mina ashido, pt. 2
“Shit, shit, shit!” Katsuki gasps, frantically shoving the razor back in the drawer and scrambling to get up. When he puts pressure on his arms, though, white hot pain shoots up his limbs and startles a cry of pain from his throat. He falls back onto the ground, back slamming against the counter again. Katsuki hisses as more blood gushes from the long, jagged cuts along his wrists. Tears spring to Katsuki’s eyes as he takes in the situation.
He couldn’t get up. His arms hurt. Everything hurts. His head throbbed and his legs were shaky, and he felt very dizzy — usually, on his better days, he would have a higher pain tolerance than this. But right now, Katsuki just can’t.
A small sob escapes his mouth, and he hangs his head, sniffling and hiccupping as Mina continues to knock rapidly against his door. She calls out his name, getting more concerned with each time she repeats it, freaking Katsuki out even more. He couldn’t let Mina see him like this — all bloody and crying and weak. He just couldn’t. Both him and Mina would break.
“M-Mina,” he calls out shakily. Mina goes quiet on the other side. “I —”
‘Bakugou! Bakugou, are you alright? Do I need to get Aizawa-sensei —”
“No!” Katsuki cries, panicked. Katsuki shakes his head quickly and pleadingly even though Mina can’t see him. “Please don’t call Aizawa-sensei here. Please, Mina.” he begs tearfully.
Mina is silent for a moment longer. Then, softly, she says, “Okay.”
Katsuki sobs quietly in relief. “Thank you, Mina.”
Mina ignores his gratitude. “What’s wrong?” she asks. Katsuki’s relief is short-lived. He swallows back the bile in his throat and clenches his fists, which sends a sharp ache up his arms. He bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, determined to not cry out in pain for some pathetic, self-inflicted wounds.
(His mother was right. He was fucking weak and worthless, and he should’ve died back when the sludge villain attacked so she wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.)
“M-Mina, I. . .” Katsuki pauses, squeezes his eyes shut against the onslaught of tears. “Mina, I’m sick. So. . . so don’t come in, please.”
“Yeah, totally. Let me in.” says Mina. Katsuki almost whines in pure frustration and agony.
“Mina.” he whimpers. “Mina, please go.” His voice is getting weaker, his vision blurring with black dots at the edges, his breathing heavy and slow and everything is so loud — Katsuki can hear his heartbeat as if it were Kyouka playing the drums in his ears, and he can feel the throbbing pain vibrate through his body and sending distress signals to his brain. The coldness of his bathroom floor seeps through his clothing and makes him shiver, and not just from the icy chill of the tiles.
The copper, tangy smell of blood hangs heavy in the air and clogs Katsuki’s nostrils until his head is fucking swimming at the strongness of it.
“-- kugou? Bakugou?! Bakugou, I’m coming in! —”
Oh. Mina’s still here. Distantly, he smells something other than blood — melting metal. Katsuki blinks as the sound of a door being forcefully slammed open reaches his ears. Flinching, Katsuki lulls his head to the side to catch a glimpse of Mina’s horrified, shaken face.
“What the fuck.” she says, trembling head-to-toe, bringing a shaking hand to cover her gaping mouth, golden-and-black eyes wide with terror and shock.
“Mina,” Katsuki slurs. “Mina, I don’t —”
“Bakugou!” Mina screeches, running towards him frantically, throwing the bathroom door further open with a crack. Katsuki flinches away harshly as Mina drops down beside him, her pants quickly becoming stained with blood. His blood. His blood from his —
“Oh.” Katsuki says as Mina blabbers and cries, her hands outstretched in front of her, hovering over his gushing, bleeding wrists, clearly not knowing what to do. Katsuki sighs, feeling oddly calmer than he thought he'd be. He thought he’d be much more panicked and bothered about someone knowing he hurts himself. But, for some reason, he’s sort of okay with Mina knowing.
“Mina,” he whispers. Mina sniffles and hiccups and sobs, finally breaking her eyes away from Katsuki’s wrists, looking Katsuki in the eyes. Katsuki feels serene. Weirdly enough. “Mina, the cabinet. The one on the eft to. . . the right. There’s. . . there’s bandages you can. . . use.” he says slowly, his tongue feeling heavy like lead, his limbs a thousand pounds like unmovable stones. His thoughts are slow and vacant and it’s like his brain is fogged over or something, underwater or through a broken television screen.
Mina nods rapidly and wipes her eyes, standing unsteady to her feet. “Y-Yeah, okay.” she whispers, either to herself or to Katsuki or to both, he doesn’t know. Mina quickly scrambles towards the cabinets and opens the left one and looks to the right. There, sitting like marbled stone, new and fresh, sits the bandages. Mina snatches them and kneels by Katsuki’s side again, bandages in hand.
Katsuki grins faintly. “Smartie. . . pants,” he teases. Mina does not laugh.
Huh. That’s strange. She usually laughs when he attempts to make jokes. Key word, attempt. That’s probably why she’s not giggling and shit.
“Katsuki, did you do this to yourself?” Mina asks quietly, his voice still rough from crying. Katsuki jolts at the use of his first name. He didn’t think they were that close —
(He didn’t want to get his hopes up. She — all of them were going to eventually leave, anyway. Just like everyone does. Like Deku did —)
“Um,” Katsuki swallows and closes his eyes. Then he opens them again. “Um, no?” he offers just as quietly.
Mina bows her head. “Katsuki, we need to get you to Recovery Girl.” Her voice is more wobbly than before, as if she knew Katsuki was lying.
She probably did.
“Okay,” he whispers, staring at Mina as his vision darkens and she blurs from view. The last thing he hears is the desperate voice of Mina tearfully calling his name. He lets the abyss of sleep take him, he allows it to wrap around him in the form of black goo, obscuring his vision, making it go dark as he drifts away from Mina, from UA, from the world.
From his mother.
I wouldn’t even mind, Katsuki thinks as he loses consciousness, I wouldn’t even mind if it swallowed me up forever.
He wishes, every time this happens, that it does.