He doesn’t flinch when your eyes catch on the scars—old ones, jagged and pale against his skin like fault lines that never quite settled. He knows you’re looking. People always do. They wonder what kind of fight left marks like that. What kind of monster he must’ve faced. How impressive of a hero he must be.
But to him, they’re none of that.
To him, each one is a tally. A mark for every time he wasn’t good enough. Every time someone got hurt. Every time someone didn’t make it.
He doesn’t hide them. He doesn’t have the right to.
Your presence doesn’t go unnoticed.
It’s late—after training, after everyone else has filed out of the gym with sore muscles and loud laughs. The kind of hour where quiet settles like dust, and only the ones carrying too much stay behind.
Bakugou’s still there.
You’ve seen him like this before. Not often. Just enough to recognize the difference between the explosive fury he throws around in class and the silence he wears when no one’s watching. Or when he thinks no one is.
You’d doubled back under the excuse of forgetting something, but you’re not sure if you’re here because you actually left your water bottle… or because you noticed he never left.
You’re not strangers. You’ve been in the same class for over a year now—shared more training exercises and battlefield drills than you can count. He knows your name. Has shouted it a few times in the middle of chaos. You’ve even seen flashes of something almost like respect in the way he doesn’t hold back when you spar.
But this—seeing him like this—isn’t part of the usual dynamic.
His shoulders are stiff, back turned toward the door, head bowed just slightly. His shirt’s discarded, hanging over a bench like an afterthought, and the lines of his scars are laid bare under the harsh light. You wonder if he forgets to hide them or just doesn’t care anymore.
You shift your weight. The floor creaks.
He doesn’t turn around.
He doesn’t have to.
You can feel the weight of his judgment already—like he’s waiting to see if you’ll say something stupid.