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 eleven
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When I was young, I used to hold my breath in the bathtub and admire the glitter of water for as long as I could before my tiny lungs needed to gasp for air. It scared my mom half to death, and she'd scold me for acting dangerously for no good reason. But she couldn't see the pocket of the world that I'd made. She couldn't understand. With my head below the surface, looking up into the yellow bathroom lights, I'd watch the colors drift and collide in the bubbles, controlling them with my fingers like magic. I was alone in the warmth, my head in a low rumble when fluid reaches your eardrums. Weightless. Bound to conception. I still had time to direct my path. To make changes. To fix mistakes.
I stood under the shower, letting the heat rattle down my back in a shaky reality. One where I was fractured and lost. Where time was slipping, and I was running out of chances to fix it. Bubbles were drifting away. The bathwater was growing sour. And my skin was cold with goosebumps.
With the moon in the sky, my visions ran wild in the night. A spiny head curled its neck from the trees out my window. Its shadow cast a dripping set of teeth. I sat in bed, watching it sway in the wind. A knight was no use without his sword. I questioned if I ever had a blade in the first place, or if I'd just been fighting blindly this whole time.
Standing by his side on the hill, overlooking the city, I told Bakugo why I was a hero. "To help others."
I tugged the wet towel from my head, putting the weight on my shoulders. When did I decide that this would be my reason? It must have been a long time ago. I felt it true to my heart but couldn't find the end of the string in the yarn basket.
Walking the halls in damp hair and a cold uniform, I dug through my past. There wasn't much there. A traditional upbringing. A normal family. Going to a forgettable middle school and later, a B-grade high school with a hero program. I wanted to be a hero back then for the same intangible reason. It gave me a motive to search deeper. But it gets fuzzy trying to pry through your childhood. Old memories begin to blend into fragments of dreams until you can't remember what was real or what you saw differently in the world. What was bathwater was the span of the universe in my eyes. Coffee was a nasty poison that adults drank to stay frantic and busy. Twisted shadows were dragons that breathed fire. Peace was knowing when my parents would come home again. Love was my mother's earrings.
I poured a cup of that poison and enjoyed it. The warmth soothed my bones. It kept me awake. Jittery. I should've had a decaf but what was the point? The nightmares were persistent, and there was nothing I could do but run from them for as long as I could hold out.
The military base was quiet at night. A few were still awake, cracking away at the scraps of evidence we'd gathered, monitoring the forest, watching cameras, and infrared activity. Hawks that never slept. Unlike them, my wakeness didn't carry any gravity or importance. Pointless discomfort.
