Aizawa had left once Bakugo had fallen asleep, so in the morning when there was a knock on his door, the blond had to get it himself.

He was beyond confused because who the fuck would be knocking on his door at seven in the fucking morning on a god damn Sunday? He knows the answer. Actually insane people.

So he has to get his sore body out of bed and to the door, getting his glare ready for whoever it is.

As soon as the person is in view, you can bet your ass Bakugo is giving them the hardest stare known to man.

But then he realizes who it is. And he glares harder.

"Deku."

It's not a question. More of an observation. An angry observation.

"Kacchan," the other smiles, looking the blond over as if he's expecting any injuries.

"It's early. What do you want?"

Deku seems more hesitant now, looking around the hallway. Satisfied with his search coming up empty, he finally looks back to Bakugo and starts speaking lowly.

"I've been worried about you. I know it's none of my business, but you seem upset. You haven't even yelled at me yet, Kacchan."

Bakugo scoffs, shaking his head. "What? You want me to yell at you?"

Immediately, the other teen starts shaking his head no, making it blatantly obvious that he would rather not get yelled at. The blond just feels lucky that he hasn't started rambling. That would make his mood even worse.

"No. I'm just wondering if you're okay. I haven't seen you eat in forever and yesterday Aizawa Sensei was in here basically all day."

Deku has no right to be here. It's unfair that he just came in and started worrying for Bakugo. This shit has absolutely nothing to do with Deku and now he's here asking questions and getting into Bakugo's business.

"You're right, Deku," he finds himself saying, "it is none of your business, so get the fuck away from me and leave me alone."

The hurt look on the other teen's face makes Bakugo feel a pang of guilt in his chest. That just makes him angrier because why does he feel guilty?

It's fucking annoying and he hates the feeling.

"I'm sorry, Kacchan. I didn't mean to bother. I'm just worried. You look bad and I was gonna ask my mom about how to help, but-"

A shock runs down Bakugo's body and before he can even think about anything, he's interrupting him. "What do you know?" He asks, voice sharp and angry.

Does he know about his mom?

Auntie Inko and his mom were best friends. They'd stopped talking after Bakugo and Deku entered middle school and she wasn't at the funeral. Does Inko even know?

She probably does.

But if she did, she'd probably tell Deku right away, which means, either Inko just found out or someone else from class blabbed. There are only two people from class who know. He's going to kill someone.

On top of the guilt, he feels nervous and that just makes his anger even worse. Great. Just great.

"What do you mean, Kacchan?"

Anger shoots through him again. What the fuck does he mean?

"Spit it out shitty nerd. I'm asking you what you fucking know about me?"

When Deku gets a confused look on his face, Bakugo realizes he fucked up. This idiot isn't actually an idiot. He picks up on things and connects shit way too fast for anyone's good. Especially for Bakugo's good right now.

He's going to figure it out soon and it'll be Bakugo's fault.

"Am I supposed to know something, Kacchan? Why would I know something? That should mean it's not school related, right? Or maybe it is because Iida and Sero have been really awkward around you, and then there's Todoroki who seems to know something is wrong, but he seems more like he's trying to figure out what it is. If you think I know, it must mean it has to be out of the ordinary-"

"Deku, shut up," Bakugo finds himself saying, but instead of angry, he sounds desperate to actually get him to stop talking.

Bakugo is desperate.

He doesn't need anyone else finding out and now because of his own fucking error, this idiot is going to find out and that's just the worst outcome possible.

On top of everyone else, Deku is the one person he didn't want finding out because then he'd be crying for Bakugo.

"Kacchan," Deku says, sounding really worried.

He needs to stop that or Bakugo is going to lose his shit. He can't lose his shit. He just decided to try even harder and if he falls right now, he doesn't know if he'll be able to get up.

So the panic builds in his chest as he stays under Deku's calculating eyes. It's a horrible feeling. Definitely under the top five worst feelings.

Thinking quick, kind of, he decides to shut the door in front of the other's face before he can make any more connections because Bakugo can't handle that. Not right now. Maybe after therapy that week, but even then, probably not.

He doesn't want anyone knowing. It's too personal. It's too real.

As soon as the door is locked, there's knocking on his door and he doesn't know how to stop the other teen from continuing his questioning or bringing their teacher into this.

Aizawa is always roped in, and Bakugo is kind of getting sick of seeing his face every time something goes wrong because the man is always there. He's always sacrificing time from his day to make sure Bakugo is okay.

"Kacchan, I'm confused. I just wanna know what's wrong," he calls through the door.

Again, anger comes in clutch and he struggles to keep it together, which results in him blowing up. Not literally.

"LEAVE."

It's silent on the other side as Bakugo pants in anger. The only thing he can hear is his panting before Deku finally speaks up.

"Okay Kacchan. Feel better."

Why is everyone doing that? Everyone is looking at him like if he's going to go insane or fall into a million pieces. He's not.

Well. Maybe.

It's kind of how he feels, but does he really look that bad? Is he really being so obvious? It's been hard trying to pretend everything is the same, but it's twice as hard to keep himself together.

He doesn't know what to do and his whole body fucking hurts. He's so tired and doesn't know what to do.

There are so many things going through his mind, so he does the one thing that'll make him think less.

He goes to sleep.

~~~~~

At eight, he's awoken by a call.

He sits up, feeling groggy and still really fucking sore. It's a pain in the ass, but he answers the fucking thing anyway, briefly seeing that it was Iida, probably calling about dinner before he answered.

"Yeah?"

"Bakugo! I apologize if I've woken you up, you sound half asleep."

Bakugo rolls his eyes, sleep making his eyes heavy. He just wants to go back to sleep.

"Fuck off and tell me what you want?"

Iida clears his throat on the other end of the phone before he starts whispering, which is something Bakugo didn't know he was capable of.

"Sleep is sometimes a symptom of grieving, however, you haven't come out of your room in days," then his voice rises back up to a normal volume, "so I was wondering if you would come make dinner?"

Uncertainly and exhaustion rolls over Bakugo as he buries himself further into his blanket.

"Fend for yourselves tonight."

With that, he hangs up and hopes no one heard Iida talking to him about grief. Especially not Deku.

When the phone is off, he puts it back under his pillow and goes right back to sleep, dreading the morning already.

~~~~~

He waited until the last possible minute to get up and go to class, bordering on not going at all.

It was horrible. He'd slept the weekend away and now he was forced to go to class when he wasn't ready to. He's missed too much on orders from Aizawa to miss on his own. The guilt eats away at him even thinking about staying in his dorm.

So he's late.

He'd woken up at 6 at first, thinking of maybe getting a workout in. But when he moved his arm to turn off the alarm, the soreness reminded him that he'd be in pain.

'Maybe I won't workout today. I'll do it tomorrow.'

So he went back to sleep after setting an alarm for 7:30 so he could shower and maybe have breakfast since he hasn't eaten recently.

But then 7:30 rolled around and he didn't feel hungry and showering didn't feel as important because he didn't smell bad, so it was fine.

So he set up an alarm for 8:30 so he could at least do his morning routine of using the restroom, brushing his teeth, and washing his face but still take his time walking to class.

And suddenly he woke up at 8:30, and he decided that he could sleep for fifteen more minutes and just run to class.

But now it's 9 and he's running to class. He'd brushed his teeth but there was no time for deodorant and he's struggling to button up his shirt. His hair is greasy and messy and he's trying to wipe the eye crusts in between buttoning up his shirt.

Believe it or not, all that is real fucking hard to do while running with a school bag that won't quit bumping into the side of his leg.

On top of that, his horribly sore legs weren't stretched for running so everything hurts even more and it'll probably hurt for longer now since he hadn't been stretching at all this weekend.

When he's at the class door, he's panting, trying to get his shit together and patting down his shirt and tucking it in when he realizes he forgot his belt, which makes sense because the whole time he was running, he was constantly having to pull up his pants.

He face palms at the thought that he should've realized then instead of now.

Still trying to catch his breath, he buttons his blazer and sighs before he starts going to open the door, already dreading all the attention since Aizawa is already teaching.

He's three minutes late.

"Bakugo?"

His head whips to the direction that his teacher's voice came from.

Fucking shit.

Aizawa.

"Are you okay?"

Bakugo sighs again, looking away from the man. Why did he have to be out here? He should be teaching already.

"Shouldn't you be in there?" He asks angrily, pointing at the door.

Aizawa raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms over his chest. "Shouldn't you?"

The blond rolls his eyes, scoffing, "You can't count this against me since you were late, too."

Aizawa looks at him with a bored look. "You don't have to be here, today. You'll be excused if you need it. You shouldn't come in if you're feeling bad. You look sick, kid. Maybe you can talk to Hound Dog."

No he can't. Guilt eats at him.

Ignoring the man, the blond pushes the door open and walks to his desk, grabbing his school bag's straps tightly.

Stupid teacher.

Doesn't he know that if he skips class, he'd be letting his mom down?

She loved that he was a perfect attendance kid. She'd be upset to hear how many days he's missed already. None by choice, but if he took a day off on his own? He'd never forgive himself.

The class was full of chatter before Aizawa walked in behind Bakugo.

"Okay," the man starts, and with that, the little amount of talking left, is gone, everyone paying close attention to whatever Aizawa has to say.

Bakugo forces himself to listen, getting his notes out so he doesn't miss a thing,

Already, he finds himself retreating to that empty space in his mind where he can just exists and not feel a single thing.

It's like that until it's time for training,

Lunch was spent outside alone like usual, so the next thing he knows, he's put in a group with Mina, Sero, Todoroki, and Deku.

Fucking great.

The best luck in the world, really.

The first thing he can get his focus on to be able to pull himself out of his mind is the complaining of someone on the team he's supposed to go against.

"Aw come one, Sensei. That's so not fair. Putting Midoriya, Todoroki, and Bakugo on the same team? We're not gonna win. Man," Kaminari complains, body slouching in defeat.

"Not with that attitude," Yaoyorozu chimes in before Bakugo can start telling him anything.

That idiot. If he already goes in thinking he's not going to win just because of who he's up against, then he's never going to win. Like Yaoyorozu said, not with that attitude.

The exercise is comprised of solving puzzles and fighting off the other team at the same time.

There will be two rounds. One with Team B versus Team C and the other with Team A versus Team D.

Bakugo is on Team C.

"Just go with your team, Kaminari, once I start the time, you only have five minutes to strategize."

Groaning dramatically, Kaminari turns and heads towards his teammates who are already in a group. Bakugo turns to do the same and is immediately hit with exhaustion at the sight of everyone looking at him.

Deku looks like he's scared to breathe, Mina looks pissed at both him and Sero, Todoroki is definitely trying to figure out what's wrong with him, and Sero looks even more worried than Midoriya.

"Alright, fuckers," Bakugo starts, already plotting how to win while stretching his sore muscles, "I got a plan."

Immediately, that gets everyone in check minus Mina who wants to question ever single thing he has in mind. Some points are valid, which Bakugo fixes, but others are straight up stupid and make Bakugo want to take Aizawa up on just going to his dorm.

As soon as everyone agrees with his plan and he's done stretching, the timer goes off and they immediately dash to start the first part of the exercise.

The first part is just a stupid escape room type thing. The door they went through was different than Team B, so right now it's just a race of who gets their part done first.

Hopefully they're fast enough so they don't even have to face the other team.

They have to unlock the door with a hidden key for this challenge, so they start looking for clues.

Mina finds the first one: an envelope taped to the back of the door they came in through. It holds a riddle that Todoroki immediately solves, which leads them to a safe.

The safe has to be unlocked with a code that Bakugo and Sero decode using the riddle and envelope. Inside the safe was a box puzzle that Deku struggles with at first before he gets the idea of what kind of puzzle it is and finally unlocks it.

With that, they've left the escape room in seven and a half minutes.

It felt like a lifetime with Mina questioning all of his decisions and Sero babying him. He almost punched both of them for hovering so much.

Don't even get him started on how distant and awkward Deku and Todoroki were being. It's like they were scared to speak to him and wondering what was wrong with him at the same time. Fucking hell, Bakugo felt suffocated.

Making it out of that escape room felt so good for Bakugo. He felt like he could breathe.

As they were running to the next part of the exercise, they saw Yaoyorozu's group leaving their escape room, which made them run faster, Todoroki putting up walls of ice to slow them down.

Who knows how much that would hold them back seeing as Shoji and Sato were on their team. That combined with Yaoyorozu's quick thinking and Kaminari and Shinso's great teamwork skills really only stops them for seconds.

They should've known it wouldn't hold for too long.

That is until Todoroki keeps putting up ice walls.

He finds it amusing. So much so, he almost laughs when he hears Kaminari curse in annoyance even as far as they are now, three ice walls later.

It's colder now, so Bakugo isn't using his explosions just yet. He's building up a sweat for when they do have to fight them.

In the adrenaline of trying to beat the other team, Bakugo rubs his hands together, forgetting that even with the gloves, the scrapes on his hand from falling on the treadmill still sting.

It's not too bad, but since he'd forgotten, it caught him by surprise.

Fucking ow.

He'd taken off the bandages before he started running to class. He actually forgot about them all day. But if he's being honest, he doesn't even remember most of the day before going to the locker rooms to get ready for training.

It's fine. He just hopes his explosions don't irritate the scrapes even more and make them worse.

That would really fucking suck.

Bakugo's team keeps running, the help of Todoroki's quirk making them get way ahead, and by the time Bakugo knows it, they've won.

They had a run in after the third puzzle where he had to fight off Shoji and Kaminari at the same time, but with the building up of his sweat, he was able to get rid of them for just enough time to catch up with his group.

After that, they were given their evaluations by Mr. Aizawa and then they watched the other two teams go against each other.

They had different sets of puzzles, but they did have an escape room for their second challenge.

By then, Bakugo's mood had dropped again and he couldn't even find it funny when Koda yelled at Kirishima for tripping a booby trap.

While his class laughed, even Todoroki who broke out into an amused smile, Bakugo walked over to Aizawa and asked to be allowed to leave early.

Mr. Aizawa didn't need a reason why, so Bakugo didn't tell him anything before he made his way to the locker room to shower. He had about forty-five minutes before teams A and D were done. 45 minutes minimum.

Bakugo just needed time so shower so he could start making the class dinner before they got to the dorms.

He doesn't want to deal with them right now.

Because of that, he's going to make Soba. Maybe that way he won't have to deal with them at all for the rest of the night.

He hopes that's the case.

With that in mind, Bakugo walks a little bit faster to the locker rooms, takes a twenty minute shower, and then heads to the dorms, making a list of what he needs to take out immediately when entering the kitchen.

Wasting time is a no go. He'd hate to have to be there longer than he has to.

So he takes out his premade soba noodles, other ingredients, and cookware and gets to work.

Moving is easier now that he's put the muscles to use all day, but he already knows it's going to be a pain in the ass later when he's comfortable. That's when all the muscles will relax and tell Bakugo just how much it fucking hurts to be used so much without stretching.

But he can't focus on that right now. Right now it's time to make dinner. Focus on dinner.

He takes a deep breath, covering his eyes in exhaustion already before he exhales and lets his arms fall.

"Dinner," he whispers to himself.

After that, he goes through the motions of making cold soba and by the time he's done, he hears the doors open.

He panics, but then notices that it's not loud. It's one maybe two people who came in.

So he waits for them to come into view by busying himself with wiping down the counter. It was the last thing he had to do since he'd already washed and put away the dishes and also swept the area.

"Bakugo."

It's Mina. Fucking hell.

Mina isn't even a big fan of soba. Especially not cold soba.

"What?" He asks, already making his way to the stairs to leave. He spots his bag by the table so he grabs that.

"What's wrong with you?" She asks, voice sharp.

Bakugo rolls his eyes for the hundredth time that day. What's wrong with him? Fuck her. She was the one slowing them down with all her questioning. Don't even get him started on how she 'accidentally' burned him with her quirk because she 'thought it was someone from the other team'.

"What's wrong with you, Mina? I've left you guys alone and still you're mad. What do you want? You want me to transfer schools? Drop out of being a hero altogether? Fuck you and fuck off. I've left you alone now leave me alone."

He storms off, getting up to his room and immediately changing after locking his door. When he's in bed, tucked into the blankets in the nice, dark room he starts feeling the pain creeping up.

"Shit," he curses, letting himself relax even further to just get the whole thing over with.

As the pain gets worse, he just hopes no one comes to bother him.

***
Word Count: 3617
Hey yall I know this chapter is still on the shorter side but I didn't now what else I could add to it without changing up the other chapters I have written after this but trust the next chapters will start to get longer. Anyway I hope y'all liked it. The next one goes up next Sunday at 11:30 pm central time. I love you all and tysm for reading<3