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Bakugou's ears hurt.
He scowls, and itches at the spot where his aids meet the side of his head. It's a familiar not-so-subtle action of his, itching around his hearing aids.
He's not sure why he does it. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't actually help to adjust them, or hide them, or make his ears not ache. It's just a dumb action that draws more attention to them.
Bakugou knows what it comes from; it's a cover up. As a kid he used to adjust his hearing aids often, clumsy kid fingers messing with the clunky material. At best kids would stare as he adjusted them, and at worst they would get dislodged just enough that they'd be whistling for hours with his classmates snickering at him and not telling him.
By the time he was ten, Bakugou learned not to touch them. But he still has that reaction, he still has his hands flitting up to his ears as if to do something.
These days he disguises it as an itch.
It's a habit he hates that he's been unable to get rid of.
So he gently itches the space behind his ears and lets his ears ache.
Nobody's looking at him- Bakugou's checked- but it still doesn't make him feel any less like he's being watched.
He scowls and flips a page in his book.
He could go up to his room and take his hearing aids out, take a break, but his classmates have noticed his tendencies to self isolate in his room and started forcing him to hang out in the communal living areas.
It’s only been two weeks in the dorms and he’s already being forced to socialize.
Or, they aren't forcing him, because no one can force him to do anything , but they keep pestering him at his room and he can't get any studying done because Kirishima's pounding on his door shakes his entire room even if he takes out his hearing aids in an attempt to ignore him.
So now he's sitting on a couch in the common room, thankfully being left alone, and reading his book.
He's also still wearing his hearing aids. His hearing aids that he's been wearing since five am.
His ears hurt.
He drops his hand, giving up his futile attempt at scratching his head because he knows that doesn't do anything anyways.
His ears hurt .
He's been wearing them so much that he's only chucking them in their charger the moment he falls asleep and sliding them on the moment he gets up.
His early bedtime isn't just for his sleep. He needs to let his fucking ears rest.
Fuck this, this is bullshit. He’s done trying to interact and be friends and get along with his classmates or whatever this dumbass attempt of hanging out on the couch is. With a sigh, he slams his book shut and sits up, getting up off the couch.
He’s two steps closer to the stairs when someone calls out to him.
He misses the call at first because even though yes, he did technically hear the call of ‘hey Bakugou’ his processing with the metallic words is hit or miss from a distance and when he isn’t expecting to be talked to.
But then they call again.
“Bakugou!”
And Bakugou realizes he’s been called, and then realizes he was called before that too.
He turns, and sees Sero and a few others staring over at him.
“Man, are you heading up to sleep already, we were going to do movie night? We finally got everyone together!”
Bakugou’s ears hurt.
The entire room is staring at him.
He scowls.
“I don’t want to watch whatever shitty movie you extras picked out,” he scoffs and turns for his room.
He pretends to not notice how Sero’s face falls or how Ashido and Kirishima share a look or how Yaoyorozu frowns or how even Jirou slumps slightly. It’s dumb, but all the small actions make his heat clench.
It doesn’t matter, he already made up his mind and storms off to his room.
His ears hurt.
He needs a break.
He takes the stupid devices off with a scowl, settling into an version of partial silence. It’s actually kind of nice in moments like this, moments when he’s alone. Moments where he doesn’t have to depend on hearing. He can just drift, comforted in partial silence.
It’s sort of like having built in noise canceling. A lot cheaper than expensive headphones, that’s for sure.
Though to be fair, his hearing aids are way more expensive than the headphone alternative. At least they’re bluetooth. He can actually take phone calls now. Sort of.
Bakugou goes to bed early that night, hearing aids charging on his night stand and pretending he isn’t curious about what movie the rest of his classmates are talking about.
The next day at school, they won’t shut up about it. Something about man-eating giant worms in the middle of nowhere and earthquakes and some guy named Bacon. They’re split in two, some claiming it was the best movie they’ve ever seen while the rest swearing it off with a string of curses. Each of them has something to comment about it. Even Kouda, who doesn’t talk, gets pulled in, sitting just slightly apart and smiling as he nods in agreement with something Hagakure says.
Bakugou doesn’t engage, instead sitting at his desk and staring off in the distance, fists curled tightly against his pants.
It’s fine.
He doesn't even know why he’s upset. Not that he is upset!
“Hey,” Kaminari says, catching his attention with a hand wave, “Dude, you got to watch the next one with us! This movie series is a shit show, you’ll love it.”
Bakugou scowls, moving his gaze away from Kaminari’s offending presence. It’s just his luck that he makes eye contact with Deku, who quickly ducks his own head.
“Why would I want to watch the sequel if I haven’t even seen the first.”
“C’mon, dude it doesn’t matter, They’re shit-”
“Amazing.”
“-movies anyways.”
Bakugou blinks.
“I don’t know,” Ojiro chimes in, “If Bakugou doesn’t want to…” Bakugou scowls at him, wondering why Ojiro is defending him and wondering why he would even think Bakugou needs defending in the first place.
“I don’t need you defending me,” he points out to shut him up.
Ojiro shrugs.
“I mean, if you’re scared that’s fine,” he offers.
“What?” Bakugou splutters, “Scared?”
“I mean I guess it is a thriller,” Ashido remarks, “Though I’m not sure I’d call it scary. Midoriya, what did you think?”
Midoriya flinches at being addressed, squeaking for a moment as he meets Ashido’s eyes and then Bakugou’s.
“Oh,” he says, “Um I mean uh, I guess, it was- well the effects were kind of… silly?” he offers.
“See, Midoriya’s not scared,” Ashido offers. She’s smirking now and Bakugou knows exactly damn well what she's doing. The worst part is that Bakugou knows it’s going to work . “But if you’re scared I guess you don’t have to watch the sequel with us…” she trails off.
“Fuck off, I’m not scared. Just tell me when we’re watching the next movie.”
“All right!” Ashido cheers, turning back to the grouped circle of the rest of his class. Kirishima not so subtly slips Sero money, and Kaminari high fives Jirou.
Ridiculous. All of them. Stupid. Bakugou can’t believe he’s doing this.
He scowls further, but there’s not much he can do now. He’s already said he’ll watch it.
Which means that Friday, he’s stuck on one of the massive couches, wedged next to Todoroki. Bakugou had fought valiantly to be at the edge of one of the couches, refusing to let two people be squashed against him. Todoroki also isn’t his first choice for a couch partner, but at least he seems as uncomfortable with the close comfort as Bakugou and he’s doing his best to leave a thin gap of space between the two of them.
Fuck this.
Ashido’s scrolling through streaming platforms and Kaminari is desperately trying to steal the remote as Tokoyami tells him off. Iida’s attempting to referee buthis voice just overwhelms and blankets over everyone else’s instead of actually solving the problem of finding which streaming service the offending movie is on.
Bakugou scowls, zoning out and not bothering to decipher the many voices that are all talking over each other.
“-gou, -kugou, Bakugou,” someone’s saying and Bakugou jolts, turning to Kirishima who’s at the ground near his feet.
“What?” he scowls.
Kirishima’s face is stuffed with popcorn and he chews as he speaks.
“Wa- - -,” he says and Bakugou blinks.
“What?” he repeats.
Kirishima repeats himself but it's lost to the fact that he’s chewing on half eaten popcorn as literally every single damn student in class is talking. Bakugou can’t understand a word of what he’s saying.
“Chew with your damn mouth closed,” Bakugou snarls, and that’s the end of that.
He leans back as Kirishima looks stricken, and goes to study the couch’s arm before his gaze slowly roams.
He’s surrounded by his peers, his classmates- all of them loud and obnoxious and demanding he be here for movie night.
He doesn’t understand a damn thing, and he can’t even try to carry a conversation with Kirishima with all of the goddamn background noise.
What is he going to do when he’s on the field? When there’s buildings crashing and burning around him and explosions going off and civilians screaming? Sure the comm connected to his hearing aids works well, cutting through all of that noise, but it’s technology. It’s a piece of technology, and technology breaks.
He’d be a liability.
He gulps, heart thudding and meets Kouda’s gaze.
Kouda who’s sitting a little ways away from the rest of the group, pet rabbit in his lap and looking softly over at Bakugou. He raises his hand gently, and makes the universal sign for ‘ok’ as he quirks up an eyebrow in question.
Bakugou stares at, eyes stinging, and turns away.
Eventually they find whatever goddamn movie they’re looking for and as sound bursts out of speakers the extras finally shut the hell up.
The movie starts playing, and with a sinking feeling of alienation, Bakugou realizes there’s no closed captioning.
Fuck.
He feels- he feels so stupid for letting his class con him into this stupid movie bonding night or whatever. It sucks. This is the worst. He doesn’t like any of them anyways and he doesn’t want to watch this dumb movie and even if he did want to he can’t fucking hear the actors so what’s the goodamn point.
“Hey, can - - - - caption- -.”
Bakugou’s eyes shoot over to Deku. His voice is surprisingly steady and loud and parts of it cut through to him even as he’s across the room and speaking over the movie.
Kaminari mutters something- Bakugou catches the word ‘shit’ on his lips- and then there’s closed captioning in the bottom of the screen, scrawling out lines for them.
Bakugou’s heart thuds, realizing what Deku’s asked for.
Deku’s gaze meets his, and Bakuggou’s hear thuds louder.
He realizes what Deku’s done.
God fucking dammit Bakugou doesn’t need help. Especially not from Deku. Why doesn’t the damn nerd understand that? Why can’t he get that through his thick skull?
“Turn them off,” Bakugou grunts, “They’re distracting.”
“- - used - -,” Kaminari says, but nothing happens.
“Turn them off,” Bakuguo repeats again. His demand is met with zero action. He’s being ignored.
“Hey,” he shouts, leaping to his feet, “I said turn the damn things off .”
Todoroki startles at his side. Deku’s staring at the floor. The entire class is staring at him. Shoji grabs the remote and pauses it.
“Dude!” Kamanari says, “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“I don’t need them,” Bakugou insists.
“Okay, fine, whatever,” Kaminari says, “But Midoriya asked for them.”
Midoriya curls in on himself.
“The fucking-”
“We’re keeping them on,” Iida interrupts, “- a useful - feature.”
“I don’t need them,” Balkugou stresses. Because he doesn’t! He doesn’t need them.
“Not - - about you,” Uraraka hisses, glaring him down.
Which is a dumb reasoning because this is so obviously about Bakugou and Deku’s calling him out in front of their entire class. Deku is embarrassing him, showing his weaknesses to all of them and they’re all acting like Bakugou’s the asshole here.
Bakugou should know to expect this from Deku’s shit friends.
“Deku - for me, kero,” Asui says.
Bakugou blinks, turns to her.
“What?”
The girl curls a little bit into Uraraka’s side, hand gripping Deku’s.
“Deku asked for me,” she repeats, “kero, I have auditory pr- disorder. It- I have trouble following along without captioning. I - Deku noticed I was having trouble, so he - me if I wanted him to ask. I - yes.”
Bakugou sits, stunned.
Deku finally looks up, meeting Bakugou’s gaze.
“Kacchan-” he tries.
“Shut it Deku,” he snaps, face flushing, “Play the damn movie.”
“The captions will-”
“The goddamn closed captioning can stay,” Bakugou grumbles. “Just start the damn thing.”
Iida blinks, but gives a nod to Shoji, who presses play.
Bakugou settles, watches the scrolling words at the bottom of the screen, and understands the movie.
Or well, hypothetically he understands the movie. It becomes quickly apparent why his classmates were arguing about the quality of the movie the other day. This series is dumb and stupid and makes absolutely no sense at all.
Bakugou follows every word said on screen, eyes settling as he processes both the text and the picture above it at the same time.
It’s a dumb movie, and Bakugou finally has the privilege of knowing its a dumb movie.
It’s a stupid thing to feel happy about.