Marionette - MHA

Short Chapter - What Love Is

"Yui, you have to come out of your room at some point." Aizawa spoke harshly from outside her dorm room door. "This is unacceptable behavior."

"Really?" She bit back. "I was under the impression that you wanted me to disappear. What's with the sudden change of heart?"

"Don't be like that," He shot back. "You know its only for your own good!"

"For my own good? Shove that stupid excuse up your ass!" She yelled back, he could hear her throwing things into a bag or something through the door.

"Yes, yui! For your own sake! You're injured, you need to heal before you can come back!"

"Stop talking like you know what's the best thing for me!"

He sighed, and tried to pry open her door once more.

"I know what's best for you! And I know that you shouldn't be fighting in your condition. Please stop arguing with me, come out of your room, and let me do my job as your teacher and father."

The door to her room slammed open, and a box with the pictures of them together, as well as the blanket he had bought her when she first came home was shoved into his hand.

"You DON'T know what's best for me," She snarled. "And you're not my father!"

The door was slammed in his face once more.

"If I had known you would have tossed me to the side like trash when I wasn't the little fighting machine you needed, I would have never trusted you!"

"Yui," He sighed, hurt clearly written on his face as Mina approached her room. He shook his hand and shooed her away. "You know that's not true."

"No, I don't!" She snapped back. "You haven't let me do a single thing since my injury, and won't listen to me when I say I'm fine. You ignore me, you tell me to calm down when you don't even know why I'm angry, and won't let me prove myself!"

He could hear the tell-tale sign that she was about to cry, her voice a little choked and quieter than usual and her words a little harsher to mask the lack of bite.

"Please don't cry." His voice came out softer than he intended. "I never meant to hurt you."

"I don't care what your intentions were, and I don't care about how sorry you are." Her voice cracked, and he heard her sniffling back tears through the door. "Just- leave me alone."

"How can I trust you're not going to do anything stupid?"

"Stop treating me like family," She said, her tone laced with venom. "I won't kill myself, Aizawa-sensei."

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The dorms were dead quiet, and the hallways were empty by the time she had stopped crying. Cracking her door open, she peaked her head outside.

"Thank god you're ok," Bakugou spoke as soon as she opened the door. She staggered in surprise when she realized he was right outside of her door this entire time. "I could hear you crying through the door."

"Oh," She paused in realization. "You've been here this whole time? Listening to me cry?"

"Yes, idiot."

"Why didn't you come in?" She asked, whipping the tears off of her face in an attempt to hide her sadness. "And.. you didn't hear me yelling, did you?"

"Your door was locked, dumbass, and yeah, we all did. Sorry."

"Don't apologize for something that wasn't your fault." She forced herself to laugh. "I was too naive to really believe that anyone would care for me, anyways, let alone love me like a daughter."

"Don't say that," He paused, and looked away. "Shitty hair and all of us care for you, I care for you. How could you believe otherwise?"

"I feel like ever since the.. you know, incident, people have been treating me differently and it's not fair." She slumped down the wall and sat next to him, her shoulder brushing his. "I'm still the same person I was before. And I'm still equally as capable of fighting as I was before."

She lifted up her left arm, and began massaging it. After two weeks of this numbness, she still wasn't used to the sensation of not feeling her fingers dance across her own arm.

"Have you made any progress?" He asked quietly.

"Not really," She tried to wiggle her fingers, getting her pinky to weakly move upwards before she lost the movement. "They said it should only take a few months, but I'm progressing slower than they thought."

"Oh,"

"Stop talking like that. You're no better than Aizawa."

"What the fuck do you mean!?"

"You care too much!" She stood up abruptly, startling him into a stand as well. "This isn't normal! It's like you're trying to manipulate me!"

"Yui," He spoke sharply. "This is normal! This is how people who love each other treat the people they love. This isn't manipulation, but you have been manipulated before to believe that is love!"

Her mouth gaped open.

"N-no! I haven't, my parents loved me!"

"No, they didn't! You're too fucking blind to see that curses and pain isn't what love is because they clearly didn't love anything about you." He stepped towards her and went to wipe her tears, but she pushed him away.

"They just used tough love-"

"That wasn't tough love! Tough love is how I treat you, or how Aizawa teaches." He stepped closer to her once more. "Please, let me show you what love is, let me show you that Aizawa and I being worried about you after you almost died is normal!"

"What?" Her eyes were panicked, confusion clear on her face and features. "Love is making sure I'm the best, always working towards being on top-"

"No," He cut her off. "Love is making sure you reach your highest potential! Love is making sure you heal before you get yourself injured again!"

Barely inches away from each other, his smoky caramel scent filled her nose as she stared into his eyes. Her own glossy gaze piercing his as his shaking had smoothed the tears off of her tan cheeks.

"Please," She managed to choke out. "Show my heart what love is."

His calloused hand cradled the back of her head and the small of her back as he brought her in closer, lightly kissing her soft and salty lips. The intoxicating flavor filled his body and left him feeling full.

Her eyes widened as his lips brushed against her's, before she grabbed his head and drew him in closer.

As the world seemed to stop as they kissed, love, for what it really is, flooded her body. The tenderness in his actions, the hopeful words he spoke.

Love is the way he holds her, looks at her, and holds her pieces together after shes been broken over and over again. 

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Hello again! I realized that I forgot to hit publish yesterday (whoops), so here I am with the chapter a day late! I really think this is a cute start to the budding romance between Bakugou and Yui, and I hope this shows how he really does care for her, flaws and all. That's all I really have to say. See you guys next week!