Chapter Text
Light began to spill over the curtains in the living room. The third alarm had just gone off, and a groggy, tired and rather confused Kaminari dug his hands into his pockets to stop the blaring racket his phone was causing. He was, after all, enjoying a good night’s sleep, and didn’t want to be interrupted by, pfft, responsibilities or anything like that. The only hitch in his plan was that his phone wasn’t in his pocket. Cracking his eyes open and squeezing them shut again once the sunlight hit them, he pulled himself up off the couch with all his might-
Hang on, the couch?
Kaminari rubbed his eyes and eased them open, scanning the room for the source of the blaring alarm. He was on a couch, in an unfamiliar room; an unfamiliar kotatsu sat in front of him, and an unfamiliar table sat against an unfamiliar kitchen on the other side of the room. His phone was on the table. Dragging himself up and slamming his hand on the screen, turning the alarm off, he took a minute to survey the scene. He was in a small apartment, with an open-plan connected kitchen and some doors off to his left. He slinked back to the couch and sat down, still trying to rub the tiredness out of his eyes, and noticed a piece of paper on the kotatsu. It read:
Morning, dumbass.
You fell asleep on my couch after drinks last night.
Don’t say I don’t care about you.
Go get some water.
Jirou
<3
Oh! Of course. The night came flooding back. Up to a point, anyway. He remembered going to the bar, sitting down and having a good night with Jirou, up until his, uh… 5th double vodka? By that point, things got hazy, and he could barely remember leaving the bar a couple of hours later. A few fuzzy images of Tokyo’s backstreets, a staircase, and a bathtub remained, but beyond that, the next thing he knew was right then, sat on the couch waking up with a bad hangover. Whatever happened, though, it must’ve been a real heavy night for the both of them, if Jirou had put a heart on the note. He stared at it a little while longer. He felt a warm, tight sensation start to bubble in his stomach, and put it down. He couldn’t tell whether that was old, old feelings, or his stomach telling him he needed the bathroom. He got up and plodded to the kitchen, his feet bearing the brunt of the cold laminate flooring, and immediately felt a deep sense of confusion. Where the hell did Jirou keep her glasses? Just as a primal urge to just turn the tap on and drink straight from it was about to consume him, Kaminari spotted another note taped to one of the cupboards on the opposite wall.
Glasses are in here.
Thought you might have trouble with it.
Bathroom is the second door on your right.
Go in my room and I will gut you.
Jirou
<3
Alright, this was getting kind of ridiculous. The notes were appreciated, sure, but did she really have to put the hearts on the end? He poured himself a drink of water and necked it, downing a pint in one go, and attempted to do the same again before realising he had vastly overestimated himself and almost choked on his drink. Recovering with an extended and rather painful sounding splutter, he decided to heed Jirou’s suggestion and take a bathroom break. Inside, yet another note was taped to the toilet seat:
Now that you’re awake and stuff…
Open your phone, and go to your videos.
I know you probably don’t remember
anything, so… this was the best
course of action.
Jirou
<3
Kaminari walked out of the bathroom a few minutes later, and sat back down on the couch. His head was still spinning a bit, and his gut felt extremely weird. Not just because of the hangover, though; while they felt groggy and strange, a tight coil of emotion sat within, rising up into his chest, trying its hardest to tug at his heartstrings. He took his phone out of his pocket and propped it up on the kotatsu, sipping another glass of water before pressing play on a rather long video taken the night before.
Jirou, fresh and clean from the bath earlier, re-entered the living room from her own, and sat down next to Kaminari on the couch. He looked tired; his eyes drooped, his hair lay practically flat as opposed to his signature spikey style, and he leaned on the cushions as if he couldn’t muster the strength to sit forward. She couldn’t help but feel her chest tighten a bit, as it always did when she saw him so laid back and relaxed. Something about him seemed so… naturally attractive. She mustered the courage to speak up.
“Can I use your phone for a second, Denki?”
He looked over, and very carefully took his phone out of his pocket, handing it over to her.
“Password?” she asked.
“It’s, uh… 0801,” he said. Jirou inputted the numbers, choosing to ignore that his password was her birthday, and opened the camera.
“Ok… Denki, we need to talk. Like, properly talk to each other.” Jirou said, feeling herself shaking a little as she propped the now-videoing phone up on the kotatsu in front of them.
“You keep calling me Denki…” said Kaminari, wearing a large grin. “Does that mean you liiiiike me or something~?”
He wasn’t make this any easier. With a deep breath, Jirou opened her mouth, hesitated, closed it again, and finally pushed herself to actually say something to him.
“Listen, I… How do you actually feel about me, Denki?” she said, forcing herself to look him in the eyes. His opened up a little, before breaking contact and looking up at the ceiling, as if in deep thought.
“...Well, I mean, I did have a crush on you the size of, like… fuckin’...” he paused for a moment. “How big is Tokyo Tower? That’s pretty biiiiig, right…?”
“Yeah, that’s… that’s big.”
“Riiight! Yeah, so, I had a crush on you the size of, fuckin, Tokyo Tower back in school. I thought I was suuuuper obvious about it though, because you’re so… like, smart, and stuff, you’d be able to tell!” he looked back down, and straight at her. “I always thought that’s why you stole my shirts and made fun of me and stuff. I thought, uh… I thought you didn’t want me to feel like that, so I stopped.”
Jirou felt the knot in her stomach fall with a thump . “You stopped…?”
“Yeah… but, like… not entirely??” he muttered, trailing off in an unsure voice. “I stopped being super fuckin’ obvious about it, like, come on, you HAD to have noticed. I was flirtin’ with you non-stop!”
“You flirted with everyone,” Jirou said. “You even hit on Ojirou once or twice.”
“...I did?” he said, and laughed. “Ooooh, right!! Oh my god, that was SO funnyyyy…!” he flopped back and giggled to himself. Jirou sighed.
“How about now. Do you still feel like that, Denki?”
“Why?” he said, still calming down from remembering the time he tried to ask Ojirou to the U.A. second year dance. “You never talk to me anymore.”
“...I’m sorry.” she said, looking down. “I… guess I just got a bit carried away with being an adult. Creating a new image for myself, or, whatever I thought I was doing. But that’s not the point.”
“What IS the point, though?” Kaminari whined. Though still slurring his words, a genuine sense of hurt still managed to worm its way into his words. “I still really like you, Kyouka! I wanna, like, hug you and talk to you and stuff. But you never talk to me! This is the first time I’ve EEEEEVER been in your house!! Why are you dragging this back-”
“Because I feel the same way, okay?!” Jirou burst out, interrupting him. “Denki, I… really like you too. I have done for a long time now, and I can’t believe you didn’t realise.”
For a few seconds, they just stared at each other. Denki at Kyouka, elated and confused, Kyouka at Denki, genuine and embarrassed.
“...So like, are we dating now, orrr…?” Kaminari said, as Jirou smiled and pulled him into a hug.
The video ended.
An extremely confused, entirely sober, and very embarrassed Kaminari sat in front of his phone, staring at the face of the girl he had drunkenly confessed to. He never thought he’d be able to admit to liking Jirou of all girls, let alone having those feelings be requited… but vodka did help, he supposed, sipping on the water he forgot he poured himself. Now he knew what the notes were all about, outside of being a good friends way of directing her very hungover friend-
Well, now boyfriend, maybe?
Man, this was going to be a pain to wrap his hungover head around. Jirou was at work, and he didn’t know when she’d be home. But hey, if anything, he knew he had a perfectly good change of clothes here if he needed one. Though he was ok with her having most of those shirts, a few he would need to take back, including that one she wore the night before. Still, though, he couldn’t tell if he was just dreaming, or whether that actually happened. Opening the video back up, he scrubbed along the video and let it play. Jirou… actually told him she loved him. Like, with his first name, and everything. He seriously couldn’t tell whether he was dreaming, still drunk, or having an elaborate prank played on him. And his headache didn’t help matters, either…
Ker-chunk.
The front door unlocked, and then clunk ed shut, echoing throughout the apartment. “I’m hooome!” called Jirou’s voice soon after, seemingly forgetting she wasn’t alone. Kaminari got up and wandered into the kitchen, opening the door between the living area and the hallway to see her. She looked up from prying off her hero suit boots, and their eyes met. She smiled, and walked towards her new boyfriend with a newfound spring in her step. “You’re awake, huh? That’s a good st-”
But with a newfound confidence and a weird surge of courage, Kaminari took her hand, put his arm around her, and before she could finish her thought, he gave Jirou a firm, long-awaited kiss. She froze for a second, completely shocked that she came home to her first kiss, but soon melted into it, eventually wrapping her arms back around him in return. She didn’t want it to end when Kaminari finally pulled himself away.
“Sooo… I guess we’re dating now?” Kaminari said, brushing his hair out of his face. “I gotta get you drunk more often.”
Jirou chuckled, and poked his head with her lobes. “Remind me to never let you have that much to drink again. You’re a nightmare when you’re pissed, you know that?”
“Hey, it’s not every day you end up kissing your childhood crush after a hard night out, is it?” he smiled, and turned towards the kitchen. “And what am I making you to eat after a long day at work, honey?”
Jirou gave him a gentle slap on the back of the head, and walked through, smiling like a idiot. “God, you’re cheeky.”