Chapter Text
A date. It was a losing battle deciding the venue—when Katsuki suggested going out to eat, Aoyama instantly looked repulsed, then suggested the arcade. To which Katsuki recoiled at, recalling the day he’d gotten attacked by the Sludge Villain.
“What business would you have at an arcade anyway? In your fucking mascara and pumps?” Katsuki husked out, at his desk with a book cracked open on his lap as they chatted.
Aoyama looked at him like he had two heads. “I- playing video games? What else?”
“You play video games?” Katsuki snorted, cocking his head. “You look like you’ve never even picked up a controller.”
“What, gay people don’t know how to play video games, now?” Aoyama was pink in the face, flabbergasted, gesturing with his hands again. “Where do you even hear rhetoric like this? Where did you grow up where this is the common belief, that you can spew that so casually? In my household- no, in my neighborhood, we held no such beliefs! It’s so unbecoming, and narrow minded, and-“
“Oh my God,” Katsuki laughed, unable to hold it in, “holy shit, you are pissed.”
“Because it’s a ridiculous assumption! And you are ridiculous for saying that!” Aoyama replied, fiery, clearly on a roll and still emphatic with the hand gestures. He was at his own desk, eyeliner in hand, in athletic shorts (that Katsuki was honestly confused about the logistics of because where was his dick? Where was it? Shorts that tight should show a very clear penis outline) and a loose fitting and sparkly sweater. The very image of homosexuality. Which made this even better. “You know, most gaming spaces? Full of gay people! And then- you know, the stereotype for gay men is usually hairy, muscular types, this whole flamboyant men being explicitly gay thing is recent! It’s western! Your best friend is gay and if he doesn’t go to the gym everyday, he acts like he’s going to wither away and die, so you know it best that gay comes in all shapes and sizes and I grew up going to arcades- stop laughing!”
“Stop,” Katsuki said, clutching his stomach, “I’m gonna pee,”
“Well, anyhow, the arcade is off the table anyway, yes?” Aoyama huffed, clearly stamping down more nagging about the chide. He twisted his cap back onto his mascara and considered it, while Katsuki recollected himself. “Then… say, a roller rink?”
“I’ve never been.” Katsuki spat. “Do you just wanna see me bust my ass?”
“Non, I’ve never been either.” Aoyama stressed, eyebrows jumping to his hairline and eyes sparkling. “We experience it together, you know? We learn, and become closer for it. I think it’d be fantastic, Bakugouuu.”
And when Aoyama phrased it like that, looking that hopeful and impassioned, it was difficult to find a good reason to tell him to eat shit and die. He scoffed, wiped his palms off on his pants, and jutted his jaw out. “I’m down. As long as it’s far away enough from school that no one here sees that shit.”
A flash of hurt passed across Aoyama’s gaze, turning it flat and hollow, before it smoothed back out. Before Katsuki knew it, Aoyama was nodding along and picking up a tube of glimmering lipgloss. He applied it with great care and precision, then popped his lips, and although Bakugou was no expert, he must’ve applied a blasphemous fucking amount because he watched as upper and lower lip were fused with pale, shimmering strands of excess gloss—Aoyama wet his lips and the strands broke unceremoniously.
Katsuki swallowed.
They made their requests to go off campus separately, and were unanimously denied for similar reasons.
Katsuki had been kidnapped. Aoyama had passed out in heroics. They couldn’t be trusted by the staff or, in Aoyama’s case, his own parents. According to the blond, they specifically requested that the staff deny any attempts to travel off campus until his disordered eating was ‘resolved’—whatever the fuck that meant.
“They said they would.” Aoyama explained, still smiling as he laid on his bed, looking at the ceiling. Bakugou watched, uncomfortable and uncertain the way he was when any of his friends had issues with their stupid and unreasonable parents. “I thought it was just another empty threat. I was wrong, I suppose.”
Another? Bakugou was tempted to ask. But he had too many fires of his own to go poking around in Aoyama’s.
They went back to square one and wound up in the courtyard at night. Hound Dog patrolled occasionally but considering that Katsuki and Aoyama both visited him with semi-regularity, they weren’t concerned about penalties. Well. Aoyama wasn’t considered about penalties.
“I feel like I need to purchase a purse, just to pull your testicles out of them.” The blond said, voice lowered in a way that made Katsuki’s spine tingle in a very new and unwelcome way, as he yanked him through the grass. “It is extraordinarily disappointing that between the two of us, I am the one with the bigger balls.”
“Can you shut up?” Katsuki hissed back, sweat pricking his skin from anxiety. “I’ve also gotten penalized at U.A. before, you haven’t and- it fucking sucks, and I don’t ever want to get goddamn suspended again, and I probably would just get expelled at this fucking point-“
“Whatever you say, wuss.” Aoyama snarked, as they found the picnic table they were apparently looking for, and set up camp. The air was crisp and before Katsuki could fight it, Aoyama had thrown a blanket across both of their shoulders and cuddled straight into his chest as his propped up ipad played Farewell My Concubine.
They didn’t make it far before Aoyama was talking because he’d already fucking seen the movie. “Bakugou, why did you ask me out?”
Katsuki wet his lips and licked his teeth. “Because I have a thing for annoying losers. Why do you fucking think?”
“Do you like me?” Aoyama asked and seemed equal parts teasing and serious.
Katsuki wet his lips again. He wanted to punch himself for doing that twice in a row. It’d probably make him look ravenously horny and he- wasn’t. He was just tense. He was thinking. “I don’t fucking know. Why did you say yes?”
“You are interesting, Bakugou Katsuki.” Aoyama replied smoothly and that made Katsuki’s throat instantly dry up as his face filled up with hot blood. “I had a fling with Kaibara Sen and there was just one thing on his mind. He was unkind and pushy, so I ruined his social life, by the way.”
“Noted.” Katsuki replied, trying with all his might to remember who the hell Kaibara Sen was.
“You are gorgeous,” Aoyama continued which only made the blushing so much fucking worse, “and you are endearing, in the strangest of ways.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Mm, I do not.” Aoyama said coyly and Katsuki had half a mind to strangle him. “Because if I tell you, you may stop doing those endearing things. You are easily embarrassed, Bakugouuu.”
“And you’re snarky and sarcastic.” Katsuki snapped out in rebuttal, then squared his jaw and continued. “You’re also- super fuckin’ nosy. You say out of pocket shit all the time, you… you have this way of just, inserting yourself into people's lives and acting like you’ve been there the whole time. You act all innocent but you’re a goddamn fiend.”
“Do you detest it?” Aoyama asked, sounding rather smug.
“No.” The student spat, actual spittle flying from his mouth and Aoyama probably caught some of it considering he was in Katsuki’s personal splash zone. “It’s- I dunno- I wasn’t expecting for there to be this much to you. Or to give a shit about any of it, all of your sass and personality. I didn’t recognize your name when Mr. Eyebags said we’d be rooming together. So, what the hell?”
“That tends to happen, you know.” Aoyama said, exhaling close enough to Katsuki’s collarbone for him to feel the breeze of his breath. “You tend not to let people in. You must’ve forgotten that we’re all boxes of sass and personality, waiting to be unearthed. Even us side characters.”
“Side characters…” Katsuki echoed, thinking again. Aoyama had been a side character to him. He’d wanted it to remain that way, he really had. Once you let people in, discovered them inside themselves, it was game over and you’d never have a day of peace again. And insistent, stubborn people who forced you to realize their individuality again and again and again, every time you’d just begun to forget, were the most exhausting specimens. But Aoyama wasn’t anything like Deku.
He should still be a meaningless blip in Katsuki’s life. But something about him screamed to be noticed. It was deafening and his voice clawed at the walls even when he wasn’t there. He was an invasive species and Katsuki was a very well maintained ecosystem, a series of perfect organisms coexisting and feeding and dying to begin the never ending cycle all over again. Aoyama’s presence was building a habitat where he had absolutely no fucking business being and this integration was so unreasonably messy. He was disturbing the local fauna and the circle of life was doomed. Whatever this was, was violating the laws of nature.
“Can we kiss again?” Katsuki forced out. “This movie’s boring as dick.”
“It’s not boring, it’s beautiful.” Aoyama said as he leaned in and enveloped Katsuki’s lips with his own.
Whether or not Aoyama had too much experience under his belt to be comfortable with, he was good at kissing. Not that Katsuki was any sort of expert when it came to sticking his tongue in other peoples’ mouths. His hands, dainty and cold, sliding from the steaming hot nape of Katsuki’s neck, over his hammering pulse, his chest, his muscular back, as if exploring him with great care. Soft, wet lips, pillowy against his own, his tongue sliding against his own, forgetting to breathe through his nose.
Pulling away slightly, making stammering eye contact as he gasped for air. Aoyama dragged his fingers through his jagged hair, that was, contrary to popular belief, spiked up naturally.
“Breathe, Bakugouuu.” Aoyama said, head cocked to the side as his fingers massaged his scalp. “We don’t need you passing out. That’s more my speed.”
Katsuki swallowed, uncomfortably aware of how hard he was salivating. “How the fuck do I remember to breathe? It feels like you’re sucking my soul out. Fucking succubus.”
“Mm, you’re smart.” The blond replied, leaned in, Katsuki braced to lose more of what was left of his soul. The fucker kissed the drool covered corner of his mouth. “You’ll figure it out. I believe in you. And…”
“And?” Katsuki asked, so red in the face he felt like any moment steam would shoot out of his ears.
Thin, icy hands taking hold of his own, which seemed massive in comparison, placing their bulk on the perch of slim hips. (They felt too slim. He felt too cold. Katsuki, however, wasn’t in a position to bargain with him.) “Do not be afraid to touch me, Bakugou Katsuki. I won’t break.”
“Don’t jinx it, dumbass.” Katsuki gritted out, distantly aware that his hands and voice were both trembling. He didn’t believe that something as frail as Aoyama wouldn’t break if his calloused hands weren’t cautious with his figure. “I’m- not afraid.”
“Good.” Aoyama smiled. More kisses, trailing to the sharp line of his jawbone, then lower. Wetter, heavier, more fervent. “Bakugou, you infatuate me. Do you know how incredible you are, to me?”
“Um,” Katsuki replied, his brains melting rapidly from the ministrations as he rubbed his hands up and down the firm sides of Aoyama’s torso, fidgeting with him. More pressure with each wet, suctioning kiss on his neck made putting sentences together nearly impossible. Pressure on his neck, in his slush filled skull, everywhere Aoyama’s hands landed, in his sweats, “I… I’m- fuckin’ awesome.”
Aoyama laughed against his Adam's apple and Katsuki’s pretty sure his dick grew its own pulse as his pupils blew to the size of quarters. “When you undress in your dorm, I observe with great interest. It is so fascinating- all that strength, all that talent, you’re a gift being unwrapped. Does that bother you?”
“Um,” Katsuki said again, then wet his lips, and mashed his mouth into Aoyama’s.
He poured into it, all the nerves and the mortifying pain of being alive, every shred of strength. It was Aoyama’s turn to squirm as he was consumed, his body a machine of perpetual and seductive motion in a way that didn’t even seem practiced—it was natural gyrations. He sucked up his breath, his spit, his blood, his heart, and his soul, he drank Aoyama. And not because he felt like he had to. And not because he felt like he had something to prove. And not because he felt humiliated at the aspect of being inadequate. But because feeling good had never felt good, not like this.
The eagerness of Katsuki’s mouth proved to be the only method to get the smooth talking son of a bitch to shut up. Other than airy moans, muttered praise, stammered prayers, Aoyama just took it all with open arms.
“Don’t be afraid.” He said. His voice sounded as thin as his breakable wrists.
Eldritch angels uttered similar phrases. Katsuki wasn’t sure if he was afraid of shattering Aoyama in his hands, with brute strength alone. If he was, he surely wasn’t going to admit it. He sucked on the blonds neck and felt the vibration of his laughter.
“Shut the fuck up!” Katsuki snapped, flustered to his hairline. “You- it’s- it’s good when you do it. Is it good?”
“It’s wonderful!” Aoyama laughed.
“You’re a goddamn liar.”
“I am a good one, no?”
Katsuki changed his approach and bit down on Aoyama’s pulse. That cut the laughter off quickly and, reinvigorated, Katsuki gave into the magnetic pull of him all over again. It was hell to shove the arousal down. It was Heaven to taste Aoyama’s sweat, something Katsuki never thought he would ever even remotely enjoy. It was terrifying. It was being in a bomb shelter, waiting for the air strike that put an end to your story, peeking out of the boarded window, and seeing colors explode across the sky. It was not a bomb about to snipe you from existence, not a brutal and violent death sentence;
It was fireworks. Colors, heat, the explosion they made upon collision, the adrenaline melding into excitement, fear and happiness becoming completely indistinguishable, the Big Bang that created the universe, and the Big Bang that would inevitably end it.
They landed in separate beds after sneaking back in, polka dotted and breathless. Aoyama’s hair looked like he’d slept in a wind tunnel. His eyes were lidded and his cheeks were still apple red.
“Bakugou Katsuki?” Aoyama asked as the sun poked through the fairy light covered blinds of their shared window. He’d detested the decoration at first. But all the things Katsuki had resented in this room had grown on him like roots, grown into him. He liked the fairy lights, the glow in the dark stickers, the antique mirrors. He wasn’t going to let the fucker install a disco ball, though.
“What?” Katsuki replied, staring at the ceiling and still thrumming with too much energy to even think of closing his eyes.
“I loved tonight.” Aoyama replied airily. Katsuki glanced over at his form, a similar position to his own. No—an identical one. “I had a lot of fun. Even if we didn’t really get to leave.”
The thought drug Katsuki down to earth almost immediately and his stomach soured. Aoyama had wanted to go out on a real date, not just make out in the courtyard late at night in a skull patterned fleece blanket. They weren’t allowed to. The teachers didn’t want Katsuki leaving campus on the unlikely chance that the League of Villains still had their shitty eyes on him. Aoyama’s parents put in a request for the staff to keep him on campus ever since he’d passed out in class. Katsuki hadn’t asked about it; he didn’t even remember it. Because he hardly remembered Aoyama.
“It’s fucking stupid.” Katsuki said after a long pause. “We’re not fucking children. We deserve more than this. We survived, didn’t we?”
“Mm.” Aoyama hummed. “My parents- they thought I had put this thing to bed. They said I broke their trust when my disorder reared its head. They said if I will act like a child, then I’ll get treated like one. But I think even children are given more room to breathe than this. Maybe I deserve it- to be put on a shelf. Maybe I am more easily damaged than I think.”
“You’re tiny.” Katsuki muttered, then glanced around the room. He wet his lips. “When I- touched you… your stomach…”
“For using my laser, I’ve been told I need to gain weight in my stomach. I need to be able to brace against the recoil. It’s like a gun.” Aoyama replied sleepily. “And when I was training for U.A., I did. Even though it felt like I was being tortured to watch as my belly grew thicker and thicker with every meal. I needed to be a hero, as desperately as I needed to draw a breath. But the Sports Festival…” he trailed off.
“What about it?” Katsuki husked out, watching Aoyama as he watched the ceiling expressionlessly. Even his smile held no mirth.
“They all saw me. Every doughy, flabby inch of my stretch mark covered belly, and thighs.” He said, sounding ghostly and hollow. “I had to gain weight. But when everyone saw just how much weight, I felt several strings snap, like a guitar being massacred and gutted. Snap. Snap. Snap. On national television, nonetheless. And so, I ate less and less. If I needed to brace for the recoil, I could brace with bone. I just needed to lose weight fast. So fast it would leave every person in my life who’s ever ignored me in awe, slack jawed and stunned… to cause every onlooker to gape and gawk. To be the most interesting person in every room I walk into.”
“Attention?” Katsuki asked, a sneer in his voice because even if it was rude, that was a stupid reason to starve.
Aoyama hummed again but it sounded more like a whimper. “To be noticed. To be praised. To be worthwhile.”
“You’d kill yourself for that?”
“And you’d kill yourself to be strong.” Aoyama scoffed, then rubbed an eye with the heel of his hand. “We are all killing ourselves. More often than not, heroes die at the hands of the most brutal villains the underworld has to offer. Throw a rock in our school, you’ll hit a soon to be hero who will not live to continue their bloodline.”
“Gloomy.” Katsuki said, flipping onto his stomach and palming at one of many hickeys decorating his neck.
“I think of death all the time. I’m still scared of it.” Aoyama said and Katsuki struggled to recall the training camp invasion. He may have been cowering, his lithe body bent in hiding as every inch of him trembled with unbearable, eviscerating fear. “I can control this. Don’t you love to take the reins? Don’t you yearn for control, the same as me?”
“Yeah.” Katsuki admitted, voice strung tight.
“I figured. Goodnight, Bakugou Katsuki.” Aoyama said, lacking infection and closing his eyes against the neon glow of the molten slivers of sun creeping in.
Katsuki tried not to chew on the thought too much, grinding his teeth through what was left of the night.
Aoyama didn’t want to get better, did he?