Chapter Text
“Is this seat taken?”
The first thing that Katsuki notices about the guy is his voice. It’s deep and brash, though he’s obviously trying to be quiet for the morning commuters. It’s a nice voice, yeah, but Katsuki is loath to admit such a thing.
The second thing that he notices doesn’t hit him until he looks up and takes a deep breath through his nose.
His scent.
The man standing in the aisle is probably about as tall as Katsuki, chiseled and thick, complete with wide, red, puppy-dog eyes and the most obnoxiously spiked hair that Katsuki has ever seen. He’s definitely handsome, what with his body that’s mostly muscle, and his small face, and his admittedly long eyelashes. Physical admiration aside, he’s incredibly smelly, makes Katsuki’s nose wrinkle up and his face contort in disgust. He’s a werewolf.
A rather good-looking one, to be honest, but a werewolf, nonetheless. On a bus. His bus. The one he takes to work every day, the one that he has never encountered another downworlder on before.
“You’re a —"
They both speak at the same time out of complete shock, because really, what are the fucking chances, but before they’re really able to get anywhere, the bus driver revs up the engine, causing the shifter to lose his balance and tumble straight into Katsuki’s lap.
Despite the intense burning in his nostrils and the back of his throat, Katsuki nearly laughs at the uncoordinated pile of limbs. His anger mounts behind the incredulity of it all; he’s going to ignore the way the creature is gripping onto his thighs with nails that are way sharper than they appear to be. "You wanna sit in your own seat before I bite your head off?”
The wolf scrambles up and over into his own seat, clutching his bag to himself and staring at the other, yet again, in astonishment. There’s a bloom of scarlet creeping down his neck and ears, and Katsuki pointedly ignores the heat of his own cheeks. “Sorry about that,” mutters the wolf, and they’re both lucky that downworlders in the city are a lot more lenient than the more territorial creatures of the countryside. “I’m Kirishima.”
Katsuki almost thinks the wolf—Kirishima—is checking him out. Those eyes flicker from his eyes to his chest to his lap, where Kirishima had just been seated, and Katsuki doesn’t think he has to voice why that would be a bad idea. “Whatever, Hair-for-Brains. Hands and eyes to yourself.”
“Yeah, sorry,” he says. Katsuki glares at the wolf, because it’s not enough that he has to breathe through his mouth for the rest of the ride, but now he has to deal with someone who apologizes near as much as Deku. He hopes that he smells just as bad to Kirishima as Kirishima does to him. “You ride this route often, Mr…”
“Bakugou,” he says, and immediately bites on his own tongue. Fuck. “I’m not really a fan of small talk.”
Kirishima nods, contrite enough, and thankfully doesn’t apologize again. For nature’s born enemies, they’re doing a pretty good job of staying perfectly amicable. Katsuki is prepared to live and let live, for the sake of his own sanity, and the safety of everyone involved.
He’ll just have to start wearing a surgical mask on his commute. This doesn’t have to be a big deal.
---
Katsuki, as well as most of the city vampires he’s acquainted with, works for a fashion magazine in the crux of Musutafu’s fashion district. It’s kind of just a tradition at this point–his parents worked for the same company and still control a fair amount of the company. Not to mention that vampires tend to be well liked by upworlders; compulsion and attraction are extremely common vampire quirks. Not all of the vampires working here are interested in fashion; it’s just a place to be around others like them.
Katsuki, on the other hand, is interested in fashion, making him one of the most fortunate aspiring influencers-slash-designers in the whole city. Maybe even the country. “Oh my god, you smell like shit.”
His only misfortune?
Utsushimi Camie—his mother’s assistant. She’s allowed to boss him around, but only by proxy. She was a model, before she turned, and can still occasionally be spotted on the runway if Katsuki’s mother puts enough pressure on her. She’s also in charge of the rest of the company’s bloodthirsty models. “Thanks, bitch,” Katsuki brushes past the blonde, snatches his cup of coffee off of her desk. “It’s the new Burberry summer collection. Werewolf asshole.”
Camie frowns. “You made friends with a wolf?”
“Nope,” he frowns. “Asshole took one look at me and fell into my lap. Thought I was gonna get my leg humped.”
Camie almost spits out her coffee and doubles over to choke before letting out the most disgusting laugh that Katsuki has ever heard. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Only partly,” he rolls his eyes. “If you tell the hag, I’ll gut you. I need a fucking shower.”
Camie snorts and hands Katsuki his green binder. The green binder means that his mom has him on accounting duty today, which makes him want to die. “Sure,” she says, giving him her signature Kylie-Lip-Kit smirk. “It’s your lunch break. And don’t make a habit of all this, for my sake.”
Katsuki shoves everything he’s carrying into one arm so that he can give her a firm middle finger.
---
Unfortunately for Katsuki, it does turn into a big deal, a habit; Kirishima becomes commonplace on his route, and he continues to sit next to him.
Katsuki is caught between livid and somewhat entertained; he doesn’t end up saying anything to the guy, because he’s got a few more manners than that, and Kirishima is a funny sort of guy. Funny, in the sense that he has absolutely no idea how to interact and live in the upworld. He must be a stray, just plucked out of the wilderness, Katsuki supposes, which would explain the fact that his scent has yet to be tempered by human contact. He is overly polite and entirely too aware of his body, unused to being surrounded by the chaos of larger Musutafu. And he somehow, for some reason, has actually taken to Katsuki.
“G’morning,” Kirishima greets him with a small smile, his teeth sharp and present. Katsuki is surprised that whatever pack he’s holed up with hasn’t taken him to get that glamoured. Katsuki gives him a small nod and goes back to browsing his emails, hardly bothered by the werewolf’s scent. He sprayed so much fucking febreeze on this mask that he’s going to be sneezing fresh linen all damn day. “Do I really smell that bad?” Kirishima asks, having essentially read his mind, and Katsuki actually hates that.
“‘S pretty strong, yeah,” he replies.
“And the chemicals are any better?”
Katsuki levels him with a rust-red glare. “Yes,” he says tersely. “Do I not smell like shit to you?”
Kirishima shakes his head. “Sorta metallic, sorta like burnt sugar, and definitely angry,” he says, “but not like shit.”
“What, you can smell emotions? Is that a weird sort of empath quirk?”
“No, just pheromones,” Kirishima shrugs. “Do I smell like shit? Like, I know you said it was bad, but I would prefer to know now if I genuinely smell like, you know. Feces.”
Katsuki scoffs a laugh before he can stop himself. Kirishima brightens at that, his ears perking up like a damned dog’s. Katsuki does his best to school his expression back to irritated-neutral, but it’s too late. Hair for brains has seen through him. “Not like shit shit. Just really fucking musky. You new to the city, or something?”
Kirishima nods. “Used to live outside of Chiba.”
“Figures,” Katsuki says. “Just use deodorant and spend more time around humans. You can get charms for that kind of thing if you’re in a hurry, but usually exposure to upworlders will get your scent glands to downregulate a bit.”
The redhead nods, taking it all in, as if Katsuki is a bonafide professor. “Thanks, man! I’ve never really met one of your kind before. You know.”
“Believe me, I know,” Katsuki rolls his eyes, because it’s obvious. “I’m hardly fucking friendly, but most of us are less so. You need to keep your tail-wagging to a minimum. No more nice-to-meet-you lap dances.”
Kirishima blanches, and all too quickly, he’s just as pink as the first time they met. Katsuki can feel the heat rolling off of him, and it’s funny, genuinely, but he forces down the humor. “Th-that was an accident, you know! Not funny, man,” the wolf ducks his head away from the irritated glances that the other passengers send him. “Sorry,” he says, voice quieter. Katsuki likes it louder, its natural volume caught between grating and endearing.
“Just keep it in mind, Hair for Brains,” he responds, the small smirk on his lips happily hidden by his mask.
“It’s Kirishima,” he says, exasperated, and Katsuki wonders if he can tell anyway, with his stupid pheromones. “Thanks, Bakugou.”
---
Kirishima really is funny, in an annoying sort of way. He’s persistent, where most downworlders would take one look at him and scamper away. The last of their kind to seek him out willingly was that stupid squib, but Deku’s been coming around less and less now that he’s made his own friends.
Kirishima is… is that what he’s doing? Trying to make friends?
It’s been a week and a half, and the redhead’s scent is already fading. He must have taken Katsuki’s advice with the deodorant, or something, because there are white streaks on his shirts every day and he smells overwhelmingly of baby powder. Katsuki has stopped wearing the mask. And then…
“Your hair,” Katsuki does a double-take when Kirishima sits down next to him, his ordinarily shitty hairstyle out of sight and mind. It’s down, today, longer than Katsuki had initially thought it was, down to his shoulders and held back by a slim headband.
It’s. Something.
“Yeah,” the wolf replied, with a too-bright grin. He still hasn’t gotten his teeth taken care of. “Woke up a bit late. I have an appointment to keep.”
Katsuki raises a brow. “‘S that why you’re always on my morning bus? Appointments?”
“Well, sorta,” he says. “I’m a photographer. I work at this shop downtown, about a stop away from where you get off. My shift starts at eight, but they usually don’t actually book me starting that early.”
Katsuki blinks, a bit surprised by the admission. Kirishima pulls his bag open a bit to reveal a film camera, well loved. “How’d a pack rat from the boonies turn into a professional photographer?”
“Hard work,” Kirishima grins.
“Huh.”
Katsuki wonders if they have more in common than he initially thought. That is, of course, a dangerous door to open. Are they actually becoming friends? Acquainted? Werewolves and vampires hadn’t started any turf wars in a really long time, but they still typically weren’t so pleasant in each others’ company. Insistent. “Something on your mind?” Kirishima asks.
Katsuki frowns. “You smell that on me?”
“A bit.”
“Fuck,” he says, with emphasis. “What do you even want with me?”
Kirishima looks startled, but Katsuki couldn’t care less. He’s suspicious by nature, has been used to people mooching off of him since diapers. “What do you mean?”
“Why are you being so fucking friendly?” Katsuki asks, rephrasing the question.
“Because it’s… nice?” Kirishima answers. “And you’re… nice?”
Katsuki quirks one brow in a challenge, daring him to say that again. Kirishima seems to get the picture. “I dunno, man, I’m a friendly guy. I don’t get to meet a lot of downies.”
“Okay, first of all, ‘downies’ is not a word,” Katsuki tell him, his voice flat. “What else?”
“What, now you can smell pheromones, too?”
“Hair-for-Brains, I swear to Werewolf Jesus—”
“You’rereallyhandsome,” Kirishima blurts out, causing Katsuki to reel back in shock. Kirishima covers his face almost immediately. “For a vampire,” he tacks on, weakly.
Katsuki has nothing to say to that. For the first time in his damned life. His mouth is wide open, willing the words to come out; absolutely fucking not, he should say, go fuck yourself. "Kirishima—"
But he can’t.
And it’s already his stop.