Chapter 34

₊˚⊹✷ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘
⤷ don’t go anywhere

THE CALL CAME THAT night, long after the dorms had gone quiet and the hallway lights had dimmed to their late-hour setting, long after Oda had resigned himself to another sleepless stretch of staring at the ceiling and counting the seconds between Bakugo’s muffled explosions. His phone buzzed against the bedside table, the vibration sharp and sudden in the silence, and Oda nearly flinched out of his skin when he saw the name on the screen.

Ango. Of course it was Ango.

Oda stared at the phone for several long seconds, jaw clenched, thumb hovering uselessly above the screen as dread pooled low in his stomach. He briefly entertained the idea of not answering it at all, of letting it ring out and dealing with the consequences later, but he knew better. 

Ignoring Ango was never an option. Ignoring Ango only ever made things worse, and Oda was already balancing on the edge of too many things going wrong at once.

So he answered.

“Yeah,” Oda said, voice hoarse, forcing himself to sound awake even though his eyes burned and his head felt like it was packed with cotton. 

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Good evening, Odasaku,” Ango finally said, tone smooth and deceptively mild. “I hope I’m not calling too late.”

It was late. It was absolutely too late. Oda bit down on the inside of his cheek and swallowed the response that wanted to snap out of him.

“No,” he lied. “It’s fine.”

“I’ll get straight to the point.” Ango replied, “I’ve been reviewing the reports coming out of U.A., and with the provisional licensing exam approaching, it’s imperative that you do not make any mistakes.”

Oda closed his eyes and leaned back against the headboard, phone pressed to his ear. His legs ached from training, his head throbbed, and the thought of having to stay sharp enough to parse Ango’s words made his stomach twist.

“I know,” Oda said quietly. “I’m aware.”

“This is not a situation where ‘aware’ is sufficient,” Ango continued, voice cool and precise. “The provisional license is not optional for you. It is not merely another academic hurdle. It is a requirement. You need it to remain where you are.”

Oda’s fingers tightened around the phone. There it was. The unspoken threat laid bare, wrapped in bureaucratic language and expectations. Stay in line, or else.

“I’m training,” Oda said, a hint of defensiveness creeping in despite himself. “I’m doing everything they’re asking. I’m not slacking.”

“I’m sure you believe that,” Ango replied calmly. “However, belief does not guarantee results. The examiners will be looking for control, consistency, and sound judgment. Any indication that you are unstable, reckless, or unreliable will reflect poorly not just on you, but on the people who put you there. You’ve already expended more leeway than most would ever be afforded. The Sports Festival was one mark. The kidnapping was another. You are not in a position to accrue a third.”

Oda’s jaw tightened. His chest felt tight, constricted, like the air had grown heavier. “I didn’t exactly plan on getting kidnapped,” he muttered before he could stop himself.

There was another pause, longer this time.

“No,” Ango said eventually. “But circumstances tend to follow patterns, Odasaku. And people in your position are expected to rise above them.”

Oda swallowed hard, fatigue making it harder to keep the edge out of his voice. “I am. I’m trying. I’m doing what I’m supposed to.”

“For your sake,” Ango replied, “that effort needs to translate into flawless execution. You cannot afford hesitation during the exam. And you certainly cannot afford to draw unnecessary attention to yourself.”

Oda almost laughed at that, a short, humorless sound that he managed to choke back before it escaped. Unnecessary attention felt unavoidable at this point. Between his quirk, his past, and the simple fact that he kept surviving things he probably shouldn’t have, attention clung to him whether he wanted it to or not.

“Got it,” Oda said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Pass the exam. Keep my head down.”

“Precisely,” Ango confirmed. “If you succeed, things remain… manageable. If you fail, we will need to reassess your placement. And you understand what that entails.”

Oda did understand. Too well. The image of quirk-dampening cuffs, sterile rooms, and locked doors flickered uninvited through his mind.

“I won’t fail,” he said, more promise than confidence.

“See that you don’t,” Ango replied. “I expect results, Odasaku.”

The call ended shortly after that, Ango offering a clipped farewell before disconnecting without waiting for a response.

Oda lowered the phone slowly, letting it rest in his lap as the room seemed to close in around him. The conversation felt like it had lasted hours instead of minutes, every word dragging through his already frayed nerves. His shoulders sagged as the tension finally bled out of him, leaving behind nothing but exhaustion and a low, simmering anxiety that refused to settle.

𓏵

BOOM. BOOM.

Boom.

Each explosion punched through the walls of the dorm, vibrating through the floor and up Oda’s spine, rattling the metal frame of his bed and settling somewhere deep in his chest where anxiety already lived. He flinched on instinct, shoulders tensing, breath catching even though he knew it was coming. It had been coming every night. Like goddamn clockwork.

But tonight, the reaction wasn’t irritation or anger or that sharp, bitter edge of resentment that came with it normally. Tonight it was something heavier, something sadder. A dull, aching concern that made his stomach knot and his throat feel tight. The sound didn’t just mean noise anymore. It meant Bakugo was reliving Kamino over and over in his head, just like Oda replayed his own monsters every time he so much as closed his eyes.

Oda lay there for a few seconds longer than usual, staring up at the ceiling, counting his breaths, trying to will himself into staying put. He told himself it wasn’t his responsibility. He told himself Bakugo would just scream at him again. He told himself he was exhausted and had no emotional bandwidth left to spare.

None of it worked.

The explosions came again, closer together this time, sharper, angrier, and something inside Oda twisted hard enough that he swung his legs over the side of the bed before he could stop himself. The floor was cold under his feet as he stood, pulling on a hoodie out of pure habit even though his room was warm.

He couldn’t just listen to it. Not again. Not all night. Not knowing what it meant.

So he left his room.

The hallway was dim and quiet. Oda’s footsteps echoed faintly as he moved, the distant hum of the building’s systems filling the space between the explosions. Each boom made him tense anew as he walked, shoulders drawn tight, jaw clenched, heart beating just a little too fast.

He stopped in front of Bakugo’s door and pounded on it like he always did, fist striking wood with a sharp, impatient crack. He waited, counting in his head, already bracing for the door to be yanked open and a barrage of insults to be hurled at his face.

Instead, there was nothing.

Then—boom.

Another explosion went off inside the room, closer than before, muffled but violent, the sound vibrating through the door and into Oda’s knuckles where they still rested against it.

His brows furrowed. He knocked again, harder this time, the impact stinging his hand as he leaned his weight into it.

Nothing.

No yelling. No threats. No angry bark of a response.

Just another explosion, followed by another.

A cold thread of unease slid down Oda’s spine.

Is he fucking dead?

This wasn’t how Bakugo usually responded. Even half-asleep, even furious, he always reacted. Always snapped back. The silence between the explosions felt wrong in a way Oda couldn’t articulate.

Before he could talk himself out of it, before logic or caution could catch up, his hand moved on its own. He reached for the door handle and pushed it down.

The door swung open.

Oda froze for half a second, genuinely stunned. Bakugo didn’t seem like the type to forget to lock doors. The thought sat heavy in Oda’s chest as he stepped just inside the threshold, the darkness of the room swallowing him whole.

“Bakugo?” Oda asked into the dim space, his voice quieter now, uncertain, stripped of its usual bite.

The answer came not in words but in light and sound.

On the right side of the room, explosions sparked and flashed in rapid succession, bursts of orange and white briefly illuminating the space in jagged snapshots. The booms were deafening up close, reverberating through Oda’s ribs, making him flinch every single time despite himself. His eyes stung from the sudden brightness as he adjusted, heart lurching painfully when he finally saw what was happening.

Bakugo was on the bed, clutching a pillow to his chest. His hands detonated against it over and over, small but furious blasts that tore into the fabric, smoke curling up into the air as the pillow smoldered and burned. The room smelled like sweat and ozone and singed cloth, thick and overwhelming.

“Bakugo? Moron—hey—!” Oda called again, sharper now, alarm bleeding into his tone as another explosion went off.

Oda moved without thinking, crossing the room in a few quick strides. Heat washed over him as he reached out, fingers closing around the ruined, flaming pillow. His quirk flared instinctively, gravity shifting just enough to keep the heat from searing his skin as he wrenched it free from Bakugo’s arms.

The pillow hit the floor in a smoking heap, and Oda stomped it out with his foot, crushing fabric and flame alike until nothing remained but scorched cloth and drifting smoke. 

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Okay. That was a lot louder up close.

The sound swallowed the small room whole, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, vibrating through the mattress. Oda sucked in a sharp breath, instincts screaming at him as he lunged forward and grabbed Bakugo’s flailing, sparking hands with his own, his quirk flaring red-hot around his fingers as gravity warped to keep the blasts from tearing into him.

“You dumb motherfu—” Oda started but the words were cut off when Bakugo suddenly yanked his arms back with a violent jerk.

The sudden movement threw Oda forward.

He stumbled, barely catching himself with one hand slapped flat against the wall on the other side of the narrow twin bed. His palm stung from the impact as his heart leapt into his throat, breath hitching hard. For a split second, everything froze. 

Bakugo lay there, still, chest rising and falling fast and uneven, his hands clenched tight near his chest, faint sparks popping uselessly against his skin before fizzling out. Smoke hung in the air, heavy and acrid, stinging Oda’s nose and eyes.

This is dangerous.

This was a loaded gun going off in the dark.

Oda mentally decided to retreat.

That was the smart thing. The logical thing. The normal thing. He’d tried to stop it, he’d failed, and now he needed to get out before shit got weird.

He shifted his weight, pulling his hand off the wall, starting to straighten up.

And then arms wrapped around his lower torso.

“What—” The sound barely made it out of Oda’s mouth before his breath caught.

“Don’t.”

The word was quiet. Barely above a whisper. It wasn’t barked or snarled or spat like Bakugo’s words usually were. 

Oda stared down as Bakugo’s red eyes cracked open.

Not blazing. Not furious. Just glassy and unfocused, rimmed with exhaustion so deep it was almost sad. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Oda’s mind reeled. Is he hallucinating? What is even happening right now?

“Bakugo—” Oda started, his voice catching awkwardly in his throat, unsure if he was allowed to speak, unsure if sound itself might shatter whatever the fuck this was.

“Don’t.” Bakugo’s grip tightened just slightly, fingers curling into the fabric of Oda’s sweatshirt.

Oda’s heart began to hammer violently against his ribs, each beat loud in his ears, drowning out everything else. Every instinct he had screamed at him to leave. This was crossing a line. This wasn’t something he was equipped to handle.

But those arms were still there.

They anchored him in place, grounding him in a way logic never could. The heat of Bakugo’s body seeped through layers of fabric, and all of Oda’s carefully constructed plans and rational thoughts just… stopped. 

Crap.

This had been a bad idea from the start. It was still a bad idea when he let himself be pulled back, off balance, onto the bed. The mattress dipped under their combined weight, springs creaking softly beneath them. Bakugo shifted closer without really waking, hands digging into Oda’s back, bunching the fabric of his sweatshirt in his fists as if letting go might send him spiraling.

Bakugo buried his face against Oda’s stomach, forehead pressing into him, breath hot and uneven through the thin cotton of the shirt.

Oda froze.

How did he get here?

How did Odasaku Edogawa, chronic insomniac, secret-keeping time bomb, end up lying on his side on Katsuki Bakugo’s bed, being held like a damn teddy bear?

The realization hit him all at once, and heat flooded his face so fast it almost made him dizzy. He was sure he had to be beet red, ears burning, skin prickling like it was about to combust. His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might crack a rib, each beat echoing loudly in his chest.

There was no way Bakugo didn’t hear it.

Oda tried to force his breathing to steady, slow and controlled the way he’d been taught, but the urge to bolt still clawed at him, panicked and frantic. His body felt caught between two instincts: run or stay very, very still.

“Bakugo—” Oda tried one last time, testing the waters, trying to see if Bakugo even understood what was happening.

“Edogawa, literally shut the fuck up.”

The words were muffled against Oda’s stomach, slurred slightly with exhaustion, but they were clear enough.

Oh.

No—he knew. Maybe not fully. Maybe not consciously. But this wasn’t sleepwalking. This wasn’t a delusion. Bakugo was aware. Oda couldn’t logic out what was happening, couldn’t map it neatly in his head.

And the arms wrapped around Oda right now—the same arms holding him in place—were the arms that had dragged him to safety and had made damn sure he didn’t die.

So Oda lay there rigid at first, every muscle locked tight as if he were bracing for impact, afraid that even the smallest movement might shatter whatever fragile equilibrium had formed between them. Bakugo’s grip never loosened, his hands still clenched in the fabric at Oda’s back. 

The explosions had stopped completely now, the room eerily quiet in their absence, broken only by the uneven sound of Bakugo’s breathing and the faint hum of the dorm’s ventilation system.

Oda’s heartbeat was still going a mile a minute, thudding so loudly in his ears that he was convinced Bakugo could hear it. 

He waited for Bakugo to shove him away, to snap something sharp and angry, to realize what he was doing and recoil from it. None of that happened. Instead, Bakugo’s breathing began to slow, shallow gasps evening out into something steadier, heavier, the kind of breath that came only when someone was slipping under.

Oda swallowed hard.

His body, traitorous thing that it was, started to relax despite his protests. The tension in his shoulders eased a fraction. His hands, which had been hovering awkwardly at his sides, slowly settled. The warmth pressed against him wasn’t threatening. 

Bakugo shifted slightly, a low, half-formed sound leaving his throat as he burrowed closer, forehead nudging against Oda’s stomach until he found a position that seemed to satisfy whatever instinct was driving him. His grip tightened for a brief second, then loosened just enough to stop hurting, fingers still hooked firmly like he was afraid Oda might vanish if he let go.

Oda’s mind kept trying to run laps around the situation, listing reasons why he should get up, why this was a mistake, why he couldn’t afford whatever the hell this was. 

But the exhaustion he’d been fighting for days finally caught up to him. 

It crept in slowly, like a tide he hadn’t noticed rising until it was already at his knees. His limbs felt heavy, his thoughts sluggish, each one blurring into the next.

He focused on the sensation of Bakugo’s breathing instead, the steady rise and fall against him, the heat seeping through his clothes. It reminded him, distantly, of lying on the floor as a kid with his brother nearby, the simple comfort of knowing someone else was there, alive and breathing, keeping the monsters at bay just by existing.

He hadn’t felt that in a long time.

Oda’s eyelids fluttered, the fight draining out of him despite his better judgment. 

He told himself he would just rest his eyes for a second, just long enough to gather himself, to let the adrenaline bleed off. He was still listening for explosions, still half-expecting his quirk to flare at the first sign of danger, but nothing came.

Against every rule he’d set for himself, against every fear drilled into him by experience, Oda’s breathing finally began to sync with Bakugo’s. 

The room stayed quiet.

No nightmares came crashing down on him. No sudden jolt of terror yanked him back to consciousness. For the first time in days—maybe longer—his mind simply… let go. The constant vigilance slipped, just a little, and the darkness that followed wasn’t frightening. It was soft, heavy, pulling him under like a blanket.

Oda fell asleep without realizing it had happened.