Tabula Rasa (BakuDeku)

32

Bloody Knuckles

Katsuki wakes up alone.

He doesn't even have to roll over to know that Deku probably left in the middle of the night, but he pats the left side of the bed to make sure, just in case.

Every trace of the greenette is gone from the room. The shirt in the corner, the jacket on the chair. The only evidence of his existence is his imprint in the bed, and the faint smell of mint shampoo on the pillow.

He swallows the rock growing at the base of his throat. Clutching his own pillow, he lets out a shaky breath. Fuck. This.

He feels...uncomfortable. Used. Like he's in someone else's skin. Katsuki rubs at his arms, hoping the uncomfortable feeling will go away, but it only gets worse. He rolls onto his back.

This isn't fair. Why him? He was perfectly fine hating anything and everything about the stupid nerd. But, he doesn't hate him for leaving.

It's pathetic, but Katsuki takes a moment to sulk. He tells himself five minutes, and then he has to drag his sorry ass out of bed and go to class.

Five minutes. Five minutes to wonder if maybe, he deserves this. Five minutes to wondering how different things would've been if he'd just been a little bit nicer. Five minutes of pure regret and self-blame.

Then Katsuki sits up and uses the bottom of his black t-shirt to wipe the rogue tear tracks off his face, they're dried now.

He shouldn't even be sad. They didn't even have sex, just fooled around a bit. It didn't mean anything, Deku doesn't do relationships. Katsuki went into this knowingly, but still has the audacity to be sad anyway. Oh well.

Feeling like shit, Katsuki finally peels himself off the bed for good, blindly grabs the cleanest uniform he could find and heads towards the bathroom.

Out of frustration, he punches the shower tile. It cracks, his knuckles bleed.

Katsuki goes through the motions of the day in autopilot. He answers the same amount of questions, yells at the same amount of people, eats the same food. Except he still feels off. Gross. Like he wants to rip all his skin off and cry.

He hates this.

"Alright everyone," Mr. Aizawa says. He's their instructor for hero training today. They're at the USJ, "Today we'll be doing rescue exercises. You'll be split up into six teams, with five students each. Just like the licensing exam, you'll be graded by the person you save. If they think you did a good job, you'll get a decent grade. And vice versa. Because this is a group exercise, every group gets one grade. "

Denki elbows him in the side, eyebrows wiggling, "Looks like someone's about to fail again, eh?" Katsuki rolls his eyes, as if he could fucking forget. He was stuck with Icyhot for months.

Mr. Aizawa begins to list off the teams: "Aoyama, Asui, Kirishima, Bakugou and Himiko are group number one. You'll be assigned to the ruin zone." Katsuki nods. At least he's not with Deku.

"Jiro, Tokoyami, Todoroki, Midoriya and Uraraka are group two. You'll be assigned to the flood zone." Nevermind, forget everything Katsuki said. He'd rather be with Deku, because the other fucking option is Pink Cheeks, and Katsuki doesn't fucking trust her. Deku gives her a small smile and waves, and her cheeks only get pinker. Katsuki might just throw up.

Aizawa-sensei finishes reading the rest of the groups, and Katsuki's group head off to the ruin zone. Luckily, it's not far from the entrance. Unluckily, he has a direct view of Deku in his bathing suit and it's illegal.

He shakes his head, trying to erase the memory like an Etch-A-Sketch. He's got to move on.

"Alright!" Eijirou cheers, "Lets save some people!"