Chapter 33

₊˚⊹✷ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄
⤷ one day won’t kill me.

A WEEK WAS A LITTLE ridiculous. Even for Bakugo. Oda had tried not to think about it at first, had tried to tell himself it wasn’t his problem, that Bakugo was loud and aggressive by default and would eventually burn himself out and snap back to normal the way he always seemed to. But nights kept passing, explosions kept rattling the dorm walls, and days kept stacking on top of one another with Bakugo looking worse and worse. 

It wasn’t just irritation anymore. It was exhaustion carved into his posture, into the way his shoulders slumped when he thought no one was looking, into the way his eyes looked duller and sharper all at once, like an animal pushed too far without rest.

A week of that was absurd.

Was Bakugo really just not going to ask anyone for help?

Even Oda—who hated doctors, hated authority—had swallowed his pride and gone to Recovery Girl to explain that he had medication he needed to sleep without accidentally turning buildings into rubble. 

He hadn’t enjoyed that conversation, hadn’t enjoyed admitting that his own body was something he couldn’t fully control, but he’d done it anyway because the alternative was worse. 

Bakugo, meanwhile, was clearly choosing to suffer through it alone.

The longer it went on, the harder it became for Oda to ignore the gnawing guilt that crept in behind his irritation. 

He didn’t like Bakugo. 

The guy was abrasive, hostile, exhausting to be around, and seemed determined to pick fights with anyone who breathed wrong in his vicinity. But that didn’t change the fact that Oda recognized the signs. Didn’t change the fact that he knew what it looked like when someone was unraveling quietly.

He noticed it properly on Friday.

Bakugo didn’t follow Kirishima to lunch.

That alone was enough to set off alarm bells. Kirishima was persistent in a way Bakugo rarely fully resisted, and even when Bakugo complained or snapped, he usually ended up giving in if Kirishima asked nicely enough or shoved food in his face. The two of them had a rhythm like that. Seeing Kirishima leave the room alone, scratching the back of his head and looking vaguely concerned, felt wrong.

Oda didn’t go to lunch either.

Instead, he wandered back toward the classroom early, the halls quieter than usual with most students crowding the cafeteria. When he slid the door open, he immediately saw Bakugo.

He was alone.

Bakugo sat slumped at his desk, arms crossed and folded beneath his head, his forehead resting against them. His posture wasn’t tense the way it usually was, wasn’t coiled and ready to explode. It was heavy. Collapsed. Like his body had finally decided it couldn’t keep going on sheer spite alone.

Yeah. Oda understood that.

Not having the strength to go get lunch. Choosing sleep over food because the exhaustion outweighed hunger. Oda had done the same thing as a kid, curling up wherever he could just to shut his eyes for a few minutes, ignoring the ache in his stomach because it felt easier than moving. He’d probably be doing it again soon if his medication didn’t arrive in time.

Oda quietly closed the classroom door behind him, the click soft and deliberate, and crossed the room without making a sound. He stopped beside Bakugo’s desk, looking down at him for a brief moment, taking in the way the blond’s breathing was shallow and uneven even in sleep.

In one hand, Oda held a paper plate with rice balls he’d grabbed on his way back. With the other, he raised his arm and knocked the back of his hand against Bakugo’s shoulder.

Bakugo jolted awake instantly.

His body reacted before his brain caught up, an arm swinging up in raw reflex, aimed straight at Oda. Oda didn’t flinch. He caught Bakugo’s wrist mid-swing, fingers locking around it with practiced ease as Bakugo snapped fully awake, red eyes blazing.

“Are you fucking serious?” Bakugo snarled, already bristling, adrenaline spiking. “I was sleeping.”

“In a classroom, during lunch,” Oda shot back without hesitation, unimpressed. He released Bakugo’s arm, set the paper plate down on the desk, and shoved it forward so it slid to a stop inches from Bakugo’s hands. “You still have to eat, dumbass.”

“I don’t want it,” Bakugo snapped, shoving the plate away so it scraped across the desk.

“I know you don’t,” Oda snapped right back, pushing it toward him again just as firmly. “First goes sleep. Then it’s your appetite, and if that doesn’t kill you, dehydration will.”

Bakugo’s glare sharpened, red eyes burning into Oda’s fake black ones. “What the fuck do you know?”

“I know because I’ve been through it,” Oda said flatly, pushing the plate back into place yet again. “So eat something, before you die.”

“One day won’t kill me.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Fuck off.”

Oda felt something sharp snap inside his chest, irritation boiling over so fast it surprised even him. Before he could stop himself, he slammed a hand down on the desk hard enough to rattle it, “Would you for two seconds believe that I’m actually trying to help you?”

Bakugo’s head snapped up fully now, eyes blazing, posture coiling tight again. “Why?” he shot back. “You’ve been nothing but hateful.”

“You started it.”

“How?” Bakugo barked, incredulous, anger flaring brighter. “By saving your lying ass from the League? Yeah, sounds real hateful.”

The words hit harder than Oda expected. He froze for a beat, staring at Bakugo, the anger in his own chest twisting into something heavier. Then he exhaled, slow and deliberate, and met Bakugo’s glare head-on.

“Yes. I know you saved my ‘lying ass’ from the League,” Oda said, voice tight but controlled. “Which is why I’m trying to help you with something that I’ve been through before. I owe you my life. Now eat the rice balls I brought you.”

Silence stretched between them.

Bakugo’s eyes dropped, reluctantly, to the plate. He stared at the food for a long minute, jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped along his cheek. Everything about him screamed resistance, pride, defiance. But eventually—slowly, like it physically hurt him to do it—he grabbed one of the rice balls and took a bite.

He ate stiffly, aggressively, like the act itself offended him. He didn’t thank Oda. He didn’t look at him. He just ate.

Oda didn’t say anything, didn’t push, didn’t comment. He waited.

When the plate was empty, Bakugo shoved it toward Oda with a sharp motion. “I hate you,” he snapped.

Oda didn’t even flinch as the plate slipped from his hand and clattered onto the floor. Instead, he dragged Hagakure’s chair over and sat down backward on it, arms resting over the backrest as he faced Bakugo directly.

That earned him another glare.

Oda ignored it.

He studied Bakugo quietly. Dark circles bruised the skin under Bakugo’s eyes. His complexion looked washed-out, sallow in the fluorescent classroom light. Even sitting still, he looked tense, like his body had forgotten how to rest. Oda frowned.

“If you hate me so much,” he said finally, voice quieter now, “then why the hell did you save me?”

Bakugo scoffed, bristling immediately. “Because I’m a decent fucking human being,” he snapped. “That’s self-explanatory, you twerp.”

Oda absorbed that, eyes dropping to the floor for a moment as he considered it. Then he asked, carefully, “So if it was the other way around, you think I’d save you?”

It wasn’t sarcastic. It wasn’t a challenge. There was no bite in it at all. Just curiosity. And something small and fragile underneath it that Oda didn’t bother trying to hide.

Bakugo answered immediately, irritation flaring again. “I don’t think you’re fucked up enough to let me die. Then again, maybe you’d surprise me.”

Oda’s mouth tightened. He didn’t know if that was supposed to be a joke or an insult, but either way, it landed awkwardly. He looked down, fingers curling slightly around the edge of the chair as he thought it over, replaying the words in his head.

Bakugo noticed.

For a moment, he said nothing, just watched Oda’s expression shift, watched the usual sharpness soften into something quieter and more uncertain. It seemed to bother him.

The ash-blond let out a long, disgruntled sigh and leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “No,” he said grumpily. “If our roles were reversed, I assume you would’ve saved me. We’re training to be heroes. If that’s not straightforward, then what the hell is?”

Oda glanced up at him, clearly caught off guard.

There was honesty in Bakugo’s voice. Oda looked down again, pulling his knees up and resting them against the back of the chair, arms wrapping loosely around his legs as he processed it.

Anxiety coiled tight in his gut, sharp and hot, but he didn’t give himself even a second to second-guess it. If he paused, if he thought, he’d back out. So he spoke before fear could clamp his mouth shut. “My dad.”

Bakugo blinked, thrown so hard by the sudden answer that it knocked the anger clean off his face for a split second. “Fucking—what?”

“Your question,” Oda clarified, voice stiff, fingers curling into the thin chain around his neck. “‘You’re one of his.‘ He meant my dad. He said it like that because I have an identical twin brother. He probably didn’t know which brother I was.”

Probably still doesn’t, Oda added silently, the thought clanging around his skull like a prayer he didn’t fully believe.

Bakugo stared at him, eyebrows climbing slowly. “You have a twin?” he said, disbelief dripping from every word. “You mean there’s two of you shits running around?”

Oda huffed out something that was almost a laugh, short and humorless. “He’s more disagreeable than I am.”

“Wonderful,” Bakugo shot back flatly. 

But then he went quiet again, longer this time, eyes narrowing as he replayed Oda’s explanation in his head. The noise of the hallway felt distant, muffled, like the world had shrunk down to just the two of them and the space between their desks.

“Why would a supervillain know your dad of all people?” Bakugo asked at last.

“I don’t know, Bakugo,” Oda snapped, defensiveness flaring up instinctively, shoulders tightening. “You’re a smart boy. You figure it out.”

Another stretch of silence followed, Bakugo leaned back in his chair, eyes never leaving Oda’s face. “You sayin’ you’re the son of a crime boss or something?”

“Or something,” Oda replied, the words tumbling out faster than he meant them to as anxiety took the wheel. Once he started, it was like trying to dam a river with his bare hands. “It’s… complicated. And he’s dead. My dad. My mom’s in jail, so is my brother, so if you think I’m a spy of some kind you can drop it. I’m an orphan.” His voice tightened, jaw clenching as the memories pressed in. “And being recognized by All For One was one of the most terrifying moments of my life, so thank you for ridiculing it.”

He scoffed, but the sound lacked any real bite, aimed more inward than at Bakugo. “And if Ango finds out I’m telling you any of this right now, I’m never gonna see my brother again. So yeah. There’s the truth you wanted so badly. Happy?”

The words hung there, raw and unguarded, far more than Oda ever intended to give.

Bakugo didn’t fire back.

For once, he didn’t have anything ready.

He just stared at Oda, red eyes wide despite the exhaustion dragging at them, expression stripped of its usual aggression. He looked like he was trying to take Oda apart and put him back together again in his head, checking for cracks, lies, punchlines—anything that would make this simpler.

But there weren’t any.

It was quiet for a long minute.

Oda’s shoulders were tight, his posture curled inward despite the way he tried to look unaffected, and eventually he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Still think I’m a compulsive liar?”

Bakugo blinked, the question clearly catching him off guard. His mouth opened, closed, and then he clicked his tongue, eyes shifting briefly to the side like he was irritated with himself for not having an immediate answer. 

When he looked back at Oda, his expression was sharp but uncertain. “If telling me isn’t allowed then why did you?”

“‘Cause you aren’t gonna leave it alone,” Oda snapped back, the words tumbling out with more edge than he intended. His voice cracked just slightly as he continued, frustration and exhaustion bleeding together. “We’ve been in the same class long enough for me to know that. And because… I feel bad. Because we went through the same thing and maybe I just wanted someone to relate to—Maybe I’m sick of fighting with you—I don’t know.”

The last words came out quieter, less defensive, like they’d slipped past whatever guard he had left. Oda dropped his gaze fully to his knees, fingers fidgeting again before they came up to grab the chain on his neck, shoulders hunched as if bracing for impact.

Bakugo didn’t say anything right away.

He just stared.

His eyes tracked every little movement Oda made, the way his fingers twisted in the chain, the way his jaw clenched like he was waiting to be hit. Oda looked like a kicked dog, all guilt and fear for something that hadn’t even been a choice.

For some reason, Bakugo hated that.

“I keep on having nightmares,” he said finally, the words rough, like they’d scraped their way out of him. “About Kamino.”

Oda let out a short, humorless laugh that barely qualified as one. “I figured.”

Bakugo frowned, a flicker of surprise crossing his face. “You too?” 

“No,” Oda replied, shaking his head as he stared down at his hands. “I just haven’t slept since I ran out of my medication. And I’d have nightmares even if it wasn’t about Kamino.” The sides of his mouth quirked up humorlessly. “Like I said. I’ve played this game before.”

Bakugo’s brows drew together. “You don’t sleep? Like, at all?”

Oda tried to smile, tried to make it look careless, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was a tired thing, worn thin at the edges. “Trust me, it’s better I don’t,” he said quietly. “My quirk waking me up is a little more violent than just a few explosions.”

𓏵

TRAINING THAT AFTERNOON was a genuinely terrible idea, and on some level Oda knew it even as he changed into his costume and followed the rest of the class into Gym Gamma. His body felt heavy in a way that went deeper than sore muscles, a bone-deep exhaustion that clung to him no matter how much he stretched or rolled his shoulders or tried to shake it off. 

His head buzzed like static, thoughts overlapping and tangling until it felt like there was no clean line between one worry and the next, only a constant, low-grade pressure that made it hard to breathe normally.

He was running on fumes.

The conversation with Bakugo hadn’t left his mind for even a second. It replayed over and over, not just the words but the looks, the pauses, the moments where Oda had said too much and then kept going anyway. 

He could still feel that sick drop in his stomach when he’d realized he’d crossed a line he could never uncross, when he’d handed someone else a piece of the truth he was supposed to keep buried. Even if Bakugo didn’t fully understand it, even if he never told anyone, the fact that someone else knew at all made Oda feel exposed in a way he hadn’t felt in years.

And that was just one problem.

His grades were slipping again, no matter how much Todoroki sat with him in the evenings, no matter how many times he reread the material until the words blurred together. The lack of sleep made everything harder to retain, harder to process, and he could feel it happening in real time, that slow, humiliating slide backward. He knew Ango would notice eventually. And when that happened, UA would stop being a temporary miracle and start looking a lot more like a countdown.

Then there was the provisional exam.

A week away.

Five training days.

Five.

The number echoed in his head like a ticking clock. Five days to refine an ultimate move that wouldn’t kill him. Five days to prove he deserved to stay here. Five days to get his body and mind to cooperate when both were already screaming at him to stop. 

Everyone else in the class buzzed with nervous excitement, fear sharpened into determination, but Oda felt like he was drowning under it. The closer the exam got, the more everything else seemed to tighten around his throat.

By the time training actually started, his reactions were already slower.

He could feel it immediately. Movements that had become almost instinctive now required conscious effort, and even then they were sloppy at the edges. His gravity control wavered, the familiar red glow around his body flickering more than it should have, responding unevenly to his intent. He overcorrected more than once, sending a steel marble skidding wide of its target, embedding itself uselessly into concrete instead of shattering it cleanly.

Every mistake grated on his nerves.

He tried to push through it anyway, because stopping meant thinking, and thinking was the last thing he wanted to do. He kicked off the ground harder than necessary, letting himself hang in the air for a second too long before correcting, the weight of his own body pressing unpleasantly against his ribs. His new armor helped, he could feel that much, but it didn’t solve the underlying problem. 

At one point, his vision swam just enough that he had to land abruptly, boots hitting the floor harder than intended. A sharp ache bloomed behind his eyes, and he squeezed them shut for half a second, breathing through his nose, jaw clenched. 

He told himself to get it together. He told himself this was nothing. He told himself he’d pushed through worse.

But his body wasn’t listening.

The mental strain bled into everything he did, turning every drill into a battle of will rather than skill. He caught himself hesitating where he normally wouldn’t, second-guessing angles, calculating risks that his instincts used to handle without thought. 

His quirk responded to that hesitation like it always did, unevenly, the feedback sending an uncomfortable thrum through his core that made him grit his teeth.

By the end of the session, he wasn’t just tired.

He was unraveling.

And the worst part was knowing that he didn’t have the luxury of stopping.

It was made worse by a phone call he’d have a few hours later.