Chapter Text
Upon breaking free from the abyss of darkness, Bakugou picked up the sound of loud beeping blaring through his ears, and his eyelids rapidly shot open at that, taking in the sight of hospital equipment around him.
Though he was largely confused at first, memories about the rescue operation eventually returned, and a sense of mortification crept up to him as a result, knowing that there was a great chance that he messed the mission up for everyone.
Not having the strength to even sit up, Bakugou was left to hopelessly lie on the hospital bed, and he spent his time just wallowing in his own self-pity until his carmine eyes randomly spotted the slumbering form of his redheaded best friend slumped on the chair right beside him from the corner of his eye, triggering his heart to start beating rapidly in his chest.
Without thinking twice, Bakugou was reaching one of his arms out, tucking a stray red strand behind Kirishima’s ear before his hand slowly traveled downward, mindlessly wandering over to stroke the other’s cheek as his breath hitched, once again marveling about the sheer and never-ending beauty that the redhead possess.
Suddenly, at the sound of approaching footsteps, Bakugou hastily dropped his hand, jerking his head upwards to find a sheepish looking Fatgum in front of him, and red immediately followed suit, tinting his cheeks.
Just as Bakugou had opened his mouth to vocalize an acknowledgement in response to the older hero’s presence, an unflinching amount of pain radiated from the blond’s throat, causing for speaking to be an incredibly difficult challenge for him to take on.
“Whoa take it easy there, young hero,” Fatgum chided, doing a ‘settle down’ gesture with his hands. “Your throat is still messed up from the mission yesterday, so the doctors highly advise you not to even try talking right now.”
At that, Bakugou tilted his head below, catching a hint of bandages wrapped around his throat, and he responded in kind, clenching one of his palms into a tight ball in his frustration, a certain unsaid question still hanging around the edge of his throat all the while, wanting desperately to be answered.
Then, as if the BMI hero had a mind reader quirk, he proceeded to correctly guess what the unsaid question was anyway, providing an answer to it. “The rescue operation was a success, and all the nine children were back home safely with their families.”
With relief dawning upon him, Bakugou’s grip on his clenched hand slackened as he relaxed, releasing a tense breath that he had been holding.
“To keep you up to date, what actually happened was after you got knocked down, we all came into the scene to see Riot getting really incensed before he broke himself free from the wax,” Fatgum explained with barely concealed pride in his voice. “While Mirko and I handled the other two henchmen of his, Riot defeated the Wrangler with just an attack or two.”
At the revelation, Bakugou’s eyes flitted sideways to rest on his best friend, a maniacal grin tugging at his lips as his mind envisioned the scenario of Kirishima besting the Wrangler in his badass glory, and awe rushed through his veins at that.
“He really cares about you, you know,” Fatgum stated, darting his eyes around to glance at his mentee for a split second. “So, you shouldn’t hesitate on telling him how you feel because I could tell that he feels the exact same way about you.”
With his embarrassment at all-time high, Bakugou blushed profusely, berating himself for being too obvious about his feelings before the rest of the other’s words sunk in, and sadness washed over him, the retching feeling that he hated so damn much finding itself wedged tenaciously in his throat once more.
Not wanting to prolong the conversation any longer, Bakugou merely nodded, feigning the fact that he was in full agreement with the BMI hero’s words.
Thankfully, perhaps having bought the young student’s act, Fatgum excused himself, exiting out of the hospital door with an aura of contentment emanating from him.
Now that he was alone with no conscious eyes on him, Bakugou mustered his strength to rise himself up into a sitting position as he puked his guts out, heaving out flower bud after flower bud into the sheets below.
“H-Huh, what?”
Instantly, Bakugou froze, his entire body stiffening at the unmistakable sound of Kirishima’s voice, and his stomach recoiled in panic even further the moment he physically felt the redhead looming over him, undoubtedly eyeing the flower buds on the bed judging by the looks of the ensuing silence which had soon taken place.
Shit, damn it to fucking hell.
```
Instinctively, while taking advantage of the redhead’s current gawking state, Bakugou made a move to rise up from the hospital bed, wanting desperately to escape the astounded crimson irises boring into his soul.
However, before Bakugou could even begin putting a foot down into the floor, Kirishima somehow fucking managed to break out of his shock in time as he had then proceeded to blitz past the blond in a breakneck pace, subsequently keeping him caged in his place by grabbing him tightly by the arm.
In his protest, a grunt of yell had fallen out of the explosive teen’s mouth, causing an unbearable amount of pain to ensue, and he winced heavily as a result, frantically gnawing at his throat in an attempt to fight off the throbbing ache.
Amidst all the agony, Kirishima suddenly came forward, pulling his best friend’s arms away from practically tearing out his own throat. “Stop it, Bakugou! You’ll hurt yourself!”
After a couple minutes, Bakugou stilled, the pain in his windpipe gradually withering away, giving him the leeway to relax for a while until his eyes had drifted to peer down at the flower buds on the bed once more, and he groaned inwardly at that before he threw his head back upwards to hesitantly mouth the word ‘paper’ over to Kirishima.
Thankfully, Kirishima had gotten the gist quickly enough, handing a paper and pen which he had seemingly packed in his bag to Bakugou. “Here.”
Deciding to just get the explanation done and over with, Bakugou had gotten straight into the point, exposing the truth to the redhead for the first time as he defeatedly wrote down on the paper. “I have Hanahaki.”
Much to the blond’s astonishment, instead of asking him to elaborate more on what Hanahaki had entailed, Kirishima’s face was marred by a sullen expression before he went on to respond. “Yesterday, after running some tests to see if you were alright, the doctors told us what’s going on, so yeah, we all knew about your Hanahaki since then.”
“Idiot, stop looking like you’re beating yourself up over it when there’s nothing that anyone of us could do about it,” Bakugou scribbled on the paper, swallowing the burn in his windpipe which hadn’t been caused by his injury. “Because I already got rejected, and there’s way in hell I could even consider taking the damn surgery to get rid of those feelings.”
“You already got rejected?” Kirishima repeated, furrowing his brows in apparent confusion. “Bro, you’re perfect and amazing. Why would anyone even think of rejecting someone like- “
“Y-You’re the one who fuckin’ rejected me...”
Caught up the emotions building up within him, Bakugou had pushed himself to speak, his voice coming out as hoarse and unrefined, yet he couldn’t even bring himself to care even with the pain which was brought about as a price of using his voice to begin with, and he wiped the small droplets of tears around the sides of his eyes.
“H-Huh, what do you mean by I ‘rejected’ you?” Taken aback by such accusation, Kirishima probed with his eyes bugged out, not even telling Bakugou off for speaking in his present condition. “Dude, how could I reject you when you never even confessed to me? And, if we’re talking about rejections, you’re the one who rejected me back when I kissed you that other time...”
“Ain’t it damn obvious? Back when I gave you that bento weeks ago, you called me your best bro when I confessed that I fucking like you,” Upon fully processing the rest of the redhead’s words, Bakugou’s shaky jotting swiftly shifted into being hasty. “I didn’t fucking reject you. It was just a practice kiss, so I don’t see how it could be counted as a damn rejection when I’m not even the one that you like and-“
Just after Bakugou had written down the last two words, he was cut off from finishing the rest of the sentence when Kirishima swooped down, fastening their lips together in a clumsy peck, and the blond immediately stiffened, dropping the pen that he was grasping in his hand.
“Fuck, I’m sorry for the stupid misunderstanding, Bakugou,” Kirishima apologized upon pulling away from their kiss. “I didn’t think that you meant your ‘like’ to be in that way, and I was, uh, planning on confessing to you this whole time, but I didn’t wanna mess it up for the both of us, so I decided to practice with you first, but I probably should’ve just been more forward to begin w-”
Wanting to shut the other up through the most effective way right now aside from speaking, Bakugou fisted the other by his shirt, dragging Kirishima down to his level before he kissed him ungracefully, letting his lips convey his feelings in place of his voice.
Sadly, just mere seconds after Kirishima had begun kissing him back, a weird hitching sensation passed through Bakugou’s throat, causing the blond to put a hurried end to their kiss as he waited for the usual onslaught of flower buds to pour from his mouth, only for it to be replaced by a foreign yet welcoming feeling of weightlessness to travel throughout his body.
After spending a few more moments just blinking in disbelief, Bakugou swiveled his head back around to meet Kirishima’s distressed face, making a gesture with his hands to indicate that his Hanahaki was gone.
“Wait, you’re cured?”
Upon taking note of the other’s nod of confirmation, Kirishima brightened up immediately before wrapping his arms around Bakugou in an exuberant embrace, drawing away from it slightly in order to gently cup the other’s cheeks in his hands, and then he was sealing their lips in a kiss for the third time that day.
Unable to hold any of his jubilation back, Bakugou kissed the redhead back with as much eagerness as he could muster, grinning into the kiss without the presence of any worries to weigh him down for the first time in what appeared to be forever.
```
Later that afternoon, after a quick healing session with Recovery Girl in order to ensure that his lungs and throat were healing at a reasonable pace following the whole shitty Hanahaki fiasco, Bakugou was eventually given the greenlight to be discharged from the hospital on the next day under the condition that he ought to take it easy for a while.
Adhering to the nurse’s advice, Bakugou acted accordingly throughout the rest of the week, cutting down on the number of weekly sparring sessions for the time being as he focused himself entirely on his recovery.
Though the change was a frustrating adjustment to say the least, Bakugou persevered through the help of his new boyfriend by his side, and his efforts had ended up paying off in the long run, being deemed as ‘fully recovered’ by Recovery Girl in no time.
And, with his health stuff out of the way, it was now time for Bakugou to fulfill his end of the bargain with Uraraka, begrudgingly agreeing for him and Kirishima to go on a double date with her and the nerd.
Right now, they were all currently eating lunch at a nearby restaurant, making lighthearted conversation while they wait for their food to arrive.
Inadvertently, Bakugou tuned out all of the chattering, his attention enraptured by the sheer gorgeousness of his boyfriend in a cute red letterman jacket.
And then, without any warning, Kirishima had flicked his head sideways, directing a beaming grin towards Bakugou’s way. “Hey, so, what do you think?”
Thoroughly baffled by the question, Bakugou blinked, tearing his eyes away from the other’s side profile before he had uttered out unintelligibly. “What?”
“After lunch, we’re thinking about going bowling,” Kirishima clarified, propping his face on his hand as he had proceeded to blatantly check Bakugou out with the way that his crimson eyes had roamed around to give his boyfriend’s body a once over. “Are you up for it, or do you have other suggestions in mind?”
Sensing Uraraka’s smug grin, Bakugou briefly threw his brunette classmate an unamused glare before he tsked, snapping his head around to address Kirishima with cherry red tinged ears. “Nah, bowling is fine.”
“That’s great!” Kirishima cheered, whirling around to face the couple on the other side of the table. “Looks like we could do a couple competition like you had proposed after all, Uraraka!”
“In that case, Deku-kun and I would both give it our all!” Uraraka proclaimed, emitting a determined aura from her body. “We won’t allow ourselves to lose to you and Bakugou-kun!”
“R-Right,” Deku swiftly added, backing his girlfriend up even as his green eyes remained firmly glued on Uraraka and not on the other couple across from them, an expression of admiration decorating his face. “We’ll both definitely give you and Kacchan a challenge later.”
“Good,” Taking pity on the nerd, Bakugou chose to not point out how his childhood friend couldn’t look at them in the eye. “Because there’s no way in hell that we’re gonna make it fuckin’ easy for you and Round Face as well!”
In response, Uraraka smirked, a challenging glint in her eyes as she swiveled about to face Bakugou. “Make sure to prove it to us later then.”
“Of fuckin’ course we would!”
Shortly following the blond’s declaration, the food arrived, and they all turned their attention to eating their meal, newfound excitement rushing through their veins as the couples’ battle loomed closer and closer.
And then, halfway through their meal, warmth had begun emanating from out of nowhere, and Bakugou tilted his head below to glance underneath the table, spotting the addition of Kirishima’s hand clasping onto his firmly.
Sending his redheaded boyfriend a small smile, Bakugou caressing Kirishima’s hand gently as he gave it a firm squeeze before he reclined in his seat, allowing himself to get lost in the comforting warmth in the meantime until their bowling date.