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Bakugou always knew his mother wasn’t right. From the moment he was born, she was obsessed. Obsessed with being seen as a good mother, obsessed with getting her pre baby body back. He would find her sticking her fingers down her throat in the bathroom, eating nothing for days at a time.
On her bad days she would look at him in disgust, claiming he ruined her life. She started forcing him to do it too, she taught him how to make himself throw up. She taught him many things.
How to properly count calories, how to exercise so he would lose the maximum amount of weight. He was required to be weighed every day.
She would give him a loving smile and a hug if he lost a pound. 1+ pounds gained meant his meals got cut back even more. She always seemed to smile a little more when someone commented on how skinny both of them were, especially him. All before the age of 5. His father was none the wiser. His clothing business was just starting to boom. He tried his best and Bakugou could tell he cared.
He collapsed at home one day. He was all alone in his room and then suddenly he was on the floor. He ran to his mom, maybe, he thought, just maybe she might allow him to eat a little more.
She smiled at him when he told her. Told him that was good. It resulted in his food being cut back anymore. His mother required him to model with her. He was told he had to keep in shape for the photo shoots. He was running on fumes at all times. He was always cranky, in a bad mood. It didn’t help that his quirk used up so much energy. Eventually, he grew so used to the meager amounts that if he ate more than that he would throw up, and not on purpose.
Years and years of little to no food and intense exercise had led to a miserable life. Getting out of bed was difficult, he wasn’t interested in anything, he wasn’t even interested in being a hero anymore. He just wanted to lay down and rest.
Forever. But, of course, he had to keep up the act, lest his mother get called in for a conference. Now that would be a true shitshow.
He did it. He got into UA. Along with the shitty deku. How dare he. Bakugou didn’t truly hate him, he didn’t. But it wasn’t fair. Deku’s mom was kind, and sweet, and plump. She always gave him cookies when he came over, and she always gave him extra servings of dinner. So it wasn’t fair that shitty deku had such a great mother, who cared about him, only to throw it all away do he could die in the process of trying to save someone.
Then he met a red haired boy with a sunshine smile and a “manly” attitude. He was friends with Bakugou, despite everything. Despite his anger issues, despite his perfectionism, he decided to be friends with Bakugou. Along with Kirishima came the rest of the self proclaimed “bakusquad”. Kaminari with his light hearted laughs, Mina with her fun ideas and supportive personality, Sero with his ability to keep the peace and chill attitude. But what about him? What did he bring to the table? He couldn’t bring himself to admit that he was useless to the group.
He collapsed during his self training. Again. Oh well, he thought and went back to training. Only for long, bandages to wrap around him before he could do one more push up. He twisted his head to see who it was. Thank god. It was Aizawa-sensei, hair floating, with glowing red eyes. Better than villains.
“What do you need Aizawa-sensei? I’m in the middle of training, so can you go away!”
Aizawa-sensei just looked at him with piercing black eyes. He looked at Bakugou as if he were a difficult puzzle that he had finally found all the edge pieces to and could finally start figuring out the rest.
“Well Bakugou I’m just a little concerned for you at the moment.”
“Ha!?! What for?! I’m perfectly fine, now let me go back to training.”
“Bakugou, I just witnessed you pass out in the middle of said training and after waking up after being unconscious for 5 minutes, I watched as you proceeded on with the rest of your self training, almost as if this were a normal occurrence. So, is it?”
“Is what?!?”
“You know I hate illogical things, so stop being illogical, you know what I’m asking. Now, I’ll try again, Is this the first time you’ve fainted during training?”
Bakugou simply looked away from his teacher, and , resigned, shook his head no.
His teacher just looked sad. He didn’t know why. He didn’t see what the big deal was.
Apparently it was a very big deal because 10 minutes later he found himself in the infirmary with RG giving him a checkup.
Malnourishment was the prognosis.
His teacher looked stunned for about two seconds before his usual deadpan expression slid back onto his face.
RG proceeded on with the results, “Bakugou here appears to be severely underweight, and severely malnourished. He will need to go through intensive treatment to reverse the damage done to his body before the risk of damage becomes permanent.”
“Whatever needs to be done, if he will need to miss any class, inform me immediately so I may notify the other teachers.”
Here these two adults were, having a conversation about HIM without even talking to him about how he felt about it. He was perfectly fine the way he was. He didn’t need anyones help. He would become the number one hero all through his own merit.
“Yes, he might need up missing a few classes but I’m su—“
“Hey! wait, don’t I get a say in this. This is my body and I’m perfectly fine the way I am. There is no way in hell I’m missing class for a nonexistent problem.”
The two adults shared a glance. He didn’t like those looks. Something seemed to click in Aizawa’s mind.
“Bakugou, you need this treatment. You are malnourished and underweight. If you don’t get help soon, your body will collapse and it won’t get back up again.”
“It-It can’t be that bad.” he stammered.
Aizawa hammered in that final nail. “You are so malnourished that your body hasn’t even grown since middle school. Your body is running on empty and it’s only so long before empty isn’t good enough anymore.”
Bakugou sat back, shocked, that, that can’t be. His mother helped him, she knew what was best. What to eat, how to eat, when to eat. She only wanted what was best for him. So why did all her life lessons end with him here. In an infirmary, with a body that was falling apart and a hero teacher who was surely going to expel him.
Feeding tubes, dieticians, therapists, etc. the past couple of months were spent dealing with all of that and more. The entirety of 1-A were concerned, and curious. Of course, none of the teachers said anything. Though All Might was not informed of his problems, for what reason, he didn’t know.
He had slowly come to realize his mother was wrong. She was wrong about so many things. She ruined his childhood and many other things for him. He would never be able to look at food like a norma person, because of her. He would never be able to grow to his full height, because of her. But, he couldn’t blame her. He had met his grandparents. So, he decided, he couldn’t blame her.
HURT people hurt people.
Things were going great. His anger was becoming more manageable, he had, somehow, been able to earn Midoriya’s forgiveness and become friends with him, just like old times.
And then he got kidnapped.
He caused the number one hero to retire. He still here his mother in his head berating him for being weak as he walked into the common room. Yet another thing he caused his classmates to suffer through. His classmates still didn’t know about his issue with food. So when he pulled out a large container of carefully measured food with RG’s handwriting on it, they got curious.
“Hey Bakubabe, what’s that?”
“It’s just my dinner raccoon eyes!”
“Well we know that silly! I mean why does it have Recovery girls handwriting on it?”
“How do you even know what her signature looks like?!!”
“Just cause, now answer my question?”
“None of your god dammed business , now leave me alone!”
With that, Bakugou closed the fridge and left the common room.”
Everyone in the common room just looked at each other and shrugged.
Fast forward 2 years and Bakugou was a third year. He Kirishima had been and item since the beginning of their second year and he was grateful for every second of it. Kirishima was supportive and understanding, and Bakugou felt he didn’t deserve him. No matter how many problems he informed Kirishima about he never wavered.
Just thanked him for sharing, gave him a kiss, and led him to bed to snuggle. He had slowly been earning money so he could move out of his parents house the moment he graduated. Mostly modeling gigs but there was the occasional dog walking job. He don’t live at home really, what with the dorm system, but every time he DID home all his mother talked to home was about how much weight he had gained.
It really showed how good he was at acting and secret keeping considering his class still hadn’t found out about his eating disorders. But, in his defense, he totally forgot to tell them. In fact, he thought they already knew.
So when he walked downstairs on a Saturday morning to most of the class in the kitchen and common room, he didn’t hesitate to grab a glass of water, take out his pill bottles, and swallow them. He put the glass of water down only to find the entirety of the class staring straight at him, for some reason.
Kaminari was the one to break the silence.
“Bakubro, I didn’t know you needed to take medication.”
And Bakugou, in a sleepy daze, answered truthfully.
“Ah, there just my appetite pills.”
Now everyone was confused. What did he mean “appetite” pills?
“Um, what do you mean appetite pills?”
“My stomachs really small cause of years of under eating and the pills are helping in slowly expand to a normal size again. Anyways, I’m going back to sleep, see you all later.”
He waved back at them as he walked back towards the elevator.
Jirou was the first to say anything, “Did he say under eating?”
Chaos broke out.
“Does Bakubabe have anorexia?”
“Is he ok?”
“How come none of us never noticed?”
“How long has he had this.”
“QUIET” Midoriya shouted. “We won’t know anything until we ask him. So I suggest we wait till he wakes up again and question him then.”
All heads were nodding. Sounded like a good plan to them.
It was another 2 hours before Bakugou walked into the common room again. For the second time in that day, all eyes were on him.
He noticed immediately.
“What do you extras want?! Ha!?!”
All the eyes in the room turned to Midoriya. He seemed surprised for a second before relaxing.
“Well, you said some concerning things this morning Kacchan and we were all concerned for you.”
“What thi—“
It hit him then. The pills. The questions. He remembered it all. No big deal. No big deal. Just calmly explain to them don’t freak out their your friends and they won’t think differently about you. He took a deep breath.
“Yeah, so, if you have questions hurry up and ask them I don’t have all day!”
Mina blurted, “Why do you have to take pills? How long has it been happening?“
“You all know how my moms a model”, nods all around, “well she was always obsessed with being thin and when she had me she kinda spiraled. She started to make me diet and exercise with her. She would only allow me a certain amount of food and would weight me to make sure I was losing weight. It’s been that way since I can remember. Does that answer your questions?”
He could hear his voice. He sounded detached and clinical. It was sorta nice, almost as if this had happened to someone else and he was just telling others about them, not himself.
Class 1-A was the complete opposite. Everyone looked to be some varying degree of sad.
Everyone seemed too shocked to ask another question.
Eventually, and surprisingly, Uraraka was the one to ask the next question.
“Are-Are you better now?”
He was suprised by her question. It made him feel warm inside.
“Yeah, I’m better. Aizawa-sensei noticed in our first year. Made me get treatment and shit.”
“Good. That’s good. Im glad.”
Suddenly the elevator dinged. In walked Kirishima, with a bounce in his step and a big smile on face.
“Hey everyone, what’s up?”
He noticed the somber atmosphere and turned to Bakugou in question.
Bakugou whispered in his ear.
“They saw me taking my pills and my dumbass answered, so they had questions.”
Kirishima nodded in understanding. The rest of 1-A were confused.
“Wait, Kiribro, did you know?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve known since 2nd year.
But I didn’t want to break Bakubro’s trust by telling you. Sorry.” Kirishima sheepishly said.
“Oh no worries bro, just curious.”
“If that’s all, can I snatch Katsuki away. It’s time for our date.”
Mina squealed at Kirishima’s words, completely forgetting about the the depressing tone moments before, and made a shooing motion with her hands. Kirishima grabbed his boyfriends hands and led him out of the dorms.
As they were walking down the side walk, Kirishima turned to his boyfriend who’s as unusually quiet.
“Hey, you ok over there? I know this morning was kinda triggering. If you don’t want to have our date today, that’s completely fine with me.”
Katsuki let out one of his rare smiles. He leaned against his boyfriend and closed his eyes.
He was fine. More than fine.
He couldn’t ask for anything better.