MANIA - Katsuki Bakugou

familiar ━

chapter 39

Bakugou groaned and turned away from her... as much as he could anyway. The enclosed space gave them very little room to move and maneuver. If Bakugou was facing her, he would be standing less than a foot in front of her. Hardly enough space to even breathe.

He bit down on the tape Sero and the others had wrapped around his hands and wrists, in an attempt to contain him. They wrapped him hurriedly and therefore terribly, but that doesn't mean it wasn't effective.

He tried to rip it off his skin, but only managed to tear off a thin strand rather than the whole restraint. He growled in frustration.

Shimamura watched him struggle with the bindings for a few moments. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head. She reached forward and grabbed onto his restrained wrists, carefully unwrapping his hands. In one quick yank, she seemed to unbind him in an instant.

He frowned and looked away. "I had it."

"No," she retorted, "you actually didn't."

Bakugou glanced down at her as she rolled the remaining tape into a ball, sticking it and unsticking it from her hands. She refused to make eye contact with him. The smallest movement he made, however, she flinched ever so slightly. Her eyes flicked to his movement and leveled back with the tape as soon as she refocused herself.

Current bipolar level: 7. She was in a higher state, but tried so hard to conceal it. She didn't want any more evidence to build against her case. She didn't want to be some sick patient to them. To anyone...

Especially him.

"Thanks..." Bakugou finally muttered.

She stopped, her eyes staring at the pantry shelves. She pursed her lips and put the ball of tape off to the side. Bakugou glanced at the nothing she was staring at then let his eyes settle back on her small frame.

Bakugou frowned. "Shima... I—"

"I really hate you right now." She cut him off abruptly.

His eye twitched, wanting to argue, but resisting every urge to. He let her finish.

"But..." She sighed. "There's one thing I hate more. And that's that I wasn't the one to tell you." Shimamura bent her brows, staring down at her hands now. She flexed her fingers and rubbed the calluses on the bed of her palm.

"You... what?" Bakugou was caught off guard by this.

It wouldn't have shocked him if she was still furious with him. He knew he was in the wrong for finding out about her disorder without her knowledge... which was primarily Deku's fault, but he still found out nonetheless. Hell, Shimamura had gone an entire week ignoring Bakugou.

She hadn't said a word to him all week. Barely even passed him a look. He thought she was mad at him because he knew... but maybe her feelings had changed over the period of time she spent ignoring him.

"It was my secret to tell." Her crystalline blue eyes still refused to meet his. "I don't know when I would've told you, but I would have eventually. But I wanted to be the one to admit to it. Not Deku..."

This was the first time Shimamura had ever called Midoriya, 'Deku.' Funnily, she sounded like Bakugou when she said it and she meant it too. She didn't consider the name in the context of his hero alias. She despised Deku's very being currently—much more than she hated Bakugou. Her nose sneered slightly when she uttered his name. Her fear in her lower state was replaced by distaste in her higher mindsets.

She shrugged, staring down at her hands. "But I'll understand if you don't want anything to do with me anymore now that you know... I've had time to think about it. About everything."