Kaida is back on her panic attack and PTSD medicine. It's not helping. It's making it worse.

Ever since the Split, Kaida hasn't talked to anyone but her brother for a week. She avoids everyone like the plague. If anyone comes near her she gives them the most deadliest glare, gives them warning explosions, immediately gets up to leave, or some varying combination of them.

Kirishima is the recipient of most of them. He's tried to keep his distance, but it's difficult to see Kaida acting this way. He wants to help. It's like everyone is back at the start. They have to rebecome her friend, and she's made it increasingly more difficult than it was before.

~

"Hey, Bakubabe this new animal cafe opened up, you wanna–"

She gives Kirishima a deadly glare before standing up and leaving. Her brother doesn't even glance at Kirishima as he follows.

~

"Bakubabe! I got some new nail polish! I think you'd really like the color! Wanna–" Mina cuts herself off.

Another glare and leave.

~

"Bakubabe! Got a new video game! Bet you can't beat me!" Kaminari grins confidently.

"Dude, I could totally beat you," Sero challenges.

"You're on! Wanna see if you can beat us, Bakubabe?"

Warning crackles and glare and leave.

~

"Bakubabe, you okay?" Kirishima asks.

A snarl, a glare, and an explosion to his face. She's gone before he can even blink.

~

"Kaida."

She doesn't even look at Shoto, skidding her chair back and walking away from him.

~

Kaida hasn't gotten much sleep. Overcoming her fear has set the past to continuously replay on repeat in her dreams. She wakes up shaking and afraid. As if the past has been repeated but this time while she was sleeping. She's slightly reassured seeing that her room is intact, but the only way to be fully calm is with her brother. He was her savior then, and he'll continue to be. Every night she ends up going through the same nightmare and ends up sleeping in her brother's room. He holds her, calming her and rubbing her back until she falls back asleep.

(You guys know that tiktok audio where it's like 'Do you blame yourself?' 'What?' Something about a situation some sort of guilt. 'What situation?' 'The accident.' That one. Yeah. Imagine that. As her constant nightmare.)

Kaida jolts away, breathing heavy. She worriedly looks around the room as tears form in her eyes. She wraps her arms around her legs, burrowing her face in her knees. She takes deep breaths as her voice cracks with sobs and leaves her room. She takes her pillow and shark plushie as she sluggishly walks to her brother's room.

Upon seeing her brother's face, she completely breaks down in sobs.

Katsuki's now fully awake, scooping his sister into his arms and getting her under the covers of his bed. She curls up on his chest, whimpering as he whispers soothing words and rubs circles on her back. He's been through this, he knows the routine. He knows exactly what to say and do to get her to calm down.

"Kaida, you're in high school. A high school for heroes. You're not a preschooler. Everyone is okay."

Katsuki has bags forming under his eyes. Kaida's eyes are sunken in and always red.

Kaida is uncoordinated in training and has messed up countless times. Her arms shake constantly, she has difficulty concentrating, doesn't eat as much, and has noticeably lost weight and muscle.

The class has taken notice.

Mirio has noticed and tried to talk to her only to get the same result as everyone else. Threatened and ignored.

Even Aizawa has tried to confront them, but they always talk their way out of it.

What they don't know is she always has a constant headache, she throws up almost every time she wakes from a nightmare, she's sweating more than she can control which makes her explosions uncontrollable, she's sensitive to light, and her whole body aches.

This is why she didn't want to take her medicine again. It makes her worse. She would just stop taking them, but it's been brought to the school's attention. She has to go to Recovery Girl's every time she needs to take her pills to make sure she's taking them.

She never leaves Katsuki's side, much like she did when they were children. Katsuki doesn't seem to mind it, but he's realized that she can't always do this. Especially after all that has happened after his overprotectiveness came to light in such a bad way. He doesn't want that to happen again.

She needs to overcome her past, and he realized there's someone else who needs to help her with that. It's expected from him as he's her brother. She needs to know that other people care for her. Someone other than her family. He may never get this himself, but she needs it more than he does.

And that's where those idiots come in. Especially the shitty haired soulmate.

Katsuki has watched their attempts at conversation with Kaida. He's watched as their attempts are immediately foiled.

Katsuki won't bring anything up until they come to him. They're still idiots after all. He can't do everything. If they care for his sister at all then they should be able to figure it out.

~Today though, Aizawa gathered the class and told the students that a reporter was coming in to write an article about student life.

Kaida thought it was stupid, so did her brother. They tried to avoid the man as much as they could.

It was breakfast, so the reporter stays in the background taking pictures of everyone.

He gets too up close and personal with the twins, making them both shout at him.

He follows the class throughout the day.

He follows Kaida more than her brother at one point.

"If you get any closer in my business, I will personally fucking destroy that camera of yours," she growls, shoving the man away from her.

"Sorry. Sorry," he sheepishly grins. "It's just... You're the winner of the sports festival. Many people became interested in you for that."

"I don't give a shit. Leave me the fuck alone," she scoffs, leaving the man by himself.

The man hums, watching her leave with her brother. "It's possible, but I'm gonna go with my gut and say she's not." He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and leaves the other way.

~~~

It seems that today is the day that the idiots confront Katsuki.

School is over. Everyone is gathered in the dorms. A few are making dinner, others are studying or doing homework, and the rest are just relaxing and conversating. The reporter is still there and is now heading outside where Deku is training.

Kaida decided that she's skipping dinner and leaving to see if going to sleep even earlier will stop the nightmares. She had a snack instead of whatever Iida and Momo are making for dinner. She left about an hour ago.

Katsuki came downstairs soon after. He was finally alone and open to questioning about his sister. He was one of the ones studying at his own table.

The dubbed Bakussquad + Shoto pounce on the rare moment. They gather around his table, taking up each seat.

"Dude, what's wrong with Kaida?" Kaminari is quick to ask.

"None of your fucking business," he responds, continuing his homework.

It doesn't mean he'll make it easy for them.

"Come on, man," Sero huffs. "She's become all quiet and keeps to herself after the whole being split thing."

"Yeah, it's weird to see her all... all quiet and... and..." Mina trails off, trying to think of the right word.

"Withdrawn," Shoto provides.

"Yeah!" Mina nods, snapping her fingers. "She's so different from how we know her. She's so out of it."

"Is she okay?" Kirishima asks. "She doesn't look healthy."

Katsuki looks up at his voice. "She's returned to how she used to be."

"What?" Mina gasps. "I can't ever imagine that she was ever this way..."

"What changed?" Sero asks.

"Is this because of something that happened when she was younger?" Shoto asks.

Katsuki sighs, setting his pencil down, crossing his arms, then leaning back in his seat as he looks at them. "Why should I fucking tell you idiots anything about her past?"

"Obviously something happened because of the split," Sero says. "We want to know why."

"Yeah, we care about her," Mina huffs, smacking her hands on the table. "You two may be the most hardass people we know, but we still care! Especially when her health is involved."

"We want to help," Shoto says. "We're friends after all."

"Fucking prove it," Katsuki huffs.

"Prove what?" Kaminari questions.

"Prove that you're her friends and care about her."

"We're here asking you, aren't we?!" Kirishima shouts annoyed, slamming his hands down on the table and making it snap in half. All of Katsuki's school work makes a mess on the floor. "Isn't that enough proof that we want to help?!"

The room becomes silent, everyone looking in their direction.

Katsuki looks up into Kirishima's eyes of determination and sincerity. He sighs. "We've had a lot of people use us in the past. The only reason they would call us their friend is because they were afraid of me. I was testing to see if that would happen again. Obviously you're all too stupid to stay away."

"We're here to be heroes!" Kirishima fusses. "We would never be as selfish and rude as assholes like that! You got that?!"

Katsuki huffs in amusement. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone get angry on our behalf before." He bends down to the floor to gather all his work that went flying and packs it all before standing up and leaving towards his room. He turns back, seeing as they aren't following him. "You idiots fucking coming or not?"

"You could've said to follow you or something," Sero complains being the first one to follow.

The others follow behind.

Katsuki leads them all into his room, making sure it's tidy before they do.

He closes the door once everyone's inside, and they settle themselves around the room.

"I don't trust people. We don't trust people. So I fucking swear if any of you tell anyone anything that was said in this room, I will actually fucking kill you," Katsuki threatens.

The Bakussquad all physically gulp at the most intimidating look they've ever seen on Katsuki. They all nod.

"We would never hurt your sister," Kirishima says.

"Intentionally," Sero adds.

"Now, what's wrong with Bakubabe?" Kaminari asks, getting impatient.

Katsuki sighs. "She's in a shit ton of pain. Having her emotions fucking spilt and shown to the world made her very vulnerable. She doesn't like showing her weakness. She doesn't like being seen as weak. Which is probably partly my fucking fault."

"Why would that be your fault?" Shoto asks.

Katsuki's eye twitches. "Don't fucking interrupt me!"

"Nevermind, no need to explain," Shoto says.

Kaminari's cheeks puff in amusement, slapping a hand over his mouth from letting a laugh out. Now's definitely not the time.

"When we were younger, I got my quirk before she did. My quirk started off with small little explosions." He gives an example of the small crackles he made when he got his quirk. "Kaida's... didn't. Kaida's explosions... have always been bigger... and much stronger than my own."

"Yes, at our internship, she trained to control them and make them smaller," Shoto inputs.

A few tick marks form all over Katsuki's head. "Icyhot, if you fucking interrupt again, I'm going to kick you out."

"Sorry."

"It's true for when she first got her quirk too. We... were in preschool when Kaida got her quirk... it was a big explosion. So big... it... completely destroyed the building."

Multiple gasps come from everyone.

"What?!" Mina shouts, eyes blown wide.

"No body was killed, but everyone was... severely injured. Lots of smoke, lots of blood, lots of fire, and lots of complete silence... Kaida never used her quirk after that moment. She was afraid of it. She only just started using it a few years ago. So when she was split, Fear took over the emotions. Fear is her strongest emotion. It's what fuels her to use her quirk."

"That's why her quirk is so outta control most of the time," Shoto mutters.

"Yeah, she always looks like she has such good control over it. I wouldn't notice if no one said anything," Sero says.

"She needs someone other than me to help," Katsuki continues, looking to his hands in his lap.

"I'd recommend a therapist," Kaminari says.

"We've tried," Katsuki sighs, running a hand through his hair in annoyance. "If she doesn't know the person, she won't open up."

"Then why does she look so unhealthy!" Kirishima fusses.

"Kaida has PTSD and in turn it causes panic attacks. She has to take fucking medication for them which has a lot of shitty side effects. She comes to my room every night to calm down after nightmares which is another side effect."

Everyone looks down. An even more depressed aura fills the room.

"How do we help her?" Kirishima whispers after a few minutes.

"Shitty hair. You're her soulmate. Confront her. She needs you whether she believes it or not. Don't fucking let her tell you no. Don't even give her a fucking chance to say it. Force it out of her. It's the only way you're going to get any damn answers. Make her open up and be vulnerable. Make her trust you. She... She needs to be reassured."

Shoto blinks. "Soulmate?"

"Her and Kiri are soulmates!" Mina grins. "Isn't that so romantic?! They got hit with a quirk that made them switch bodies with their soulmate!"

"I was wondering what happened," Shoto hums. "I overheard a conversation between Bakugo and Kirishima. Bakugo called him a 'shitty haired sister's soulmate' or something."

"Why you listening to other people's fucking conversations?!"

"Wanted to see if Kaida was okay."

Katsuki massages his temples in annoyance. "I'm done with all you shit heads. Leave my–" He cuts himself off by squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

"Dude? You okay?" Kaminari asks.

"Nightmare," he answers. "Shitty hair. Go to my sister's room. Now."

Kirishima doesn't waste any time and leaves the room.

He can hear Kaida's heavy breathing from outside the room. He doesn't knock and enters, heading straight to the panicked girl.

"Baku–Kaida," he whispers out loud enough for her to hear.

She looks up at him with wide eyes. "Ki–"

He walks over to her, pulling her into a hug.

Her mind says push him away. Don't reveal weakness. But... she's in too much of a panic to be logical. Instead, she wraps her arms around him, burrowing into his chest as much as she can. Choking sobs are the only sound heard in the room.

Kirishima can feel himself beginning to tear up, holding her tighter. Seeing her so frail and broken really hurts. He takes a few breaths to prevent himself from crying too. "It's okay. I'm here."

He's here. He's her for her, and he always will be. He's her soulmate. Kaida may not believe in it, but he now realizes that there's no way it's wrong. He'd do anything for her. He doesn't just have a crush on her. He's in love with her. He loves the good parts, the bad parts, the sad parts, and all.

And he's gonna do everything he can to make her realize it too.

~~~...~~~
Sad chapter. Gomen. It will get better. I promise.

Now, I feel like I should put this out there.
I have no idea how panic attack or PTSD medicine works. I just looked up side effects and made her have all of them or at least the really bad ones. I also figure how it would react to her quirk. Explosions and panic attacks could be considered a bit similar. And being the opposite of who you are is hard.

This is not an excuse to not take your meds. Everyone reacts differently. Please take what you need.

The only medicine I know about is ADHD meds as I do have that. I fought about having to take those meds bc they suck. As I said being the opposite of who you are is hard.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃🍁🍽

And here's a cute funny pic that Kaida definitely has in her camera roll.