Cause and Effect Pt.2 ๐Ÿ‚

Bakugou POV


I watched as Eijirou wrote down stuff. A whole fuckin lot of stuff. I knew what it was going to be about and I didn't want to read it, but it didn't look like I had any choice. His hand scribbled furiously, his face contorted with concentration.


It looked like he was going to cry and I wanted to go over to him and hold him, but I figured it was best to let him finish first, then I could hold him for as long as I wanted.


Finally, he stopped writing and the pen hung loosely in his hand as he stared back at what he wrote. He read it over one time, maybe two. Then, he handed me the notebook and clung onto my side as I started to read it.


It was bullshit. The whole thing. I apparently needed to have 'quiet time' like I was four fucking years old. And they had a bunch of meds they wanted me to take and they probably weren't even going to do anything. Bullshit.


I ripped the page out of the notebook, crumpled it up and tossed it on the floor. Eijirou was about to go grab it, but I pulled him back down onto my bed next to me. I grabbed the pen that was still resting in his hand and started writing.


I don't give a shit about that. How are you? What did they say about you?


Eijirou read the note and gave me a small smile. It was forced and unnatural, so I knew that whatever he was about to tell me would be a lie. When Eijirou smiled, his whole body had a reaction. His shoulders scrunched up, his forehead got all creased and when he was sitting down, he'd always pull his legs up to his chest and wrap himself in a happy little ball of red.


The smile he gave me, it was just his mouth curled upwards a bit. It was a smile, but it wasn't his smile. He finished writing and gave me the notebook back.


Inhaled a bit of smoke. Nothing too serious. They just wanted to give an oxygen supply for a few days and then I'll be good.
We need to talk about how we're going to communicate. I think we should learn sign language.


He showed me the notebook. I moved myself closer to him so that our legs were touching and placed the notebook on the junction where our legs met so that we both had easy access.


That sounds like a fucking waste of time.


He gave me a disappointed face.
This isn't an efficient way to communicate. I write slow. Sign language would be a lot faster.


I laughed a little bit. It might've been out loud. It was hard to imagine speaking like this, not knowing if anything was actually coming out my mouth.
I also can't read your shitty writing, but learning sign language will take forever.


He locked our arms together as he wrote,
Just think about it.
Then, he put the notebook down and laid back, relaxing on the bed. He left enough space for me to lie down next to him, which I gladly did. I knew it was a bit early to go to bed, even for me, so I figured we'd just get some rest before dinner.


I carefully laid next to him, trying to avoid laying on top of him and carefully avoiding the tubes the were hooked around him as I cuddled in closer to him, holding his head next to my chest and stroking his hair as his arms wrapped around my waist.


I hated seeing that stupid nose tube. I hated myself for being the cause of it. I tried telling myself that I didn't directly do anything and there's no way I could control the amount of smoke, but it did nothing to limit my anger. I had the most perfect, caring, loving person actually give a shit about me and I did nothing but hurt him all the time.


I held onto him just a tiny bit tighter, not wanting him to slip out of my grasp. We'd become very affectionate and I loved it, but I didn't love not knowing what we were. It was hard to tell whether or not Eijirou just wanted love and attention like a puppy, or if this was special with me and he wants us to be more than friends.


Although, admittedly, we were literally cuddling in my bed as I thought through all of this, but Eijirou is just a cuddly guy. He has been since I first met him. He loves hugs and any kind of physical affection he can get.


Eventually, my drowsiness won the battle with my thoughts and I drifted off to sleep.


Kirishima POV


I felt Katsuki's breathing slow down and his body relax, so I knew that he fell asleep. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and turned the brightness all the way down so the light wouldn't wake him up. I started looking at sign language online, trying to find a book or an app that could help the two of us learn together.


The first word I wanted to learn was medicine. I knew he'd be reluctant to learn sign language so, for the time being, I wanted to learn the essential words. I needed to be able to communicate with him about his medicine and whether or not he'd taken it, so that was the first word I started with.


The sign for it was easy. My middle finger on my right hand touched my left palm and then I pivoted the right hand a couple of times.


I practiced it a couple times, burning it into my memory. This word be important to know. I also looked up a few other basic signs on an app that I found. I learned the sign for 'yes', 'no', 'thank you', 'please' and 'how are you?' Again, they were all pretty simple.


After that, I looked into more ways to help with temporary hearing loss. If there was any chance he'd get his hearing back, it would be increased by treating it properly. Unfortunately, there wasn't much that I could do. The medication was the most important thing.


Sensei said he'd stop by during dinner to give the medication, they were just getting it for Katsuki when we left recovery girl.


I wanted to fall asleep like Katsuki did, by my head was throbbing with everything movement. I figured that I should put the phone down and just try to rest, but it did nothing for me. I just laid there, unable to fall asleep.


After about an hour and a half of laying there in pain, Katsuki woke up. He saw my expression, which I didn't have the energy to hide from him. He caresses my cheek and looked at me, waiting, not knowing what was wrong or what he could do.


I gestured to my head and hoped he'd gotten the message. It appeared he did, because he left for a second and came back with some painkillers and a glass of water.


I quickly swallowed down the pills, but obviously, there was no instant relief. I'd have to wait a bit for them to kick in, so I laid back down. Katsuki sat next to me, one hand on my face, the other on my back, holding me gently.


After about 15 minutes, the headache started to go away and I felt alright. I sat up slowly and got to my feet Katsuki held me up the whole time, but luckily, I felt okay. I was about to explain that we should go get dinner, but I realized it was pointless so I just pulled him out towards common room and figured he'd get it eventually.


When we got downstairs, the entire common room went quiet. At first, I thought they were all just talking about us and went quiet because we showed up, but when they continued their conversations normally at a whisper, I realized they were just trying to be a bit quieter for Katsuki's sake. I waved at them and they waved back, before returning to their conversations.


Katsuki and I saw the rest of the Bakusquad, with two seats reserved for us. We grabbed some food and sat down with them.


"So," Mina started up the conversation, "how'd he take the news?"


I shrugged. "He just brushed it off. I think he's kind of in denial. It's a lot to take in, we'll have to be patient with him."


She nodded and started talking with them about something else, which I was grateful for. I didn't engage in their new conversation, I just ate quietly as they spoke. Every time I had a verbal conversation with someone while Katsuki was there, it felt like I was leaving him out of it. Though it wasn't deliberate, it was creating a gap between him and the rest of our class.


So, I didn't say anything, just went over my new sign language vocabulary in my head. Katsuki didn't engage in conversation either, obviously, but he at least looked at us while we were talking. I was worried that he'd just look at his plate and pretend that he was alone, but he seemed engaged, even if he didn't know what we were saying.


After we'd finished eating, Aizawa sensei walked into the dorm with a bag in his hand. He gestured for Katsuki and I to come sit with him away from the rest of the class, which we did.


"Kirishima, are you feeling alright? The doctors were asking."


I thought about the serious headache I just had, but it went away easy enough. Besides, we weren't here to talk about me. "I'm good. Do you have the medication for Katsuki?"


He pulled it out from his bag and handed it to Katsuki, pointing at the label on it, implying that he wanted Katsuki to read the directions, which he did with a scowl.


Then, he pulled a book out of his bag. It was a book on ASL, a tool to help learn sign language. He handed it to me, which was probably smart because Katsuki would toss it across the room. "I figured the two of you would need to get familiar with this, so I got this book from the schools library. They said that you could keep it, they have another copy. I also ordered one more and I'm going to leave it in the common room so that the rest of your classmates can look at it if they'd like."


I nodded. "Thank you sensei. This will be really helpful. I'll try to get him to start learning it. I've already looked up some stuff myself."


He stood up and looked at the two of us. "Kirishima, it's great that you want to help him, but make sure you're taking care of yourself too, alright? Recovery girl was worried that your condition might get worse, so if anything happens, go to her. Got it?"


I'd heard the words he spoke, but I didn't really listen all that much. I wasn't too concerned; I had my oxygen tank and a headache was not a major problem that required going to the doctor.


"Also, from now on, I'll be printing out typed up versions of my lessons for Bakugou so he doesn't fall behind. It's not the most efficient system, but for the time being, it'll do. If this does continue, we'll have to find a better way. It can be difficult to learn from a sheet of paper."


I agreed. Katsuki was smart, but if he couldn't interact with sensei, he might as well teach himself the classes. It would make things really difficult. That was all sensei had to say to us, so he said his goodbyes and left.


The common room had almost cleared out during our conversation with sensei, so I figured Katsuki and I should just stay there and talk. I sat him down in a chair and told him to stay there as I quickly went upstairs and grabbed the notebook we were using before from his room.


I came back down to him, out of breath. He saw me panting and came over to help me sit down. He took his seat next to me and I started to write out what sensei said about the lessons, to which Katsuki nodded in response.


Then, I started to talk about learning sign language again.
I know you don't want to do it, but it'll be good in the long run, I promise.


He took the pen from my hand.
I'll do it. I need some way to communicate with you as much as you need to communicate with me.


His words felt very emotionally charged, but I wasn't too sure why, so I gave him a confused look, which he responded with by writing some more.


When you had that headache earlier, I had no idea what was going on. I need to be able to talk to you. I'm worried that, if something happens, I won't know how to help you because I won't know what's going on.


I nodded gently. When I first become close with Katsuki, I never imagined he would say things like that to me. I thought he would be closed off and guarded forever, but he'd become so open with me and I felt honoured that he cared for me so much.


I couldn't stop myself from smiling as I placed the ASL book out of the table. I didn't bother looking for the word medicine. Instead I looked up how to ask a question. All I had to do was add the sing for question at the end of it, which allowed me to say 'medicine?' pretty easily.


On the notebook, I wrote the word medicine and showed him the sign for it. It felt foreign to me, speaking with my hands, but I figured I would adjust. He nodded after I showed him the sign, indicating that he understood. Then, I showed him the sign that indicates a question in the book.


I grabbed the notebook and started writing again.
Putting the medicine sign and question sign together is a quick way to ask if you've taken your medicine. I'll teach you the signs for yes and no. Since you have to take your medicine twice a day, we'll learn the sign for one and two, so if you've taken it once, you can do the sign for one.


He gave me the typical 'ok' sign, which is not how ok is said in sign language, but it would do for now.


For the next hour or two, we both went through the book at our own pace, learning how to put sentences together. We also practiced signing some basic words with each other.


I had to stop halfway through and get a glass of water. My throat felt sore and ached a bit, so I hoped some water would do the trick. It helped a bit, but I was still in a bit of discomfort. But, I could ignore it, which I did.


I also noticed that my breathing was loud. Not that I was breathing hard or anything, but it was just loud. Like, if a murderer were to come in and I had to hide in order to save my life, I'd be dead, because they'd hear me breathing.


Eventually, at around 8:15, Katsuki was packing up so he could get ready for bed. I helped him clean up and we both went up to our rooms. I signed 'goodnight' to him, and he did the same to me.


I laid down in bed and every breath I took sounded louder and louder. It was starting to scare me a bit. I knew that there could be a problem, but at the same time, it was late and I didn't want to bother anyone over nothing.


I tried to ignore it, but it got more and more difficult the longer I waited. Soon, I was coughing again and my throat felt like it was burning. Breathing was difficult, even as I tried sitting up to get more air. The nose tube felt like it was doing nothing.


I grabbed my phone and dialed. "Aizawa sensei? I'm sorry to bother you so late, but something's wrong. I-I can't breathe. I-it hurts."


"Alright, Kirishima I need you to take deep breaths as much as possible, ok? I'm on my way over. We're going to take you to a hospital, alright?"


I mumbled a quiet 'ok' as I focused on breathing. Aizawa sensei stayed on the phone and kept talking to me to make sure I was still conscious. Soon enough, I heard an ambulance outside the dorm and sensei was barging into my room, medical personnel close behind.


Getting me down to the ambulance required me being carried down the stairs of the dorm and when we got it the common room, a gurney was waiting to bring me to the ambulance.


They got rid of the nose tube and set me up with a much larger oxygen tank. Even with it, I was getting weaker, fading in and out of consciousness. I had nowhere near enough oxygen in me. It felt like, even though they were trying to push all this air through me, none of it was getting past my throat. It just stayed there, stuck.


Before I knew it, I'd passed out in the back of the ambulance.


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Word count: 2,955
So, this is definitely going to be three parts. If I have enough to write four parts, I'll do that, but I think it'll just be three.


Anyways, I hope you guys are excited for part 3!

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