"Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing

are the same."

-Issac Slade

----------------------------------------

If someone were to be forced to pick two words that described the current physical state of the students who had followed Bakugo - and maybe even Bakugo himself to a lesser degree - it would actually be fairly simple: dead fish. Glossy, unseeing eyes, puckered lips wide in surprise, and limbs limp and flappy, like the slightest gust of wind would send their 'fins' dangling freely by the air's mercy. That was the extent of the shock they suffered.

The only exception to this was Kaminari, who had never seen nor interacted much with 'Allen', and was thus unable to link his gentle, ash-haired classmate with a callous, green-haired, morally gray stranger. But the others... well, they weren't fooled for one second. They had already peeled back the layers of one 'Allen Bowman' and knew that he wasn't exactly as he seemed. Adding on to that, his red eyes, to anyone who had stared at them for long, were simply unmistakable. They were darker now - maybe it was the lighting? - but the smooth swirl of magenta and red and black, all flowing together in a slow, but ensaring whirlpool to anyone that dared to immerse themselves in it for more than a second or two... Well, they certainly remembered it. All of them, really, had been held captive in place by those eyes of his at least one time.

When he turned and truly looked at them with those eyes of his, they knew that they didn't stand a chance.

It was only when Bakugo's similarly red eyes - but they were eyes of passion, of a roaring flame protecting those dear and melting those who sought to bring harm, and oh so different from a silently engulfing whirlpool that trapped people until they suffocated in their depths, never to be seen again - locked onto them that they were broken out of their reverie. Collectively, they all got the sudden urge to laugh at themselves, disparagingly, but they bit their cheeks until they bled and smiled an incredibly fragile smile that spoke of whispered questions in the dark with no answer, of confusion, of ignorance, but there was also a similarly fragile, yet strong resolve to keep it all under wraps and simply get a hold of themselves. And so... They smiled (they didn't cry, thank the lord for that).

Uraraka smiled.

Todoroki smiled.

Iida - while not necessarily having the same experiences as the other two, but was still one and the same in all of the ways that did matter - smiled.

"You guys... What the hell are you doing here?!"

"We, well, we were worried about you, Baku-Bro," Kaminari started the talk, although he was the only one who could at current; the others were simply too tongue-tied to say a word. "You look really bad, after all. I wasn't joking - well, not that much - when I said that you had really big dark circles under your eyes. Plus, you always rush out of the classroom the moment the bell rings these days, so we were all a little worried. And, uh, who's this friend of yours..? If you don't mind me asking..."

His voice trailed off in an awkward, self-doubting manner, but Bakugo wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to feel sympathetic.

"He... He ain't my fucking friend. And I'm fine, Kirishima. That doesn't explain why the hell you followed me though. Couldn't you have just fucking asked me?"

Kirishima shriveled.

"But! I did ask you! You just didn't respond..."

Bakugo merped ('oh my lord, people could do that?' was the thought of one green-haired boy) and the blonde-haired teen silently looked away, saying nothing in particular.

The moment was broken when the almost imperceptible click of a pen rang out, and once more, all of their eyes unconsciously focused on the green-haired boy with red eyes. If he knew that their eyes were on him, he didn't show any recognition of it as he steadily, almost absentmindedly, signed the dotted line with a little flick of his wrist. He handed the forms and papers over to the lady at the front desk, to which she rose her eyebrow at, as if seeing forms of release was a very, very unexpected and unseen part of her job before she grabbed them with her dainty little fingers and that was that.

"I'm surprised they're letting you out just like that, considering what kind of place this is." Bakugo's voice ran out in a questioning, almost antagonistic, drawl. Deku regarded it with the same emotional intensity that he did everything. Which is to say, not very much. Hell, the other students looked more emotionally invested and nervous about it than he did. Which was somewhat interesting all on its own, considering how he had treated them when he saw them last. But still, their conversation seemed like, strangely enough, that it was from another world; one so private, so tender, and so... 'intimate' for all the word was worth, that nothing else had any place budding in.

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"No evidence and a witness-that's-not-even-a-witness isn't enough to keep me here according to the law, you know? It might as well be a regular hospital for the 'innocent'."

"So... you're leaving, then?" Bakugo's voice was strangely quiet. Deku nodded, just as quiet in nature.

"I have no reason to stay here. In any case, what about you?"

Despite the lack of clarification, it seemed that Bakugo got his message loud and clear.

"I'm... thinking about it. You dumped a damn heavy decision on me, you know that right?" His words, if you just simply looked at them, would be passive-aggressive, but the tone was more helpless resignation. "If I do choose to do this, I ain't gonna have a chance in hell of becoming a hero. But by the same token, if I become a hero just like that, it won't fucking mean anything. Since now I know there's this god awful choice."

He smiled. It wasn't happy, but something else that you couldn't quite put your finger on.

"What was it, again..? "Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same". It's by Issac Slade if I remember correctly. Of course, it's your place to decide if it's it is the ethical thing to do, or if you want to make the hardest choice. I'm sure that competitiveness of yours will make the choice for you regardless, though. You're an interesting piece-"

His words were broken as a panicked interruption (his voice trembled) slid into place.

"Wait-... What... What do you mean, not being a hero anymore..?"

Clearly, some feelings of isolation and privateness weren't enough of a stop-gap to dam up the bombshell that those words had been to a select few; Kirishima was just the worst offender. Uraraka's mouth was slightly ajar, Iida looked like he was about to combust, and Todoroki had an intense look of questioning as if someone had just told him the world was actually flat. But Kirishima, oh, Kirishima looked positively devastated, as if his dog had just died and he could do nothing but stare at the corpse helplessly.

Kirishima got no response.

"Bakugo-! You, you can't just quit after you've worked this hard! Whatever this-... this guy said to you, you can't just believe it-!"

Bakugo roared, temper flaring as he inched menacingly towards Kirishima.

"Shut the hell up! I didn't just believe it. I thought about this every single minute, every single second of the day. I thought so hard about this that-!"

A hand grabbed the back of his shirt collar and pulled.

Deku's voice was soft, but it was close enough and calm-angry enough to pull Bakugo to his senses.

"Calm down, you idiot. Your friend is just worried about you. And you haven't even made a decision yet, for chrissakes. Go cool off your head before I have to listen to more of this rubbish."

Job completed, Deku quite literally pushed the guy upright and back to his original position, which Bakugo only successfully landed because of his superb reflexes. Thankfully, Bakugo was too busy being questioned and having apologies being spewed at him - he faintly heard a 'sorry' from Bakugo's mouth and wondered if he was hearing things - to even half-heartedly hit him back (although it was clear from the pissed off look on his face that this wasn't the last he would hear of this... incident). But, seeing as the incident with Kirishima had disrupted the 'conversation-from-another-world' atmosphere, it was his turn to be hounded at as well, although the people that were doing it to him were marginally calmer about it.

"...Are you okay, now?"

Uraraka spoke first. Despite it being a seemingly simple question, there seemed to be boundless questions, pleas almost, within it that saught for an answer.

Deku ran away from it and all the implications of it.

"I wouldn't be able to get out of the building if I wasn't."

"Ah, no, I-... I mean-!"

He sighed, before gently plopping his hand on her head. A faint blush peeked through the pigment of her skin, but Deku...

He would never acknowledge it, nor would he do anything but play oblivious; he was a coward, after all.

"I managed to get out of doing that. While other things have happened, the environment I'm in now is a lot better. I'm restricted by nothing but my own goals now."

(Unspoken was the answer to her question.)

Thankfully, she was too preoccupied with the hand on her head to have the brain capacity to pry further. Unfortunately, it looked like the others still the capacity to doubt and question his words. He let his hand fall back naturally to his side as he took the initiative to ask a 'question' of his own.

"I hope the whole Endeavor ordeal worked out for you."

He looked surprised that Deku was asking that of him, but he responded nonetheless.

"It... I can only thank you for that. There has been some unsavory attention, but I... I feel better than I have in years. I've been... talking with my mom as well. If there were one thing I'm uncomfortable about, it'd be that he feels like a completely different person now, after the trial... Like that piece of trash only realizes what he's done now that he's facing consequences."

He nodded gently; he didn't have thick enough skin to point out that it was all happen chance.

That didn't really matter anyway. Humbleness, when taken to the extreme, was just as worse as arrogance.

"As irritating as it can be at times, there's no one truly bad in this world. Your father is just one person of many that fall under this category. It's up to you whether you want to accept this new version of him into your life or not, but you can't deny that it happened. You'll only hurt yourself and others if you do that."

He nodded like he already knew, and he most likely did, but there was just something helpful in hearing it vocalized.

So despite that, he didn't regret saying it.

He turned towards Iida. He had been simply standing there for the last few minutes, but the look on his face suggested that he still had something to say to him.

(He would try not to run away from it.)

What he did say, in the end, wasn't what he expected, to say the least.

"Thank you for saving my life," His back bent in a low 90-degree bow. "I'm sorry for my behavior at the time."

He couldn't stop the words from leaving his lips.

"You aren't going to question me..?"

"You aren't going to answer. It's better to just give my thanks instead."

He couldn't help it; he laughed.

"You got me there. Well, goodbye. It a pleasure to talk to you all."

He waved, and then...

He was gone.