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Ochako brought Izuku a bottle of beer and he tapped it gently against hers before taking a swig, leaning back in his chair with a sigh.
“Do you know who’s up next?” she asked, throwing a look to the stage with the crew still setting up.
“Bakusquad.”
She hummed, silent as she downed more of her beer.
“You and Bakugou talk, any idea what they’re going to be playing?” she asked at length.
Him and Katsuki talking was a bit gratuitous. They less “talked” and more passed snide remarks back at each other and, occasionally, fucked in the back of Izuku’s mom’s car.
Maybe more than occasionally.
Izuku huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Not in the slightest. They eeked by with the judges last year for barely picking a song outside of their genre, so they’ll have to really do something impressive.”
“But what’s the opposite of punk rock?” asked Ochako.
For awhile, Izuku just stared unseeing at the stage, his beer bottle resting against his lips.
“Electroswing?” he offered up if only to watch Ochako burst out laughing.
“You know, I’d pay serious money to see them do Electroswing. The entire band’s nothing if not talented and I’m sure they’re versatile on all of their instruments. But what about Bakugou? I don’t think he could pull off the suave--”
A synthetic bass beat cut off Ochako’s words as the house lights immediately went out, replaced instead by the flashing of neon lights on the stage that did little to light-up the group taking front and center. Under it, the drum beat, setting up the audience before the bass cut out and a voice took over. It was… unlike anything Izuku expected. The singer was a siren in the near darkness, pulling Izuku forward in his seat as he struggled to place it. Nothing about the synthesizer/drum/electric combination brought to mind the Bakusquad and their spitting, angry aesthetic (a good one, sure). He was used to seeing black leather and eyeliner thick like warpaint and when the stage lights finally came on as the lead singer ended the first verse, nothing on this earth could have prepared Izuku to see Katsuki standing front and center, smirking at the crowd in a getup that was nothing short of appalling. Well, that was to say, he’d never seen Katsuki in anything like that before. The tight leather jeans and studded leather jacket had been traded for a pair of cut-off shorts and a bubblegum pink track jacket that was definitely not his. But rather than snarling on stage, Izuku could pick out that slightly embarrassed, yet mostly elated smile on Katsuki’s face as he poured his heart into the performance at the microphone. Even while singing something completely different than what he was used to, he had a way of drawing the entire audience in. People at the very front jumped with him in place before letting out a raucous noise when he took the microphone out of the stand and leapt down onto the floor.
Everyone parted for him as he made a path towards the back, but he paused, he charmed the audience, purring out the words that they… somehow seemed to know. His energy was contagious, the way that it always was, but rather than being a blazing inferno with no control in sight, it was watching fireworks go off on a hot summer night. Its spontaneity alone was making Izuku’s heart hammer in his chest and his blood positively boil. The way that Katsuki got up on one of the tables across the room, a mini-stage that he owned in a fashion that was more magical than human was unreal. A bit unfair, too. Izuku was immediately reminded of Katsuki’s dance background if only from the fluid way that he moved his body, oozing a sexuality with it that wasn’t typical for his usual stage persona.
The Bakusquad didn’t portray sex, even for all of the songs Izuku knew they had about fucking (he’d listened to every album, alright, sue him). Katsuki wrote music that was as passionate, yet aloof as he was, a being of anarchist chaos sent straight from the stars with that same level of unattainability. Now? He was half kneeling on the table as people reached for him, a benevolent god before his greedy patrons.
But that was nothing, nothing compared to the way that he started dancing when the vocals gave way to the popping of the drum and the bass together, the rest of the band covering for the way that Katsuki just went… was it right to say that he went off? He was bobbing and dancing on top of that table to the point that Izuku was worried Katsuki was going to break it. His body moved like water, Katsuki so aware of every inch. Every twitch of muscle, every extension of arm and twist of hips was on the beat and left the audience devastated in his wake.
Then the asshole had to remove the track jacket, all treetrunk arms in a loose tank-top and thick thighs in denim shorts. Izuku’s breathing went shallow and his heart leapt into his throat, forced to just stare at Katsuki wide-eyed like a starved man face-to-face with an all-you-can-eat. It sure as hell was not helped by the fact that Katsuki had to so perfectly flip off of the table before he continued to twist through the audience to the exact same, energetic pulsing of the music.
Izuku couldn’t ignore the way that sweat was pouring off of Katsuki, soaking him and making the tank top cling to his skin. Yeah, Katsuki was a fire on-stage, a blaze off-stage, and now Izuku wanted to be burnt alive.
Which, staring from afar was all fine and dandy until Katsuki made his way towards Izuku, as if the man knew exactly what he was doing to him. Maybe he did. Because one second, he wasn’t giving Izuku the time of day and then he was in Izuku’s space like Izuku was the intentioned target. The bass and guitar dropped away as Katsuki dipped into the bridge once more and… into Izuku’s lap. His face was devious in every word, smirking as he pulled on Izuku’s shirt, eyes half-lidded as he purred into the microphone for, seemingly, the benefit of the audience. And just as Izuku was starting to lose control, mouth dry, Katsuki winked, shoved Izuku back into his chair and was out of reach before Izuku could do a single thing.
His heart was racing as Katsuki effortlessly climbed back onto the stage, rounding out the song to the deafening applause of the audience below. And even after Bakusquad had cleared the stage, Izuku was staring ahead, dumbfounded.
“You, uh, alright there?” Ochako asked, waving a hand in front of Izuku’s face before he looked over at her. “You look a little flustered.”
“Did that… Did that actually happen?”
“Oh. That most definitely happened.” Ochako drained her beer. “Bakugou just danced around the bar to shitty techno-pop in short-shorts and a tank top. I don’t think I’m ever going to get that image out of my mind.”
Neither was Izuku, he decided, but for very different reasons.