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It was hard living with epilepsy and having an electric quirk— which, one of the two was rare and not well known in the first place, and it’s not epilepsy.
Being a hero-in-training and also having epilepsy and an electric quirk is even harder, though.
Denki has had epilepsy since the age of four, which is, coincidentally, when his quirk came in. He doesn’t remember much of it, he just remembered feeling a bit funny that day, but his parents told him that he had just started staring at nothing for a few minutes before suddenly dropping to the ground unconscious for exactly 21 seconds. Obviously, it had scared his parents shitless, but they decided they would seek professional help if something like that happened again in the next week.
Denki always giggles when his parents tell him that they had ‘immediately rushed his ass to the doctor’ when a full day later, Denki kept ‘zoning out’ while smacking his lips every half hour or so for around 10 seconds.
Denki and his parents would later find out that ‘Incident One’ was an atonic seizure, and ‘Incident Two’ were absence seizures. Needless to say, around 5 days after initially being brought to the doctor's office, Denki walked out with a smile, a lollipop in his hands, and an epilepsy diagnosis. Generalized epilepsy, to be specific, and it was caused by his electric quirk.
He had immediately been put on medication that, thankfully, didn’t interfere with his quirk. Unfortunately though, this new diagnosis made his parents worry about him just a little too much at times, giving him a strict bedtime, encouraging him to eat at least 3 meals a day, and to tell them whenever he felt stressed. The medication, plus his parents' (lowkey) helicopter parenting had thankfully made it so he didn’t have frequent seizures, having an absence maybe once or twice a week, or having an atonic seizure once every two or so weeks. They weren’t very consistent, in all honesty.
At first, at the age of six when the thought that ‘hey, my parents are being too strict!’ first came to his little child mind and he decided to have an all nighter playing on his nintendo 3DS, it had seemed like a good idea. A great one, even.
He quickly changed his mind when at seven in the morning, while getting ready for school after that long and honestly not-very-fun-all-nighter, and having what his parents called an ‘aura’ since around six-thirty in the morning, he fell to the ground. He had his first grand mal seizure that day.
After that scare, he had confessed to his parents what he had been doing. They had gotten mad but they understood why he rebelled and promised not to be too overbearing, but as they were his parents and obviously cared for his health, they told him that he had to listen to them unless he wanted something like that to happen again.
Since then, from the ages of six to now sixteen, he has had a total of 7 tonic clonic seizures, a few atonic seizures and a decent amount of absences that his meds weren’t able to stop. Oh, and ever since he first overused his quirk and unlocked ‘whey’ mode, he had started getting focal with impaired awareness seizures, AKA what his ‘whey’ mode actually was.
For the sake of his parents' mental wellbeing and his own physical health, Denki was obligated to tell his teachers and nurse faculty at UA about his epilepsy, and if things ever went south, his parents told him to tell his classmates too. Telling his classmates was optional though, so he chose not to.
He thought he would get it out of the way so on the first day of classes, he stayed behind in every class to inform the teachers about his disorder. He had gotten immense support, and even praise for telling his them. Most of them said that they had already seen it on his records, and all of them told him he could always take a break whenever he got an aura or he felt weird.
All except one of his teachers: Mr. Aizawa.
And that was because Denki didn’t tell him.
In all honesty, he could really just blame it on his ADHD, but he had his reasons not to tell his homeroom teacher. For example: since most of his teachers, like Midnight and Cementoss had already seen it on his file even though they weren’t his homeroom teachers, he thought ‘hey, Mr. Aizawa probably went through my file ‘cause I’m in his homeroom class!’
He couldn’t be more wrong, but he didn’t know that he was wrong until 3 whole semesters into the school year.
He decided to tell his classmates about his disorder a few days after they had moved into the dorms. He had initially thought to tell them the day they moved in, but decided his classmates deserved to have a little time to move in and get themselves situated before hearing the news. It’s not like Denki has seizures frequently, no, it's not like that at all. But, they do come up every now and then, so he thought it was for the best they knew just in case he had one around them.
So on the fourth day of them having lived in the dorms, nobody could say they expected Kaminari Denki to pull them into the common room for a serious talk via the class groupchat.
“So, I'm just going to get straight into it. I just wanted to let everyone know I have epilepsy. I don’t get seizures as much as I used to because I'm on medication and also because I’m getting older, but they do still happen. I’m telling you guys this now so you don’t get scared when I suddenly start acting a bit funny or something and then suddenly drop to the ground or go like, completely silent, like I zoned out.” Denki explained with the calmest voice ever, as if he was used to this.
One thing he wasn’t expecting was the sudden noise of everyone talking over each other.
“Bro, WHAT?! You have EPILEPSY?!” Kirishima.
“You have epilepsy?? You pranking us or something, Jammingwhey?” Jirou, which— ouch?
“Is it because of your quirk? I mean, it would make sense since you have an electric quirk and seizures happen because of abnormal electrical signals, don’t they?” Midoriya, who was now mumbling to himself rapidly.
“Thank you for letting us know, Kaminari! Please do not refrain from informing us if there is anything we can possibly do to help you when you feel like you are going to have a seizure, or perhaps during and after one as well!” Iida.
“Dunce Face, what the actual FUCK?!” Bakugo.
“Kami, dude, how come you haven’t told us this earlier?!” Mina yelled with a dropped jaw.
Among those voices were many others and, quite frankly, it was too much for little ol’ Denki to keep up with.
“Woah, woah, woah! One at a time! Um, shit, I heard some questions so I’ll just answer the ones I heard, I guess.” Denki said with a dropped jaw at how.. caring his class seemed to be of him. He knew that he was probably well liked enough due to his sunshine personality, and that maybe some of the girls thought he was a bit weird because he was somewhat (barely) friends with Mineta, but damn, he didn’t expect this.
“Yeah, I do get seizures, usually absences, atonic, and tonic clonics, but I rarely get tonic clonics. Oh, tonic-clonic seizures are also called grand mal seizures so don’t be confused if I suddenly say ‘grand mal.’ I also get, uhh, focal seizures with impaired awareness, but you guys know those seizures as my ‘whey mode.’” He chuckled, not noticing the way the room went quiet and tense.
“WHAT?! We’ve been laughing at you during your SEIZURES?! Dude, we are SO unmanly!” Cried out Kirishima, seeming like he was on the verge of tears.
Denki was quick to comfort him with a hug, “Hey, It’s okay dude, you didn’t know!” He let Kirishima go to quickly explain.
“So in my ‘whey mode,’ I look awake when, in reality, I'm only half conscious. The reason why I laugh and giggle so much is because I'm not fully responding like I should, I guess? That’s also why I sometimes kick you guys, sorry! I also have a hard time remembering stuff during those types of seizures which is why I might look like I don’t recognize you. Oh, and the thumbs up is something I just do during those types of seizures as well.” He gave them a brief rundown on how to properly care for him during his focal seizures, before moving back to answering questions.
“Now that that’s out of the way, I think I heard someone asking if my epilepsy was a side effect of my quirk, and it is. My parents said I had my first seizure after my quirk manifested.” He explained chirpily, not realizing the bombshell after bombshell he had been dropping onto his classmates.
He spent the rest of the evening talking with his classmates about his disorder and how they could help him during aura’s, during seizures and after seizures. He told them how all the teachers knew about his disorder. His night ended with him falling asleep to Up, the disney film, after the class had decided to do a little bonding activity since they were all down there anyways. Most of the class fell asleep in the common room that day.
Needless to say, after their long talk, they now knew what to do if Denki had a seizure around them. It didn’t happen frequently, but during the time they’ve lived together in the dorms, Denki has had one atonic seizure and some absences.
Nobody mentioned how whenever Denki fried his brain, nobody laughed at him anymore. Instead people talked to him with soft voices and led him to more private rooms to save him from future embarrassment. Surprisingly, it was usually Bakugo helping Denki around during these seizures.
And because everyone was now updated on the Kaminari Denki Lore, nobody was really surprised when in the middle of a test (which was, ironically, on what to do in situations where a civilian is having health complications such as but not limited to: strokes, heart attacks, and seizures) in Mr. Aizawa’s class, Denki had suddenly pushed his desk out of his way and got out of his seat, sitting on the floor with his legs a bit spread out from each other and said, “I’m about to have a seizure.” Though, it sounded more like a jumble of words.
Nobody except Aizawa.
Don’t get him wrong, he’s obviously helped people through seizures before, even had one himself, but no one could've ever prepared him for Class 1A’s literal embodiment of the fucking sun to push his desk out of the way and sit on the floor before announcing he was going to have a seizure.
He swore he felt his mouth drop by just a smidge when Bakugo, Sero, and Ashido immediately flung out of their seats to go to Kaminari. He felt an odd pride when he saw Bakugo immediately lay Kaminari down gently and turn him onto his side, and saw Jirou immediately start to time the seizure.
The way he saw some of his students turn to look at their classmate, making sure he was well taken care of before turning back to their tests was what made Shouta spring into action.
He immediately jumped out of his sleeping bag and walked over to where the 3 teenagers were on the ground, with Kaminari in the middle.
“How long has it been?” He said, hoping his voice didn’t sound too shocked. He imagined it didn’t, because no one pointed anything out.
“59 — 1 minute and 2 seconds,” Jirou called out, her eyes diligently watching the little stopwatch on her phone.
Another minute passed by before Shouta saw that Kaminari’s muscles slowly stopped twitching, and the boy let out a deep sigh when his left leg, which was jerking during the seizure, started to slow down. When he saw the boy had finally stopped, he immediately called out, “Stop the count.”
He motioned for Ashido, Bakugo and Sero to move out the way a bit as he squatted down so his knees were at eye level with Kaminari, who seemed to still be unconscious. He turned his head a little to look at Iida, mouthing the words ‘get Recovery Girl,’ silently sighing in relief when Iida immediately nodded and quickly — but quietly — got up from his seat and went to go find Recovery Girl.
He waited one, two minutes before Kaminari finally regained consciousness, muttering a little ‘huh?’ as he slowly sat up with the help of Mina.
“Hey, Kaminari, are you with us?” Shouta asked in a quiet, somewhat gentle voice. He took note of the way Kaminari blinked before nodding a bit.
“Do you know your name, kid? And where you are?” Shouta questioned, knowing some people have trouble remembering some stuff after a grand mal seizure.
“Uhh, yeah, ‘m Kaminari Denki, I’m in uhh, UA and we were just taking a test, right?” As Kaminari spoke, Shouta could tell he was starting to recuperate.
He opened his mouth to ask another question when Iida came in tow with Recovery Girl, who had a wheelchair.
“I heard someone's hurt?” She questioned with a raised eyebrow. Shouta let out a deep sigh. These damn kids were going to be the death of him one day.
“Yeah, Kaminari had a seizure. Tonic-Clonic, and it was…” He turned to look at Jirou with a raised eyebrow, silently asking how long it lasted.
“Two minutes and twenty-four seconds long.” She said before putting the stopwatch back into her pocket.
“Oh, that’s not as long as I thought it would be. Wonderful!” She smiled at Kaminari, who was still sitting on the ground.
“Do you think you can get up on your own, sonny? Or does it hurt too bad?” She asked Kaminari, who tried to get up but winced when he tried pushing himself up.
“No, ‘m not getting up by myself. ‘m very sore and my left leg hurts a lot.” He exhaled tiredly, his speech still being slow and slightly slurred. Shouta shuffled a bit closer to him, waving a hand at the closest person to Kaminari, which was Ashido.
“Okay, me and Ashido are going to help you onto the wheelchair, okay?” He waited for Kaminari to nod before he situated himself so he could hoist Kaminari up by the armpits, signaling Ashido to do the same.
He counted to three out loud before he and Ashido hoisted Kaminari up onto the wheelchair, the only noise coming out of the recovering teen being a sharp inhale of air.
“Okay, we’ll be on our way now!” Chiyo waved goodbye to Shouta and the class as Iida and the three teens that were on the floor returned to their seats. Shouta let out a deep sigh when he realized he was going to have a long talk with Kaminari about why he didn’t know about whatever everyone else knew, because there was no way they didn’t know something was up when they immediately sprung into action.
Talking about the class, he sluggishly walked back to his desk, turning to the class as he spoke.
“You guys will have an extra 10 minutes tomorrow to finish your test if you don’t finish it by today.”
He paused for a second, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully at the kids who had helped Kaminari during his seizure before slowly saying, “Bakugo, Ashido, Jirou, and Sero; you’re all getting five extra points for… physically showing me you know your stuff.” Was all he said before he crawled back into his sleeping bag, cursing his whole class for planning his grave early.
When Denki woke up, the last thing he expected to see was for Mr. Aizawa to be curled up in his sleeping bag in the chair next to the bed he was sleeping in.
“Mr. Aizawa! What brings you here to see lil ol’ me?” He joked, smiling brightly at his teacher while stretching. That nap he had really helped him out with both the pain and his tiredness. He always recovered pretty quick from seizures, anyways.
“Kaminari, I don’t know what other way to say this, but what the fuck happened during the test?” Mr. Aizawa said, his face scrunched up in a comical confusion that Kaminari had never seen on his deadpan teacher's face before.
Kaminari, someone who is notorious for his coping mechanism of joking, responded smartly without realizing the weight of Aizawa’s question, “Wow, teach, couldn’t even start with a simple ‘good afternoon?’”
To his surprise, Aizawa rolled with his little bit, although he sounded a bit exasperated. “Good afternoon, Kaminari, now please help me understand why you just started seizing in the middle of class.”
Kaminari froze, confused, finally registering Aizawa’s question. “What do you mean, Mr. Aizawa? You mean the seizure I had?”
Aizawa sighed exasperatedly, nodding his head. This only served to confuse Denki even more.
“Yes, I’m talking about your seizure. Why did it seem like I was the only one surprised that you suddenly had a seizure?” Aizawa questioned him, narrowing his eyes a bit.
Denki felt utterly lost. What did Aizawa mean? Denki thought he knew?
“No, I didn’t know, Kaminari. While you were asleep, I checked your files and I saw that Epilepsy was listed under your medical file.” Shit, had he spoken out loud?
“Did I say that out loud?” Denki said sheepishly, his hand coming up to rub his neck nervously.
Aizawa let out another sigh, but this one seemed more fond than exasperated. “You did. But Kaminari, is there a reason I wasn’t told you had epilepsy? I checked in with your other teachers and they all said they knew. Usually, I check every student's file to see if there is anything I should know about them but this seemed to… slip my radar.” He explained, and Denki noticed an underlying tone of annoyance that was directed towards himself. Denki gave him a bright smile so Aizawa knew he understood.
“It’s all good, teach! Shi— I mean, things happen and things slip, it’s all good! I didn’t tell you because I thought you knew, or that you had an idea of it, at least. I had no idea that you didn’t know, and if I had known you didn’t know I would’ve told you sooner, trust me!” Denki apologized with a nervous smile, playing with his hands as he made eye contact with Aizawa.
Aizawa let out a heavy sigh, one that Denki could tell came from the depths of his soul. “Well, I’m glad that you don’t think it’s a big deal. Are there any other groundbreaking medical problems you want to let me know you have while you’re at it?” He deadpanned, making Denki snicker. Aizawa cracked a smile when the electric boy wasn’t watching but let it drop when Denki put his focus on him again.
“Well, you already know I have ADHD, so no! Luckily for you, epilepsy is the only surprise you’ll be getting from me.” Denki assured with a wide smile. He swore he saw the corner of Aizawa’s lip twitch in response.
“Alright, well, your friends have been waiting in the common room for you since school ended, so you’re allowed to leave if you feel up to it.” Aizawa drawled, getting up from his seat beside Denki’s bed.
“Also,” he said, turning to Denki, “please don’t be afraid to let me know whenever you feel an aura of some kind, doesn’t matter what we’re doing or when, so we don’t have a repeat of today. Alright?”
Denki smiled warmly at his teacher. He knew the old grump cared about them, deep in his heart. This was just one of his ways of showing it.
“Yeah, ‘course! Thanks, teach,” Denki replied back, giving Aizawa two thumbs up before the teacher left with a curt nod. It wasn’t long before Denki followed, his hands in his pockets when he entered the common room.
Kirishima was the first to notice him, smiling at him with happiness and hints of relief as he got up off the couch to go greet him. “Kamibro! Feeling better?”
The rest of his friends turned their heads to him, and he smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”