chapter 39

Bakugou groaned and turned away from her... as much as he could anyway. The enclosed space gave them very little room to move and maneuver. If Bakugou was facing her, he would be standing less than a foot in front of her. Hardly enough space to even breathe.

He bit down on the tape Sero and the others had wrapped around his hands and wrists, in an attempt to contain him. They wrapped him hurriedly and therefore terribly, but that doesn't mean it wasn't effective.

He tried to rip it off his skin, but only managed to tear off a thin strand rather than the whole restraint. He growled in frustration.

Shimamura watched him struggle with the bindings for a few moments. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head. She reached forward and grabbed onto his restrained wrists, carefully unwrapping his hands. In one quick yank, she seemed to unbind him in an instant.

He frowned and looked away. "I had it."

"No," she retorted, "you actually didn't."

Bakugou glanced down at her as she rolled the remaining tape into a ball, sticking it and unsticking it from her hands. She refused to make eye contact with him. The smallest movement he made, however, she flinched ever so slightly. Her eyes flicked to his movement and leveled back with the tape as soon as she refocused herself.

Current bipolar level: 7. She was in a higher state, but tried so hard to conceal it. She didn't want any more evidence to build against her case. She didn't want to be some sick patient to them. To anyone...

Especially him.

"Thanks..." Bakugou finally muttered.

She stopped, her eyes staring at the pantry shelves. She pursed her lips and put the ball of tape off to the side. Bakugou glanced at the nothing she was staring at then let his eyes settle back on her small frame.

Bakugou frowned. "Shima... I—"

"I really hate you right now." She cut him off abruptly.

His eye twitched, wanting to argue, but resisting every urge to. He let her finish.

"But..." She sighed. "There's one thing I hate more. And that's that I wasn't the one to tell you." Shimamura bent her brows, staring down at her hands now. She flexed her fingers and rubbed the calluses on the bed of her palm.

"You... what?" Bakugou was caught off guard by this.

It wouldn't have shocked him if she was still furious with him. He knew he was in the wrong for finding out about her disorder without her knowledge... which was primarily Deku's fault, but he still found out nonetheless. Hell, Shimamura had gone an entire week ignoring Bakugou.

She hadn't said a word to him all week. Barely even passed him a look. He thought she was mad at him because he knew... but maybe her feelings had changed over the period of time she spent ignoring him.

"It was my secret to tell." Her crystalline blue eyes still refused to meet his. "I don't know when I would've told you, but I would have eventually. But I wanted to be the one to admit to it. Not Deku..."

This was the first time Shimamura had ever called Midoriya, 'Deku.' Funnily, she sounded like Bakugou when she said it and she meant it too. She didn't consider the name in the context of his hero alias. She despised Deku's very being currently—much more than she hated Bakugou. Her nose sneered slightly when she uttered his name. Her fear in her lower state was replaced by distaste in her higher mindsets.

She shrugged, staring down at her hands. "But I'll understand if you don't want anything to do with me anymore now that you know... I've had time to think about it. About everything."

Bakugou blinked. His normally aggravated nature had dissipated in the air of the pantry. Instead, he seemed calm. Docile. Understanding.

"Shima, I don't care that you're bipolar."

Her blue eyes shot up in surprise, staring at him. Her eyes went wide with slight shock and her mouth pressed into a flat line. If anything, she was more confused by his statement.

"W-what?"

For the whole week that she had been avoiding Bakugou, she hadn't once considered him not caring about her disorder. She contemplated every other route except for the one where she currently stood. She presented him with a crossroad of hating her or fearing her—and he decided to split the difference and ignore the road completely. He didn't just take the road less traveled... he took the road that didn't even exist before he stepped on it.

Bakugou raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't care about your disorder. I never did. It definitely answers a lot of questions about you and the way you've acted since day one... but other than that, I don't really care."

Shimamura took a minuscule step forward, trying to study his expression. His vermillion eyes remained steady as he stared at her, every muscle in his face was as relaxed as she'd ever seen him.

"But I thought..." Shimamura trailed off.

I thought you'd hate me for good, she thought to herself. You wouldn't have been the first.

"The hell did you think? I like you the way you are, Shima. And you've been the same person you've always been since the day I met you." Bakugou scoffed, as if he were offended by it.

Shimamura squinted at him and looked away, scanning the shelves next to her as if she were scanning her own thoughts. This had gone a completely different way than she thought this conversation would go.

"I thought you'd hate me..." She repeated, aloud this time.

"Hey," he murmured, capturing her attention again.

She glanced at him in the corner of her eye, watching as he took his index finger and tapped the side of his head with it. He tapped right on top of his temple.

"I let you mess with my head, Whitey. I wouldn't let someone I hate do that."

Shimamura opened her mouth to argue further, but couldn't find the words. She let out a breath. It felt as if the weight of the world was lifted off of her shoulders. Just knowing that he didn't judge her for her faults was all the relief she needed.

She shook her head and smiled slightly, biting her lip. Who would've thought...

She turned and faced him now, looking up at him with a soft smile. They stood cramped together in the closed space, but neither really cared. He raised an eyebrow at her.

His eyes glanced at her hair. He reached up carefully and pushed a stray strand of hair out of her neat bangs, tucking it behind her ear. She scoffed, taking his wrist in her hand gently.

She cupped his wrist in her hands, lightly pressing her thumbs to the inside of his wrist. It took her mere moments to find his heartbeat within his skin. Her lips turned up into a soft smile as she picked out his steady heart rate.

Instantly, Bakugou felt a wave of peace and euphoria flood his senses as she activated her quirk. He took a deep breath in, calmed by the sensation. He closed his eyes and laughed a bit. He could almost feel the relief that had washed over her seconds before. Her higher state was very much evident in these moments.

In fact, it was the first time she used her quirk on him when she was truly happy. He almost didn't realize she could emanate any other emotion other than negative ones. The relief she emanated onto him was almost like a drug.

It felt too good to be real.

"This feels familiar," he mumbled to her.

She raised an eyebrow at him, smirking. "The feeling, or this?" She tapped on where she currently held his wrist.

The familiar feeling he was referring to was their very first meeting. Their first encounter in the stadium hallway during the Sports Festival. Back when he didn't even know her name and she couldn't remember his for the life of her. All they knew back then was their faces. And Bakugou's initial reaction to her.

He remembered the way he almost hurt her before he even got to know her. And out of fear, she grabbed onto his wrist and emanated said fear into him. He didn't know what it was that she did to him. Now he did.

She made him feel something.

"This. But wait..."

He raised his other hand to the side of her face, curling his fingers as if to inflict his own quirk onto her cheek. However, he wouldn't actually use his quirk on her.

"Now it's familiar, you damn extra."

Shimamura laughed, smiling at him. God, how he missed her smile.

She leaned her head into his hand, pressing her cheek against his naturally warm palm. He let his fingers relax, softly brushing his thumb against her cheek. He scoffed with a smile, shaking his head at her. Her eyes closed at his touch, sighing in bliss.

What would she have done if she lost him for good?

She leaned away from his touch, but he didn't remove his hand. Instead, his hand traveled the length of her jaw to her chin, brushing his thumb beneath her lips. He stared down at her with a mesmerized gaze. His crimson eyes scanned every freckle and curve across her face in the poorly lit pantry. It was like he wanted to take it in while he had the chance.

After all this time trying to understand the mysterious Tikki Shimamura, he finally had the answers he had been searching for. He could understand why she acted the way she acted. He understood the way her quirk worked and the things that made her blood boil. He didn't study her like Midoriya did, but Bakugou knew her a thousand times better than him. He understood her as a person rather than as a lab study.

But the one thing he still didn't know with confidence... was how she felt about him. Maybe it was about time he found out.

F- it, his inner thoughts grumbled.

He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her lips, hardly giving her the chance to back away... not that she could have, in the small space. It was as if a spark formed between their lips, burning them both. He retracted, waiting for her reaction. Anything.

She stared at him in shock, a blush spreading across her cheeks.

Shit...

He was about to say something, taking his hand away from her chin—but it wasn't necessary.

Shimamura curled her hands around his shirt collar, bringing his face back down to her level. Their lips crashed against each other, not letting Bakugou say whatever he was going to say. Bakugou's eyes widened then jammed shut as he realized what was happening. His hand slid down to her waist, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close against him.

Her grip on his shirt collar lessened and her shoulders relaxed as they both fell into the kiss like it was the only thing worth doing in these moments. It felt as if a bubble had formed around them, striking them invincible to the world and any harm done to them.

Any thought Shimamura had lodged in her brain from the League of Villains encounter had disappeared in the bubble. Any stress or anxiety either of them held was suddenly gone. The pantry felt larger than it actually was. They had all the space they needed, but they still clung to each other like they had no room at all.

After a few moments, they leaned away, their chests heaving. Shimamura's hands were pressed to his chest and Bakugou held her close against him with his arms wrapped loosely around her hips. Bakugou leaned his head down, pressing his forehead to Shimamura's.

They closed their eyes and laughed. They laughed.

"I don't remember that happening when we met," he joked lowly.

"Shut up..." she growled with a smile.

There was a sudden jiggling of the pantry door handle from behind Bakugou. Their eyes shot open and in an instant they separated from each other, standing as far apart from each other as they could in the pantry area.

The wooden door to the pantry swung open with Kirishima standing in the bright light of the kitchen. He leaned forward and shouted into the pantry with eyes closed, a look of desperation plastered on his face.

"MAKE UP YOUR PROBLEMS ALREADY! I can't stand to have my two best friends fighting!"

Bakugou and Shimamura exchanged nervous glances, blushes appearing on both of their cheeks. They looked back at Kirishima with a raised eyebrow who had no clue what he just forced to happen in the pantry.

Bakugou scowled at Kirishima and grabbed his face, pushing him out of the entrance of the pantry. Shimamura followed him out of the pantry, watching as he threatened Kirishima and the other members of the BakuSquad that had collected in the kitchen. He took out his previous anger from them shoving him in the pantry in the first place.

Shimamura giggled, watching the interaction.

Operation Doritos was a success... sort of. But the BakuSquad didn't need to know that.