When we return, the barracks air is even more humid than before, smelling of cold iron and laundry detergent. There is no one in the corridors: only the fluorescent lights flickering softly and our shadows, elongated like two poorly drawn lines. We don't speak. My soles are beating out of time; I realize I'm holding my breath as if I were still walking among the flags.
Aizawa has been awake since before us. The window is ajar, a pile of files like a low fortress. He looks up: no surprise, just the usual silent counting of things.
"Report," he says.
I put the folder on the table and start speaking. My voice is still wet with tears and tense nerves when I begin, but it quickly finds its way. "Corridor mapped out. Entrance from the west, exit to the southeast. Two pockets to avoid, coordinates here, three suspicious spots to detonate from a distance. Recent terrain, enemy hands. I marked the perimeters with flags and chalk. The map is clean."
As I speak, it happens: my hands stop shaking. I notice it only because I can suddenly place my finger on a number without skipping. My shoulders drop a notch; my breathing straightens in my chest like a spine being put back in its place. I'm no longer defending my voice: I'm using it.
Aizawa follows my marks on the paper without interrupting me. A mere nod of his chin when I point out the thread strand, a dry "hmm" when I explain the bypassing of the larger pocket. He never looks at Bakugo, yet he includes him, like one includes a supporting column in the calculation of a room.
"Good," he concludes. "The bomb squad will be there at dawn. No need to panic. Great job, guys."
His words feel like the right weight, not too light and not too heavy. I feel like I can say "I received" without my lips breaking. He dismisses us with a gesture that is both a greeting and a full stop.
I'm the first to leave. I turn my back on him with almost geometric care: don't rush off, don't run away, just... get out. The handle is cold, the corridor is empty again. I take a step, then another, as you do after a test where you already know the grade.
Before crossing the threshold, I feel Katsuki's gaze on me. I turn slightly, enough to meet his gaze: my eyes are still swollen from crying, I know it, and I also know he sees it. His expression doesn't change, but something tightens between his eyebrows, a brief shadow that doesn't have time to say it's name. Then he follows me.
We go up the stairs. I'm in front, he's behind, three steps apart. The footsteps have an echo that seems to count for us. At the first landing, the light flickers, then comes back on. On the second, I realize I'm no longer clenching my fists. On the third, I remember to breathe: I inhale four. I exhale six.
It's three in the morning. The barracks are asleep, but we aren't. The handrail feels cold under our hands, and each flight of stairs leads us to a closed door we still don't know whether to open. (Dude, that's enough for now: two people climbing, one behind the other, in a building holding its breath.)
Ok my friend, I open the door to my room with the care of someone touching a wound. The corridor beyond is a tube of tired light. I hear his footsteps approaching, then his passing behind me without touching me: a fleeting shadow, the direction of his room, the end. No words. No more noise than necessary. The key turning in its lock is a point of strength.
I enter. I close the door softly. Click. And I explode.
It's not an elegant cry. It's a collapse. My body bends where I'd been splinting and slinging until now. My shoulders sag, my breathing breaks into awkward sobs, the tears find me without asking permission and fall, carrying the day's dust. I sit on the floor, my back against the door as if I could keep it closed against every return. I inhale four. I exhale...no, not exhale six: it comes out in jerks, like a zipper that gets stuck.
It's impossible, I think, for someone like me to end up like this: with my chest aching like after a run and no run at all, with my hands searching for an edge and not finding it. Someone like me, who can read the terrain with my eyes closed, who can listen with my step, who doesn't tremble on the field. And yet I'm trembling now, on the clean turf, with the low lamp making a pool around me.
Then something happens that at first I mistake for cruelty, but is actually lucidity: between one sob and another, I stumble into it. Maybe he doesn't really care. I say it like this, without padding it, without apologies. Maybe he doesn't care about me, as the body he puts in front of him says. And I understand, all at once, that attention isn't cure. That shield isn't word. That noise isn't truth.
My hands slowly stop clawing at the air. I rest them on my thighs, palms down. I feel the weight return to my wrists, gravity restoring order. The crying still does its job, but it changes consistency: it's no longer a flood, it's rain that washes away.
I get up, using the handle as a grip. I go to the sink. The cold water beckons: I cup my face between my fingers, rinsing away the salt. In the mirror, my eyes are puffy, red like an alarm left on too long. I don't shy away from his gaze, though; I stay there.
I go back to the door. I touch it with my forehead, but this time I don't collapse. I inhale four. I exhale six. My shoulders drop a notch. The tremors subside in my fingers.
My friend, I'm changing here. It's not a slogan, it's a small gesture: I stop running toward the fire, asking it to warm me without burning me. I stop chasing strangled sentences into the corners of the corridors. I don't chase him anymore, I don't prepare translations for him. If he wants to speak, sit down, voice low. If not, distance. Not as a punishment: for me it would be like oxygen.
Outside, at the end of the corridor, a neon tube vibrates and then quiets. Inside, my heart is still thumping, but now I recognize the sound. It's after three in the morning. I get into bed without taking off my sweatshirt, stretching out my legs like someone measuring their space.
It's not peace: it's choice.
And this time, as I exhale, I don't lose myself.
***
Dude, the next week wasn't kind. But it was mine.
On Monday, I go down to the cafeteria with Uraraka. She chats about lighthearted things, a new tea in the pantry, the tactics teacher who's changed glasses, and her voice keeps me at the table pleasantly. When Katsuki enters, the room's pressure shifts. I hear him before I see him: the volume rattling, the energy demanding space.
"Hey, you, " he begins, turning to me. I cut the omelette into equal squares and continue chewing. I don't look up. I don't offer him my face as a mirror. Uraraka touches my wrist, are you there? Yes. I inhale four, exhale six. The world doesn't fall apart.
Bakugo can't stand the emptiness. He slams the tray onto the nearest table, too hard. "What the fuck, have you gone mute?" he snaps. No one answers. He cranes his neck, hoping to at least light a fuse. Nothing. I lift my fork, bite after bite, as if his voice were just background noise.
"Tch." I almost hear him spit out the syllable. He scratches the back of his neck, annoyed. "Take it your own way, idiot." He takes a seat two tables away, his back stiff, his gaze constantly bouncing in my direction without finding purchase.
On Tuesday, the gym smells of rubber and heated parquet. He fires corrections at me from afar like fire orders: "You'll break your ass!", "Watch where you put your..." I count. 7… 8… 9… I don't skip the number, I don't skip the breath.
I don't stop. It's strange to discover that you can walk past without making a sound. His "Tsk" slides across the floor like a fallen screw: you feel it, but it doesn't hurt you.
He can't hold it, though. He takes two steps forward, then another. He's on top of me, very close. His breath hits my neck, his voice low and scratchy: "Are you hearing me or not?"
I don't answer. I don't even look at him. My eyes are fixed on my exercise, exactly where they belong.
"Look at me when I talk to you!" He explodes, and the scream erupts through the gym.
I pause for a moment, not for him: to catch my breath. I turn sideways, not meeting his eyes, and without a word, I pick up the towel. A simple, clean gesture. I turn and leave.
Behind me, the silence. The weights stop beating, the others remain still. No one dares comment. Bakugo remains rooted there, his hands clenched and his breath short.
I walk through the door without turning around. I inhale four times, exhale six times. The world doesn't fall apart. (Part 2)
"What the fuck are you looking at?" He explodes, his eyes red with rage. His companions step back, lowering their gaze. No one responds.
Bakugo grabs a bag and hits it with a right hand that rattles the chain. "Tch!" he spits, panting. Another punch, then another, as if each blow could erase the door I left behind.
But it doesn't erase anything. Because for the first time, the silence around him isn't respect or fear: it's coldness. It's the awareness that I chose not to look at him and that everyone saw it.
He stops only when his breath burns his throat. He stands there with his eyes closed, his forehead pressed against the sack, his breathing shallow. "Idiot..." he mutters, too low for anyone to dare overhear him. Then he grits his teeth and growls again, to cover the emptiness he can't bear.
Behind, the others resume their slow movement, as if time had begun to flow again. But no one forgets. Not even him.
Wednesday, I wake up and my heart is whole, not a room filled with alarms and anxiety! In the hallway, I find him there, planted in the middle like an obstacle. His foot taps the ground twice, his breathing shallow as if he's been running.
"Hey!" he snaps. "Don't you dare act indifferent to me."
"I'm going to class," I say softly. It's true: I'm going to class. I'm not pretending and I'm not running away. I just…choose to go there.
He gets closer, too close. "What kind of game is this, huh? Are you ignoring me? Me?"
I don't answer. I clutch my backpack.
"It's not working!" he explodes. "Don't even try, you idiot!" He runs a hand through his hair. "Look at me, you moron!"
I raise my chin slightly, but not my eyes. "You don't have to talk to me. And I don't have to answer."
His jaw clicks. "Tch. You know how ridiculous you look?"
I walk. My steps are regular, his jerkily follow.
"Are you following me to call me ridiculous?" I ask without turning around.
The corridor narrows. He pauses for a moment, then blurts out: "That's not the point!"
"So what is it?" I pause. I look at him sideways, not in the eyes.
He makes a sweeping gesture with his hand, as if swatting away invisible flies. "Don't think you can get away with this, do you understand?"
I breathe. "Maybe I'm tired of falling to pieces every time I listen to you."
Silence. A long silence. The neon lights crackle, go out for half a second, then come back on. I start walking again.
I hear his voice behind me, I hear it crack, lower, as if it were scratching his throat. "Ridiculous."
I don't answer. I don't turn around.
He stays there, motionless. I turn the corner and take with me the victory of a breath that no longer belongs to him.
Then Thursday comes and the difference happens in plain sight. We're left alone, him and I, in that narrow space near the stairs where the echo amplifies even our breathing. He plants himself in front; so close that I can feel his breath on my lips.
"What are you doing, the statue?" he blurts out, a half-sneer that isn't quite a smile. "Have you lost your tongue, or are you just playing it cool?"
I don't answer. I keep my weight on my inside foot, my backpack steady, my gaze over his shoulder.
"Tch." He shakes his head. "Stop the charade. You're no better than me if you look the other way!" I start to move past, but he takes a short step, blocking my path. The heat of his breath splits the cold air of the stairwell. "Look at me when I talk to you!"
"No."
The word comes out like that, cold and flat. He waits for me to fix the situation, to wrap his in something tender or ferocious. Nothing. Then he leans forward with a quip he calls irony but is really just a cutting expression. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing that interests you," I say. And I can hear it even as I say it: no hailstorm inside me, no need to be understood.
He laughs briefly, in a mean way. "You think you're tough now? Ridiculous." He lowers his chin, eyes fixed on me: "If you have something to say, spit it out. If not, get out of my way."
"You don't care about me. Why should I?" I ask.
A thin crack passes in his eyes, a flash like a spark that finds no fuel. He immediately doubles the dose, to cover it: "Don't put words in my mouth that I won't say! Idiot. Don't waste my time."
"From today I'll give you what you give me." My tone isn't harsh, it's not sweet. It's flat.
He clenches his hands; his knuckles crack. A dry, restrained spark lingers on his palm. "Don't try that charade with me. You know it won't work."
"On the field, I just work. I'm not acting here." I shift my body a little, without touching him. "If you want to speak, keep your voice low. If you raise your voice, I'll leave the scene."
"I don't take orders from you."
"Then I'll leave."
I pick up my pace and pass him. I don't look for his pupils, I don't bump shoulders. I pass and go.
Behind him, his "Tsk" bounces off the wall and dies there. He punches the banister lightly, making the metal vibrate; the spark remains a threat and nothing more. Two boys at the bottom of the stairs freeze, eyes wide open; neither says a word. He remains planted like a landmine with nowhere to unleash it. I emerge around the corner and claim a second victory, which, this time, is mine alone.
Friday, the gym floor smells of rubber and chalk, the punching bags swing to a rhythm that sounds like a lullaby. Izuku counts for me..."Three more, Junko"...and there's that gentle way of being close that doesn't weigh me down. I take his arm, laughing at some absurd joke he made about the tactics teacher; Uraraka joins us with two water bottles, someone whistles, and Kirishima makes a noise of encouragement. We all laugh together, and for a moment the room seems larger.
Bakugo is there. He doesn't say anything. His sack cracks blow after blow, perfect, surgical. Every now and then a spark flies from the palm of his hand, a Z of burnt air that immediately dies out. He doesn't really look at us: he passes through us out of the corner of his eye and remains silent. He remains himself.
Then people slowly leave, some rolling up mats, some throwing towels into a basket. Izuku has a shift in the infirmary; he greets me with his sweet, unassuming smile. "See you later."
"See you later," I reply and watch him leave. I'm left alone to put away the weights and bandages.
Silence. Only the tall fan, spinning at low speed.
Bakugo stops the bag with an open hand. He turns. It's not a slow turn: it's a sprint. He comes toward me diagonally, with a determined step.
"Funny, huh?" he booms, stopping too close. "Hanging out with Deku in front of everyone."
I continue putting the five-pound plates back in the rack. The metal clicks. I don't answer.
"You thought I couldn't see that?" Half-smiling, "Arm in arm with Deku, and you're the star of the class."
I grab the towel, dry the barbell, and leave it there to shine. I inhale four times. I exhale six times.
"Tch." One more step. "Stop the charade." His tone is harsh, but it stays low: he's learning, despite himself, how to speak. "Don't test my limits today."
I don't look at him. "I'm finishing my training."
"Oh yeah? And you need Deku to do it well?" he attacks quickly, looking for an angle to hurt me. "Or do you want another audience to applaud you?"
I put the barbell down. His shadow covers my arm. I feel the heat of his breath, the electric scent it leaves on my hands. I don't say anything.
"Don't be a martyr," he growls, raising his voice a half tone. I can feel the hunger for volume, the need to break the decibel barrier.
"I'm not," I say, continuing my exercise. I grab the dumbbells and hold my position with my back straight. "I'm just doing what you do."
He snaps: "What do you mean?"
"I give back everything you give me." I reply. Just one word. I place it on the carpet like a weight that won't roll.
His knuckles crack. A dry, restrained spark.
"Finished." I exclaim and walk past him without bumping into him. He stays where he is, hard as a nail in the floor. He doesn't scream. He can't. On the banister behind me, the metal vibrates gently as he grips it with his bare hands to avoid grabbing me.
Then comes the weekend.