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Kirishima was doing it. Today. He was as ready as he'd ever be to make a leap into mayhem. It'd felt wrong to sit on the sidelines of his life for so long, out of sorts because it wasn't his style at all - not one bit. But nothing had ever thrown his confidence such a never ending loop. His head had gone in circles all day, hitting pit stops at 'When's and 'How's and 'What the hell are you doing's.
And what was he doing?
His sight was trained on the impossible, the roughest path to take, which in contrast was his style. His macho grin and go-getter attitude were cranked up to their highest setting, running rampant, kicking him into overdrive. He needed all his nerves firing when he asked Bakugo on a date.
And really, what better time to potentially ruin his life than a Tuesday night?
Dragging a finger down his lips, the redhead sighed, restless and entirely filled with dread despite how confident he tried to be. He tried not to vanish into the air with his deep breaths. He was disintegrating under the weight of possibilities, all two of them, cracking his steel skin to fragments and bone with the sheer weight of them. What the hell would he do if Bakugo said 'No'? And scarier still, a knife against his jugular, what exactly would they become if he said yes?
And he still couldn't stop thinking about it, that damn kiss - it was supposed to be meaningless but had held him hostage, tied down for a week of regrets. Regretting doing it all together, and doing too much, and wanting to do more... Even now, he was staring into the backs of his eyelids, portals to watch the very moment he died: when Katsuki's explosive hands were on his throat and jaw. Squeezing, gripping, igniting them both in fueled flames. Bakugo had bit at his lips and flushed his face molten even now, even as far away as a memory was (Or was supposed to be).
Eijiro had tried to keep himself composed afterward, against all odds - able to cheat his shattered emotions while his blood ran the temperature of hellfire, and all he could think of was Bakugo Katsuki, Katsuki, Katsuki, there was no one else who could make him feel so alive and-
Kirishima was definitely lost.
There was a reason he tried so hard to hide afterwards. Why his face contorted into wants and needs and impurities only when the door had shut and he had something to lean on to keep from slipping. Kirishima was supposed to give only as much as he'd offered in the first place; to check a box on a list of teenage experiences, to get Bakugo his first kiss.
In the most unplatonically platonic of ways.
I saw his face after, I fuckin' saw it.
He wants it too.
It was dangerous to pretend to be so sure, when he really wasn't sure of anything. He felt like he was sitting under a cloud, one clearly ready to pour and wash his hopes down the drain but he still couldn't bear to move away. It followed him in real time while he stood and started walking. While he sucked up all his guts and courage in a breath big enough to blow out the stars. And while he made his way, all one million miles, to the room next door to his own.
He'd waited too long, but still wasn't even close to ready. And there had to be something entirely impulsive and self-sabotaging about 9pm, because here they stood again. Face to face and farther than ever.
"Hey."
Eijiro said it at a volume much quieter than he meant to, like he was asking for permission to exist in the hero's doorway - the line of piercing, unforgiving sight. Where was his damn confidence? Could Bakugo's stare alone really melt through his skin so easily? He didn't know why he bothered to ask himself, when he knew the answer and all it did was make him feel weak.
"What do you want?"
Kirishima almost smiled, crooked and weary, because they both knew. What he wanted so terribly that it filled him with self-imposed shame: You, idiot. And that reply would be the same no matter when or how or why he was asked.
The dam broke, and he couldn't give a damn. If Bakugo didn't see the emotions flooding onto his face in the aftermath, it meant he was ignoring them on purpose.
"To ask you somethin'."
Kirishima's answer made this all sound so innocent. Like he was coming over to borrow notes, banter like easy friends, ask him to eat breakfast with him and Kaminari tomorrow... And it would've been smart to change his mind to any of them. To choose an option that didn't make his heart beg for mercy - and why the hell was he blushing already? He clamped his teeth together as severely as a bear trap.
Bakugo's eyes flashed in response, but what it meant was anyone's guess, because even Kirishima came up empty for possibilities. "You couldn't have just texted me?"
"Could've, but then I wouldn't get to see you."
Kirishima wasn't even trying to hide anymore. He bled onto his words, every single one, syllables coated thickly in red. What the other did with them was his choice alone to make.
And it didn't seem like he'd made it yet.
"We had class together all day," Bakugo pointed out, almost turning his observation into a question. And his innocence had to be fake at this point, especially because it felt so wrong to describe Katsuki as innocent. He couldn't be so damn blind when his eyes were so full and angry and attractive.
"I know."
Of course I know, I was starin' at you the whole time like some fool.
Bakugo looked impatient. "Well, what?"
Well, the way Katsuki was staring couldn't possibly be right - singeing him at the edges, unfurling him piece by piece until Eijiro realized just how captivated he was. Bakugo was a curse he'd been caught up in, and now he was damned.
Well, there wasn't any possible scenario where Kirishima came out of this unscathed, so he might as well kiss his heart goodbye as he hurled it straight into the sun.
Well, he was wondering more and more if it was supposed to be this unbearable and consuming and dazzling to fall in love.
And for the first time, he felt dangerous enough to admit that's exactly what it was. He was falling in love, and doing it the only way he knew how to do anything: with everything in him and too fast to stop.
"Damn it," Kirishima let slip, which probably ruined his confession from the get-go. But there was no running from the bomb he lit, so he closed his eyes, stuck dead center in the blast zone-
"I'm wild about you, you know that?"
Kirishima bit his lip, a second of pause to allow a response that never came, so he pried his confession open as wide as he could, "And I just, I needed to say it before-"
"Get in."
The interruption wasn't anything he expected to hear, so his mouth dried and went as blank as his eyes. It earned him a growl.
"Get in," Bakugo grabbed Eijiro's collared shirt and pulled him into his room, which was somewhat of a mystery even if he'd been in it before to study for their final exams together. And what a fitting return it was, because the frustrated blond was lecturing him now, too. "You fucking moron. In the damn hallway?"
Kirishima was startled and rattled, but mostly confused. His apology conveyed as much with a searching "Sorry," and furrowed brows. He wondered if he'd even said anything before, or just imagined it, because he really thought he was owed some sort of acknowledgement.
This was all going to hell in an instant.
But as he twitched in self-doubt and refused to look the other in the face, Bakugo's anger fell away silently, calmly, openly. Left only as clattered shards on the ground. His voice searched back when he said, "I'm still waiting on that question."
Eijiro immediately thought the word Stupid, but didn't know which one of them deserved the title more. He wanted to grab Bakugo by the shoulders, hard-skinned grip, and shake him for trying to dodge everything. For ignoring that his chest was ripped open an inch away, and instead of being direct, Bakugo was willfully the least confrontational that he'd ever seen him.
"Did you even hear what I said before?" Eijiro asked, almost pleading despite how ugly it made him feel, looking for something.
"Of course I fucking did."
"Sure as hell doesn't seem-"
Kirishima had looked away in stubbornness when he said it, because the last thing he expected was to be kissed. Really kissed - no made up excuses or false pretenses or getting anything over with, just taken, captured, here against Katsuki's wall in Katsuki's room by Katsuki. It wasn't soft or gentle, because Bakugo wasn't either of those things; he was harsh and demanding and a fucking divine strain of ravenous. Eijiro didn't feel real anymore under such intensity. He wondered how the hands pinned against his chest didn't slip right through his ribs, and why the other was trapping him like that in the first place - like he was worried Kirishima would push away (Never, never ever.).
Bakugo's fierceness was comforting. It was exactly what he'd been craving - having it explained, wordlessly, through tongue and teeth in this tortuously short kiss, that they belonged right against each other's skin.
"Katsuki," he said the hero's name (his hero) the second he found his voice; he had to seek it out, shrunken in his chest as it was, because he'd been all too content to let their touches converse instead. The other blinked. He didn't wipe his mouth this time, and it felt very important to notice that. It also felt very important for Bakugo to hear what Kirishima had been repeating in his head for months:
"You really are incredible."
He meant the compliment with everything in him - so deeply that the adoration hurt his cheeks to smile through.
And he found that his hand was somehow around Bakugo's shoulder, touching the fine hair on the back of his neck, and they fit too well to move now. He twirled a loose blond lock around his finger, smiling about that too.
"Don't," Bakugo sucked in a breath, like he was suddenly in pain from how criminally genuine the redhead in front of him was. Don't what? - Talk about how they felt, openly for once instead of both being such cowards about it? Not a chance in hell.
"Don't say things like that, fuck," he finished.
Kirishima noticed how crimson the other's face was, pooling on his neck and cheeks. He wondered if more color had appeared after the kiss, or only after hearing such starry-eyed admiration.
And wondered, with a touch of annoyance, how Bakugo seemed have none of the absolute flips and figure-eights happening in his insides, which meant Kirishima was stuck dealing with his alone.
He supposed it was payback for pretending not to find Katsuki so deadly and downright tempting last week.
"Why's that?"
Why can't I tell you how perfect you are when it's the whole damn reason I'm here?
"Because, everyone's told me how great I am, my whole life and..."
"And you're sick of it?"
"No, Christ, let me finish," he seemed to be fed up of Kirishima's touch, ripping his hand away from his burning hot neck; but if he really hated it so much, why did he keep holding on afterwards? And he squeezed the redhead's palm awfully hard when he said: "Everyone's said it except you. And you mean it, you really fucking mean it."
"Of course I do."
Eijiro could see it in his eyes. That as much pride as he had, Bakugo didn't know what to do with someone who put him on a pedestal as high as the moon.
At that, the blond blushed, his damn pale skin combusted like there was nitroglycerin sparking on his face too, and Kirishima's eyes held the lighter that had started it all. "Maybe I'm just the first person you actually wanted to hear it from," he added back. Couldn't help the smirk that appeared on his lips.
His surge of confidence made him realize that the question, the one he'd come here solely to ask, still hadn't left his tongue.
"I hate you, Red, so much"
It was a bold thing to claim when he'd attacked Eijiro's lips and flesh so viciously, and had done it more than once.
"You don't. And you better not, because I want a lot more than a kiss."
The twitch of Bakugo's mouth said me too, but his reply was less wanton and more daring. "Didn't know you were so greedy."
"Maybe I am, cause..." Kirishima trailed off, far away, expecting a punch to land square on his jaw when he rushed into what was next. The grand finale. The abomination his crush had morphed into when it met too many 'Maybe's and fantasies.
Please,
"I want to be with you, really be with you"
If it's a No, I'd rather take a Howitzer Impact than hear you say it.
Bakugo looked down, but even his jagged hair couldn't hide an equally jagged flash of teeth. And despite the vulgar curse he used next and how it would've sounded like a spitfire threat on paper, the reply couldn't have dripped out of his mouth looking any sweeter than honey.
"So what are you gonna fucking do about it?" Katsuki's voice was deep and hushed and completely otherworldly.
Hopefully, be yours. Kiss you hard while you kiss me harder because you'd make even that into a competition - believe me I know. And I know you, better than anyone, inside and out. What lights your damn fire and the best way to put it out. Fuck, I want to do so much, you don't wanna know how long my list is, and how brave I had to be to even get this far. But hell, I'm not done yet. First-
"Was thinking I'd take you on a date. "
Kirishima didn't even finish his sentence before he got the simple "Yes," he'd been aching for, and with more desire than he'd ever heard from Bakugo.
Followed by, "Don't get it backwards, shitty hair, I'm taking you on a date." But it didn't matter, the wording didn't matter, because a 'Yes' was a 'Yes' no matter how Bakugo tried to spin it - three letters now sealed in his head that he could call up whenever he wanted.
Eijiro was too happy to even jokingly argue with him. He was lighter than he'd ever felt, and Bakugo made it even more maddening by laughing. They had to be in a dream because he had only ever heard him laugh once before, and certainly never expected it to pierce him this very second. Or for Kirishima to ever be able to say, with any certainty, that he was dating Katsuki. That the term boyfriend would describe them both, to each other.
But because Bakugo couldn't just let emotions brew undisturbed, he grumbled, "I'm not gonna start holding your hand now."
And he said it while still holding Kirishima's hand (He'd never let go, had he?)
"I know."
The blond blinked and stubbornly ignored both of their previous statements, pulling Eijiro's palm against his mouth like he needed it right that second, inexplicable to either of them. Kissed the center of it like he was wondering what a hand without explosive chemicals tasted like - and going through with it so absentmindedly, normally, gently, that it was probably the most shocking thing he'd ever done.
If Kirishima was fighting his heartbeat before, he was now well and truly one skipped beat from death.
"One date," Katsuki carried on lying like it was part of a game now, winning the further he got from the truth and the more of Kirishima's guilty expression that he took. Neither of them expected this to come to a stop after one date (or one anything) but the redhead played along too, because it was easy. Fuck, It was so easy together
"One manly date."
"...It's about to be zero."
Eijiro snatched a kiss from the corner of Katsuki's mouth - thinking that payback tasted a little bit like surprise. He was bold about it because he could do bold things, both to and for Bakugo now, and this was proof of how effortless it would be.
Bakugo pouted about it, of course, and finally untangled their fingers.
"I'll be ready at 6 tomorrow?" Kirishima asked, because he hadn't forgotten what they were teasing each other about any more than he'd stopped feeling euphoric from their touches, the yes, the everything. Bakugo replied with a moody "Tch," which only egged him on more.
"Dress nice."
"I'll wear whatever I feel like," but the blond couldn't help his grin, that damn sinful smile, that said he'd put the same ridiculous effort into them as he did in becoming a hero. And that maybe, the two things he wanted most would go together better than he thought. "Now get out of my room, hair for brains, before I regret saying yes."
Kirishima didn't want to leave. He still felt the heat between them, felt his nerves running up his throat like a trail of gunpowder, and wondered if Bakugo just didn't like how easily he lost control of himself when Eijiro was involved. He followed the order anyway, turning towards the door, because he'd be standing right outside of it tomorrow morning anyway. And tomorrow night at 6pm. And hopefully, more times than he could ever hope to remember.
When he turned, he caught a glimpse of something on the wall that confirmed how wrong he was to ever doubt the other's affection.
"You act real tough Katsuki, but I know your secret."
"Hah?"
Eijiro pulled at the keys hanging on a hook in front of him, rattling and flicking the single, familiar chain attached. It looked straight out of a comic book page, straight from the game booth he'd won it at, and a gift straight from Kirishima's hands. BANG! - Bakugo steamed and flushed red at his wink, his all-too-knowing smile, "You're a sweetheart."
He looked about ready to commit homicide. "God you're stupid," Bakugo growled, tearing his door open and pushing Kirishima past it. But the fact that he didn't slam it shut and instead pursed his lips and glared, missing something - wanting something, said everything Bakugo couldn't. Proved that there had been an irreparable shift between them that didn't need repaired anyway.
Eijiro didn't ever want to go back.
"Y'throw a lot of insults around for someone who can't get enough of me."
"Stupid," Bakugo repeated, but his small smirk was a very sinister cherry on top, "You're still here, aren't you?"
"Couldn't really stay away."
They stared at each other for one vulnerable moment.
"Stop smiling so much."
But Kirishima couldn't, and Bakugo didn't sound like the view actually bothered him at all.
"You're gonna have to stop making me smile first."
He was sure there'd be a snarky comment to follow, but he was proven wrong, smothered in just how wrong he was, yanked back into the room for the wrong to be pressed up his collarbones and neck and bruise the flesh of his arms easily - too easily, like he'd wanted ugly purple splotches as much he wanted the person giving them.
And fuck, if Kirishima had ever felt so right.