Chapter Text
20:57
Shouto knows Katsuki Bakugou.
Everybody on the campus does.
Bakugou is that kind of guy. He’s extremely loud, along with his friends, and he’s always going around, driving that stertorous bike of his that makes everybody stop what they are doing and look up, trying to decipher what is going on, if it’s the end of the world or just an asshole revving up.
He’s considered to be extremely handsome as he has ash-blond hair, sharp catlike red eyes, is tall, extremely fit and has the whole unapproachable bad-boy vibe that drives people crazy.
There’re hundreds of rumors going on about him.
The fact that he’s rude, crass and has a short temper doesn’t help him at all. He’s been labeled as a troublemaker since day one.
He gets in fights, flips people off and has been officially banned from certain places such as the cafeteria. Flipping a table is not appropriate.
Shouto can also say that he doesn’t know-know him. They share a couple of classes, one on Monday and Wednesday, and another one on the same Wednesday and today, Friday.
They have never talked. Katsuki sits on the front, Shouto on the back.
They don’t share common friends; their paths have never crossed and Shouto has never given him that much of a thought with the exception of when he answers correctly something on class.
He can tell you this: Katsuki Bakugou is a good student.
Shouto has seen him in the library dozens of times, writing and consulting books for hours. He has never missed a deadline, at least on the classes they share, and is at the top of the class and has been on the Dean’s list since moment zero.
Still, Katsuki Bakugou has never been on his mind for more than the blink of an eye. Maybe at first when he saw him, he considered him to be attractive and maybe, just maybe, he had a tiny crush on him… until he heard about his fame and decided that it wasn’t worth it. Plus, it was just an infatuation, nothing else. Katsuki is just another face among the crowd, a whispered name after a faint giggle from one of his fans…
Shouto is on the library. When he hears it. Katsuki Bakugou. He hears his name floating all around. He looks at the clock and sighs. It’s 20:57, almost the closing hour. He starts to pack when he realizes the whispered name is not done in the same tone that he always hears it.
People are crying, their phones shaking and some are even gasping for air.
“What’s wrong?” He asks.
A guy looks at him. “A drunk driver crashed his car into his bike. He died on the spot.”
Oh.
Katsuki Bakugou is dead.
21:13
Shouto wakes up and yawns as he turns off his alarm.
Wait.
Why is his alarm sounding on a Saturday morning?
Groaning, he hides himself back into his blankets and goes back to sleep… until his phone starts to ring. Huffing, he picks it up.
“Yes?” He says annoyed.
“Shouto! Where are you? You are going to be late for your first class?!”
Shouto frowns and stares at his phone screen. It’s Izuku. Izuku would never prank him like this. He sighs and explains, “Izuku, it’s Saturday. There are no classes on a Sat-”
“What? No. It’s Friday!” Izuku cuts him. “Shouto, did you stay up last night watching weird videos on the internet?”
No. Wait. He can’t remember what he did last night… but he’s sure yesterday was Friday. He’s confused. He glances back at his screen and Izuku is right. It’s Friday, Friday October 28th… and he’s late. Really late.
He curses, thanks Izuku and quickly puts on the first clothes he finds lying around as he hurries out of his apartment and runs all the way to the campus. It’s only a fifteen-minute walk but damn, once he arrives, he decides he needs to hit the gym. He’s young and healthy, he shouldn’t feel on the edge of death for a little run.
Panting, he enters his first class just a minute before it starts. He slides into his desk and texts Izuku: You are a lifesaver!
He’s half-asleep, as usual, so he’s not paying that much attention to anything until his teacher asks them to hand in their assignment. Wait, didn’t he already submit it… yesterday? He glances up and sees something that he has already seen: a tall girl with a ponytail, stands up and starts to make her way down to the teacher with her work. The cup of coffee that another girl with shorter hair had on the edge of her desk falls, splashing the taller girl’s shoes.
This.
This happened yesterday. Now the girl is going to swear that it’s okay, that accidents happen and-
“It’s fine, don’t worry. Accidents happen.”
“Oh my God, please, I’m so sorry. Oh gosh, I can’t believe I just spilled my coffee all over my crush.”
Shouto pales as the other girl blushes. He knows it’s okay. The tall girl is going to agree to go on a date with the other one.
Shouto stares at them at the end of the class. The shorter girl is beaming and the taller one is blushing as she follows her.
His day keeps getting weirder and weirder as Shouto won’t stop witnessing the same stuff that he saw yesterday. His teachers talk about the same topics, the people around him gossip about the same stuff… it’s all the same. Except him. Because he already knows everything and yesterday? Wait. Was it yesterday?
Gosh, someone please give him an aspirin, his head hurts.
Then he walks into his contemporary world history class and sees him.
Katsuki Bakugou.
The man that was in the mouth of everyone last night.
He remembers now. Bakugou died last night, right?
He stares at him to the point that some people chuckle and start to whisper about it, loud enough that the man in question turns around and frowns as he looks at him.
“What the fuck are you looking at?!” He barks.
That makes Shouto snap. He turns around and runs out of his class.
He’s on his couch, reading a book that he started earlier when he ran away from his classes and went home, deeming it was enough for the day.
His phone beeps. And beeps, and beeps again.
Frowning, he unlocks it and sees it’s his friends talking on their group chat. He ignores it and keeps reading his book as the plot is thickening… but the phone won’t stop beeping. Sighing, he opens his messages.
It’s 21:13 and his blood freezes as he reads them.
Tsuyu: Guys have you heard?
Ochaco: OMG yes! So sad :( :( :(
Tenya: I haven’t, what happened?
Ochaco: Bakugou died. A car crash
Tsuyu: Katsuki Bakugou died. A drunk driver
Tenya: … that’s really sad
Ochaco: have you heard from Izu? I can’t contact him :S
His phone slips from his hands and crashes into the wooden floor.
22:17
His alarm wakes him up. He turns it off and then freezes as he recalls yesterday. He quickly sits on his bed and there it is: Friday, October 28th.
“NO! No, no, no, no, no!” He throws his phone away, to the feet of his bed as he grips his hair.
He’s turning crazy. That’s the only feasible explanation he can come up for this.
He has gone insane and now he thinks every day is Friday 28th. That or he’s in coma, or dead, or-
He crawls down his bed and turns off his phone as he doesn’t want Izuku to call him again. He needs answers. He hops from his bed and goes to his couch, where he left his laptop. He’s ready to google what the heck is going on.
It’s not a very successful search.
Stuck in the same day
Time Loop
Groundhog Day
None of that helps him. The internet is filled with movies and memes as well as forums but it’s all pointless. He watches a couple of movies just in case and even some tv episodes that feature it.
He reads every post he comes across and even buys a couple of fiction books that keep popping up during his search. He starts to read them on his kindle, skimming the useless parts and going straight into the matter.
In most of the cases the people trapped in this ‘time loop’ were supposed to fix or find something from their lives that happened during their endless day and then, once it’s all solved, they woke up again and it was their very next day. In his case, Saturday, October 29th.
He closes his laptop and starts to walk up and down his living room. What happens today that is supposed to shake his life? Nothing comes up to his mind. Nothing happens today. He has no important exam coming up or anything like that…
Frustrated, he decides to fulfill his promise of yesterday. It’s not as if he’s going to miss anything from his classes anyway. He has already attended them twice.
He hits the gym and gosh, he has no idea of what he’s supposed to do now. A redhead seems to take pity of him.
“Hey! I have seen you around, you are a student, right?”
Shouto stares at him. He hasn’t said anything too out of the extraordinary. This gym is just a couple of blocks from their university, of course most of its clients would be students.
“Yes.” He finally answers as the guy keeps looking at him, waiting for an answer.
A toothy grin, and wow, such pointy teeth, and the guy starts to guide him step by step on how to use some of the machines and gives him advice regarding what exercises he should start with.
“I’m Eijirou Kirishima. You can call me Kiri.”
“Shouto Todoroki.”
He’s pretty much just watching Kiri, spotting him, or so the man says. Shouto highly doubts he can help him if Kiri needs his assistance. There is no way he can lift such weight.
“And then, Baku was like, I’m gonna kill you all!” He explains him as he laughs.
Oh, turns out Kirishima is Bakugou’s best friend.
When the man first mentioned him, Shouto stopped running. You can’t do that on a treadmill. Shouto now knows first-hand. Luckily, Kirishima caught him on time and that’s the only reason why he has stayed – rather than the morbid curiosity of getting to know a dead man –.
He learns a lot of interesting things about the blond.
Turns out he got banned from the cafeteria because a little perverted man kept hitting on Mina, one of their friends, and even after they asked him to scam the guy kept hitting on her and even dared to grope her. That’s when Bakugou snapped and flipped the table over, trying to get to him to save her from his disgusting hands.
He guesses Bakugou isn’t as bad as he first thought.
He’s on a dinner, eating some French fries, dipping them in a strawberry milkshake and the news are on the background.
It’s 22:17 when the woman announces something he already knew.
“Today, there’s been a fatal victim in a car crash. The victim, a young man of 20, died as a drunk driver, his information hasn’t been disclosed, hit him when the man was on his bike. The paramedics were unable to save him.
And now, Josh will tell us about the flood in the south of the country.”
20:12
He’s getting desperate. It’s been, a week? Two? He has no idea of how long he’s been trapped on this endless loop.
He’s so hopeless that he has even called his father. His father. The man he hates the most.
His father, who abused of his mother and it took him almost 14 years to realize that Shouto was a person, not a tool, that he has feelings and freewill.
He heard the man’s apologies, teeth clenched, and tried to forgive him from the bottom of his heart.
He couldn’t.
He can’t.
So he called him again.
And again.
He has already heard his father’s apologies so many times that he can recite them backwards. He’s now more inclined to forgive him. Even if it’s just so he can break away from this nightmare.
Today he has no strength to call him. So he doesn’t.
His father is the only thing that comes to his mind that needs to be ‘repaired’ in his life.
He’s now lying on his floor, naked, listening on repeat to the same song trying to come up with an idea of what he is supposed to do. He has watched all the movies that are out there about the topic. He has even taken the car and drove as far as he could. He has even taken a plane to another country and landed there but the second the clock hit midnight, he woke up on his bed, alarm pounding and the same date: Friday, October 28th.
He can’t do it anymore. He can’t repeat the same day over and over.
He’s taking a walk and he’s been doing it for so long that he’s almost on the outskirts of the city. He’s minding his own business when he hears it.
A bike.
He recognizes it. He has heard it thundering for the past two years.
He doesn’t think he just runs but he knows it’s too late.
Because he hears the awful sound of metal colliding and broken glass. He keeps running and sees it. A car is skewed on the middle of the road and the black bike is a mess of metal lying on a side and… and Bakugou.
He rushes there. He hears some people shouting but he has to help him.
He knows him.
Some people arrive first.
He sees the blood and from the way some people look away and cry he knows it. He has already heard it over and over again: he died on the spot. The medics couldn’t save him.
“Bakugou…” he whimpers.
Seeing the blond’s body broken and twisted on the road like that is a reality smash.
“Bakugou… Katsuki please. Bakugou wake up!”
Someone comes to him. “Do you know him?”
“Yes…”
They move him away and he lets them. Then realization hits him. He looks down at his clock and sees the hour. 20:12… which means that Bakugou dies a little bit before this time.
Is this what he’s supposed to stop?
Is he supposed to help Katsuki Bakugou?
He’s not sure but he can try.
The ambulance arrives.
Shouto looks away and closes his eyes as he keeps crying.
He already knows what the medics are going to dictate.