It was a reflex to grab his knife when his emotions got too much. When his world was too overwhelming, when his walls were crumbling down. He always reached for that solid trusty blade, never hesitating to cut right into his flesh. It felt relieving, in a way. Therapeutic, almost, to feel pain while watching the blood drip down. Fascinating...

Yet his sight was blurry, clouded with tears as his body shook. Kirishima had seen his notebook... Had held it... Probably read it... But what did he read? How much? Which part? A small gasp escaped his lips as he made another cut. Katsuki just wanted to forget his problems, his struggles, his feelings. The stress he was under was slowly crushing him... He didn't know how long he would be able to uphold his perfect image anymore... His mask had fallen before, it would fall again, he was sure.

Another cut was made, drawing more blood this time. He deserved this. He deserved to hurt, to be in pain. To be all alone as everyone else moved on with their lives. It's for the better. He keeps telling himself that over and over, but is it really? The way Kirishima had held him before... Right after he told him that he cared... As in, actually caring for a mess like him..! It was something he never thought was possible.

Yet he was convinced by his words, so genuine, so sincere... He wasn't lying, there were no tricks... Eijirou cared about him... What an idiot... A fool for having such a loving heart. Doesn't he understand he'll only get hurt if he comes near him? Doesn't he realise that bad things always surround him? He was the reason All Might had to retire for fuck sake! Because he was too damn weak! Because he let himself get kidnapped!

And the only reason he won the damn Sportsfestival was because that stupid icyhot dared to pity him! He didn't even get his fucking license with the rest of the class! No, he had to follow a damn course to get it! That's what kind of worthless hero he was! So why... Why did Kirishima care..? After all, he's a failure. Someone who can't do anything right... Why would anyone care for such a person? He dragged the blade over his arm again, letting out a shaky breath as he watched the red liquid drip into the sink, clashing with the pure whiteness of it all.

A knock on his door pulled him out of thought. He moved his head towards the sound, quickly opening up the tap to wash the blood away, as if someone could come into his room at any given moment.

"Bakugou? I know you're in there, I can hear the water running"

Katsuki mentally cursed himself as he cleaned the cuts as quick as he could before pulling his sleeve down and stopping the waterflow. It stung like a bitch, but he'd been through worse.

"What the hell do you want dunce face?!" he shouted, making sure his voice didn't crack and rubbing his face, getting rid of the tears.

"Open up the door" he demanded, making Bakugou groan. He glanced at himself in the mirror, concluding that he looked like shit. It's not like he can do a lot about that for now anyway...

"Don't ignore me! I don't know what you said to Kirishima or what happened, but he's really upset so you better-!" Kaminari spoke up, stopping as the door opened, revealing the mess that was Katsuki Bakugou.

"I better what?" he snapped.

"Dude, you look horrible. Is everything-"

"I'm fine!" he hissed, giving the electric blonde the best glare he could muster right now.

"So are you going to finish your sentence or are you going to fuck off already?!"

"Kirishima is upset" he repeated himself, trying to ignore all the alarm signs he was seeing. He didn't want to get himself killed, thank you very much. Maybe this was exactly what Eijirou had been upset about..?

"Why would I care?" Katsuki grunted, feeling blood slowly roll down his arm towards the ground.

Damnit! His cuts were still bleeding and his arms wasn't covered in anything but a sleeve! He could bleed through his clothes, or the blood could drop onto the ground and that damn fake Pikachu would notice!

"You're the reason he's feeling this way! So you should apologize to him for whatever it is that you did!" Denki frowned, crossing his arms. His face turned a little more concerned right away though, his eyes darting towards the ground.

"I mean, after you get your own stuff together... You're obviously going through...something right now so uhm..."

He trailed off, stopping when he heard a drip like sound. His eyes trailed back to Bakugou and slowly fell down upon his trembling arm. Small streaks of blood ran down his hand, drops falling to the ground. His eyes widened and his mouth opened up to speak. Yet Bakugou clenched his fist, immediately pulling his arm behind him and slamming the door shut.

Kaminari knew what he saw, he'd seen the signs before. How could he be so stupid to ignore it?! He needed to get help, fast. He knew Kirishima was down in Mina's room so he skipped the door next to Bakugou's room and started hitting the following one.

"Todoroki! Open up! It's urgent!" Denki yelled. The halfa opened up soon enough, only to be dragged down the hall without any explanation.

"Kaminari? What's the matter? You look distressed-" Shoto stated, stumbling as they stopped abruptly in front of Katsuki's room.

"I need you to break down this door!" the electric blonde demanded.

"Bakugou is hurt!"

Todoroki's face didn't gave away any emotion, but he nodded and activated his quirk without question. Within seconds, his ice had burst the door open, revealing Bakugou clenching his arm as he sat against his bed. Tears were streaming down his face as he hyperventilated.

"Kaminari, go get Aizawa sensei" Todoroki stated, recognizing a panic attack when he saw one.

"Yes!" Denki nodded, sprinting out the room right away. Shoto kneeled down in front of the blonde, grabbing his shoulders.

"Bakugou, look at me" he ordered.

"Breathe. You're okay, you're safe. We're going to help you"

Red orbs shakily met dual coloured ones as Todoroki started to loudly and deeply inhale, followed be an exhale.

"Try to match my pace. Come on. In-" he sighed, taking a breath.

"-and out"

Katsuki was shaking a lot less already when Aizawa arrived.

"Bakugou? Can you hear me?" the teacher asked, sitting down next to his student. Todoroki wanted to move aside to give his sensei more room to work with, but the ash blonde decided to pick that moment to faint, falling on top of him. The blood loss was probably getting to him, seeing as the red liquid was all over the carpet.

It was only when Aizawa sensei picked up the smaller boy that Shoto noticed the knife on the floor. It was stained with blood... He decided to take it with him and give it to Aizawa later, for safe keeping. To say the scene caused a commotion was quite the understatement. People were freaking out when they saw their homeroom teacher carry an unconscious Bakugou through the common room with such haste.

Kirishima caught word of what happened soon enough and rushed downstairs where he saw a crying Denki being comforted by his classmates.

"What happened? Where is Bakugou?" the red head asked in a panic. He'd gone to Ashido's room after leaving Katsuki alone, wanting some comfort after what he just discovered. It was probably selfish, to go to her and being unable to explain what had happened.

He knew that Bakugou wouldn't like it if he were to tell everyone about his little poem, so he kept it to himself for the time being. Yet that didn't take away the fact he was still upset about it. So much so that Kaminari decided to confront the ash blonde about it...

"Kirishima... Bakugou, he-" Jirou breathed, pausing for a moment.

"He was hurting himself w-when Kaminari found him... Aizawa sensei brought him to Recovery Girl but he hasn't returned with any news yet"

The red head stared at her with wide eyes, looking aside to Denki, who was still crying about what he had just witnessed. Apparently he lost a friend in middle school to suicide. He blamed himself because he wasn't able to see the signs in time. That person was harming themselves, just like Bakugou did. Midoriya was really upset about it as well, muttering and mumbling about how he didn't see it. How he should've seen it. He had known Katsuki his whole life! He should've noticed when this began! Yet his analyses came up blank...

Uraraka tried to convince her friend that this might've been the first time he did something like this and they could still help him. Kirishima knew that wasn't true... Thinking back about the poem... About the make-up and the injuries vanishing on his arms... This certainly wasn't the fist time this happened, he just knew how to hide it. Before he could storm out of the building towards the nurses office, he saw Aizawa enter the common room.

Everyone instantly flocked him, questions being shouted as the black ray of sunshine groaned, holding up his hand to signal them to be quiet.

"Bakugou will live. Recovery Girl has healed him and he's now resting in her office" he spoke, making a lot of people relieved.

"But what I'm really interested in is the fact if any of you have noticed things about him or his behaviour that could be linked with this situation. The school can't help if we don't know what's going on"

"Sensei, I found this in his room earlier. I think it's better if you keep it" Todoroki said, uncovering a bloody pocketknife in a handkerchief. Aizawa nodded, quickly covering it back up and taking it from his student.

"I-I think I might have something too... I'll go get it" Kirishima breathed, quickly moving towards the hallway.

A few minutes later, he returned with Katsuki's notebook.

"I-I found this in his room today... I haven't really read any further than the second page b-but I think it'll have the answers you're looking for"

"Is that what you were so upset about?" Ashido asked quietly as their homeroom teacher opened the book. Eijirou only nodded, seeing Aizawa's eyes get a tad bigger as his eyes scanned the pages.

"Thank you Kirishima, I think this will be all I need"

"A-Aizawa sensei, uhm, w-when do you think Kacchan will wake up?" Deku asked, knowing the man was planning on leaving again now that he got what he came for.

"That's hard to say, but Recovery Girl doesn't think visitors would do any good to his situation. I too would rather talk to him alone first and take the necessary precautions before letting any of you noisy problem children anywhere near him"

"Yes, of course, w-we understand" Izuku mumbled, looking down at the ground. He felt guilty, like a lot of them, for not seeing what was going on. For being unable to stop what had happened. Some good heroes in training they were... Aizawa left the building soon after, returning to the nurses office or to go talk to their other teachers about this situation. It was a delicate matter, everyone realised that.

"What's in that book?" Sero asked, glancing at his friend.

"I-I... I only read the first two pages... Well, the first one just said property of Bakugou Katsuki so I actually only read one..." Kirishima mumbled, feeling tears rise up in his eyes.

"It was...a poem... Bakugou wrote it, it was his handwriting..."

"What was it about?" Ashido asked carefully, guiding the red head to the couch so he could sit down.

"It was titled problem o-or something like that..." Eijirou whispered, feeling the first tear roll down his face.

"H-he blames himself for so much... He thinks he's a problem a-and people are happier if he's not around!"

Normally some people would laugh and say it was true, joking about it. But the truth is that none of them really had a problem with Bakugou and the angry teen grew on them. They never thought he would take those words as the truth... What else had he been beating himself up about..?