#bakusquad

Hitoshi never knows what to expect of Bakugou, is never sure if he's going to attack him or not but even Hitoshi can admit that a brawl in the kitchen at shortly after seven in the morning seems unlikely, so he forces his shoulders to relax and unclenches his jaw.

"You look like shit, zombie," Bakugou finally says as he moves on and Hitoshi doesn't even know what to say to that because he knows he does.

He always looks like shit, it comes with his pale complexion and the purple hair and the deep as fuck eyebags he can never get rid of no matter what.

"He was down here before me," Ashido helpfully says as she seats herself across from Hitoshi, a mug of tea in her hands.

"Yeah, because he slept like three hours like the idiot he is," Bakugou gives back and Hitoshi's head snaps up.

"How do you—" he trails off before he can fully form the question, because he's still not sure what the class' stance on his quirk is and all of them are powerful enough to pound him into the ground, should they not like him asking questions.

And at least Midoriya has already proven that he can break out of his quirk without any problems, and in all honesty, Hitoshi wouldn't put it past Bakugou, either.

"You're not as slick as you think you are," is all Bakugou replies to that and then busies himself at the stove.

Hitoshi has already noticed that he makes breakfast for his friends more often than not, even though he repeatedly declares to do no such thing and to not care for these 'shitty extras' as he likes to call them but Hitoshi knows better than to call him out on that.

Despite his gloomy attitude and generally depressed demeanour, Hitoshi does not have a death wish.

So he busies himself with his coffee, tunes the bustle around him out, perfectly content to drift off until it's time to leave for class, but just as he's about to hit that good spot, a plate is angrily place in front of him.

Hitoshi slowly raises his head, and is met with an intense red gaze.

"Eat up, troll doll," Bakugou says, orders more like, and then turns away and busies himself with his friends.

His actual friends, who he cooks regularly for. Not like Hitoshi who is nothing, in the grand scheme of things, and who shouldn't get breakfast as if he belongs.

"The hell is this?" Hitoshi mutters, careful to keep his voice low enough that everyone can pretend they haven't heard him but Bakugou's gaze slides back to him.

"Food. You should know it. That's something you need when you train up your muscles," Bakugou replies without hesitation, almost pleasantly, and Hitoshi is more confused than he has ever been in his life.

"Why?"

"'cause you look like shit and you clearly didn't intend to eat and those damn eyebags are never going to go away if you don't start taking care of yourself," Bakugou snaps out, still no clear trepidation in his response and Hitoshi can do nothing but blink at him.

"Awww, Bakubro, going around adopting the new kid all on your own," Kirishima croons out as he enters the kitchen and he doesn't seem fazed by Bakugou's warning explosions at all.

"Shut your fucking trap and eat," Bakugou snaps out and Kirishima happily does, plopping into a seat and munching away.

Hitoshi looks down at his own food, and he can't deny that it looks absolutely fucking delicious, but he isn't entirely convinced that Bakugou didn't poison it, to get rid of him faster.

Bakugou's gaze is very obviously burning a hole into the side of his head, though, and Hitoshi is nothing if not a competitive bastard who rises to every challenge that's ever laid in front of him and so he digs in.

He almost hates to admit it, but it's fucking delicious.

"It's good, right?" Kaminari happily says from the side and Hitoshi manages a nod, though he feels absolutely shell-shocked.

Because it is good. It's fucking delicious even, and it might be the best thing Hitoshi has ever tasted, and to think that Bakugou would share this with him, for no reason at all almost makes him suspicious and it makes him dig in harder, in case Bakugou changes his mind and takes it all away from him again.

Nothing of the sorts happens, though and Hitoshi is able to clear up his plate with no problem at all. Kirishima and Sero take his plate when they are done, too, clearly including him in the clean-up and it leaves Hitoshi floundering.

It's—nice. It's really nice and it feels normal and it's done without pressure and for a moment, his eyes burn because he has no idea how to deal with any of this.

He isn't used to this; Hitoshi is used to harsh words and harsher hands, threats and actual beatings, going to bed hungry and being mocked for daring to have human needs, sneered at for asking questions and here—things are normal.

Everyone acts as if he belongs there, as if there's no question about him being there, as if he's not a threat, as if they don't hate him and Hitoshi doesn't know what to do with that at all.

But he's pretty good at rolling with the punches, so he acts as if all of this is completely normal and not totally blowing his mind and when it seems as if everyone is waiting for him to catch up at the door, he joins them.

Well. He walks to class. The fact that he's actively going there together with the Bakusquad is just a strange coincident and there is always plausible deniability for him in case they do turn on him, but instead they include him in their talk.

They even ask questions.

Hitoshi stutters through them, not quite used to being allowed to talk so freely and it's all good, it's all going great, he feels as if he's having a normal human interaction for once, until they come across a small group of business course students.

They are looking at them, a certain look on their faces, and Hitoshi immediately shrinks in on himself and slows his steps.

He knows what's going to happen and he doesn't need his classmates to see it and in his experience, running has never made anything better.

The business students have clearly already locked in on him, barely sparing anyone else so much as a glance but they still wait until he's mere feet away from them before they start their little spiel.

"Look who it is," one of them sneers. "Talked your way into the hero group, huh?" he wants to know and it's obvious what he's implying, because it's always what people imply.

That Hitoshi had to brainwash someone to endure his presence and for a moment, he even fears it's true, before he remembers that he didn't use his quirk. That he doesn't, that he wouldn't, but he's heard it so often, from so many different people that nowadays there's always that split second of doubt.

"I didn't," Hitoshi gives back, his voice barely above a whisper and he doesn't even need to hear them laugh to know that they don't believe him.

"You're pathetic," another boy hisses at him. "You think anyone wants to spend any time with you? Of their own free will?"

"Come on, you're nothing but a disgusting villain, posing as a hero, you expect anyone to believe your facade?" the third one chimes in and Hitoshi's breath goes shallow and quick.

He's not. He's not. Aizawa is training him because he believes in him, because he believed Hitoshi when he said he didn't want to be a villain, and he's not anything like the guys are saying.

Hitoshi just needs to remember that.

"Fucking danger for the entire school," guy one says and gives Hitoshi a mean look. "The support course really needs to come up with a muzzle, it's dangerous to let feral dogs go around without one."

Hitoshi jerks a step back, instinctively moving his jaw to check if the muzzle is there, if it's restricting his movements and nothing feels quite real anymore.

His vision keeps narrowing and his fingertips tingle and his stomach feels as if it's trying to make its way out of his body and for a moment Hitoshi is lucid enough to lament the fact that he ate a full breakfast today because it's going to feel so awful when it's coming back up and in the next moment there's an explosion.

"What the fuck!" Bakugou yells, making Hitoshi jerk and move back in fear, because surely Bakugou must have remembered who he is, what he is and is going to attack him now, but when he manages to drag his gaze up, Bakugou is positioned in front of him, his back to Hitoshi and his arms outstretched.

"Die, you fuckers, die, go die in a goddamn fucking ditch," Bakugou yells and screams and curses and all the while he keeps giving off small, high-frequency explosions.

And then he starts to move backwards, and Hitoshi is still at his back, so if he doesn't want to be run over, he has no other choice than to move back as well and Bakugou continues to make so much damn noise Hitoshi's ears ring with it.

Until eventually everything goes silent.

"Those stupid, idiotic fuckheads," Bakugou grumbles and shakes his hands out. "I'm going to kill them."

"You—" Hitoshi starts but he doesn't know how to finish that sentence because he doesn't understand what's happening anymore.

They are still only barely in sight of the Bakusquad and the business course students but Hitoshi can't hear them at all anymore and so he can do nothing but watch.

Watch, how the Bakusquad gathers around the students, clearly talking at them, down at them, very animatedly and for the blink of an eye, Hitoshi sways on his feet.

"Hey, troll doll, you alright?" Bakugou barks out and Hitoshi makes some kind of move with his head, because he has no fucking idea what he is anymore.

"What's going on here?" Aizawa suddenly snaps out and Hitoshi remembers himself with a sickening lurch.

Right. He's in trouble, that's what he is, because he caused a commotion and Bakugou used his quirk and they'll blame Hitoshi for that and—

"Sensei!" Ashido calls out as she jogs over, the rest of the squad hot on her heels. "They were bullying Shinsou!"

"Bullying?" Aizawa repeats and Hitoshi watches how his gaze goes sharp as it first goes to him, before it then slides over to the students in question, who are being kept where they stand by an imposing Kirishima.

Hitoshi thinks he's never seen him look that mad.

"Sorry," Hitoshi mutters and ducks his head, because it's his fault, he knows how this goes and it's always best to appear as apologetic as he can.

Sometimes it lessens the punishment.

"And don't punish Katsuki for his quirk use, he was just trying to be louder than those assholes," Sero adds. "They said some real mean shit."

"Yeah, they were talking about how we should—"

"Oi!" Bakugou barks out and Kaminari’s mouth falls shut with an audible klick before he scratches at the back of his head. "Sorry."

Hitoshi feels as if he can't breathe; Bakugou was doing that on purpose so that Hitoshi wouldn't have to hear? To—protect him?

"Eyebags looked as if he was about to freak out so I removed him from the situation," Bakugou tells Aizawa who is back to looking at Hitoshi.

It makes Hitoshi want to disappear into the ground because surely he's mad, he's disappointed, it's obvious that Hitoshi is not fit to be a hero, but all he does is nod.

"Go make him sit down and give him something to eat. I will deal with these three. You're excused for the first two periods." He pauses slightly. "All of you. Well done."

There's a beat of silence before Ashido and Kaminari start to cheer and even Sero pumps his fist and while Bakugou grumbles, there's a small smile playing around his mouth, too.

"I—don't understand," Hitoshi says into the midst of all that chaos. "What's my punishment?"

Immediately the mood sobers up and Hitoshi cringes but he needs to know.

"Your punishment is that you have to let them fuss over you for the first two periods of the day," Aizawa says after a moment and then promptly stalks off towards Kirishima and the business course students.

"How is that a punishment?" Kaminari asks and Sero slaps him over the head.

"It's not. It's Aizawa's way of being a softy," Ashido declares and links her arm with Hitoshi's. "Off we go, we're going to get some snacks, Bakubabe is going to make his famous hot chocolate and then we're going to watch funny cat videos until we have to go back!"

Her proposal is met with enthusiastic cheers and even Kirishima, who jogs up to them, nods excitedly.

"Oi, troll doll," Bakugou calls out, clearly realising that Hitoshi has no fucking clue what is happening anymore and Hitoshi looks over to him. "You good with that?"

"I'm confused," Hitoshi admits and Bakugou rolls his eyes.

"Not what I fucking asked. You good to spend time with so many people or do you need space?" he clarifies and just the thought of having space, of being alone in his room right now is enough to turn Hitoshi's stomach again.

"No space," he gets out, his hand rising up to his face, trailing over his cheek to check that he's okay.

That there's no muzzle.

"I'll share my chips with you, too," Bakugou mutters as he stalks back towards the dorm. "Gonna drive it home that you can move that jaw."

There's a beat of silence before Kaminari makes a noise and then says "Oh, because of the—"

"Shhhh!" all of the Bakusquad immediately say and it's so ridiculous, it's so confusing and new and strange and good, that Hitoshi chuckles.

If this truly is supposed to be a punishment, he can definitely get behind that.

Series on AO3