𝔄𝔫 ℑ𝔫𝔣𝔦𝔫𝔦𝔱𝔶 𝔄𝔴𝔞𝔶 | Katsuki Bakugo x OC

Chapter 32 - A Restless Six Days

She rinsed her face, the water cooling her skin despite the forest fire of emotions burning underneath the surface.

Six days.

Six long exhausting days of waiting passed since Bakugo was taken right in front of the heroes' eyes.

And these six days have driven Hina to the brink of insanity.

Time has dragged on for the omega. Bakugo's emotions, his turmoil weighing down on her shoulders like how Atlas held the sky, the weight of the world's ceiling, on his back.

She could feel every fluctuation of his inner beasts since she noticed that their empathy link has bridged, has solidified. And it happened the day she knew he discovered the truth of their bond. His boiling anger, his crippling worry, his suffocating helplessness, his mountain of self-doubt. She could feel how he was slowly losing his courage, his will to continue fighting. And then, out of the blue, he'd have adrenaline coursing through his veins and in turn hers, positivity somehow taking reign and chasing away the darkness in his mind.

Her eyes trailed to her forehead, where the moisture plastered her bangs to her forehead. Sparse breaths left her lips. Trembling like a leaf, she wiped the stray strands of her hair away with the back of her hand.

She recalled that day, three days ago, right when she could feel the warmth of his heroism bleed through. The whiplash she received from his sudden switch was something she wasn't prepared for. It troubled her. It churned her insides as her head was splitting from a headache of dealing with her emotions. With his emotions too.

She'd try to keep it together. Try to pretend she was okay when she left her room and was greeted by her two new friends who were keeping her company the entire time. Even with a frown contorting her expression, she'd somehow relax her shoulders. Somehow halt the quivering of her limbs. Somehow, she'd keep her chin up with full confidence in his valor. In his strength.

She tried to keep it together so much so, she could feel her faux inner strength somehow traveling to him. And somehow, in return, she could feel his gratitude flow between the boulders of his overbearing emotions, crossing over to her.

Droplets of water streamed down her face, like how tears do, and dripped down. Dripped from her brow. From the bridge of her nose. From her chin. All of them dripping and condensing into a miniature puddle. She peered down, seeing a distorted reflection in the water.

It reminded her of how she felt when Bakugo found his spirit again.

Like a trickle of a river dripping between granite, his gratitude and his courage grew. Grew until the trickle slowly but surely started to rush and cascade, washing over a sense of relief in the link.

As though, her inkling to cover her pain for her friends was giving him surety that she was okay. And she understood that the alleviation of his was something she should nurture. All to help him go through the trials, the horrors he was facing.

Hina understood that. However, it didn't mean that it was easy for her. Because trying to be positive for herself, let alone two people, was something she was never good at. After all, pessimism was her tendency when facing hardships as daunting as the ones she's faced in this violent universe.

At that moment, there was a numbness in their tether. It was more concerning than the rushes of emotions she received from him. Because, at least with the rush of adrenaline or the dread weighing down, she knew he was still conscious. That he was alive.

But the numbness, the white-noise buzzing of her nerve endings left her at a loss of what was going on with the alpha.

Anything could be happening in that period of numbness. He could be asleep. He could be unconscious from the pain of his injuries. He could be de-