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Jirou downed the cup of alcohol in one gulp, the spiky, yet somewhat liberating sensation spreading throughout her body. They contradicted each other and she wondered why she was drawn to such a confusing taste. Mina was already excitedly refilling her empty glass before she had even completely set it down.
Some way to spend my last day at U.A, she thought to herself.
“See?” Mina teased, wiggling her eyebrows at Jirou, “told ya you’d have fun.”
“No, Mina, this is me making an attempt at having fun,” she joked back, “my job here is to make sure all of you get back safely. You’re all bound to drink yourselves senseless.”
“Talk about being responsible,” Mina groaned, picking up Jirou’s glass for herself when she didn’t drink it immediately.
“Speaking of being responsible, isn’t Bakugo usually the one who keeps you guys in check?” she asked. Her heart subconsciously beat a little faster at the mention of Bakugo’s name, but as usual, she pushed it away as quickly as possible. She was practically an expert at doing that at this point. Though she had never really figured out how to make her heart stop racing for him at all. It had started doing that since one morning in their first year, when the blonde had shoved her out of harm’s way during a joint training session with Class B. It wasn’t as if she was in any serious danger, and the way Bakugo had pushed her away was anything but gentle, but the view of him leaping out to protect her hadn’t left her mind for days after that.
Unfortunately, it became quite clear later on that Bakugo had no interest in her other than them being classmates. It was also painfully obvious to both her and the rest of the class that he was most likely the last person on the planet to be romantically involved with someone, what with that brash, oblivious and arrogant attitude of his. Jirou had kept up this silent crush of hers for three years, and she was really counting on it to disappear once they went their separate ways after graduating from U.A. Shaking her head to herself, almost like she was avoiding the question of if she didn’t, she forced herself back to her conversation with Mina.
“I just came because Kirishima was hinting me pretty hard that you guys might need a chaperone. I figured maybe Bakugo couldn’t come or something, but I saw him come in with Sero earlier. Is everything okay with him?”
Mina didn’t answer immediately, and Jirou was surprised to see her looking so disheartened when she turned to her. Her smile had disappeared, replaced by a thin line suggesting worry and dismay. Jirou gulped, realising she had touched a sensitive topic, and quickly opened her mouth to say something else.
“Well… Kirishima broke up with him,” Mina answered, focusing her gaze on the bar’s tabletop, “he’s just been sort of out of it lately.”
Jirou couldn’t do anything but blink at her friend for a while. She could feel her heart tighten at that news, and she hated that it was because of that rude, explosive blonde classmate of hers.
“Bakugo… dated someone?”
“Yeah, crazy to hear the first time, huh?” Mina chuckled lightly, failing to pick up on how Jirou’s voice fell, “they started dating not long after the Kamino incident in our first year. Believe it or not, Bakugo was crazy about him.”
For some reason it hurt Jirou even more thinking about how he already had someone before she had acknowledged her own feelings for him, but she couldn’t help wanting to know more.
“Why, uh, why did they break up?”
“Don’t know the details,” Mina said before taking another sip of alcohol, “Kiri just said something about things not working out and told us to stop asking questions.”
Jirou couldn’t find anything to say other than “oh”, letting a comfortable silence envelope them as she processed what Mina had told her.
Bakugo was - quote - ‘crazy about him’. She had always known that he had tolerated Kirishima more than most of the people in their class, but whether she had done her best to block out the idea or she was just too oblivious to see it, she had never imagined their relationship had been anything other than platonic. If Mina was telling her the truth, the two of them had done a brilliant job hiding their little romance from everyone.
Both girls were pulled out of their thoughts by the sound of an explosion and breaking glass coming from the end of the bar.
Though they had a good idea who might have caused it, they whipped their heads towards the noise to look at Bakugo. As expected, that small explosion had been from his quirk, its hysterical behaviour resulting in a broken glass and a bleeding hand.
“Bakugo, you’ve gotta cool it,” Sero was telling him when Mina and Jirou had rushed over, “I think you’ve had enough to drink.”
Noticing Mina and Jirou, Sero let out a relieved sigh.
“Oh, thank heavens you guys are here. I-”
“You’re fucking annoying, Tape-Face,” Bakugo mumbled back, “nobody’s fucking here.”
Once they got near enough to them for their faces to be visible underneath the pulsating lights of the club, Jirou could see that despite Bakugo’s attitude being just as harsh and rude as ever, his cheeks were flushed a bright pink, a sign that he had had his fair share of alcohol for the night. Another tell was the fact that his movements were clearly more sluggish than usual and his eyes appeared to be exhaustingly bloodshot.
Yep, Jirou thought, he’s definitely had enough to drink.
“Bakugo, what’s gotten into you?!” Mina demanded as she stepped around the broken glass pieces to get closer to the boys.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU’RE ALL FUCKING NOISY!” Bakugo yelled, sending their side of the bar silent. Mina hadn’t really expected him to reply to her question, let alone lose his temper, so she couldn’t do anything but stare at him in shock for a moment.
An uncomfortable and tense silence wrapped itself around the four third years, three of them not daring enough to say anything else, and the blonde hanging his head low to stare at the bar table. It wasn’t until the people around them returned to their own conversations that Sero dared to move.
He shuffled over to Mina and Jirou before saying anything, like he was afraid Bakugo would start yelling again if they so much as spoke within a meter’s radius of him.
“If you haven’t been able to tell,” he sighed, “he’s had quite a bit to drink.”
“How much, exactly?” the pink-haired girl asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Sero tilted his gaze upwards, doing a mental calculation.
“Since we got here? Mhm… I’d say eight shots.”
“Of?”
“I don’t even know for sure. Man just asked the bartender for the strongest thing they had.”
Mina raised her eyebrows at their blonde friend in concern, who hadn’t lifted his head from staring at the tabletop.
“I only let him get that far because he usually handles his alcohol pretty well,” Sero continued, rubbing his head, “but then I made the mistake of mentioning Kirishima and then he sort of lost it.”
“I guess that’s when the alcohol actually started to sink in, huh?” Mina commented.
The boy nodded in agreement, copying Mina by crossing his arms over his chest, the both of them standing far enough from Bakugo to avoid getting hurt from another possible tantrum, but close enough to safely monitor him.
“Uh,” Jirou hesitated, not entirely sure how their friend group usually handled Bakugo’s mood, “should we- should we do something?”
“Probably,” Sero admitted, “but I don’t really feel like dying tonight.”
Jirou rested her eyes on Bakugo’s bleeding hand, limply hanging over his thigh. She wondered if Sero had forgotten he’d hurt himself breaking that shot glass. She didn’t feel like ‘dying’ either, but that cut was going to cause an infection if it wasn’t treated soon.
Despite the hissed protests from the other two, Jirou slowly approached the blonde, who was downing yet another drink with his free hand. Why the bartender had allowed him to order yet another drink was beyond her.
“Bakugo,” she called quietly, leaning forward to meet his vermillion eyes. She always thought they were such a pretty color.
Bakugo ignored her for a few seconds before tilting his eyes to meet hers. Despite his delayed response, Jirou was relieved that he was at least still clear enough in his head to hear her. She was even more thankful that he hadn’t started yelling again, though she suspected his excessive consumption of alcohol had much to do with it. Nevertheless, she gave him a small smile and gently pulled the alcohol out of his hand.
“Let’s go back to the dorms, okay?”
Jirou hesitated for a moment, then lightly tugged at his shirt to encourage him to stand up. She supposed his outburst at Mina had been the last of his energy and rationale, because he clumsily got off of the bar chair in his drunken state and allowed her to lead him out of the bar as she pushed aside the crowd.
“We’ll head back first!” she called back to Sero and Mina, pausing before adding, “don’t get too drunk because I won’t be here to haul you guys home!”
She didn’t hang around long enough to see if they had heard her, but even if they had, she was sure the noise of the club would have drowned out their replies either way.
Once they were outside, Jirou called a taxi and ushered Bakugo in, who silently complied like a lost puppy. If she wasn’t so concerned about how deep the cut in his hand looked and how much pain he must’ve been in after his - possibly - first breakup, she would have found his entire demeanour wildly amusing, and even somewhat adorable.
He was quiet on the ride back to the dorms. Whenever Jirou thought about the type of person Bakugo would be when he was drunk, she’d always imagined him to be as loud and harsh as ever, and maybe just a little more irritable than he usually was. But looking at him now, it sort of scared her how silent and motionless he was. She smiled sadly as she stared out the window at the darkness of the city, now late enough into the night that the only thing illuminating the streets was the occasional glare of a lamppost as the taxi passed it and the flickering headlights of the few other cars that were still on the road. She was learning all of these new things about Bakugo much later than she would have liked, and all on the last night she would spend at U.A, too.
“Why the fuck did you leave, Shitty Hair?”
It was so soft that Jirou doubted the taxi driver had even heard it. She probably would have missed it herself if it weren’t for her quirk.
“What?” she turned to look at him, hoping she had misheard him. If he hadn’t said anything she’d have thought he was asleep.
“Why the fuck did you leave?” he repeated, slightly louder this time, causing the taxi driver to give him a strange look through the rearview mirror.
Jirou let out a soft sigh, reminding herself that she was hardly in a position to be upset with his infatuation with someone else. She turned back to the window before giving him a response.
“Kirishima isn’t here, Bakugo.”
“Yeah,” he whispered, “of course he isn’t. He left.”
Despite sitting on the other end of the car, drunk and injured, Bakugo would never have any idea that he’d just ripped Jirou’s heart out of her chest. Maybe those last two words of his had been nothing more than an obvious statement coming from the deepest parts of Bakugo’s heart; parts that he would never otherwise reveal to anybody had he not been drunk out of his mind. But to Jirou, it was as if he was telling her that the fact that she was there was nowhere near enough to make up for the gap that Kirishima had left in him. Perhaps she’d known, but it still hurt to have him imply it.
The taxi driver cleared his throat. He had no idea what the two teenagers sitting in the backseat of his car were talking about, but he could feel the tension that formed between them after what the blonde had said.
“We’re here.”
Jirou mumbled a quick thanks as she paid the driver, opening her side of the door and walking around the back to help Bakugo out of the other side. Even though it was clumsy, he managed to stumble out. Jirou cringed when she spotted a dark spot on the taxi’s cushion, most likely caused by the dripping blood from Bakugo’s hand. The driver didn’t seem to notice yet because of how dark it was outside, but Jirou told him to keep the change and quickly ushered her classmate through the front gates.
“What are you doing, Shitty Hair?” Bakugo asked. The alcohol seemed to be taking over most of him then. He looked like he could’ve passed out at any moment and the cut in his hand seemed to be the last thing that bothered him. Even so, since Jirou had managed to get him to walk back to the dorm buildings and into his room on the fourth floor, the bleeding had not ceased in the slightest.
She hated having the boy she was so madly in love with call her by the well-known nickname of the person he loved, but she replied anyway.
“Looking for your first aid kit.” she mumbled as she rummaged through his drawers, spotting a white box messily stuffed with bandages and ointments shortly after she had finished speaking.
“Give me your hand, Bakugo,” she instructed as she sat beside him on his bed, “I need to stop the bleeding.”
Even though she wasn’t particularly fond of the reason that had caused it in the first place, Jirou was slightly grateful that Bakugo was drunk, because it made him a whole lot more cooperative than he would have been if he was sober. He extended his hand to her, letting her dab at it with a dry cloth to stop any more blood from oozing out. He didn’t make much noise until she started rinsing it in the basin of water she brought up with her, wincing as it made contact with his cut, but otherwise letting her do what she wanted.
Jirou paused momentarily to look at him, a fond smile playing at her lips.
“Funny how you’re still acting all tough even when you’re drunk senseless.”
She was mostly talking to herself, considering how she wasn’t even completely sure if Bakugo could comprehend what she was saying. It wasn’t until she started rubbing ointment into his palm that he replied.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he whispered, hissing as her fingers touched the center of his hand, clearly showing he was lying.
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Jirou smiled playfully at him, picking up the strip of bandages in the box. They were crumpled up messily, like someone had unrolled them and stuffed them back like a ball of trash. Still, they would have to work.
“Did I not do enough?”
He didn’t mention any names, but Jirou knew that he still thought he was talking to Kirishima. It was all he’d been mentioning all night. Was the redhead really the only thing that ran through Bakugo’s head? Not wanting to play along with his delusions, Jirou pretended like she hadn’t heard his question and began carefully wrapping the bandages around the cut in his palm.
“Oi,” he muttered, his tone strained, like he was trying to hold in a ridiculous amount of emotion, “why aren’t you answering me, Shitty Hair?”
Refusing to give in despite how pained he sounded, Jirou neatly tucked in the end of the bandage underneath one of its layers and placed Bakugo’s hand down.
It almost stung having to let it go.
“You’re good now.”
Figuring her work was done, Jirou began placing things back into the first aid box, getting up to put it back where she had found it. And then without warning, Bakugo grabbed her arm with his uninjured hand, causing the box of bandages and anaesthetics to fall, clattering to the ground. Before she could worry if anyone in the dorms had woken up from the noise, let alone process what was happening, Bakugo had slid his hand up to grasp a tight hold on her wrist, forcefully slamming her against the nearest wall.
“WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING ME, EIJIROU?!” he yelled, Jirou whimpering underneath him from how tightly he was holding her.
He was so different from the Bakugo she had led home and gently treated. He was like the Bakugo that had yelled at Mina at the club less than an hour ago. The only difference was that Jirou couldn't back away like Mina had. She was stuck.
“Bakugo, st-”
“STOP CALLING ME BY MY LAST NAME ALREADY!” he fumed, tightening his hold, completely oblivious to how much pain Jirou was in, “IT’S ALL YOU’VE SAID TONIGHT! WHAT HAPPENED TO ‘KATSUKI’?! YOU USED TO SAY IT LIKE YOU’D NEVER GET SICK OF IT!”
“Stop it,” Jirou managed to croak out, “you’re hurting me.”
“I’M HURTING YOU?!” Bakugo scoffed, disregarding how the girl was desperately trying to pry his fingers off of her wrist without hurting him, “WHAT DO YOU THINK I FELT WHEN YOU LEFT, HUH, SHITTY HAIR?!”
Jirou started to tear up, both out of fear and out of how painful Bakugo’s grip felt. She had no idea what to do. It wasn’t as if she could force the boy off of her. She was terrified of what he might’ve done next in his drunken state if she had.
But then almost like she had pulled a trigger by crying, the blonde let go, immediately backing away from her.
Jirou winced, pulling her wrist down to her level to see how swollen it had become. She would have to treat it on her own later in her room. She chose to dwell on it later, her eyes shooting up to cautiously watch Bakugo, her earphone jacks raised and ready to defend her if he tried anything again.
“Fuck,” he mumbled to himself, letting his hands fall to his side, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Eijirou.”
She wasn’t sure what felt worse; the throbbing of the veins in her wrist or the fact that he still had no clue who she was. She was tired of hearing Kirishima’s name out of Bakugo’s mouth. Not because she hated him or because she didn’t like the idea of Bakugo being heartbroken over him, but because of how painful it was having her three-year-long crush stand before her and apologising not out of having hurt Jirou, but ‘Eijirou’ instead.
As she stood there arguing over whether she should respond or not, Bakugo made an attempt to approach her; or, in his view, to approach Kirishima. He extended a hand.
“Look, I-”
“Your ‘Eijirou’ isn’t here, Bakugo!” Jirou yelled coldly, her voice cracking as she slapped his hand away. It hurt having to yell when she was so close to crying.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bakugo asked. His tone wasn’t angry. It was confused, in denial, “you’re standing right here, Eijirou.”
“He’s. Not. Here,” Jirou repeated, glaring up at him through her lashes, “it’s me, Jirou.”
The blonde looked at her like he had no idea what she was saying, but he backed away anyway, a confused expression on his face.
“Yeah,” Jirou mumbled, “sorry to disappoint you, Bakugo.”
She finally raised her head to look him in the eye again. Vermillion. It really was such a pretty color. It didn’t have a particular softness to it like blue eyes did. Blue eyes easily made someone look kind and gentle. His eyes were sharp. Unapproachable. Intimidating. But she liked that their color didn’t have to hide behind an ocean of blue like they were desperately trying to mask the less attractive parts of Bakugo. She liked that for a pair of eyes, they held so much pride in their owner even though he was rude, violent and arrogant. She liked the softness around the edges of his pupils as he looked at her now and she hated how he probably thought he was staring at Eijirou.
Then she took a deep breath and tried to tell herself, hard as it was, that Bakugo was drunk in the end, and she shouldn’t have let her personal feelings get in the way of making sure he was safe. She cautiously approached him, slightly afraid that he might start yelling at her again, and hesitantly tugged at his sleeve to follow her.
She pushed aside the covers on his bed to make room for him before letting him sit, easily getting him to lay down in his tired and drunk state. She wrapped the covers around him like she did the bandages on his palm and stood back to observe him for a few minutes.
There was a good chance this was going to be the last time she saw him, unless they crossed paths in the hero field someday in the far future by chance. She wasn’t exactly counting on it.
Hesitantly, she lifted her hand, the one Bakugo had held far too tightly, and gently stroked his head. For someone with such a brash and violent attitude, his hair was surprisingly soft. She let her hand linger in that luxury for a few moments more before she turned to head out the door.
“Thanks for this,” she caught him whisper, “Shitty Hair.”
She didn’t respond, and closed the door.
Jirou slid down to the floor, biting her lip as hard as she could. Maybe she wanted to distract herself from the pain in her wrist, or maybe she wanted to feel something other than her emotions. Maybe even both. She hated that his words alone were enough to make her feel like crying. She hated seeing Bakugo so broken. It was so unlike him and it was worse than seeing him insult everyone within a five foot radius within him and yelling at people who didn’t deserve to be yelled at. But it hurt her even more that Bakugo probably wouldn’t remember the interaction that occurred between them tonight, and they would disappear from each others’ lives the next day, just like that. Even if he did remember any of it, there was a good chance that his memories wouldn’t be snippets of Jirou Kyouka taking him back to the dorms, or Jirou Kyouka cleaning his wound, or Jirou Kyouka that he had hurt. He’d probably wake up remembering Kirishima Eijirou finding him at the bar, Kirishima Eijirou bandaging his hand, and Kirishima Eijirou the one tucking him into bed.
Whenever Bakugo had invaded her head, she’d always have something to occupy herself with and push it to the furthest part of her mind until it consumed her the next time. But now, as she sat in the silent hallway of the dorm building, full of shock and shivering from what had just happened between them, there wasn’t anything much that could keep her from falling victim to her own thoughts. She’d always give herself imaginary comfort in the idea that Bakugo couldn’t possibly be romantically attracted to anybody, disallowing any room for heartbreak over him falling in love with someone that wasn’t her. But nothing could’ve been a greater wake up call than everything the blonde had yelled at her that night.
Bakugo was, contrary to her imagination, capable of loving and being loved, and whether she liked it or not, she would never be a part of the former. She could only hope that she wouldn’t be stuck in the latter for too long.