"Maybe" | Denki Kaminari [COMPLETED]

Chapter Fourteen: Healing

I woke to darkness. No--not darkness. There was a faint light coming through the window and a lamp to my left. I woke to night.

"I don't know what you were thinking," a voice said to my left, next to the lamp.

"I wasn't," I said, not looking at Jiro. 

"That much is obvious. Do you realize how much you would have hurt Kaminari if you had died?"

I let my silence be my answer.

Jiro sighed. "Here. I was recording a video of some of the girls and caught most of the incident on camera." She handed me her phone and pressed play on a video.

Denki was halfway through whatever he'd been saying. "--Shoji? Tokoyami?"

"I think they went to get food," Tsu said.

He looked around almost hopelessly. "Sero, come on."

"Why me?"

"Sero, if you don't come upstairs right now and help me, I will tell Bakugo you called him a word your mother would not be proud of."

Someone behind the camera-- probably Mina --gasped.

The video became shaky as the Jiro in the video stood and followed the rest of the class outside. When the camera panned to the roof, I could see my own hazy silhouette sit down for a moment, then stand again.

"Is that Yamikawa?" Kirishima asked.

"Who else would it be?" Ochako said, shading her eyes against the sun.

The students tried yelling up, but it was obvious the person--me-- couldn't hear them. The phone's microphone had caught the scream from the roof, though. After a few seconds, my brain registered that the scream had been Denki, yelling my name as the person stepped off the side of the roof. That Kaiya felt so far away.

In less than a second, Denki had that Kaiya in his arms and was stopped from hitting the ground by Sero's tape. He'd wrapped the tape around his midsection and left Sero on the roof to release a supply of the sticky stuff. The video cut out just as it became clear the Kaiya on the screen hadn't wanted to be saved.

"He broke one of his ribs," Jiro said, taking the phone from my hands.

"Why would he do that?" I said. "I told him not to try and follow me."

"He loves you too much to let you go," she said.

"Why are you here?" I asked, suddenly realizing the oddness of it.

"The class was worried you would try to jump off the building again, so we set up a watch until we figured out your level of mental stability."

"I could get past every one of you if I wanted to."

"Don't get cocky. You would still have to convince Kaminari to let you go."

Denki, who was asleep in the armchair beside my bed, had such a tight hold on my hand that I couldn't feel my fingers. I didn't mind.

Jiro had plugged her earphone jack into her phone and didn't seem to be paying me any attention, so I grabbed my phone off the bedside table and turned it on. The first thing I saw was about half a dozen notifications from Denki. He must have tried to contact me before taking action. I texted Mina, but she didn't answer. She was probably asleep. I took a piece of paper from my phone case and typed the number in. I'd only talked to Christine, my foster mother, once to tell her I would be moving into the dorms and wouldn't need an apartment anymore. I started to type a message, but decided against it and put the paper back into my phone case.

Jiro glanced up once before standing up to walk out the door. "Good, Kaminari's awake," she said. "He can take over."

Sure enough, his eyes had snapped open. He didn't say anything, only stood up to make tea. I curled my knees to my chest and sat with my back against the wall, sheets pulled up to my chin to cover my shaking hands. I didn't look him in the eyes as he handed me a steaming cup and sat on the bed in front of me.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Talk to me," Denki said.

"I can't," I choked out. "I don't--I can't."

"What happened yesterday before you came back to the dorms?" he asked gently.

This was information. I could talk about this. "I talked to the League. The school wants me to rejoin them as a spy."

His eyes narrowed. "We'll come back to that later. How did you know where the League was?"

"They sent me a note. They wanted me back." I shrugged.

"What happened?"

"I talked to them. They're letting me come back."

"What else happened?"

"Nothing."

"Where did the blood on the back of your shirt come from?"

I glanced away from him. "Actually, can you help me with that? I'll tell you what it is," I said before he could interrupt, "but I need help."

He gave me a small smile and nodded. I grabbed bandages and ointment from one of the drawers and sat on one of the edge of the sink in the kitchenette. I turned the water to warm and turned with my back to Denki.

"I don't know where to start," Denki said apologetically, brushing my hair away from my back. "I don't really deal with blood a lot."

"Soak this is the water," I said, handing him a cloth. "Press it against the scabs. The heat and dampness will loosen them so the shirt can be cut away without reopening the wounds."

"You've done this before," he said, placing the cloth on one of the cuts on my shoulder.

"Too many times." I flinched as the scissors cutting my shirt grazed my skin. I had to calm myself with a few deep breaths. "Tomura Shigaraki's quirk, Decay, dissolves anything he touches. If he touches a living being, the only way to stop them from dying is to cut off whatever Shigaraki has touched.

"That's what he did to you?" Denki said softly, done with separating my shirt from the scabs and now unraveling the bandages.

"It's an effective form of torture, really. It's not like the victim can do anything to prevent the cuts, cause if they did, they'd die, so you just have to bear the pain and--" I stopped, choking on a sob. I tried to keep my breakdown in check so my shoulders wouldn't be shaking while Denki bandaged them, but I can't say I did a good job. I just held my head in my hands in an effort to hold back the tears.

When the last bandage had been placed, Denki spun me around to face him. He didn't say anything, only pulled me into his chest as my sobs took over. His thumb traced circles on the back of my neck, just above the edge of a bandage.

"Thank you," I said when I found my voice. "For everything."

"Next time the League hurts you, let's figure out a plan to kick their butts instead of throwing ourselves off a building, okay?"

I nodded. "What time is it?"

"Nearly four. We've got training most of the day."

"Meet you downstairs in ten minutes?" I suggested. "There's got to be food somewhere."

Denki grinned. "See you there."

We ended up spending the next two hours downstairs in the common area playing cards and eating snacks we found in the kitchen. At some point, Mina, Kirishima, Sero, and even Bakugo joined us. It ended up turning hyper-competitive, and resulted in threats, bargains, and a few fights. By the time we started training for our provisional hero licenses, I had forgotten about the League.

When I crawled into bed late that night, tired from training but happy, I stared up at the ceiling and wondered if I would pass the provisional license exam. The test was already difficult, and my class would be entering as some of the youngest there. I fell asleep hopeful.