An autumn story

Chapter (7)

"We will walk from here." Bakugou says as soon as they exit the bus.
The day was grey when they started this morning, but now the sky is no longer visible. Big clouds have been gathering constantly only for them to be the only thing to see when you look up.
It doesn't matter, he wants this photo to be taken by night anyway. He just hopes it doesn't rain until they inspect the sight that he has in mind. He hasn't been here for years. After the old hag died, there was no point to come back here.
The road is just as he remembers it. Bumpy, constant rises and decents, a truly tiresome place to leave.
Here, there are no big stores, a few shops and markets for the necessities. Here there are only houses. Even if this place is part of the city, it's in the outskirts. A boring, still place, that Bakugou loved coming back from time to time.
The old hag was nagging him the entire time, always asking if he was hungry, until Bakugou exploded and his mother started yelling. There was a cupboard back in the house, filled with sweets and chocolates, everytime he was here. It was a mystery, how it was always stuffed with unnecessary things, things that if he ate them all he was sure to die. It was a mystery how it was never empty, even when he came here with his parents unannounced.
The constant climbing up the road, it felt like climbing, would soon end and the decent would start. He had forgotten how tired he left everytime he walked in this place.
"Maybe I should get my phone back. There is a text I have to answer." Todoroki says and his voice is hasty, from the rough road or the suggestion he makes. Bakugou is not sure.
"No distractions." He simply answers.
"It will only take a minute." Todoroki answers back.
"And then?" Bakugou stops and it takes the robot few moments to register the motion. "Are you going to fucking piss me off with your gloomy mood? I am not your friend to babysit you all day."
"You have made that perfectly clear." Todoroki answers and his voice is cold.
He fucking doesn't care. They are late and it's going to rain and he won't stop and argue with the robot on something he doesn't give a shit about.
He takes the phone out of his bag and pushes it to the other's boy chest.
"Do whatever you want." He says and starts to walk again, bypassing Todoroki a few steps.
He takes a side glance and true to his word it only takes a moment for the boy to write something and put the phone back in his pocket.
They share a look and Bakugou looks away first. Not away, ahead, where they should be going.
"I haven't been in this part of the city before." Todoroki speaks out of necessity, as if to prove that he is present, here, that he is going to do his job.
"Bet you haven't." Bakugou says to remind him that he is still irritated.
"How do you know about this place?" Todoroki is unfaced, he is always unfaced by his bite. It pisses him off, that trait of his.
"My old man and his family lived here. We used to visit, until there was no one to visit." He says.
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"What for? They are already dead for many years. It doesn't bother me." He looks at his side and Todoroki is looking back.
"Is that how it works?" The robot asks then.
"How what works?"
"Death." Todoroki says and the word holds a gravity on its own.
It takes a moment for Bakugou to respond. As if he is pulled in the force that emanates, compelling him to really think about it. He sure cried secretly when the old man died. He was a good little fellow, kind and quiet like his father. And he was still a kid, so it was probably sad and confusing to be told that a person you're used to, will no longer be there.
He was older when the old hag died. He had seen it coming, she seemed more fragile every time he visited. And this time he knew. He was prepared. Yet he cried nevertheless.
It's not that it bothers him. There are days that he will not think about them at all.
But being here, while they are not, it's strange. It's nostalgic..and kind of melancholic.
"I don't know." He says in the end. "That's how it works for me."
"So you don't miss them?" Todoroki asks.
Bakugou scoffs.
"You are really fucking annoying." He says, but Todoroki looks, waits and Bakugou scoffs again.
"I miss them alright? I am not fucking heartless." He punches him at his arm. But it's light, a way to diffuse the tention.
The boy opens his mouth.
"No more questions." Bakugou tells him and the robot's face drops. He touches the phone on his pocket, and Bakugou is sure he is doing it unconsciously.
"There are few steps until we reach the end of the road. Be done with it by then." He says.
Todoroki doesn't understand, he has this expression like the gears on his brain work overtime when something is confusing him.
"I will not talk about irrelevant fucking matters when we arrive. So be quick about it. Or not. I don't fucking care."
It takes a moment. And then it clicks.
"How were they like? Your grandparents?"
"Nothing special. An old couple that you would pass on the street." He says and misses the frown on Todoroki's face. "Like all these people who are together for too many years and they annoy each other, but they know exactly what the other is thinking. They were annoying like that. The old man was mostly quiet, not shy or anything, but not too fuzzy. He liked reading a newspaper with a cup of coffee, sometimes he was staring outside and thinking god knows what. And in the afternoon he took a walk and then returned to drink another cup of coffee, preferably if someone else had made it.
She on the other hand couldn't stop doing something for a second. She was always doing something. She painted the house and then she stopped midway to plant a flower in the garden, only to stop and prepare something to eat. Like the hours of the day were too short for her liking."
"Much like you." Todoroki says.
"Huh?"
The robot lets a shadow of a smile form on his face and then looks ahead. Bakugou follows his gaze only to realise that he has been talking too much and they are almost there.
The old factories in the far end, standing and abandoned as always. The chimneys, working, polluting, evidence that this place is not completely dead. The school just a little to the left, in front of everything , fitting and unfitting in the picture. And far behind all the sea. From here it seems blue and clear, but Bakugou knows that it's not.On the right the harbor is present even if it's afar. Yet if you turn your gaze to the left there is nothing there but the horizon.
"Come on." He says and starts descending. The boy follows and they pass by the school, a few teenagers smoking cigarettes on the back yard.
They walk through a fence and Bakugou almost smiles by the stillness of this place. The hole is there as it always was, noone is bothering to fix it. Crusty leaves meet their feet for a few steps and then concrete.
The abandoned factories are on his side, grey and gloomy at this hour. But then at night the light poles will shine just barely and afar and it will give this place the right edge he wants for the picture.
He walks and inspects, the buildings and the road, if he wants the sea to be seen, but no, this is not about that. It's about the sky and the concrete and a place abandoned and present at the same time.
And then he feels the first drop. He looks at the sky with annoyance and anger as if to scare the rain away. He doesn't, but he tries anyway.
At the third drop he curses.
"Fuck."
He says and glares at the sky again.
"It's raining." Todoroki says as if he is blind and he needs someone to explain what is happening.
"I fucking know."
"I'm guessing you are not done." The boy speaks again.
"You think?" Bakugou tells him.
"We should go."
This time he scoffs. He knows that too.
It started as light, but as the sky had warned with the thick black clouds this morning, it quickly rises.
"We will run." Bakugou says.
"Okay."
There is no point and the road back will take some time. Another set of ups and downs to reach the bus. If they had woken up earlier, if Todoroki hadn't shown his stupid laugh last night, they would be on the way back now.
Fuck him.
He pulls out his jacket and puts it in the bag. Todoroki looks at him as if he is mad.
"The camera. Just to make sure." He says. "Let's go." He commands and they start running.
They are almost at the hole, already drenched when he looks back and sees the boy benting his knees. Stalling him, the rain raises by the minute.
His walk back is loud, but the water hitting the floor covers it.
He stands beside the boy, there is a cover of concrete above them at least.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"There is a cat." Todoroki says and he doesn't look back at him. Bakugou follows his gaze. There is indeed a cat, orange and pathetic, crawling, trying to protect itself with little success.
"So?"
"So we can't leave it here." Todoroki speaks as if Bakugou is truly stupid.
"It will survive." He tells him.
"And what if it's not?" Todoroki asks with that same sense of distance like he demands answers for something else entirely.
"And what do you want me to do?" Bakugou taps his feet.
"I don't know. We should take him, I guess." He unfolds his arms and tries to reach the scared creature.
"Take it, then. Bring it to your house. Just do something before I fucking lose it."
"I can't." He says. "Noone is home." And it's quiet but Bakugou reads his lips. "I am at school and who will look after it?"
"I don't know, your parents. I don't care."
"My parents are divorced." He says as it that explains anything. "And my father is usually working."
"Take it to your mom then. Let's go."
And the boy turns and looks at him for the first time.
"I can't." He says and Bakugou almost misses it, but the eyes with the different colours hold the sadness of that statement.
He bents and scoffs and curses, but he takes the fucking cat and he opens Todoroki's jacket to shove it inside it. It's a small thing really, it fits and it doesn't protest. It's warm he thinks, that's probably why. Todoroki is slightly surprised, or big, he doesn't know with his minimum expressions.
"Come on."
"I told you."
"Shut it, will you? My place is the nearest from here. We will wait there until then and we will take this little creature on a shelter after the rain stops. Now fucking move."
He turns and runs and this time Todoroki follows.
The nearest, he said, but still it takes a pathetic ride with the bus, drenched to the bone. He curses the cat and then Todoroki.
They run again for two blocks until they reach his house.
He searches for his keys, but decides he doesn't have the patience for that, so he knocks. Repeatedly.
"Are you sure this is okay?" Todoroki asks.
"It's fucking fine." It is not. No one comes to his house, except Kirishima once, but even he didn't walk behind that door. He opens Todoroki's jacket again, takes the cat and hopes that his old man will answer the door.
But he is the unluckiest person in the universe as it seems. The old hag appears and she is already angry. With the constant hitting he supposes.
"Always polite." She says and crosses her hands.
"I had a good example." Bakugou tells her and walks inside.
"Do you want me to leave you outside in the rain?"
He scoffs.
"I brought a cat." He gives it to her.
"What?"
There is a voice from the other room.
"Who is it?"
It's from the kitchen.
"Katsuki. He brought a cat." His mother answers.
"What?" The head appears and then all of his father's body.
"And a boy." His mother tells and Bakugou looks behind him.
"Oh you brought a friend." His father smiles.
"He is not a friend."
Then his mother hits the back of his head, lightly just to make a point.
"Come on, come inside." His mother prompts and Todoroki passes the door at last.
"I am sorry for the mess." He tells them and he looks at his feet where a little pool of water gathers.
His mother laughs.
"He is certainly not your friend. He has some manners."
Bakugou scoffs.
"So about the cat." She eyes him.
"We will take it to the shelter."
"Good. Now go upstairs. You both need a bath."
Todoroki is hesitant, as he should be, but his mother is a difficult force to bypass.
She guides him to the bathroom, offers clothes and towels and doesn't leave until Todoroki promises to use them.
It dawns on him, it really hits, when he opens his bedroom door and Todoroki sits there with his clothes on, black shirts and pants.
He is suddenly too uncomfortable, as if he had made a grave mistake.
"Thank you." The boy says.
"Whatever." Bakugou answers and tries not to think much about it.
Nobody comes home. He has noone he wants to bring here. Not that he wants Todoroki to be here, this is a necessity. Yeah, that's it. A necessity.
Still it's weird. He is not sure exactly why, but it is.
"Not what I expected." Todoroki speaks again as he looks around.
"Yeah? And what did you expect?"
"I don't know. This is too normal." He lets a little laugh and it frightens him.
"I don't scream for attention." Bakugou tells him.
"You don't?" Todoroki challenges back and dries his hair with the towel.
"No, I don't need too." Bakugou takes a step.
"Okay." Todoroki says. "So why do you?"
Well now he is angry. He grabs the towel and pulls it, just because, but Todoroki holds the other end and he is pulled with it.
If he was frightened before, now he feels he should run for his life. Todoroki is close, too, too close and his breath touches his own. He has his little frown, a product of Bakugou's feat of anger and god does Bakugou need to takes a step away.
"I will hit you one day. I am fucking warning you." He says and Todoroki's frown grows, it's too close to miss.
"I can defend myself."
"Yeah with your little instructor. I know."
He hasn't pulled back yet. He should, should he? Because he almost smells Todoroki's shampoo, his own shampoo on the other man's hair.
"God, you annoy me so much." Bakugou says and he almost, almost looks away from his eyes. He doesn't, no, he does not in fact look any other part of Todoroki's face.
Thankfully the boy moves away.
"I have heard it enough to know." He says. "We should take an umbrella and leave now that we are dry."
Bakugou nods. For now, he nods. And breaths. Yeah, he is breathing just fine.
There is a knock on the door.
"The food is ready." His father says and Bakugou opens the door, only to lose another battle.