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“Bakugou,” Kirishima started, paused. Side-eyed in some discomfort. “I dunno if this is a good idea…”
“Hah?” Bakugou barked. His voice had that rough, rugged quality to it. With just that sharp word, that sharp squint, his whole aura screamed manly as usual. “You think I can’t tutor you properly, huh? S’that it?!”
“Well, kinda.” He shrugged, laughing mildly when Bakugou actually growled at him, bloodshot glare zeroing in. “I mean, not that you didn’t try, but before the exams at the library, I really didn’t get what you were saying, dude,” he explained. He pulled at the white headband he tied around his forehead. “You solved those problems like it was nothing.”
“Because they were nothing,” Bakugou sneered. “Less than nothing.”
“Yeah, and I’m happy it comes so easily to you, bro,” Kirishima said, smiling at him through the sudden urge to cry. “But I didn’t get any of that. You breezed through the questions so quick I didn’t actually learn anything.”
“…So is that why”—Bakugou leaned forward in his cross-legged sit, hands on knees—“you were goin’ ‘round“—He bared teeth—”sayin’ I was a shit teacher?!”
“I didn’t go around saying that! And I didn’t say that!” Kirishima raised his hands. Ready to harden just in case. “I mean, Denki and Sero were just asking about it and I said—”
“—That I was shit.”
“—that it could’ve gone better,” he finished lamely. He sighed, rubbing his arm. He picked up a dumbbell and started curling. “Besides, why’re you worked up about it any—”
“I’ll fuckin’ tell you why, you goddamn hair-for-brains,” Bakugou said, his jaw tight. “I’m not gonna sit around when your dumb ass goes around saying I couldn’t teach you jack.” He clenched his fist with a widening grin, a wildfire in his eyes. “I’m gonna tutor you so damn well that those fuckers’ll line up to get schooled by me! And then they can all go fuck off!”
“And there he is, old-school Bakugou…”
Kirishima sighed through Bakugou’s cackling. Though it was a bit ominous, Kirishima still thought to himself how fitting Bakugou’s brazen laughter fitted with the manly decor in his room. Assertive. Powerful. Loud.
Admittedly, the way that Bakugou seemed to always put a little blood lust into his every pursuit was a little concerning. But Kirishima couldn’t help but think how cool it was, being so hot-blooded and fired up in whatever he set out to do. Plus, as confusing as the situation was, in the end he was grateful that Bakugou would head up tutoring him again despite last time. Even if his heart was in a questionable place.
“Alright, Blasty, I’ll bite,” Kirishima said. He set down his dumbbell, laced his fingers, and stretched them out in front then over his head. “I’ll let you try tutoring me again. But I actually wanna learn something this time!” He grimaced at the thought of his upcoming exam, then groaned into his hands. “I need to resit maths and I really can’t do all this trig or calculus stuff!”
“Yeah, and you won’t if y’don’t quit your bitchin‘,“ Bakugou scoffed. He stood from the bed, dragging over the chair he’d brought from his room next to Kirishima’s. ”Break out your textbook and get a pencil. We’re goin’ from the ground up on this shit.”
“T-The ground up?!” Kirishima’s brows arched into a bridge, even as he pulled out his books and pencil case. “Dude, do we even have time for that? I barely got anything from class from the past month!”
“If you can’t solve trig equations that means you’re weak in the basics,” Bakugou declared, definitively prodding the textbook cover. “And you’re sure as hell not gonna go sprinting when you can barely get on your own damn feet in the first place.”
Kirishima blinked. “Uh, I guess so.”
“You guess shit, hair-for-brains,” Bakugou grunted, more out of reflex than from annoyance. He pulled out note paper from his pocket and unfolded it, a few equations already scrawled on it. “Here. Do this, and I’ll see specifically what you suck shit at. If you don’t know one just skip it and move on to the next one.”
Kirishima looked at the creases of the paper, prepared in advance just for him. He exhaled with puffed cheeks, tapping his fists together to centre himself.
“Alright, man.” Kirishima picked up his pencil. Sweat beaded at his hairline. “You’re the boss.”
In three minutes Kirishima put down his pencil, head on the table and his hands shielding the back of it.
“Fuuuuck, I don’t know anything…” he moaned. Bakugou was skimming over his answers, humming in agreement. Out of five questions he skipped two and half-did three. “Bakugou, I’m so screwed…!”
“Shut the fuck up you aren’t,” he muttered.
Kirishima blinked out of his despair, wondering how Bakugou strung together aggression and encouragement so effortlessly.
He sat up straighter to look at Bakugou, who looked considerably more calm than usual. Instead of screaming bloody murder, his face rested with lips in a gentle pout, brows nearly touching. At this angle, with a summer sun passing through and lighting up his features and explosive hair white-gold, Bakugou Katsuki cut a fine, fit figure. Slightly slouched, foot up on his chair, hand lazily scratching at his midriff beneath his slim black tank.
“Looks like you do need to go from the ground up,” Bakugou decided in a sniff. He set down the paper again. “How the fuck did you even do the exercises if you forgot the basic formulas, dipshit…” he muttered to himself.
He swiped a red pen from his pocket, biting it and pulling so the cap stayed between his teeth when he slotted it onto the butt of the pen. Kirishima stared at the smoothness of the action, how his arms moved and flexed just ever so slightly with the motions, the glossy pen cap between his shiny teeth, pink gums and thin lips. His red eyes slid to him razor sharp, thinning to slits.
“The hell’re you starin’ at, Kirishima?” he spat, just as the pen slid from his lips.
“N-Nothing, dude,” He turned away fast, scratching his nose. Fixated very pointedly on his textbook, still unopened. “So what should we—I, do now for revision?”
He had opened his mouth, but his throat had closed, all prickly and overly-warm before he swallowed. Kirishima could feel his Adam’s apple bob, Bakugou’s squint digging into the side of his skull.
Kirishima didn’t know long this had been the status quo. When exactly his building admiration and fondness for his brash, brazen friend had spilled into attraction. Always in the background, ambient noise, rearing its head at the most inexplicable times when they were alone and Kirishima could do nothing but bear the full brunt of his affection for Bakugou Katsuki, never too dissimilar from staring down an oncoming train.
And for all his casual doubt-turned-acceptance about Bakugou tutoring him, his heart pumped like he’d finished his daily reps already.
But he steeled himself, gathering the courage to overcome his own nerves and look Bakugou in the eyes.
He did so. How Bakugou’s eyes pierced through to his brain didn’t intimidate him like it would a lesser man. Rather it made his heart rate pick up at just how fiery red they were, glowing in the sunlight like that.
“What the hell’s got your panties in a twist, huh?” Bakugou said, tapping his pen impatiently. He rested his cheek against his fist, which made it slightly pudgy, pushed up his bottom eyelid a bit, and Kirishima really couldn’t handle himself any longer. “Swear to god, if you’re thinking some other dumb shit while you have to resit before the damn summer holidays, I will light your ass on—”
“After I take the resit,” Kirishima blurted out. At the widening of Bakugou’s eyes, slight parting of his lips, he plucked up his courage, snowballing, a makeshift slapdash stroke of brilliance egging him onward. “You wanna go on a date?”
Kirishima’s chest swelled with air and heat and a jumbling mess. He could hear the birds and the wind outside his window behind him. He saw Bakugou goggle at him, that perpetual crease between his brow faded, the slight peek of his upper teeth behind his slack mouth.
His red pen slipped from his fingers. Time resumed from there.
“That was a—” Kirishima gulped, again. Tightened his grip against his sweatpants at his thigh. “An idea I had.”
Watched Bakugou’s expression change, slow motion, into disbelief, confusion, borderline rage from perhaps a cocktail of the former two feelings.
Kirishima, absolutely struck by his fascination, only made a small noise of surprise when Bakugou fisted the collar of his shirt and yanked him close.
With a white snarl and a flared nose, Kirishima could see everything. High definition, hyper-aware. The shine of his explosive hair, the fine hairs at the edges of his face lit by the sun, his chapped lips, wobbling with emotion. A smattering of red crawled across his cheeks at an alarming rate, and Kirishima’s jackrabbit heart absolutely bruised his chest.
“What,” the word burst from Bakugou’s mouth like he’d shot it from his palm. “the everliving fuck, you shitstain?!” he roared, shaking him. Kirishima winced from the volume rather than the shaking. “You think this is a fucking joke?! I’ll kill your ass!”
“I know, it’s sudden. And out of nowhere,” Kirishima said, before biting his own lip because that was the same thing just a different way of saying it. “But I mean it,” he promised. Kirishima looked at him head-on as he confessed, “I really like you, Bakugou.”
He didn’t know if his conviction had properly gotten through, but the way that Bakugou’s tight features suddenly unwound, jerkily relaxed, surprised and confused and all over again. His grip loosened from lethal to vice-like, and Kirishima put his hardening quirk on hold.
“If you’re not cool with it, I’ll back off,” he reassured. When did his mouth go so hollow and dry? “But I’m serious about liking you and, and wanting to go out with you. If you don’t wanna, I mean”—His focus started to dart, his mouth couldn’t stop moving—“if you want space or time or turn me down, that’s all fine. I just wanted to let you know how I feel because it’s been on my mind for a long—or a bit, of a while, and I thought—”
“Shut, shut up for a second,” Bakugou shook his head. Facing down, processing, eyes screwed shut.
Taking in a long breath, he looked up at Kirishima. Who’d obeyed him, though with his mouth still slack, and Bakugou’s lips flattened into a straight line, a lost look still swimming in his eyes. He looked aside with a hand over his mouth, his other hand still wrapped tight in Kirishima’s collar.
“…Are you…” Kirishima mumbled. Glancing between Bakugou’s face and his fist. “Gonna let go, or—”
“You don’t—you think you caught me off-guard like that?” Bakugou challenged, teeth grit, a desperate chuckle puttering from his lips. “Huh? You think you can just—get the better of me, surprise me like that and make me feel like a,” he stopped. Blinked fast. “Like a damn idiot, huh? Is that what you were planning, you, you shit?”
Kirishima stared, eyes wide at him. The lack of outright rejection was the biggest thing Kirishima’s racing brain latched onto. Bakugou was still frowning, still red, not quite looking at Kirishima. His frowning, pouty mouth trembled a bit, and Kirishima despite himself felt so smitten.
“Well, I feel like a total idiot when I’m around you, man,” he admitted, words coming from his brain to his mouth so easily. Bakugou’s gaze snapped fast to his, and daring swelled his ribcage again. “So hearing that makes me kinda happy, honestly.”
He caught Bakugou’s choke, his grip wrenching at his collar again, and Kirishima could only smile. Bakugou glared that squinty-glare at him again, the threat greatly lessened by that mesmerising red splotching his cheeks. He watched Bakugou studying him now, gauging him like a opponent in the ring, and Kirishima just wondered how he could still be so manly when he was receiving a confession as slipshod as his.
“…You can ask me again,” Bakugou decided after an age. His fist relaxed from Kirishima’s collar. “Only after you get a hundred on your test.”
Kirishima’s eyes bugged out.
“A hundred?!”
“Yeah, a hundred, y’deaf piece of shit!” Bakugou yelled. Then barked in triumph. “Yeah, that’s right! You only get to hear your answer if you ace your maths exam!” He crossed his arms, sneering smugly, upturning his nose at him. “Think you can measure up, fuckin’ hair-for-brains?!”
Kirishima watched him hand down the terms like a king relaying orders to his peasants, frame broad and imposing, looking so self-satisfied. That spray of red still lingering pink on his cheeks.
Kirishima was so far gone for him.
“You better get your answer ready, Blasty McSplode,” Kirishima warned, a sharp grin overtaking his own lips. “’Cause a man always measures up to the challenge!”
“Then you better pick up your pencil and fuckin’ get ready,” Bakugou grabbed his textbook, slamming it open to the right page. A wicked smile split his face. “‘Cause if you think I’m letting you off easy, you are dead fuckin’ wrong. S’that clear?!”
“Yes, sir!”
A clock ticked.
Students were scattered around the desks of Classroom 1-A, fidgeting quietly, the room sun-bright and silent. Aizawa leaned back on his desk at the front, arms crossed, scanning the room. Light sounds of pens scratching paper peppered the air.
Kirishima bounced his leg, worried his lip between his teeth, rolled his pen between his fingers. He glanced at the formulas that he’d memorised and wrote on scratch paper as soon as the test had started.
The summer light hit his desk, making the desk glow, the red shell of his pen gleam. At the unbidden thought of Bakugou’s hair, lit red eyes, he hurriedly jotted down the numbers rushing through his brain in chicken scratch.
After the last class before summer vacation, UA shook with the whoops of rowdy students. Some students lingered while packing, discussing plans for the long-awaited holidays. People who took make-ups stayed behind to collect their test results. Bakugou had left as soon as the bell rang.
“Here’re your test results back,” Aizawa droned, handing papers back to Ashido, Kaminari, Rikido, and Kirishima. “Safe to say that none of you need to stay back for summer school,” he said, mouth hiding behind his scarf before he pocketed his hands again. “Enjoy your vacation.”
Aizawa promptly turned and left as the students celebrated their results. Only Kirishima was still tense in the room, jaw stiff, eyes unblinking, hurriedly turning over his paper.
“Yes! Man, I would’ve been so bummed if we had to miss out on the break because of this,” Kaminari sighed in relief. He elbowed Kirishima next to him good-naturedly. “Hey dude, what’d you get? I got 76 somehow, but I don’t—”
He looked over, trailing off when Kirishima’s stared gobsmacked at his paper, hands trembling like he was handling the holy grail.
“Ho…” Kirishima blinked fast. A breathless laugh left his lips. “Holy crap…!”
“Yo, Kirishima,” Kaminari cocked his head, quirking a brow. “Is something the—Oi, wait, where’re you going?!”
“Can’t talk gotta go catch you later bye!”
Kirishima scooped up his bag and ran out of the room for his life. His footsteps echoed down the corridor like rainfall.
Kirishima was sprinting up the stairs. Air scraped along his throat, jumping three steps at a time, as fast as his legs could take him, paper clutched in his palms that had long started sweating. By the time he was at Bakugou’s door, knocking thrice fast, he could only feel his panting breath and thudding heart as the door clicked open. At the first peek of that explosive hair, Kirishima felt like he’d never stopped running.
“This better be good, shitty—”
Bakugou abruptly stopped when Kirishima thrust his paper an inch away from his face. A red, fat 100 stared him in the face.
“Bakugou.” Kirishima lowered the paper again. Fists by his side, half unzipped bag sliding lopsided to his elbow. A tuft of hair flopped onto his forehead, and he took a large, shuddery breath. “Will you go out with me?”
Bakugou regarded him with his neutral-pissed expression. Leaned against his door frame, arms crossing over the printed skull on his shirt. Kirishima watched him with bated breath.
“Sure,” he said after the longest second of Kirishima’s life. He looked aside, frowny pouty, and Kirishima wanted to yodel away the euphoria bursting inside him. “Got an idea for a date or something?”
“I was thinking ramen then grabbing some ice cream after,” Kirishima said, cheeks aching from his boundless smile. “Sound good to you?”
“Yeah, sounds—Sounds nice.” Bakugou chewed on his lip, rubbing his nape. He looked so out of his element and manly while doing it. “God, fuckin’—wipe that dumbass smile off your face! Y’think you’re hot shit or somethin’?!”
“I feel like it,” Kirishima admitted. At Bakugou’s angry confusion softening to pissed confusion, he smiled wider. “I think you’re the best thing that’s happened to me all year.”
Bakugou stared at him, jaw malfunctioning. Then he scoffed hard, crossed his arms again, the corners of his mouth twitching in an unfamiliar and exciting way.
“Damn fuckin’ straight,” he declared with a weak laugh, still looking aside. Kirishima took a step forward. “I’m the best damn thing that’s ever happened to—”
He kissed Bakugou on the cheek, and an explosion immediately shook the room.
Bakugou whirled on Kirishima in a fighting stance.
“Fuck, you, motherfucking dipshit, what the fuck, why the fuck,” Bakugou babbled, seething. Fists steaming, face beet red.
A hardened Kirishima was clutching his stomach in laughter, and Bakugou looked ready to tackle him when he released his quirk. He’d had his quirk prepared in case Bakugou didn’t react well, but the fact that his palms had gone off the moment his lips brushed against his (soft, warm) cheek just set Kirishima’s heart alight and singing.
“I’m, I’m sorry if I surprised you,” Kirishima apologised between breaths. He gave a cheeky grin, raising a brow. “Were you that nervous, Blasty?”
Riding the high of his laughter, he didn’t see Bakugou shoot his hand out to his shirt and all but throw Kirishima into his room and slam the door. After a moment of seeing stars, Kirishima felt a wall at his back, a grip at his nape, and saw Bakugou backlit by the balmy summer light, arm planted beside Kirishima’s head.
“Baku—mm—!”
A soft warmth pressed hard against Kirishima’s lips, his wide, wide eyes were level with Bakugou’s long lashes, and a tongue slipped hot and wet between his mouth and Kirishima’s higher processing shut down in a groan, eyes fluttering shut. He grabbed at Bakugou’s waist and neck, eyes scrunched shut as Bakugou kissed the life out of him with tongue and he kissed back with equal fervour, lips going wet, sloppy, teeth bumping, blood heating. He tasted spicy and smoky and it felt like Bakugou lit Kirishima into a bonfire with all his senses burning. He could hear sparks going off by his ear, the hand above his head, and he tilted his head to kiss Bakugou’s mouth better.
Just as Bakugou’s knee hit the wall between his legs, just as Kirishima tugged at Bakugou’s bottom lip with his teeth and drew out most breathy, short and arousing noise he’d ever heard, Bakugou plucked away with a hard gasp, panting open-mouthed an inch away from him, eyes half-lidded. Kirishima had no words, couldn’t have, as he settled with licking Bakugou from his lips.
“Know this…Kirishima,” Bakugou huffed, swallowing. He loomed closer. “I will never, ever, go easy on you.”
Kirishima slowly shook his head, biting his lip. He could feel his cheeks blush in twin radiators but he couldn’t care.
“You’d better not.”
Bakugou smirked at him through a full blush, ordered him to get changed, and Kirishima prepared for the best summer of his life so far.