Chapter 1: Bakugou's Poem

                                    

                                          
On one seemingly normal school day, Aizawa walks up to the front of the classroom. "Alright, everyone quiet," he says in his bored tone and everyone quickly quiets themselves. "Today you are all writing poems. Do it about whatever. I don't care. Due at the end of class when you will each present. Don't wake me up until then." 
                          
As Aizawa sinks back to the floor in his sleeping bag, the class dissolved into chatter. Variations from, "A poem? YES! Mine is going to be great!" to "Ugh this'll be bad," ringing through the newly loud room as they teacher snores.
                          
Kirishima and the Bakusquad walk happily over to Bakugou who has his feet up atop his desk and is looking out the window as he leans back in his chair with music playing in his ear buds.
                          
"Hey Bakugou! You excited, bro?" Kirishima asks cheerfully. 
                          
Bakugou turns and notices them for the first time and smirks, taking out his ear buds. "What are you idiots doing?"
                          
Kirishima smiles, "Bro, we are all going to write poems, I asked if you are excited!"
                          
"Tch."
                          
"Hey come on Kacchan have some fun!" Kaminari says as if he believes he won't be killed by the explosive blonde.
                          
Bakugou turns and glares at him, "Fuck off and don't call me that!" As Kaminari pouts, Mina and Sero both turn to him and the three begin laughing and talking about their poems as Kirishima gives Bakugou one more smile.
                          
"Come on, man, have some fun! It'll be nice to write the poem 'cuz you can even write your feelings out, right?"
                          
Bakugou gives Kirishima yet another click of the tongue as his response as the red head cheerily turns and walks towards the others. The blonde glares at his desk for a moment before taking out a paper to write his poem. After all, he won't ignore a class assignment, he isn't an idiot like his dumbass friends. 
                          
Time passes by quickly as everyone writes out their poems and soon they are all finished. Iida, ever the responsible one, alerts the previously sleeping teacher that they are ready to present. It is in this moment that Bakugou hears the word "present" and almost panics. He had not been paying attention, he didn't know that everyone would hear the poems! And here he had thought he could just do as Kirishima said and write about his feelings. This would be a train wreck. 
                          
As soon as the first presenter went he began to feel even worse, anxiety growing. Mina went third and gave presented an artsy poem about a pink orange. Bakugou thought it was strange but it had the entire class smiling, well, besides him. As Aizawa called name after name, he reached Round Face. Her poem went far deeper than anyone else's. She wrote about her home life and financial struggles and by the time she finished she was crying and her friends comforted her as soon as she took her seat. Soon after Min**a went, there was only one student left, and by all the lack of luck in the world, that meant it was Bakugou's turn.
                          
He hears Aizawa's bored voice say, "Bakugou. It's your turn to present. Come up here," and slowly stood, eyes transfixed on the papers in his hands, shaking slightly but not to the point any normal observer would notice. 
                          
Bakugou reaches a podium at the front of the room, the one which all the others had stood at before him, and he placed his papers atop it, beginning to glare at them.
                          
"Well, are you going to begin?" Bakugou hears Aizawa day from his right as the other students stare at him from their seats. 
                          
Bakugou replies, "I didn't know we would be presenting could I write something else, please?" 
                          
At the un-Bakugou-like plea as well as the nervous shake to the boy's voice, Aizawa raises an eyebrow, but replies, "You should have paid attention. You have to read to entire thing or I'll give you detention for a month."
                          
Bakugou gulps and looks back towards his papers, scowl gone, replaced by a nervous appearance. As he realizes he had been standing there motionlessly for a moment, he begins in an impressively passive tone,
                          
"Weak.
I am weak.
No matter how much I try I am never good enough.
No matter how often everyone tells me I am strong, that is not what they really think. 
They all know that I am weak. 
                          
I can never speak my mind.
They all believe me strong but do they ever see me?
No.
They see my mask.
They see the sculpture that I have shaped throughout my life to pretend that I am indestructible.
That I am a hero—
                          
But they don't even believe that.
People—everyone around me—see me and peg me as the villain.
It is easy, I suppose.
That cruel, terrible demonic bastard of a child who never has the guts to say a kind word.
I understand.
                          
I understand that I am all of these things and more. I am cruel, demonic, and a bastard, but I am even more.
Yes—
I am weak.
And no matter how hard I try,
No matter how hard I  train to change myself,
I never defeat my weakness.
It latches onto me like the villain made of sludge that would not allow me to escape or breathe.
And nobody even remembers that event, uncaring for me, the evil boy who was attacked.
Because he was a villain and deserved it.
                          
When he cried and tried to escape, exploding buildings.
It was his fault.
How could he be so weak as to get caught.
How could he be so weak as too cause so much destruction when he should have easily escaped the villain's grasp.
But no, the kid's thoughts do not matter.
He is a villain.
He is weak.
He could not even avoid getting chained up at his school after winning an event!
No, instead he behaved as everyone expected,
He fought.
And nobody saw past his sculpted mask.
Nobody saw the tears dripping from his face as his greatest hero shoved a medal into his mouth after peeling away the muzzle.
                          
He can't talk much about his hero though.
After all, he is the reason his career is over.
All his fault.
How could he get kidnapped?
He is so very weak.
How could he ever aspire to be a hero?
A little bastard like him.
A fuck up who can't even free himself.
Who goes home and can't even escape his mother who hits him and tells him how much of a fuck up he really is because he can't even save himself.
Not even from her.
Not even when she tells him it's his fault and that he shouldn't have allowed himself to be kidnapped.
Not even when she locks him away in his room for days on end with quirk restraining gloves on.
Gloves that are not made for a quirk like his and explode all over his arms for hours on end.
But locking him in his room is the worst part,
Leaving him to think—
                          
What torture.
                          
All that runs through the child's head is his own weakness.
He caused the public to see him as a villain, surely?
Nobody likes him, so surely he must be one!
Even the people who he considers friends must talk behind his back about his villainy despite smiling at him when they see him turn.
Even the one he loves most.
He is too good for him.
The sunshine that shelters him from his own darkness, if only for a second.
But the darkness always prevails when the boy remembers it is all an act.
There is no possible way that sunshine could possibly love a villain like him.
A weak, cruel, villain does not deserve such a wonderful thing.
                          
Surely, all of these people, the public, those he wishes were his friends, and his unachievable love, if being truthful, would say they all wish him dead.
They all hate him.
Why would they not?
They never saw him when he bled from his wrists or burned himself with his own explosions, intentionally and not.
They all knew but pretended they were from training.
They all, surely, wish him dead.
They must.
So why is he still alive?
Why can't he just die?
Why doesn't he when he so badly wants to?
Why does he need to struggle so much—
Trying to live?"
                          
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Hello, I hope you are enjoying this so far. This is my first story! There is more angst to come and hopefully soon because I understand the pain of the wait ;) and pls tell me about any mistakes I wrote this rly quickly on a whim so ya
                          
-Angry