K.BAKUGO X READER (Cover art by me)
In a life where I'd be safe in one moment and on the brink of death in another, I realized that he was the only force that could ground me. Of all the people in the world. My volatile co-worker. My menacing rival...
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part four
━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━
I realized then and there that the stillness of the forest only beckoned for change. The quiet of the trees and the untouched snow were waiting for the surrounding forces to disturb it. Our experience of the present is ever-dwindling, and time will stop for no one.
I stared at the bear, and he stared at me. We didn't move, waiting to see who would be the first to alter the path we walked.
His foot crunched the snow, followed by another. And another. The bear stuck his big, brown face into the sky, sniffing the air, his deceiving, fuzzy ears wiggling away the snowflakes. I couldn't read his behavior. Was I safe to escape?
"Don't move, you idiot. That thing will kill you."
"Didn't need you to tell me twice," you whispered.
The man on my shoulders, wheezed, sputtering blood on my hood. His time was running out.
That triggered the bear. It lowered its nose at me. Maybe he could sense dying prey. A fresh meal. Two, for that matter.
Once he started bounding down the ridge, bouldering past the trees, I ignored the blonde idiot's warning and made a run for it. What else was I supposed to do?
"And don't make a sound either! I leave for one second and you're already bear food, you fucking moron!"
"Too late for that!" I cried back through my radio, stumbling over a tree root, nearly dropping the man. The comm fell from my ear, lost in a mound of snow. My partner had no way to find me.
The bear was panting over my shoulder, a growl escaping through its breath. His body would crack the branches in his way, breaking icicles like bones. I tried to teleport from the dense forest, but one wrong calculation and I'd be speared through a tree trunk.
I dove under a branch. I think the man got scratched. The fallen log was up ahead. We teleported past it, but I heard the man sputter. Tearing through space-time was harsh on a healthy body. It was painful on a dying one. But I had no choice. It was either temporary pain or death by bear claw, tearing his flesh into wet, ragged pieces.
The flow of the river called to me. I gasped for air, wanting the stream to take me in a false sense of hope. Even if I dove in, or tried to cross it, the bear would follow and we'd both die of hypothermia. Everywhere was cold and hopeless. I still ran, carrying the man, stubbornly refusing to give up. The bear was gaining on me. He was bigger, faster, stronger than I'd ever be. I knew the fate that was waiting for me, and I refused to accept it.
When my foot skidded on the ice of the riverbank, the man slipped from my hold. I tumbled onto my face, surrounded by nothing but the blanket of the cold. He landed in the snow beside me. The bear was mere feet away, his growl rumbling through me.
