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Shouto realises, one day, that he’s developed an instinctual habit of leaving the room to answer his father’s calls. It’s an interesting realisation, albeit an unsurprising one.
His father is asking him to train with him, and Shouto’s mind is running at full-speed trying to come up with an excuse to get out of this without lying (because god, he sucks at lying and his father knows it).
“I was informed you have a day off today,” the hero is saying on the other side of the line, the crackly static of the phone doing nothing to soften the demand in his statement.
“Well, yes—” Shouto starts after a moment’s pause, but the man barrels on quickly.
“Then you should have no problem training with me today. You are in no place to be slacking in your training, Shouto. This is a crucial time for you.”
Shouto swallows, feeling himself physically shrink at the reprimand in his father’s voice, even over the phone. Hating himself for it every moment of the way, he opens his mouth to acquiesce, only for his phone to be plucked out of his grip unceremoniously.
Bakugou looks intensely irritated, sharp red eyes narrows as he raises the phone to his own mouth.
“Oi, old man!” he snarls, and Shouto flinches back at his rough tone, completely unable to comprehend Bakugou’s nerve to address a man like Endeavour so harshly. The blond gives no time for the hero to respond, barking out, “Paws off, Shouto is training with me today. And trust me, he won’t be slacking when I’m busting his ass.” And just like that, he drops the phone back into Shouto’s loose grip and stalks off. Shouto swallows again thickly, before shakily raising the device back to his ear.
“I apologise for that, father,” he murmurs. There is a silence from the other end of the line that sends Shouto’s stomach dropping, before Endeavour clicks his tongue.
“I see,” he says finally. “I can’t say I am fond of that boy, but he is a good fighter. Train with him today, then. Use your fire. I expect you to win, Shouto. At least this time.” With that, the line is cut as he hangs up.
Shouto blinks in disbelief, before dropping his phone to stare at the screen numbly. After a moment, he turns to slowly pad back into the common room, where Bakugou is sprawled over the couch, playing a game with Kirishima and Kaminari on the television.
“Bakugou,” he says awkwardly, earning a grunt from the blond. “When would you like to spar?”
The blond snorts.
“I’m not fighting your dumb ass. It’s a holiday today,” he says like it’s obvious.
Shouto blinks at him. “Oh,” he says quietly. “I… I should probably call him back, then.”
Bakugou finally tears his gaze from the screen to give Shouto an incredulous look.
“You’re fucking stupid,” he says, and then tosses his controller to Kaminari, earning an affronted yelp when it hits the boy’s nose. Bakugou stands, and fists his hand in Shouto’s collar before bodily hauling him to the dorm rooms.
“Get dressed,” he bites out, before disappearing into his room. Shouto walks into his room and faces his closet numbly, feeling very much confused at this development, and he finds himself still standing in the same position when Bakugou emerges a few minutes later in his doorway, wearing a black band T-shirt and baggy black jeans.
“The fuck are you doing, half-wit?” he sighs in irritation, before casually shoving Shouto out of the way and ruffling through his clothes himself. Shouto watches as he does this for a few moments, before groaning loudly and turning to give Shouto a frustrated look.
“Do you own any clothes that aren’t pretentiously formal?” he demands, and Shouto opens his mouth, before wisely closing it again.
“I’m very confused right now,” he chooses to say, and Bakugou ignores him, storming out of the room loudly. He reappears a few moments later, tossing a white bundle at Shouto’s face.
“I chose the lightest thing I own, you’re welcome. Get changed.”
And then the door is slamming in Shouto’s face. Shouto stares at the bundle of fabric in his hand.
It turns out to be a sweatshirt. It’s quite nice, he muses as he pulls it on. It’s very soft, and there’s a distinct lack of skulls on it that makes him wonder why Bakugou owns it. It’s also quite well-fitting on Shouto, who is a head taller than Bakugou. Does this mean Bakugou wears oversized clothing? Why is he giving Shouto his clothing? Is this a friendship thing? If this is Bakugou’s olive branch, Shouto will make very sure to grasp it with all his might.
He steps out of the room, and announces, “I am very glad you’re finally recognising our friendship.”
He then dodges the explosion aimed at his head, very expertly and with practised ease.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Bakugou snarls, and Shouto pats him on the shoulder, before quickly retreating his hand as the blond’s eyes sharpen dangerously. Bakugou gives him a carefully measured look of disgusted confusion, as if he’s inspecting a specimen on the bottom of his shoe, and snarls, “We’re not friends.”
Shouto sighs mildly at this.
“Ah. You’re not there yet,” he says in disappointment, and dodges another explosion.
Bakugou ends up dragging him to an arcade, of all things. It’s bright and flashy and honestly gives Shouto a bit of a migraine but he’s also a little excited. There are rows upon rows of gaming machines, and neon strobe lights in every possible colour along the walls.
“This is an arcade,” he observes astutely. Bakugou turns to give him an exasperated look.
“You’re acting like you’ve never been to one, Halfie.”
Shouto frowns at him. “Can we go back to you calling me Shouto like you did on the phone with my father? I preferred that.”
Bakugou ignores this, unsurprisingly, and Shouto lets his eyes trail around the room curiously.
“And… yes. I’m not familiar with arcades, I was never really permitted to go to them.”
At this, Bakugou actually stops in his tracks, whipping around to give him a look of utter disbelief.
“You’re fucking with me,” he says, and Shouto blinks at him. Bakugou’s expression transforms into something that Shouto would almost call pity.
“Jesus, Todoroki,” he mutters, before shaking his head and roughly yanking Shouto into the room by the sleeve.
“We’re going to educate you today.”
Shouto enjoys playing at the arcade with Bakugou. Key words in the sentence being ‘with Bakugou’, here. The games are fun, sure, but the blond’s competitiveness and passion at every single game he encounters is what really has Shouto smiling to himself. He says as much to Bakugou, and receives an explosion to the face in response. The other boy gets so fired up during a game of air hockey that he actually draws a crowd of children and teenagers, and when he inevitably wins against Shouto’s pathetic attempts, he’s rewarded by boisterous applause that he absolutely preens under. Shouto does his best not to pout when a young boy tugs on his sleeve and loudly informs him that he ‘freaking sucks at air hockey’, sending Bakugou into a fit of cackles.
When Bakugou pulls him to the next game, a screen facing a floor panel with pink and blue arrows on it, he turns to look at Shouto expectantly. Shouto blinks at the panel blankly.
“Do I stand on this?” he asks, and Bakugou looks like he wants to cry.
“You absolutely fucking loser,” he moans into his hands. “Get up there.”
The game is apparently called Dance Dance Revolution, and if Shouto thought he sucked at air hockey, then this is a nightmare. The colours move so quickly that by the time his brain has registered one move, five more have passed. He gets two ‘good’ stickers throughout the entire song, and one of them was an accident because his foot slipped. The closest thing to dancing Shouto has ever done is basic ballroom dance training, and that had nothing on this. His nonexistent sense of rhythm is a curse, and he is paying the price. By the end of it, Shouto is sweating, and he doesn’t need experience to know that the score he’s greeted with is pathetic. He turns, red-faced, to see Bakugou with his phone out, filming him as he snickers into his other hand.
“I hate you,” Shouto says miserably, and Bakugou laughs so hard that he chokes.
The blond tries to get him to play again, because apparently the video is shaky because the other was laughing too hard. It takes every ounce of self-control in Shouto’s body to not freeze Bakugou to the wall. Instead he just frowns, and crosses his arms.
“You’re horrible.”
Bakugou grins at him, typing something on his phone.
“I’m sending that to Illusion Bitch and Baldy,” he says smugly, and moments later Shouto’s phone starts to vibrate furiously. Shouto decides to open that can of worms later, because he knows if he does so now, he won’t be able to resist the urge to cover Bakugou in ice.
“If I’m suffering then you are too,” he sighs in resignation, trying to change the topic. “Your turn.”
Bakugou looks far too confident stepping up onto the box, and when he starts to play, Shouto muses in disappointment that, really, it’s his fault for daring to hope that there’s anything that Bakugou isn’t insanely good at. Of course, like everything else, Bakugou is perfect at the game. His legs move so fast that Shouto’s eyes can’t even keep up from where he watches. He had initially been filming, but realises in horror that Bakugou will only use the video to brag, and quickly decides against sending it to anyone. Shouto scowls at the blond when he finally turns around smugly with an almost perfect score displayed on the screen. He hasn’t even cracked a sweat.
“You’re the worst,” Shouto mutters. Bakugou grins at him, and pulls him towards a shooting game. After another hour or so of playing, they come to the conclusion that Shouto has absolutely no luck at any arcade game, except claw machines (for some reason). The dual-haired boy is almost comically good at the prize games, winning soft toy after soft toy until Bakugou is holding a mountain of them so high that Shouto can’t see his face.
“What the fuck,” the blond says in disbelief, voice muffled against the fabric. “How the fuck are you doing this.”
Shouto beams.
He moves on to win two matching plush pokemon keychains, and takes advantage of the Bakugou’s temporary blindness to hook one to his backpack. He snaps a picture of it for good measure, holding his own up next to it.
“Oi, dumbass, the fuck are you doing?” Bakugou snarls from behind the pile of toys. Shouto ignores him, tucking his phone away happily. They end up handing out the prizes from his claw machine raid to little kids wandering by, until their pile has dwindled down to about ten toys and almost every kid in the arcade has one.
They’re moving on when Shouto catches Bakugou eyeing one of the machines, and he has to fight back a knowing laugh when he realises it’s a claw machine that offers plush All Might toys. He beelines to it, winning the biggest plush on his first try, and shoves it into a protesting Bakugou’s arms. “A token of our friendship,” he says solemnly, and Bakugou groans loudly, but doesn’t argue. Shouto considers this a huge victory, and when the other is turned around, Shouto snaps another photo to celebrate the occasion. The photo is nice, depicting the blond clutching the All Might plushie a little too closely to his chest. When Shouto looks at the picture properly, he realises with a start that the other is smiling to himself, albeit faintly. It’s almost a cute photo, if not for Bakugou’s backpack, adorned with English swear words. Well, Shouto reasons, there’s no winning everything.
It’s late afternoon when they get back to the dorms, picking up yakitori and dango on the way. Shouto tries to feed Bakugou, reasoning that the other’s hands are full with the All Might toy, and the blond almost takes his eye out with a skewer. He thinks, quite fondly, that Bakugou really isn’t that threatening when he’s hugging an All Might plushie the size of a large dog to his chest protectively.
As they walk into the dorm, Kaminari perks up from his spot on the couch. “Eh, Bakugou, Todoroki! Did you guys go out? Is—is that an All Might toy? ” Bakugou wordlessly lobs one of the leftover plush toys at the boy’s head, and stomps past him into the corridors.
Shouto follows him, watching in silent amusement as the blond angrily hurls their remaining plushies at any students he passes. Uraraka stares at her Kumamon toy blankly, before looking up to stare at Bakugou’s retreating back in confusion. Shouji thanks him awkwardly, and Deku starts crying immediately, much to Bakugou’s horror. The second the blond realises who he threw the toy to, he recoils, but the green-haired boy has already latched into his side, wailing his gratitude loudly. “Fucking—get off, Deku! ” he snarls, shoving the other to the floor and stomping to his dorm room. Shouto gives Deku a small smile as he walks past, trailing Bakugou to his room.
They both sit on Bakugou’s bed, and Shouto struggles immensely to fight off a smile when Bakugou places the All Might plush at the head of his bed.
“Does this mean you’ve accepted our friendship now?” he asks curiously. Bakugou scoffs, but doesn’t turn to face him. Shouto loses his battle, fond smile overtaking his face at the hint of red that appears on the blond’s cheeks.
“I had a lot of fun today. I’d like to do it again, sometime,” he says placidly.
Bakugou waves his hand dismissively. “Do it with one of your nerd squad.”
“I’d rather do it with you, though. It was fun with you,” he says truthfully, and Bakugou splutters.
“The fuck?” he says finally, cheeks darkening. “Fucking weirdo.”
Shouto smiles at him. “Thank you for today, Katsuki.”
The blond rears up at this, glaring at him accusingly. “Who the fuck said you could call me that?” he yells, and Shouto pats his arm, before standing to head to his own room.
“Let’s go out again sometime, Katsuki,” he calls over his shoulder, closing the door behind him just in time to hear the thump of something hitting the door, where Shouto’s head had been a moment earlier. He chuckles to himself and walks back to his dorm room. When he sits down, his phone vibrates in his pocket.
Private chat - bakagou and discount zuko
bakagou (6:01 p.m.): ur dads a shithead
bakagou (6:02 p.m.): if hes ever being a shithead then we can go out and do shit again
bakagou (6:02 p.m.): or whatever i guess
discount zuko (6:03 p.m.): my hero <3
bakagou (6:03 p.m.): SUCK MY DICK
discount zuko (6:03 p.m.): wow katsuki at least buy me dinner first
bakagou (6:03 p.m.): IM BLOCKING YOU
bakagou (6:04 p.m.): STOP FUCKING CALLING ME THAT
discount zuko (6:04 p.m.): lmao imagine being afraid of using first names… couldn’t be me
bakagou (6:04 p.m.): THE
Shouto hears a distant thump, and then the sound of footsteps thundering towards his room. The door flies open, Katsuki standing in the doorway and huffing with a murderous look in his eyes.
“I’m not afraid of anything, you whore,” he pants. Shouto simply blinks, and Bakugou pitches a Doraemon plushie at his face hard enough to knock him off the bed. “A token of our friendship, Shouto.” With that, he turns on his heel and slams the door behind him. Shouto smiles to himself, and stands to place the plushie on his pillow.
He falls asleep with a serene expression on his face, imagining how his father is going to react when he tells him he lost against Katsuki in training again.