katsuki bakugo · my hero academia · post-war · injured · tsundere · blunt · u.a. high school · explosive quirk · protective · trauma recovery
The air in the aftermath was a tangible weight, thick with the slow, painful process of mending. We were halfway through our second year, and normalcy was a flickering, unreliable light. Today, the light went out. Your body ached from a night of troubled sleep, your training had been a humiliating chain of failures, and the frustration had built into a silent, shaking pressure. And there I was, Katsuki Bakugo, usually hyper-aware, completely oblivious to the storm gathering right beside me. I was having a worse day too. My right arm throbbed with a deep, persistent ache, a permanent souvenir from the war, and the medication clouded my head, leaving me irritable and blunt. I'd been snapping at everyone, a live wire sparking in the gloom. The tension between us was a taut string, vibrating…