Touch Therapy

Chapter 17

The moment Bakugou stepped out of Aizawa’s classroom, he knew something was wrong.

Kirishima was a few metres away, leaning up against a tree with his hands in his pockets. His eyes were unfocused, gazing at nothing in particular, expression strangely vacant. It looked like he was seriously lost in thought, and it was only when Bakugou walked up to him, reaching a hand forward to link their fingers together, that Kirishima noticed him.

He flinched back, yanking his hand away from Bakugou’s reach, and took a few steps backwards, the corners of his lips pulling down in an uncharacteristic frown.

Bakugou froze, his hand still hovering in the air in front of him, feeling his own frown deepening in confusion. He was suddenly feeling very ill, his stomach tightening into a harsh knot.

“Eijirou?” Bakugou murmured, his arm dropped down beside him, limp.

Kirishima sighed heavily, and when he looked up again, his eyes were cold as steel. He looked determined, and Bakugou felt himself begin shaking uncontrollably, his stomach somersaulting uncomfortably as he waited.

“Don’t call me that anymore. Don’t talk, just listen,” he snapped, his voice flat and emotionless, “I made a mistake letting you get this attached to me, Bakugou. I wanted to be your friend, but this has gone too far. Sure, I’m very attracted to you, and don’t get me wrong, the sex was great and all, but I realize now that I can’t be happy in a relationship with you.”

Kirishima spoke quickly, his voice so robotic that it almost felt like he had rehearsed this, or that he was reading the words off of a page in a book. His expression gave nothing away, it was carefully blank, so unlike the Eijirou that Bakugou knew that it made his skin crawl.

There was something wrong.

Something about this was so wrong, but Bakugou’s brain was rapidly shutting down, each nerve ending fizzling out to make room for something darker, something unbearably painful and sinister.
Bakugou felt like he was going to throw up.

He couldn’t move.

He couldn’t breathe.

Each word that had come from Eijirou’s mouth was embedding itself into his skin, burrowing further inside of him with each passing second. He could hear his own heart slamming itself against his rib cage, trying to shatter his bones and force itself onto the ground.

He wished it would.

It didn’t belong to him anymore.

“Eijirou…” Bakugou choked out, the only word his traitorous mouth would allow him to say. He wasn’t sure when the tears had started, just that they were currently sliding in seemingly endless streams down his cheeks. He couldn’t be bothered trying to wipe them away, or to try and hide them.

This can’t be real, this can’t be real, he had to be having some sort of super realistic, super fucked up nightmare, Eijirou would never say those things to him, this can’t be real!

Bakugou’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment, praying that when he opened them, he would be back in his bed, curled up against Eijirou with their limbs tangled together under the blankets. The other boy would greet him with a kiss to the forehead like he always did, and he’d be looking at him with those warm ruby eyes that Bakugou had come to adore.

He’d wake up to the boy he loved.

When Bakugou’s eyes opened again, it looked like Kirishima was fighting back a smile. His lips were pinching tightly as his eyes sparkled with amusement, before he shook his head rapidly, fiery red locks flopping in front of his eyes. The sight sat so uncomfortably in Bakugou’s mind, the same part of his mind that was still kicking and screaming that none of this makes any sense.

Bakugou found himself taking a step forward, trying to move closer to Kirishima. He was aching to look into the other boys’ eyes. His eyes have always been so expressive, direct windows to his true emotions, but with every step Bakugou took forward, Kirishima would take another one back.

“No, don’t do this… Eijirou, I’ll try harder, I swear, I-” Bakugou stammered, his voice pathetically small as he struggled to form the correct words, and for the first time in his life his desperation had managed to stomp out his pride, “Please… I- I love you!”

It was silent for a moment, Kirishima staring at him with a look of confusion, before his expression turned blank again, and he shook his head.

“I kissed him back that night, you know. If it weren’t for you bursting into my room and interrupting us like that, it would have been him I lost my virginity to.” Kirishima murmured, his voice having taken on a strangely desperate undertone. He took another step back, before turning and beginning to walk off in the in the opposite direction. After a few steps though, he paused, glancing over his shoulder again to say one last thing.

“And I wish it was.”

Bakugou froze, every muscle in his body seizing up.

With that, Kirishima turned on his heel again, sauntering off towards the English block, dragging the mangled remains of Bakugou’s heart along behind him.