Chapter Text
The ferry engine hums under your feet, steady and slow, the way it always is when you’re almost there.
The wind whips your hair into your mouth, the air thick with salt and sun. Mina’s sitting next to you with her feet kicked up on the rail, talking about some drama back home that you’re only half-listening to. Something about Denki ghosting a situationship and then running into her at the gym. You nod, but your eyes stay locked on the island just ahead—green, golden, untouched by time.
Your island.
Your family’s summer place.
You’ve been coming here every year since you were seven, long before you ever knew what it meant to miss someone, to grow up, to fall in love with people you weren’t supposed to.
Back then it was just you and Mina. Now there are six of you.
You feel the shift before you even look—Bakugou stepping out from the cabin onto the deck, arms crossed, mouth set in that familiar scowl. His eyes scan the horizon, then land—briefly—on you.
It’s not a glare. But it’s not a hello, either.
You blink first.
“Still not talking to you, huh?” Mina mutters without looking at you. She’s got her chin propped in her hand, sunglasses sliding down her nose.
“He’s always like that,” you say, too quickly.
Mina snorts. “No, he’s not.”
You don’t answer. The truth sits too heavy in your chest.
Kirishima comes out behind him, loud and laughing as always, dragging Denki by the wrist and trying to shove Sero out the door all at once. The energy shifts. The air gets warmer. For a second it feels like summer again.
Then the dock appears, and it all comes rushing back.
The house looks the same as it always does—weathered wood siding, chipped white shutters, the crooked porch swing that only you know how to sit in without falling. Your parents had it built decades ago. They hardly come anymore, but they keep it up for you.
You unload the ferry with practiced rhythm: coolers, bags, sunblock, too many snacks. Sero and Kirishima fight over who gets the “good room,” while Mina calls dibs on the hammock. You don’t fight for anything. You always take the corner room upstairs. It smells like cedar and dust, and the windows creak when you open them. You love it.
By the time everyone’s unpacked, the sun’s already lowering itself into the ocean, orange bleeding into purple. You’re on the back deck, unwrapping sandwiches, when you feel someone behind you.
You know it’s him before he speaks.
“Didn’t think you’d still bring me after last year.”
Bakugou’s voice is low. Rough like gravel. Not angry—just raw.
You don’t turn around right away. You set a plate down on the table. You breathe.
“Didn’t think you’d come.”
Silence.
Then: “Mina begged.”
You shrug. “Figures.”
Another pause. The kind that stretches too long. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t leave.
“I didn’t come here to fight with you,” he says finally.
You meet his eyes. Red. Tired. Still full of something you can’t name.
“Good,” you say, even though part of you still wants to. “Neither did I.”
He looks like he might say something else—but Kirishima shouts your name from inside the house, and the moment’s gone.
Bakugou steps back. You let him.
Later, the six of you are crammed on the beach around a firepit, passing marshmallows and teasing each other over ghost stories no one tells right. The stars come out slow. The laughter is easy. The summer begins.
But when you glance across the flames and find Bakugou staring into the fire, jaw clenched, shoulders tense—you know.
He didn’t come here for the marshmallows.
He came for something he still can’t say out loud.
And if you’re honest?
So did you.
Bakugou steps back. You let him.
But the second he’s gone, you find yourself staring out over the water, jaw tight, fists clenched.
Because you remember.
Last summer. Same island. Same fire pit.
You’d all been drinking—just a little. Kirishima brought cheap beer and made everyone go around saying something they were proud of. It was light, silly, harmless.
Until it got to Bakugou.
He’d said something about surviving another year without exploding at someone, and everyone laughed—except you.
You were already pissed. You’d been pissed all day. He ignored you at breakfast, shrugged you off when you asked him to help with dinner, and then had the audacity to sit next to you at the fire like nothing happened.
So you said it. Too sharp. Too loud.
“You always pretend like you don’t care about anyone here, Bakugou. Why do you even come?”
And he looked at you like you’d slapped him.
“Don’t fucking start.”
“Start what? Telling the truth?”
“You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
You remember the sting in your throat. The way everyone else fell silent.
“Yeah? That’s the problem.”
You stormed off. He didn’t come after you. Not that night. Not ever.
Back in the present, you’re still staring at the spot where he’d been standing when Mina walks out, two soda cans in her hands.
She tosses you one without a word and plops down in the chair next to you, cracking hers open with a hiss.
“You good?”
You nod.
She squints at you like she doesn’t believe it, then takes a long sip. “You gonna pretend like you didn’t almost kill each other last year?”
You sigh. “Can we not?”
“I’m just saying—if he’s gonna be moody and brooding all week, I need to know whether it’s emotional constipation or if I should hide the kitchen knives.”
You laugh in spite of yourself. “Probably both.”
She bumps your shoulder. “Seriously, though. Talk to him. Or don’t. But don’t act like it doesn’t matter. He showed up.”
You nod, but the ache doesn’t go away. Because she’s right. He did show up. And that means something.
You’re just not sure if it’s enough.
You and Mina stay on the beach while the boys head to the main house, the silence laying a comfortable blanket over the two of you. Right now, the cool wind, the hot fire and the waves a welcome white noise—it’s peaceful.
Denki’s on the couch trying to charge his phone with a portable charger that clearly died days ago. Kirishima’s unloading snacks onto the kitchen counter like it’s a war effort. Sero’s already halfway into a bag of chips he swore he wouldn’t touch until dinner.
“You think the power’s gonna go out again this week?” Denki asks, shaking the charger like it’ll magically spring to life.
“If it does,” Sero says through a mouthful of chips, “we’re gonna watch you fight a raccoon in the dark again.”
“That wasn’t a raccoon, man! That was Bakugou sleepwalking.”
Bakugou, from the corner. “I’ll kill you.”
Denki grins. “See? Same energy.”
Kirishima claps a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder. “Glad you came, man. It’s not the same without you.”
Bakugou just grunts and heads toward the stairs.
There you are.
Sitting in the sand next to Mina, barefoot, a hoodie pulled over your bathing suit. She’s talking—always talking—and you’re listening, laughing at something she said. Your legs stretched out in front of you. Your hands in the sand, like you’re grounding yourself.
You always do that. You don’t even know you do.
You look different this year. Not like you’ve changed—like you’ve lived through something.
He’s too much of coward to ask. He thought the argument from last year would burn itself out. But it settled like smoke in his lungs.
Mina throws a shell at you. You laugh, swat her shoulder, tackle her into the sand. And Bakugou knows he should look away. He stands there, eyes locked on something he’s not sure he’s allowed to want anymore. For the first time since he’d gotten off that boat, he whispers something under his breath that he’d never say aloud.
”I missed you.”
Then he turns away from window.
The sand is cool under your legs now, the heat of the day long gone, replaced by the soft hush of waves brushing the shore.
Mina stretches out beside you, her hoodie sleeves pulled down over her hands, hair windblown and tangled. The stars are just starting to blink awake overhead.
“Remember when we used to think this island was haunted?” she says, grinning.
You laugh, leaning back on your elbows. “Because of that creepy shed in the woods.”
“Exactly!” she sits up, wide-eyed. “You said it had cursed tools in it.”
You grin. “And you cried when my dad rattled the doorknob from the other side.”
“Hey! That was trauma, okay? I was, like, eight.”
You both dissolve into laughter. It feels good—pure. Like all the years peeled back, just for a second.
She nudges your knee with hers. “And the bug hunts. Oh my god, remember how serious we took it?”
You groan. “We literally had ‘bug jars’ labeled with marker. I made a ‘praying mantis sanctuary.’”
Mina gasps. “You did! And we buried that dead butterfly like it was a full-blown funeral.”
“With a leaf coffin and everything.”
The breeze picks up, carrying the scent of the water and pine and faint charcoal from the fire pit behind the house. You fall quiet for a moment, just listening.
“I think this place made us,” Mina says eventually. “Like, really made us who we are.”
You nod, staring out at the horizon. “I think it’s the only place that’s ever felt unchanging.”
“Even though we did.”
”Back then, everything felt so safe. Small. Simple.”
Silence again. Not heavy, just full.
Then Mina shifts, tucking her legs under her, looking at you more carefully now.
“You haven’t talked about it,” she says. “About him.”
You don’t answer.
She watches you for a second, then says it—gently, but without pulling the punch.
“What happened between you two?”
You open your mouth. Close it again. You’re not sure where to start. Or if you even want to.
Because the truth is complicated. It’s not just about one fight. It’s about every moment you let him in, and every moment he backed away. It’s about how much it hurt that he didn’t chase you last summer. It’s silly, but—
“I felt unwanted,” you say finally.
The words sit heavy between you.
“Not just ignored. Not just distant. It was like—every time I tried to get close, he’d pull away. And I told myself it didn’t matter. That it was just Bakugou being Bakugou. But it kept happening. And last summer, I guess I just hit my limit.”
Mina doesn’t interrupt. She just listens. Like she always has.
“I said some stuff I didn’t mean. Or—” you pause, “—maybe I did mean it, but I said it in the worst way. I was so tired of feeling like I was always the one reaching.”
You glance down, brushing your thumb along the side of your hand. “And since then, nothing. Not a word. Not even a text.”
Mina exhales slowly. “That’s not nothing. That’s a lot.”
You nod, throat tight. “Yeah.”
She leans her head against your shoulder, the way she used to when you were kids and one of you couldn’t sleep.
“Do you think he knew you felt that way?”
“I don’t know,” you whisper. “But it doesn’t change that he let me walk away.”
You close your eyes and try to remember the last summer this island didn’t carry his name in the silence.
Above you, in the window of the upstairs bedroom, the light turns off.