Before And After ||BNHA Kiribaku||

Chapter 41- Image

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The next time Bakugo woke up, it took him a while until he could remember what he talked about with Kirishima. It was the middle of the night, after all. He felt terrible. Sick, hungry, and still tired, after who knows how long he had been sleeping.

He tried sleeping again, but to no avail. The neon lights that shined from the machines glowed too bright and the smell of alcohol was too strong. His entire body was stiff and the bed felt too uncomfortable and he hated everything in that moment.

He didn't want to be up at two in the morning or be feeling so unbearably sick. He wanted to be on the investigation again. He didn't care how painstaking it was, he just wanted to stop feeling so hopeless.

Then he laid there, completely still, as seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours. Mindless thoughts floated around in his head.

He started filing out all his memories in his head soon, starting with the beginning of the raid. He didn't struggle to remember the details of the event, but right when he got to the laser, his conversation with Kirishima hit him.

He told Kirishima... everything. It made his stomach churn. It made him confused. He thought if Kirishima should ever learn what happened, he'd be terrified at how Kirishima would react. That was the reason he hadn't said anything in the first place.

But he remembered determination he'd seen on Kirishima's face, and all that potential regret he could've felt disappeared. It disappeared along with the rest of the weight and worry he'd been carrying on him.

It felt good, great- wonderful, so much Bakugo felt like he was going to start crying on his overflow of emotions. But he didn't, instead only staring up at the dark ceiling of the still room.

He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep, heal, anything to get out of the hospital. He wanted to talk to Kirishima. There was so much to say, so much to fix.

He just needed to wait.

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The day he was released, the first thing he got was a breath of fresh air. Cars passed and birds squawked, and Bakugo was out, thanks to a healing quirk that fixed his wounds over the course of a few days.

His wound was still tender to the touch, but as long as he didn't put too much pressure on it, it would be fine, according to the doctor.

He made his way home as fast as possible, slamming the door open as soon as he arrived, the poor knob undeserving of the force. It was dark in his house, the barest trickle of afternoon light sprinkling through.

He started freshening up after throwing his dirty hero costume in the hamper, splashing some cool water on his face in the bathroom.

There was so much he could- no, wanted do with the rest of the day. He probably missed so many things in the days he was bedridden, and the last thing he wanted was to be behind.

So with determination, Bakugo marched up to his front door, grabbed the knob... and it turned out his determination wasn't as sturdy as he thought it was and he immediately turned around and flopped on his couch.

Determination wasn't going to give him enough energy to physically make it through the day, especially being fresh out of the hospital. His eyes were too heavy and his muscles ached.

But there was no way Bakugo was going back to sleep. He did way too much of that in the past few days. He instead grabbed his phone and turned it on, the usual notifications about investigations and messages from his friends flooding the screen.

He tapped on his friends' texts, scrolling through the trivial clutter for something worth reading. Nothing came. His finger started scrolling faster. There was so much he missed, so many words about 'great news' and 'celebrations' from their injuries being healed or about how much progress had been made, that soon simmered down into simple jokes and conversation. They always did.

There was no news of his return though. His name popped up once or twice, but they never acknowledged his return too much. Bakugo had always know he'd separated himself from everyone else. Barely anyone had visited him when he stayed at the hospital, much less in daily life.

He ignored that problem a long time ago, even if he'd lost not only Kirishima, but the smiles of his friends too. He wandered in loneliness for the last five years of his life, and he did his best not to let it get to him.

But... he was glad that Kirishima had decided to visit him, and in all those texts, he saw that Kirishima decided to visit others too. All of his ex-classmates were friends with Kirishima, but they weren't with Bakugo.

He knew if he went up and asked them, they would say that they're friends. Some may actually believe it, and some are just being nice, but Bakugo didn't see them as true friends. Or rather, he wasn't a true friend.

Did he miss them? As he scrolled through the messages, he found himself thinking of Kirishima with them, versus how they were with him.

He thought of Hagakure, Sero, Midoriya. There were so many reasons why none of them or the others would want to be around him.

He wasn't part of the family that was their class, and even Kirishima, who had been gone for almost all of their school life was newly a part of it.

Bakugo was about to shut off his phone, his thumb right on the power button. He wanted to ignore it, he normally did. But he thought of Kirishima's presence at the hospital room, and the absence of the others.

All the missed moments he could've had with the rest of class 1-A, all the words he ignored, every person he snapped at had ended with nobody visiting him. 

And then one person visited him, and it cracked the wall of numbness he'd made for himself. 'Stupid,' he told himself, but that didn't stop him from imagining all his fellow heroes joking at chatting about the stupidest things.

What would he do about it, though? Bakugo forgot how to speak with others. He never really could, now that he thought about it.

So he supposed that he should probably start at the meetings, where everybody was conveniently in the same place.

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1060 words