Chapter Text
Going to sleep with the TV on sometimes worked to quell the noise in his head. Whatever came on during the night was entirely random. Some people might see those first words to hit the ear as a sign of fate, as the universe trying to give hints. Not him, though.
“So it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be really hard. We’re going to have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever. You and me, every day-”
“Ugh… puke.” Bakugou muttered as he sat up and felt blindly for the remote. The room was dark still, the sun not having peeked over the horizon. Sleeping past 6 AM seemed an impossible feat for someone that retired for bed as early as he did. “Shut up already.” He told the TV as he switched off the movie that had come on. That movie, The Notebook, was terrible enough the first time Mina had forced him to sit through it. He wasn’t doing it again without compensation.
Yawning, he got up and went for his shower. Bakugou had a bit of a preoccupation with his hygiene. He sweated a lot, so he never liked showing up to school without washing up. As he shampooed his hair and glanced up at the ceiling of the bathroom attached to his bedroom, the most wretched, foul, cruel thing came to his mind. A thing so torturous the thought of it made him recoil in disgust, halfway ready to crawl out from his own skin.
Valentine’s Day. It was two days away, but this awful Wednesday would mark the first of two days of candy grams. And that horrible dance on the Friday night, the 14th, the day he couldn’t wait to be over with.
“These assholes better not give me one…” He complained as he conditioned and soon rinsed his hair. Thankfully, being a senior, this was the last time he’d have to fret about it.
The day was already wearing on him by the time he arrived at school.
“Bakugou!” A high pitched voice called. “Don’t try to get away!”
“Yeah, man! Come on, let's go hit the vending machine before class!”
The blonde rolled his eyes and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He turned around, although he already knew who it was. Denki and Mina, half of the posse that tailed him. He wondered where Sero and Kirishima were, since they usually weren’t too far.
“Who pissed in your Cheerios?” Mina asked him and folded her arms.
“Doesn’t he always look like th-” Denki stopped mid-sentence as he realized the expression on Bakugou’s face meant certain death. “I mean yeah, what’s wrong?” He nervously chuckled.
“Nothing. If we’re getting snacks, let’s go.” Bakugou replied impatiently. He said this as though his plan wasn’t to just sulk at his desk in the first class of the day.
“So are you coming to the dance or do I have to blackmail you?” Mina asked, blowing a bubble with her gum as she leaned on the vending machine. Denki was currently getting himself some snacks for homeroom, and Bakugou looked oh so happy to be there, per usual.
“Hah? What do you even have on me, you witch?!” He scoffed and clicked his tongue.
“Woah, pump the hate brakes.”
Sero and Kirishima soon showed up behind the three, ultimately completing the “bakusquad”. Denki had coined it, only in time for everyone to tell him it was terrible and to never repeat it.
“I’m not going to that fucking dance!”
“Aww come on. Let’s all go. We don’t need dates. We can just have fun, man!” Kirishima smiled and put an arm on Bakugou’s shoulder.
Denki sulked to himself and leaned his forehead against the vending machine hopelessly. He didn’t know if he should buy more candy grams. The guy was almost certain that the girl he’d bought for would shoot him down.
“Do you have all your candy grams sent out?” Mina asked everyone curiously. Bakugou looked like he was going to explode from annoyance at that point.
“Shoot! I totally forgot to buy some. I just wanted to send platonic ones this time around. Let’s go find the table. They should be selling them for 15 more minutes.” Kirishima said. And he happened to be pulling Bakugou along with him. All he could hope for was to get this over quickly.
In the front lobby area of the school, there was a white folding table set up. There was a small cash box on the top, and on the front was a bright pink and white banner that read CANDY GRAMS. Working the table that morning was Iida, their class president, and Uraraka, a volunteer. Yaoyoruzu couldn’t be there that morning and so she was filling in. Bakugou felt his blood pressure elevate just from the sound of Iida’s voice.
“Thank you for your purchase! We will see to it that your partner receives their gram in a timely manner.”
“Huh? Bakugou?” Uraraka asked as he and Kirishima stepped to the front. It was of course hard for her to believe this bitter guy would be buying anything for anyone.
“Not for me, idiot.” He clicked his tongue.
“I’ll take six.” Kirishima beamed, then handed over a ten dollar bill. In return, he received some cute little lollipops. Attached to it were tags, identifying who the candy was for, who it was from, and on the back, there was room for a tiny message. Next to the pops, there were two bins of ribbons. The pink ones were for friends, and people used the red ones to signify romantic interest.
“You’re really gonna take the time to write on all of those? Why don’t you just buy a pack of suckers and hand them out?” Bakugou watched him, grimacing. Obviously he wasn’t seeing the appeal of this gimmick.
“That’s not the point, bro.” Kirishima snickered as he wrote down some stuff on the grams. “Better watch it or maybe I’ll eat the one I just bought for you.” He teased.
“Tch.”
“Deku!” Uraraka greeted cheerily as the familiar green haired boy stepped out from behind Bakugou. They were sort of holding up the line, all while Iida was doing paperwork on his end.
“Good morning.” Deku smiled.
Bakugou’s face soured as he turned around, seeing him.
“I didn’t even hear you coming. Stop being such a creepy nerd.” He growled.
“I’ve been standing here the whole time, Kacchan.” Deku awkwardly laughed, then handed over a 20. “I’ll take however many this can get me.”
“Hi, Midoriya!” Kirishima greeted, all while Uraraka counted out the grams for Deku. Deku waved back, although he was being stared down by Bakugou the whole time. He really wasn’t sure why he had such a problem with him. He’d tried and tried to understand, but it made his brain hurt the more he tried to wrap himself around it. It seemed he was more annoyed with him when other people were around than when they were alone.
“Deku, this is a lot.” Uraraka said, then pushed the pile over.
“I know. I wanted to make sure all of my friends could get one.” Deku responded, picking up a marker so he could get to work on these. There was no one behind at this point so he wouldn’t be rude for working on them there.
Kirishima put all of his into the collection box, then stared over at the mound of Deku’s grams.
“Dude, do you want any help with those?” He asked.
“No, no, it’s ok-”
“It’s a waste of money. That’s what that is. If you have time for this stupid shit then maybe you should be training.” Bakugou scoffed at him. He and Deku were both on the track team, as well as multiple other sports teams together. Technically they were on off season at that moment, but it didn’t mean they had permission to slack off. Being as both of them were state recognized runners, Bakugou got quite competitive with him.
“It’s not a waste.” Deku said, putting another completed gram in the box. “I value my friends. I’m doing my part. This gram might be the difference between someone feeling valued and appreciated or being left out entirely…”
It truly was a sad sight when people didn’t receive at least one, considering they were so popular amongst the students. It was more prevalent for upperclassmen to receive them instead of send them, but a lot of them still participated.
“So manly!”
“That is really a great way of looking at it.” Iida cut in. “I’ll say it again, why don’t you run for student senate?”
“He’s too busy.” Bakugou answered for him. He kept catching himself glancing over at the type of ribbon Deku was using. He cursed himself mentally for doing that, since it was feeding into all this nonsense. It also calmed him somehow when he didn’t see him pick up a red ribbon for anything.
“Are you done yet? I’m gonna go to class if you’re not.” He complained.
“Yeah, man. Let’s go. Thank you!” Kirishima waved at Uraraka, Iida, and Deku as he and Bakugou walked off.
“I really don’t see why you let him talk to you like that.” Iida sighed. “Midoriya, he’s bullying you and I will not continue to tolerate-”
“That’s just Kacchan.” Deku replied. “He has a weird way of showing he cares, but he does.”
Uraraka and Iida gave each other concerned looks, then stared back at their friend.
“Okay, well if it gets to be too much for you to handle, let us know. We can stop him.” She assured. Deku was honestly half listening at that point. In his heart of hearts he knew that Bakugou didn’t hate him. There was some maladaptive reason he had turned on him over the years, but that didn’t make him evil, right? They still were on the same team and they trained together a lot, even if the sessions were tense.
Deku set the final candy gram into the box.
To: Kacchan
From: Deku
“I’ll see you guys later.”