Work Text:
(11:24) Unknown number:
dude. get over to the aquarium now .
Bakugou glares down at his phone. He turns the screen dark and shoves it aggressively back into his pocket.
A moment later the fucking thing vibrates against his leg again. He ignores it. When it buzzes for a third time thirty seconds later he rips it out of his pocket so hard it would've ripped a seam had they not been worn and frayed already by months of angry fists forced into in them.
“Fucking what?” He growls at it.
The first message reads: we out here i just saw the smoothest shark right now get over here
And the second: srsly its the smoothest thing you gotta come rub ur hands all over it hes smoother than the finest silk.
Who the fuck is this, Bakugou types back. Before he even has the time to pocket his phone again a new message appears under his.
R u srs its kaminari dude do you still not have my number saved? wha tthe hell
Shark skin is rough you fucking idiot, his fingers pound into the keypad.
Immediately Kaminari responds with great see you in 20. And then, a thumbs up emoji.
Bakugou sends back the same emoji, but inverted. Then, for good measure, the middle finger a moment later.
Thirty minutes later he's standing at the entrance of the city aquarium. Shadowing over the door, and covering half the width of the building, is a giant plaster ray. It's wings spread in rolling arcs over the expanse of the roof. Bakugou can't decide if it looks tacky or kind of badass. He frowns, shrugs, and marches in.
Eight minutes ago his phone had received an alert from the same unknown number telling him to where to meet up with him if he wanted to ‘ feel up the smoothest damn shark in the world’. Bakugou had ignored the message at the time but he makes his way over towards the touch tank now.
He glances around the room filled with small, knee high pools and doesn't see and dumb pikachu looking hair over a crowd of younger kids. What Bakugou does see is a head of equally dumb looking hair, but spiked up and an offensive shade of red.
He's not really surprised to see Kirishima here. He'd suspected the We in Kaminari’s message referred to him. If Bakugou were a more open and honest person he'd admit it's part of what lugged him out of his room and out to a fucking aquarium in the morning of his day off. But he's not that so….whatever.
The sea of people part easily as he stalks over to Kirishima. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He says, stopping just short of physically colliding.
“Holy shit,” Kirishima startles. A hand comes up across his chest, either as instinct ready for an attack or to calm his own heart rate down. Bakugou snorts, refusing to feel guilty about either option.
“What,” he says again, “the fuck are you doing here?”
“Me? I've been here! What are you doing here!” Bakugou just glares at him, refusing to answer. After all, he asked first. In fact, Bakugou asked first and second. Fuck no he's not answering first. Kirishima’s eyes dart around the room for a moment, searching for something, before settling back on Bakugou. Bakugou waits expectantly for the answer to whatever the fuck he's doing there but Kirishima just looks a him, down and then back up again. His eyes do this weird soft thing and his jaw works like he's thinking of something to say before everything just sort of floats upwards into a grin.
Suddenly, Bakugou can't play whatever weird stare-down Kirishima’s trying to pull. “Where's the idiot?”
“Huh?” Kirishima asks, still just looking .
“That drooling fucking idiot, Kaminari.”
Whatever softness that had been paying across Kirishima’s sharp features vanished in an instant. Familiar with the sensation of being at war with oneself over desires; wanting all at once to be the number one hero, crushing the dreams of villains and other hopeful heroes on his way to discover what was higher than the top, and wanting to drop out of UA, telling Deku to fuck of once and for all, and living on a mountain alone for the rest of his days, Bakugou didn't give much attention to the clawing desire to see the warm grin return.
“What? He?” Kirishima stutters.
“Fucking get your thoughts together before talking. You sound like Deku.” Bakugou says, turning towards the tide pool by their knees, “He said there was some shitty shark I needed to touch.”
Even from the corner of his eyes, Bakugou can see the other boy an impressive shade of red. A few degrees darker, he figures, and Kirishima’s cheeks would honestly match his stupid hair. Bakugou, sneering, jerks his head back to avoid an elbow hell bent on braining him as Kirishima swings a hand up to cover his face.
“A smooth shark?” He mumbles from underneath his palm.
Bakugou shrugs and rolls his eyes, “Yeah. Fucking stupid. Sharks aren’t smooth.”
“It was a joke," Kirishima groans, “We were joking. I didn’t think he’d actually text you holy shit.”
Anger bubbles up inside Bakugou. It simmers like hot acid beneath his skin. Anger that some shitty asshole got him out of bed for a fucking joke. Anger that he’s the subject of a shitty joke. Anger that Kirishima’s here. Anger that Kirishima’s blushing. Anger that Kirishima being here makes him boil with another kind of heat, unfamiliar and wholly new.
Kirishima at least has the decency to look alarmed when Bakugou growls again and grabs his arm, steering him to the next exhibit.
“Dude, please don’t blow up,” He says, skin sharpening momentarily in Bakugou’s grip, “There are, like, kids here.”
“If I’m here already we’re gonna look at some fucking fish.”
He drags Kirishima along by the elbow to the other tide pools lining the wide room, scanning each one for whatever fucking shark Kaminari was talking about. He doesn’t immediately register that he’s left his hand around Kirishima’s. No, first he recognizes that he skin underneath his grip has finally softened away from the rigid lines that filled his hand a minute ago. Satisfied that Kirishima is finally relaxed again he squeezes the firm yet malleable muscle there beneath his fingertips.
Its then, when Kirishima looks away from the shallow tank in front of him to gaze at Bakugou, that he realizes how he looks clutching the boy’s elbow like that. He lets go and his arm drops heavy by his side. Even after he’s released his arm Kirishima is still looking at him.
“What?” Bakugou asks, voice harsher than he somehow expected it to be.
“Wanna head to the next room?”
“Fine.” He answers. He’s not dumb enough to think that was really the question dancing around Kirishima’s eyes, but he’s also smart enough to know he doesn’t want to go anywhere fucking near the real reason for Kirishima watching him.
Kirishima takes one last look into the depths of the poolt they’re standing over, leaning over to stroke a finder down the arm of a starfish. He straightens back up and takes a step closer with a smirk. For one panicked moment Bakugou thinks he’s going to grab his arm this time. His heart thuds in his ribcage. He knows what it would feel like. He knows what Kirishima’s hand wrapped around his wrist feels like. His fingers twitch, palms feeling heated and magnetized towards the other boys hand. But Kirishima, still ginning, just bumps his shoulder into Bakugou’s before trekking into the next room.
Bakugou follows from room to room, from tank to tank, changing his pace and proximity to Kirishima often enough that he hopes no one catches wise to the fact that he’s here with someone. They pause at each display. Bakugou catches himself getting hypnotized by the blue hues of the water, by the rhythmic loops and turns of the schools of brightly colored fish, by the swift and quiet movement drifting in front of him. It's not that he’s never been to an aquarium before, it's just that he’s never been to an aquarium before that wasn’t during a school trip or forced upon him by his mother in a futile attempt to culture him. There are very few places Bakugou's been asked to go that didn’t feel like a pointless waste of his time.
Here and now, the squeak of Kirishima’s dumb crocs drowned out by recorded whale songs pouring out of the speakers, doesn’t feel like a waste at all.
“Hey,” Kirishima says. He bumps Bakugou’s shoulder again. The contact makes him want to combust. Even worse, the contact makes him want to lean in for more.
Kirishima, oblivious to Bakugou’s explosive internal struggle, nods to the tank in front of them, “That’s you.”
Under the guise of following his eyeline to find whatever the hell Kirishima’s probably insulting him with, Bakugou turns to gaze at him. The illuminated wall of water before them is reflecting ripples, dancing across Kirishima’s smiling face. Bright blue shines against the whites of his eyes, turning the red of his hair something deeper. Bakugou swallows and turns back to the tank.
He’s met with the ugliest fucking fish he’s ever seen in his life.
“What the fuck.” The fish is so ugly Bakugou instinctively has a fist raised to punch the damn thing. Next to him, Kirishima is absolutely losing it. “Fuck you.”
“Awe, come on,” Kirishima defends, practically gasping from laughter, “He’s spiky and a little grumpy lookin’, it's a perfect match!”
“Fine,” He grumbles, scanning the tank. He points to a large piece of bright red coral, “Thats you. A fucking dumb rock.”
“It’s not a rock,” Kirishima says, patting his shoulder and still fucking laughing, “Coral is a bunch of tiny little guys together as one big guy. Plus they're super important and protect and give homes to a bunch of other fish. They're like the heroes of the deep blue sea, man. Thanks!”
“Fuck you,” He scowls, “That's you then. Sharp teeth and stupid”
Kirishima chokes on the seahorse shaped straw they got with their sodas during lunch at aquarium cafe when he sees the the shark Bakugou points to. He gives another, much weaker, attempt at laughter, “aha- yeah. Cool.”
The silence the fills the space between them is stuffy and stilted. They both turn to watch the tank, quietly. Bakugou can feel Kirishima fidget beside him, but doesn't say anything until both the shark and lionfish are out of sight.
“So, uh. I-” Kirishima starts, clears his throat, and starts again, “If you wanted to see some more sharks. I’ve got these.”
He digs around in his pocket for a moment and pulls out two slightly rumples tickets, “It’s two passes to go watch the afternoon shark feeding up close. I figure it'd be something you'd be into, seeing the seas generally most feared hunter swimming through some fish guts.”
It clicks then; two tickets, two bright haired idiots, together.
“Was this a fucking date?”
Kirishima startles. Caught, he blinks wide eyes at Bakugou, “Huh?”
“Were you on a date? With the fucking electric imbecile?”
“Oh! Uh,” For a moment he looks even more confused than before. Kirishima schools his expression but something suspicious and wary leaks into his voice, “Uh no…. not with him.”
“Did he fucking stand you up or something?” Bakugou isn't sure why the thought of Kirishima getting stood up churns his blood hotter than the idea of him being on a date in the first place, yet here he is. Pissed. And Bakugou admits he makes the threat a lot, about many different people, but this time he truly feels he means it when he says, “I'm gonna kill him.”
“Bakugou, Dude.” Kirishima takes his wrists and presses Bakugou’s palms against his side, “Again, please don't blow anything up.”
He pulls his hands back quickly and shakes them off. He hadn't even noticed the tingling buildup of nitroglycerin in his fingertips. It doesn't matter anyway. He should leave right now and get rid of his excess energy by detonating a tree, or Deku’s homework, or his own fucking bed or something.
“Fuck it. Whatever.” Once, when Bakugou was younger and his quick has just kicked in, he blew himself up. On purpose. He had recently decided that his quirk was hero worthy and he was going to become the greatest there ever was. He was going to become the best. And then he would become better than the best. Bakugou’s eight year old logic lead him to the conclusion that the only way to become better than the best (the best being himself, of course) was to, in short, kick his own ass.
He ran around his neighborhood, working up a good sweat. Then, panting, he pressed a palm to his chest, closed his eyes and exploded.
He was nowhere near, back then, as powerful as he is now. But even his just burgeoning quirk, as point blank range, was enough to fly him back a few feet and knock him on his ass.
Bakugou remembers not initially noticing the pain of it. First he only felt the thud thud thud thud of his own heartbeat pounding in his chest and echoing from his eardrums to the tips of his toes. Then he smelled the smoke from his singed t-shirt. Only when his mother ran out the backdoor screaming What the hell were you thinking, You’re going to kill yourself, at him did he look up and wince, the ache rushing in.
Now, his heart thudding in his chest, he refuses to let this hurt him. He steps back, away from Kirishima, growling, “I'm not going to be your fucking pity date just because your ass got stood up.”
“I mean,” Kirishima says softly, “it's not really in pity of it was supposed to yours to begin with.”
“Fuck off,” He calls back. Bakugou’s halfway across the room when the words register. He stops mid-pissed-off-storm-out and swivels to face Kirishima again.
“What?” He asks, still fucking pissed he let himself get caught up in what? Feelings?
“Uh well, funny story, I guess,” Kirishima runs a hand through his hair, jostling the obnoxiously red spikes, “So I bought the tickets for you. For us, I guess, originally.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bakugou asks again. He still hasn’t moved from where he’s planted halfway across the room.
“It was a joke! Sort of. To take you to an aquarium.”
“It was a joke.” Bakugou repeats. He really could explode now. He wants to. If only just to end this whole fucking day.
He must look like he’s ready to blow because Kirishima’s eyes go wide, “No, no, dude. It was a serious date, the aquarium part was a joke. The smooth shark thing was a joke. I’m the smooth shark. You know,” He waves a lackluster hand, gesturing to himself, “sharp teeth, super smooth. Like a shark… But it was lame, like super uncool probably. So instead of wasting the tickets I brought Denki. But uh, well here you are.”
Bakugou let's the words wash over him, processing.
“So you tricked me on a date.” He says, point of fact. Because that's exactly what fucking happened.
“No.” Kirishima counters. “No. I planned a date for us and then made the very manly decision to cancel it before you know, asking you on it.” He trails off, hand bashfully rubbing the back of his head.
“You chickened out.”
“I'm strong enough to admit I'm afraid of rejection!”
“Dumbass,” Bakugou grumbles. He looks down at a handprint smudge on the glass of the tank he’s standing next to. He stares at it for a moment longer before saying, “You wouldn't be.”
“Huh?”
“Just fucking do it.” Bakugou whips around to face Kirishima again, and growls, “I thought you said you didn't want to live with regret.”
“I mean yeah, but-” He shrugs.
Bakugou scowls and stomps forward. He grabs Kirishima by the elbow again. Then, after a moment of consideration, slides down his forearm to take him by the hand and drags him away.
Kirishima trips along behind him before catching up. His fingers tighten and intertwine with Bakugou's own. Bakugou can't look at his face now, no matter how much he might want to check to see whatever expression might be playing at his lips. He can't look now or he’ll lose focus on his mission.
They dart around the aquarium, hand in hand, until Bakugou spots what he's looking for. He rams his shoulder into the door marked ‘emergency exit’ and pushes himself into the empty stairwell.
“You know,” Kirishima says, sliding in behind him just before the door closes. He's grinning. Bakugou knew he would be. “I had high hopes that you would not be dragging me off somewhere to murder me. S’not lookin good, buddy.”
“Shut up and do it,” He says, “Fucking ask me on a dumb date.”
Before Kirishima gets the chance to do any asking Bakugou presses in close. Inch by inch he connects their bodies, first a jostling of knees, then a hand on a collarbone, then finally their lips.
After a breath, Kirishima grasps at the front of his shirt, reeling him in even closer. Bakugou feels it in his chest when he groans.
It's Bakugou’s first kiss. His first anything like this. Refusing to put himself in the vulnerable position of possibly ever being bad at something on the first try, he’s adamantly avoided even thinking about kissing. Despite his best efforts, however, he does live in a dorm full of dumb teenagers who, when not fighting for their lives, spend a lot of hormonal nights not only thinking about this sort of thing but discussing it out loud. Just two weeks ago he walked past a conversation between the electric idiot and another waste of space. They were reading off a laptop, nearly in tears laughing. Bakugou caught the words ‘teeth colliding’ and something about dominating tongues before he slammed his bedroom door shut as hard as he could. It all sounded generally pretty fucking horrible and easy to avoid. That is, until, he lost his damn mind today.
Kirishima seems to have zero fucks whatsoever about nuance. Any anxiety disguised as anger Bakugou might feel about his own inexperience in this regard is completely washed away by the other boys sheer enthusiasm. It feels good to rise up and meet the eager challenge. Kirishima pulls him down down down by the lips and Bakugou is falling. He, in turn, pushes until Kirishima’s back hits the wall. A knee slides between his own. Sharp gasps and breathless panting echo in the emptiness of the stairwell. He shoves his hands up the bottom hem of Kirishima’s stupid patterned shirt and Kirishima’s stupid sharp teeth scrape against the skin of his neck. He shivers.
“You know you're really cute when you smile.” Kirishima whispers into his jaw.
“I'm not fucking smiling.” But when Kirishima moves his mouth back up to Bakugou's, both open and wet and hot, that Bakugou realizes that his own lips are, in fact, pulled upwards into a smile. Not a sneer, not a vindictive grin. He's smiling. His whole chest feels warm.
Strong, powerful, fingers run through Bakugou’s hair, scratching at his scalp. When Kirishima takes a handful and tugs a sound escapes from deep in Bakugou’s very core that he’ll never ever admit to making.
“We’re gonna oh my god- ” Kirishima groans while Bakugou gnaws on his bottom lip, “Fuck We’re gonna miss the sharks.”
“Fuck the sharks.” Hips buck into Bakugou’s and it feels better than winning.
“I’m the smooth shark.”
“You’re not fucking smooth.”
“Neither are sharks.”
Fifty-five minutes and eight tiger sharks later, as they’re exiting the aquarium hand in hand and as chill as can be, Bakugou’s phone begins to buzz.
[4:55] Unknown number:
My guy Eijirous not answering and im dyin. Did u smooch him
[4:57] Unknown number:
Okayyy just tell me 1thing. If the shark isnt smooth…
[4:57] Unknown number:
is He hard B) B) B)