Dark past, Bright future

4

Kirishima's POV
"We're leaving tomorrow. We have some business we need to attend to so get some rest," Bakugou said. Then he closed the door to his room behind himself. Since it was late I did as he said. Kaminari and I got changed and climbed into bed. As I lay in bed I thought about what Bakugou and Midoriya were talking about yesterday.

When they left I heard Midoriya say he needed to talk to Bakugou. When they came back, Bakugou was holding an envelope. Later on, he didn't tell us what the letter was about. He only said that we were doing Midoriya a favor and we had to go to the town, Merepool.

The next morning we got ready early. We ate breakfast while having a conversation with Iida. We thanked him and Tsu and we bid them goodbye. Then we were leaving town and returning to the privacy of the woods. The walk was quiet and half of us were still groggy.

"Where are we going?" Kaminari asked.

"And why?" Sero added, "We never have a plan."

"I didn't want to tell you in town since someone could be listening but we're going to Merepool. Deku has some information he needs delivered to some guy called Lemillion," Bakugou answered.

"Why are we doing it? There's such thing as postal service," Jiro asked.

"Deku is part of some rebel thing to stop King Shigaraki. It's very secret so they don't want idiots who follow Shigaraki snitching," Bakugou continued.

"Huh. I wonder what secret information we're delivering," Mina thought aloud tapping a finger on her chin. "Maybe we could just-"

"No," Bakugou cut her off, "We're not reading it. The damn nerd told me that we weren't supposed to read it, especially because we're not part of the organization."

"But just a peek couldn't hurt," Kaminari said.

"No."

"Please?"

"C'mon guys," I intercepted the conversation, "Midoriya said we shouldn't read it and we should trust him."

"I guess..." Sero sighed. The six of us fell into silence. The quiet was familiar to me. It reminded me of all the time I spent wandering around by myself. Before it felt lonely and even suffocating at times. But now it wasn't as bad. Just the other's presence was comforting, and the sounds of their shoes in the dirt or their bags rustling while they walked reminded me I wasn't alone.

"Bakugou, truth or dare?" Mina asked breaking the silence. She had a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"No," Was Bakugou's short answer.

"Why not? You missed out on our game the other night," Mina pouted.

"I don't want to play that stupid game," Bakugou growled.

"I guess your just too wimpy to play," Mina shrugged inspecting her pink painted nails. I could already see what she was trying to do, but would it really work on someone like Bakugou? I wasn't sure.

"Fine! I'll play your dumb game," He groaned. Mina beamed, completely forgetting about how her nail polish looked.

"Yay!" She cheered, "Is everyone else playing?" The rest of us agreed. It seemed like a good way to pass time. Mina started, "Truth or dare, Bakugou?"

"I'm not a wimp. Dare," He replied.

"Let me give you a new hairstyle," Mina smiled confidently. He groaned again while Mina giggled. She got hair ties out of her bag. He sat on a log near by as Mina pulled and played with his hair.

"Done!" Mina called taking a step back to admire the work she did in his hair. His bangs stayed the same but a braid ran along the side of his head. It ended in a ponytail where the rest of his hair was gathered. I would be lying if I said he didn't look good.

"Finally!" Bakugou stood adjusting the pack on his back. Then he grinned making eye contact with Kaminari, who shrunk under his stare and gulped. "Truth or dare, dunce face."

"Dare?" Kaminari said it as if it was a question.

"Put on a blindfold and guess who one of these extras are only by feeling their face," Bakugou smirked. It almost looked like Kaminari was relieved that the dare wasn't worse. I got a bandanna out of my bag to use as the blindfold. Since I didn't have much for belongings when I was traveling by myself, the others insisted they buy me some stuff in town. Mina got me bandannas because she thought it would look good with my hair style.

So we blindfolded Kaminari and Bakugou made Jiro stand in front of him. She made a look of disgust when Bakugou held her by the shoulders in front of Kaminari.

"I don't want anyone touching my face," She frowned.

"It's Jiro!" Kaminari exclaimed proudly, "I didn't even have to feel her face!"

"You weren't supposed to talk," Bakugou scowled, "Now I have to find someone else." So Bakugou grabbed Sero by the backpack and pulled him over to where Jiro had just been standing. "Okay, Dunce face. They are standing in front of you."

"Okay," Kaminari reached out and, with some difficulty, found Sero's face. I could tell Sero was trying not to laugh as Kaminari blindly felt his face. Finally Kaminari asked, "Is it Sero?"

"Yep," Sero laughed.

"Bro!" Kaminari pulled off his blindfold.

"Bro!" The two high fived and I got my bandanna back. Our game continued, Kaminari asked Sero, Sero asked me, and so on. I was surprised when Bakugou answered truth when Jiro asked. Jiro seemed surprised too because it took her longer to think of a truth.

"What is one person you had to pretend to like but you hated?" She asked. Bakugou chuckled.

"Her name was Mei Tanaka. She was some snobby bitch my parents forced me to meet. I had to be polite and keep my temper in control but I couldn't stand her," He said. That's when I realized, he never mentioned his parents before. Or anything about his past, besides how he meet Midoriya, and the others in Kingstead.

"Damn," Mina laughed, "I kinda want to meet her. I want to know what you think classifies as a snobby bitch." Bakugou rolled his eyes.

"Why won't you let us meet your parents?" Kaminari pouted. Bakugou seemed mildly amused thinking of Tanaka but that quickly disappeared at the mention of his parents. Instead it was replaced by a scowl.

"I told you before. I don't talk to them anymore," He growled. It was obvious he didn't like talking about his parents but Kaminari didn't seem to pick up on it.

"But why? Did you guys get in a fight or something?" he continued to question.

"It's none of your damn business," Bakugou's voice hinted he was about to start throwing hands if Kaminari didn't stop and he got the message this time. Bakugou angrily stuffed his hands in his pockets and stomped to the front of our group with his shoulders hunched.

I wanted to follow him and try to help him feel better, but could I if I barely knew him? I had no idea what made him smile or if he was even okay with talking when he was upset. So instead I followed him silently with the rest of the group. While small quiet conversation broke out I stayed silent worrying about Bakugou.

Have a good week -K. K.