Quarantined (BakuDeku AU)

0014

After the awkwardness induced by the symptom screening, Bakugo and I hastily complete the grocery list, both of us agreeing without actually saying so, to never speak of the matter again. Within ten minutes we knock out an adequate list of desired foods and Bakugo willingly volunteers to leave the weird atmosphere we've created in the kitchen today and put the envelope outside the front door so it can be collected by dudes in plastic hazmat suits later tonight.

Upon Bakugo's return to the kitchen, he grumbles something about going to his room whilst refusing to make eye contact with me, and promptly makes a swift exit.

I watch him go, a flicker of disappointment briefly residing in my mind before I evict the audacious feeling from existence.

I stay seated at the kitchen island and listen to his foot falls on the staircase and the distant thud of his bedroom door slamming shut. I'm once again alone and enveloped in a veil of destitue silence. I can feel the frown on my face and the crease inbetween my brows as I sit, staring into nothingness.

I've never been much for doing nothing. Kaminari and Sero usually keep me busy, dragging me along to one escapade of tomfoolery or another. They are the ideal and ever present distractions in my life that get me through.

Day in, day out boredom here in Bakugo's apartment has been slowly chipping away at my sanity. You can only watch so many movies, play so many video games or stare at your phone for so long before the all consuming tedium devours you. Sitting here, engaged in a staring contest with Bakugo's kitchen cabinets, is rapidly bringing me to the brink.

I close my eyes, retreating into the blanket of blankness behind my eyelids for a moment before taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm the growing restlessness tightening my chest. Fatigue from my night spent on the floor in the hallway weighs on me, making me feel heavy.

I force my eyes open, trying to shake off the bad vibes and stop the feelings of exasperation at my own boredom and tiredness from overtaking me. I check the time, and discover it's shortly after one in the afternoon. Dread pools in my stomach when I realize how much time I still have to fill before the day ends, but I encourage myself not to think about it.

Mentally ridiculing myself, I take a crack at planning a task to complete for the day. I cycle through possibilities methodically, but ultimately come up empty.

This does nothing to reassure my spiralling brain.

Anger, at myself, for being unable to come up with a way to pass the time rears up within me. The frustration of my boredom strengthens the visceral emotional reaction and tears begin to prick the corners of my eyes.

If I can't think of something to do, I have to do nothing.

If you weren't so incompetent at coming up with tasks, you wouldn't be bored.

The voice in my head taunts me. The grueling sentence of doing nothing fuels my emotional wildfire, causing me to become even angrier with myself for not being able to think of anything.

I try my best to ignore it all, pushing down the thoughts and feelings and instead decide to fall into an old habit and listen to some music. At least if I was listening to music, I didn't have to be listening to the thoughts in my head.

Just going through the motions, I robotically run up to my bedroom, grab my headphones and hop on the bed. Making sure to stretch out over the whole bed, I lie back against my pillow. I put in my ear buds and hit shuffle, letting the music take me away.

Sprawled out comfortably, I lay there listening to anything that plays until Bakugo loudly bangs on my door, telling me to come for dinner. After we eat some Shepherd's Pie, both of us with our headphones in at the kitchen table, we part ways and get back to our own shenanigans.