Bleeding Heart

XV

Since that night at the dorms, Kimiko had thrown herself into homework, training and meditation with reckless abandon.

If she were honest, she was struggling to cope. Choosing to keep her schedule filled to the brim. She had noticed how irritable and anti-social she was becoming. But honestly? She didn't care.

Training for the provisional license exam was all she could think about, she knew she needed to come up with an ultimate attack, but her brain was too tired to come up with any great ideas.

Todoroki and Aizawa tried to talk with her a few times, encouraging her to rest but she couldn't bring herself to listen.

She had been hiding this from everyone, but she hadn't been sleeping in her room, choosing instead to sleep on the couch in the common room every night.

Creeping down the stairs when everyone was asleep and waking far earlier than all of her classmates to avoid uncomfortable questions.

'I have to get stronger and then I can rest,' she thought to herself, her body felt heavy with exhaustion, 'I can't be distracted.'

Uraraka looked at her blonde friend, the girl had dark circles under her eyes as she stared out the window. Walking towards her friend cautiously, Uraraka greeted her gently.

"Yeah hi," the dual-quirked girl replied, eyes trained on the window. Uraraka flinched at the tone, but refused to walk away.

Stealing her resolve, she pressed on "how is training going? It could be fun to do it together sometime?" she asked softly.

Kimiko finally turned to look at her, irritation clear on her face, "do you think I'm doing all of this training because I enjoy it?" she asked with a dangerous edge to her voice.

Uraraka stammered a response as she was caught off guard by her friend's reaction. "I'm not playing around nor do I need to spend my time teaching someone to fight," the blonde girl said, rising to her feet.

Her chair scraped the floor and drew the attention of the class, "this is life or death for me," the blonde girl was breathing heavily at this point.

Despite her harsh tone and words, there were tears in her eyes, "I can't afford any distractions, okay?" she said, "so please, do not intervene."

Brushing past her friend, Kimiko walked out of the classroom where Bakugou was waiting in the hallway.

Uraraka stood there in shock, the cold tone and the tears in Kimiko's blue eyes surprised her, almost more so than the harsh words themselves.

The classroom was silent as everyone exchanged nervous glances. If Kimiko was talking to Uraraka like that, something was seriously wrong.

"Kimiko has been acting like that to everyone since the attack," Kaminari said quietly as Kirishima nodded solemnly, both having been on the receiving end of her coldness.

Yaoyorozu placed a comforting hand on the brunette girl's shoulders, worried about the smaller girl. "She must be going through a lot, don't take it too personally," the taller girl said.

Uraraka looked up at the black haired girl, eyes filled with determination, "she must be so scared..." she paused, "I'm going to find a way to help her."

The class nodded in agreement. "Kacchan can probably help," said Midoriya as the class turned to look at him.

"That's true," added Tsu, as the class thought about the two blondes, "they seem to understand each other."

As the class thought about their two classmates, they all agreed to let Bakugou handle the situation. "I'm a little worried about Kimi-chan, Bakugou can be really harsh," said Hagekure.