PAPER FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

chapter 26

' left side '

━━━━

Lunchtime. Almost the same rambunctious period where people are chatting, relishing in the palatable dishes and enjoying the companies of one another. Almost the same if it weren't for a vacant spot that was staring at every single one of them like an elephant in a room.

"Someone should probably sit there," Uraraka says, slowly, looks at Todoroki as if weighing his reactions. Aforementioned boy says nothing at all, his face a cold impasse. They shouldn't make a big deal out of it, he thinks as he chews the pork cutlet.

Midoriya will probably like it. He heard once that it was his favourite. Todoroki ends up shaking his head. That shouldn't matter much today. Already, his mind is searching for ways to avoid this conversation about Yuko- Kaede, whatever her name is.

Todoroki's fists clench around the chopsticks and he doesn't even have to try hard to not let his feelings show. His face has always been a blank stare, no thanks to his father, and for better or worse, it helps cover up the unwanted emotions threatening to claim his visage. It's not that he thinks these people around him cannot be trusted, no, he's learned so much from this academy during the past months to feel something like that, it's because his mind is the perfect picture of confusion right now and he can't seem to trust even his own feelings.

The whole ordeal wasn't so difficult at first. If anything else, he was fine with it, he knew Yuko was strong, he trusted his friend to bits, she'd save herself from those villains. From that psychotic bitch of a girl. Yuko pulled through no matter the problem, spread her positivity, and during the rare instances he'd feel that unnecessary worry or exasperation, he'd remind himself that Yuko preferred the more pleasant side of him.

But the Kamino incident ended with no signs of her body- this was a point in his life where he made sure to omit the word corpse from his vocabulary. Just the mere idea of the girl who was the sunshine in his life dying, buried underneath a pile of rubble, or worse bid to follow the villain's wish. Drowning in herself. The mere idea punctured his heart to bits.

It made those rare temper flares in his body, ice seeping from his finger tips into the objects he held in his arms, eyes widened and screams escaping his lips, dents on the walls, and praise the security of his room or if not, his siblings would be screaming in fright.

After Kamino, his father had trashed the training room and Fuyumi had to clean the mess up. It was a troublesome deed for his elder sister who had to attend her teaching job and help manage the whole house. If she saw her brother's room, frost crawling in every spot, half burned tatami mats, broken porcelain vases and torn paper lanterns, she'd probably faint.

Why did he have to attract the worst of happenings towards his peers? First, it was Midoriya in the Sports Festival- broken limbs, followed by the Hosu incident where Iida and Midoriya (again) had broken limbs of their own. Now Yuko, the girl who tried to break his boundaries and make him smile and feel good.

That wasn't even the worst. The worst was yet to come and if they're undergoing the three comparative stages of bad. The worry seeping into his veins, that was bad. Worse was knowing that she was lying to them the whole time. Worse was hearing from Bakugou that Mizuki Kaede and Akihisa Yuko were the same. Worse was hearing that the girl he treated as a best friend for months was murdering professional heroes and civilians back and forth. Worse was missing her despite it all.

Now he could only dream of worst, in fact, he'd dreamed of it a dozen times and every time he'd wake up, sweat would powder his skin and his breaths would be contorted and he'd crawl from the mattress to the windows and watch the midnight stars, and those brilliant lights would remind him of her again, so he'd close his eyes and fall asleep beside the window. Wishing he didn't have any feelings. Wishing that he hadn't developed a bond with a girl who had a grenade for a heart.