tomorrow / @shockpop —— ans. ask meme —— one word prompts ; accepting.
are you sure that was a good idea? kirishima had prompted the night before, as kindly as humanly possible. bakugou had shrugged, placed an empty glass on the table top and replied what’s a little heartbreak between old friends?
the answer did not need to be given, it was known plainly. kirishima had served it to him piping hot, drenched in that same kindness, anyway: it isn’t just a heartbreak and it wasn’t exactly little, bakugou. the two of you didn’t even try to stay friends and now you’re going to live together?
he hadn’t known it yet but the words would bruise, darkening over the span of the next day; become sore to revisit, even at the surface level. grossly out of character to the person he’d been trying to be, he was defensively hopeful and still littering swears between meaningful sentiments, in parting; money tucked under the rim of his empty glass enough to cover both parties: since when has there been a god - damn statue of limitations on fucking trying. it will be fine. we’re not stupid kids anymore.
now, standing in the doorway to the life denki’s lived without him, katsuki comes to the crispy realization once again that he was probably wrong about where his own limits exist. he shoves them down, steps inside.
denki beats him to it, already tucked toward the television, coiling wires for gaming consoles before katsuki’s shoes are toed off, respectful habit ingrained. eyes size up the place. cozy, but not unkempt. a decent size for a single person and a sushi roll but terribly overpriced for its location. chipped paint and ancient light fixtures. unlike the apparently empty expanse of his industrial penthouse that intends to house them both starting tomorrow, denki’s small space appears, well, lived - in.
where his walls have lain bare - brick and white paint, only the necessary furniture and katsuki’s previous belongings having dwindled down to the span of a couple bookshelves and a too - large bedroom; there is hardly an inch of denki’s place untouched by well - loved belongings. it has the clutter of an actual life lived.
it, too, appears so painfully denki in appearance that for a terribly ( nostalgic ) second katsuki swears they’ve stepped right back in time to denki’s u.a. dorm room. the second passes onto the next, as it always does, and divorces the dream from reality. it is a process that he has nearly forgotten how to do outside a hungover morning.
a blink, the gentle clink of dog - tags getting in the way of a quick collar - pull, another glance. steady breath reveals the obvious truth: familiar items are there but much fewer and further between than unfamiliar ones.
a flannel he’s worn before hangs off an open door handle; at least three more, unknown, lay over unoccupied corner surfaces. one is tucked under the coffee table. there is one potted cactus that katsuki remembers giving a name and several unrecognizable plants spilling out of their terracotta homes. light folds in where it can, sunlight spilling from the single bedroom window into the living space to turn the place pale yellow. there’s a corner of a bed visibly unmade illuminated, too. a small laptop lays atop the least - mussed end like a silver cat. the kitchen, for all its lack of breadth is haunted by only ( as far as he can tell ) a graveyard of kirby drinking glasses that do not appear to be of any particular matching set. memorized licence plates hang on the wall like the eyes of doctor t.j. fucking eckleburg while faces that are familiar but distinctly not his peer at him from their strung - up photographs.
crimson eyes glaze over a guitar with fret spacing his fingers remember and stick to a red cassette tape player before flitting quickly away.
purpose remembered, katsuki moves, as originally tasked, to the god - forsaken skateboard bookshelf to assist with the packing. he scans titles, new and misplaced, as he puts them into the open mouth of the box that waits at the shelf base and aches to think of the box of mixed tapes collecting dust in the top shelf of a closet in his guest room. he’ll have to move them sometime today before denki's un - strewn flannels can lay claim to the space.
even meticulous hands have difficulty shaking off the odd tremor when they reach for a haphazard tower of miscellaneously stacked things. it sears through the center of his chest like an arrow re - sunk into an old wound to disassemble it.
“ so you’re still stacking things, huh ? — sootball's gonna love that. ”
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@shockpop said: ❝ tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable. ❞
are you happy? it comes one of the first few days after denki moves in: follows him like a shadow around the apartment, feet slow to carry him to the sofa. hands brace weight against the back of it. he’s just noticed that his - their - living room is set up like the common area of the u.a. dorm building. if thoughts weren’t so busy churning over the question at hand, maybe he’d wonder why happy had triggered that observation; why it takes denki’s presence in it to draw realization out of his subconscious.
are you happy? it is a casual ease, curious more than anything else. the cast line of denki’s more serious questions always are. (what happened last summer? what am i to you? do you love yourself? are you happy?) katsuki is a deep sea fish, too keen to bite the bait right off the hook and keep it for himself instead of climb upward toward where light reaches his secrets.
are you happy? it’s never that simple. katsuki doesn’t have the wherewithal to put the puzzle pieces together. fingers dig into the upholstery in a way he’d scold the cats for.
❛ what are you actually asking me? ❜
are you happy? it had been a question like this that ended them. that had been the beginning of it, anyway. today it is lighter. perhaps a reflection of the white walls and white light, an ugly - greyish hue on the apartment floors because it is mid - morning and that’s the reality of it. not everything is sunrise and sunset and starry skies and golden. sometimes it’s just dreary, regular, business hour.
work — being a pro, you know? breaking top five — is it everything you’d hoped? tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable... cause this apartment is cool and all, bakugou - but it looks like the home of a miserable person.
❛ i picked it for the view. it’s the closest to a mountain top within the city and i do still love being at the top. ❜ it is supposed to be a joke but it is true. least the part about the city view is. the relationship with hero work is a little more complicated. his expression is not quick enough to seal that in. the smile is a ghost on his lips. it doesn't quite answer either question.
❛ i still love it. i’m not miserable — just busy. ❜ (amd. re: the originial question: he is not happy, just busy.)
richard siken starters extended — accepting
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endless.
one word prompts / A C C E P T I N G / @shockpop
time does not yield to grief. hour still folds evening back into itself, the clock keeping track in endless circular rotation. katsuki still has to keep moving with it and he does. morning comes, sleepless, to remind him again what a piece of shit he’s been.
cats get fed, kissed, a note for care ( a vague text message to kirishima ensuring that they’ll be fed in case their other human refuses to resurface in the next three days ) placed high on the fridge where sootball can’t hoard it away.
an overnight bag sits packed by the door. dog tags chime as they’re returned to their place around his neck. denki’s key stays, untouched, where he left it.
it goes like this: work becomes hyper - fixation, too closely related to the fall out to be the hardy scapegoat it’s always been; becomes less distraction and more outlet the way electrical training used to be. get through it, succeed, get passed it. this is the new loop for the two days of preparations. the new intrusive that katsuki slathers over the i look at you and see nothing old one. it equates to chap - stick on a second degree burn. relief exists with immediate, irrevocable brevity, the memory of how his previous attempts to solve problems this way forgotten in the face of desperation. he keeps applying.
force focus, force sleep, rinse, just repeat. get through, succeed, get passed. review recon, plan strategy, get some sleep. through, finish, passed. the argument at the apartment becomes background noise, a bad dream. a pestering sense of discontent that he does not have the mental capacity to tend to.
by the third day, the numbness of repetition sets in. wake up, did he wake up, did he really sleep? it gets hard to tell, when he’s ignoring all facets that catch the sunlight, which ones actually demand attention. this is his second mistake.
it goes like this: action arises, planned, anticipated. before bakugou can blink, he’s already in the thick of it. which is the thick of overwhelming nothingness, really. things go well beyond expectation. even better.
it goes so well, in fact, that katsuki skips right over pride into unease. he makes it behind the enemies lines alone, without incident. no need for improvisation or to call his reserve. without a single confrontation. without a single instruction.
eyes watch him from a forest. not the maze of alleyways he currently navigates but the distant memory of a similar feeling. a training camp ambush.
he presses at his ear piece, something’s fucked, half n’ half. i’m falling back. a long pause. hands curl, defensive. maybe he imagines it to be longer than it is. he presses again. todoroki? i’ve got a bad fucking feeling. you held up?
there is no answer on the other end of his com - piece — but for the faint, far of ringing of interference. shit.
blood runs frigid, sweat cooling where goosebumps rise on his skin. the temperature has dropped unnaturally. measures are taken to keep him on the useful side of sweaty under unfavourable conditions but his body isn’t regulating heat. the work of a quirk unaccounted for.
unease shifts to disbelief. improvisation. think, run. keep running, think quicker. sudden clarity says there is no difference between where the forest ends and his escape begins. the interference is disorienting him on purpose.
katsuki rips it from his ear and crushes it in a fist. keeps running. back - tracks through the wrong route without guidance. through, through, through. finds the crushed com - piece under foot twice before he realizes he’s circling. a mouse in a maze.
it is three minutes after cut communication. the first building quakes to pieces. shatters ? it seems, the rumble nearly half glass. a skyscraper’s corpse collapsing. uraraka’s comets have trained him for this — hands raise instinctual, but cold, they don’t detonate cleanly — half strength, panicked. he maneuvers well enough to stay on his feet. the rumble further disorients him, the ringing returned to his ears from his own explosion. a mouse in a maze with no exit.
cages, restraints, hands made half useless. the ringing grows louder, not a fault of his own. outside source. two quirks? fight, flight, freeze argue for first place. there is no clear target, no clear escape. dread rises up the back of his throat, the forgotten fear of something purely unknown.
another building, further out crumbles — there is no sound but the pressure of it reaches his ears, delayed. reverberates. he moves away from it, trying to get his bearings. through, through, through. debris crumbles from over - head, to close to detonate at his current capacity. fear creeps higher, brighter, a feral thing. not quite terror but rising ever closer toward it as the next round of ruin throws him off his feet. explosions flare and are smothered underneath.
pinned, arms, chest, gasping. wind wiped clean from his body.
it belongs to another body, knees biting into wrists, weight centered on his chest, hand curling around his throat. wind moves above them, cold, colder. katsuki shivers, dry palms flickering out.
“ come on ! did you think it would be so easy, blasty ? “ confirmation is only half retained. bakugou biting out curses in exasperation. “ fame comes with a price, you know. when everyone knows who you are it’s harder to hide your weaknesses. you’ve been in the limelight a long time now, haven’t you, katsuki ? spend weeks researching things about us that we already know. ” this is obvious information he doesn’t need a villain’s speech to tell him that. tries instead to weasel fruitlessly out of the clutches in before he realizes he’s losing too much oxygen. crimson eyes blink, brows creased with agony. breaths stutter, sputter, gasp again.
villain hooks their fingers through the chain on his neck and steals his identity from him in the same way he stole his breath, instantly.
“ who’s going to come to your funeral, bakugou katsuki ? ”
panic. flash flood of a fear he’d never considered rushing to the forefront of a oxygen deprived mind. denki. he gasps, not to answer but in the desperation to breathe. he would go, wouldn’t he? hating me, angry, always wondering what i died without confessing?
the villain covers his mouth. “ ah, that was a rhetorical question, actually, katsuki. ”
anger. that name is not his to repeat. he’s only given it to one person. denki. he would get the stupid fucking dog tags. katsuki never changed his emergency contact information.
he stops listening; has trouble focusing; can taste his own blood in the back of his throat, pooling.
panic, again, again. denki.
worse for being comprehensible, his threshold for terror maxes out. there is nothing he can do becomes the immovable force to the unstoppable fact that if he doesn’t force something to happen in his favour he will die here.
panic. it was your mistake. live with it. hands struggle, weak, to reach the one obstructing his air passages. wrists ache, threaten fractures. it was your mistake. die with it. teeth gnarl, barely able to bank the fabric of his gloved assailant. proof the cold comes from a separate entity.
a new rumbling, this one familiarly shindou’s — but far off in the distance, indication that his own back - up is not far away. are they close enough, though?
is this what jeanist felt? he chases that rabbit for a beat, too long, tastes the charred lack of hope in it. chokes on it.
no, that’s real. katsuki forces his focus to resurface to the hand on his throat. if he goes under it’s all over. his mistake. one he wouldn’t get to live with. vision blurs, freckled with the painless, endless, terrible, silence that promises to take hold. that offers relief from his predicament. who will come to your funeral, bakugou katsuki? hands grapple again, pinned down, ice cold.
the vision of a back, turned away from him. leaving, leaving, leaving. katsuki motionless, doing nothing about it. if i die here i will never see him again. he passes the threshold for struggling, senses overwhelmed. the villain pinning him down, a cinder - block shackled to a sinking boat. denki will never get his apology. will never know that it was misguided love and not pride that got in the way of things.
the voice above him promises a quick relief. a pathetic death for a disappointing opponent. katsuki barely hears over the echo of ringing, returned brain interference. it buzzes softly, almost golden through streaming tears and blotched vision. at least it’s me instead of him. thank fuck i made one good mistake. heat rises, too close to his face. hands removed for a startling — sharp shock of cold air. his body racks with the swell of lungs still compressed under the weight of a human.
the heat blares as hands return, either side of his face, confusing, ringing, glowing golden. the interference is electric.
there’s no room for repeat here. get through it, or don’t. there is no certainty that passed it exists. crimson eyes flash, the carved stencil of a laugh traced over a forgotten expression. his voice doesn’t exist but a rasp, barely spoken through the jolt of a body reawakening: “ uno, bitch. ”
and he lights up the reserve switch, sweeping the flash of searing pain through his nerve endings and up through freezing, up - turned palms. a flash flare.
katsuki doesn’t know how he gets to his feet — but it’s just in time to see back - up ascend over the rumble, shouting. he can’t hear them clearly over the crackling of electricity.
he points in the direction of his half - seared, unconscious assailant; lets todoroki do the dirty work of apprehending them while his lungs kick up an old fight to function. finally pulling in full breaths, limbs trembling. he tries to assess his own condition. his head swirls at the edge of fading consciousness. hands, still steaming, lift to his throat just to be certain. blood drips over his lips, unobstructed. ribs plea for less gasping.
good enough. he can make do with that. i’m still here. a silent plea sent out that whatever happens next denki can sense how fucking grateful he is, that none of the love was wasted. that he’s coming home, so fucking help him.
i’ve got unfinished business. denki is owed the common decency of an apology, at the very least.
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