Apricity - [Bakugou Katsuki x Reader]

Chapter 1: Unwanted Bells

You quickly learn that it's better to keep people at a distance. To never get too close and to never share too much. To reveal all the little bits of yourself to someone means to submit yourself to the possibility of being left behind, and to the anguish that will inevitably follow. So, you draw a line in the sand. On one end is you and all the little things that make up the person you are; on the other end is everyone else. Neither side should dare cross that line, lest the repercussions that may follow.

Primary and middle school pass you as mundane and quiet years—just as you like it. When presented with following in your parent's steps and becoming a hero, or becoming a faceless, ordinary person with the rest of society like the cautious and worrisome parts of you desire, you instead come to a compromise; you become part of the support hero programme. The following months pass peacefully, and you spend the hours you're not inside a classroom, working away at the various projects you have lying around in your U.A. provided workshop.

No one crosses your line, and you don't pass over your fictitious border. You're known by your peers as sweet and polite but strangely reserved—just as you like it.

When the temperature starts to dip below zero degrees, and the wind begins to nip at your cheeks, you can't help but feel miffed. You dislike feeling cold; the gelid air stiffens your fingers and disrupts your workflow, while also reminding you too much of the cold clench of destitute loneliness that you were much too familiar with.

You long for warmth again.

~

Bakugou Katsuki fucking hates winter.

The freezing air fucks with his heat-dependent quirk, and now he needs to make changes to his hero costume. After he spent all that time before he had started at U.A. designing it, he now had to have someone come in and mess with it. In the event that they screw with his suit and make him look ridiculous, he'd have to kick that moron's ass, which he didn't have the time to be doing. And on top of it all, he was lost.

"Shit!" He crumpled the small piece of paper in his fist. His dumb-ass teacher didn't give him any directions, and this dumb-ass school was unnecessarily large, and it all felt like a giant waste of time.

Still fuming, he unclenched his fist and rolled out the now wrinkled Post-it. Bakugou roamed the halls like a fiery, human-sized ball of rage for another 10 minutes, in search of the workshop belonging to the damn nerd that was supposed to screw with his costume. Upon finally spotting the door placard that held the same combinations of numbers and letters to the ones on his sticky note, he stomped over to it. With all the pent up frustrations he had acquired on the journey here, he threw open the overly large door.

"Why the fuck is this place so damn hard to find!?"

The once still and serene aura of your peaceful shop came to a screeching halt as the door to the room was slammed open, coming to a frighteningly loud crash against its side jam, followed by a spine-chilling howl of expletives. In your fright, you dropped the wrench you had been working with, and it clattered to the ground in a loud clang that reverberated around the room. Quickly moving to face the angry intruder, your gaze fell onto that of fuming, ruby-red eyes, and the world around you came to a screeching halt.

Time had ceased to exist, and the air became still. It was now quiet—eerily quiet. Everything becomes a little hazier, a little gentler, a little warmer all at once. Before you stood a boy who, past all the anger and frustration etched onto his features, was very handsome. His eyes a reddish colour that you had never really seen before, but quickly grew to admire; his nose so cutely pointed upwards, and soft cherub cheeks that were a direct juxtaposition of the rest of his body, which was large and robust.