Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They move in on a late Tuesday afternoon.

Their new place isn’t really empty, but it’s far from being full either. There’s a couple of beds, an old couch that creaks when someone approaches, an oven that has seen better days; the only table they have has been marked by other hands, the wood weathered, the warmth of the pine turned to an ashy brown by the sun. The shower is just large enough for one person, the bathroom mirror just wide enough for two, and when they test the lights, the bulbs flicker together. The washing machine has four buttons but only three labels, the front door’s lock doesn’t match the frame, the hardwood floors bear a large stain where someone spilled wine in the corridor. The dust floating between floor and ceiling smells like ghosts.

They’re not the first ones to live here.

But the room that makes for both a common living space and a modest kitchen has this gigantic window in place of a wall and light pours through the old glass to drench them in the sun – the dust flickers in the rays and if they blow in the air, it spirals in a small tornado that sparkles for a few slow seconds. The bedrooms aren’t big but they’re big enough for second-hand queen size beds, the kitchen corner isn’t spacious but they can afford to stack five pans in the cupboards, two nails were forgotten in a wall but the Wi-Fi is good.

It’s a hollow shell of a place but they both have a key to the front door and the mailbox carries their last names together. Bakugou K. & Kirishima E., third floor, first door on the right. It’s not much but it’s theirs, all theirs to warm up, all theirs to come back to, all theirs to mold into a home.

They don’t have many carboard boxes; a few piles of clothes, some books, a bunch of electronics, a couple of posters and sentimental trinkets – it’s all they have to start off with. Not without effort, they haul a punching bag into Kirishima’s room and carefully attach a large mirror the Bakugou’s had to spare in the other bedroom, they throw a mat on the bathroom floor, plug in a microwave that can’t give the time. Room by room, bit by bit, they replace the smell of stagnation with that of sweat and excitation, pushing furniture around, getting used to the sound the three doors they have make when they open. There isn’t much room in the kitchen cupboards but they carefully organize them as if there were, as if it truly was hard to decide where to put the rice, because it almost is. The rice could go anywhere but it’s their choice to make, so they put it on the right, next to where the cans will go once they buy some.

Bakugou never complains. He doesn’t enter Kirishima’s room uninvited, his stuff doesn’t take more space than needed in the bathroom, he’s careful around the corners of the corridor when he carries a nightstand around. Kirishima can see him be careful, thoughtful, willing to do his best.

It didn’t take him much to convince him they should move in together after all.

After long hours of back and forth between the truck that carried them there and the inside of the flat, it’s Kirishima who closes the front door for good. It creaks too but the lock is satisfying to fiddle with.

He finds Bakugou standing in the middle of the living room, between their old couch and the table they salvaged, hands on his hips as he appreciates the view from the large windows. The light cuts his silhouette roughly, emphasizing the thickness of his shoulders; Kirishima always knew his best friend would eventually grow into this tower of muscle, but right now he looks almost soft, his breath deepening after all the efforts they’ve done, the skin of his neck glimmering with a last trace of sweat.

“Well, this is it,” Kirishima declares as he comes to stand besides Bakugou. “We’re home.”

And it doesn’t feel quite like home yet, it’s more borrowed than earned, but Bakugou looks at Kirishima and the sun that filters through his irises makes him look like he was born to stand next to this very window.

“Yeah,” he nods, “I guess that’s it.”

He turns back to look down to the streets, to the soft hum of the city slowing down after a day of work, to people making their way home and kids leaving school. The neighborhood isn’t the quietest or the most beautiful but there’s a park around the corner of the avenue and a grocery store at walking distance. They can’t see the whole city, they won’t see the lights at night, but when the sky is clear, it’ll make for a good star gazing spot.

It’s a good place to be.

Eventually, Bakugou lets out a sigh. “I’m gonna make dinner,” he says before turning around.

“Cool, I’ll go take a shower,” Kirishima smiles. Bakugou opens their almost empty fridge and hums in acknowledgment.

It’s a good place to be and now it’s all they have. These off-white walls, these old pieces of furniture, this mailbox with two names on it. There used to be a yours and a mine as neighbors, in the dorms; now there’s a ours and nothing else. No other place to go, no compromise.

The heater in the bathroom might be slow to do its job and the temperature of the shower might require an engineering degree to get right, but Kirishima’s not in a rush. Today’s liminal, suspended between their before and their after; if only Tuesday evenings were all like this, all ended with a long shower and Bakugou cooking for two, Kirishima might just never ask for anything ever again.

When he realizes after a beat that all Tuesdays could very well be like that, there’s sugar to the thought, a spike of sweetness rushing to his head immediately. Life is good.

His wet hair up in a bun, Kirishima finds Bakugou busy in the kitchen corner, filling the apartment with the delicious warmth of a curry. He rolled up his sleeves and when he shifts his weight from one foot to another, the folds in the fabric shift around his waist.

Kirishima ignores whatever he feels at the sight, because that’s what friends do.

“Aaaah, Bakugouuu, it smells so good!” he keens, coming to lean against the kitchen counter to watch Bakugou. Focused, Bakugou keeps his eyes on the food.

“Set the table while I finish this,” he says before lifting his spoon and to have a taste. His hands are rougher than they used to be, the callouses climbing past the sides to melt into a few dark scars on the back of the wrist. Kirishima knows them too well.

He squeezes himself between the table and Bakugou to reach the cupboards on the other side of the stove. Bakugou doesn’t seem to mind. “Where did you put the glasses?”

“On the left,” Bakugou points to the largest cupboard they have, attached to the wall over the counter. “Hurry up, it’s ready.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kirishima smiles, fumbling through shelves. He manages to find what he’s looking for and the table’s roughly ready before Bakugou turns around to put a pan full of food down between the plates. Bakugou sits down with a heavy sigh, letting Kirishima fill up their glasses with water, and leans back into his chair. His eyes lose focus for a moment, wandering somewhere behind the windows, and Kirishima lets him take it all in. This moment’s rare, fleeting – it won’t happen again and Bakugou deserves to savor it too, to revel in the pause, in the shift between eras of their lives. It’s a privilege to be there when he lets go like that, in their kitchen.

Bakugou snaps out of it after a handful of seconds and shifts in his chair when Kirishima sits down. Before he can reach for the pan, Kirishima clears his throat and raises his glass. “To our new place,” he beams.

Bakugou blinks and looks at him, an eyebrow quirked up. “Kirishima, we’re not making a toast with water.”

“Come on, for the special occasion,” Kirishima insists with a wide grin. “To our new place, to us.”

Impassible, Bakugou looks at him for a while longer as if his silence could convince Kirishima to drop it – it’s doesn’t, of course, so he reluctantly leans forward and raises his own glass with a huff. It takes him an instant but he finds Kirishima’s eyes and when he breathes out, something settles in his gaze, like acceptance. Like an okay held too long, a you got me Kirishima has learned to read years ago.

“To our new place, yeah,” he says, and there’s a hint of a smile in the corner of his lips.

Their glasses clink with a singing chime – they drink this contract together, their eyes locked on each other. The water’s cold and plain but the warmth in Kirishima’s chest is unmistakable, thrumming with a special kind of happiness reserved for these memories they make together. He hasn’t felt this good in a while.

They start eating while the sun sets and makes the dust sparkle with gold; Bakugou yawns and groans about the noise in the street and the time at which they’ll have to wake up tomorrow but there’s a gentleness to his face, a lightness to his words. He relaxes, mellows in his chair and there’s no mistake to be made, there’s nothing to be misread. Written in the way he blinks slowly, in the way he doesn’t try to avoid Kirishima’s eyes, it’s clear that Bakugou’s happy too.

They fall into step together like two pieces of a well-oiled machine.

On their first morning, Bakugou’s alarm clock blares through the walls of the apartment but Kirishima’s already up, dozing off on one of the chairs in the kitchen while he waits for rice to cook. He looks up when Bakugou gets out of his room like a bear out of a cave and drags his feet all the way to the bathroom; his hair’s a mess, one of his eyes still hasn’t opened fully, he slouches and lets his legs guide him to where he needs to be.

“G’morning,” Kirishima mumbles, and Bakugou mumbles something back before locking himself in the bathroom. The shower starts running a dozen of seconds later.

Kirishima leans back into the palm of his hand and checks on the rice cooker from a distance. Dawn blooms into a peachy sunrise, spilling liquid coral on the hardwood floors. Outside the windows, the city wakes up too with a low hum as the light comes up to flatter the sides of buildings and shimmer in puddles left by the rain, slow and lazy. There’s mist in the corners of the window panes; it’s probably cold outside, but in the small apartment it’s all warm and cozy, all around Kirishima, all the way down to the pit of his stomach.

He has breakfast ready by the time Bakugou walks out of the bathroom. Some rice, a couple of boiled eggs, a few pieces of ham; it’s not much but they’ll go shopping later, and Kirishima knows Bakugou likes it like that anyway.

“Don’t eat everything before I sit down,” Bakugou warns from somewhere behind Kirishima.

“I might if you don’t hurry,” Kirishima snickers, but when he turns around, Bakugou’s wearing his only towel around his neck and over his shoulders, nonchalantly making his way back to his bedroom with the clothes he slept in wrapped in the crook of his elbow instead of actually over his naked body, and Kirishima wasn’t ready. He didn’t think he’d be greeted by this, by a careless, shameless Bakugou flexing his mouthwatering looks this early in the morning. By all of this.

“Let me live,” Bakugou grunts before Kirishima can say anything, and he disappears in his bedroom – hopefully to get dressed up.

Kirishima can’t take his eyes off the corner around which Bakugou just turned; the warmth in his cheeks is too familiar and by now he knows there isn’t much he can do against it. He closes his eyes and sighs, but it only cements the sight in the back of his mind, everything from the dimples carved below Bakugou’s waist to the muscles rippling under the skin of his thighs. Everything.

He might not survive the first month at this rate, and they’ve only spent one night in this apartment.

Still, he doesn’t comment on it when Bakugou comes back wearing grey sweatpants, because that’s what friends do.

Bakugou sits in front of him, chest bare – is he never cold? – and fills his bowl with rice. His hair isn’t quite dry yet but it’s already puffed up and untamable, and this time he looks awake.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back tonight,” Kirishima says between bites, already busy chowing down his breakfast, “Amajiki says he’s usually back at his place around seven thirty.”

Bakugou looks up at him, fiddling with his chopsticks. “I’ll go buy groceries then,” he groans, his voice somehow still low and heavy with sleep. Kirishima could tell this tone in a hundred; the I just woke up tone, the one that reminds him that Bakugou was just wrapped in blankets not that long ago.

“Text me when you’re going, maybe I’ll be on my way back already,” he says, and Bakugou hums in agreement, absentmindedly checking his phone while he starts eating.

It’s not quite like it was in the dorms; there’s the chatter missing, the background ruckus of dozens of students piled together in a hall, the omnipresent reminder that they’re a pack constantly moving together, a pride of cubs in training. It’s kind of bitter to have lost this routine. Not that Kirishima misses the noise; it’s the warmth he liked, the buzz of it all as if he woke up in the core of a hive.

Here it’s not buzzing, but it’s warm all the same. The comfortable silence is new, and it only exists because they choose to be two.

They break the silence times and times again when it comes to washing the dishes, reminding each other to get dressed already and making sure they’re on time for work; Bakugou’s voice resonates particularly well against the tiles of the bathroom, when he smudges eyeliner all around his eyes to fill in the gaps in his eye mask. He’s had his costume tweaked a bit since they left school – a few adjustments around the legs, some reinforcements on his shoulders – but he won’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else, for his glare is still the same once he covers half his face with black.

Kirishima gets to see him behind the scenes, when his costume is on and his makeup is fresh but his mask is still waiting by the door. He gets to see the whole process, Bakugou’s mouth open in a breath he has yet to take, his rock-hard abs flexing under his shirt when he straightens back up and away from the bathroom mirror, satisfied.

He gets to see, watch and remember as they get ready shoulder to shoulder; he knows Bakugou looks back at him in the same way.

And when there’s only their front door between them and the start of a whole new life, it’s Kirishima who gets to hold the handle.

“You sure you have your key?” he asks for what must be the fourth time, and Bakugou’s still checking his mask in the small mirror they hung to the wall.

“I already told you I have it,” he grunts before turning to Kirishima. “Come on, are you gonna open this door, yes or no?” Kirishima doesn’t answer immediately so Bakugou steps forward.

“Don’t tell me you’re stressing out about this, Kirishima,” he sighs. He reaches for the handle himself but Kirishima opens the door before Bakugou can get into his personal space and gets out – the air out of their apartment feels so much lighter, as if much richer in oxygen, and gets to his head easily. He knows it’s the adrenaline, the excitement so characteristic to Big Days. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. Every pro hero has to make their official debut at some point.

“You’re fine,” Bakugou echoes behind him. He closes and locks the door, merciless and out of patience. “Stop overthinking this, you look like you’re going to vomit.”

“Get out of my head,” Kirishima jokes, but Bakugou’s right.

“No,” Bakugou retorts dryly, pressing on the elevator button, “and you should focus, or you’re going to fuck up on your first day.”

“Thanks man, real helpful.”

“You’re welcome.”

The elevator ride is silent but Kirishima can still hear Bakugou’s nerves simmer with eagerness under his skin. After all, today he takes this first step on the sky-high flight of stairs leading to being the Very Best, the Number One. If the seat is rightfully his, today’s date will be written in books and talked about for years to come.

The hall of the apartment complex is empty. Their shoes squeak on the clean floor.

“Don’t forget to text me about the groceries, alright?”

Bakugou adjusts his bracers. “Yeah.”

“And tell me if anything –”

“Kirishima.” Bakugou pushes a door open. “Stop this.” He walks out and the city welcomes them out of their bubble and into the world with the growl of passing cars and the chime of bike bells.

Kirishima breathes in, out. This is it.

“Alright, don’t get lost on the way to the office.”

Kirishima turns to Bakugou, just in time to see him grin before he starts walking away, and watches him go. “See you tonight,” he calls, and Bakugou raises a hand in acknowledgement, see you tonight.

Tonight, the only place in time where there is any certitude, any semblance of an anchor. Tonight is where the windows are so wide night never really falls, where the dust settles over the heaters, where Kirishima knows he’ll go back no matter what happens.

There’s so much safety to the thought that Kirishima manages to think about something else.

He spends more of his day dealing with last-minute paperwork and being introduced to people than he’d like but the realities of a pro hero’s life catch up to him after lunch break, to his relief. Finally, he’s free to overuse the training space in the basement of the office, finally the city is his to roam and patrol. Whatever stress was slowing him down in the morning is distilled into this essence of enthusiasm and pumps through his veins with each step he takes; he soaks all the advice given to him like a sponge and pushes himself to the point of exhaustion as he tries to do everything perfectly. It’s hard on the mind and harder on the body but one child recognizes his mask when he goes outside, then and only then does it become feather light.

This is it, this is truly it. Finally. This is what it feels like to be a hero, publicly, officially. From the outside, it’s not much more than running after petty delinquents but Kirishima thoroughly enjoys every single minute of it. It’s easy to get caught up into it too, to let go of everything else and forget that time passes, so when Bakugou texts him that he’s gonna go buy stuff now, Kirishima’s surprised to see it’s already six in the afternoon.

Tonight grows closer, floating in the distance like a mirage, and even though Kirishima can’t leave work right now, he knows he’ll be there soon. So he tells Bakugou not to wait for him, shoves his phone back into his pocket and promises Amajiki he’ll do his best until the day ends.

He finds himself in front of their door faster than he thought he would, and tonight’s right on the other side. The new lock clicks open and the old frame creaks when he enters; from the hallway, he can see the evening light bathing their living room in copper. More striking still, it’s the smell of smoked fish and steamed vegetables that lets him know he’s home. He knows this well, it’s not the first time Bakugou cooks like this and fills all the space he has with warmth, humidity and a pinch of salt.

“It’s me,” he announces, and Bakugou’s head peaks out from the side of the living room, where their kitchen corner is. The backlight shining on him gives him a crown that hovers around his hair, cutting shadows on his face.

“Don’t put dirt everywhere,” he groans, but Kirishima’s already taking his shoes off. After pushing them into a corner of the hallway, he trots to Bakugou’s side, his mask in a hand.

“How much was it?” he asks, looking over Bakugou’s shoulder at the pile of vegetables he’s putting in a plate.

“Huh?”

“The groceries. So I can pay half,” he clarifies.

Bakugou shrugs, flattening the pile with a wooden spoon. “Just pay for them next time.”

Kirishima considers it for a couple of seconds. “Yeah, fair enough,” he admits eventually, eyeing the filets of fish laid to the side. His stomach grumbles. “It smells so good, Bakugou, I’m so hungry.”

“You gonna say this every night?” Bakugou grins, and his shoulder presses into Kirishima chest when he moves to grab a pepper grinder. “Go take a shower, you stink,” he complains, scrunching his face in disgust and elbowing Kirishima in the stomach weakly, but all it does is make Kirishima chuckle.

“Yeah, yeah, alright, I’ll be quick,” Kirishima smiles, running a hand through his softening hair as he walks away. “Then tell me about your day!”

“I don’t talk to stinky people,” Bakugou says harshly, but Kirishima knows it means okay.

The heater of the bathroom is just as slow as it was the day before, the temperature just as hard to get right, but Kirishima takes his time to wash off the sweat that dried on his skin. The fatigue suddenly catches up with him under the running water, seeping through his muscles and draining all the energy out of him; the steam makes him lethargic, heavy in his lungs. It’s as though a train of emotion ran over him one wagon at a time – the anxiety, the joy, the fervor, all slipping off him and swirling down the drain with the dirt. Eyes closed, head down, Kirishima wastes hot water for a couple of minutes just so he can feel the moment.

He manages to come out of the shower quickly enough to see Bakugou put down plates on the table, his black shirt and sweats sharply contrasting against the white walls of the apartment. He hasn’t taken his eyeliner off yet; most of it is gone but he still has smudges of black above his lashes and under his eyes. Kirishima always found it a certain kind of pretty but never said it out loud, because that’s what friends do.

“So, how was it?” he beams when they sit down.

Bakugou puts some food in his plate. “Pretty cool, I guess. They treat me like a goddamn kid though.”

Kirishima imitates him, treating himself to a generous portion of fish. “It’s normal though, you just started.”

Bakugou looks up to him, his chopsticks crossed. “They already know me well, for fuck’s sake,” he scowls, “’S not like we’re strangers to each other.” He shovels a large piece of broccoli in his mouth as if to accentuate how pissed he is.

“Who doesn’t know about you at this point,” Kirishima scoffs, and Bakugou’s glare is as sharp as ice picks but his mouth his full. “My day was so cool,” Kirishima continues even though his mouth is full too. “They showed me around and gave me a desk! Then we went on patrol and I met all these other sidekicks, it was awesome,” he tries to grin, but too much fish is too much fish.

Bakugou swallows. “You talk like an intern,” he sighs, eyes down to pick which piece he’s going to eat next.

Kirishima chews on his fish faster. “Excuse me for loving my job, mister I’ve Never Had Fun Once In My Life,” he says jokingly, and Bakugou pulls such an offended face Kirishima would worry about him leaving the table right there and then if he didn’t know any better.

He swallows his fish, puts his chopsticks down and lifts his glass.

“To our first day,” he says with a grin. Bakugou’s face falls immediately.

“We’re not doing that again,” he groans, staring straight at Kirishima flatly.

“Why? It’s a special occasion,” Kirishima coaxes him, reaching forward with his glass. “Come on!”

Bakugou sighs but he’s not moving. Unblinking, he stares for a moment and the sunset reflects in his eyes; Kirishima has his back turned to the window, he can’t see the sky, but there’s little more he’d like to see than what’s pooling in Bakugou’s irises and all over his skin. Watery, molten, the gold of the light marries so well with him, with the red of his lips and the smudged black over his lids. A thought passes behind his eyes, then another; eventually he gives in and takes his glass too.

“Alright,” he breathes, visibly annoyed, but he tilts his head to the side in acceptance. A compromise. “To our first day.”

They cheer and the clink sounds like festival bells; they drink all their water in one go as if there was any challenge to it and Kirishima has to make a conscious effort not to smile against the rim of the glass.

They try to go to bed early; they fail.

Their old couch is more dangerous than it looks; once you sit down in it, there’s no way to stand back up. It makes weird noises when someone shifts or moves their legs and the pillows are so comfortable they could very well swallow you whole. Kirishima almost falls asleep in it while the TV’s running but Bakugou reaches out and nudges his shoulder. “Don’t sleep here, idiot,” Kirishima hears him mutter close to his ear.

The bathroom lights are blinding but Kirishima keeps an eye closed while he brushes his teeth; it’s enough to watch Bakugou take off what’s left of his eyeliner, his own toothbrush poking out from between his lips.

They make sure there’s no light on, that all the leftovers are in the fridge, that the door is locked. Sluggish, they go find their beds and mutter a couple of good nights; they go into the night alone in beds too big for one person but tomorrow, tomorrow is the next lighthouse. Tomorrow is where Kirishima cooks rice for two and Bakugou talks in monosyllables until he has his costume on, tomorrow is where the sun makes their hardwood floors blush with peach and the old dust look like glitter, and it’ll arrive no matter what happens.

Well-oiled machines barely compare to this cycle of places in time Kirishima yearns to relive over and over again.

Bakugou never lowers the volume of his alarm, he never brings sweatpants with him in the bathroom, he never insists to make breakfast himself; he always makes sure the apartment smells like his own brand of home by the time Kirishima comes back and when the sunset hits him right, he’s so pretty he smiles without trying.

Bakugou never liked journalists, but if there’s a kind he likes the least, it’s the gossipy ones. The ones that track stupid rumors like hyenas track blood, gums bare as they smile so wide their jaws could unhinge; these are the ones Bakugou could happily send to go fuck themselves if he could publicly do so. He hates their faces their faces, he hates their questions, he hates everything about them.

They play dirty too because a crew ends up cornering him in the middle of patrol, right in front of a bunch of kids. The children have stars in their eyes and fidgety fingers; Bakugou hates, hates these “journalists” but he doesn’t hate them enough to traumatize a bunch of kids by blasting these bloody scavengers off into space. Still, just seeing two or three of these overzealous faces, eyes sparkling with unhealthy obsession, is enough to make Bakugou consider it.

He would have done it, at some point. He would have used violence to cut his way through their crews, he knows this; he’d have been all flames and fury. He wised up though, or at least that’s what Kirishima says, so he rolls his eyes and goes to walk away. His old ways come back to tempt him when a short man with navy blue hair scurries around him and shoves a mic in his face. “Are you and Red Riot planning on working in the same agency? You’re often seen together since the start of the new season,” he pants, voice shrilly.

Bakugou pushes the mic away and tries to do what countless people had to learn how to do before him: ignore them. Maybe if he looks away, they’ll just disappear. Maybe if he walks far enough, he’ll be able to lure them into a passageway and have their disappearances filed under “mysterious circumstances”.

The man has oblivious seen worse than someone refusing to answer; he’s protected by law, the fucker. Of course they have a press pass, and of course no one can use their quirks on them. And these kids standing around the street corner have whole galaxies in their eyes and it could almost break Bakugou’s heart if he had any time for that kind of bullshit.

“You’ve been seen leaving the same building on mornings, are you living together?” the short man tries again. And this… Bakugou ticks at this. What kind of question is it?

“Yes,” he barks, and a fire immediately lights up in the man’s eyes. The sight is sickening – it’s only a word, it’s only a yes but Bakugou’s already said too much. He turns around and starts walking away in long strides – the kids gasp when he passes them. But it’s too late, a leech being what it is, the man with navy blue hair trots behind him.

“Did you make – ah – did you make this decision because you – aah Ground Zero sir, please wait – because you weren’t able to live alone after – after the dorms?” he heaves, obviously having a hard time keeping up with Bakugou’s power walk.

Whatever bothered Bakugou earlier is back with a vengeance; he doesn’t know why but something bubbles in his throat – unable to live alone? Is this hyena talking about him? Or about the both of them, together? Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to think about it.

He whips around and the man almost falls back in surprise. “No, it’s because the rents are too damn high in this city,” he growls, pointing an accusatory finger at the guy.

He’s not lying when he says the rents are too high.

“Kaminari’s inviting us to the bar tomorrow, you wanna go?”

Bakugou puts away a dry plate into a cupboard and takes the wet one Kirishima’s handing to him. “Dunno,” he grumbles, “who’s gonna be there?”

Wrist deep in hot water, Kirishima scrubs a couple of knives clean. “Not sure, probably the whole gang to be honest. Pretty sure Sero’s coming, Ashido too, Iiida will be there and Uraraka said she would think about it.”

Bakugou doesn’t answer, making sure the plate is entirely dry before he puts it away too, and takes the knives from Kirishima. He doesn’t look mad, or defensive at the idea of being asked to go out, but he’s definitely not enthusiastic.

“I just thought that’d be cool,” Kirishima shrugs, smiling. “It’s been a while since we last saw them.” He turns off the tap, puts his sponge away and grabs another towel to dry his hands, resting his hip against the sink to face Bakugou.

“You saw them last week,” Bakugou says without bite, and he puts the knives away too. He’s still not looking at Kirishima though; something about it doesn’t sit right with Kirishima but he can’t put his finger on it. There’s just something in the way Bakugou looks down, in his collected way to brush off the invitation, that makes Kirishima want to ask questions.

Bakugou closes the drawer and leans forward to pull out the plug of the sink; the piping gargles comically but it’s not loud enough to distract Kirishima from the sigh Bakugou lets out right then, into his breathing space and close to the skin of his neck. The physicality isn’t a problem, it’s hasn’t been for ages now. Kirishima’s hugged the guy before and he’ll do it again, he knows what Bakugou’s sighs feel like against the crook of his shoulder, he knows the solid wood of his back muscles, he knows what it’s like to have their ribs pressed against each other’s. He could tell Bakugou’s scent in a crowd, he could describe the color of his hair as seen from up close to a blind person, he’s learned it all. He could map the scars of his hands and trace lines between the moles on his back and Bakugou wouldn’t stop him.

Kirishima knows this is why he gets to stand in this kitchen, why Bakugou doesn’t push him away to reach for something. He’s been taught every line in this book, he could read Bakugou with his eyes closed and there’s no doubt that if he swung his arm around Bakugou’s shoulders and pulled him in right now, Bakugou would let him do it.

He also knows it’s why Bakugou looks so pretty under all kinds of suns. The sight is too familiar, it’s too easy to bask in. Bakugou’s jaw is sharper than when they met, he’s grown taller, broader, his voice has dropped deeper but he never stopped being gorgeous. There’s something to him other people seem to be blind to; gleaming like a thousand jewels sitting in the light, he outshines the moon herself. Their closeness, the bond nothing could break is why Kirishima’s here and it’s also why he can’t take his eyes off Bakugou at times.

Kirishima called it admiration for years – he wishes he still could.

He snaps out of it when Bakugou takes the kitchen towel out of his hands. “You’re spacing out again,” Bakugou says as he spreads the towels on the counter so they can dry. “What’s been bothering you so goddamn much lately, uh?”

The worry is one of these new things too. Well, maybe it’s not worry, maybe it’s tact or misplaced curiosity, but in Bakugou’s mouth it sounds the same.

“I’m just sleepy,” Kirishima admits. “But think about Kaminari’s invitation, yeah? It’d do you some good to see people,” he adds, detaching himself from the counter to make his way to the TV.

Behind him, Bakugou snorts. “What does that mean?”

Kirishima bends to turn on their Wii then sits on the couch. “You haven’t been really social lately,” he says, and he knows Bakugou can hear the smirk he’s wearing. As proof, Bakugou comes to fall on the couch with all his weight. He shifts, crosses his legs; one of his knees his in Kirishima’s lap and he looks determined to get the last word out this conversation.

“I’m very social, what the fuck are you going on about?” The spark of challenge has been ignited and there is little out there that could stomp it out.

Kirishima quirks a brow. “You haven’t seen anyone outside of work in over two weeks, Bakugou.”

“I see you,” Bakugou retorts immediately. “I see you every night. And every morning.”

And the way he says it, so simply, stripped bare, it hits Kirishima in the chest without warning. I see you every night, Bakugou just said, as if that were enough. As if that were all that could matter. As if he couldn’t understand how, how in the world could anyone think he’d need more than to hear Kirishima open the front door.

He’s not fair.

“Aaaaww man, I love you too,” Kirishima beams after a beat, smiling so wide he almost hides in his cheeks.

Bakugou blinks. There’s a trace of eyeliner at the base of his lashes that makes his stare heavy with something Kirishima tries to ignore.

Twisting around, Bakugou pulls two controllers out from between pillows. “You won’t once I beat your ass,” he warns before handing one to Kirishima and pushing his back further into the couch. He shifts and tries to sit more comfortably; his notion of comfort includes having his side pressed against Kirishima’s, their thighs overlapping, their shoulders moving together with their breathing.

Kirishima doesn’t think about it.

“But really, you should come tomorrow. They’d be happy to see you,” he says when Bakugou turns on the TV.

“And I’d be happy to have a long night of sleep.”

“Bakugou –”

“I know.”

There he goes again, looking away. Kirishima can see the shadow of his own profile on Bakugou’s face, but the sun still filters through his eyes, scarlet. There’s something off about his expression; his lids are heavy, his scowl is soft, he doesn’t try to look closed off or cold. He just lets himself be and relaxes against Kirishima with a heavy sigh, and Kirishima knows he can’t ask for much more. This is as gentle as it gets for Bakugou; it’s rare, as precious and difficult to hold on to as a handful of rubies, so Kirishima lets it happen.

The title screen appears with a chime.

“Alright,” Kirishima gives in, “just let me know if you change your mind.”

Bakugou hums in answer, blinks slowly and it stirs something up in the gaps between Kirishima’s ribs. The vibrations make something coil around his lungs and into every chamber of his heart; Bakugou certainly doesn’t feel it but Kirishima could swear he’s about to choke and he can’t explain why. A force takes roots in the core of his chest, thin enough to slither in his veins and around his bones – it pushes deeper with every second Kirishima spends looking at Bakugou instead of focusing on the game but if something must sprout of him, if something must bud in his trachea and bloom out of his open mouth, then so be it. It’s tight like wraps, like tentacles, like a whole tree’s rooting inside of him in the suspended space between breaths and is yearning to sprout out and catch the light too.

Bakugou nudges his shoulder with his own and Kirishima blinks out of it.

“You better focus, if I lose just because you can’t keep your eyes on the screen you’re doing the laundry for the next two weeks.”

Kirishima turns to the screen. “Oh, so like, once.”

Bakugou shoves him away. “You’re so fucking gross,” he growls, but Kirishima laughs it off and pushes himself back up and against Bakugou just before the first kart race starts.

Dusk catches them by surprise not long after they started playing but neither of them moves to turn on a light; they stay huddled on the couch and promise one another they’ll go to bed soon. They don’t, and the more time passes, the less Kirishima feels like he could ever get out of this couch for the roots that have grown in his chest keep him anchored right by Bakugou’s side.

Heavy rain falls against the large window in a cacophony, pushed back and forth by an angry wind that whistles in the pipes of the apartment building. Even sunrise doesn’t help; the sky’s grey, muted, the light smothered by thick clouds. Water gargles in the gutters and splashes on the sidewalks. The few people who are already out trot from shelter to shelter, their umbrellas useless in the wind. Still, the city hums awake, slowly, inexorably.

The old heaters do their best and even in these cold mornings, Kirishima walks barefoot out of his bedroom. It takes him a while to truly feel awake but his hands know the way and work for him: first the rice, then the eggs, then the meat. It’s not haute cuisine but it’s enough this early in the morning. Hunched over the kitchen table, his head in his palm, he manages to get out of his trance slowly while breakfast gently sizzles over the pan. He could watch rain fall all day.

He’s awake enough to mumble a “g’morning” when Bakugou walks past him but it takes him almost a minute to realize, long after Bakugou grunted something back and hid away in the bathroom, that his roommate must have discovered the joys of sleeping naked.

Breakfast suddenly becomes fascinating.

Bakugou wasn’t like this in the dorms, or at least Kirishima never saw him this at ease, unabashed. His boldness had always translated into barks and punches, not into pajamas forgotten at the bottom of a drawer and his naked body strolling around for everyone to see. Not like he had anything to be ashamed of.

Still, the more he thinks about it, the less Kirishima can pinpoint when Bakugou became like this. Would he have grown into the same man if he was sharing this apartment with anyone else? Kirishima’s not sure, but he knows he’s the one who gets to watch Bakugou rub his eyes over his breakfast or stretch his arms while he looks outside the window. It’s over his shoulder that Bakugou looks when he wants to take a peak at the local newspaper, and it’s with him that he shares the bathroom when they have to get ready for work. It’s him who finds Bakugou’s eyeliner when he loses it and when Bakugou mutters a low “thank you”, it’s Kirishima who gets to wonder when was the last time Bakugou called him names.

Saturdays might be the best.

It’s good to wake up late and walk around with a toothbrush when the apartment has already been warmed up by the sun. It’s good not to care about being late for work – but Bakugou might still go out, even though he’s not on call. He’ll find time to go training in the afternoon, or maybe he’ll just unwind punching Kirishima’s sandbag. He hasn’t quite decided yet.

He’d start cooking lunch but Kirishima’s out to buy groceries and their cupboards are pathetically empty, so he pulls out his laptop and goes to sit on the couch instead. Munching on a carrot he found at the bottom of their fridge, he starts to mindlessly scroll through social media feeds that are all more boring than one another before remembering he doesn’t give a shit about any of it. When he switches to a news website, there isn’t much that catches his eyes either – a headline about recent floods in the south, a feature about this orphanage specialized in taking care of children left behind after a tragedy, a couple of articles about some foreign war… And in the corner of a page, a picture of Red Riot.

It’s small enough that Bakugou can’t make out the details of his smile but there’s no doubt about it, Kirishima is beaming at the camera.

He can’t remember Kirishima telling him anything about an article being written about him though. Out of curiosity – and nothing else – Bakugou clicks on it.

The written portrait is short but daring, meet Red Riot, one of the prodigies freshly out of UA! Bakugou scans over the typical why did you decide to become a hero? and what’s your favorite part of the job? questions; he’s already heard Kirishima answer these ones a thousand times and he’s not about to read about him say “oh I’m here to help people!” once more.

Bakugou bites off one more bit of carrot and scrolls down. The interviewer grew bolder as the questions went on; have you ever been the one in need of rescue?, would you ever form a team with your former classmates?, and in every answer Kirishima shines with class and enthusiasm. Bakugou has to admit Kirishima could teach him a thing or two about communication and public relationships – if he cared about that enough to ask. Then again, Kirishima is probably answering this way without thinking about how to seem like a good hero – he just is like that, all smiles and kindness at every point in time.

Bakugou remembers finding it annoying as hell; he grew out of it over time. Watching Kirishima smile helped.

At the end of the column, the interviewer slipped in one last question which probably wasn’t on their list; rumors say that you and Ground Zero could be more than friends, could you comment on that?

Bakugou blinks. What kind of question is that? Rumors, which rumors? He might not be in touch with what people say online or in the streets and he couldn’t find the energy to care even if he wanted to, but that’s a first. Who could even feel the need to ask this kind of stupid ass question – is it because they know that he and Kirishima share an apartment? Is it what it takes to be suspected to be a couple? Fucking hell, their journalistic standards are low.

Of course, Kirishima answered, and Bakugou can hear his smile through the screen, we’ve known each other for years! You could say we’re more than just friends, he’s my best friend after all. I wouldn’t be here without him!

Bakugou shoves the rest of his carrot in his mouth.

He can’t tell what’s worse: the fact that Kirishima answered this question so positively or that it was such a predictable answer from him. Of course Kirishima would answer that way. Of course he’d say my best friend, as if Bakugou hadn’t already made abundantly clear he wouldn’t behave like that with anyone else, as though there was no room for a we’re best friends. And of course, on top of it all, he’d be enough of a light head to forget to deny any romantic involvement, and that’s truly the worst.

Bakugou aggressively chews on his carrot. That’s truly the worst and he doesn’t want to think about the reasons why.

If he had been asked this question, he’d have bit off the mic out of the interviewer’s hand and their fingers with it. He’d have made clear that no one asks these questions to Ground Zero – he and Red Riot? More than friends? Ridiculous. Worth an outrage. Absurd to the core.

He swallows. If he’d been the one asked to answer, he wouldn’t have stayed calm and composed. He wouldn’t have looked at the interviewer in the eyes and found reasons to say yes. Of course he wouldn’t have. That’s stupid. Even for money, he wouldn’t have played into this game. No, he’d have called out the interviewer for being this invasive, and nothing would have given him pause, nothing would have made him hesitate and choose his words; not the knowledge that his reaction would be broadcasted, not the thought of what Kirishima would say, not the years of memories they made together.

Certainly not the bubble between his two lungs, inflating by the second. Certainly not all this water he feels like he’s drowning in, pooling in his chest, expanding every time he re-reads Kirishima’s answer – was he aware of it before? Of the weight, the momentum of it, of this pulsing force twisting in his insides?

Is it new?

We’ve known each other for years! Yeah, for years, and nothing had really changed. They might have grown and learned, but they stayed the same, barging into rooms together, spending late nights in each other’s company; red and gold, blinding with the strength they give each other, they’ve always been like this.

You could say we’re more than just friends.

Bakugou stares at the sentence printed on his screen and for a few seconds forgets how to exhale. The bubble in his chest grows larger, pulses faster, pushes farther; there’s nothing off about this answer and he hates it. Yeah, yeah he has to admit, one could say they’re more than just friends. It’s not wrong. It’s not a lie. He wouldn’t have put it this way during an interview but it’s technically right – and he hates it.

They’ve always been more than just friends.

Kirishima has always been the exception, the social anchor Bakugou has clung to, the lone soldier in no man’s land. He’s always been there; after a few months of warming up to each other, Bakugou’s always returned the favor. They’ve been through Hell and back together. Of course they’re best friends, of course they’re more than friends; who wouldn’t be?

Bakugou blinks; the bubble shivers and trembles, pushing up against the back of his throat. There’s a lie in there somewhere. There’s something that keeps him from looking away, something that swims in wide circles in the lake between his ribs. A creature of the depths coming up to tease the surface, roaming and rumbling through the waves, so large it pushes ripples all the way up Bakugou’s spine. Something Bakugou can’t quite put his finger on, something blurry that slips between his fingers like a muddy eel. There’s something nested in the years of red and gold thriving side by side, in Bakugou being unable to set his train of thoughts on any coherent tracks, in more than friends.

Because if they’re not more than friends, he wants them to be.

He wants them to be.

And just like that, Bakugou understands something.

The bubble pops.

The front door opens and Kirishima enters, shuffling around with bags full of groceries, but Bakugou can’t turn around and say hi; he’s terrified of what he’ll see if he does, of what else he’ll learn. Just thinking about it is dizzying, or maybe it’s because he can’t control his breath properly, maybe because his heart hasn’t been beating right for years and he only just noticed. Kirishima closes the door and now he’s in the hallway and Bakugou can only stare at his picture on the screen, at his smile he knows by heart – it’s the same it’s always been, for years, and that pinch has always been there, and that rumbling in the water has always been there, and that monster finally breaching the surface isn’t new either. How has he been breathing this whole time – was it always this hard, was it always this loud?

“I’m back!”

And if he had never truly looked at Kirishima until now, he doesn’t have much of a choice today; when he turns around, Kirishima’s there the same way he’s always been, the same man in the same body, and he beams with the same solar intensity, making his way to the fridge so casually. He faces the window and the light should say thank you, for it couldn’t find another canvas as fitting as Kirishima’s face; his hair is down, framing his beautiful face in a cascade of ruby and peach, and Bakugou can’t help but wonder if he’s been blind to all shades of red until now.

“What’s up man?” Kirishima asks the way he always has, and Bakugou hears himself mutter something in answer but he can’t tell what. His voice shouldn’t work properly, there’s no air left in his body; he’s only lake, lake and uncharted depths he wasn’t aware of, lake and the pulsing, furiously beating heart he never listened to. There he is, stuffing meat in the fridge, his more than friend. There he is, kneeling to reach the groceries better, and he moves and breathes as though it was an easy thing to do, he just is right there, in the same room – the audacity of it all.

“Ah you finished the carrots,” Kirishima chirps, his head behind the fridge door. “I thought so, I got you some more.”

Bakugou wishes he could find something to say but he’s stuck on the couch and doesn’t know how to stop watching him, the boy he always had by his side turned man he never knew he wanted. He feels like he should take a picture so he could look at it later and understand why, why now, why all this – but it’s useless. He doesn’t need to capture the moment. Kirishima’s sleeping here tonight, and he’s sleeping here tomorrow, and he’ll be sleeping here until they both move on. He’ll have breakfast ready by the time Bakugou leaves the bathroom and he’ll beat his ass more often than not at Mario Kart; he’ll laugh and laugh and laugh and Bakugou will be there to watch it all.

They’ll always be more than just friends.

So Bakugou stays silent and sits there, and there’s a lot to what he doesn’t say; Kirishima rambles about what they could do this weekend and Bakugou listens instead of stopping him to object, looks instead of ignoring him to find something else to do, breathes slowly instead of admitting I just realized I’m in love with you.

Chapter Text

Kirishima manages to drag Bakugou out of their apartment from time to time. Bakugou protests and complains about the cold he doesn’t tolerate, or how much of an annoyance it is to walk through crowds, but Kirishima can feel him relax when they find their friends around a table. There’s always a couple of empty chairs, always someone to say here you are!, or there, sit down, we were waiting for you guys. Kirishima’s grateful every time.

They always have questions, how was your week?, have you seen what happened?, wanna go bowling on Friday? and Kirishima always answers for two. It’s easy to say we when Bakugou puts his straw in Kirishima’s glass or rolls his eyes before paying for that extra side piece Kirishima didn’t bring enough cash for. Sometimes it only takes one look at each other to know what to answer, one what do you say, wanna go bowling? look, and Kirishima knows how to read Bakugou’s flat stare as a yeah, because that’s what friends do.

Kirishima stills smells like smoke when he comes back home.

His taxi dropped him off at the entrance of the apartment complex so he wouldn’t have to walk through these streets alone. There was nothing to feel in the backseat; not the cold of the winter, not the warmth of the leather. Buildings waltzed past the window but he couldn’t focus on a thing, and maybe he closed his eyes at some point. He’s not sure. He doesn’t know much, he only floats through it.

He didn’t feel the elevator move but he somehow landed in front of the door, somehow opened it, somehow managed to close it behind him. Holding onto the wall, he takes his boots off – he’d take his mask off too, if it was still there. His hand leaves a black stain on the wall when he pulls back. He sighs; he’ll clean it later. He’ll do better later.

It’s not Bakugou’s head that peaks out from behind the corner of the kitchen, its all of him; Bakugou walks up to him hurriedly, closing the distance between them in only a few strides. Kirishima would usually smile and tease him about his choice of apron but tonight he doesn’t feel like it – he doesn’t feel like anything. It’s all so empty, the apartment so small, his breaths so shallow. There isn’t much anywhere, there isn’t even much to himself – he just is and it’s already too much of a task.

“Kirishima.”

He looks up. There may not be much but there’s Bakugou.

“Bakugou, I –”

“I heard.”

There’s a waver to his voice, a weakness showing through two short syllables that makes Kirishima swallow, but it’s nothing compared to Bakugou’s face. He’s scanning him so fast Kirishima has a hard time knowing what he’s looking at. His jaw clenches and relaxes in spasms that do not deserve to be there and even with the backlight, there’s no denying the expression on his face is clearly worried. Kirishima inhales sharply; all he smells is the burnt vapor of a collapsed building. He tried his best but there’s still ash all over his pants and his lips taste like soot, black and bitter. It’s so cold in this apartment, it’s freezing compared to the roaring hell he stepped out of, but he might as well have left part of himself back in the flames for all he knows.

Bakugou grabs his wrist. “Come on, Kirishima,” he says softly, “sit down.”

He lets Bakugou guide him to the kitchen and pull the chairs from under the table; they sit in front of each other and Bakugou scoots closer. He tweaks something around Kirishima’s shoulder and manages to get his pads loose. Kirishima watches him pull the gears off his arms and dropping them to the floor without much of an afterthought. He doesn’t really feel it, as though these arms weren’t his own. It’s a weird out of body experience he can’t seem to blink out of.

Focused, Bakugou brings his hands to the edges of Kirishima’s sleeves and starts taking them off too. The fabric is torn, the padding pouring out from between the seams, and Bakugou slips one off his arm slowly, one inch at a time. Kirishima lets him do it, bending his arm so it’s easier. Bakugou’s fingers do not shake. They’re not cold, they’re not forceful.

Bakugou’s careful in a rare way that makes Kirishima want to collapse against him.

“Did you see a medic?”

There’s a pause until Kirishima realizes he has to speak up if he wants to be heard. “Yeah,” he breathes.

“Did they find anything?” Bakugou presses, but he still doesn’t sound angry.

Kirishima shakes his head. Bakugou looks up at him and pulls his first sleeve of his arm; it tugs at his skin a bit, he’s sweated so much. The sleeve falls to the floor before Bakugou shifts to work on the other one. The fabric tears more, breaking open in places, but Bakugou doesn’t seem to care. Down the arm and around the elbow, he pulls this sleeve off too. The skin under is smooth and clean. There might be a few bruises here and there in the morning but tonight, there’s nothing to worry about.

Kirishima can’t remember what worry feels like anyway.

The other sleeve falls to the floor as well and Bakugou straightens up. With one hand, he holds Kirishima’s shoulder still and with the other, he makes him turn his face to make sure there’s no blood, no scratches, nothing scary anywhere. Kirishima knows this look on his face; it’s the one he wears when he’s bracing for something, mouth closed, brows furrowed. After making sure there’s nothing, Bakugou takes his hands away – there’s dust all over his palms but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Does Amajiki know you’re here?” he asks.

Kirishima nods. “He’s the one who sent me home.”

“Good,” Bakugou nods too, “good.”

He looks at Kirishima in the eyes and something seeps out of him slowly; it’s like he forgets how to talk too, like his words escape him entirely because the sigh he lets out was definitely meant to push something out of him. His stare jumps from one eye to the other, left, right, left, right; Kirishima just sits there and watches him be swallowed whole by a wave of something. It’s not often that Bakugou’s overwhelmed and he’s sure that in other circumstances, he’d find something to say about it – not tonight. Not tonight.

Bakugou blinks then stands up. Kirishima can’t find the energy to follow him with his eyes; still, he hears the clink of glasses and the tap running. A few seconds later, Bakugou hands him one of two filled glasses.

“Here,” he says when he sits back down. “Water.”

Kirishima mumbles some thanks and takes the glass. He can feel Bakugou’s stare all over him and it’d usually make him feel some sort of way but he can’t find it in himself to feel, at all. The glass is cold too, solid – it doesn’t crumble, it doesn’t fall to pieces when he squeezes it, touching it doesn’t sting and burn. The light reflects in it, throwing a kaleidoscope in the floor and over the discarded sleeves, painting blinding touches of cream on them. Kirishima could find it pretty.

Bakugou leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “You should take a shower,” he says, nudging one of Kirishima’s knees with his own.

“I know,” Kirishima croaks, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to. He can feel the cramps settling in his muscles and he doesn’t want to have to fight them. He can feel a weight on his shoulders he’s not ready to carry; he doesn’t want to deal with this, with any of this.

And here in the kitchen, there’s Bakugou. There’s his anchor. If he goes in the shower, he’ll be alone; it’ll be him and the tiles, him and the racing thoughts between his ears, digging graves in the dirt of his mind so he can go bury himself there when self-hate finds him. But here? Here it’s fine. Here’s there’s no fog, no smoke. He doesn’t want to talk about it – he wouldn’t even find the words – but he knows there’s no need to. Just a couple of minutes of silence and proximity, that’s all he needs. Just a space to breathe in, to learn how to think again, to get over this afternoon that stretched out for eons. By Bakugou’s side and in front of him, that’s where he knows he can break down. They’ll find a way to pull him back together.

“Kirishima, look at me,” Bakugou’s voice comes again. Reluctantly, Kirishima looks up.

“You did what you had to do,” Bakugou continues, “and if anyone gives you shit for it, I’ll make them swallow their fucking teeth for you.” Something glimmers in his eyes and it’s not the setting sun – a promise.

Only Bakugou knows how to pull a smile out of Kirishima solely by using death threats. It pulls on his heart too but Kirishima can’t contain a lopsided grin. He tilts his head to the side and he’s not strong enough to laugh but he knows Bakugou hears it anyway. It’s all over the wash of relief on his face, in these lines relaxing around his eyes, this here you are he doesn’t say.

Bakugou lifts his glass just a bit so it’s between them. “To your first time,” he says as an invitation. He doesn’t need to say which first time – first time coming back home in one piece when he very well could have not, first time breaking down in their kitchen.

First of many, most likely.

Warmth floods Kirishima’s chest; that’s how Bakugou is kind. It’s fleeting, it may not be much to those who don’t know where to look, but his faith in him is what makes Kirishima admit he’ll be fine. As long as he has him right here, bent forward into his personal space, Kirishima could go through a hundred fires and back. As long as Bakugou’s knee always finds a way between his thighs, as long as Bakugou lets him scoots so close they could rest on each other’s shoulder, Kirishima will be fine.

Having someone like him makes everything easier. It’s a cozy place to be, right under this canopy they grow for each other.

He looks at Bakugou in the eyes. “To my first.” Their glasses clink softly and they drink it all in one go; it’s silent for a second, for two, then they gasp together. Bakugou has water dripping down his chin when he puts his glass down on the table. He’s not smiling when he turns back to Kirishima, but almost.

Kirishima feels again.

He’s back in his body and here he finds the roots again, wrapping around his heart lovingly, and some leaves sprouting open in the back of his throat; it’s a whole tree growing this time, stronger and thicker than before, its branches spreading through Kirishima’s lungs. It’s Bakugou knowing he’ll be fine, sitting here in their kitchen, isolated form the noise outside. It’s good enough.

Kirishima hopes it’s good enough for Bakugou as well.

“Has it happened to you?” he asks, his voice still raspy.

Bakugou looks at him for an instant, but he doesn’t ask. A hand running through his hair, he leans back into his chair. “Not yet.” And there’s no expectation in his voice, nothing that sounds like he’s looking forward to it. He takes Kirishima’s glass out of his hand and sets it on the table; Kirishima lets him.

“When it does, will you tell me?”

Bakugou looks at him. When it does, because it will, there’s no way around that. Because it will and Kirishima would curse himself if Bakugou didn’t let himself be helped. He wants to be there too, to help him go through the mental images and the sounds and the smells. It’s the best he can do.

Bakugou sighs. “Yeah, idiot.” It sounds like of course, it feels like why do you ask but Kirishima smiles. He’s part of Bakugou’s healing process and it might be just what he needed to hear.

“Go take that shower,” Bakugou insists, shaking his knee between Kirishima’s. “You’re disgusting.”

Kirishima still doesn’t really want to leave, but the shower seems less scary now. As long as he has a breathing space like this one to come back to, it’s okay. He stands up with a groan and Bakugou watches him without trying to hide it.

“Just don’t use up all the hot water, alright,” he grunts. “I’m gonna warm up some leftovers, so hurry up.”

Kirishima smiles weakly. “Sure, give me five minutes.”

He ends up taking more than five minutes but it’s not really his fault, and Bakugou will understand anyway. This time he barely has to do any guessing to find the right temperature, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t mind it colder than usual. The water cascades over his shoulders and along the small of his back, down his cramping legs, bringing down all the dirt with it. He finds a tile and fixates on it, letting his eyes glaze over as he focuses on relaxing his shoulders and emptying his mind for good. It’s probably what an exorcism feels like, like ashes and embers going down a drain to leave a blank slate behind.

He finds an old shirt and some sweatpants in his room and joins Bakugou in the main room. Bakugou’s simply been waiting for him while something warms up in a pan. He has his back turned to Kirishima, the light giving him this crown that fits him so well, and Kirishima feels better just by looking at him. This view alone is worth coming back home in one piece. Bakugou has this body Kirishima knows by heart, this aura he constantly looks for, this presence warm as a bonfire. This is where home is, in Bakugou’s slow breathing, in the back of this neck Kirishima wants to kiss, in these hands that always find a way to make it all better. Like a thief alone in a throne room, Kirishima pauses for a second just to contemplate his luck, to soak in the beauty of it all. All that gold and all that glow – in this apartment it’s not much, the white of the walls has badly aged, the stove doesn’t shine, but Kirishima feels it around him all the same. It’s all his to bask in and it’s all thanks to Bakugou.

When he snaps out of it, it’s to come behind Bakugou and rest his chin on his shoulder. “Need any help?”

Bakugou doesn’t shrug; he turns his head a bit instead. “Nah, ‘s good.” His temple comes to lean against Kirishima’s forehead and he stays there for a beat. Kirishima watches him blink a couple of times. From this up close, he can see a trio of fine scars on Bakugou’s nose; they’re usually only visible with his summer tan, but even in winter they’re still there. Kirishima traced them with a finger once, and Bakugou had said nothing of it. He kind of wants to do it again, for longer this time.

He could, since it’s a thing that friends do.

They end up finishing the leftovers together and Bakugou insists Kirishima takes all the meat. They’re wise enough to not turn the TV on and watch the local news while they eat; Bakugou’s the one who talks the most for once. He rambles endlessly about his day, about that duo of heroes he met, about this burglar he caught and this aspiring hero he signed an autograph for. There’s little that seems to slow him down once he decides to not let Kirishima think but Kirishima’s not blind. He sees Bakugou checking on him constantly, he sees these furtive gazes scanning his face, looking for a stutter in his hands, making sure he doesn’t breathe too fast. He sees Bakugou care and every detail he catches pulls him farther away from today’s events and closer to Bakugou’s face, on the other side of the table.

And Bakugou refuses to leave him be; he sticks to Kirishima on the couch, as though he wanted to always be able to measure his pulse or hear his sighs. Kirishima doesn’t mind one bit and Bakugou makes the best out of it. They move often, bending into whatever feels comfortable as long as they can see the game on the screen, but there’s always a leg over another, or a back into a chest, or arms tangled into each other and faces close, closer.

They’re simply leaning against each other when Bakugou inhales to speak. “You should go to bed early,” he says flatly as they wait through a loading screen. “Get some actual rest.”

Kirishima nods against his shoulder. “Yeah, I know.” He doesn’t make a move to leave though.

He doesn’t want to go, not yet, and Bakugou seems to understand. It’s too good here, it’s too cozy of a place, it’s warm in the right way. His bed is nice but it’s not as nice as Bakugou’s shoulder and his chest rising and falling slowly. It’s not as good as his scent that makes Kirishima forget he ever smelled thick smoke, neither is it as delightful as the noises he makes without trying when he plays – a hum, a groan, a wince. There’s little that could compare to feeling at home in the crook of Bakugou’s body; there’s nothing better, at all, than to understand that if Kirishima’s here, it’s most likely because the feeling’s reciprocated.

In Kirishima’s chest blooms a forest hiding behind a single tree, a fresh lung humming with comfort. It’s not a couple of roots, it’s not covered in dirt and dust; it’s a canopy as bright and bedazzled as a tiara of emeralds, a kind cover against worse days.

It’s Bakugou against him tonight, and the knowledge he’ll be here tomorrow too.

When they turn off the TV, they’re not in a rush to leave the couch. They stay in the dark for a minute, making sure they’re there; themselves, each other. Kirishima doesn’t want to sleep. Sleeping takes a while and it’s lonely, especially when you have a whole circle of Hell in recent memory. He doesn’t want to go and Bakugou lets him take the time he needs. He won’t always be like that so Kirishima appreciates his silence for what it must be: acceptance, understanding, and maybe even a bit of compassion.

There are things he wishes he could say but it’d break the silence and disrupt Bakugou’s calm breathing.

It’d probably be thank yous and I owe yous, but if he starts talking now, it’ll turn to other words too fast. He’d probably try to make it casual or hide behind a joke; he did it before, he’ll do it again. All these if you continue I’m going to kiss you, these oh man marry me he blurts out when he doesn’t know how to smile any wider, these I love yous that sound bittersweet in his head and so easy on his tongue – he knows how to do it. But tonight he can’t really joke, and he can’t really make it light. If he used you and I in the same sentence, he’d be unable to make it sound like he doesn’t mean it.

He can’t remember who said good night first. All he knows is that Bakugou’s door closed before his – he knows because he got to watch Bakugou turn his back to him and disappear in a sliver of light. He got to feel a sting first, a squeeze then, crushing his heart for an instant as he stood unable to take his eyes off the handle. He got to stand in the corridor, their corridor, and in spite of everything, he got to think of doing things friends do not do, of opening the door and say things friends do not say.

The only thing he does is close his own door too. His blankets are cold but he doesn’t mind it; it starts raining before midnight but he doesn’t hear it.

“Kirishima.”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing.”

“Watering them,” Kirishima says simply, pouring water in the pots of three small succulents.

Bakugou rubs the bridge of his nose. “Since when do we have plants?” he sighs.

Kirishima puts down the bottle of water he was using and turns one of the pots slightly. They look good on the window sill, all three of them lined up cleanly. “Since I found them,” he smiles. “I thought the room could use a bit more color.”

Bakugou scoffs. “You’re a walking red light already,” he smirks, “we don’t need more color.”

Kirishima ignores the sarcasm and takes a few steps back to look at their new plants from a distance. “They don’t require much, don’t worry,” he assures. “I like them.”

Bakugou steps forward to stand by his side. He’s quiet for a moment, contemplating the view. He doesn’t seem annoyed or even surprised, but Kirishima can tell he’s thinking.

“Yeah,” Bakugou breathes eventually, slipping his hands in his pockets. “Me too.”

Kirishima’s voice calls from the living room. “There’s this old movie on TV tonight, wanna watch it?”

Bakugou takes his time to fold a pair of pants properly and hang it in his wardrobe before answering. “’S gonna be boring as hell,” he groans loudly enough for Kirishima to hear him.

“Come on,” Kirishima comes again, his voice a bit muffled, “it looks cool.”

Bakugou rolls his eyes. Yeah, Kirishima finds everything older than him cool as shit. Of course he’d love to watch something filmed before he was born.

Bakugou grabs a shirt from the laundry basket and folds it too. It’s black so it must be his; then again, he’s seen Kirishima wear black recently too. It looked out of place on him and he could have bought a larger size, but Bakugou has to admit Kirishima can pull off a tight shirt.

He finishes taking care of his clothes, takes the basket and leaves it in front of Kirishima’s bedroom door. In the living room, he finds Kirishima sprawled with all his length over the couch, head to one side and feet to the other. His sweatpants fit him better than the shorts he tried to wear last Sunday and he’s wearing another black shirt. Bakugou can’t put his finger on it but Kirishima looks really good; maybe it’s his feline attitude, unfolded lazily on their old couch, or his hair he tied into a messy bun that gives him this model off duty-look.

“I left your laundry in front of your door,” he grumbles, making his way around the couch. He takes Kirishima’s ankles and lifts his feet, sits on the couch then puts Kirishima’s calves back down over his lap.

“Mmmthanks,” Kirishima mumbles. “See, look at this.” He fumbles around with the remote controller and switches channels until he finds an old black and white movie. The picture quality isn’t really good and the sound’s even worse; the actors’ voices seem to be coming from behind four layers of foam and crinkling paper. It has an underwater vibe to it; it’s so alien to the current times, but it’s oddly mesmerizing.

“Wanna watch it?” Kirishima mumbles again. Bakugou puts his hands over Kirishima’s calves, since he can’t put them on his lap directly, and mindlessly rolls the fabric of Kirishima’s sweatpants between his fingers.

“What’s it about?” he asks.

Kirishima blinks. “Not sure. Spies, I think.”

Bakugou sighs. It’s not like there’s much else anyway, and Kirishima seems to really want to watch it. Oh well.

“As long as there’s some ass-kicking, yeah,” he shrugs, and he sees the corner of Kirishima’s mouth curl in a smile.

Turns out, it’s not really about spies.

Bakugou has a hard time following the plot. It’s too convoluted and it tries to be too many things at once. The direction’s not stellar and even though the actors are good, some of them are hard to tell from each other. All the men wear the same suits, sport the same haircut, look pretty much the same with the exception of the occasional mustache. Without the colors it should be easier to rely on voices, but they speak a foreign language that subs probably don’t do justice to. Bakugou catches a family drama and a double agent subplot but it’s all blurry, and having missed the first ten minutes must not be helping.

It’s kind of boring, to be honest. He was right.

But Kirishima can’t take his eyes off the screen, so there must be a beauty to it. He’s such a good audience, so eager to be surprised and transported, Bakugou tells himself the movie mustn’t be as horrible as he thought. And yeah it’s fucking slow, like they never learned how to skip from one scene to another without looking into the camera for five full minutes before that, and yeah the special effects are goddamn laughable.

But Kirishima likes it.

When he pays attention, Bakugou can kind of see why. The black and white forces them to work on the light a lot more; there’s a play on the contrasts, on sheer fabrics and dancing rays of light. Maybe that’s why Kirishima likes it so much. Or maybe it’s the suits – he always fawns over this kind of thing, even though his own fashion sense is disastrous. Or maybe it’s an actor in particular; Bakugou’s suddenly hit by the idea that yeah, maybe it’s an actor. Maybe Kirishima had a crush on one of them, on the tall guy with the shiny shoes, on the beautiful lady with the short hair.

Whatever it is, it keeps Kirishima still, blinking slowly at the screen, almost drooling on his shirt.

Wait. That’s not his shirt.

“You fucking stole my shirt?!” Bakugou accuses him, voice growling.

Kirishima turns his head to him. “Huh?” He’s acting all innocent, the idiot, but Bakugou knows better; this specific shirt, with this specific collar, that’s he’s been looking for all around the place for a week? No fucking doubt. How could he have not noticed earlier?

“That’s my shirt you dumbass, what the hell,” he sighs, and he’s halfway tempted to take it off Kirishima right here and now but – no. Bad idea. Very bad idea. “Find an outfit in your own pile of clothes, for fuck’s sake.”

Kirishima blinks, apparently not getting it. He looks so out of it; he stares at Bakugou for a couple of seconds before grabbing the hem of the shirt and looking at it, as if the black fabric was going to tell him “nu-uh, I’m not yours”. How does he remember to pay his half of the rent, sometimes Bakugou wonders.

After a beat, Kirishima’s eyes widen and finally, he gets it. He goes from Bakugou’s face to the shirt and back, looking for his words, but all he manages is a guilty smile. Bakugou pats his calf. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

Kirishima beams. “Sorry, probably some laundry mix up.”

To be fair, it’s possible. Kirishima does have at least one black shirt of his own, so it’d make sense. Bakugou doesn’t want to think about other possibilities.

“You better wash it before you give it back,” he grunts.

“Aw, don’t wanna smell like me?” Kirishima snickers playfully.

Bakugou pinches his calf and Kirishima yelps before trying to push his hands away with his foot, cackling, but Bakugou holds his ankles down. “You shed like a damn cat!” he retorts. “I don’t wanna walk around looking like a clown because there’s red hair all over my shirt.”

Kirishima stops moving but he’s still smiling. “Love you too, dude,” he says in the softest of voices, an endearing look all over his face, and Bakugou feels himself boil all over.

This is bad, and he knows it. This is what baits the rumbling monster to the surface of his mind and makes waves rises and fall in his throat; this is bad. How had he never paid attention to this before? To the smallest of things, the words that slip out without meaning, the gestures they’re both blind to? How did they get to that point where they share everything, from their address to their personal space, and Bakugou never noticed how much it burns to hear him say that?

“Shut up,” he mutters, fiddling with the fabric of the sweatpants again. It seems to be good enough for Kirishima, who turns back to the movie with a grin.

There’s a couple dancing on the screen, accompanied by an old piano. It’s probably supposed to be a pivotal scene: the beautiful femme fatale, waltzing around the place with a glass of wine in a hand and a well-dressed man in the other. The cameras aren’t shy; they give Bakugou the time to detail the subtleties in facial expressions and the folds in the satin of her dress. The turn around each other and she lands in his arms dramatically, their faces closer than ever, and the violins cry in the background – Bakugou can almost hear the director shout through the screen here you’re supposed to feel something!

And Bakugou kind of does.

There might be actors yet the way they look at each other feels true. The longing in their touches is human and warm, even in black and white, and they dance as though there was an uncuttable string between them, a tension nothing could challenge. No matter where she goes, no matter where he leaves her, they always find their way back into each other’s arms. They always turn and twist and hold each other’s waist; of course it’s not the end of the story, there still is half a movie to tell, but she puts her hands on his shoulders and smiles with a lover’s tenderness. Their voice might crack because of the poor audio but their confessions sound real. Years ago, a long time before Bakugou was even introduced to the concept of having attachments, the beautiful lady with the short hair fell in love for the tall guy with the shiny shoes, and no one who ever watched this movie could deny it.

It’s a fleeting sort of hope that stirs in the chest of those who sit and watch, witnesses to what can happen when the universe makes things just right.

Kirishima doesn’t move but he doesn’t fall asleep either; when the credits start rolling, Bakugou realizes he hasn’t stopped rubbing Kirishima’s leg with his thumb this whole time.

Some days, Kirishima doesn’t hear his alarm. It doesn’t happen often but it does happen and what wakes him up is Bakugou slamming his door open when he comes back from the bathroom. Kirishima practically has heart attack every time but it’s better than to be gently woken up by a fully naked Bakugou shaking his shoulder. Not that he ever considered the possibility.

Bakugou has clothes on by the time Kirishima leaves his room, thank god.

Maybe it’s a sleep cycle problem, maybe it’s just the fact that he was roused with a bang and not with his usual alarm clock, but these mornings never go smoothly. He always forgets a step, he can’t remember where he left his phone or he trips over his own feet; still, he miraculously makes it on time, every time. He likes to tell himself it’s thanks to luck or his incredible planning skills, but he knows deep down it’s mainly because Bakugou styles his hair without being asked while he brushes his teeth.

There’s noise in the hallway.

The whole apartment is pitch black – at least there’s no light seeping from under Bakugou’s bedroom door – but something rustles and shifts around. It’s distant, a bit stifled, but it’s enough to make Bakugou stir and turn around in bed. He opens his eyes, stares at the ceiling and yeah, there’s no doubt, these noises weren’t in his head. There’s someone in the goddamn hallway.

It takes him a handful of seconds to remember that no, it’s not a burglar, he won’t have to blast anyone to hell tonight. It’s fine, it’s just Kirishima coming back home after a busy Saturday night. Hopefully. If it isn’t then yeah, he’s definitely killing someone tonight – for waking him up first, for breaking and entering second.

Bakugou sighs. He grabs his phone with a huff to check the time and the blinding screen says 01:03. Oh great. He’ll be lucky if he falls back asleep before 2am.

He turns back to bury his head into his pillow, trying to empty his mind, but keys jingle against the wood of the front door and a foot bumps against their umbrella holder, sending it to crash to the floor in a metallic ruckus. Fantastic. It’s definitely Kirishima, since no burglar would ever be that much of a dumbass, but Bakugou will make sure he hears about that in the morning.

In light steps as if he was tip-toeing, Kirishima makes his way to the corridor; Bakugou hears him stop in his tracks then start again – is he lost in the dark? He stumbles a bit, his walk irregular, and walks past Bakugou’s bedroom slowly, one foot at a time. Bakugou could swear he hears Kirishima’s hand brush against the wall, moving in stutters as he walks past the bedroom door. He must be halfway to his own room when he stops completely and sighs loudly; his hand comes to fall against the wall more loudly, as if he had just lost his balance, and Bakugou sits up in his bed.

It’s one of two things: either Kirishima is injured and preferred to go back home instead of the hospital like the selfless idiot he is, or Kaminari tricked him into one of these ridiculous shot competitions and he’s drunk as fuck. Bakugou can’t tell which one he’d prefer. Not that Kirishima being hurt enough to have a hard time walking wouldn’t break his heart, but he’s seen Kirishima drunk once and he’s not sure he can handle it again. With anything else than water or fruit juice in his stomach, Kirishima tends to get tactile.

A beat passes. Two. And Kirishima stills doesn’t move. The silence is heavy, so pure Bakugou hears his own heartbeat clearly. Kirishima’s not making a sound, over there in the middle of the corridor, and that’s at least a tiny bit worrying.

Fuck, alright, Bakugou will go and check. The things he does for this guy sometimes… He shoves his blankets to the side, gets out of bed and quickly puts on a shirt and a pair of boxers; it’s cold, it’s so so cold, so he hurries to the door and opens it.

Kirishima yelps.

“It’s me, shit, calm down,” Bakugou grumbles, fumbling around to find the light switch. He flips it and the light immediately blinds him.

Kirishima yelps louder.

“For fuck’s sake, shut up,” Bakugou groans again, blinking quickly to get used to the bright bulb above them.

He finds Kirishima standing right there, a hand against the wall for support, squinting so hard his lips are curled over his gums like a startled possum. He looks like a mess; his hair’s down, he pulled one of his arms out of his coat but not the other and his cheeks are so red he might as well be wearing blush. But there’s no blood, and he doesn’t look in pain. Just very, very drunk.

Bakugou doesn’t know if he should feel relieved or not.

“B’kugo, ’s you,” Kirishima mumbles, still unable to open his eyes properly.

“What are you doing?” Bakugou groans.

Kirishima swallows. “I’m waiting,” he responds, and his voice is so low, so raspy, Bakugou hears gravel in it.

Unimpressed, Bakugou quirks a brow. “You’re waiting.”

Kirishima blinks slowly once, twice, then finally looks at him. Fuck, he really is gone. His gaze is foggy, unfocused and very, very heavy.

But he doesn’t answer.

Bakugou sighs and steps forward, grabbing Kirishima by the arm. Kirishima falters but stands his ground. From this close, Bakugou smells the stomach-churning vapors of cheap alcohol as well as a hint of… Something. Raspberry? Strawberry? Something like that.

“You’re drunk,” Bakugou states matter-of-factly.

Kirishima smirks as though he had just been caught red handed. “’Might be,” he mumbles again, and his voice wakes something in Bakugou’s guts.

Fuck.

Bakugou ignores it. He has a roommate to take care of – a tipsy, sloppy, stupid roommate – and he can’t get distracted if he wants to go back to bed early enough to get the rest of his beauty sleep.

“Alright, c’mere,” he says, and he pulls Kirishima towards the other bedroom. Kirishima follows languidly, his hand still brushing against the wall, but he doesn’t resist. Who knows what would happen if he did; if Kirishima refused to cooperate and turned into a literal rock, Bakugou would simply have to give up and let him sober up in the middle of the corridor.

They enter Kirishima’s bedroom and Bakugou turns the light on too. He’s not been in there often since they use the living room as a common space and respect each other’s privacy, but he’s not surprised to find it fairly clean and not too cluttered. Yeah, Kirishima still has too much love for the color red and he could probably take one or two posters down, but the bed is made and there are no clothes on the floor.

“Come on, sit down,” Bakugou groans, pulling Kirishima in. His hand goes to Kirishima’s shoulder so he can push him down on the bed. The bedspring creaks and Kirishima huffs when he sits down, mouth gaping, eyes half lidded. He shifts a bit, apparently trying to keep his balance, and when he looks up at Bakugou it’s like he’s never really seen him before. Slowly detailing his face, he’d be looking at a starry sky and he’d have the same expression, the same openly admiring gaze. He’s so soft, so dreamy Bakugou considers threatening Kaminari into never inviting Kirishima out to drink ever again.

He’d miss it though. This unashamed stare, he’d miss it.

He swallows.

“I’m gonna get you some water so don’t move,” he tells Kirishima, pointing a finger at his face. “And don’t fall asleep either.”

Because this boy will die of dehydration before morning without water, Bakugou turns around to leave the room, but Kirishima grumbles something behind his back.

Bakugou looks at him over his shoulder. “What?”

“Light,” Kirishima rasps, “the light.”

“What do you mean the light?”

“It’s too big.”

Bakugou blinks. What the fuck is this. He’s not made for this. Why is Kirishima like this.

But Kirishima’s looking at him with these cursed puppy eyes of his, so Bakugou gives in.

“It’s too big,” he parrots in a tired breath, “tell me about it.”

Before he can ask him to clarify, Kirishima leans to the side to turn on the small lamp on his nightstand, stretching his body with a whine, then sits back straight – or as straight as he gets when he’s drunk.

Oh.

“Alright, alright,” Bakugou mutters before turning off the big ceiling light, and Kirishima grins wide when there’s nothing but this dim bedside light to warm up the room. “I’m coming back with water,” Bakugou repeats, “you stay!”

He makes his way to the kitchen, grabs a glass and turns on the tap. It can’t be that bad. Kirishima will fall asleep in 30 seconds as soon as he lays down, all Bakugou needs to do is get him to drink a bit and make sure he’s not going to vomit all over himself, and he’s good.

The glass is halfway full when a loud thud vibrates through the apartment.

Bakugou sighs so loudly Kirishima can probably hear him. What did he do again? If he made something fall off the walls, he’ll have to fix it himself tomorrow. Bakugou’s not dealing with anything other than his drunk ass tonight.

When he comes back to Kirishima’s room, he finds Kirishima sitting on the floor next to his bed. His coat was thrown unceremoniously to the feet of the bed and Kirishima’s right here, fiddling with his shoelaces. Given his position, he probably fell from his bed when trying to take his shoes off and accepted his fate like the loser he is.

“They don’t wanna come off,” he says, quite clearly this time. Maybe his fall sobered him up a little. His voice is still the same though, an octave deeper than it usually is. His dexterity’s terrible; he can’t seem to take a hold of the laces and when he does, he’s utterly unable to figure out knots.

He’s kinda cute.

He squirms and somehow manages to sit back on the edge of the bed as Bakugou approaches, still hunched over to reach his shoes. Bakugou comes to sit cross-legged in front of him, on the (cold, hard) floor, and hands him the glass. “Drink up.”

Kirishima beams and forgets to keep his eyes open; he looks so, so happy and grateful at the sight of this tall glass of water, so relieved to see Bakugou handing it to him, he could ascend from glee right here and now. Slowly, as though his hands had a hard time following his commands, he takes the glass and brings it to his mouth, holding it with both hands like a precious gift.

“Thank you so much, Bakugou,” he murmurs into the rim of the glass while Bakugou starts to untie his shoelaces. Is he about to cry?

“Drink it, come on,” Bakugou insists, pulling one of the shoes off Kirishima’s foot. Kirishima doesn’t resist the pull, at all, and stretches his leg along with Bakugou’s desperate try to get this freaking shoe off his freaking foot. Exasperated, Bakugou resorts to grabbing the ankle with one hand to keep him still and pulling the shoe with the other until he manages to get it off. No one helps him in this fucking house.

Kirishima’s still not drinking. Instead, he’s looking at Bakugou over the rim of his glass, with these half-lidded eyes again. He doesn’t seem able to do more than one thing at a time; first he stares without blinking, then he smiles tenderly and finally, he whispers.

“You’re so pretty.”

Bakugou stops moving.

Kirishima’s voice is almost quiet, as if it was all a secret he held onto for too long. Even though he reeks of alcohol and doesn’t have the stare of a man wide awake, his gaze is focused, deliberately drilling into Bakugou’s. The flush of his cheeks doesn’t worsen, not even a bit – or maybe it does and Bakugou can’t really tell because of the lighting. The lamp is a bit too white, a bit too yellow; it should be fully golden and echo the sunrise, it’s the only light Kirishima deserves. He’s red all around the corners of his lips too and maybe, just maybe, if Bakugou rose up to kiss him there, he’d taste strawberries.

“You’re so pretty,” Kirishima repeats, brows curved up in delight. “And you’re – you’re so kind. You’re so kind Bakugou I can’t believe –”

“Shut up and drink,” Bakugou cuts him, looking down to grab the other shoe. He can’t do this. He can’t do this like this, it stirs up so much, it drowns him so fast. He’s pulled down, down and under, to the depths of the lake; if the monster he avoids doesn’t come to the surface, he’ll be dragged to where it is and forced to face it. He’ll have to sit here and take care of Kirishima, he’ll have to listen and be reminded of this wannabe ocean in his chest, of these ripples turned waves that flood his mind every time Kirishima does something, anything.

One of Kirishima’s hands lands in on top of his head. “Your hair is so soft,” he whispers, “so… soft.”

Bakugou tugs on the laces nervously. Here it is. Here come the hands on his face, just like last time. Come to think of it, Bakugou has no idea how he survived that other time he found Kirishima, Ashido and Kaminari tipsy on coconut liquor; the memories are clear, the ghosts of these hands roaming his chest as vivid as if it was yesterday. His heart rate picks up at the thought, a sudden rush of adrenaline triggered by what he knows could happen – how did he take it? How did it let this happen, last time, how did he simply sit there, Kirishima stuck to him like a moth to the light?

“Kirishima –”

“How do you get it to be this soft?” Kirishima continues, leaning forward and running his fingers back and forth in Bakugou’s hair. “Is it because of your conditioner? I tried it you know,” he smirks, his voice dancing over the tones, “I tried it and it smells,” he inhales dramatically, “so good.”

Probably by sheer luck at this point, Bakugou manages to untie Kirishima’s laces; he pulls the shoe off his foot and throws it away. He just needs to make the guy drink his water, shove him under his blankets and that’s it. Two steps plan. Easy.

But Kirishima’s fingers in his hair make it hard, really hard to focus on anything, and his voice rumbles like rocks at the bottom of a running river, and his breath falls right on Bakugou’s cheeks. He’s inebriating but Bakugou holds it together – must hold it together.

He looks up at Kirishima. “Your water, for fuck’s sake. You’re gonna be sick.”

Kirishima giggles – giggles – and finally starts drinking, one of his hands still in Bakugou’s hair. He keeps his eyes comically wide open as if he was afraid he’d fall asleep right after closing them and visibly does a real effort of concentration as he downs the drink gulp after gulp. Bakugou can’t help but follow the trail of water dripping down his chin, running over his bobbing Adam’s apple and coming to pool in the hollow of his throat. When Kirishima tilts his head back, some of it falls under his shirt and between his pecs, staining the fabric right in the middle of his chest.

Bakugou shouldn’t be looking.

There’s no one to watch him though. There’ll be no one to tell him he’s been caught staring at his best friend like that. Kirishima seems blissfully unaware of the effect he has on Bakugou, of the warmth he radiates that makes Bakugou want to touch. He can see himself running his fingers up Kirishima’s throat and catching the water he’s wasting, or holding his shoulder so he doesn’t fall back into the bed. Wouldn’t it be terrible if he did, wouldn’t it be unfair if Kirishima fell back into his mattress and splashed water everywhere – he’d laugh about it, the idiot, he’d laugh so much he’d be unable to sit back straight and Bakugou would have to climb up and reach for him. He’d have to look down at him, to stop for a second; the mental visual itself makes him swallow. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be right. Maybe he’d snap out of it immediately and bring Kirishima up, pull him into his own bedroom so he can sleep on dry sheets, or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he simply wouldn’t.

If Kirishima fell back, no matter his choices, Bakugou would spend the rest of the night agonizing over the taste of strawberries.

But Kirishima doesn’t fall; he pulls the glass away with a wet smack of lips and an airy aaaah then looks down at Bakugou, who’s still sitting at his feet. The hand in Bakugou’s hair starts scratching his scalp gently, the way one would with a cat, and Kirishima blinks just as slowly. His lips are still wet and glistening and his lashes seem heavy; he mellows by the second, softens as though pulled down by gravity. There’s a certain satisfaction to his expression, a contentment he Bakugou’s seen more and more since they moved in together, but this time it glows with a new kind of honesty. He’s not tired after a long day of hero work, he’s not smiling to hide from his stress; he’s simply happy, and it shows.

As he tries to burn this sight in the back of his mind, Bakugou wonders what it’d take to make him look like that every day.

It’s a question for another day though, so he takes Kirishima’s wrist and pushes it away so his hand isn’t in his hair anymore. “Okay, time for bed. ‘S late,” he says, standing back up. He takes Kirishima’s glass and puts it on the nightstand.

“But ‘m not tired yet…” Kirishima pouts.

Bakugou scoffs at that. “Yeah, sure.” He lets Kirishima’s wrist go and it falls on Kirishima’s thigh. “Take your pants off and sleep,” he mutters under his breath, because it’s true. Kirishima would be more comfortable without pants. It’s just a fact. Simple piece of advice.

Predictably, Kirishima giggles again. “Oh Bakugou, if you want me to strip you can just say it, ya know,” he grins, playfully poking his tongue out from between his teeth, and Bakugou decides that’s it, that’s his cue to leave, he can’t do this.

But Kirishima almost falls down face first when he stands up, catching himself right at the last moment, so Bakugou tells himself he should at least stay until the idiot’s in bed, for safety purposes.

“Be careful, fuck,” he grumbles, holding one of Kirishima’s shoulders still while Kirishima fiddles with his zipper. His chin almost buried in his chest, Kirishima tries hard to unbutton his pants; he mumbles incoherently, leaning into Bakugou’s grip. Bakugou sighs. What time is it? How much longer –

“There,” Kirishima breathes, and he pushes his pants down without effort until they get stuck around his ankles. Clumsy, he tries to step on one leg of his pants with one foot so he can pull the other foot out of it but he seems to have forgotten he can’t stand upright on two legs, never mind a single one.

Bakugou’s losing his patience. “Sit, sit you stupid idi– You’re gonna hurt yourself alright, sit,” he groans while pushing Kirishima back down on the bed.

Kirishima lets him do it and sits back down with a defeated sigh, his head titled to the side as if it was too heavy for his neck. Bakugou bends and grabs his pants, roughly pulling on them, and this time Kirishima has the presence of mind to resist the pull to make things easier, thank the heavens. The muscles in his thighs tense up and Bakugou’s not looking, nope, he is not looking – he knows these thighs by heart already, why would he look? He’s seen them, he’s touched them, he’s cursed them during their sparring sessions. It’s nothing new right now, even though he practically is this close to be able to kiss them and it’s a challenge to look anywhere else, any place where he can’t see the lines of well-trained muscles bulge under the skin and the sheer volume of these quads.

Has Kirishima always been this fine? The strength of the pull is such that Bakugou shouldn’t be surprised by it – how has he never wanted to grab these thighs? When did this need sneak up on him? When was the last time he wanted to run his hands all over someone’s body like that and knead the muscle, grab at the limbs, breathe against the skin until it’s all shivers and sweat? If it ever happened, it must have been a while ago, because when both of Kirishima’s legs are finally free, when the pants fall on the floor, Bakugou realizes he never thought of what he should do next.

He swallows his saliva and closes his eyes; focus. It’s late at night, they’re both tired, so Bakugou just needs to focus and get this over with.

He straightens up, eyes still down, and opens his mouth to speak but Kirishima beats him to it.

“You really are so pretty.”

From where he sits on the bed, below Bakugou, he looks up at him the way he’d look at the moon, and Bakugou’s heart falls into what must be the Mariana trench. Kirishima almost looks in disbelief, stunned; he shouldn’t look like that in his own bedroom, he should keep this dreamy stare for the art museums and the love of his life. Yet here he is, with Bakugou standing so close he could slither between his thighs. Bakugou doesn’t need his hands to tell Kirishima’s cheeks are warm; there’s hair sticking to his temples with sweat and he radiates this heady smell, this intoxicating mix of alcohol, red fruits and what makes him him.

Kirishima’s an adult now, with broad shoulders and a thick torso, and Bakugou knows how this body feels under his palms. He’s pushed it to the ground during training, he’s held it against his own times and times again, he’s learned about it without trying. Still, there are things he doesn’t know, things he never really thought about. Things like the weight of it on an empty mattress, in a bed large enough for two. Things like the way it’d push up against him without trying to escape his grip. Things like the shivers and the quivers, the sighs and the whispers someone maybe already pushed out of these lungs.

But more than that, it’s the things he already knows by heart that Bakugou wants to indulge in. He doesn’t need to hear the moans, he doesn’t need to feel the squeezes; it’s the other side of the conflict Bakugou wants to feed, the other bank of the lake. It’s the space right between Kirishima’s shoulder and his head, this crook of his neck, in which Bakugou’s arm fits so well. It’s this softness all around the torso, this perfect curve all around his back that’d be so easy to hug, to caress, to laugh into.

It’s Kirishima whole, looking up at him without fear or question, that makes Bakugou want so much so hard he forgets what a normal heartrate feels like.

Kirishima cocks his head to the side. “I’ve seen lots of pretty people in my life you know, but you,” he breathes, grabbing the hem of Bakugou’s shirt and tugging at it, “you’re so pretty, like, there was this guy – ”

“Kirishima –”

“He was behind the bar and aaah he looked so good,” Kirishima babbles, rolling his eyes as if to make a point, “but you –”

Bakugou does not want to know.

“Kirishima, go to sleep, for fucks sake,” he groans, trying to push Kirishima on his bed. The sooner Kirishima shuts up, the better. He can’t say things like that here, when they’re all alone in his bedroom, not when it’s almost 2am and Kirishima has lost all notion of filter, not when Bakugou is unable to find foothold in the depths of his stuttering mind.

Instead of complying, Kirishima leans forward; in a breath, he wraps both arms around Bakugou’s waist and squeezes tight, burying his face in Bakugou’s stomach. With an effort deserving of a medal, Bakugou holds back to stay afoot, to not fall forward and accidentally crush Kirishima against him – to not have to face a choice he’s not strong enough to consider.

“You know I love you, right?” Kirishima mumbles into Bakugou’s navel, and Bakugou’s whole body shudders at that; maybe it’s Kirishima rolling voice that echoes in his guts or maybe it has nothing to do with the sound, with the vibrations – maybe it’s just what drowning feels like.

A few second pass, agonizingly slow and heavy with silence, until Kirishima looks up. The flat of his throat pressed against Bakugou’s midsection, his chin pushed between Bakugou’s ribs, Kirishima doesn’t try to hide his face anymore. A few inches from these eyes, from this mouth, Bakugou’s heart stutters and panics – it’s unfair. It’s too unfair. He went to bed hoping to wake up well-rested on a Sunday morning and here he is, standing between Kirishima’s thighs, and he can’t breathe properly. Still, it’s not Kirishima’s arms that stop him from doing so, it’s not the pressure of the hug, it’s none of that. It’s the kiss that hasn’t happened yet, the words, burning – the what did you just say, the shut up, the me too he summons a titanic force to contain.

But Kirishima’s merciless.

“Have I already told you that?” he grumbles, his voice strangled by his position, his mouth unable to open properly. “I love you so much, you’re so important to me,” he insists, brows curved up, his lips still shining. Half of his face is covered in shadow and Bakugou doesn’t know where to look. It doesn’t really matter because by looking up, Kirishima brought his mouth so much closer to Bakugou’s face, so easy to reach, and that’s all he can really focus on.

Of course he knows he’s important to Kirishima. It’s not news. Of course he knows Kirishima loves him, it’s not news either; he says it often enough on the times they go grocery shopping together and Bakugou finds him lost in an aisle, on the times he beats Bakugou at Mario Kart and wants to make him smile, on that time Bakugou said maybe we should adopt a cat and Kirishima turned to look at him with wide eyes. Bakugou’s well aware it’s Kirishima’s way to show his appreciation, in the most genuine way possible, and he never minded.

But right now, as his breath makes Kirishima’s head rise and fall, Bakugou hears more than appreciation, and he can’t tell if it because he tries to or if because it’s truly there.

It’s a maddening possibility to ponder.

When one of his hands comes to touch the side of Kirishima’s face, something flickers in Kirishima’s expression; a brief shift, a stifled breath in, it flies over Kirishima’s gaze like the shadow of a bird and disappears just as swiftly. He still smells of alcohol, there’s gin on his breath, or maybe vodka, but it’s all so sweet. It’s all so sugary, just as pink as his lips, just as flushed as his cheeks, just as inviting as a bowl of fresh strawberries. If Bakugou wanted to have a taste, he could.

But Kirishima’s drunk, so Bakugou only pushes his fingers in sweaty hair.

“Kirishima, we’ve been friends for years,” he whispers – he wasn’t really trying to but his voice refuses to work properly. He doesn’t know why he said that in particular, it just sounded right. It just sounded like the right thing to say to someone who wants you to know they like to have you by their side.

It sounded like the right thing to throw out there, to say out loud, when even you need to hear a reason not to kiss your best friend.

Bakugou won’t ruin it. Kirishima trusts him at his most vulnerable, right there, with all his smiles and his sluggish voice and his puppy eyes and his thick thighs, and Bakugou can’t betray that.

There’s another silent pause and Kirishima blinks. Bakugou doesn’t know what to do with himself; he wishes he could curse it all, throw it all away, destroy it all so he wouldn’t know what this kind of conflict feels like. He could bury it in the sea floor, attach a brick to it and drop it in the middle of a lake and get rid of this twist in his stomach, this gaping hole right under his heart.

But it’s Kirishima, who sees the best in him. It’s Kirishima who called him kind, so just to deserve this, Bakugou stays.

Kirishima melts against him with a pained smile. He closes his eyes again, almost frowning, and squeezes Bakugou tighter, hiding his face in his stomach again.

“Yeah,” he breathes. It’s only a muffled sigh but it’s bittersweet.

It breaks Bakugou’s heart and he doesn’t know why.

“I’ll still be here tomorrow,” Bakugou says before he can let the silence take over again. “Sleep.”

It seems to be enough. Kirishima’s arms let him go, so Bakugou takes his hand away too. With a sigh, Kirishima crawls back and into his bed. Bakugou goes for the door, breaking that cocoon they were stuck in together for a while. It’s cold outside.

On the doorstep, he turns to check on Kirishima one last time. A hand out of the covers, Kirishima fiddles to find the switch of his bedside lamp. He’s looking at Bakugou in the eyes when the light goes off.

Bakugou’s not asleep at 2am.

Kirishima emerges from his bedroom after noon and almost crawls to the shower, skin grey, mouth torn in a wince. He comes to find Bakugou on the couch half an hour later, clinging to a glass of water, and does his best to turn his back to the windows. Bakugou teases him, maybe hold back on the cocktails next time, and Kirishima doesn’t have enough energy to laugh at his own expense. I’m never drinking again, he rasps, dozing off against the back of the couch, his legs folded against his chest.

Bakugou doesn’t ask him if he remembers everything. It feels better not to know, it’s easier not to talk about it; he’s too proud to admit out loud he woke up to the memory of half-lidded eyes shining in gold light and a craving for the taste of strawberries.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Bakugou allows Kirishima to help him cook. It’s definitely not as easy as Bakugou makes it look. Kirishima doesn’t know how to juggle knives and cut vegetables into perfect pieces, he’s pretty bad at cooking noodles too. When he turns the stove on, the flames come bursting out – he flinches and lets go, and they die just as quickly. Bakugou doesn’t comment on it. He simply turns the stove on himself and hands him some oil.

It’s pretty fun, turns out. Bakugou talks about colors and tastes, about acidity and balance. He rambles on and on about why you should properly warm up your pan before putting the meat in there, and why it’s better not to cook some vegetables together. Kirishima could watch him slice garlic all night but he’d chop his own fingers off in the process.

When only one pair of hands is enough, he comes to rest his chin on Bakugou’s shoulder while Bakugou stir fries the whole thing, and he’s only met with a low hum. He finds questions to ask, how do you know they’re ready?, what kind of spice is that?, do you still want to adopt a cat? and Bakugou patiently finds answers, you look at the colors, it’s cumin, what do you think?

He might be a mediocre cook but he’s a decent taste-tester – or at least that’s what Bakugou seems to think. He makes Kirishima try out their yakisoba several times, feeding him pieces of meat over his shoulder, and it tastes delicious but it’s not the best part. It smells incredible – better with every new thing Bakugou adds to the pan – but it’s not the best part either.

Bakugou smiles on these nights.

It’s like he doesn’t know how to stop it, doesn’t try to. Sometimes it’s just in the corners of his lips, just a pull, a rise; most often it’s wide and beaming, as beautiful as it is surprising. It’s there before they finish cooking, when Kirishima dozes off on his shoulder mindlessly, or it’s there across the table when they sit down. It’s familiar yet precious, but Kirishima doesn’t stare. It’s not what friends do.

It’s there when the sunset hits and long after, when they share the bathroom. Kirishima sits on the washing machine while he brushes his teeth and Bakugou shamelessly strips, one piece of clothing after the other, while the water of the shower warms up. There’s no way to say whether his birthday suit is his most vulnerable form or his most powerful one; either way, Bakugou’s relaxed enough not to blow this out of proportions. He simply puts his stuff aside and disappears behind the curtain with a grin. They chat about inviting people over one day and buying more toothbrushes while Bakugou lets his conditioner sink in; Kirishima has foam dribbling down his chin when he smiles too wide.

The man with the navy blue hair finds Bakugou again in front of a convenience store. This time he’s alone and carries a small voice recorder instead of a full-sized mic. He probably just spends his miserable days creeping through the streets in hopes to find someone to bother, and today, it’s to Bakugou that the universe says “fuck you”.

“Pictures of you and Earphone Jack are circulating, have you seen them?” the guy heaves while trotting behind Bakugou.

Bakugou rolls his eyes. He made the mistake to talk to Jirou in an open space like, once.

“I was there,”he groans, “I don’t need to see them, you leech.”

“So are you denying any involvement with Earph–”

Bakugou spins around, furious. “We’re friends, what the fuck!” he barks, baring his teeth, but the guy’s predatory smile only widens.

“Is that so?” the hyena chimes, “Or are you protecting your relati–”

“I’m not protecting shit,” Bakugou growls, leaning into the guy’s face – the leech stands his ground, his recorder right under his chin.

“How about Red Riot? He recently gave an interview suggesting you two are more than friends, could you comment on that?” the guy grins, so much so he could unhinge his jaw if that meant the corner of his lips would reach his ears.

Bakugou wants to headbutt him. He doesn’t.

He doesn’t need to think about that. Not right now, in the middle of patrol. He doesn’t need to remember, for fuck’s sake. Reading this article once was more than enough.

So he flips a switch, takes the flattest, most monotone voice he can muster and leans towards the recorder. “Are you asking if I suck his dick?”’

The guy’s mouth falls open.

Bakugou locks eyes with him. “Because I don’t suck his dick.”

And it’s true. He doesn’t.

The rhythmic thuds of Kirishima punching his sandbag vibrate through the apartment when Bakugou comes back home, his bag slung over his shoulder. There’s music playing in the living room and no one to listen to it, but it fills the space anyway. Contrasting with the chilling air outside, as night falls, the inside of the apartment is buzzing with warmth.

There are a couple of clean dishes on the side of the sink, coats attached to a line of hooks next to the door and half a bread on the kitchen table. The shoes stacked in the hallway are clean, the heater ticking as they do their best. It’s so close to the day they first moved in and yet so far. The walls are still off-white, the couch still creaks, but there’s something to the air that Bakugou can’t quite put in finger on. Something familiar. When he moves through the hallway, the dust that twirls around him doesn’t smell like ghosts.

“It’s me,” he announces when he makes his way to his room to put his stuff down.

“Welcome back!” Kirishima calls from his room between punches. He doesn’t stop though – how long has he been at this? Knowing him, probably all afternoon.

Bakugou leaves his bag open on his bed and decides to wash his hands before unpacking but he doesn’t reach the sink. There’s something in the way. Something flat and fluffy, laid down where their overused mat used to be. A rug, but not any type of rug: a stupid looking shark-shaped rug.

“Kirishimaaa?”

The punches stop. “Yeah?”

“The fuck is this?”

Bakugou hears Kirishima trot out of his bedroom and into the bathroom; he doesn’t need to turn around to feel his grin.

The heady smell of sweat reaches Bakugou when Kirishima comes to stand next to him, shirtless, hands on his hips. “Isn’t it really cool?” he beams, admiring the ridiculous bathroom rug with unabashed pride.

“It doesn’t even have a normal shape, we’re gonna put water everywhere,” Bakugou groans, crossing his arms. The shark looks at him from where it lays on the floor with a big cartoony eye. The artist paid attention to the shading of its massive teeth but it’s not very menacing. Of course Kirishima would go out there and bring some sort of smiling shark back home while Bakugou’s spending the weekend elsewhere. He just has to leave for two days and look at what happens. Deadly predators on their bathroom floor.

“I thought it was cute,” Kirishima says.

“Cute? It’s a shark!”

Kirishima turns to him, clearly amused. “And??”

Bakugou sighs. Alright. If spending his money on this kind of thing makes Kirishima smile, Bakugou can live with it.

Still, it’s one ugly shark.

“Okay, but don’t redecorate the entire place with weird shit you find in the streets,” Bakugou says, turning on the tap and quickly washing his hands.

“Hey, I have good taste,” Kirishima protests as he runs a hand through his hair, flexing a dozen of muscles at once. Bakugou focuses on the soap bubbles.

“No you don’t,” he retorts harshly, rinsing his hands.

With a gentle smile, Kirishima makes his way out of the bathroom. “Dude, rude.” From the corner of his eyes, Bakugou watches him turn towards the living room.

He wouldn’t stand to live in a shark-themed apartment, but the rug is surprisingly soft and it brings color to the dull bathroom. It’s not too bad.

“So how are your parents doing?” Kirishima calls from afar.

Bakugou finds him sitting on the kitchen counter, a glass of water in hand. His headband is soaked with sweat and there’s a twitch in his forearm. He swings his legs, one after the other, and looks at Bakugou expectantly.

He’s cute.

“They’re fine,” Bakugou answers, walking over to the window sill to check on the succulents. “They say hi.” He turns the pots around and tries to feel the dampness of the soil; there’s isn’t much else to do, they’ve been thriving since Kirishima brought them back. “Are you gonna see yours soon?” he asks.

Kirishima takes his time to drink before answering. “Yeah,” he says eventually, “I think I’ll go back there next month.”

He doesn’t say back home, he says back there, Bakugou notices. It’s a slow epiphany to have, a slow realization that’s been long overdue; he wouldn’t say back home either. He hasn’t said back home in a while actually, at least not outside of see you tonight texts and yeah we still live together explanations. His childhood bedroom isn’t home anymore, it’s a relic. It’s a place in time he gets to revisit, but that he left behind ages ago.

Home is in this kitchen. It’s in a cramped bathroom and on a couch so loud they should probably buy a new one – they won’t. Home has a shark-shaped rug now, because it makes Kirishima smile. Tonight, it smells like sweat and tomorrow morning it’ll look like a sea of liquid light; it’s in the details, in the nails they never took out of the walls, in the shower they know by heart, in bedroom doors across the corridor.

And if the building had to collapse, home would still be there on this corner of kitchen counter, glimmering under the artificial lights, drinking water slowly. It would still come with an early breakfast and two pairs of legs tangled into each other, with no personal space and no will to truly have any. It’d still have a smile that makes Bakugou feel like drowning into himself and a face just as enchanting.

Bakugou pretends to check on the succulents again; there are no city lights to look at through the window but in the reflection, he can see Kirishima looking there too.

Kirishima hears the news two hours before he usually goes back home. At first it’s a frenzy, a hazy blur; it fell down, they say, the whole building collapsed. There are crowds on TV and in the streets, and the words go fast. There must have been children, they say, what kind of quirk was that?

It’s common, and it’s not something Kirishima should worry about when it’s so far away from where he’s supposed to stay – there are heroes over there too, and he’ll help if he’s asked to. Still, a whole tower fell to pieces, its base turned to mush by some sort of liquefying quirk, or at least that’s what they say, and they say a lot when they know nothing for sure. They say twenty dead and they say suspect down, and Kirishima’s only relief is that it’s over.

But then they say Ground Zero.

So when he breathes again, Kirishima jumps on his phone; he calls Bakugou, he calls his agency, he calls every number in the book. Bakugou doesn’t answer, his agency tells him to call the hospital and the hospital says he’s gone.

He’s gone.

It takes Kirishima a dozen seconds to realize they mean he ran away and not he passed away. Kirishima stammers some thanks before hanging up; Bakugou refusing to be taken care of is news to no one, but still, if the TV footage is accurate then he must be bleeding. He must be hurt. He must be in pain, in some way, even if it’s not physical.

There aren’t a lot of places Bakugou goes to when he’s hurting.

Kirishima rushes back to his agency and Amajiki nods empathetically as he runs past him. He takes off his costume and puts on some casual clothes they keep on the side just in case – he doesn’t want to be recognized tonight, to be stopped in the streets, to look like a hero when he comes back home.

The ride back to the apartment building is longer than anything he’s ever been through. His heart is hammering in his chest and his stomach twists and turns as if he could puke at any moment; the world feels slow, too slow, too out of place, as though he had crossed a veil himself. There’s a taste to the air he doesn’t like – but he knows it, it’s fear, it’s metallic fear, and having this shoved into his nose on his way back home is something he wishes he would never have to live through.

He doesn’t even try the elevator. A bag with his costume in it thrown over his shoulder, he lunges at the stairs and climbs them two by two, trying to jump in the turns, emptying his lungs without care. Have they always lived this high? Kirishima doesn’t have the time to think. Third floor, first door on the right.

He enters the flat without trying to be soft and gentle, but he avoids making it too loud either. He knows what a startled Bakugou can do, and he doesn’t want to inflict this to neither of them.

The hallway’s dark, the kitchen’s dead. The apartment smells like nothing, like white walls and floating dust. It’s just the way they left it this morning; a bit messy on the edges, clearly inhabited, but otherwise lifeless. When Kirishima closes the door, Bakugou’s head does not pop out from behind the corner of the kitchen, there is no crown to be drawn around him, there is no halo anywhere. Bakugou’s not there. Where he usually stands, there is only a hollow shape Kirishima does not approach. It feels cursed, unnatural. Kind of liminal, like walking through a museum after closing hours.

The whole apartment is terrifyingly empty.

Kirishima doesn’t even speak up. He closes the door and leaves the keys on the lock, throws his bag to the side and kicks off his shoes. There’s nothing to see in the living room so he goes for the bedrooms directly. His breath is the most oppressing sound between these walls – he counts three breaths until he turns to face Bakugou’s door. It’s ajar instead of being cleanly closed the way Bakugou likes it in the morning. He’s gone, said the hospital. He went home.

Kirishima pushes the door. The room is dark, only lit by the little light filtering through heavy clouds outside. It’s clean too, the shelves properly arranged, some iron weights nicely stacked in a corner. It’s not much but it’s all there, where it belongs.

The only detail out of place is the pair of dirty boots thrown against the wall.

And on the bed, face first into the pillows, there’s Bakugou.

There is no way he does not hear Kirishima enter the room, but he doesn’t move. His body’s so still it’s like he doesn’t even breathe, petrified over his mattress, trying to sink into it like a stone in putty. He’s still wearing a torn costume – his collar, bracers and gloves are nowhere to be found and he has visibly taken heavy damage all over. His arms are still covered in brown dust and flecks of dried blood, but not wounded. Probably healed after the fact.

“Bakugou,” Kirishima tries softly, but there’s no answer. He’s not sleeping though. Kirishima knows he isn’t.

He walks around the bed and gently, slowly sits on the edge next to Bakugou. From here, he can see the face better. It’s bruised, still bloody where it hasn’t been cleaned up properly. There’s already blue and purple under his eye and a roughly healed wound on his jaw – it’s crusty, in the way wounds crust too fast and too badly when someone with a healing quirk is interrupted during their task. It’ll heal, eventually, but its presence is the sign that Bakugou refused help.

Kirishima doesn’t know where to start.

There’d be so much to do, so much to say. So much worry to get out of his system, so much pain at the sight of this infallible, unstoppable presence in his life crumbling into so many pieces he doesn’t even manage to open his eyes. Kirishima would like to tell him about the way Bakugou drains the light out of their home when he’s down, about how he should accept hands offering to help him, about how Kirishima’s heart stopped when he heard he’s gone.

And when Bakugou looks like this, beaten down, there’s so much else Kirishima would like to say before it happens again. He couldn’t live with himself if he never said it and one day, the apartment is empty for good. He couldn’t live with himself if he hid inside himself forever, running from behind one tree to another, and never said I want to ruin our friendship.

But he doesn’t, of course.

“Bakugou,” he repeats, a hand coming to rest gently on Bakugou’s shoulder. Not a twitch. Tentatively, Kirishima softly rubs Bakugou’s shoulder in slow circles. “Bakugou, it’s me,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know why he feels the need to clarify but he does.

Bakugou stirs. He doesn’t open his eyes but he shifts to lay on his side and folds his legs closer to his chest, curling his body in a crescent around Kirishima. His breath turns heavy suddenly, as though he was just thrown back into his body, and Kirishima almost feels guilty. Whatever he interrupted, it was Bakugou’s way to distance himself from the events of the day. Now he’s here, fully here, laying there in this grey apartment, and he hurts under Kirishima’s hand.

Kirishima’s heart is about to burst.

There’s no remedy to that. There’s no speedrun to recovery, not a quirk out there that will help anyone go through Hell. Despite everything they learned, everything they trained for, everything they know about each other, Kirishima’s powerless. He can’t chase any of these clouds away, he can’t rest his chin on Bakugou’s shoulder and make it all alright. He can only do little things; a caress, some words, a hug maybe.

So he’ll do the little things.

“I’m going to get you some water, okay? Don’t move, I’m coming back,” he says quietly. Bakugou doesn’t react, so Kirishima takes his hand away and stands up slowly.

From above, it’s even worse. Curled into a fetal position Kirishima has never seen him in, Bakugou’s more vulnerable he’s ever been. He doesn’t shake or cramp; he only exists, miniscule, human to the point where he’s destructible, and all he can do is hold his own body in a desperate hug and hide on his own bed.

It’s anger that taints Kirishima’s throat first – who did this to him? Who has to answer for this sight, for the pain seeping out of the man he loves? Which name does he have to curse, which bones does he have to burn – but it’s misguided, and he knows it immediately. They said the suspect was down already, and the suspect likely isn’t who drove Bakugou to the point where wrapping himself in covers is too exhausting to even be considered. It’s Bakugou himself, it’s what he saw, it’s what he did, it’s what he went through.

The little things may not help but Kirishima will do them all anyway.

He comes back from the kitchen with two glasses of fresh water and sets them down on the bedside table.

“Here,” he says before sitting back on the bed. “Do you think you can sit up?” he asks softly. His hand falls back on Bakugou’s shoulder, encouraging, and after an instant, Bakugou moves.

It looks painful. It sounds painful. It feels painful, in every way, but Bakugou sits up on the bed.

And it’s worse than it was before. His shirt is falling to pieces, there are crumbs of concrete in his hair and a nervous twitch in his other shoulder. He comes to sit to the edge of the bed too, slowly, and Kirishima can’t believe this is the same person than the one he left their apartment with this morning.

Bakugou’s broken.

When he opens his eyes, they’re empty. They stare down, through the floor and everything between him and the void. Kirishima might not be in his body but he can feel it being a mere shell. Bakugou’s not really there.

Until he starts shivering.

It’s not a cold shiver, Kirishima can tell. He knows this kind so well; the shock shivers, the where am I shivers, the how do I go on shivers. He hates this kind. He hates them on Bakugou more than anything. Bakugou’s mind is not the breakable kind, it’s never been.

One leg still dangling off the bed, Kirishima brings the other around and behind Bakugou, then he pulls Bakugou in a hug. Bakugou lets himself fall into Kirishima’s chest without protesting. His hair comes to tickle Kirishima’s throat and chin and one of his hands grips Kirishima’s thigh as if looking for an anchor. Kirishima doesn’t hold him too tightly, just in case, and keeps rubbing his arm, his shoulder, his ribs – whatever his hands fall on. The shivers persist, shaking Bakugou’s body, and his shoulders jerk from time to time. He doesn’t seem to be able to control any of it and Kirishima feels like crying about it.

All this power, all this strength and magnificence in Bakugou, all of that reduced to closed-mouth whimpers, it’s heart breaking. Kirishima wishes he could somehow pull him back together; maybe hugging him tighter would squeeze all of his pieces back together, maybe if he whispers sweet nothings in Bakugou’s ear, it’ll chase the pain away. Or maybe they both have to go through the collapse together, and maybe having a dedicated place to fall apart into, right between Kirishima’s arms, is all that Bakugou can ask for.

Kirishima would give anything.

Bakugou shifts to bury his face in Kirishima’s chest then starts breathing more deeply, pushing against Kirishima as he tries to relax. It doesn’t work very well at first. He’s still interrupted by sudden shudders, painfully straining his body, and Kirishima tries his best to soothe him. All he can focus on is the time between shudders, stretching, getting longer. He counts it like you’d count the seconds after lightning strikes, as a measure of gravity. The longer the better. He tries to wrap his body around Bakugou’s better, to hold him more comfortably, to caress his side more softly, and it seems to help. He kisses Bakugou’s hair once, twice, maybe three times, and Bakugou’s ice-hard shoulders turn to flowing water, the tension dripping off him in cascade.

Eventually, Bakugou breathes normally. He relaxes into Kirishima’s arms fully, winding down. Slowly, his own arms come to wrap around Kirishima’s waist and hold him there – Kirishima knows how to read a thank you, a just a bit longer, so he stays. Bakugou doesn’t say a word but Kirishima feels his hot breath coursing down his chest, his heartbeat stabilizing as it pumps against his temple and in his neck. There are no words to be said, for Bakugou only shows. In times like this, his body tells more than he could ever say, and right now, his body says he’ll be okay.

Kirishima keeps Bakugou in a hug long enough to suspect Bakugou actually fell asleep against him. Yeah, Bakugou needs sleep, but he needs help first. He needs to be properly cleaned off, to eat something, to drink a bit.

He needs someone to be a friend to him.

“I’m going to give you some better clothes,” Kirishima decides. Strip the shell. Lose the broken armor. Start fresh.

After a squeeze that goes all the way to Kirishima’s heart, Bakugou lets go. It’s reluctant but it needs to be done. He detaches himself from Kirishima and slumps over, resting his elbows on his thighs, blinking slowly. He looks more alive than before.

Kirishima goes to rummage through Bakugou’s wardrobe and Bakugou doesn’t stop him. A hoodie, a pair of sweats, some proper socks, it’s quickly done. He hears Bakugou take a glass behind his back – good. Very good.

“Here,” he says, putting the pile of clothes on the bed next to Bakugou. Without a word, Bakugou puts his glass of water back on the bedside table, then looks up straight into Kirishima’s eyes.

Kirishima wants to cry.

Bakugou’s there, right there in front of him, and this time it’s him. This time he’s not empty and away, he not gone. He’s fully present and the twirling emotions in his gaze are worth ten heartbreaks. There’s anger, and betrayal, and fear, and regret, and pain, pain thrown all over like some morbid glitter; nothing in Bakugou’s expression is happy or relaxed, not even in his own Bakugou-kind of way. He’s here, with all of himself, and he doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

He opens his mouth.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he rasps with a voice coming from ten floors below the ground.

Kirishima blinks. “No, I just– It’s– Bakugou,” he stutters, unable to find the proper words; what are you supposed to say in these moments? I thought you were dead for half a minute? I wish I could make it all better? “Let me help,” he says instead.

Bakugou seems to consider it, not breaking eye contact. It takes him time and effort to process anything, apparently. They both already know his answer, but Kirishima lets him find the right way to say it.

“Okay,” Bakugou sighs after a moment, “but stop treating me like a kid.”

Kirishima wants to retorts he hasn’t treated him as such, at all, but he lets Bakugou have it. He won’t debate him, especially not one feelings. “Does it hurt anywhere?” he asks before doing anything.

“My shoulder,” Bakugou grunts. “Can’t lift my left arm,” he says, trying to demonstrate until his elbow reaches shoulder level, then his arm falls back down pathetically.

“Is it–”

“It’s healed,” Bakugou cuts him, “it’s just residual pain. ‘S fine.”

Kirishima breathes. That’s good, isn’t it? That it’s healed. It should make them both feel better, right?

It doesn’t.

“I’m going to take your shirt off then, you can do the rest?” Kirishima asks.

Bakugou shrugs, and it looks like a yes.

The shirt comes off in pieces, ripped from collar to hem. The cuts aren’t neat but it’s no burn either. It’s been shredded in action, probably on impact. Kirishima takes one arm out then the other, carefully, then pulls it over Bakugou’s head – Bakugou just lets him do it all.

They manage to get him out of his shredded clothes; Kirishima takes what’s left of his costume to the chair sitting in a corner of the bedroom while Bakugou puts on something more comfortable. He makes his neck crack, his fingers pop, he stretches his legs as if he was getting used to this body again and needed to test out a few things. To Kirishima’s joy, he drinks some more too.

It really is the little things.

Kirishima keeps gravitating around Bakugou, never going too far, but lets him have his personal space. Now that he’s more awake, Bakugou might not appreciate having someone cling to him when being physical, when having a body in the first place, was a hard concept to grasp just a few minutes ago.

Still, Kirishima warns him before leaving the bedroom, just so he knows, just so he doesn’t turn around and only meets emptiness.

He comes back with some makeup remover and cotton pads first, and Bakugou cleans off one of his lids while Kirishima does the other. It’s pretty fast, it doesn’t take much work, but it makes a huge difference. Without the raccoon eyes, Bakugou looks much more like himself. Like his mask is truly off.

He comes back with more water second, a full glass so Bakugou can drink more. He sits on the bed, hands Bakugou his glass and takes his own that’s been resting on the bedside table this whole time. Bakugou looks down at the surface of the water without conviction. He seems to soften a bit more, accept this hoodie on his shoulders and revel in the peace of the apartment. It’s still weirdly eerie.

“You okay dude?” Kirishima asks, stupidly.

He regrets it immediately.

Bakugou frowns, getting lost in the depths of his glass. Something shifts in his aura, something gloomy and sinister. Something sad Kirishima wishes he could smother. Bakugou doesn’t deserve to feel like this, ever.

And yet Kirishima knows fully well it was bound to happen. Just like the fire caught him by surprise, today’s disaster caught Bakugou by the throat and forced him to stay alive through something others have not survived. Kirishima knows his friend will have to go through this; he knows, too, that nothing could ever stop him from doing everything in his power to help. Every little thing.

Bakugou inhales, and his breath shakes.

“There was a kid.”

His words suspend time for an instant or two; the roads stop roaring, the wind stops blowing, the light itself stays still and bathes them in grey. Bakugou’s mouth stays open on unsaid words he doesn’t manage to string together. He blinks once, twice, then tries again – to no avail. His gasp stays stuck between tongue and palate, so thick he could bite on it. Kirishima simply watches him, unable to do much more. Touching him would break the spell he’s trying to conjure, talking would too. And he knows Bakugou. He doesn’t need more than Kirishima to listen.

But Bakugou doesn’t say anything else, even though he clearly tries. His gaze is restless, his eyes glaze over then burn with a sudden fire, jumping left and right as though the start of a proper sentence had to be written somewhere in front of him. The more seconds tick, the faster Bakugou’s heart races; Kirishima sees it in his neck, right under his jaw, where a vein bulges. Still, Bakugou fights the panic and keeps breathing properly. He’s so strong, so strong seeing the cracks all over him is all the more agonizing.

Eventually, Bakugou sighs for so long Kirishima swear his lungs could collapse. He drinks after another silence, breaking the spell.

Then, and only then, does Kirishima touch him again. He scoots closer and buries his hand in Bakugou’s hair, going from the side of his head to the top, and draws gentle lines with his fingertips. Bakugou does not pull away, he does not shudder, but he does not lean into it either. He takes it the way you take a compliment you know you don’t deserve, jaw tight, eyes down.

“You did your job,” Kirishima says, and he hears his own voice waver.

Bakugou looks at him. “Yeah,” he breathes, but there’s more to his eyes. A tell me that again, a please that makes Kirishima swallow.

“You did your job,” Kirishima repeats, and his voice breaks halfway.

He tells himself it’s natural when his hand travels to the back of Bakugou’s head. It’s nothing to worry about. Bakugou is so close anyway, it’s just more comfortable. It doesn’t matter if they’re practically shoulder to shoulder, if Bakugou finally leans into the touch and into Kirishima’s space. Friends, too, look at each other’s lips when there are no words to be said. Friends, too, do not talk when there could be better sounds filling the air. Kirishima tells himself it’s okay, it’s what friends do, he’s not the first on Earth to wish he could kiss the bruises on his best friend’s face, to kiss the hurt away, to swallow all the words he doesn’t find. He probably wouldn’t be the first to press his best friend into a mattress and try to make him forget everything but the sound of their names whispered together.

It’d be his way to say I’m here and so are you; it’d be simple. Bakugou looks at him too after all, maybe reading something on his face, maybe reading it all. He must feel Kirishima’s fingers trying to tangle in his hair, he must be aware of their bodies slowly, inevitably pressing further against each other with each passing second. Maybe he, too, thinks of things friends do not do.

Still, Bakugou’s in pain, and vulnerable, and Kirishima would never take advantage of that.

“I’m gonna make something to eat,” he says softly, caressing Bakugou’s hair. “You take the time you need, alright? I’ll have something ready.”

That brings the shadow of a smirk to Bakugou’s lips. “Don’t set the kitchen on fire,” he grumbles.

Kirishima smiles, for real this time, and takes his hand away. “Promise.”

He leaves Bakugou in his room, goes for the kitchen and gets busy instead of overthinking any of this. Some rice, some leftover vegetables, some fish that’s easy to cook; it’s fine, he got this. On any other night, Bakugou wouldn’t let him do anything in the kitchen on his own – Bakugou likes to eat well after all – but tonight Kirishima only has one mission. And he’s learned from the best, too, so he knows he can do this right.

The smell of an improvised dinner warms up the living room, emanating from the kitchen corner in slow waves. The weather might not be getting any better but life fills the apartment again, even without the warm light it usually basks in. The wide windows do not have anything pretty to show or to let in but it feels like home still, for tonight the beauty of the place does not come from gold and coral. It still feels weirdly empty without Bakugou being happy but it’s home nonetheless, since it’s where he allows himself not to be.

His feet dragging on the floor, Bakugou comes behind Kirishima after a moment. Kirishima only turns around a bit, enough to watch him walk around the table and look out the window, check on the plants, turn the pots around. There’s no rush to any of his movements. His face is still bruised, his skin still broken in places, but when he lifts his chin to take a look at the dark sky, Bakugou’s still pretty.

Kirishima turns back and focuses on his fish.

They’ll be fine, eventually.

Dragging his feet some more, Bakugou comes behind him and rests his chin on his shoulder. His breath tickles Kirishima’s neck and wakes up shivers over his collarbones; he leans into it a bit, pressing his front to Kirishima’s back every so slightly, letting his temple rest against the side of Kirishima’s head. His skin is pretty cold even after spending so much time indoors, and he breathes deeply.

Kirishima leans into him too, because it’s what friends do.

They stay like this for a moment, looking at the food simmering over the stove. Bakugou does not comment on any of it, and Kirishima does not talk either. He allows Bakugou to recover, to take his time. There’s no rush. It’s not even late and even if it was, there’s no one to stop them from sharing the same personal space while Kirishima tries to do justice to a fine piece of fish.

It’s Bakugou who breaks the silence. “Work with me,” he says.

“Uh?”

“As heroes,” he clarifies. “Let’s be a team.”

Kirishima stirs the vegetables some more. Working with Bakugou? Yeah, of course. They talked about it before, and the first time was years ago, but when they graduated they didn’t have enough resources to pull it off. Teaming up would be natural after all. They’re compatible. Complementary. Slotting together like puzzle pieces. Bakugou must have felt it today, more than usual.

“You sure that’d be a good idea?” Kirishima smiles. “Living and working together, it destroys marriages, you know…”

Bakugou snorts and jabs Kirishima in the ribs with a finger, making Kirishima cackle and squirm. Bakugou stays there for one more second; Kirishima sees him, this close, when he turns to face him with a wide smile, he sees Bakugou stutter in his moves and forget to pull his face back and away. He still keeps his chest against Kirishima’s side just for a bit longer, for a stretching, elongated second Kirishima doesn’t want to think about, and the finger in Kirishima’s ribs turns into the flat of a palm against his side, resting, holding, pulling.

Bakugou’s eyes are not tinted with pain anymore. There is no ghost left on his face, no dull aura all around him; in the backlight, he gets this crown he deserves, making his hair shine with gold. He’s so beautiful even battered and hurt, even when he doesn’t try to be, and if he leans any closer Kirishima promises himself he’ll kiss him.

Bakugou doesn’t really move, and he can’t really; it’s only been a second, it must have been a second because Kirishima hasn’t exhaled yet. All he knows is the forest in his lungs breathing in like the Amazonian, leaves fluttering louder than the wind and making him vibrate all over – he likes it. He likes the feeling a lot. He likes the rush of rolling shivers pushing through him as though by a breeze, cascading down from lips to knees and back; he weakens. He knows it.

Bakugou pulls away with a click of his tongue, and his hand travels all the way across Kirishima’s back when he makes his way to the cupboards, only leaving Kirishima’s body when there’s too much distance between them. “Think about it,” he says as he takes a couple of plates out of the cupboard.

Kirishima doesn’t remember what he should be thinking about.

The fish is a bit overcooked but the vegetables are just right. Before they start eating, Kirishima checks on Bakugou quickly; his eyes are dry, his hands steady. He doesn’t look like he’s about to break.

So Kirishima raises his glass. “To your first time,” he says. Bakugou looks up, blinks at him, and Kirishima’s afraid he’s misread him and overstepped a line. But Bakugou lets out a heavy sigh, not of exasperation – it’s more relief, acceptance, like hidden joy found in fidelity to a tradition.

He lifts his glass as well and looks at Kirishima in the eyes. “To my first,” he echoes. He doesn’t say much more but Kirishima hears a tired thanks.

They clink glasses and down their water in a couple of seconds, setting their glasses down with a synchronized aaah. It’s over now. The water has washed it down. This afternoon is part of Bakugou from now on, it’s down in his stomach and seeping into his bones. Even if they only have a few more hours before the next shudders, even if it takes Bakugou years to heal from it, the event is now behind him.

He seems to have accepted it, too, and it might be a facade but Kirishima doesn’t believe it is; Bakugou smiles a bit, he takes his time to eat and doesn’t try to go back and hide in his room. He relaxes, pretty even in white light, and lets Kirishima chat about his day.

Kirishima insists on checking on his bruises when they brush their teeth and Bakugou closes his eyes, turns to him, and lets his fingers roam around his face. Kirishima also checks the forearms, the pain in the shoulder, asks about his legs, his back, his stomach, and Bakugou patiently answers. They smother each other’s worry in I’m here, in you have me, and Kirishima smiles around his toothbrush when he’s sure everything’s alright.

He makes sure he locked the front door, turns off the lights, closes the blinds; Bakugou waits for him in the corridor before going to his room. Kirishima opens his mouth to ask if Bakugou wants to come sleep with him – you never know after all, maybe Bakugou would panic. Maybe he’s thrash around and hurt himself. Maybe he’d just like to hold someone warm and familiar overnight, instead of waking up in cold sweat to the sight of an otherwise empty bed. And maybe Kirishima wouldn’t mind, at all.

But Bakugou’s faster. “I’ll wake you up if I feel like it,” he says. He tries to make it sound like a jab but it isn’t – it’s a promise, a I know you’d help me, so Kirishima nods gratefully.

They go to sleep early for once and even though Kirishima spends a lot of time awake trying to listen for muffled whimpers, he hears nothing but peaceful silence.

Bakugou is asked to stay home for at least a couple of days. It’s for your health, they said, if you don’t want to get a checkup at least stay home and rest. He tries to busy himself with pushups but it only lasts so long, so he takes his blanket to the couch and lazes around. It’s raining outside, the water tapping against the large window, and he could very well nap here for all he knows.

Lazily scrolling through forums and message boards, he avoids news about what happened yesterday. It’d be no good for him, he knows that. He doesn’t want to think, doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to read statistics and timelines. Not now, maybe not ever.

Instead, he finds this live feed of young volunteers going around and reporting on hero activity. He knows them well – everyone does. They’re not bad, they might even light up the day of those who get bored during mundane patrols. Unlike others, they will turn off their camera and leave heroes alone whenever asked, they say hello and goodbye, and they’ve always been very careful not to disturb hero work. Bakugou tolerates them.

He feels himself slip away as the camera walks him through streets he knows by heart; today’s volunteer casually points out pretty things in behind glass panes as they walk past shops and zoom in on random cats. They stop by to salute a hero or two, hand them water, ask them about the level of activity of the day; it’s calm, or so they say, even though the tension of yesterday hasn’t disappeared yet.

Bakugou probably misses a chunk of it, or maybe a couple. His blanket is warm, the couch is comfortable, and the constant tapping of rain against glass makes for a toneless lullaby. He’s so tired, so he lets himself go.

The one thing that stirs him up and makes him realize he might have fallen asleep in the first place is Kirishima’s familiar voice coming through the speakers. Bakugou has a hard time catching up as he tries to emerge from the fog but he gets there. There’s no mistake, even though he can’t quite make out the words – the volunteer has found Kirishima.

The camera isn’t very stable but without a doubt, it’s him standing there in full Red Riot attire. He’s standing in front of the gate of a kindergarten and he’s talking to the person behind the camera with a bright smile despite the rain falling all over the both of them.

Not that he would mind the rain, even shirtless, since the kid he holds on his cocked hip has an umbrella that protects them both.

He looks like he’s in heaven, this kid, like he couldn’t ask for anything more than to be held by the mighty Red Riot; he beams, solar, and cannot take his eyes off Kirishima’s face. It might as well be one of the best days of his young life, he’s almost vibrating in excitement. Kirishima holds him safely with both hands, making sure there’s no way he’d fall, and Bakugou doesn’t know much about kids but he knows every parent in town would be glad to know their child is treated that way.

“And we trust you to watch over him!” the young volunteer peeps, their voice booming from behind the camera. Kirishima smiles so much he could compete with his young fan.

“Of course! He’s home right now, but I’ll see him tonight,” he assures with a confident nod. “I’ll make sure to tell him you worry!”

He smiles so brightly he could summon the sun on his own with Bakugou’s name on his lips, and Bakugou’s suddenly very awake.

Kirishima comes back home to Bakugou wearing a shirt they can’t remember the owner of, walking around the apartment lazily while talking on the phone. Bakugou looks up and nods when Kirishima walks past him; before he turns the shower on, Kirishima hears him say the bare minimum to his father. Yeah it’s good, he mumbles into the phone, they’re letting me back in tomorrow.

The temperature of the shower is just right. A hand against the tile, Kirishima lets the water drum against the back of his neck and closes his eyes. He can’t tell if it’s good, really. Bakugou is still Bakugou, he’s still a bit rough on the edges, he’s still restless after being locked in for days, he’s still what makes him him, but there’s more to it. There’s more to a lake than just its surface, Kirishima knows it.

Still, Bakugou’s not too tense that night. He doesn’t jump, he doesn’t shut down and closes himself off. There’s effort, yeah, there’s work in the way he does his best to be normal, but he manages. Now the damage has been with him for longer than just a few hours yet he still stands.

Or rather, he leans.

He touches Kirishima on the shoulder, on the back, on the arms; he keeps his body close and his fingers closer when they unload the dishwasher, when they take the laundry out to dry, when they list what needs to be bought next time they go to the grocery store. Without question, he comes to Kirishima’s side, behind him, in front of him, he turns and spins and bends to find a place he could fit in, an opening he could slip into. In some ways, Kirishima’s reminded of a cat starving for attention – in truth, most of what he sees is a man looking for himself where he knows he was last seen as someone worth loving.

Routine catches up to them easily. The couch complains loudly when they slouch on it, Wii controllers in hand, and Bakugou doesn’t keep his distances there either. At first it’s a foot against Kirishima’s thigh, turning to a leg thrown over Kirishima’s lap, then two. Kirishima rests his forearms on Bakugou’s shins; when Bakugou laughs, his legs move too, and Kirishima wants to slip his hands all the way up his thighs to feel his body vibrate better.

But Bakugou twists around and rests his back against Kirishima’s side, and his breathing slows down even though the race is tight on the screen. He smells like some kind of fruit, something fresh and sweet, and not like smoke as he usually does. It’s in his hair and on the back of his neck, warm and close. Sometimes he hums, and it reverberates in Kirishima’s chest too even though he’s not sure it’s the sound that does it.

They get tired of Mario Kart eventually. Bakugou mindlessly switches channels until he finds a documentary about small marine animals; there’s a bunch of crabs and colorful fish dancing around in water to classical music, and for some reason it does it for him. He settles back into the couch, brings his legs closer to his chest and curls up against Kirishima’s shoulder.

He brings the sweetness of his shampoo with him and a level of trust Kirishima’s still drunk on after all this time. There’s a purr to his slow breathing, a rolling wave that envelops them both at once. Dusk brings violet to the light and cools them down; Kirishima can’t really see what Bakugou looks like but it doesn’t matter. He can see the side of the face, healed up, that he’s rarely touched in comparison to the rest of his body. He can see the hands, open and relaxed, that he could take in his own. He can see the torso, rising and falling gently, that he could hug if he wanted to.

And he wants to, so he does just that.

He brings an arm around Bakugou and pulls him in; they fall on the couch on top of each other and shift around quietly until Bakugou’s lodged between Kirishima legs, resting on his chest, still captivated by the feeding habits of the mantis shrimp. One of Kirishima’s hands finds room on Bakugou’s shoulder, the other one in his hair, and neither of them say anything about it.

It’s where he belongs. It’s what’s easy. It’s what friends do.

He rubs gentle circles in Bakugou’s hair and feels their breathing synchronize, their hearts beating as one between them. The top of Bakugou’s head is so close he could kiss it, but he doesn’t. He could also wiggle around and bring Bakugou’s face to his level and see if his lips taste just as sweet as the rest of him, but he doesn’t. It’s warm enough; he doesn’t need the burning hurt of rejection, or the scorching flames of Bakugou’s quirk. He doesn’t need to entertain the mirage of acceptance, of a sizzling flush that would drown him under years’ worth of silent feelings, of Bakugou reciprocating.

He could take it though. The flames, the pain, the pleasure. No matter what, he could take it all. Bakugou already made a home out of the space between his legs, he already found himself a place to be all over his body, between his arms; no matter what, Kirishima knows there’d be no way flames, pain or pleasure could take any of this away from them. And Bakugou’s still, dozing off against him to the quiet song of some underwater piano. He doesn’t shiver, he doesn’t shake, he doesn’t fight. He gives in, when he could very well be fighting. He lets go, him and all his weight in muscle, him and his constant bed hair, his sharp tongue and his cold resting face. He stays where Kirishima opens his arms without asking and melts into it without complaining.

He likes it. Bakugou likes it, he makes Kirishima home, and Kirishima could swell up with tenderness.

He can’t tell what’s stopping him from kissing his best friend. It’d be where he could belong. It’d be easy.

But it’s not what friends do.

They almost fall asleep on the couch, again. It’s Bakugou who moves first but he takes his time to detach himself from Kirishima’s chest, pulling away almost reluctantly. Kirishima groans at the loss of body warmth. He pushes on his arms to look up and when his eyes flutter open, he finds Bakugou kneeling between his legs, staring at him unabashedly.

Kirishima can’t remember the last word he spoke but he doesn’t mind losing all sense of language anyway; there are only a handful of words that he could use to describe the need he feels then, the crushing desire to grab Bakugou’s shoulder and bring him back down with him again. Bakugou’s clearly pausing to look at him from above, there’s no mistake in that. The light they left on in kitchen corner shines on him from the side and the couch cuts a shadow around his chest, dipping in the folds of the fabric. Propped up on his elbows, Kirishima can’t stretch far up but he could bury his face in this shirt or smooth it out himself, he could if he really wanted to.

It’s stellar, that’s the word, stellar like a ball of boiling helium trapped between four walls, like one of these wriggling, writhing places where old matter comes to die and transform in the core of the most primal of cocoons. It’s the easiness of it, since it’s so common in nature, yet the violence of the burst when all that’s been compacted for eons suddenly collapses and flares out without a care for consequences. It’s stellar not because it shines, not because there’s only one in our system; it’s stellar because it consumes, because there are so many and the story’s been written a thousand times, and yet Kirishima chooses this one, and he’d give anything to know how it ends.

So he pushes up to lean back on his hands and inch closer, close enough to smell the sweetness again, and even with this angle Bakugou’s still just as gold, still crowned and glowing, and he’s still staring at him. A voice whispers in the back of his head; this is not what friends do, and maybe it’s right, maybe friends do not let friends lean so close they could kiss each other’s chin. Maybe friends do not let friends breathe so close they can feel the air move around their throat. Maybe friends do not do that, they do not hold their breath in the moment, they do not detail the shades of moonlight on each other’s face, they do not find home in each other’s body. Maybe looking at your best friend’s lips when he licks them is not something you should do, and maybe Kirishima doesn’t really care.

Bakugou pulls away.

He climbs down the couch in slow motion and Kirishima’s heart tightens in his throat, pulsing there with too much strength. He blinks out of it, watching his friend stand up, watching his friend look up, watching his friend being apparently oblivious to the solar storm he just weathered.

Bakugou nods in direction of the corridor, it’s time for bed, and Kirishima swallows. It’s hard to tell but he’s pretty sure the sweet spot around Bakugou’s neck turned cherry red.

Chapter Text

Bakugou never minded walking out of his bedroom entirely naked, and he’s not going to start now. He knows the way by heart even with eyes closed; he tries to open them when he passes through the living room though, just to check if Kirishima’s looking.

He likes seeing things he’s not supposed to, so when Kirishima raises his hands to adjust Bakugou’s mask before they go out the door, Bakugou tries not to get caught looking through his lashes.

Three letters wait on Bakugou’s work desk one morning, sitting on top of a couple of small, colorful boxes. The whole pile is some shade of pastel and clashes with literally everything around it. Bakugou could puke, if he cared enough.

Looking around, he notices he’s not the only one in the agency who has to deal with that; there are letters everywhere, a small mound even piling up over someone’s workspace. A colleague is munching on chocolate, pointing out different kinds to another guy, and a third one is wasting time going through wordy letters from adoring fans.

Bakugou sighs. It’s mid-February and he doesn’t have time for any of that shit.

He leaves the letters in the bin under his desk before his day really starts and he’s forgotten about it entirely by the time he jumps head first into an armed robbery.

So it’s a bit of a surprise when Kirishima pulls out a bag out of nowhere while they prepare dinner, a hand holding a wooden spoon and the other clutching the handles of this pastel pink monstrosity.

“And guess what I got today!” he chirps, obviously very proud of himself. His hair is still damp from his shower, water pearling at the ends, and his face glows in the light.

“Don’t tell me you’re into that Valentine shit,” Bakugou grumbles, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.

Kirishima pouts. “Don’t be grumpy just because you didn’t get anything,” he says, putting the bag next to him on the counter and rummaging through it with his free hand. Just by the sound, Bakugou can tell there are tons of letters in there, paper rubbing against paper, but the bag doesn’t look light either so Kirishima must have brought home an unholy amount of chocolate.

“Hey, I got plenty!” Bakugou protests with a snarl, and Kirishima smirks at him.

“Oh yeah? You read some juicy love letters from your hundreds of fans?” he taunts Bakugou, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively before pulling out a handful of envelopes from the bag. Some are already open but Bakugou spots a few that are still sealed shut.

“Is that what you got?” he asks, trying to mask the curiosity peeking through his tone. “Juicy stuff?”

Kirishima leaves the letters on the side and takes a medium-sized box of chocolates out of the bag. “A few, yeah,” he admits with a faint blush. “Some people are…. enthusiastic. But look! Dessert!” he says, smiling wide as he shakes the box a bit.

Enthusiastic. That’s not how Bakugou would call it but okay.

Still, no matter what the content of these letters truly is, Kirishima has received enough for a regiment. It’s not too much of a surprise, since he’s always been the popular sunshine boy amongst the new recruits, but it’s something else to see it in person. Between all these letters there must be flamboyant love confessions, verbose descriptions of date scenarios, heartfelt encouragements and enthusiastic propositions. All these letters and just as many people, who thought of Kirishima – of Red Riot, rather – when came the day to declare their feelings. Some of them are probably out there, waiting for an answer, imagining what it’d be like if Kirishima said yes.

And all that for Kirishima to focus on the chocolate instead. What a waste.

Bakugou grabs couple of closed envelopes and rips them open. “Are you gonna answer those?”

Kirishima looks down at the potatoes he’s trying to cook properly. “I want to, but Amajiki says I shouldn’t,” he shrugs, disappointed.

“You haven’t even read them all, you lazy ass,” Bakugou grunts, taking a letter out of the first envelope. It’s soft cream paper on which someone with obvious calligraphy training did their best to write cleanly.

“I didn’t really have the time. ‘S why I brought them home,” Kirishima explains, but there’s no bite to his voice. He manages to take out a second box of chocolate out from the bag and sets it on top of the first one on the kitchen counter.

“Dear Red Riot –”

“Bakugou are you sure you want to read these,” Kirishima sighs.

Bakugou ignores him. “I have been following you since – blah blah blah, no one cares, where is th– ah, here, your beautiful face enchants my nights and I dream of you holdi–”

“Bakugou!” Kirishima croaks, his face red as a beet.

“–holding my hand as we walk on the beach–”

“Bakugou that’s enough!” Kirishima squeaks, trying to snatch the letter out of Bakugou’s hands, but Bakugou snickers and twists out of his reach.

“You better keep an eye on these potatoes, Kirishima,” he grins, taking the other envelope too. “I’ll make you regret it if you burn them.”

Kirishima swallows painfully at the sight of Bakugou holding the second letter. He’s frankly adorable all blushed like that, torn between leaving the kitchen counter and jumping forwards to get these letters out of Bakugou’s grasp, his hair puffing up as he keeps turning back and forth between the two options.

Looking at him in the eyes from a distance with a grin, Bakugou unfolds the other letter. This one has a hurried, messy writing in black ink over bright red paper. Someone hand drew white hearts in the corners and little sketches of smiling Red Riots here and there, and even without reading, it’s easy to tell the whole thing is dripping with obsession.

It does get worse though.

“Darling Red Riot, I’m so happy you are reading my letter – yeah, yeah, get to the point,” Bakugou mumbles, eyes scanning the body of the letter as fast as he can despite the bad writing. This time Kirishima doesn’t interrupt him, and Bakugou can tell he is also curious. “I’ve always known we were compatible souls even since I first saw you–”

Kirishima’s face flares up at the words coming out of Bakugou’s mouth. “Gosh, Bakugou, please,” he mutters, but Bakugou can’t quite tell if he’s really asking him to stop.

“–and I am convinced my body was made to take y–” Bakugou cuts himself when he realizes what he’s getting into.

The following lines include graphic descriptions of various appendices, holes and juices, complete with measurements, enthusiastic action and generous adjectives highlighting the raw bliss that would result from Red Riot meeting with his self-proclaimed #1 fan, somehow without ever taking off his costume. Bakugou doesn’t really want to read any of it but his eyes can’t stop going further; he feels his heart pumping just a bit faster at the thought of someone thinking it might be a great idea to send this to Kirishima – but also, maybe, at the thought of it, at all.

When he manages to pull his eyes off the paper, blank-faced, he finds Kirishima standing there with his faced crunched up as if he had just eaten the sourest of lemons. “Please tell me you didn’t just read that,” he begs, so embarrassed Bakugou expects him to be swallowed by the ground any moment now.

Bakugou walks around him and throws both letters back into the bag. “Juicy stuff, uh?”

With a heavy sigh, Kirishima turns back to his potatoes. “Amajiki told me it would happen,” he recalls, “but I really don’t need to read about that.”

Bakugou didn’t really need to either.

Luckily, it’s not the bulk of what Kirishima has received. They skim through letters while they eat, letting the nastiest ones fall down to the floor before Kirishima gets a detailed account of what some of his fans fantasize about and chokes on his chicken. Most of them are very sweet, Bakugou admits; there’s a lot of modesty to the simplest ones, shyly admitting they have a crush on their local hero, and a bit more bravery to those who found the courage to ask him out on a date. Bakugou has never met these people but he can feel how flustered they must be – it’s all over their handwriting, probably practiced for most of them, and the careful composition of the chocolate boxes that came with it.

He’s never met them but he’s met Kirishima, who gets lost in every other letter and re-reads most of them with wide, disbelieving eyes. He knows him enough to tell he’s probably going to try and answer some of these, probably going to find a spin around nice words and polite thanks – maybe he’ll even go on a date or two. Maybe he’ll stroll down the beach with someone who knows calligraphy, or maybe he’ll eat a waffle with someone who told him he has pretty eyes. What would it take for him to consider a stranger like that? What, in these letters, makes him blush like the schoolgirl he isn’t, what is the ingredient that keeps him from looking away, makes him bite his bottom lip, makes him smile this tenderly? Bakugou wishes he could know – not that he’d do anything with it the knowledge.

Still, Kirishima’s smiling and it’s not at him, and he’s thanking strangers in low mumbles but there’s no one besides Bakugou to hear it. I would love to spend an afternoon with you, said a girl. I have two tickets for the winter fair, said a boy.

Bakugou has nothing to say.

“Here, have some,” Kirishima tells him, handing him a box of chocolates over their plates. “I’ll never eat it all by myself.”

Bakugou takes the whole box for himself, and Kirishima chuckles. “Just leave some for me, alright.”

Someone made these chocolates by hand. Some have been painted with vibrant colors, some are wrapped in edible gold or dusted with refined powders. Meticulously shaped, there’s Kirishima’s headgear sitting next to a heart, and there’s a large double R smoothed by hand, carved from white chocolate. All of it must have taken so long, so much energy, and it all lead to this box sitting in Bakugou’s hands, in the cozy warmth of their kitchen.

It’s in slow waves that he realizes he’s not the only one who drowns at the thought of Kirishima’s life intertwined with his own.

There’s few dozens out there, maybe a hundred. They probably have posters and pictures and interview tapes. They probably could recognize Kirishima’s voice in a crowd of thousands; maybe they hug their pillow at night, and maybe they bought all of his merch, and maybe they do more than that. Some probably have sincere hope and others know it’s a fantasy. And maybe those who persevere are right, maybe Kirishima will, one day, turn around and kiss a fan for the cameras.

But in the meantime, it’s Bakugou who gets to empty half this box of chocolates and hold it away from Kirishima. It’s Bakugou who gets to watch him squirm and try to reach out for the sweets, a huge smile on his face as he stretches over the table and into Bakugou’s space. It’s Bakugou, alone, who has the right to see him like that, without artifices, swinging his legs in the air when he sits on the kitchen counter to dry the dishes. There’s no one else in this whole city, no matter how well they write, next to whom Kirishima curls up on the couch before night falls. It’s a privilege reserved to Bakugou and Bakugou only.

Kirishima’s reading a thing on his laptop, scrolling through pages of a travel blog. He looks like he could fall asleep any minute now, with his heavy lids and his tilted head, his shoulders pushed into the back of this couch. Bakugou watches him over the screen of his own laptop; Kirishima yawns with a whine, opening his mouth so wide a tear pearls at the corner of his eye, then blinks a few times slowly.

No one else gets to see this. No one else gets to feel their lungs fill up with honey, feel their heart flutter at the soft mirage that is Kirishima doing casual things like rubbing the back of his head or mindlessly poking his tongue out from between his lips. There’s no one else, no matter their talent at poetry or erotica, that gets to remember what Bakugou sees: a man of rock and silk who catches the light like he breathes, and who deserves someone willing to show as much as he does.

There’s no one else, and for the better or worse, it’s lonely.

“Kirishima,” Bakugou almost whispers, his voice raspy with fatigue.

“Hmm?”

“I’m tired.”

And it sounds like come to bed with me but he doesn’t say it, it sounds like I want to hold you in my sleep but he doesn’t mention it; if by chance, by mistake or fate Kirishima hears it anyway, Bakugou knows he won’t find the strength to deny it.

Kirishima turns to him and for a beat, Bakugou believes he’s been understood. What else could it be, that he sees in Kirishima’s eyes? A flash of something burns through them both, but then Kirishima blinks and it’s gone.

“Want me to carry you to your bed?” Kirishima smiles tenderly, but his tone says he’s joking. Fuck, he really is too beautiful when he looks at Bakugou like that, his head tilted back and opening up his throat, the light of his laptop casting soft shadows around his jaw.

For a moment, Bakugou considers what it’d cost him to say yes. His dignity, maybe. His right to ever know peace if Kirishima decides to talk about it with Kaminari next time they go out, probably. Whatever’s left of his strength to deny how much he wants to kiss him, without a doubt.

It’s tempting. It’d be a finishing blow for sure. It’d be what forces him to look at the monster he’s been feeding, to really look into its eyes and accept there’s no going back from there. There’s no going back from drowning; there’s no going back from having your arms looped around the neck of someone you love, from having them carry you to your own bed, from wanting so hard you end up getting what you crave.

And Bakugou has never craved like that. It’s absurd. It’s not him to be torn between this kind of choices, between kissing and not kissing, between having and not having. Usually he takes, and it’s all he does. He takes what he wants and it’s never about warmth, about lips, about taste. Yet Kirishima forces him to choose between what’s soft and what could be softer. Between their daily routine Bakugou wouldn’t break for anything and the possibility of trying, just for one night. There could be arms carrying him to his bedroom and into bed, arms around his body and curled closer, hands behind his neck and against his thighs, around his hips, against his jaw. There could be skin and skin on skin, fingers under fabric before fabric stops being a bother. There could be lights turned on and pictures Bakugou has never had a hard time coming up with, bending warm and sweaty under his palms for real this time.

There could be so much, so many ways to call Kirishima in between gasps and sighs and just as many reasons to remember Valentine’s Day for years to come.

It’s too dangerous. It’s too much, and Bakugou should stop thinking about it immediately.

He scoffs to cut the ground from under his own feet. “Fuck off,” he hears himself mumble, and Kirishima’s grinning when he turns back to his laptop.

He’s still beautiful, and he’ll always be.

Bakugou gets up on his own, finds the way to the bathroom on his own, brushes his teeth on his own – he still stands on his side of the mirror, his feet playing with their stupid shark-shaped rug. Kirishima stays up for longer than him. Bakugou finds him on the couch right before going to bed; Kirishima mumbles a warm “g’night”, his red hair almost turned black in the poor lighting. A pile of uneaten chocolate and unfolded letters still sits on the table, and Bakugou knows he doesn’t have to worry about them.

Some nights, Bakugou dreams.

It’s rarely pictures, more sensations. His skin remembers more than it has to imagine; the pressure, the weight, the violence of the impact on his left side, the concrete snapping and falling apart. It still makes his bones vibrate. He still feels it, feels the rain of brick and metal scraping his skin away, the scratches turning to wounds turning to trauma. It cuts at him again, one rod of steel falling for the sky after the other. Time stops just like it did then and it all gets etched into his skin all over – he had no armor then and he has none now.

He always sinks deep into it, eyes closed, and the night is always long. It melts everything into a blur, a drunk haze there’s no escape from. It’s deafening at times, overwhelming in every aspect; it whirls around and drowns Bakugou without leaving him a chance to take a breath. It’s like choking on moldy cotton, being unable to spit any of it out and swallow the repulsing taste of rot and rust, fibers getting stuck between his teeth grinding against each other the same way nails scrape against blackboards. Sometimes his skin remembers the sudden heat of an explosion, sometimes his mouth remembers the sharp taste of metal, always, always his ears remember the desperate cry for help he could not answer.

Some nights Bakugou dreams, and he can’t tell one side of the veil from the other.

His mind builds a maze he’s not supposed to escape, and he loses himself in it. There’s no I, no me, only a body that keeps bringing back the same sensations over and over, only a brain stuttering like a broken record, repeating the same mistakes on a loop until trying to fix them loses all meaning. Bakugou vanishes, ambition vanishes, every other day vanishes. There is only the tower, collapsing, and the skin opening bit after bit under a deluge of stone. There is only the cold that tragedy brought along, and the shivers contained for so long they exploded in brutal tremors way later.

Some night Bakugou dreams, and he remembers his name when he hears it through the veil.

It’s always foreign, whispered from a distance far away. It’s always gentle, too, never pressing, and it contrasts so well with the smell of dust and the brutality of carnage that he can only be drawn to it. It’s cream, Bakugou, cream and gold compared to the grey, to the blood red of the maze, and it finds a way to make him breathe again.

It doesn’t come with pictures either but it brushes the crumbs of stone away with a hand on his cheek, in his hair, over his shoulder. It erases bruises and scrapes like they’re simply chalk, and it gives the skin a body, and the body a name, Bakugou. It brings with it a warmth he doesn’t need to remember, and a weight that feels familiar, and a voice that sounds like home. It stays for long, then for longer, lingering around him with promises in whispers. It’s okay, it repeats from the other side of the veil, and no matter how many times Bakugou hears it, it never loses its meaning. It’s okay, he’s okay, and it’s no memory.

It’s easy to find his way out of the maze then. It’s easy to breach the surface and pull his head out of the water, to forget again. Nothing ever resists it, not the slabs of concrete falling like dead birds, not the cut covering his arms, not the calls ringing in his ears. It all vanishes in lashes of thin smoke and his lungs open, and he breathes.

Some night Bakugou dreams, until he’s set free by a dip in the mattress and a hand in his hair.

The snow has stifled everything, draping the whole city in a layer of thick wool that crunches under everyone’s boots. This Sunday morning is silent, the usual hum of the busiest districts muffled by the winter, and the warm light turns blinding white. The storm never stops either, and it coats the few people who dare to stop walking, piling up on their shoulders.

It makes everything much slower and forces people to huddle closer together so they can face the wind and stay warm. From the third floor, Kirishima spots a couple of kids ruining the fresh snow, a group of friends shivering as they wait for a bus, and an old man leaning into the wind to not lose his balance as he walks on frozen ground. It’s so comfortable to watch all of it from the inside of a warm apartment – still, the snow has an effect on him too. He may not be cold but he can tell today has a special taste, a special kind of vibe. For today, and until the storm dies out, everything is a little less urgent, every mistake forgiven a little faster, every hour a little bit longer.

Bakugou’s been tiring himself out against Kirishima’s sandbag for a good hour now. Kirishima doesn’t have much to do – he asked some people to know if they wanted to go out and do something, but no one’s feeling it, so he’s also stuck inside. He’d go see what the park looks like under the snow, but going alone is no fun. A mug full of tea in hand, he resorts to sitting on the couch and watching YouTube videos. He’ll probably use the sandbag when Bakugou’s done with it, or maybe he should call his mother instead. He’s not sure yet. There’s no rush.

He’s in the middle of a 10 Best Pro Wrestling Moves of The Year video, slowly sipping on his tea from time to time, when Bakugou finally emerges from the corridor. His shirt is sticking to his back and has turned dark with sweat, and his hair is an absolute mess. Kirishima barely has the time to see how red-faced he is before Bakugou goes for the kitchen corner and fills up a glass.

Without a word, he comes to crash on the couch next to Kirishima. He might not talk but he’s still breathing heavily, his chest falling deeply with each exhale, and he radiates raw heat that almost makes Kirishima regret wearing additional layers. A drop of sweat courses down from his hairline to the cliff of his jaw and falls right on his collarbone, glistening over the curves.

“You’re still sweating.”

Bakugou shifts to look at his screen. “Of course I am,” he says against the rim of his glass.

“You sure you should be sitting here? I don’t want our couch to be infused with nitro,” Kirishima says, and Bakugou doesn’t answer that, as if it weren’t a valid concern, but Kirishima is genuinely worried. He doesn’t want their flat to blow up because the couch pillows absorbed all of Bakugou’s sweat.

Instead of doing anything to dry himself, Bakugou points at a video sitting in the suggestion bar. Under a title crafted for clickbait, the thumbnail shows a guy with navy blue hair and a predatory smile, holding out a mic to someone who’s had their face blurred and replaced by a massive question mark. “This bastard again,” Bakugou grunts.

“Ah yeah, that guy,” Kirishima mutters between his teeth. He sees the guy enough times in a week to never feel the need to watch him online on top of that.

“He’s a fucking parasite, that’s what he is,” Bakugou grunts again before taking a sip.

Kirishima sighs. “Well, he has a huge audience. He needs to satisfy them somehow.”

“He needs to get off my dick, yeah.”

The video still playing announces #4: the Diamond Cutter. Kirishima shifts uncomfortably in the couch. There isn’t much they can do to stop guys like this self-proclaimed journalist from following them and asking them questions. Still, there are topics Kirishima doesn’t need to think about while in the middle of patrol.

“He keeps asking me if we’re together,” he says with a nervous chuckle. Oh how that sounds stupid when said out loud. It’s laughable, of course, and Bakugou is going to be rude about the idea, of course, because what’s not funny about that?

It’s ridiculous, right, two good friends being more than friends?

Bakugou’s silent, and a second stretches for an eternity; the more time passes, the more Kirishima regrets bringing this up. The feeling sinks down his throat and something contracts around his heart, squeezes hard and tight; how he hates this silence. How he hates the words he said himself. It’s not even bad, because it’s true: this guy can’t seem to have any other subject of conversation than the status of Kirishima and Bakugou’s relationship, but Kirishima should have left the words unsaid. Some ideas are better left asleep and mute, and waking them up only hurts. They’re friends. Friends.

After one more beat, Bakugou speaks. “Yeah, me too,” he says flatly. His breath has evened out and his hair has fallen back down, heavier with sweat, sticking to his forehead and temples. The drops on his collarbones are disappearing but the skin of his neck is still shiny and glossy; the white light from the outside highlights the bulge of his Adam’s apple and the strength of the muscles he’s spent so long to develop. There’s so much room there, so much that moves when he talks and looks around, right under the skin. It’s probably very sensitive on top of being a difficult area to begin with – Kirishima knows how Bakugou avoids to wear ties and tight collars – but gentle touches could probably bring the best out of all this sensitivity. Massages, maybe. Kisses, certainly.

Hickeys. That’s a thing people do, right? Hickeys. Kirishima has seen some before, on people who did not care enough to hide them. Has Bakugou ever had one? Has he ever left anyone bite down and suck, has he ever asked? They’d have to be so close to him too, completely pressing their whole body against his, and it’d be easier if they were held in a tight embrace. The thought of Bakugou closing his eyes and letting someone work his skin between their teeth is maddening – what kind of sounds would he make? What would he do with his hands? With the rest of his body, and what would it take? Who would this person have to be in order to claim the neck and the throat for themselves, to mark him, to kiss every part they see?

Bakugou probably never received a hickey, all things considered, so Kirishima knows well he’s projecting onto someone who doesn’t exist. As far as Kirishima knows, Bakugou doesn’t have more than friends.

“By the way, did you say yes to these letters?” Bakugou asks, his eyes not leaving the screen.

Kirishima blinks. Letters? Which lett– oh, the Valentine’s Day letters. These letters. All of these letters.

“Uh, yeah, I thanked most them,” he admits. “Not the juicy ones though,” he adds with an awkward grin. Bakugou doesn’t seem to notice.

“You better not bring anyone home,” he warns, his voice falling lower. There’s something off to his attitude but Kirishima can’t put a finger on it; he’s too busy blushing up a storm.

“Ho–Home?” As in, bringing a stranger here? Into their apartment? In the kitchen they share, with their bathroom they decorated? And his bedroom – this would be the last thing he’d do, his bedroom? “No no I’m not– Bakugou! Come on!” Kirishima stutters, and he knows he’s red all the way to the tip of his ears. If he were to bring anyone home, they’d have to meet Bakugou and that could not go well, and on top of that he’d have to entertain them and do whatever people do when they bring dates home, into their shared space, where he and Bakugou live, together, with no one else.

His eyes still not leaving the screen where the video keeps playing, Bakugou shrugs. “I dunno, just saying,” he says flatly again, with this weird attitude settling into his body language – he drinks more water and keeps avoiding Kirishima’s eyes.

There’s a hint of a smile though, hidden in the corner of his lips. Just a ghost, a subtle couple of lines only Kirishima notices when others are not looking. Kirishima likes these lines. He likes seeing them when they’re out and Bakugou pretends he doesn’t want to go places, doesn’t want to have one more round of sushi, doesn’t want to do this and that. He closes himself off a bit to earn the right to pretend but Kirishima knows how to read him, so he often insists; Bakugou ends up getting what he wants, and Kirishima’s a bit happier every time.

So Kirishima, once again, insists. “Are you worried about my love life?” he asks with a lopsided grin, and Bakugou quirks an eyebrow at that. There he goes, playing his act again. This time there is no food, no games to play though, and Kirishima doesn’t know what Bakugou expects to win, but it’s too easy.

“Of course I’m not, why the fuck would I be,” Bakugou almost pouts, and Kirishima can’t tell if the red on his cheeks comes from his training session or just bloomed right this instant.

“Come on, admit it,” Kirishima coaxes him, half-joking half not. He kind of wants to hear it. Scrap that actually, he really wants to hear it.

“I don’t care about who you date, you dumbass,” Bakugou groans, his fingers tighten around his glass. “Just don’t bring them here.”

“Aaaww, you do care,” Kirishima pushes further, his tone singing. He can’t stop smiling for some reason, he can’t stop looking at Bakugou trying to avoid his gaze, at his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows. Something’s off but Bakugou’s not going to explode at his face, Kirishima knows it. “That’s cute,” he whispers. Because it is. All of it is. Bakugou’s harsh, yeah, he’s as rude as it gets on the surface, but the best of him is in the details. It’s where he truly is, in these tiny things he does and these tiny moments he has. Kirishima has always found him kind, and he can’t deny Bakugou also cute.

Finally, Bakugou looks at him. Kirishima reads frustration and vexation, and he wasn’t looking for it but he also finds expectation. A will, badly hidden. A want, not quite smothered. A question that Kirishima doesn’t know what to do with.

“You’re seeing things, Kirishima,” says Bakugou, and his voice is soft this time. Kirishima, he said. Not idiot, not dumbass, not anything else. There’s something to his stare that isn’t fatigue or roughness, and yet it pierces, it makes its way to the core of Kirishima’s heart, as though Bakugou could see through him. The tone, and the words, and the eyes; all of it is too true. It’s too honest. It’s too raw, and Kirishima gets lost in it.

Bakugou’s too pretty when he lets something shine through. His voice sounds better when he uses it like that, all soft and mellow, like a plea almost. Kirishima could stop breathing and just look at him for hours if he didn’t already have years of practice. And yeah, maybe he’s seeing things. Maybe Bakugou doesn’t worry at all. Maybe Bakugou wouldn’t mind if he dated someone, a stranger he met one night, a long-lost friend he reconnected with. Maybe Bakugou wouldn’t give a single thought to any of it.

But Kirishima would. Kirishima already did. Kirishima still does, right now, and he decides for the thousandth time there is no one he’d rather date and kiss and hold and come back home to than Bakugou.

It’s too much to hold inside of himself, it’s too big for just one man. It’s heavy in his chest when it bubbles up and it’s heavy in his throat when he can’t seem to cough and it’s heavy on his tongue before he can stop it from reaching that far. Bakugou still looks at him like there’s something pulling at him from the inside, like he’s waiting for relief, and Kirishima doesn’t know how to stop himself from letting it all out.

So he doesn’t.

“I love you, you know.”

He might have said it a billion times already, but there’s a shiver coursing down his spine today. There’s a shake, imperceptible to someone who doesn’t know where to look, making his hands quiver, making all of him vibrate with an intensity he doesn’t know how to contain. It was too easy, it was too simple, but this time out of thousands was the realest, and he doesn’t know what to do next. All that flutters and pulses within him feels like it’s going to burst out and sprout of him, grow out of his mouth like a tree outgrowing a forest; Kirishima knows he could repeat it. He could say it again, the I love you, the words he made his over the years. He could keep saying them until the day he loses his voice and it’d never feel dull, and it’d never feel hard.

All the other times were easy too, just banter between friends, just something you say from time to time. All the other times were true, but this one – this one does not come from a place of friendship. If Kirishima could, he’d call it a confession, but there’s nothing to really confess since he’s never really hid it either. Still, of the billion times he said it, this time Kirishima hopes, begs, implores that Bakugou does not hear it as something friends say.

But Bakugou would never truly hear it. Like with a song that’s been played on a loop, he’d never truly get it. The words have lost meaning already, Kirishima has stripped them bare by saying them too often, too loudly – just above a whisper at times – and to Bakugou, they cannot mean I want you anymore. How could they, when Kirishima keeps repeating them in the middle of mundane conversations? How could they, when they came after Bakugou fixed Kirishima’s headgear before they went out one morning, or after Bakugou cooked enough food for five, or when he fell asleep on Kirishima’s shoulder late at night? Bakugou isn’t to blame, with his wide eyes and his gaping mouth, with his held breath and his white knuckles, his eyes darting right into Kirishima’s soul. He isn’t to blame, he could never be.

Still, Kirishima never wanted Bakugou to hear it as much as he does right now.

It hurts.

Kirishima brought a curse upon himself; he’s stuck, doomed by his own running mouth to never be able to say it more honestly, to never find a way to make it clearer, heavier without talking for longer. He’d need to expand, maybe to lean in and kiss, and carve the meaning onto Bakugou’s mouth directly, to push it there between his lips until Bakugou finds a way to say it back, but Kirishima doesn’t know how to do that. Three words, that he can do. That he can say. Going any further is too much, too hard, too risky.

I love you, this is as far as he’ll go.

And it’s out there, floating in the air; there is a truth to it Bakugou’s deaf to, and Kirishima finally admits to himself that’s as good as it’ll ever get.

It’s a quiet form of acceptance that washes over him. Whatever was growing in the core of his ribcage deflates and falls back down slowly. Resignation, that’s all there is to it; knowing he can’t make it louder or say it with more intent, knowing today is one of these days he can’t come back from. He wonders, for a second, if Bakugou can read any of this on his face, then decides he probably doesn’t. Bakugou would say something if he had any clue, but right now he’s still silent, still looking at Kirishima, and his cheeks are still red, his skin still shiny, his lips still parted.

Kirishima doesn’t kiss him.

He knows he should. It’s something that friends do not do. Bakugou would understand that, at least, if he doesn’t understand the words.

Still, Kirishima doesn’t kiss him. He does one thing though, to honor the truth in his words he was the only one to hear, to mark today as a special occasion; he reaches forward and bumps his mug against Bakugou’s glass without breaking eye contact. It’s more of a push than a feisty clink of glasses, more of a kiss of their knuckles, but it’s enough. Kirishima takes his mug back and drinks all of his tea at once, letting it burn his throat, then finally breathes out and finds Bakugou’s eyes again.

He’s not sure Bakugou has blinked.

He looks like he’s on the verge of saying something, clearly perplexed; Kirishima can hear the what was that for? coming, the questions that would force him to explain, to stammer around his justifications. He’s ridiculous, he knows it well. He should not have done that. Bakugou probably thinks he doesn’t make any sense – he’d be right.

But still, he did it, just the way he said I love you every time he had the chance, and he’s not taking it back.

He swallows. “But I’d love you more if you took a shower before this couch is soaked with your sweat, dude.”

And this time, Bakugou blinks. He pulls himself out of a trance and swallows around his tongue; a frown immediately appears on his face and his body’s tensing all over, as if hurt by something he never saw coming, as if betrayed.

“You’re the worst roommate I could ever have chosen,” he says flatly, and Kirishima doesn’t know what to hear in that. It sounds real, honest, but Bakugou’s face is torn between two emotions Kirishima cannot read for once. Bakugou does not sound mean or cold; it was a statement. A just observation. A simple remark, as though he realized he made a mistake and blamed it all on himself.

“You know I’m not,” Kirishima smiles.

Bakugou stands up, hiding his face away. “Yes you are,” he says, turning around the couch to leave his glass on the table.

“I mean, think of Monoma,” Kirishima continues, twisting around to look at him go for the bathroom, unable to stop himself from talking. All he gets in answer is Bakugou’s sweaty shirt in the face, a glimpse of his naked torso and the lock of the bathroom door. The shower starts running a couple of seconds after.

Something in Kirishima wants to smile at it. At his poor attempts at something more, at something true. He could still change it right now, and tomorrow, and at every opportunity that ever arises. He could lay it all down for Bakugou to see. It’d be easy to talk through the door of the bathroom and ramble, admit to everything without having to watch Bakugou’s face. He thought about it before.

He doesn’t; leaving Bakugou’s shirt of the back of the couch, Kirishima turns back to the screen of his laptop and stays silent, because it’s what friends do.

The snow keeps falling for a good week. Kirishima wakes up to a silent city every morning, and all his sees out the window is white, fluffy, dulled down. From the sky to the ground, there’s no color anywhere, nothing but the occasional neon umbrella or bright jacket. It doesn’t melt easily. Instead, it stays, solid and frozen, and the next storm brings a fresh layer on top of the ice. It smothers a bit more every morning, it muffles sounds a bit better, and it looks a bit eerie too, like clouds piling up on top of each other.

It doesn’t stop the sun though, and even though it’s always cold the sunrise shines through the window with the same colors. The light spills in the living room the way it always has, dripping in gold. The snow constantly falling soothes out the color a bit, making it a bit paler, a bit sheerer, but it still spreads like liquid on the hardwood floors and warms up Kirishima’s feet when he waits for breakfast to be ready.

No matter the temperature, Bakugou still leaves his bedroom without any clothes on. Kirishima mumbles a “g’morning”, as he always does, and Bakugou groans back, as he always does. The eggs are ready right when Bakugou comes back (with clothes this time), his hair damp, bleary eyed. His walks behind Kirishima to make his way around the table, pulls out the chair and sits down with a sigh. The day doesn’t really start until he gets his crown, brilliant and rich; the dust swirls behind him and glints in the light. Their ankles touch under the table and neither of them does anything about it.

Bakugou closes the front door behind him and as usual, the apartment is silent. It’s been waiting for him all day, and everything is still right where he and Kirishima left it. It’s still bright outside but frost has bloomed around the edges of the large window; the succulents are thriving, bathing in the light, and clouds move lazily to cast slow shadows over the hardwood floors.

Walking through what could be a still-life painting, Bakugou takes off his boots, his mask, his bracers, his collar. He leans into the small mirror of the hallway to rub some of his eyeliner off; it never really comes clean off, he’ll have to take it out of his lash line later, but at least his lids aren’t all black anymore. He goes to hook all of his stuff in his room. Maybe he should just leave it at the office. He doesn’t really trust the others to care for his costume but it’d be easier than to come back home with it every night. He should ask Kirishima what he thinks of it.

After changing into something more comfortable, he goes back to the living room, stands right there and breathes in. His sigh is the only noise in the whole apartment. If he didn’t move, at all, there’d be no way to say if time is still running; he’s alone for an hour or so, and this moment is his and his only. Taking a few steps forward, he looks out the window at the city still buzzing. It’s winding down, humming lower, breathing slower like the gigantic lung of a tired beast. The crowds disperse and sheer out, blending with the grey of the buildings. The moon is already out and sits above, round and full, yet the sun still warms up Bakugou’s face.

It’s a good place to be.

Kirishima won’t be home for a while so Bakugou turns and –

The front door unlocks.

Still as stone, Bakugou watches Kirishima push the door open and drag his feet inside. He steps over the threshold like his ankles are heavy with iron; his head’s low, his hair’s already down, damp and messy. He carries a big sports bag over his shoulder – a lump forms in Bakugou’s throat when he recognizes it as the one Kirishima uses to bring his costume back home with him after hard days. Slumping, Kirishima pushes the door behind him, closes it, and leans against it with a huff; the back of his head comes to rest against the wood and he closes his eyes, apparently exhausted. From here, Bakugou sees him swallow.

He’s not sure Kirishima’s seen him. Kirishima never acts like this. He always calls out, says he’s back, he’s here, he’s home, but right now he seems to have to gather himself before taking one more step forward, and Bakugou doesn’t like this. It’s a break in the routine he did not prepare for; more than that, it’s a sign that something’s wrong.

Kirishima drops his bag to the floor and pushes back against the door with a heavy sigh, standing up straight. A hand running in his hair, he tilts his head to the side as if to stretch a muscle, sluggishly making his way to the living room. There’s a cramp to the way he moves – he’s usually so bouncy, feline almost, but tonight he’s merely crawling down the hallway. Bakugou feels himself frown.

“Kirishima?”

Kirishima looks up. Some of his hair has landed between his eyes, curling around itself in places. He must have taken a shower back at the agency. “Oh, Bakugou,” he breathes after a second. He sounds drained and it breaks Bakugou’s heart. Not that Kirishima is never tired, but he’s never tired like this, like he’s about to turn to smoke and vanish any second now, like he could collapse without even trying to smile once before night falls.

Bakugou joins him halfway. From up close, Kirishima’s a mess of contradictions. He’s so broad and thick, his strength bulging out from under his shirt, but there’s no joy to his eyes, no contentment and excitation. He’s flat, dim, his aura muffled and muted. Bakugou’s almost expecting him to crash and breakdown right here and now, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.

He should maybe hold him. Hold him and encourage him to talk and let it all out. Maybe he should cajole him like good friends certainly do. It wouldn’t be the first time, but tonight, Kirishima looks so fragile Bakugou’s afraid landing a finger on him would break him instantly.

Before Bakugou stops thinking, Kirishima sighs again. “It’s fine,” he says without being asked. “I’m fine.”

It is, obviously, a lie.

“You’re not,” Bakugou states harshly, and the irritation in his voices surprises even him.

Kirishima looks at Bakugou in the eyes and for a beat, Bakugou braces himself to catch Kirishima in a hug, to squeeze tight and give him the few minutes he needs. He owes it to Kirishima, and even if he didn’t, he wants to. It’d be fine. If Kirishima were to slouch and let himself fall against Bakugou’s torso, Bakugou would simply wrap his arms around his waist and let it happen.

But Kirishima doesn’t step forward.

“I’m good,” he mumbles again. “It’s just– There was–”

He sighs, visibly at loss, and blinks a couple of times. Bakugou’s hands itch terribly but he doesn’t know what to do, what to say – he’s bad at this, he’s so bad. Powerless, he watches Kirishima try to string words together, and his chest hurts at the sight.

“There was this guy with a nullification quirk,” Kirishima finally says. He takes a deep breath. “I went to stop him. I got him. It’s fine.”

He looks down and leans back subtly, as if trying to get out of Bakugou’s space. Evasive, he avoids Bakugou’s stare, even when Bakugou tilts his head to the side, only to finally step back and turn away. There’s no way he can’t feel the heat of Bakugou’s eyes against his side, there’s no way he can’t hear Bakugou’s heart vibrating, his whole body taunt.

A nullification quirk. Kirishima heard about an asshole with a nullification quirk and jumped into the fray, him, whose sole line of defense relies on his hardened skin. Kirishima might know how to punch, and he might know how to take a hit or two (or three), but with his skin bare? With his soft flesh and breakable bones, with his armor down? He’d be nothing but cannon fodder to someone with a plan. Standing alone in front of a villain, isolated, in desperate need for help, Kirishima wouldn’t be anything else than a dead man walking without the protection of his quirk. Bakugou hates to admit it, because Kirishima’s strong. He’s stronger than Bakugou in more than one aspect, he’s ridiculously overpowered in fair battle.

But without his quirk, he’s vulnerable. Without his quirk, he risks it all – his body, his mind, his life whole. He, the Chivalrous Hero, is so absurdly self-sacrificing he decided to go out there, alone, and face someone who he knew was able to take everything away from him.

Someone who was able to take him away from Bakugou.

Bakugou’s fuming.

The whistle of a boiling kettle vibrates through him, from the furiously bubbling water in his chest to the core of his bones; it sings, sings and pierces, and the more he thinks about it, the worse it gets.

Even now, Kirishima is still so desperately willing to jeopardize everything. And of course, that what a hero does, and of course Bakugou does it too, but when Kirishima does it, it’s different. Kirishima doesn’t have the right to throw it all away, to risk his health, his face, his smile like this. He doesn’t have the right to jump into battle and never come back whole from it. He doesn’t have the goddamn right to roll a dice and possibly deprive Bakugou of it all.

If Kirishima was looking at it right, then he’d see. He’d know, he’d understand immediately, Bakugou’s sure of it. They’ve grown so well into each other and feelings don’t matter, it’s not even about want and need and stupid fucking love, it’s not about Valentine’s day cards he never wrote and lips he never kissed and hands he never took – it’s not about all this stupid bullshit, it’s about Kirishima eyes when he says yes and the way he laughs when he says maybe and the warmth of his body nothing could replace. It’s his hands in Bakugou’s hair and his breath against Bakugou’s temple and his chest pressed against Bakugou’s back, it’s about his attempts at cooking growing more successful with each passing day and the way he naturally slots next to Bakugou in the bathroom.

And fuck it, maybe it’s about feelings. Maybe it’s about the hope Bakugou still has to, one day, find it in himself to hold and kiss and moan into him. Maybe it’s about all these ridiculous things, and maybe Bakugou’s only angry at himself for realizing he could have lost Kirishima today without having ever showed him how much he means when he says “good night”.

Something’s going to pop off, and Bakugou can’t stop it.

“Stop being so reckless,” he groans, and his voice wavers with five emotions at once. “Be careful, for fuck’s sake. That was dangerous.”

Kirishima turns back to him, not quite scowling but almost. “You know well sometimes we can’t afford to be careful, Bakugou.”

There’s a warning to his tone, a seriousness Bakugou doesn’t often hear coming from him. It’s flat, cold, solid like a slab of concrete – a clear reminder, and Bakugou’s hit with the thought that Kirishima might have gone through this whole thought process before.

But it doesn’t change a thing. Bakugou can’t afford to lose him.

“That’s no excuse,” he retorts, his frown heavy, and it’s only three words but he loses his breath over it. There’s so much he tries to say at once, so many long winded sentences he wishes he could vomit, but this will have to do; he’d grab Kirishima and shake him, and tell him what he means, but he doesn’t know how. At the bottom of his stomach, there’s a please come back to me, and in the curve of his throat there’s a don’t make me go through this, but he swallows them down. “You better not end up in the fucking hospital,” he warns instead.

Something in Kirishima shifts in a second. There’s a new spark in his eyes, something that’s never there, and when he inhales, his chest puffs up like a rooster’s. A vein pulses in his neck, beating like a war drum.

He’s offended. Genuinely offended, as if he was expecting to hear something else, something else or nothing at all. Bakugou doesn’t manage to read him properly; still, he can tell he probably fucked up, at least a little. After all, he ended up in the hospital himself weeks ago.

“The bills are on auto-pay,” Kirishima says, and his voice hitches. “I’d still pay my part of the rent just fine.” He swallows his spit and looks at Bakugou in the eyes. “Someone needed to go stop that guy. I went.”

Bakugou could blow up half a forest.

“Rent? Rent?” he snaps, coming into Kirishima’s space. “Do you hear yourself? Do you think that’s what I’m worried about? Paying rent?”

He takes one more breath, and with that the floodgates open and the lake spills over.

“I don’t care about rent, I don’t give a single fuck about bills and all that bullshit,” he barks, pushing a finger into Kirishima’s chest, and it’s true. He could even say he doesn’t care about the apartment at all, about the view, about the shower and the old couch; none of these things have any value if he can’t share them with Kirishima and Kirishima only. Another roommate wouldn’t cut it, any other agreement would go to waste – no one else knows the gold there is to find in a trio of succulents sitting on a window sill, in a shark-shaped rug giving color to the bathroom, in the clink of glasses echoing against white walls. “I want you to be here,” he continues, pushing further into Kirishima’s space. “I want to see you, in one whole fucking piece, do you hear me?”

They still have a cat to adopt, and they still have recipes to try out, and they still have stupid old movies to watch, games to play for the millionth time, early nights to spend in the curve of each other’s body. They still have so much to do, and so much to see, and Bakugou doesn’t know how to say it without leaning into Kirishima’s face, pulling himself so close Kirishima can’t possibly ignore him. He still has so much to say too, so many things he can’t describe, like the taste of strawberries and the warmth of coral, of gold light shining on his hair and turning him royal. There’s no other way to deal with any of this than to admit to himself first, to Kirishima second, that he wants him to be his first thing in the morning and his last thing in the evening, that he wants him from dusk to dawn and back, and that nothing, nothing, could ever compare to the sight of him dozing off on a chair while the sun rises.

Bakugou’s voice breaks when he speaks again, much quieter this time.

“Please.”

Kirishima’s coldness slips off him like silk. He can’t seem to be able to look away from Bakugou’s eyes, and Bakugou can feel his breath stutter, the vein in his neck slow down. He looks lost, lost and unable to find himself, desperately looking into Bakugou’s eyes, face, everything to find a grip, something to hold onto. He bites his bottom lip then lets go, and Bakugou doesn’t know why he’s not kissing him – he should! He should, it’d be simpler, but Kirishima’s back to being so fragile he could crumble if shaken. For the better or worse, his heart beats furiously against his ribs. Bakugou can feel it pump through the tip of the finger he jabbed into Kirishima’s chest; he wants to splay his palm open, to push all of himself against the chest and grab, push and pull to make him understand, but then Kirishima talks and Bakugou forgets everything.

“You know I can’t promise you that,” he breathes, his voice low. “Realistically, I–”

“Promise me.”

Bakugou insists, and he’ll always insist, pushing his finger harder between Kirishima’s pecs. The incessant waves lapping at his insides make his blood turn cold even though his skin’s burning. He could be out of his body, he could jump out of these bones if it made Kirishima understand he’s bursting to the seams with feelings.

Kirishima looks at him and god is he pretty, even when he breaks down.

“I’ll do my best but–”

“Kirishima, I swear.”

Kirishima raises a hand and grabs Bakugou’s wrist. He doesn’t do much more, his hand just stays there. He doesn’t push him away, he doesn’t do anything; he simply acknowledges Bakugou’s finger pushing into him and forces Bakugou to feel his heartbeat again, from the palm of his hand this time. His eyes are full with something Bakugou wishes he was blind to, full of words he doesn’t say, as if he was holding back.

As if he’d been hurt before.

“Bakugou,” Kirishima starts again, his voice softer, “I hope I don’t have to tell you I don’t want it either, right?”

And Bakugou can’t stop himself; his other hand flies to Kirishima’s side and grabs his shirt, fists around the fabric and pulls. He forces Kirishima to stay there, as close as it gets, and look at him in the eyes when he talks.

“Don’t turn it around,” Bakugou says, unable to tell if the heat he feels is from a blush or a burst of anger, or if it comes from Kirishima himself. Kirishima’s gaping, his brows up, his whole face shining, and through his hand Bakugou feels a suppressed shiver.

He squeezes Bakugou’s wrist. “I said I’ll do my best.”

“It’s not enough,” Bakugou grunts between his teeth. Kirishima’s breathing grows harder at that, his heart suddenly hiccupping. It’s not enough, just saying this is not enough. Bakugou wants a guarantee, he wants something sure, intangible, more than a promise. He wants the skies to part and to tell him Kirishima will never be hurt, and he wants the written word of an old god on a silver platter, and he wants the sun to never stop shining on this beautiful, heartbreaking face he refuses to ever lose the sight of. He wants Kirishima whole now, tomorrow, and until they don’t have to do this anymore.

Kirishima visibly looks for words, his mouth opening and closing on the fetus of a sentence, and he doesn’t know where to look. His whole face has flushed pink and everything that was flat, muted about him is now fluttering, pulsing with emotions he has a hard time containing. He’s gorgeous, and he’s still the same. He’s still the same mess of a boy, the same person Bakugou could never shake off, the same partner he’s had for years, but never had Bakugou wanted to kiss him this badly. It’s barely about the gesture, about body against body and the dampness of a sigh, or the weight of relief. It’s about Kirishima knowing.

There are words Bakugou can’t say but a part of him wishes Kirishima could hear them.

And maybe Kirishima just did. Maybe that’s why his hand wraps in the folds of Bakugou’s shirt, maybe that’s why he pulls too. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t talk but he licks his lips and pushes Bakugou’s wrist out of the space between them, maybe that’s why he doesn’t blink and his breath comes in waves, rippling against the skin of Bakugou’s neck in a delicious echo. Maybe it’s the sole reason why he presses his body into Bakugou’s, and maybe it’s not; Bakugou sees red, pink and red and gold, and he forgets what anger feels like when he meets Kirishima halfway to taste strawberries.

It catches them both by surprise.

They crash into each other, a wave against a cliff, and Bakugou’s entire body goes numb the moment their lips meet. He couldn’t fight it if he tried, all he knows how to do is to kiss, to drink Kirishima whole, to desperately push against him and try to make their mouths slots better against each other, move harder, feel stronger. Feverish, he clings to Kirishima’s shirt with one hand and pulls on his arm with the other, trying to bring him impossibly closer, and Kirishima tugs at him too. He can’t feel his legs, he can’t feel his stomach, he can’t feel anything; he’s only vibrating bones, cold blood, burning skin and hungry lips, hungrier with every second. He breathes, finally, he takes some air in as he moves and the oxygen rushes to his head; dizzy, drunk on it all, Bakugou insists and leans further, opens his mouth wider, high on the feeling of Kirishima’s mouth moving frantically against his.

Kirishima kisses him with an urgency Bakugou didn’t know him capable of, his hands coming behind Bakugou’s back to hold him tight. Tilting his head to the side, he doesn’t let Bakugou think, he doesn’t pull back, and his whole body shivers for a second before he pushes his fingers against the back of Bakugou’s neck and tangles his fingers in his hair. Bakugou forgets how to breathe properly. He hears himself pant, heavy and hot in Kirishima’s mouth. He gasps when Kirishima pushes him backwards and presses him into the back of the couch, his body moving like a snake’s against his own; without thinking, Bakugou breaks the kiss and climbs on the furniture, fumbling around to find his balance and using Kirishima’s body for leverage. Kirishima watches him with lidded eyes, his lips red and slick, one of his hands holding Bakugou’s side firmly. His hair’s even more of a mess than before and he’s winded too, detailing Bakugou’s face with both hunger and tenderness.

“Stay,” Bakugou breathes, pulling Kirishima between his thighs. Stay, he begs instead of come here, instead of I can’t lose you, and Kirishima gets it; one arm around Bakugou waist, the other in his hair, he closes the gap between them and kisses him again.

They devour less and savor more, riding their high and learning how to move with each other properly. Kirishima tilts his head to the left and Bakugou follows blindly, languorously moving with him. He pulls on Kirishima’s shirt and wraps an arm around his torso, keeping him close, and Kirishima hums into the kiss.

It’s only at this moment that Bakugou realizes he’s making out with his best friend in the middle of their living room, that it’s not temporary, it’s not a race. Kirishima has a bed in this apartment, he has a morning routine Bakugou’s part of, he has the keys to the front door. Bakugou can take his sweet time with him, and Kirishima won’t go away.

There’s no rush.

Bakugou tries to stop it but he smiles into the kiss anyway; it’s bad, it’s sappy and mushy and stupid but for once, just for this once, he feels good and doesn’t mind Kirishima knowing it. In answer, Kirishima only hugs him tighter and smiles too, still trying to kiss him and it’s a mess, he can’t aim properly, his shoulders are shaking with contained laughter and they’ve lost all synchronization but Bakugou wouldn’t have it any other way. Kirishima throws an anchor out and Bakugou grateful sinks with it, and there’s never been a happier drowning man.

Reluctantly, Kirishima pulls back. There he is, back to his usual beaming self, dripping with beauty in every aspect. His hand comes to cup the side of Bakugou’s face and he smiles, true, honest, but doesn’t talk.

Bakugou swallows. “Idiot,” he almost whispers, his voice raspy, and Kirishima smiles wider. Both his arms come to loop behind Bakugou’s neck and he looks at him with a softness Bakugou’s not sure to ever deserve.

Bakugou’s heart squeezes.

Kirishima leans forward to leave a peck against his lips. “You can talk,” he says against Bakugou’s mouth before kissing him again chastely. “I’m not the deaf one here,” he continues before leaving yet another kiss on the corner of Bakugou’s mouth, then another on his cheek, and another on his temple.

“You’re still an idiot,” Bakugou mumbles as a pleasing shiver crawls up his spine. He’s pretty sure he knows what Kirishima’s talking about, and his point still stands, Kirishima’s an idiot. Said idiot makes his way down to the edge of the jaw and Bakugou tilts his head to the side to leave him more room, to let him pepper all the kisses he wants, and Kirishima accepts gratefully. He traces curves and maps onto Bakugou’s skin for a moment, taking his sweet time making shivers bloom all over Bakugou’s throat, then drops it and hides into Bakugou’s neck.

“Promise me too?” he mutters right under Bakugou’s ear. “That you’ll be careful.”

Bakugou didn’t hear him promise anything though. Kirishima has refused to say it, to even try to pretend. And Bakugou gets it. He can’t promise it either.

He rubs Kirishima’s back in slow circles instead of answering; Kirishima relaxes into the touch, and Bakugou knows they’ve understood each other.

They stay there for a minute, melting into each other’s warmth. Just for a silent moment, they breathe in, breathe out, and allow one another just a bit of respite, a bubble of mercy, wrapped into each other on the back of their old creaking couch.

It’s Kirishima who speaks up first. “Dinner?” he asks, his breath tickling Bakugou’s throat.

Bakugou shrugs. “Yeah. Dinner.”

Slowly, Kirishima peels off him, unwrapping his arms and taking his body away. He takes a few steps back to allow Bakugou to jump off the couch. He’s still red all over, from his forehead to his collar, and the light pouring from outside is still so bright he has no way to hide it.

He’s so cute. Fuck.

“I’ll just put my costume away,” Kirishima says, making his way back to the front door where he left his bag. “I’ll be right there!”

Bakugou nods and watches him go. He’s alone for a moment in the living room, it’s just him and the hardwood floors still warming up with the sun. It’s just this still-life painting he gets to stand in, the same as last night and all the nights before. It still feels like a cozy nest.

He’s busy slicing carrots when Kirishima comes back. His footsteps grow closer until he presses his front against Bakugou’s back, his chin resting on a shoulder, both arms wrapped around Bakugou’s waist. His damp hair brushes the curve of Bakugou’s neck and touches the side of his face too, but Bakugou only leans into it.

Kirishima’s voice reverberates through their chest when he talks, when he chats about small nothings. Much more lively than when he arrived, his tone dances over the words – Ashido’s throwing a party on Saturday, he says, so I thought about the cat, he says, and Bakugou listens. Kirishima also tries to take the knife and help Bakugou cut some vegetables but Bakugou refuses every time; these hands belong around his hips, his whole body pressed flush against his own, so tonight Kirishima’s not cooking.

Shortly, the entire apartment is warm with the smell of curry; Kirishima sits on the kitchen counter, his legs swinging in the air, and rambles about mundane things. Bakugou doesn’t ask him to shut up, because why would he? Why would he deprive himself of this sight, of Kirishima happily chirping about random things he likes? Bakugou has yet to find a way to say it, but there’s little more heartwarming than Kirishima blooming after a long day, outshining the sun in this tiny kitchen corner, his red hair turning peach as the light shifts gold.

Bakugou stares, a lot, and never tries to hide it.

He’s the one who brings the food to the table and sits second; when he looks up at Kirishima, he already has his glass raised.

Bakugou sighs, but his attempted pout breaks into a grin. Alright.

He takes his glass and raises it too, secretly hoping he looks just as serene as Kirishima does in this moment.

“To you,” Kirishima says, and it may be short but Bakugou hears much more.

“To you,” Bakugou says back, and by the way Kirishima smiles, he knows Kirishima heard his me too.

Their glasses clink like chiming bells and they drink all of their water at once; Kirishima’s smiling when he brings his glass back down, a fresh blush on his cheeks.

Bakugou will burst open at the sight one day.

Not tonight though, because he wouldn’t miss a second of this. He kind of wonders what he’ll have to say to the navy-haired hyena next time he sees him, but it barely matters; he won’t implode tonight, not when Kirishima glows in the backlight, not when he looks at Bakugou with these eyes that make him want to kiss this pretty face all over, to push dinner aside and pull him over the table. Not when fleeting dust gives him a jeweled tiara, glimmering in low light, and makes Bakugou want to never blink again.

And when they sprawl on the couch, nothing’s really different from before. They still lean into each other’s presence and curl around each other’s side and shove each other away when the races get too tight. They still share the same personal space and talk the same way, tease the same spots, have the same manners. Nothing’s really changed, and neither of them is surprised about it.

But maybe, maybe there is something new in the way Bakugou presses Kirishima into the couch and catches his lips with his own. Maybe there’s something to explore in the slow kisses they revel in, in the hums they echo, in what they see in each other, in themselves with their eyes closed. Maybe there’s a bit of an adventure there, and something held back for too long, in the hands coursing under the shirts, and the itches relieved by loving caresses; Bakugou straddles Kirishima’s hips and holds him down, and Kirishima gratefully takes it.

Their bodies warm up to each other and sometimes Kirishima talks, you’re beautiful, he whispers, can I? and kiss me again, and Bakugou only says yes, yes, yes.

Kirishima wears this shit-eating grin of his when he carries Bakugou to his bedroom; Bakugou protests and squirms in his arms, but he doesn’t really try. A facade isn’t important – there are much better things to find in the crook of Kirishima’s neck, in the ridiculous giggles that ripple in Bakugou’s chest, in these lips he knows he’ll have all the time in the world to kiss again.

Turns out Kirishima’s bed is perfectly sized for two. The sun is barely setting when Bakugou dives back into him, head first, and Kirishima catches him in a breath; it’s just as he thought it’d be, if not a little bit better. Kirishima’s body is heavy but his hands are soft and his lips softer, his breath deepens then stutters when Bakugou nips at his skin and lets his hands roam. They don’t try to coax sounds out of each other but Bakugou still gasps and sighs and pushes Kirishima away to breathe – Kirishima laughs at him, every time, but he always waits for Bakugou to pull him back in.

They manage to remember to brush their teeth and turn off the lights. Bakugou rolls under Kirishima’s blanket without being offered to join and given Kirishima’s face, he’s not about to complain anyway.

They’re not asleep by midnight but they genuinely try at least a couple of times, until Kirishima pulls Bakugou’s waist closer and finds new spots he hasn’t kissed yet, new patches of skin he wants to taste; Bakugou lets him. Their legs tangle under the covers and their hands rarely stop moving, from hair to shoulders to the small of a back. Sometimes Bakugou shivers all over, and Kirishima mirrors him when they pull a bit harder onto each other, when fingers tentatively dig into the muscle for purchase, when Bakugou murmurs against his chest.

There’s a lot that’s new but they have all night, and all day after that, and all week if they want to. They have a home into each other and places to come back to; Bakugou pushes his hands into Kirishima’s hair and kisses him for the hundredth time, and he tastes like the rising sun.

Kirishima adds some more steps to his morning routine.

He learns how to slither out of Bakugou’s grip when his alarm goes off, slowly pushing the hands away and rolling out of bed. Sometimes Bakugou lets him go; more often, he holds on tight and keeps him close, trying to take advantage of Kirishima’s body heat for a little longer. Eventually, Kirishima manages to slip out from between his arms – he makes sure the blanket’s still covering Bakugou before leaving and closes the door on his way out.

It’s often raining in the early mornings this time of year. Kirishima watches the city wake up with him while the rice cooks, water gently tapping against the window. The sunrise is always slow, always gentle, and one of the succulents turns magenta when the warm light hits it just right.

He learns how to stop looking away when Bakugou emerges from the bedroom naked. He can look now. He can watch and learn – it doesn’t change much since he’s always been a hands-on kind of guy, but Bakugou’s all his to stare at, even when neither of them can properly open their eyes. He mumbles a “g’morning”, Bakugou grunts something back and always, always Kirishima smiles.

The table looks perfect when Bakugou comes back into the living room in his sweats, and Kirishima learns his favorite part then. His feet dragging on the floor, Bakugou makes his way around the table and stops for a second to kiss the side of Kirishima’s head in a quiet hello. It always lands in his hair and it’s always gentle, always a soft push, but in its regularity Kirishima feels a confession. Bakugou doesn’t cling to traditions without a reason; he finds this reason in the way Kirishima smiles up at him.

They’re things easy to learn and even easier to love. Every day that passes, Kirishima finds home on the third floor, first door on the right, and forgets what it’s like to wonder what a friend would do when Bakugou’s head pokes out from behind a wall. It doesn’t matter, because he’ll do whatever he wants; if he wants to waltz with him between the table and the couch and make the dust glitter with gold, he knows Bakugou will let him.