76.) Shinsou

"Mom, I promise, I'm okay, really," Kirishima insisted through the phone, "I'm not even hurt, I
swear."
"This is the third villain attack you've been involved in, Ei! The ​third​!​ ​I'm going to have a heart
attack!"
"I wasn't even involved in the second one," he reasoned, "I was in remedial classes for the
summer camp one."
"Yeah, but you sure ​got ​involved," she stressed, "I know this is what you want and it's going to
be dangerous, but I was hoping you would make it out of high school before villains were
constantly trying to kill you!"
"They weren't trying to kill ​me​," he discredited, "They were trying to kill All Might and kidnap
Bakugou."
"And this last one?" she demanded, "When ​you​ specifically were attacked?"
"That was… that was also about Bakugou, actually," he confessed quietly.
"Oh no," her concern suddenly shifted, "Is he okay?"
"He's- sort of."
"I'm gonna be honest with you Eiji, I'm one disaster away from never signing another permission
slip for you again."
This didn't seem like the time to tell her now that he had his provisional license, he wouldn't
need her to.
"Is Katsuki talking, or did he shut down again?" his mother had listened to him worry enough to
pick up on the trends.
"He actually went to this forensic exam thing yesterday and didn't come back," the anxiety
rushed out, "He was really nervous about it and wouldn't let me go with him."
"Even in a relationship, some things are still personal," she replied sadly.
"He- he finally told me a little of what happened to him when he was a kid and… I'm glad I know,
but there's nothing I can say to make it better."
"How are you doing after hearing that?"

It felt strange to be asked if he was okay about something that didn't happen to ​him. ​But he
couldn't deny being upset.
"I just wanted to die"
"He kept saying how bad it hurt," Ito hitting Katsuki for dissociating burned a wound into his soul
he couldn't let go of, but he didn't feel prepared to bring that up right now, "I know he's working
on it in therapy, but he keeps blaming himself. I don't know if he can handle testifying, so I'm
scared for him."
"I'm going to come up again this weekend if that's okay," she said softly. He wanted to be brave,
to promise her he would be okay. Instead-
"Please do."
*********
Bruising fingers crush his wrist, pinning him down so the strain on his shoulder hurts aknew
every time he tries to squirm away
"Please-"
"Shut up"
He's trapped and there's nothing he can do to make this more bearable. So he begs.
"Please stop," it's barely words, sobbed through messy gasps.
"You're so pathetic. The fuck did you think was gonna happen? You had to have known and you
came along anyway!"
The hand tightens until he yelps as every motion becomes more aggressive, sickening thrusts
included, to ensure he thoroughly regrets opening his mouth
"Bakugou!"

Suddenly his hands are free and he shoves the weight away, ​leg connecting with the coffee
table as he stumbles back.
"Get the fuck away from me!" he screams.
"Bakugou, you're okay!" Shinsou yells back.
Shinsou?
Where the fuck am I?
Aizawa's apartment. He spins around to find black marks seared into the couch fabric, courtesy
of the worst nightmare he's had since starting medication. If Aizawa hadn't grabbed his meds,
the couch would probably not be salvageable.
"Did you want me to get Aizawa?" the other boy asked.
"No," he shook his head, "No, I'm fine."
"You're crying."
Oh, shit. Yeah, he was.
"Seemed like a pretty bad one," Shinsou observed like that wasn't fucking obvious.
"Yeah, no shit," he snapped, wiping a sleeve across his cheeks, "The hell are you doing here?"
"I live here," he replied flatly.
Yeah, that's a pretty good fucking reason
"Okay, but why were you in shoving range?" Bakugou clarified.
"I just told you. Looked like a pretty bad one."
This idiot tried to wake me up
"My hands ​explode,​" he said exasperatedly, "You touch me in my sleep, you might actually
fucking die!"
"Wasn't gonna leave you like that," he shrugged.

"-he considers you family now"
"It was just a dream," he replied in an awkward mutter.
"No. It wasn't," Shinsou said with too much understanding.
"Jesus Christ, Katsuki, what the fuck are you screaming about at 5 in the goddamn morning?!"
"Leave me alone, hag!"
"I will if you shut the fuck up!"
"Whatever," he evaded, "You eat breakfast or do you just subsist on human blood or
something?"
He wasn't even hungry, he just needed something to do with his hands.
"Mic usually makes something," Shinsou informed, "But he's not up this early."
If he made breakfast before Mic and Aizawa woke up, maybe he could stop feeling like a needy
bitch for staying over again.
"You know what they like?" he tried to sound casual, like this was routine.
"They'll eat anything if they don't have to make it. Mic can't cook too well and Aizawa is good at
it, but he hates it."
I can work with that
"You got a tamagoyaki pan?" Bakugou asked.
"A what?"
"Oh my god, you're useless," he rolled his eyes, "The square one."
Shinsou rummaged around a bit while Bakugou checked the refrigerator, hopeful even a
disaster household like this one would have eggs.
Success
Most of what he knew came from google, but this one his dad actually took the time to teach
him.

"Keep the layers thin. Don't try to roll it up until you're sure it's solid enough."
In hindsight, it may have been more an attempt to teach patience than cooking. The end result
was basically a sushi-shaped omelette.
"This turned out great, Katsuki."
"Not bad, brat. See what you can accomplish when you slow down and shut up for a second?"
He still hadn't answered his parents' incessant phone calls.
"What happened yesterday?" Shinsou asked. As if that was any of his fucking business.
Don't start yelling in Aizawa's house at 6 in the fucking morning
"Fought a bear in the morning, cured cancer in the evening."
"Aizawa was really worried about you," Shinsou blatantly ignored the snark.
"Rode a shark and killed god in the afternoon."
"You can just say you don't want to talk about it," the blank stare never wavered.
"Would you listen if I did?" he challenged.
"Yes."
"Then I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay."
...Was it really that easy?
"When do your parents usually get up?" he asked to change the subject.
"Mic around 7:00, Aizawa 15 minutes before he has to teach his first class."
"Yeah, that sounds like him," he smirked, "I'll just make for you and me then and start up again
when we're done."
"You don't have to earn your keep, you know," Shinsou stared right through him, "They're not
like that."

"The fuck do you know?" he growled defensively, "Maybe I just like cooking."
"Foster kid," he explained simply, "I know what it looks like."
"I- look, I don't do cards and flowers and shit," he rolled up a layer of egg in the pan, "This is the
only way I know how to say thank you."
"You could just say it."
"Fuck off," he grumbled, "Words by themselves don't mean anything."
"I think you might be missing the point of words," ​he was pushing his fucking luck now​, "You
know how they're a bunch of sounds that convey a specific meaning?"
"Keep this up and I will kill you, I swear to god."
Shinsou paused, studying him intently.
"​What?​" Bakugou snapped.
"I guess words ​are​ kind of meaningless the way you use them."
"The hell is ​that​ supposed to mean?" his temper flared.
"You talk walls around yourself and don't actually communicate anything."
No one had ever called him on his bullshit so succinctly before.
"What is this, fucking slam poetry?" he spewed more of the same because he didn't know how
to stop.
"Case and point," Shinsou declared dryly.
"I don't even fucking know you," he hissed, embarrassed by his own transparency.
"You could," Shinsou kept on, "You choose not to because you're afraid."
"Do wanna fucking go?!" where the hell did this kid get off thinking he could talk this shit right to
his face?
"I mean something to Aizawa, and Aizawa means something to you. So I scare you," he
perched casually on a stool by the kitchen island, unperturbed "You hate giving a shit whether
people like you or not, so it's easier to just avoid me."

He didn't have an argument, so he slammed a cabinet door with unnecessary force.
"I want to get to know you though," Shinsou surprised him, "Because you​ ​mean something to
Aizawa too."
"What's to know?" Bakugou laughed hollowly, "Sounds like you got me all fucking figured out."
"There's more to you than your unhealthy coping mechanisms," he smirked back.
Bakugou froze in the middle of stirring a bowl of egg.
Is there?
Shinsou must mean his quirk.
"Well, yeah, I'm good at a lot of shit," he shrugged, "but everyone already knows that."
"That's not what I'm talking about," the look Shinsou gave him reminded him of Todoroki.
The fuck do you mean then??
Half his life was competing, the other half ineffective coping. Preemptive aggression permeated
everything he did, from winning fights to making breakfast, head rewired to bypass trust and
friendliness straight to obsessive self-reliance. Endless defensiveness pushed him to be the
best, the strongest, because winning was his only sanctuary. The vigilant drive that defined him
stemmed from a dark pit of fear and he didn't know who he would be without it.
"Academic success and bad mental health can't be your ​entire ​personality," he pressed when
Bakugou remained quiet for too long. Shinsou had the same disarming power as Kaminari to
make a fucked up conversation feel as casual as talking about school or the weather.
"I literally have a personality disorder," Bakugou blurted. So many of his signature behaviors
were just ​symptoms. ​The hair-trigger temper, extreme emotions that suddenly gave way to
blankness, and constant swing between hating himself and hating everyone else, all part of
something ​wrong ​with him.
"I don't think that's what that means though," Shinsou said thoughtfully.
It didn't reach him.
Bakugou stayed in his room because people overwhelmed him. He went to bed early because
nightmares made him tired. He cooked and played music to calm himself down. He followed

Aizawa around like a lost puppy because he didn't trust his actual parents. He loved Kirishima
because-
"The compulsion can be a form of self-harm"
Stop.
"I don't know who I would be if I wasn't so fucked up," he confessed.
"Don't you want to find out?" Shinsou said it like an upcoming surprise, something to look
forward to with excitement rather than terror.
"I don't know," he gripped the edge of the counter as the buzzing in his chest approached
unbearable.
"You do realize the only person in this house who hasn't been physically abused is Mic, right?"
He recognised the olive branch, from one fucked up kid to another, but uncertainty lingered.
"It's more than that," he confessed hesitantly.
"I know."
His gaze snapped to Shinsou's face, suddenly overwhelmed by a need to decode him.
"You know..?"
"I know what they're trying to charge Ito with," this kid never backed down, never wavered, he
was fucking fearless, "But after this morning, I wouldn't need that information to know you were
abused in more ways that one. You get a sort of sixth sense for it when you're in the system
long enough."
Well, if he was going to be that goddamn nosy, it was only fair.
"That shit ever happen to you?"
"No. I was lucky in that regard," he answered.
"Then how would you fucking know if I was or not?!"
"My foster sister wrote about what happened to her in her suicide note. I started paying attention
to the signs after that."

Oh shit
"Did she… make it?" Bakugou asked cautiously.
"No."
Well now he felt like a dick. But at the same time, relieved that Shinsou really ​wasn't​ going to
look down on him for what happened.
He plated out the food and sat a dish down in front of both of them. His own kind of olive
branch.
"Aizawa isn't the only reason you scare me," maybe the tentative honesty would prove he could
change. Whether to Shinsou or himself he wasn't sure, "Your quirk freaks me the fuck out."
"That's understandable," he nodded, "My quirk makes a lot of people uncomfortable. You have
more reason than most."
"You just walked in on me sleeping and chose to wake me up from a nightmare," Bakugou
worked through the irrationality, "and part of me is still terrified of being in a room alone with
you."
"Do you want me to leave?"
"If you're asking that, then no."
This is where he's supposed to ask Shinsou something about himself, right? That's what normal
people do.
He could not think of a single fucking thing.
"Do you know when the case is supposed to move forward?" Shinsou once again proved better
at being a fucking person.
"I have no fucking clue what Takahashi's doing," Bakugou suddenly realized he probably ​should
have some idea what's going on, "He just keeps asking me to do shit I hate and claims it's a
good idea."
"That sounds annoying," he empathized, "What kind of stuff?"
"You talk walls around yourself and don't actually communicate anything."
Be better. Prove him wrong

"Wanted me to talk to a witness, and that fucking blew. Then yesterday went to a... forensic
thing."
"Forensic thing?" Shinsou cocked his head in confused skepticism.
"Medical exam," the words hissed through clenched teeth.
"Oh," surprise quickly turned to a grimace of understanding, "That sounds awful."
"This won't hurt, I promise."
"Sure the fuck was," he surpressed a flinch. Shoved the memory down as fast as it appeared,
his brain instinctually shying away in the same manner it did from other sensory recollections he
couldn't handle.
"Brave of you to do it though."
Bakugou snorted in disbelief.
"Wouldn't say that if you were there," he loathed the pathetic tears a simple checkup dissolved
him into.
"Doesn't matter how you reacted, you still did it," Shinsou insisted.
He wanted to contradict, but the argument ​'I cried' ​felt too embarrassing. Instead he picked at
his food in contemplative silence. He intended to make more for Mic later so it would be hot, but
he doubted he could eat what he already made at this point. And 7:00 was fast approaching.
"Hey, little listener!" Mic emerged, hair twisted up in a towel, wearing the fluffiest bathrobe he'd
ever seen, "Feeling any better?"
He shrugged, already emotionally worn out before the day even started. He shoved his plate in
Mic's direction and left to clean up the mess he made. His mother's ghost would hit him if he
didn't.
"This is pretty good," Mic complimented, "But aren't you hungry?"
He shook his head before returning to the couch. Now that the nightmare-induced adrenaline
wore off, he was just tired. Maybe he could get a couple more minutes of sleep and walk to
class last minute with Aizawa.