'Goddammit! I let him get away!'

Bakugo couldn't stop himself from pummeling his fist into the wall a couple of times. Hearing the repetitive yet deadly sound of cracking, he forced himself to get out of his rage-induced haze. He needed to get out of here first. He could punch some other poor furniture later.

'...I need to check Kirishima too! He's... not like how I remember him. Who knows what that bastard did-'

Anxiety flaring, he drew his hands parallel behind him as he activated his explosives at near maximum power.

The resulting air pressure was enough to send the building crashing down, but Bakugo was long gone. He lightly flared his power once more to slow his dissent on the way down. He managed to see Kirishima just in the nick of time to prevent a large piece of rubble from crashing down on his head. The redhead in question was knocked out by the repeated numbing shocks by the dancing lightning surrounding him.

'I was too busy with that damn nerd at the time to think about it, but he... has a quirk now? That goddamn bastard didn't even bother using it when he was facing me!'

"Tch. Kirishima! Weird Hair! It's time to fucking wake up!"

Seeing that the red-headed boy was still unresponsive, Bakugo used a tried and true method; slapping until the person in question was awake. A symphony of slaps rang out, lulling the listener awake. Or technically the feeler in this case.

"...Baku Bro, why are you slapping me?!"

"Why do you think I'm fucking slapping you?! What are you, Sleeping Beauty?!"

Kirishima simply let out a sigh of resignation.

"Where's the guy who K.Oed me?"

"Iz-, that villain was called away on new orders or something. I could only hear what that shitty nerd said."

'And he just got out of my reach. Again. Goddammit, he just makes me so angry! I... I have to fix things, but how can I do that if he keeps running away?! I never wanted him to commit suicide! He never gave up on wanting to be a hero, didn't he? I just had to put him in his place! Show him the real world before it crushed him! I'm strong, and, and he's weak! But why did he beat me then? Was there not a point to it? No, I never actually cared that much about him... Then why did I bully him? Wait, bully? Was, Was that what I was doing?!'

For the first time in his life, Bakugo was forced to consider his actions, and how they affected other people. He was still in denial when Izuku was missing, reassuring himself with thoughts like 'H-he must have been kidnapped!', and 'Maybe he's running away from home?'.

Throughout Bakugo Katsuki's life, he has only met people with 'resistance'. People who didn't let his words burrow deep inside of him, and simply shoved them off, not particularly injured by the sting. Deku had the most resistance of them all, surviving barbed and bloody words over, and over, and over again.

Slowly, this resistance made him forget how to converse with people. It didn't matter because they didn't care, right? He could be as hurtful, as loud, as mean as he wanted to. No-one told him that he was wrong, even his mother interacted similarly with him. All they did was praise him, and over glorify his quirk. (Did they see a person anymore? Or did they see an explosive quirk? No one will ever know).

The praises continued to grow and grow, and his ego grew fat alongside it.

His ugly actions grew uglier to the despair of the people surrounding him.

But Bakugo did not realize one essential truth: resistance can be worn down. The most optimistic of people can snap, never to be the same again. Because the heart is always injured the most the first time. The first time someone manages to bypass all of the barriers, walls, and defenses, well, that's when the most damage occurs. The heart isn't ready, and it will never be ready. It scars over, and the fortifications increase in quantity and quality.

But no matter what, the heart always remembers how much it hurt. That's what changes people. What morphs people from a happy-go-lucky child, into a scarred, icy fortress. Bakugo whittled down his heart's defenses, centimeter by centimeter, inch by inch. Then All Might came along and took the final swing.

(What Bakugo will never realize is that it's impossible to forget that. It's impossible to forget the agony of having your dreams and hopes being crushed, of feeling so hopeless. He can't hope to see past his superiority complex that his fragile ego hides behind.)

"...Bakugo, are you okay? You've been staring off into space for a while now, buddy."

"...Huh? O-Oh, I'm fine. It's nothing. We, We have to go to the wherever the hell that bastard went! Come on!"

Bakugo jumped up from his seated position, fully intent on running at the maximum speed possible. Almost like he wanted to run away from his very thoughts. Kirishima barely managed to get his numbed body up in time to stop him.

"Bakugo, something is obviously very wrong. I-I've never seen you get like this before. Just, please, talk to me. I'm your friend, right? Did that villain do something to you?!"

Bakugo starred off into space again, hesitant. He was incredibly confused, more so than he ever had been before; his brain was scrambled. It was like something completely illogical had come and made a home in his narrow world. He wasn't used to it and he knew nothing of it; it made it scary, that unknown. He couldn't decipher what it was, or what it meant for him. It almost made him lash out how he usually did to things he didn't understand: with his fist and explosives.

But beyond it all, he didn't know what to think, how to feel.

So maybe that was why his response was so disarmingly the truth, behind any pretenses or complexes.

"I'm... sorry for worrying you. And I'll be fine, Weird Hair."

He seemed to have realized what he said, with very much visible shock, but that didn't stop the words coming unbidden out of his mouth, even if they were whispers along the wind.

"...Thanks, Kirishima."