Chapter Text
It started out with small stuff at first, but Katsuki was pretty sure no one else had noticed. Probably because they were too fucking dumb to see the obvious.
It was obvious - Kirishima's grins were slower to start, quicker to vanish, and growing dimmer and dimmer every day since some time last week. There was a slight slump in his shoulders, and when he was relaxing he wasn't relaxing really. He jumped at loud sounds, sometimes. Something was eating away at the idiot, but it was something he was trying to hide. It wasn't any of Katsuki's business. If Kirishima didn't want to share then Katsuki didn't want to know. Still, his brain moved fast and sometimes it ran in the wrong direction so he couldn't help but wonder what was happening.
The rest of the class, unobservant morons the whole lot of them, only really began picking up on something when Kirishima snapped at Stupid-Face on Tuesday before lessons began. The electrical imbecile was gabbling away about what game they were gonna play that night and ignoring the prominent tic under Kirishima's eye. Katsuki only happened to see it because he was doing some in-chair stretches, of course, but Stupid-Face was looking right at the redhead. Katsuki caught sight of the moment when Kirishima's expression morphed into a scowl.
"Leave me the fuck alone, Kaminari," Kirishima said said, loudly enough for half the class to hear it and turn around in their seats. The sound of turning bodies alerted the other half. Stupid-Face held up his hands in a placating gesture, eyes widened in alarm, and then Kirishima noticed their audience. He flushed, but the scowl didn't leave his face as he turned back down to the scrawl of notes he was making while they waited for Aizawa to show up. "I don't want to go, so stop fucking asking."
"Dude," Stupid-Face said, raising one of his eyebrows. He leaned back over to mutter something else that Katsuki couldn't catch from where he sat. Not that he wanted to. Still, if there was nothing else to do while nothing was happening...
Kirishima looked up to glare at Stupid-Face. "Look, I'm serious man. Drop it."
"Alright, alright," Stupid-Face said. "But you gotta come next week."
Kirishima grumbled something back, and Katsuki turned to face the front of the classroom. The rest of the class seemed more subdued all of a sudden, and Katsuki wondered if they were also thinking about reasons why the redhead was so grumpy. Kirishima was normally so fucking bright and bouncy, lifting everyone up with his endless high-spirits. Sure, he'd been down a few times that Katsuki remembered. The redhead could get fucking mopey about not living up to his own expectations or something like that, but he always bounced back from it.
From what Katsuki had noticed this time, however - whether he had wanted to or not - was that Kirishima only seemed to be getting worse.
Nothing seemed to improve Kirishima's mood, Katsuki noted, as they moved along the week. Kirishima had skipped out on the class game night, much to Stupid-Face and the rest of that gang's chagrin. Katsuki almost never went, of course, because he actually wanted to spend his time on studying, so he only caught the tail-end of the second argument about it. He had heard Kirishima snarl at what sounded like Black-Eyes in the hallway and slam his door. Black-Eyes had whined a bit, but Katsuki didn't hear any response from Kirishima and eventually the girl left again with only her own footsteps as company.
Katsuki had stared hard at the wall for a while after that before getting back to his homework.
Wednesday was quieter. So was Kirishima. There were dark streaks under his eyes and his hair hadn't been spiked properly. He looked fucking awful, but he sent crabby looks towards anyone who thought about approaching him so Katsuki didn't bother. Knowing himself, if he was feeling as rough as Kirishima looked, he wouldn't even want anyone breathing near him. Still, Katsuki was alarmed to feel the itching of curiosity climbing around in his brain. Fuck, was this the stupid friendship thing again?
The redheaded idiot went straight to his room when everyone got back to the dorms. He didn't even say his usual 'goodnight, man' to Katsuki which was pretty fucking rude considering they rode up in the elevator together. He'd just shot out through the doors as soon as they had opened without a single word.
Katsuki had stood outside Kirishima's loudly closed door and entertained the thought of blasting it down, seizing Kirishima by the shoulders and shaking the other boy until he told him what was wrong. Katsuki wanted to blow something up. He felt a little sick with the sudden flood of rage and pulled his hand back from a knock. He bit his lip, wavered - wavered like a fucking coward - and then he marched himself into his own room instead.
Fuck, this wasn't his problem.
Katsuki had other things to worry about, like not falling behind on his own workload. He began to pull today's homework out of his bag, but when he dropped it onto his desk it just sat there and looked like stupid paper. Just sheets of fucking paper, and Kirishima was in the next room over being upset or something. Katsuki ground his teeth together and stared at the wall.
Fuck, but Kirishima was his friend, wasn't he? The stupid shitty-haired bastard was always saying weird sentimental stuff about it. Katsuki groaned and ran his hands through his hair. What was he supposed to do?
Thursday, and Kirishima usually came for a tutoring session after classes. Katsuki was feeling jittery all through the lessons that morning. Fucking anticipation was doing, like, a jig on his nerves or some shit, and he really really wanted to blow something the fuck up. His palms crackled, and at one point Present Mic raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat at him from behind his stupid glasses. Katsuki pretended not to notice and scribbled down his English answers. He wondered if Kirishima would actually turn up or not. It wasn't like he liked giving up an evening of his precious time to beat some sense into the moron every week, but it had become routine. Just like Tuesdays were game night for everyone else. Just like the game night Kirishima had skipped.
At lunch Kirishima disappeared somewhere, so Katsuki was stuck sitting with Stupid-Face and Black-Eyes and Elbows. It wasn't the worst group to sit with, really, especially given the existence of fucking Deku and his friends; Four-Eyes, Round-Face, Frog-Girl and the Half-and-Half-Bastard. Katsuki did not want to sit with any of them if he could help it. The rest of the class was out, too. Katsuki wouldn't be caught dead sitting with the Grape-Bastard, and the others... He didn't really know them much.
Bird-Brain seemed okay, but he tended to sit with Octopus, who was kind of creepy. There was also Tails, Sparkles, the fucking Disney-Princess guy, and whoever the fuck it was who ate sugar for his powers to work, but fuck, he knew almost nothing about them. Aside from the boys were the three other girls in the class - Ponytail, Headphones and the invisible one. Katsuki felt even less like sitting with them. What did girls talk about when they were talking to other girls? Clothes? Stabbing people? Boys? It wasn't like Katsuki didn't have any opinions about those things, but girls expected people to share their opinions and that was just... Fuck no.
Katsuki wrenched his thoughts away from anything like that. At least this group was predictably dumb and could be relied upon not to pester him too much in the wrong way. Stupid-Face pushed it sometimes but he was probably trying to copy Kirishima's example - relentlessly apply friendship until it stuck. It wasn't going to work. Kirishima was Kirishima and nobody could copy him. Besides, if Katsuki had a friend he didn't really need any more of them, did he?
The group during this particular lunch period was chattering away about something stupid, probably. Katsuki was too busy staring at his plate and definitely not thinking about where the fuck Kirishima was anyway to pay much attention. Then a name caught his attention, and he looked up.
"...where Kirishima is?" Elbows was asking, moving his eyes around the room as if he'd only just realised the redhead wasn't there.
Black-Eyes grimaced. "With Recovery Girl, I think. That's what he said when I asked where he was going."
Recovery Girl? Wait, what the fuck? Was Kirishima sick or something? Katsuki recalled his friend's roughly-styled hair and tired-looking eyes. It made sense. Fuck, fuck, he couldn't do anything if it was an illness. He couldn't blow up the shitty germs, he couldn't do any fucking thing. Fuck. He found himself grinding his teeth.
"He's ill?" Elbows asked, alarmed, as he fucking well should be. "He didn't say anything about it. He would've mentioned if it was something serious, right?"
"Probably?" Black-Eyes gave him an awkward shrug. "I mean, maybe he just stubbed his toe or scratched himself with his Quirk earlier."
"Or maybe he's being all noble and stuff," Stupid-Face said with a wry grin. What kind of expression was that? "He's got some mysterious disease called manly-itus and he doesn't want anyone to know he's dying."
"Shut your fucking stupid mouth," Katsuki stood and slammed his hands down on the table before he could stop himself. "Don't even fucking joke about that sort of fucking thing, fucking bastard! Fuck!"
"Whoa, man! Calm down," Stupid-Face yelped. He repeated the same hands-up placating gesture he'd given Kirishima on Tuesday, and Katsuki felt his anger spike further. "Jeez, you don't need to set fire to the table."
The table was smoking under Katsuki's hands. He pulled them up and glared at them. Damn, where the fuck had his composure gone? Anger was pulsing through him, carried through his arteries and veins like fire. With it, for fuck's sake, was an undercurrent of worry for his redheaded friend. Katsuki turned his glare on the other kids. Especially Stupid-Face, whose expression had gone curious instead of apologetic. What the fuck was he looking at?
Stupid-Face tilted his head. "Bakubro-"
"Don't call me that," Katsuki snapped. "Die."
"You need to get some new material," The bastard rolled his his eyes. Actually fucking rolled his eyes. "And you need to chill out."
"Oh fuck off," Katsuki growled, and he turned to leave. He was going to go back to their classroom and stew and try not to let this stupid fucking worry feeling bubble up any more.
"Hey, wait," Elbows called. "You didn't finish your lunch!"
"Fuck that," Katsuki called back over his shoulder. He left the lunch hall and stormed along the corridors to get back to 1A's classroom. The door was open, and Katsuki stepped inside.
Katsuki had been expecting the class to be empty. Instead, Kirishima was there, hunched over his desk with his face buried in his arms. Katsuki felt a jolt of something in his stomach. What the fuck was Kirishima doing? Had he really been to the nurse's office? Questions swarmed around in Katsuki 's head, but he batted them away. Kirishima stirred as Katsuki stepped forwards again.
The redhead tilted his head enough for one bleary eye to see Katsuki , who froze at the movement, and then he lifted it up to frown. "Oh hey. What are you doing here, bro?"
"Fuckers at lunch were annoying me," Katsuki said. Well it was true. Kirishima groaned.
"Big fucking mood, dude," he said, rubbing at his forehead. Katsuki raised an eyebrow. Kirishima usually wasn't so liberal with his swearing. "I don't think I'm gonna make tutoring tonight."
Oh. Well. Something in Katsuki 's gut plummeted. "What? You sick or something, Shitty-Hair?"
"Or something," Kirishima grumbled. Huh? What was that supposed to mean? "I don't want to talk about it."
Katsuki shrugged as if that answer was just fine. Fucking peachy. "'Kay. Don't fall behind, hair-for-brains."
Kirishima grunted and put his head back down on his arms. He voice came out muffled. "Yeah, yeah."
Katsuki stared at the top of Kirishima's's unkempt head for a few moments. Was he trying to take a nap or something? Then all the signs clicked into place. Kirishima's worn appearance, the bags under his eyes and his fucking terrible attitude. His skipping of activities to go straight to his room. His going to see Recovery Girl, maybe, but not rejoining his friends afterwards in favour of this. Katsuki felt a wave of relief. Kirishima wasn't sick.
Kirishima wasn't sleeping.
Katsuki made his way towards his desk, trying his best not to give in to his usual stomp. Well that answered what was happening, but not why. The relief fizzled out. There were any number of reasons that might explain why someone couldn't sleep. Fucking insomnia was a bitch, and Katsuki had courted it a couple of times himself. Maybe it was something else. Was Kirishima stressed? Was he keeping himself up on purpose for something? Maybe Kirishima really was sick and lack of sleep was a symptom? What was the point of all these questions if Katsuki wasn't going to go and fucking ask them?
Well, Kirishima didn't want him prodding so he wasn't going to prod. It was as simple as that, so he should stop thinking about it.
Katsuki glanced back at Kirishima as he sat down in his seat, and felt himself pouting, but he didn't really fucking care. No one was there to see him anyway. Something cold and heavy was sitting in his chest. It felt like the time that fucking slime bastard had nearly suffocated him before UA. It was-
Ugh, he hated to even admit it to himself but... Katsuki was fucking helpless. The most likely thing was that Kirishima was going through some sort of emotional shit. Katsuki couldn't explode emotions, no matter how hard he tried.
The rest of the day dragged along like a plough through sandpaper. There was a sparring session in the gym. Katsuki found most of his attention caught up dueling with Headphones - she was using the sound of his own explosions to power her attacks, which was annoyingly effective. The few glimpses he got of Kirishima trying to deal with Four-Eyes, though... Kirishima's movements were jerky, and the guy looked totally spaced. Four-Eyes was literally running rings around him.
It pissed Katsuki off. He won his match, of course, and grunted an acknowledgement when Headphones complimented his fighting style. She hadn't been half-bad herself, and they were both startled when he said so out loud. He scowled, and stomped away to one of the benches at the side of the room for some warm-down exercises. If Katsuki happened to be watching Kirishima struggle against Four-Eyes whilst he stretched then, well, fuck. He was concerned.
That night, when Kirishima should have been sitting at Katsuki's desk and pulling stupid faces over algebra and English plurals, Katsuki found himself lying in his bed and staring at the ceiling. It was stupid. He should be fucking doing his homework or whatever now that he was free of distraction. He wasn't. He turned his head and scowled at the wall, wondering if Kirishima would feel the weight of his displeasure if he concentrated hard enough.