was in charge of packing and getting on the plane. The bodyguards lingered nearby, shivering and hovering near their respective family members in their all-black suits.

"I don't think I said it earlier, but you look totes hot, Katsuki," Camie muttered as the kids checked in with Bryant, each stepping up and producing a finger for something.

Camie'd waltzed over a while ago, but Bakugo had been ignoring her. Squinting at the strange process, Bakugo watched on with curiosity as each of the Yamaguchi children flinched in turn. "Don't think I gave you permission to use my first name, dumbass," he grunted, crossing his arms.

"Aw, don't be like that, Kit-Kat," Cami pouted, elbowing him playfully. She leaned in, trying to make eye contact with him, and said, "We're friends, right? We did that whole hero licen-"

"Oh my god, do you ever stop talking?" Hitoshi groaned from nearby, stretching and yawning. He leveled his tired gaze on Camie and pursed his lips. "You're going to wake up all of Kyoto with your yammering."

Camie gaped at the sleepy boy, and stuck her tongue out at him. "How rude." She turned to Jiro for backup, who held up a finger to her lips and pointed at Bryant; Jiro busied herself with reading his lips, the only pair she could see with the kids' backs to her. How annoying.

"What're they saying?" Bakugo asked, sidling up to Jiro quietly.

Jiro sighed and squinted at Bryant. "Something about 'morning check-ins'? And concert feedback, I think. Seems like he's giving them overall notes and going to move onto individual stuff next."

"Blue said something about morning check-ins before, I think," Bakugo muttered, "You know what it is?"

"...Who?"

Bakugo clicked his tongue, rolling his eyes as he muttered, "Cadence? The one with the blue-ass hair? Pretty fuckin' obvious, Jack." He hated having to explain himself.

Keep up, dumbasses.

Jiro kept her eyes trained on Bryant. "Whatever, asshole. Anyway... We woke up after everyone was already gone. You?"

"Same."

The four of them watched on as Bryant ripped into the kids for what they thought was a stellar performance, but apparently wasn't. Bakugo heard the words "sloppy", "uncoordinated", and "pitchy" above the rest of the lecture. Brutal shit.

For some reason, Katsuki's mind suddenly pieced together the fingers and the jolting with the bodyguard training... the Yamaguchi kids were getting their blood sugar levels checked. But Bakugo sucked his teeth as he watched Bryant scream at the kids one at a time, desperately trying to remember everything he knew about diabetes...

Wouldn't you at least have to sanitize the lancet between kids?

Or use a different one for each of 'em?

Because Bryant didn't.

And that thought alone soured Katsuki's stomach.

♪

"So... we gonna talk about the... thing before the concert?"

Settled into her favorite seat aboard the jet, Cade looked up from her journal, pen paused over the paper, and cocked her head. "What thing?"

Bakugo frowned at her, depositing himself into the seat beside her. "You know... when you almost murdered some rando for spouting bullshit about me on the way into the stadium?" His voice was low and gravelly, nearly a whisper in Cadence's ear, closer than he'd ever been before. "You could've gone to jail had I not stopped you, idiot. Or worse."

"Dude," Cade sighed, glaring up at him and his perfect, model face, "I have had three friends in my whole-ass life, and they're my fucking siblings, so forgive me if I don't know how to play nice. Fists and words are our way of settling everything. Oh... and you're welcome, by the way."

"For what, dipshit?"

"Defending your honor and Dynamight name, obviously," Cadence yawned, poking his cheek before pulling her knees back up into her seat and turning to her journal, totally ignoring the glare he shot at her. "I wasn't just gonna let them say all of that fuckery about you when they didn't even know what happened."

Katsuki straightened in his seat, squinting down at his blue-haired charge, and muttered, "You don't fuckin' know what happened either, moron."

"And that's fine," Cadence sighed, the words in her journal smearing in her vision as her eyes drifted shut, leaning her head against the window. Tired... fuck tours. "If you want it to be my business, then you'll tell me someday. But, until then... we just... just... ign-nore..." Cade lost her train of thought somewhere in the middle of relaxing into her seat.

A snore was the next thing to fall from her lips.

And she's out, thought Bakugo, unsurprised. He leaned over and closed her journal, sliding it into the backpack at her feet with her pen, and folded away the tray table she'd been using to write.

The moment Katsuki considered getting up to go talk strategy with Kyoka, Cadence shifted in her seat, her head falling to his shoulder and snuggling in until she found a comfortable nook in the muscley landscape of his arm.

Frowning down at her, Katsuki sighed through clenched teeth and crossed his arms over his chest (with great difficulty due to his sling), resting his head atop Cade's before settling in to sleep himself.

Can't fuckin' get in trouble if she's right beside me, right?