Chapter Text

Chapter 1

As the epidemic grows worse throughout the country, we urge students to stay in our dorms to make sure that we minimize the spread. Many of our student’s home districts have been infected with the virus, and sending them home would put them at direct risk. As the disease is most prevalent among younger people, we simply feel it is irresponsible for them to leave. Please consider that we have placed the best interests of our students in mind.

The warning had been sent out a week ago, to every parent, teacher, and student,was displayed on the dorm walls countless times. By now, most students had seen it so many times in passing that they could have recited the first part by memory.

“I don’t understand why they’re making such a big deal out of this,” said Kaminari, playing some games on his phone as he lounged on the couch, taking up more space than he should have been allotted. “I mean, isn’t it rare to actually get the disease?”

Bakugou jammed his thumb into the hang up button on his phone and placed it facedown on the table in front of him. Being quarantined didn’t stop his parents, more specifically his mom, from calling him every few days to make sure that he was washing his hands to prevent the spread of the sickness. Like he’d ever let his hygiene waver. Unfortunately, the shared dorm lounges were where he got the best reception, forcing him to come out of his room occasionally to make a call or two.

“Not having things fucking growing inside my lungs sounds like a pretty damn safe bet to me,” grumbled Bakugou. “I’d rather take my chances here.”

At first, people were skeptical that Hanahaki was actually a real thing. For starters, it popped up first on untrustworthy online forums of people complaining that they had suddenly started coughing up petals of different types of flowers. Perfect creepypasta material. But as the rumors began to spread, the probability that it was actually fake was decreasing by the minute. After an outbreak at a middle school where half of the school ended up becoming infected made its way onto national news, any doubt that it was faked had faded away.

While the petals themselves didn’t seem too bad, it could become surprisingly brutal. The first bothersome symptoms would start within the week, with sore and possibly bloody throats from coughing up the petals. After that, aching in the chest would persist. As the flowers began to grow within someone’s lungs, thorns would sprout, flowers soon taking over the inside cavities, rendering the person unable to breathe, and leading to their subsequent death.

Scientists were working on a cure, but there was still uncertainty as to how the virus spread, or how it could be treated. Some surgeries were in place to invasively remove the flowers themselves from the chest, but they were expensive and the recovery time was intense.

“Oh come on, you can sense when someone has Hanahaki from a mile away. They leave a petal trail,” joked Kaminari, still intensely playing his game. Bakugou glanced over at the rising sun. He had woken up early to take his mom’s call, but couldn’t say the same about Kaminari. The dumbass had probably stayed up all night for who knows what stupid fucking reason.

“Do you understand what a carrier is? Just because someone’s isn’t showing symptoms, doesn’t mean they…..Nevermind,” Bakugou cut his lecture short as he grabbed his phone off the table and headed back upstairs. People like him who didn’t understand what “quarantine” meant were bound to end up spreading the disease to everyone else.

Bakugou went back up to his room and opened his laptop to take some notes. Some of his classes that could have been moved online, were. It was a pain in the ass to take notes, though. He rolled his eyes at the technological incompetence some of his teachers had, forgetting to unmute themselves or screenshare. This was going to be a long few months.

After a few hours, Bakugou heard a knock at his door. He took off his headphones and glanced over. Who could be bothering him now?

“Hey, Bakugou, I slept through our first class and Aizawa’s lecture recording is kind of screwed up on the computer. The audio doesn’t match the visual at all, and it cuts out halfway through. Could I take a look at your notes?”

It was Kirishima, of course. No one else would be bold enough to knock on his door unannounced. He was wearing one of his sleeveless tank tops, knee length shorts, and of course, his workout headband. Bakugou eyed him for a second, but at least he actually had the audacity to get dressed. He remembered seeing Uraraka downstairs in the kitchen yesterday in her pajamas, making herself….well, he wasn’t entirely sure which meal it was for her, given that it was at 4 pm, but she was making herself food.

“Too lazy to take your own damn notes?” asked Bakugou, opening the door.

“Hey, it’s not laziness, you watched the video, it’s total ass-”

“Just come in,” said Bakugou, stepping out of the way a bit so Kirishima could squeeze past him. He didn’t leave too much room, though. The smooth brush of Kirishima’s arm against Bakugou’s hand was just enough to cause a sudden enough increase in heart rate that even Bakugou was startled. He tensed up.

“Dude, you okay? You look like I just told you that you have stage four Hanahaki or something,” said Kirishima, making a crack about the disease. Bakugou pushed the door closed then sat down on his chair, looking for his notes.

“Of course I’m okay,” he said, sorting out the notes for Aizawa’s class. He handed them to Kirishima, who looked like he was debating if it were polite or not to sit on Bakugou’s bed.

“You sure?”

Bakugou turned around to say something, but Kirishima cut him off.

“Oh, sorry for bumping into you. I forgot, we just broke quarantine,” Kirishima said, looking over towards the window as he held the papers in his hands. “Honestly, I haven’t seen you in like, three days. I thought you might want to catch up a bit, you know, hang out, especially since you never come to the lounge meetings.”

“Texting exists.”

“Yeah, that would work if you actually answered your texts.”

Bakugou felt a sudden flutter inside him. Kirishima had wanted to see him specifically, and had gone out of his way to come over, even though they were supposed to be in quarantine. Technically there hadn’t been any confirmed cases at UA, though…. Well, if they took proper precautions, one meeting couldn’t be that bad. Besides, he hadn’t hung out with anyone in forever.

“How many people have you seen today?”

“Just y-....Wait, I saw Sato in the kitchen cleaning something when I went in to get some of my leftovers. It was just an in and out thing, I promise.” Kirishima looked over him with those bright eyes of his, causing Bakugou’s heart rate to spike up again. What had gotten into him?

“You’ve taken a shower today, right?” asked Bakugou, trying to judge from the state of Kirishima’s hair.

“Yeah, right after my morning workout. You know, if you want to come over later, I’ve got clorox wipes so you can clean the weights to your heart’s content….”

There was a pause.

“You have permission to sit down on my bed,” said Bakugou abruptly. Kirishima returned the awkwardness with a startled look back at him, causing Bakugou to grimace slightly. Shit, he had waited too long to issue the order, and now it was just weird. “If you want to, I guess.” Fuck. Luckily for him, Kirishima didn’t seem to mind anymore, and sat down. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was kind of glad that he wasn’t completely isolated in the quarantine. Bakugou unplugged his headphones and scrolled down on his playlist.

“I just added the new Pentakill songs to my playlist,” he said, clicking play on one of them. “I wast listening to this one before you came in.” Kirishima nodded his head slightly.

“Oh, isn’t that the metal band from League of Legends?” he asked. “Bakugou, are you a gamer?” Bakugou’s face scrunched up.

“What? Fuck, no, I don’t play League, I just like their music,” he said, plopping himself down back first onto his bed. “Sero and Kaminari ramble on about that shit for hours, but a broken clock can be right twice a day.” Kirishima laughed a little, his face lighting up, before also leaning back on Bakugou’s bed. He turned his head to the side to face Bakugou directly. A tingling sensation in his cheeks began to spread across Bakugou’s face as he looked Kirishima in his eyes. Fuck, they were so close. He could see his own reflection in Kirishima’s eyes looking back at him. It was likely only a few seconds that he’d been encapsulated in the gaze, but it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. This was awkward, of course, Kirishima probably thought this was weird, too, and he should probably sit up so that Kirishima wouldn’t find this as awkward as- Shit, why did he care so much if Kirishima would think this was weird? Kirishima was fully capable of sitting back up, so if that were the case, it should be his own responsibility to do it.

“You look slightly flushed, you didn’t get Hanahaki, did you?” Kirishima touched the top of Bakugou’s forehead with the back of his hand. The tingling feeling he had earlier had come back, but for some reason it felt good , really good . Bakugou let Kirishima linger his hand there for a few extra seconds. While Kirishima was preoccupied by trying to gauge his temperature, Bakugou stole a quick glance downwards, looking at how Kirishima’s muscles stretched his tank top slightly, and how it had slightly ridden up at his hip, and-

Bakugou snapped his eyes back up when he felt Kirishima removing his hand, flustered.

“Shut up, of course I don’t have it. Yet. You probably gave it to me, though.”

“Did not,” said Kirishima, his sharp teeth completing his grin. “My immune system’s impeccable. I haven’t been sick since I was eight.”

“Didn’t you get food poisoning a month ago?”

“Anyone would get food poisoning from Mineta’s cooking.”

“Then why’d you fucking eat it?”

“I didn’t want to be rude.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” said Bakugou, smirking. Kirishima rolled his eyes.

“So, what was I supposed to say, ‘no, fuck off’?”

“That’s what I would have said.”

“Besides, food poisoning doesn’t count, I meant stuff like, a cold, or the flu,” said Kirishima, biting on his bottom lip. Bakugou wondered how he could do that in good conscience, especially since his teeth were so sharp. But if he could be soft against his own lips, then he probably wouldn’t tear up his lips if they-

Bakugou shut that thought out of his mind. This was his friend, and although he hated the term in general, his best friend . Judging by his interactions, there was no chance in hell that Kirishima had similar feelings, but there was also no way he had noticed, otherwise he wouldn’t have accidentally teased him so much.

He sat up abruptly, and slipped on his shoes.

“You said you’ve got some cleaning wipes, I’ve been itching for a good workout,” said Bakugou. Kirishima sat up and ran his hands through his hair. It was slightly ruffled up from when they had been lying down, but shit, it kind of looked good, in that kind of wind swept messy look. Bakugou blinked twice to try to wake some sense into himself.

“Sure, I still need these, though,” said Kirishima, grabbing the notes. “It’s a miracle you can even sit through those videos, they’re so glitchy.”

“I’d normally retort with “tell me about it”, but as the person who actually deciphered what was going on….”

“Okay, you squeezed it out of me, thanks ,” said Kirishima, leading the way out of the room as he fished out his key from his pocket to open up his dorm room. This was now twice that he’d broken quarantine, but was the likelihood that anyone was a carrier really that high? Probably not. Hopefully not.

That night, a light illuminated the room from his phone. He’d forgotten to turn on do not disturb. Begrudgingly, he picked it up, hoping that it wasn’t the class group chat that he forgot to mute. Instead, he was greeted by a text from Kirishima.

“Hey dude, sorry I forgot to return your notebook. You can come get it from my room tomorrow morning ;)”

Bakugou rolled his eyes. He had a few other notebooks to take notes in, it wasn’t a big deal. Suddenly, another text popped onto the screen.

“Also, some study came out that said jerking off boosts your immune system, which would probably help fight off Hanahaki. There’s no way anyone in our dorm is actually going to get it, lmfao.”

Bakugou grinned to himself. It was a stupid comment, but for some reason, he really liked it. It hit the mark of just stupid enough with a mix of realism, and the fact that Kirishima was the one who sent it-

Bakugou rolled over in his bed. Kirishima had been occupying a lot of his thoughts lately, which became more apparent when they were working out in his room. He had almost missed a rep after becoming distracted….twice. Which was completely unlike him, normally he’d be the one convincing whoever he was working out with to stop getting off task. Maybe it was because he was the only person Bakugou had meaningfully interacted with in a week, or maybe he had a…. No, Bakugou couldn’t have a crush on him, those were for schoolgirls. But, maybe….

His thoughts drifted back to when they were face to face on his bed, just inches apart. What if they had kissed, no, they couldn’t have, Kirishima wouldn’t---but what if he had?

Bakugou felt his heart rate once again rising. Shit, he did have a crush on Kirishima, didn’t he? He sat up and looked around his room, as if he were checking if anyone was there, before looking over at the tissues on his nightstand. He probably shouldn’t be doing this, but, it would boost his immune system….