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It was a long time coming.
But still, stupidly, Bakugo's fingers couldn't quite type out the message - not without hitting all the wrong letters like he was in a bad dream with missing bones and ragdoll limbs. And he was definitely not as nonchalant as he was trying to be (and should be). Teeth gritted and finger stuck on 'send,' he wondered how much of his sweaty palms was from his quirk's influence.
And if the rest was a bad side effect of being so close to getting the thing he wanted.
He held his breath as his text was delivered, read, and left out to dry. Sunk deeper into the dorm's outside wall, banging his crackling fist against the concrete for good measure, hard enough to hurt and twist as much as he was. The ashy, explosive imprint of his hand told a bleeding truth: that it really fucking sucked to like someone.
Don't be so damn weak.
"Bakugo?"
The door next to him rushed open, or would've if it didn't play out in his head in slow motion. Dramatically. A huffed voice met the air like it was desperate to fill shrunken lungs. Like they were out of breath from racing - running a distance that would've clocked in at a hallway and four flights of stairs.
Eijiro's crimson eyes were wide, staring openly (too openly) through the bangs of his unstyled hair. And fuck if he wasn't pretty.
"I thought-" Kirishima interrupted himself with a barking cough. The door slowly shut behind him, locked click sealing them outside, trapping Bakugo in this awful idea that he should've never followed so impulsively. "I thought you needed me, man. What're you doing out here?"
It was such a loaded, hellish question. Bakugo was waiting for him - playing the sad role of some pathetic, high school cliche. Cloud nine was mockingly out of his reach. Actually, it was right in front of him, complete with Crimson Riot pajamas and an expectant stare. Bakugo wondered how real this scene should feel, and if something was getting ready to prove it was a dream. If it would start raining everywhere but the circle they stood in. If the moon was smiling up in the sky, stars twinkling, and fireflies would start drawing hearts in the air like some damn movie he never agreed to be in.
But it was a clear sky. They were alone. The moon was dim.
And Katsuki was an idiot.
"I'm planting flowers," he said, deadpan. Kirishima crinkled his face, so he added more. And his real answer was just as loaded as the question it answered: "I'm waiting for you, what else?"
The redhead looked around like he was missing something obvious. Some villain creeping around the school grounds, having bypassed the maximum security shields - like that would've been more believable than Bakugo Katsuki asking him to meet outside the dorms at 9pm. His eyebrows furrowed dramatically, suspiciously, and his mouth pouted to one side.
Someone needed to kill him for thinking it was fucking cute.
"Can you tell me what's going on already?"
For all his preparation, he still didn't know what to say.
Bakugo should've had a Plan B. When did he not have a plan ready to go, ready to deploy no matter what curve ball came at him or how fast it was going? He'd let himself get distracted. Had walked back inside the stairwell twice to call it quits, but both times swore at himself and burst back out like a hurricane. He didn't have anything to fall back on now - he was laid out bare in the eye of the storm trying to pull Kirishima in with him.
"Remember what you said to me the other day?"
It left his mouth before he could stop it, so committing was the only option now. He gripped his fists tight to show himself that he could.
"Ah No, I-"
How could you not.
"Then think harder."
A wordless tension lifted from the ground like it wanted to pull them both down underneath. Bakugo's eyes stayed narrowed, focusing on the object of his intensity, always, because the thing he wanted had never not been an object or goal. Severity was all he knew. He tried not to slip, pupils breathing fire, as he watched Kirishima remember his offer. And he worried, for what felt like the first time in his gifted life.
Because maybe stubborn resolve wouldn't be enough when the thing he wanted was a 'he,' and 'he' could say: "No."
"Oh, yeah," the other finally said. But it was a simple realization, remembering baseline words and not the implications stitched to them. It wasn't the realization that really needed to sink in.
Bakugo stared, patiently impatient.
"Oh. Yeah."
There it was.
"I wasn't s-"
Bakugo growled, couldn't stop it from tearing past his teeth and souring the air. He swatted Kirishima's statement right to hell where liars belonged - at least right now while his skin was already so flushed, and his confidence was so tilted he couldn't see straight. Rejection from Kirishima would be fatal.
"If you weren't serious, then you can leave right fuckin' now."
The redhead had no response. And for once, Kirishima's face didn't read like an open book - no sharp smile or bronzed eyes telling him everything he needed to know and more. Bakugo thought he had him figured out, at least to some degree, but the other's empty expression showed nothing at all. Bakugo was hit by how little he knew and how useless it was to throw a guess in the wind.
"Well?"
He waited, unraveled and singed. No one had ever fucked with his emotions so thoroughly - and Eijiro didn't even know he was doing it.
(Did he?)
"You're making fun of me."
"Hah?"
"Is Denki hiding in that bush with a camera?"
Katsuki blinked. This wasn't a response he ever considered; Kirishima thinking this was all a joke, as if the blond was known for goofing off and pulling pranks and not his dead serious everything. Like Kirishima couldn't imagine a world where this was happening, and it wasn't a cruel trick.
"Dude come out, you're way too obvious," he continued, calling out impatiently to foliage that didn't move and held no secrets.
"Is who, what? I'm a second away from hitting you in your damn rock face."
"Then...you're for real?"
"Stupid, I'm always for real."
But as real as this was, Bakugo was finding it very hard to not crumble at his edges, like he was made of smudged lines and virtual points. It'd be easier to crack than to keep holding all the pieces that broke off of him. He was overwhelmed, and he could finally see the conclusion he'd asked for, closing in fast from the distance. His feet wouldn't move, though. He started this whole thing, and yet he couldn't find the guts to step closer and finish it.
Good thing Kirishima had enough guts for the both of them.
"And you want..." Kirishima trailed off, only far enough away that a single, brave, impossible move could connect them.
"I don't want anything," Katsuki lied, lied so obviously - paper thin but he stretched it further, "Just getting it over with."
Those were Kirishima's words now, not his. From when he had caught Bakugo after class, waiting beyond the tall door to class 1-A while everyone filed out for lunch. Said it softly enough that no one else could hear, especially Kaminari who'd been the one to bring up the irrelevant subject in the first place (and the one to lead the attack on Bakugo's inexperience).
He'd been waiting with blush holding his face hostage, but he'd offered himself up for slaughter anyway.
"Ya know, if you wanna get your first one over with, you can use me."
Bakugo can't remember exactly which biting, instant rejection he'd used. But whatever it was came from a very dark place flooded with contradiction and denial, one he finally, barely made it out of.
And here he was now. Here they both were.
"You can use me."
'Use' sounded vulgar, but it was the word saving Bakugo from melting to the floor. 'Use' gave him an out; it was a weak excuse, but one he desperately needed. A signed permission slip that prevented him from attaching strings to this mess. He suddenly felt desire, and so much of it, writhing in his chest with a life of its own - an insatiable need to know what Kirishima's lips fucking tasted like now that he found a way to get the answer.
"Let's get it over with, then," Kirishima repeated, unreadably, breathlessly, leaning forward only the tiniest amount so that Bakugo could still dodge and reconsider. Like there was even any chance of avoiding a bullet so dead set on piercing his heart.
You've wrecked me, Red.
Katsuki kissed Eijiro, then, despite never kissing anyone else in his life - taking the lead because falling into familiar patterns was the only thing he could remember how to do. How was he supposed to fucking breathe? Where else could he dig in his fingetips other than Kirishima's nape and jaw and stuttering chest? He fought his way against his lips, letting impulses take over and his composure break beyond repair. His skin was burning, palms screaming to be ignited, not satisfied until they both went up in a rapture.
Katsuki kissed Eijiro and knew, without a doubt, it didn't feel like 'getting it over with' to either of them. Katsuki was confessing too openly how long he'd been wondering about this. What it would feel like to growl into the other's mouth, right past his pointed teeth. And the payoff was a dream; it was all so indescribably rough and wild and messy and fuck, he liked Eijiro's smile even more when it was pressed against his lips, because at least then he could finally swallow it whole.
Katsuki kissed Eijiro because he wanted to. Because he wanted him, and for a need so simple, it couldn't be more impossible to admit. He remembered to close his eyes, finally, unable to take the sight of the redhead looking so content.
They broke away, each of them holding different reasons.
Bakugo wiped the back of his hand against his mouth. He wondered if it would be enough to stop his pulse from shooting, or if he was too late, and feeling the kiss for so long on his skin had already destroyed him. And despite everything, somehow, he kept his gaze potent. Stared at Kirishima like he was trying to exploit words right off his tongue. The other pressed his lips together, trying hard to seal some irreplaceable feeling between them.
A simultaneous breath fell out of both of them, and Eijiro spoke first. Not sounding very rattled or looking very flushed compared to Katsuki, which should've been some kind of sign.
"Wow."
For whatever reason, Bakugo interpreted the comment as something horrid. Said like a sigh, like disappointment: 'Wow, you really are terrible at this. Wow, why did I bother following you out here? Wow, why would I ever want to do this again?' Katsuki jumbled together a shaky reply, holding a lot of fury for someone who just had the life sucked out of them.
"You wouldn't know a good kiss if it-"
Kirishima interrupted him, pulled him, took his lips again. Greedily. His arms felt too secure to ever doubt; Katsuki was pressed into his barreled chest complete with the maddening beat underneath. Eijiro really, awfully, stole him, skin and mind alike - the dirty fucking thief.
Bakugo had to get out. He pushed himself away before he was irreversably under a spell.
"Sorry," Kirishima whispered, and didn't sound the least bit apologetic. "I guess I wasn't supposed to do it again."
"No."
Genius, Katsuki. Really.
"Oops," the other brushed his tongue across his pointed teeth. It felt illegal to watch. "Feel any different? Like a man?"
Eijiro's smile was comforting. Happy, maybe, but there were so many different forms that came in. And it couldn't be the only thing going on behind the mask; he couldn't be so carefree while Bakugo felt shaken to his reactive core. That wasn't how it was supposed to work. This wasn't how any of this was supposed to happen.
I think I fucked up.
"If you're gonna try to talk about feelings now, I'm out."
"You gotta give me somethin'," Kirishima pleaded - again, either suddenly able to hide his emotions like magic, or he'd somehow escaped the blast zone of that nuclear explosion of a kiss. Bakugo wondered which option frustrated him more.
Give him something? Katsuki wanted to give him everything, but that feeling felt even more impossible to breach out loud than ever before.
Why couldn't he just say it?
"You got my first kiss, I don't owe you fuck all else."
Eijiro smiled, somberly, but at least something the other felt finally leaked out. "True, true."
"So that's it," Bakugo tested.
"Guess so."
Tell him.
Kirishima looked like he was waiting for it too, the question that never came, the confession that stayed buried. But he was just as guilty as Bakugo was.
"Don't come knocking on my door for round two, this was a professional courtesy," Kirishima joked, too easily, while Katsuki was rumbling in the aftershock. Feeling thoroughly and horribly tangled from what just happened between them.
"You're pretty stupid to think I'd want more."
I'm pretty fucking stupid to pretend I don't.
"Glad its'all cleared up, then."
"Shut up," Bakugo bit, wondering why exactly he was the one feeling emotions here and Kirishima wasn't. It was all backwards, all of it - the whole damn universe. And he loathed feeling as much as he expected to, because it was one of the rarities he couldn't control. It was hitting him full force, relentlessly, payback for all the times he struggled to cage anything that didn't start and end with 'angry.'
"See ya in class tomorrow?" The redhead's grin looked so expectant, so terribly irresistible. Bakugo had to get the hell away from him before his heart finally gave out and his palms blew the whole school to rubble.
I wanna be with you, and I hate it more than anything.
He thought it just as Eijiro turned around, trying to leave him in ash and fury when Katsuki was the one who brought them here in the first place.
"Don't even think about making this weird," Bakugo called out suddenly, the antithesis of what he should've said: begging the redhead to make too much of this, because it was exactly what he was about to do. Kirishima stopped at the comment and spun around, one eyebrow raised like he saw the hidden request. But he quickly covered himself in sarcasm to hide.
"Somethin' weird about sucking your best friend's face?"
He'd never called him that before.
Katsuki added it to his list of things to overthink.
"Saying that afterward for starters, dumbass."
"Could be worse," the redhead opened with. Bakugo told him he doubted it could, but his mind was changed pretty quickly.
"I could tell you how much I liked it."
The door shut behind him just how it had opened - in slow motion, with the weight of the world behind it.
Fuck.