Sometimes the days weren't that hard.

It wasn't like before, obviously, but he could bear the people he was around and interacting with them wasn't so strenuous.

Mr. Aizawa never barred him from training and no one else knew about his mom's passing, so he figured he was in the clear for a little while longer.

Today, thankfully, his feelings weren't all over the place. He wasn't angry or upset. He was just a little sad every time his mom came to mind, but it wasn't overwhelming. There was also that dull ache in his arms and shoulders that was really getting annoying.

So even though Sero and Mina were back again with their passive aggressiveness, he didn't even bat an eye.

"So did you guys decide on a place to eat?" Mina asks.

It's lunch and even though Bakugo usually doesn't sit with them, he did today. It's been a good day, so he decided a little bit of social interaction was okay.

He didn't know what Mina was talking about, but the peek that Mina took at him let him know it was intentional. They planned something without him and she was being a bitch about it.

Honestly, what was more annoying about Sero and Mina being so loud, was that the others were too quiet.

No one ever included him even though they could have.

They want to seem like the good guys, but not saying anything and just letting it happen is just as bad. It's not even bullying, it's just straight up being assholes.

"Oh, wait Bakugo, did you want to tag along? You can come if you want," Sero says like he's being generous.

"Sure. When?"

He knows they don't want him to go and if he's being honest, he doesn't want to go either, but he can give them a miserable time. Might as well, right? It could be fun to look at their annoyed faces all night.

"Friday, you'll really come?" Kirishima immediately intervenes, smile stretching across is face in excitement.

Friday is when he goes to visit his mom.

"Time?"

"Right after school," Mina says. She says it like he knows he definitely can't go since it's right after school. What the fuck?

"I'm busy then," he says and goes back to eating his food.

"Oh, come on, we can move it to six," Jiro says, leaning forward.

Mina scoffs and glares at her. "No we can't. We have a curfew."

Kirishima looks at her with a hint of anger.

"Curfew is later on Fridays. Plus, we always come back way earlier than the curfew, so starting a bit later won't be that bad. It doesn't matter what we do," the redhead says.

Bakugo honestly doesn't care enough to fight anyone on this. He's just not missing seeing his mom on Friday. No matter what.

"Yeah, so you'll come, right?" Kaminari asks Bakugo, wiggling in his seat way too much.

Bakugo nods as he drinks his tea, agreeing to go. It kind of hurts just holding the cup, so he sets it down and hides his hands under the table to massage them in secret.

"Where?" He asks, noticing that no one ever said a place.

"This laser tag place that's been around for forever," Kaminari answers, obviously excited.

The chat continues like normal except that Bakugo can see the annoyed faces of Mina and Sero out of the corner of his eye.

Stupid assholes.

He kind of wishes he never agreed even if it was only to spite the two.

Even though he already has to hurry to see his mom so the class doesn't get suspicious, this Friday, he'll have even less time. It's the highlight of his week.

Maybe he can cancel last minute? Then maybe he could spend more time seeing her than usual because the people he really was worried about noticing, are going to be gone. That sounds like a great fucking idea to Bakugo.

Yeah, he'll act like he's going to go, and then he'll cancel last minute.

That way the squad doesn't change the plan.

He does feel bad for the ones that did want him to go, but it's his mom. He really wants to be able to spend lots of time with her.

He just wishes he did before she died.

At the thought, Bakugo gets up in a panic and rushes out, body feeling like static and not caring about what his friends will say or think, too worried about the prickling feeling in his fingers and the sudden loss of breath.

Fuck.

He just overwhelmed himself and now he feels like he's either going to cry or have a panic attack.

Maybe both.

He can't catch his breath.

The blond doesn't look back or check if anyone is following because he knows no one is. The good thing about his friends is that when it comes to him, they aren't really nosy.

That mostly being because they don't care enough to know more about him, but he's always hated those kinds of friendships, so that's why he likes this friend group. It makes it easier to hide things he doesn't want to be public.

Sometimes it's hard, yeah. Not having anyone to go to at the end of the day to confide in is hard, but he goes to talk to his mom now.

He can vent to her and tell her about himself. Tell her about stuff she didn't know about before she died.

He grips his chest on the way to the restrooms, the pain of remembering that she's not here hits him hard. No matter how much time goes by, Bakugo will never get over his mom's death.

By the time he makes it to the restrooms, tears are falling, but he has no idea for how long they have been.

"Pull yourself together," he whispers to himself.

He takes deep breaths. Breaths so deep that he feels his lungs might blow if he breathes in anymore before letting the air out slowly and repeating.

It helps. It helps immensely.

Going over to the sink, he sees his reflection in the mirror, noticing slightly red eyes and tears still falling.

Quickly, to get rid of the redness, he turns on the water and splashes it on his face, trying to cool down.

It's after a few seconds that someone enters the restroom.

He just goes on, splashing his face with water as if he has nothing to hide. Because this guy is just using the urinal, Bakugo looks in the mirror behind him to see who it is.

Sero.

Bakugo used to like the guy.

He was very laid back and stood up for what he thought was right. Ever since Bakugo started pulling away from the group, he went to treating Bakugo like shit.

The blond hated it.

"Why'd you run off like that?" Sero asks. It's civil.

"Bad food. Messed with my stomach," Bakugo lies as he grabs a paper towel and dries off his face.

Sero scoffs and Bakugo turns around to see the other teen already turned to him. "You sure shit fast, then," Sero says, not convinced in the slightest.

He walks over to the other sink, washing his hands as he waits for a response from Bakugo.

"Yeah. What's it to you?" Bakugo asks, feeling himself get defensive, but he quickly shuts it down, not wanting to react the way Sero wants him to.

His mom would hate it.

"Your eyes are red by the way. What? You came to cry in private cause we were a little mean? You act like you're not worse to us," Sero practically spits out as he dries his hands.

"Fuck you."

With that, Bakugo makes his way to leave, but Sero catches his arm.

Bakugo pulls his arm out of his grip instinctively, hating the feeling of someone grabbing him and preventing him from leaving. Not only that, but the pull hurt his arm and he had to bite back a groan.

"Fuck off," Bakugo says, backing up as he glares at Sero.

"You're being real fucking childish, Bakugo. You're acting like you've never been an asshole or made people feel bad. But okay, go ahead and cry to your mom, acting like a-"

Bakugo saw red, feeling his legs pull him towards Sero and the next thing he knows, he's protecting a very bruised hand and hovering over Sero who's on the floor.

What the fuck?

Sero's bleeding and covering his face with a hand, looking up at Bakugo in shock.

"Sero- I'm fucking sorry," Bakugo says, reaching out to help with anything. "Shit," he breathes, reeling his hands back to give Sero space since he just socked the guy, "I'll go get Aizawa and Recovery Girl."

Honestly, he just wanted to get out of that situation, but most of all, he wanted to make it up to Sero. Turning himself in would be best. He really had no excuse to resort to violence.

It's just- the mention of his mom set him off.

"Bakugo, you don't have to-"

The blond is out of the restroom before he can even finish.

Walking into the classroom to tell the man that he just assaulted another student is beyond humiliating to Bakugo, but he does it anyway.

He does so in a hurry, too, that way they can get Recovery Girl over as quickly as possible.

"Mr. Aizawa, I just punched Sero in the face and now he's bleeding in the restroom. I'm fucking sorry," he rushes, sighing in disappointment at his own actions, turning to leave as he speaks, "I have to go to Recovery Girl." Then he's dashing off the the woman's office.

God.

Telling two of the most respectable people on campus that he just fucking punched a kid outside of training will be the death of him.

A pang of sadness washes over Bakugo as he runs. His mom would be so disappointed in him for this.

When he finally gets to the woman's office. He's crying silently.

"Recovery Girl, I need your-"

He's interrupted at the sight of Sero laying on one of the beds, Recovery Girl just leaning back from having healed Sero.

The other teen is slowly falling asleep, barely reacting to Bakugo.

"Bakugo," Recovery Girl says, shock in her voice.

The blond doesn't really get why she's so worried until he remembers that there were tears falling down his face. Right

A pang of guilt washes over him as he thinks about how his mom would be disappointed.

"I'm so fucking sorry, Sero. I'll make it up to you, I swear," he apologizes, bowing to show just how bad he feels.

"Bakugo, what's wrong? Does your hand hurt that much?" Recovery Girl says, walking over to where Bakugo is, still by the door. He's been holding his hurt hand, but he hadn't noticed until just then.

"No. I just-" he looks over at Sero to make sure he's asleep. He is. "I didn't want to punch him. He just said something about going to cry to my mom and I lost it. I saw red and the-" Bakugo takes a sharp breath, so visibly upset, not knowing how to push everything back in, "the next thing I knew I was just standing over him and my fist hurt like hell. He was covering his face. I don't know, I think I just blanked because of what he said," he finished, not going any further than that.

Recovery Girl looks disappointed and that makes Bakugo remember the disappointed look on his mom's face whenever he did something wrong.

His chest tightens, and he breathes in sharply.

"I understand that disrespect about your parents can be agitating, but that doesn't-"

"She's dead."

There's silence in the room and Bakugo feels stuck.

Recovery Girl stays looking at him in shock and the blond just looks down at his hands as tears blur his vision.

"My mom died," he admits, voice trembling and full of pain.

"Bakugo-" Recovery Girl starts, but then she's interrupted.

"Holy shit. Bakugo, I didn't know," Sero says, awake, but definitely fighting off sleep.

Bakugo's head had shot up as soon as he heard him start talking. He didn't want anyone knowing. Especially not this asshole who's started to hate his guts.

Wiping away his tears quickly, Bakugo shakes his head, pretending to not care as much as he actually does about his mom's death.

"You will not tell anyone, understand? If you feel so bad for me, you'll do me a favor and never tell anyone. Got it?"

"Bakugo, that can't be good for you," Recovery Girl says, finally chipping in.

The blond turns back to her, glaring.

"It's my decision. I don't want people knowing because then they feel bad," Bakugo explains, pointing at Sero to prove his point, "and I don't need anyone pitying me. What makes it worse is if the people in school who hate me, know, they'll definitely use it against me. Some of these assholes don't know when far is too far."

There's so much going on and Bakugo is so overwhelmed right now, he feels like he's going to pass out.

Shit, he even just left Mr. Aizawa back there after telling on himself.

That must have been a new experience for the teacher. Usually people don't rat themselves out.

Recovery Girl, unable to find something to say, just sighs. "I see that it might be scary, but shouldn't you give these kids some credit? Do you really think they'll use that to attack-"

"There's no way they won't use it. Some of them truly hate me. They don't care how far they go, as long as they can hurt me, they don't care. They've used the sludge villain, the kidnapping, All Might's fall. They use it because they know it hurts me."

"Bakugo," Sero says, pity laced in his voice.

The blond just shakes his head again, not willing to hear anything else they have to say.

"Just quit it. I get it sounds pathetic, but if they get ahold of this information and actually use it, I'm not just gonna let it happen like I have been with everything else."

Recovery Girl and Sero stay quiet.

"I could take the sludge villain, hell I could even take them using Kamino against me after having the worst fucking breakdown over it, but not this."

Both of them stay quiet.

After a beat of silence, Sero finally speaks up again. "Who's used Kamino against you?"

Bakugo stares at him with a blank face.

"Are you really asking that? You? Please," Bakugo scoffs. Sero knows damn well that he's used it against him, too.

Sero looks at him like he's crazy, frowning at him and shaking his head in confusion. "I've never used that-"

The look on his face changes from confusion to regret. Bakugo rolls his eyes. Of course he'd forgotten. It didn't affect him.

Bakugo nods. "Yeah, anyway," he says, turning to Recovery Girl, "I can trust you'll keep it hidden?"

The woman looks at him, trying to get a read on his demeanor. It seems like she has a hard time, though, and somewhat gives up.

Just then the door to the nurse's office opens and in walks Mr. Aizawa. Wow, this guy is slow as fuck. Bakugo didn't expect him to get here at all, though.

"Care to tell me why you thought punching Sero was such a great idea and then coming to tell me about it?" The man asks, obviously over this situation already.

"He was being an ass, I accidentally blanked, punched him, then felt like shit about it, so now here we are."

That's basically what happened. There's not really much else to say unless he wants Mr. Aizawa to feel bad about it. He deserves to get detention or whatever it is. It doesn't matter that the punch was a result of hearing about his mom.

What he did was wrong. Plain and simple.

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch, but it goes overlooked. Or overheard? Who fucking cares?

"That's not all," Sero chimes in, trying to cover for Bakugo.

The blond glares at him and shakes his head.

"Yes, in fact, Bakugo here was overcome with rage because Sero brought up a sensitive topic. Actually, let's just go outside and talk there," Recovery Girl says, already walking towards the door to tell Mr. Aizawa about his mom's death.

"He knows already," Bakugo sighs.

Recovery Girl and Sero look at him in shock, Recovery Girl being less dramatic, but then the woman turns and glares at the man.

"You knew about this and decided to keep it a secret? I understand it coming from Bakugo because he's a teenager for christs sake, but you? Shota Aizawa, you better have an explanation for this. I think it's important for the staff to know about this."

Recovery Girl looks intimidating in a way that no old lady should.

Bakugo is glad it's not directed at him because holy shit how is she capable of producing such a menacing glare.

He spoke too soon because as soon as that thought crosses his mind, the short woman is turning her head to glare at him.

"I know this is hard, but I at least expected some maturity from you. What are you thinking trying to hide this?"

Bakugo frowns, refraining from rolling his eyes because he respects Recovery Girl. "I told you why I did."

Recovery Girl nods her head in an 'oh I remember' kind of way.

"That's right. Never mind, that's my bad, but you should not have kept it from the staff, especially staff that works with you often."

And then in the most terrifying way, Recovery Girl snaps her head at Sero. It was even scarier than her angry look at him and Aizawa.

"Excuse me for my language, but what the hell did Bakugo mean when he insinuated that you've used Kamino against him?"

Mr. Aizawa's head shoots at the other teen at the new information and Bakugo feels like shit for letting him get berated like this.

"It's not that bad, I just overreacted and-"

"It's clearly bad because it's still on your mind and it's effecting you," Recovery Girl interrupts, "you're genuinely scared about it being used against you even now. It's not something small. That was traumatic. You were gone for days."

Bakugo scoffs, shaking his head motioning to Sero, "this is getting blown out of proportion. Sero is the victim here. I punched him in the fucking face just cause I got mad."

"How did you use Kamino against him?" Mr. Aizawa asks, voice calm, but it's in no way kind.

Bakugo shakes his head. "It was stupid, it doesn't even matter." The blond has had enough. He just wants to go back to his dorm. "Just tell me what my punishment is," Bakugo almost begs.

"No, I want to hear from Sero how he used it against you."

They're not going to let this go. Fuck. It's going to make him look pathetic and weak. He almost feels like booking it out the room and never turning back.

For gods sake, he looks up to Aizawa so much and having him hear how some stupid joke got him so offended is going to make him look like a little bitch in front of him.

"We- I was mad at him. So one time he was actually around, I started a fight with him. Jabs at his personality and things like that. I wanted to get a rise out of him, but nothing was working, so I went as far as saying that not even All Might liked him because he caused his downfall."

Even now the words hurt, but he toughs it out, shrugging.

"You see, it was stupid. Can you just tell me my punishment so we can move on. You can tell all the teachers that my fucking mom died if you want. You have your new gossiping topic, now let me leave."

Mr. Aizawa looks pissed.

Oh fuck Sero might die at the hands of their home room teacher.

"It's not stupid. In what universe is it okay to use a traumatic event to 'get a rise out of someone'?" The man scoffs, "tell me Sero. Did you even apologize after?"

Sero looks embarrassed and guilty and Bakugo feels the exact same way. This whole ordeal is embarrassing and he feels bad that Sero is going through this shit because of him. He just punched him in the face and this guy looks about a second away from passing out because of Recovery Girl's quirk.

"No, I didn't."

The words hang in the air for a second. It's awkward and Bakugo decides to leave.

"I'm skipping class and going to my room. Text me my punishment for that, too, for all I care. Fuck you guys," he huffs, annoyed at the situation and how they just outright ignored his requests to let the situation go.

On his way back to the classroom, Bakugo sighs, realizing that he's going to have to go into the classroom and then leave with his bag. The extras will probably make a whole show about it. On top of that, his hand is still fucked up and his arms might fall off with how much they hurt. Whatever, he'll try to massage them himself when he gets back if his hand doesn't hurt too bad.

He's so done, though. He just can't wait to skip class next week to be with his dad.

What he's looking forward to the most, though, is this Friday when he can go talk to his mom again. She's not going to like that he disrespected his teachers, but he's not going to keep it a secret.

He tells his mom everything.

***
Word Count: 3653
Sorry for the late update. Next chapter will go up next Sunday at 8pm central time. I love you all and tysm for reading<3