Before And After ||BNHA Kiribaku||

Chapter 18- Sweet

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"We're here!"

Kirishima glanced at the door curiously, as the loud and cheerful voice chimed throughout the room. The people he knew as Ashido, Kaminari, and Sero entered, the acid-quirk user being the one to greet him.

He felt a rush of happiness watching them come in, remembering how they helped him with the drawing. He waved at them.

"Hey, Kiri!" Kaminari grinned, plopping down on a chair. "How'd it go with Katsuki yesterday? Make progress?"

Kirishima nodded, just enough to get the message across. He figured getting a good reaction from Bakugo was progress enough, even if the blond didn't forgive him yet.

"That's good," Sero said. "Maybe he'll finally start talking to us again. Nowadays, he really only shrugs us off. It'd be nice to have the explody-boy from high school again."

Ashido picked up Hinansho, stroking its back. The rat gave a satisfied squeak. "Yeah! I remember when he would always threaten to blow us up!"

Kirishima gave them a strange look. Was threatening to blow them up really a good thing?

"And how he would cook us these awesome meals!" Kaminari added. "Kiri woul-"

The electric-blond cut off his sentence mid-way, freezing while he spared a glance at Kirishima. His face loosened up after the hardening-quirk user made a hand gesture to go on.

Kaminari coughed, resuming his story. "Anyways, so you would always offer to help out, no matter how much Katsuki yelled at you not to. And there was this one time when you accidentally took sugar for salt-"

"Oh, I remember that!" Ashido interrupted. "That was super funny! And then Katsuki started yelling at you, and the rest of us had cup noodles for dinner."

"Which was what we kind of ate everyday already," Sero admitted. "But then you forced yourself to eat the food you made. Shoto called Katsuki a coward for not joining you, so then you both started having an eating competition."

"You guys both ended up feeling like crap later," Kaminari chuckled. "But, as you would say, it was super manly!"

Kirishima saw the happiness in their fond smiles. It was almost contagious, like he could really feel it too.

"And that was only a few days before you... you..." there was a shift in Kaminari's posture, before his voice became much quieter. His next words came out in a whisper. "Got kidnapped."

The air got damp and the memory became stained. Kirishima felt a bubbling itch prick at his mind, along with a heavy pit forming in his gut.

"S-Sorry!" Kaminari apologized quickly. "I can- we can talk about something else!"

Kirishima turned away from them, taking in an unstable breath. Ashido laid Hinansho on the floor, the rat climbing up his bed.

"Kiri?" Ashido called, lacking her normal energy. "Can I say something about it?"

Kirishima turned his head slightly. He nodded after half a second.

"Okay, here!" Ashido pulled out her phone, showing the picture of the logo Kirishima had drawn. "I tried doing the best I could to search up the logo, but no luck. There's something else though!"

Ashido set down her phone, pulling out a container of makeup. She pointed at the emblem on the cover.

"Here! Doesn't this star kind of look like the one on the logo? I mean, if it was cut in half and stuff, but the points each have their own little hook at the end! I was thinking maybe this had something to do with it."

Kirishima squinted his eyes at the makeup container. It definitely seemed like the half-star that was on the organization logo... 

If it was only a coincidence, then it was sure a strange one.

He looked over at Ashido, agreeing with her. The pink-skinned girl seemed to then brighten up at that.

"Really! Great, I got it right!" She cheered. "And we're one step closer."

Kirishima didn't share her enthusiasm.

"Don't worry, Kiri. We'll find whoever did this to you!" Sero promised.

"Wait so," Kaminari frowned. "What does a makeup company have to do with kidnapping?"

"What if the makeup company is secretly the organization?!" Ashido exclaimed.

Sero scratched his neck. "Maybe we should submit this kind of thing to the police. It's not like we can do much investigating on our own."

Kaminari sighed. "Guess you're right. Good job, Mina!"

"Thanks!" Ashido giggled. 

Kirishima offered his thanks by giving her a thumbs up.

"We'll have to look out for anything like that in the future," Sero noted. "Alright then!"

"You can count on us, Kiri," Kaminari said. "Also, if you want us to help you with anything for Katsuki, don't be afraid to ask!"

"Yeah, we're all in different places," Sero said. "Katsuki's been shutting us out for a pretty long time."

The other two collectively agreed.

After that, the time passed, just like any other visit would. Kirishima found it nice to listen to the stories from their high school days, and more about what Bakugo was like back then.

What he was like back then.

Trying to comprehend himself in their stories was like trying to understand a completely different person. Well, he technically was a completely different person.

From what he understood, the old Kirishima was friendly, outgoing, social, upbeat, talkative. Everything he currently wasn't.

That Kirishima seemed like a much better person to be friends with.

And this Kirishima...

He clenched the sheets between his fingers tighter, feeling the warm burn of fabric between his fingers. He really hadn't changed all that much, had he?

The time for Ashido, Sero, and Kaminari to leave had eventually come. The goodbye Kirishima had given them had felt strange somehow, despite it being the same type of farewell he's always been using.

Hinansho's whiskers twitched, like he could tell what Kirishima was thinking. The redhead had been in hiding for way too long.

Kirishima sighed, patting Hinansho on the head. Taking a look over at everything on the table next to him, he ran a few things through his head.

He got up, searching through multiple papers jumbled on top of each other. Grabbing a pencil, he started looking for where to start.

Bakugo could probably help him with something like this. It was time for them to finally start working together.

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1044 words

A/N- it only took 18 chapter + prologue to get here-