Chapter Text
“I think you might have ADHD.”
“What.” Katsuki is so stunned that he stops spinning around in his desk chair and stares at Kirishima.
Kirishima is upside down on Katsuki’s bed, feet propped up against the wall, trying to hold himself up on just his shoulders. “Well, I noticed you fidget a lot, and are also more productive when body doubling for me. If you wanted, I’m sure Aizawa-sensei can help you get eval—“
Katsuki presses his palm against his knee to stop it from bouncing. “No, I meant—ADHD? Doesn’t that mean you get bad grades and can’t focus?”
He can’t help but picture the loud kid in class that can’t sit still (he made sure to grow out of that) and chases after everything like a dog in a squirrel park (definitely not him.)
Kirishima raises an eyebrow. “Hey now.”
“Well,” Katsuki sputters. “Not…you?”
He grins. “I’m pretty sure I’ve told you this before, which is a point for both of us, but it’s very different from person to person. Yaoyorozu always gets good grades and she’s got ADHD.”
Katsuki blinks. He starts to get the feeling that he doesn’t really understand the subject. “Huh.”
“I could say more if I didn’t value my beautiful unsinged eyebrows.”
Katsuki throws a pillow at him. “There’s nothing wrong with me, shitty eyebrows.”
“Local dummy makes self-deprecating comment, it backfires.”
“Or you is implied.”
“Jail. Jail for a thousand years.”
Kirishima slides off the edge of the bed until his head almost touches the carpet. Katsuki is still wrapping his brain around the new information he’s been given. It doesn’t help that he’s now hyper aware of how long he’s been sitting here, and how much he wants to be doing anything else.
Katsuki turns calculating eyes on Kirishima. “I’m not going to waste my time on this…but tell me what else you were going to say.”
Surprise flashes across the redhead’s face, replaced by softness. Katsuki resists the urge to make a face. He doesn’t want to scare Kiri off the topic or let him find out how much Katsuki really wants to know what Kirishima noticed.
“Well, you hate anything that requires sitting down for long periods of time, especially if it requires focus, like homework or class. If it’s just us or just the squad you’re always getting up and pacing. Actually, now that I think of it you’re sort of always moving, you’re just weirdly good at masking it as something else.” Kirishima taps his chin. “The rest is more based on vibe and less concrete observations, but sometimes you mention stuff that sounds like sensory issues. You don’t tend to think things through before acting. The energy you give off anytime you have to wait in a line for anything. Bro you get intense tunnel vision sometimes, but also sometimes it’s like nothing can hold your attention. That one was hard to spot, I doubt anyone else but me would notice—Bakugou?”
Katsuki realizes he’s gripping the arm of his chair with white knuckles.
Kirishima flips onto his stomach. “Hey, Kats. What’re you thinking right now dude?”
Katsuki doesn’t know how to explain it. He feels exposed, like his flesh has been stripped from his muscles. It’s a kind of horrified, kind of disgusted feeling. It’s like being backed into a corner. It's a warm embarrassment at having a physical, perceivable body. His gut instinct is to push himself away, but it’s so much harder with Kirishima. He’s told this boy things that not even Deku knows, things he can’t take back, but there’s still so much more he’s scared of bringing to light. He shouldn’t be feeling like this in front of anyone.
Katsuki’s mouth is horribly dry. “Uh…ehh.”
Kirishima, bless his heart, doesn’t need a translation.
“I didn’t mean to overload you, dude. I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it anymore, but I would like to make sure you know that whether you do or don’t, it doesn’t have to be a big deal, and it doesn’t mean you’re broken or wrong. The same thing you tell the rest of us, right?”
Katsuki nods because Kirishima doesn’t understand that it’s different for him, and tries to muster up a glare for his dignity’s sake. Kirishima smiles.
“Does…” Katsuki feels every muscle in his body stiffen. “Did you…It is, um, really obvious?”
“Uh, no?” Kirishima kicks his feet back and forth. “I’m not like staging an intervention. I just said it out loud because it occurred to me and I was already talking about something. I honestly don’t think anyone else would come to that conclusion, they don’t spend enough time with you to notice. Even then, you really got to know your Bakugouisms. I haven’t mentioned this to anyone else, either.”
“So you’re saying.” Katsuki’s brain comes back to him. “You’re obsessed with me.”
Kirishima flashes a sharky grin. “You know it, bro. Logging in to my Lord Explosion Murder stan account as we speak.”
Another pillow smacks into his face.
-
Despite his best attempts, Katsuki is not able to forget about that conversation. Kirishima’s words play on a loop in his brain constantly for the next few days. He’s now aware of how little time he spends being genuinely still, no twitching, bouncing, or tapping. Now that he knows he tries to reel it in (moving out of his house must have made him rusty) but it only builds up and results in an uptick of his angry outbursts.
A lot of shit has happened since starting high school. Katsuki has friends that he genuinely cares about. It happened slowly, but somewhere between now and the start of the provisional license training course, his angry outbursts started to annoy him more than they helped him let off steam. He doesn’t want to blow up, not at his friends.
Now his body wants to fidget and shake when he smothers his anger. Now he has to suppress both. It takes one low grade on his test for Katsuki to realize that the amount of effort he puts into appearing normal leaves him with no attention to give his actual fucking homework.
He’s already just a measly damn number two in his class, the thought of slipping any further down shocks him into doing…he has no fucking idea what he’s supposed to do about this.
He really wants to ask Kirishima more questions, but that’s a whole other mess he’s struggling to wrap his mind around. His biggest problem is the stupid panic that overwhelms him whenever he thinks about Kirishima figuring out too much. It shouldn’t paralyze him, for fuck’s sake Eijirou has seen more of Katsuki than anyone, but it does.
So that’s how he finds himself up at fuck knows o’clock. It’s darker than Tokoyami’s feathers outside and Katsuki is awake. Struggling to fall asleep is one of his totally-not-indicative-of-a-larger-issue quirks and only got worse after Kamino. The dorms helped, a little, even though he now deals with the added paranoia of every movement in the shadows coming to choke him. Instead of just Mitsuki slamming open his door to yell at him whenever she pleased. At least this time his bedroom door has a lock.
Katsuki sighs. His options are either going downstairs for a glass of water, or to sit out this bout of insomnia on his phone or with homework. The first option held the danger of chance encounters. The last thing Katsuki wanted right now was to run into Deku the Living Dead having a crisis or fucking Todoroki. Every time he encountered Icyhot, they just stared at each other in silence for five minutes, ignoring tearstained faces and stifled breathing, before someone retreated to their room first. Usually it’s Katsuki, he can’t stand the feeling of being alone with the melodramatic bastard, not being able to yell at him or not being yelled at.
Despite the fact that he was all alone (and he is, there’s no one else in his room, there isn’t) he still snarls when he opens a new tab on his phone and starts typing into the search bar.
注意欠陥 • 多動性障害
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
A chronic condition including attention difficulty, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness.
It’s not a big deal, right? Katsuki reads a few articles and starts to feel uncomfortably confronted, but also…not. Sure, he’s been described as loud before, impatient, reckless, impulsive even. He’s never talked excessively in his life, not–not like Deku. At least, not since he was…younger. He’s not obnoxiously fidgety, not like Kaminari, but it was much worse…when he was…younger.
Katsuki wants to look up some more words. He knows the kanji well, 自閉症, it’s branded on his skull. He’s halfway through when he realizes how hard his heart is pounding. Jiheishou. When she talked about it, she said it meant he was locked inside himself. Incurable, never to speak, always a burden.
It was always hard to tell whether they wanted more out of him, or if they wanted him to shut up and obey. First it was more words, then stop talking about that. Don’t be stiff. Stop doing that with your hands. You’re too quiet in class. Your teacher says you’re disruptive. Don’t let anyone push you around. What the hell is wrong with you?
Katsuki turns his phone off, clicks on his desk lamp, and opens his textbook to a random page. His brain is buzzing with thoughts, most in the form of panicked, tingling, monotones, more sound than speech. No matter what, he doesn’t let his legs bounce, or his palms crackle. He stays perfectly still.
The kanji and kanas flow together and Katsuki can’t read a single word.
-
Nothing he does gives Katsuki relief from thinking about it, and he finally reaches a point where he’ll do anything to make it stop. He can’t pursue the internet without doomscrolling himself into a spiral. He can’t just forget it. He has to talk to Kirishima.
For the last hour Katsuki has been pretending to read some shit about hero laws. It’s normally one of the easier subjects, but his brain is screaming and fighting with his questions, pent up anger and a little fear. He’s been sitting for far too long, and Katsuki has finally gotten sick of it.
“Hey Ei.” Katsuki tries as calmly as possible.
As soon as Kirishima looks over, the sentence he carefully put together falls apart like a vase hurled at cement.
“Ya?” His hair is down and he’s holding a school book with a red reading strip pressed against the page.
Something about how relaxed Kirishima looks, how trusting he is of Katsuki in that moment, hits him harder than he ever could have expected. “Uh.”
To his horror, Katsuki finds has no idea how he was about to phrase his question. The same question he can’t just say because he barely has any comprehensible word choices. It took exactly one second for it all to go to shit.
“Nevermind.” He shoves his burning face back into his textbook.
“Hmm. Were you thinking about what I said about you having ADHD?”
Literally how the fuck.
“Vibes.”
“Get the fuck outta my head?” Katsuki scoffs. “It was stupid, just forget– “
The words die in his throat, because Kirishima is staring at him with the most serious expression Katsuki’s ever seen. His eyes are wide and Katsuki, horrified, realizes he can’t look away.
“I don’t think it’s stupid.” Kirishima says.
Katsuki’s heart skips a beat.
Fuck, time to compartmentalize that in concrete and toss it into the ocean.
“Uh. Well.” Katsuki doesn’t know why he opens his mouth but words continue to fall out. Sometimes being around Kirishima turns him into an idiot. “What if I don’t actually have ADHD and it’s just…something else?”
He can think of a few words he learned from his mother’s mouth. Jiheishou. Words for kids like him who fixate on textures, who don’t talk until they’re four, who scream when they’re hugged. Katsuki gets the feeling he shouldn’t repeat the things his mom called him.
Kirishima’s brow furrows. “Say more?”
Katsuki grits his teeth. “You can’t have ADHD if you already have something else, right?”
It feels like he’s said too much, even though Katsuki knows he’s still the same steel trap, pain in the ass. Right now, he feels like he’s pulled off one to many layers of skin. He’s bearing himself before Kirishima, a shivering, bloody thing, naked to the sinew. Katsuki strangles the urge to retract his words and play it off as a joke. He’s not a fucking coward, he can take Kirishima’s disgust. But please let this be different than before, he thinks as he looks up, please don’t bite.
Kirishima seems to have sensed the tension pinning Katsuki to his seat, he looks almost…scared? Of him? No no no—
“Um…no?” Kirishima’s mouth finally twists into something amused. “You know I have ADHD and my laundry list of other shit. Are you…okay?”
Katsuki doesn’t see Kirishima’s hand until it touches his shoulder. He flinches. Hard. He doesn’t turn back towards Kirishima until the ringing in his ears stops.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to, I thought you saw me—“
“Fuck off, I’m fine.” He forces out, wincing at the harshness.
Kirishima’s face hardens, no quirk needed. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but I’m worried about you. I never wanted you to feel uncomfortable when this started, but I don’t understand enough about where you’re coming from to help. What’s going on dude?”
Katsuki risks a glance up at Kirishima’s face. His eyes are still wide with what he now realizes is fear for Katsuki’s own well-being. Fuck. Now he almost prefers the bite. At least he knows how he’s supposed to fucking respond to that.
But, he tells himself, it’s Kirishima.
Katsuki growls under his breath. “I don’t know what to fucking do, Ei.”
Kirishima’s entire body relaxes, his fists unclench from the choking grip on his duvet. “That’s perfectly fine, you don’t have to do anything!”
Katsuki picks at his cuticles. “I guess…I want to.”
Kirishima’s hands fly to his pockets and start twisting around a tangle toy at record speeds. Katsuki finally releases the tension in his body at the familiar sight and the feeling of Kirishima’s attention shifting from him to his racing thoughts.
“Okay, okay,” he says. “Yes or no, you’re thinking about the support you can get if we find out you do have ADHD?”
Katsuki nods. He’s actually torn between another diagnosis giving his mom more vindication and the thought that if this can be treated, he’ll be a little bit less of a fuck up. It’s more or less what Kiri said.
“Aizawa?”
“No.” Katsuki spits. “I don’t want—“
He snaps his own mouth shut. What? He doesn’t want to talk to an adult? He doesn’t want Aizawa to snitch?
Does he really think he can follow this through without his parents finding out?
The way Kirishima looks at him makes Bakugou want to try.
“It’s fine.” Kirishima nudges his shoulder. “How do you feel about a study group?”
Katsuki knows the right thing to do is to be honest. The wound of his last test grade is stinging. “I’m the last person who needs to join a fucking study group.”
Despite this, Kirishima beams. “That’s okay! You can help Yaoyorozu, or just have fun. Have you ever experimented with learning styles?”
Katsuki shrugs.
“Okay,” Kirishima pats all of his pockets, searching for his phone. “Okay, okay. Just let me…”
Katsuki hands him his phone and he starts fervently texting. “So There’s actually a bunch of other ADHD kids here in 1-A, we have this, uh, kind of secret study group club? That’s really the only reason I bring up a study group because you’re a genius, obviously. Yaomomo usually leads it, but between you and me she could use the help. I’m texting the chat to see how everyone else feels about you dropping in for a day. If there’s anywhere to go when questioning your neurotype it’s here! And, preferably a doctor, but we’ll have the conversation further down the road.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes, but leaned in to look over Kirishima’s shoulder. “Who else is in it?”
“Besides me and Yaoyorozu, there’s also Denki, Mina, Sero, and Midoriya.”
“Deku?” Katsuki can’t hold back the surprise in his voice.
Kirishima laughs. “Uh yeah, dude hyperfixes like he breathes dopamine.”
Katsuki doesn’t respond to that, lest he give any indication that he has no idea what it means.
Kirishima looks up from his phone, and breaks into a dazzling grin. “The council has spoken. You're in. What do you say?”
He’s going to regret this.
“I probably don’t have it.”
“That’s okay, it doesn’t hurt to try something new. Seventy-five percent of the group is bakusquad, it’s basically the same as our other study groups.”
Katsuki is scared. He’s scared of showing up and looking his classmates in the eye. It feels like an admission of weakness, of bearing his soft underbelly to his rivals. Deku being there…it doesn’t help, but…he supposes it could be worse. He could be facing Aizawa-sensei.
Fuck. He can’t say no to Eijirou.
He sighs. “Only because you want me to.”
Kirishima let’s a victory whoop, still grinning like a shark, ear to ear.
“You’re going to have so much fun!”
“Yeah yeah. Shut it and go back to your reading.”
Katsuki lets his leg bounce, and at last, becomes fully engrossed in his homework.