On Saturday at the training camp, his old reflex kicks in: he gets in front, too far. I cut him off with three words that don't allow for drama: "Don't cover me. I'm working." It's not a challenge, it's a function. Aizawa, a little further away, nods without comment: good. And the books straighten themselves back up on the shelf.
So, buddy. He keeps yelling at me, as if the noise were a gas can he'd carry around with him at all times. I can't breathe for him anymore. When he raises his voice, I don't step in: I walk out. When he tries to slip a joke in, I don't try to understand it: I let it fall where it belongs: on the floor.
It's not indifference: it's a boundary. It's not revenge: it's a mirror. And from this week on, I understand that my change is a new habit, small and stubborn, repeated. He provides volume, I provide useful silence. He pushes, I step aside and continue. He demands the show, I keep the pace.
Maybe he'll actually talk. Maybe not. It's no longer my rope to pull. This is the week I stop asking the fire to warm me without burning me. I watch it from afar, adjust the distance, hold on to my skin, and move on.
***
My friend, an eternity of days has passed, all the same. Another month will have passed like this: me indifferent, speechless. He, relentless. You and I, on the other hand, spoke softly and a lot, placing words one after the other like pebbles on a nightstand; him, nothing: noise elsewhere, footsteps that don't arrive, silences with a knife in his pocket.
Tonight the room is warm and welcoming, with soft lighting warming the walls. The radiator crackles softly, the books are neatly lined up on the shelves, and the pen with its chewed cap casts a shadow over the notebook of thoughts. The rule sheet is sitting on the side of the closet, perfectly organized and with its corners perfectly aligned. I'm about to tell you something tiny and true, a detail that doesn't help anyone but saves me.
Today for this...
KNOCK KNOCK.
The pen remains in my hand, the cap chewed between my teeth. I put it down gently: it makes a click that seems enormous. I feel the knocking rising from the wood to my wrist, a subtle vibration that gives me goosebumps. I inhale four. I exhale six. It's not enough; I do it again.
"Who is it?"
Nothing.
I slowly approach the door: no rustling behind it, no retreating footsteps. It's someone waiting. I return to the ground: the chill from the crack between the carpet and the parquet rises to my knees, bringing things back into focus. My shoulders, previously high, gradually relax, and my breathing slows. My fingers search for the handle and find it: cold, smooth. They remain there, suspended, a second too long.
The sound of the neon lights grows brighter, my heart fainter. The room holds its breath with me. Then, only then, I squeeze. I open the door.
Bakugo Katsuki.
In the half-dark corridor, the emergency sign glows a strange green, seemingly sickly; he cuts it in two. Tall, broad-shouldered, hands at his sides as if they need to hold themselves together. His sweatshirt is pulled up around his neck, his hair disheveled, not from pose but from struggle.
I don't say "come in." I don't move. I stay still, staring straight into his eyes. He doesn't lower them: he moves them to the side for a moment, then they come back to me like a hook. He takes a breath, short, as if before a controlled explosion.
"Tch. Are you done disappearing, idiot?"
My throat tightens. I don't answer.
The hallway holds its breath. I don't say anything. Bakugo runs a hand through his hair, irritated as if the words are scratching his throat.
"Don't make me repeat myself. I didn't come to waste my time."
He steps inside, closing the door with his heel. A slam that rings louder than it should. He doesn't move closer, though. It's like he's waiting for something, waiting for me to make the first move. "That night..." he makes a half-gesture, as if to chase away a thought. "If it had been empty stuff, I would have burned it and gone. I throw away useless things."
He looks straight at me, his gaze hard. The radiator coughs out a bubble of air. I don't move. He clenches his jaw, his ears lightly tint.
"You're not worthless."
My breath shakes. He looks away, snorts.
"In training, I get all mixed up for half a second and your face comes to mind. It disgusts me. It pisses me off. And I don't get pissed off over bullshit." He touches his chest once, as if to silence something. "So no, it wasn't…" He bites the inside of his cheek, searches for the word and discards it. "It wasn't just a quickie. Understand?"
Silence. The neon light hums. He takes a half step forward and his voice drops.
He clenches his fists: "Don't label us. I don't give a shit. But it wasn't a distraction."
He stares at me a second too long: "Don't tell yourself that."
I take a breath, but he beats me to it.
"I'm not asking you to get all sappy, okay? It's not my style, and it's not yours either. I'm telling you that…" he pauses, annoyed with himself, his fingers clicking like fuses. "That I don't pretend nothing happens when something matters. And this thing", he gestures slightly between us, "I mean, you understand each other, right?"
He squares his shoulders, Bakugo returns to his former self: determined, edgy.
"Tomorrow. Dorm roof. At seven." His tone is an order, but the shadow in his eyes is honest. "If you come, we'll really talk. If you don't... I'll take it as a no and make do. But don't tell yourself that it was just a..." He shrugs, his words slipping again. "You understand."
He opens the door, the cold air ruffling his hair. He turns only in profile.
"Don't make me tell you a third time."
And he leaves, leaving behind that warm, metallic smell of nitroglycerin and a choice that pulses like a lit fuse.
Dude, do you hear that? My heart has decided to race apart, without me. I try to call it back, to count: four in, four out. I get the count wrong. I laugh softly, but a sound comes out that sounds like a hiccup.
I sit on the edge of the bed and don't even notice. My knees are shaking, my hands are locked together like two frightened animals. I look at the bedside table: the pen with the chewed cap, the glass tipped upside down. I turn it, fill it. The water tastes of metal, or is it I smell it everywhere? I drink. It goes down in fits and starts, even my throat is shaking.
The piece of paper with the rules I'd decided with Midoriya vibrates in the air. I stand up, and I'm standing in front of them. The perfect edges, the block letters, the things I promised myself when this story was still just order: "Don't complicate yourself, don't chase, don't repeat mistakes." I take the pen. I draw a sharp line. I don't tear it all up, I'm not ready. But there's a rule, that one: I divide it in half. I feel the mark etching the cardboard. "OK," I say to no one, or to you. "OK."
I go back to bed. I rest my forehead on my knuckles; there's even a smell of dust and soap, and yes, a sweet burnt smell, like the spark he carries within him. A flash hits me: his "roof," said without trembling, the pause after "seven o'clock," that half-second in which he put the knife and his hand on the table, and left it there. It's not his style to offer a hand. I know. Can you smell how much it costs him?
A nerve goes off under my eye. A part of me wants to call out to someone, fill the air, say simple words: "Did you hear that? What do I do?" Instead, I turn off the screen without having turned it on. I don't want anyone to come in here; it's a small room and now something big fits in there.
I open the closet, not to choose anything, it's tomorrow, but to make room for a gesture. I take the sweatshirt I wear when I don't want to be seen, the one with the oversized hood, take it out, and then put it back. Just to feel like I can do it, that I can wear it whenever I want. I close the closet.
I look at myself in the small mirror, the one hanging on the door. My eyes are watery, I'm excited but I'm not crying. (It's more like I'm sweating from the inside.) I run my fingers under myself, breathe.
"Don't tell yourself that," he said. The sentence bounces off my chest. I could still invent an elegant excuse, a narrative that keeps everything in order just to avoid going: "It's not worth it, I have to study, etc...." I could. And in that moment I understand that if I don't go, it won't be out of caution: it will be out of fear. And I've always had a precise pact with fear: I look it in the face, then I decide.
I turn off the light and stand for a moment in the warm darkness. You'll feel the change too: I make the bed as if it were about to pass an inspection; I put away my notebook; I adjust my pen to fit the edges (yes, this is me when I try not to tremble).
Then, ok, I open the alarm app and set one for six forty. Not to rush: to get there with the right amount of breath. To avoid giving him the advantage of seeing me arrive out of breath. Save. I put the phone face down.
I lie down. The ceiling has a crack that looks like an arrow. It follows a path that leads up. "On the roof," I say into the pillow, as if it were a neutral word. It isn't. It slips into my mouth with a taste of cold air and decisions.
Friend, I'm going tomorrow. Not because he ordered it, not because I have to. I'm going because I don't want to throw away something that burns and, for once, doesn't just hurt. Tonight, however, let's be quiet. Let's quench our long breath, let's put the knife on the nightstand with the tip facing the wall. Let's leave the fuse where it is, lit but guarded.
I close my eyes. The buzz of the neon fades away. The rule sheet remains there, and now, it casts a different shadow. And I, between terror and a tiny smile that escapes me without permission, wait for tomorrow.