Do you think there were signs Bakugou cared about Deku before the war arc? You don't just go from vehemently hating a person willingly sacrificing your life for them after a few months of being a bit less than hostile towards them, right? I don't know... Just need reassurance that Bakugou actually likes Deku from before the war arc because people are acting like his apology and sacrifice came out of nowhere
You’re right that deeply held opinions don’t switch on a dime. Bakugo has cared deeply about Deku and his safety from the very beginning
There’s a lot of instances I could choose from like his reaction to seeing Deku at the sludge incident or the USJ attack but I wanna focus on one I don’t think gets talked enough about
Bakugo’s reaction to everything in the sports festival is very telling to his feelings about Deku(mostly how he is derangedly obsessive about him) but imo none show more care than his reaction to his match against Uraraka
Right off the bat Bakugo takes this match way more seriously/personally than he’s taken any other opponent who wasn’t Deku all day.
If you remember he starts off the calvery battle unable to remember a single other classmates quirk or even really recognize them
And unlike Todo who singled Deku as a challenge or Kiri who forcefully introduced himself Uraraka never really did anything that really stood out against the others(it’s one of the reasons she declined Dekus help, she wants to push herself more)
Still Bakugo recognizes her and knows her quirk, and bothers to actually trash talk her something he doesn’t bother to do with his other opponents before or after this match
Sure he’s insulted/threatened them, and continues to after this, but he never taunts them with shit like “crying uncle”, that’s so far been reserved for Deku
(He says nearly nothing to Kiri or Tokoyami, although what he does say to Kiri is nearly identical to something Deku said in the previous match, but that’s a post for another day)
But now Uraraka is getting the same treatment, she’s a threat by proxy because Bakugo has Deku brainrot to the worst degree. He doesn’t know a damn thing about the rest of the class but he’s been paying close attention to who Dekus friends with
He knew anyone who hangs out with Deku would be smart and come to the field with a plan
He treated this match like he’s fighting Deku(again) because he knows that Deku’s the kind of person who would help her, and he believes Uraraka to be someone who would take that help, so in a way it’s Dekus big brain he’s going against now
The part I’m really the most focused on is that Bakugo blames her big move on Deku, not her rushing style or her decoy jacket ploy but just the big sacrificing move
He knew she’d come with a plan but when her big move was so self sacrificing that he doesn’t see it as just brainstorming with Deku, but that had to be Dekus idea entirely
Self sacrificing has to be Dekus idea, because only Deku is crazy enough to risk everything. Wherever Bakugo sees risk taken with near reckless drive he immediately associates it with Deku
And it happens in the worst way.
Bakugo was clearly expecting her to keep fighting and was totally shook when she just collapsed
Because Deku doesn’t collapse, Deku doesn’t ever call it quits
And Bakugo freezes, he doesn’t move a sweat drop more, he just stares. He didn’t even need Midnight to call a time out, he was already stunned into silence
I think her loss reaffirmed and brought to the surface all his underlying nagging fears, and it also made him realize who he was actually fighting and how distracted he was.
In Uraraka Bakugo sees exactly what he fears will someday play out for Deku, that Deku will one day exhaust himself, he’ll push himself past his breaking point, he’ll bet it all, and it just won’t be enough.
Where Uraraka recognizes she can’t move and gives in Deku would double down and rebrakes his broken bones
If Deku has even a shred of consciousness left in him he keeps going, no matter how much damage he does to himself, he’s had the same attitude of “you’ll have to knock me out if you wanna knock me down” since he was 4.
Uraraka leaves the festival tired with a scrap on her cheek, Deku leaves in double casts, a sling, and a scrap on his cheek because he broke himself beyond what their schools magic healer deemed herself physically capable and morally willing to do
Frankly I don’t think Bakugo’s question here was a snappy threat, but a genuine reflection of how he feels
And Bakugo in his Bakugo fashion tries to expand on that to Deku, and by that I mean he says almost exactly what he means but in such a way it nearly means nothing at all close to what he meant
and Deku, the lovable idiot, in his haste to stand up and support his friend completely misses the points Bakugo was actually trying to make
Bakugo didn’t have trouble fighting Uraraka, at least not physically, and he wasn’t trying to give Deku credit for what she pulled off.
No, his big trouble was not thinking about anything beyond Deku. He wasn’t paying attention to who he was fighting, he was stuck on WWDD(what would Deku Do) mode and watching Uraraka like a knock off Deku instead of an independent variable.
If he had been paying more attention to Uraraka-his opponent, instead of Uraraka-Deku’s friend, than maybe just maybe he’d have noticed what was happening and how there was a pattern to the way she rushed him.
But Deku’s just as likely to rush in seemingly blind and come up with a plan on the fly as he is to come up with an intricate plan 7 steps ahead of everyone
So Bakugo was so busy paying attention to everything he ended up paying attention to almost nothing, he basically fell for each one of her ploys and only his insane reaction time saved him
He had trouble with the sacrificial nature of her plan and how much it reminded him of Deku, he’s still having trouble with it when he runs into Deku.
The scheme and the trouble Deku caused were separate problems, each emphasized on their own panel. His accusation was a complete thought, his confession another monster altogether
A monster he technically didn’t finish explaining, he just trailed off and then Deku interrupted any continuation of that thought with his defense of Uraraka.
To which of course Bakugo had a strong rebuttal to-
So eloquently put Blasty, so glad we got your final thoughts on the matter wrapped up 👍🏼
(low key hc that between this time and current time Iida and Kaminari tutored him in communication skills)
So yeah there isn’t a single moment during the sports festival where Deku isn’t living rent free in Bakugo’s head, but the most concerning was how watching Uraraka be so reckless really upset him to his core
Like it was enough to have Bakugo actually try to have open dialogue, which really only ever happens when Bakugo’s gotta deal with seeing Deku play jump rope with his own mortality, and apparently watching it paralleled by someone else is enough
And that’s fun in retrospect because than Bakugo’s gets to watch Deku actually do way waaaay more reckless shit in his own matches, honestly Bakugo deserves a metal just for making it to the end of his last match before having a nervous breakdown 😅
Actually I think I could trace a direct line from this to this
But again a different thought bunny for a different day
