Exploding Through Dimensions

Chapter 10: Locked up

"Tch, no way in hell am I ever doing that."

"Don't tell me that THE great Bakugo will jump into any fight but when it comes to his pride..."

"Oi that's not it."

"Sure it's not." She mused out loud and let the silence linger for a moment before she spoke again. "Hey Bakugo?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you sorry?"

"What?" Whirling around he stared at the wall like that was a pretty stupid question with an obvious answer.

"No I mean I get why you did, it's just...well when you think about it there was no need to apologize for something you said to be true."

"Well it's not." He mumbled raising his knee higher. "I didn't mean it Uraraka. Hell... if you only knew what you mean to me, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"What?" she strained to hear his last muffled sentence.

"Nothing." He tiredly exhaled scanning the small cell, knowing right now wasn't the time to hope for something that might not ever happen.

"How's your hand?"

Glancing down at his left hand he could already see the red swelling going down, didn't stop it from hurting whenever he tried to flex it. "Better."

"Can..." Nervously chewing on her bottom lip she hesitantly tried again. "Can I see it?"

When a good minute passed between them she was sure he must've either fallen asleep since it was late after all or contemplated the many different ways to yell at her and tell her how stupid that was. Either way she was hoping for the first.

What she didn't expect was seeing his hand appearing in between the bars for her to see. Startled, she blinked a couple of times just staring at the red swollen area around his hand and fingers. Without thinking she slowly found herself reaching forward. Her brown eyes also glancing over the various scars littering his palm.

He was about to retrieve it when she didn't say anything but stopped when he felt her gently and timidly lightly graze her fingertips against his bare hand. Starring on with wide shocked eyes he was about to ask her what the hell she was doing when he heard her softly speak once she carefully touched the red swollen area.

"Does it hurt?"

"...no. Not anymore. " he murmured, mesmerized as her fingers continued to trace around his open palm. Wondering what this girl was constantly doing to him, even with just the simplest of gestures, he would have given her anything she wanted as long as she continued to keep her hand with his.

Taking a shaky calm breath to steady his nerves he could only hope she didn't see the slight tremor in his hand and grateful that she couldn't see the heat crawl up to his red face.

Closing his eyes he let himself lean back against the wall and savor the way her smaller hand felt in his as her fingerpads continued to dance around his hand. 'This feels oddly nice.' He thought to himself until he heard her quietly giggle to herself and a shiver ran though his body making his eyes snap open. "What?" he asked feeling his throat dry.

Uraraka tried to hide the growing smile on her face when she felt his hand become sweaty and knew he would get defensive over it, finding it cute. "Nothing, I just find it funny how big your hands are compared to mine."

"That's cuz you have puny hands." He grinned with his crimson eyes still transfixed on their hands.

Giving a tight-lipped smile she thought about how nice this felt. That something like this could make her forget the situation they were in. But then again it brough even more questions and feelings that made her jump back to reality and realize what she was actually doing.