#assumed knowledge: nitroglycerin is a particularly volatile compound

[catsoupki]

bakugou doesn’t like you. not only had you two gotten off on the wrong foot (‘watch where you’re going, extra!’, ‘you blind, asshole?’) you’re also aggressive. he knows how hypocritical he’s being, but you’re a different kind of aggressive. you’re the type to smile and make him squint, you’ll laugh in the common room and burn him. you don’t just go head to head, toe to toe with him, you’ll match him punch by punch and kick with kick— it hurts just to exist in your presence.

but you’re everywhere, your company is unavoidable and inevitable at some point of the day— in the gym at dawn, next to his desk in school through the window, three tables reflected behind him during lunch, and the dorm next door after hours; your traces are blinding, and inescapable too, the warmth that trails after you, the scent that is particularly suffocating when he uses the bathroom after you, residues of your belongings will scatter the places he hangs around, he knows your headphones are littered with stickers and your notebooks are from muji, he can’t get away from you even when he tries.

and oh believe him, he’s tried. he’s tried so hard, he’s ushered shitty hair to sit at another table so he doesn’t have to hear your obnoxious chatter when he’s eating, he’s tried noise-cancelling earphones to not hear you talking to yourself in your room, but you’re fervent, in sparring and in everything else. in the cookies you gift him and in the protein shakes you leave for him in the fridge, within everything you do and touch and shine on, evidence is left behind, ash blond turns into orange and beige taints pink.

it’s annoying, bakugou doesn’t like it.

he thought that all he wanted was victory, and that when he comes home to an empty apartment, he won’t be fathomed by its coldness when he’s still triumphed. yet, when he learns your colours and the way you glimmer, his scale is thrown off balance and his world is tossed upside down. so he doesn’t know what to do when you dim into a soft and weak timber, when you can’t even hold a candle to itself, all that he can offer you is his nitroglycerin.

the sun works on an eleven year cycle, it’ll go through its troughs and crests regularly while its hydrogen burns and burns and everything else will be susceptible to your deviations. when you bounce back from your lows though, the nitroglycerin that gathers at his palms is once again lit up by your vehemence.

‘your cheeks are so red, are you sunburnt? are you okay, katsuki?’