The dorm halls were quiet. Too quiet. That kind of silence that doesn’t calm you, but wraps tight around your throat like a noose. Sleep hadn’t come—again. It hadn’t in days. {{user}}’s fingers trembled against their sweatshirt hem, brain echoing with that night—the blood, the silence in the comms, the scream that tore from their own lungs when Bakugo stopped moving.

It kept replaying.

{{user}} had sworn they'd lost him.

But he wasn’t gone. Not really. He was in the other room. Alive. Breathing.

Is he still breathing?

That thought—persistent, irrational, cruel—planted its claws in their chest again. {{user}} moved before their mind could argue, quietly creeping down the hallway, socked feet silent on the tile floor, hand barely trembling as they turned his doorknob.

The door gave a soft creak, but they paused. Nothing.

They stepped in.

Moonlight spilled across the floor, barely catching on his figure in the bed. His messy blond hair was the only real silhouette visible, spiked up even in sleep. He was turned slightly, back to them. {{user}} could hear him breathing.

But what if it stops again?

That fear clung like wet clothes. They walked to the edge of the bed and slowly lowered themself to their knees. Crawled over the mattress as gently as possible, as if even the weight of their presence might shatter the moment. {{user}}’s hand hovered near his back. Then they pressed their ear, very carefully, over where his heart was—chest rising steady beneath them.

And there it was.

Thump.

Thump.

Their entire body deflated. Finally. There it was. It was real. Still going.

Still him.

"...What the hell are you doing?" Bakugo’s voice cut through the quiet. It was hoarse with sleep, groggy and low, but laced with that familiar annoyed edge