Radio Silence [KiriBaku, Complete]

Quirk Appreciation Day

Thursday and Friday pass. Kirishima endures.

He gets to see sides of all of his classmates he's never heard before. He hears Jirou strumming an acoustic guitar, learns about Ojiro's phobia of spiders, and gets told all about the embarrassing things that happened to Sato when he was young. He learns who's good at which subject, who likes to work in groups and who prefers working alone.

And every night, Bakugou reads to him. The book isn't bad, but even if it was, Kirishima wouldn't mind. A week ago, he wouldn't have ever used the word "soothing" to describe Bakugou, but somehow, that's exactly what their time together has become for Kirishima. There's usually little preamble before Bakugou launches into it, and besides occasional breaks to take a drink, he usually reads for the entire hour or two he spends with Kirishima.

On Saturday, at what must be precisely 8 in the morning, he hears the sound of Midoriya bounding into the room. "Hi Kirishima!" he says. "I've got a surprise. I'm really excited for it!"

It is what Midoriya calls "Quirk Discussion Day." "Or maybe Quirk Appreciation Day? Quirk Investigation Day? 'Let's Talk About Your Quirk' Day? What sounds best? – Anyway, I've got, like, twenty people coming in to talk to me today about their quirks! I haven't even met all of these people." He pauses, the enthusiasm in his voice waning a bit. "I hope this is all okay. I know you can't tell us what you want, so I just tried to think, 'What would I want my classmates to do for me, if I was in Kirishima's situation?' and came up with this." He laughs. "Not to mention, it's what I want to do anyway, and I'm not even in your situation! So it works our perfectly!"

Kirishima has no idea how Midoriya managed it, but, like he said, most of the people aren't even from their class – some not even from their grade. This is Midoriya's area of interest, not exactly Kirishima's, but it still seems like a lot of fun, and again he gets to learn all about his classmates – not just from the point of view of a rival, like Bakugou might think of it, or from a clinical perspective like Midoriya was taking, but from the point of view of a classmate and peer.

They're on the fourth person – each given half-hour slots, Kirishima guesses – and this time it's someone he doesn't know, can't put a face to the name. "Tsukada," Midoriya says, "thank you for coming here today. What is the name of your quirk? Could you tell me a little about it?"

"Mind Bridge," the other boy says. His voice is flat and unexpressive, as if he's given this explanation a hundred times. "Everyone's mind is sealed up, right? I can open that seal, to see what's happening in someone else's mind."

There's a pause. "Uh, so," Midoriya says slowly, "does that mean you can try that with Kirishima?"

"I guess, maybe," Tsukada says, hesitation clear in his voice. "But it's not like a mind reading quirk. It's like... I'll be able to know all of his thoughts, but he'll be able to know mine too. It's not... I dunno. I can try it."

"Thank you," Midoriya says, and Kirishima hears the smile in his voice. "It's worth a shot, right? Just to see if... well, it's worth a shot!"

"Sure." Kirishima hears the boy approach, and then after a moment, the quirk kicks in.

Tsukada was right – it's not like mind reading; it's as if their two minds were mixed together so thoroughly that Kirishima can no longer tell with any surety which thoughts are his and which aren't. It's a flood of emotions and thoughts that, in the moment, seem so familiar as to be his own, but which can't be. He's lying immobile on the bed but he's also standing next to it, looking down at himself and thinking about how dead he looks. He's hopeful this will work and simultaneously headachy from lack of sleep and annoyed with Midoriya – he was doing this out of obligation to begin with and now of course someone asks him to use his quirk, what a pain in the ass –