Chapter Text
Why him?? Why now?? In the midst of the drama, when Tenyas head was working in all the wrong ways, the wrong person came to plunge himself into his heart again.
“…Hello, Kaminari.” Tenya spoke, voice trailing a bit as he eyed the boy. Kaminari fully stepped into his room, walking up to Tenya before stopping a few feet away from him and his desk.
“Could we talk? About, y’know, the whole ..’shebang’ going on right now?” Kaminari offered, shimmy-ing (is that a word?) his shoulders nervously. Kaminari was a close friend. Everyone in 1-A was close with eachother, considering the countless times they’ve faces near death, trained til they bled, and general hardships at such a young age. Tenya and Kaminari had been getting kind of close recently. It wasn’t too obvious, just occasional chit-chatting, tutoring, and hanging out together sometimes. That’s how Tenya developed this.. attraction, to him. But this was new. Having to talk and ‘gossip’ about their friends. Tenya was never one to stick his nose in other peoples issues.. kind of. He prided himself on being smart, emotionally and academically. Recently, his emotions had been a bit out of control, but other than that he thought he had good control of them.
But that was all out the window as Kaminari stood feet in front of him. His heart danced in his chest, stomach twirling and twisting with anxiety, everything was off.
“I.. guess we should” Tenya responded after a few beats of silence. He swirled around in his chair, fully facing Kaminari as he sat up more. His gaze swept across his face, taking in his smooth skin and soft hair, a result of a meticulous routine with too many hard to follow steps and products, his electric yellow eyes that were clawing their way into his soul, his nervous smile and the way his sharp eye brows were furrowed.
No matter what emotion he wore, he would always look like he was carved by histories greatest sculptors to Tenya.
Kaminari broke another long silence of Tenya staring.
“Sooo… you and Yaomomo?? What uh.., what happened there?” Kaminari began, leaning against Tenyas desk.
“Oh, yes.” Tenya responded matter-of-factly. “Me and Yaoyorozu were set up by our parents.. but, we had no romantic attraction towards each other whatsoever.” Tenya began, hand chopping upwards, a habit he’d grown.
“We decided to pursue a relationship, but our intentions were to keep it amongst our families, in order to put an end to their matchmaking.” Kaminari eagerly nodded along, hands crossed against his torso. Tenya paused, letting his gaze linger on the few freckles that stuck out on the surface of his arms. How was it that after years of trying to be the perfect person, he found someone who did it so effortlessly?
He cleared his throat, feeling his face heat up a bit. He was unraveling by the second with his presence.
“Regretfully, Tensei announced our relationship publicly, which put both of us in rather.. difficult positions.” Tenya explained, wanting to savor his relationship with Kaminari.
“I see..” Kaminari began, hand sticking out with his index finger pointed outwards. “You guys kinda like. Lavender married” He tilted his head.
???
Tenya furrowed his brows. “Wh- Kaminari we are not flowers nor are we married, I don’t see how-“
“No, no, it’s a term for like…” Kaminari cut him off. “..when a girl and a guy get married, or date, so that people don’t know they’re gay” Kaminari explained.
“And in your case, you and Yaomomo dated so that her family wouldn’t know she’s gay.. right?” He smiled almost nervously.
Tenya paused for a second, taking in the foreign term and its supposed definition.
“‘Lavender Marriage.. I.. suppose that is what we did. More so for me, but-“ Tenya rambled, cutting himself off with realization.
Realization that he was gay.
And in the closet.
A fact that Kaminari didn’t know existed.
“..What?” Kaminari spoke after a second of tense silence. This conversation was like mental chess that made Tenya want to shrivel up and die.
“..What” Tenya repeated, hoping that if he played it off well enough he could dance around his slip up. It felt so natural to be gay, especially after just openly taking about it with Yaoyorozu, that he didn’t realize it was a secret.
“…You’re gay?” Kaminari spoke.
Shit.
“…I-“
“…”
“…”
The two stared at eachother. Tenyas face went bright red with embarrassment that he, Tenya Iida, would accidentally come out to his first crush, Kaminari, through a slip up. A stupid one at that.
“..Cause.. y’know, if you are I’m not judging.” He put his hands up, as if trying to coax Tenya into confirming his suspicions. “Be who you are king”
How was he in love with this man.
He sighed, rolling back in his chair a bit and pinching the bridge of his nose, taking that chance to push his glasses up.
“I suppose I am.. but it’s still uh.. it’s still not completely clear.” He spoke, defeated as he felt his heart in his throat and stomach at the same time. The anxiety that came with coming out to two people in two days AND jeopardizing Tenyas reputation was going to kill him soon.
“Nice. I mean- cool. I don’t care, who said I cared? I mean- not that I don’t, that’s totally cool. You’re gay, im gay that’s- that’s cool. Super cool.” Kaminari suddenly rambled, his face growing noticeably pinker as he did.
“..Wha-”
“WE’RE GETTING OFF TRACK!” Kaminari exclaimed, arms shooting up. That was weird. Super weird. Kaminari was a weird guy, yeah, but that was just…. So weird..
Did he have a problem with him being gay? Surely not, right? I mean, Kaminari was also gay, why would he have an issue with it?? Unless there was some unknown queer conflict between gay people. Can there only be one gay person per floor?? Was that a dorm-wide rule that he didn’t know about because he was.. new to being queer? Whatever, Kaminari was right, they’re getting off track. Tenya filed the interaction away for later.
“Yes, you’re right. So what did you want to talk about? Other than...” Tenya spoke, trying to brush past his coming out, nerves just barely calming down.
“Yeah.. um. That- that was kind of all I really wanted to know.” Kaminari spoke, cracking his fingers nervously.
“…My orientation?”
“No! No- well, yeah but- that’s besides the point! About you and Yaomomo” He explained, tripping over his words. It happened whenever Tenya mentioned his sexuality. He could only wonder what the correlation was.
“Okay..” He squinted at Kaminari, his behaviour growing increasingly stranger.
“What about you and Jiro?” He asked, wanting to continue their conversation. Their relationship came to mind especially after Kaminari said he was gay, in which case, why was he dating Jiro?
“Kyo? Me and her? Why d’you ask? I mean, we’re chill, nothing crazy with us.” Kaminari looked a bit taken off guard by the question.
“You two started dating, no?” Tenya elaborated. The word dating had a bitter taste in his mouth, especially when referring to Kaminari and Jiro. He has nothing against her, he just wished it was him in her position.
“…Ohhhh…. Yyyyeah, I guess we did..” He mumbled, leaning against Tenyas desk again in thought. Did.. he forget he was dating Jiro?? How can you forget that?? Kaminari stared down at his feet before looking back up to Tenya.
“Actually we uh- we had a similar thing as you guys. With the whole.. lavender marriage thing.” He spoke after yet another tense silence, one that would never grow any less awkward despite the amount of times it’d happened.
So he had a chance?? That’s all Tenya heard.
“Oh” Was all he said, leaning back in his chair in thought, looking down at his hands, which were folded in his lap.
“Nice to know” Tenya replied, pushing his glasses up.
“Yeah” Kaminari nodded, not quite sure how to respond. “..So you’re gay, huh?” Kaminari spoke, equally trying to keep their conversation alive. Tenya didn’t know how to respond. He was gay.. he thinks? ‘I don’t know’?? But that’s unprofessional.. but he also can’t say ‘good question I’ll get back to you later’ because that’s too professional.
Talking was hard. Way too hard.
“As of now I am. I’m still not entirely set on a label.” Is what he decided on. Straight to the point.
“What made you realize it?” He asked, jumping up a bit to sit on Tenyas desk. He couldn’t lie, it peeved him a bit. But this was Kaminari. At this point that man could smack him in the face and Tenya would apologize.
“Well..” He managed a small laugh, nervous. Nervous because his gay awakening was Kaminari. So what could he really say?
“It was a uh.. I- I just realized I didn’t really like girls romantically. It wasn’t any set thing, just a sudden change I suppose.” Tenya spoke, hand on his chin as he sat back.
“Valid..” Kaminari spoke, leaning forward and avoiding meeting Tenyas gaze. He was glad because he couldn’t deny how much he was admiring Kaminari. The way he wanted to paint him to encapsulate the beauty he saw despite not knowing how to draw all that well.
God was he falling so hard.
“What about you?” Tenya asked, Kaminari meeting his gaze. He swore his heart stopped.
“Hm. I guess I just kinda realized that guys were hot.. like, one day at the beach I found myself staring at the dudes more than the girls and thought ‘holy shit I’m gay’” He explained, feet dangling off the desk as he slouched. Tenya nodded along.
“Guys like you” Kaminari muttered under his breath.
“Huh?” Tenya responded.
“What?”
“Wait wh- Kaminari what did you-“
“Nothing! Bye!”
Kaminari hopped off the desk and practically sprinted for the door, leaving a very flustered and frazzled Tenya behind.
Oh my god.