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“Before you nerds get any stupid ideas about this, just know I was forced against my will because I needed Shitty Hair and Deku to stop annoying me.”
Todoroki looks at Iida then, and somehow the class president’s face twists as if he can tell what the hell the halfie is thinking just from his blank face. It pisses Katsuki off.
“Oi, don’t look at him! Look at me when I’m trying to talk!”
“We’re listening, Bakugou-kun, but I’m sure you can understand why we’re confused at being dragged out like this.”
“It’ll just take a minute, so don’t worry about it.”
“Alright,” Todoroki nods. “Go ahead.”
Katsuki scowls, but continues. “So I guess I like you guys, or something like that. I told Deku that maybe I don’t want to rip Todoroki’s candy-cane hair out of his skull anymore, and Kirishima thinks that I might be more like Four-Eyes than either of us can see. His words, not mine. Anyways, they were both crying on me telling me to give ‘it’ a chance—whatever the hell that means. So, here I am.”
Katsuki doesn’t say anything more. Does he need to? That should have been clear enough. He sees Iida’s perplexed look and Todoroki still blank-faced and he snorts.
“Don’t hurt yourselves thinking about it.” He shoves his hands into his pant pockets, pivots on a heel, and walks out of the common room.
—
“Was that a confession?”
“I’m not certain…” Iida readjusts his glasses, sitting on one of the couches in thought. “He did say he liked us, but that could only be in a platonic sense. All he said was that he didn’t wish to injure you anymore.”
“There are other ways to injure me than ripping my hair out,” Shouto mutters, planted on the armrest of the couch with his feet resting in Iida’s lap.
Nodding in acknowledgement, Iida continues, “Nevertheless, he seems less hostile toward us. Maybe the standoffishness was due to embarrassment?”
“Unlikely.” Shouto yawns, idly stretching his arms above his head. “What about you and Bakugou supposedly being similar?”
“I mean, I can see that. Even though Bakugou-kun is… the way that he is… he’s very diligent. Technically,” Iida scratches his neck in shame, “he’s broken fewer rules than I have.”
“Hm. Same here.” Shouto pauses. “Well, what about Midoriya and Kirishima? Obviously, Bakugou has talked to them about this, so maybe they can tell us something.”
“I think those two might, um, overexaggerate. They get pretty over-excited about Bakugou-kun, don’t you think?”
“They also know him better than anyone else.”
Iida lights up. “You’re right! We should go ask them, then!”
“Cool,” Shouto replies, placing his feet down and standing up. “Might as well do it now, then.”
“It may be suspicious if we draw those two out right after Bakugou-kun singled us out. So… you take Midoriya-kun, and I’ll take Kirishima-kun?”
“Works for me.”
—
“It isn’t just that he doesn’t want to fight you all the time anymore, Todoroki-kun! He complimented you! He told me he thinks you’re strong!”
“Okay, but was that what he actually said, or was it implied? Because that really doesn’t sound like him.”
“I mean, it was while we were doing spars. He said you were totally gonna kick Kirishima-kun’s ass.”
“That was probably him just insulting Kirishima to motivate him, not complimenting me.”
“You didn’t see his face!” Midoriya practically jitters where he stands, he’s so excited.
“Alright,” Shouto sighs. “What did his face look like?”
“He kept watching you the whole time, I could practically see your flames in his eyes. Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to focus on Kirishima-kun if he’s one of Kacchan’s best friends? But no, it was just you.”
The thought of Bakugou watching him is a strange one, when all they’ve done for the past year and a half is edge around each other like knights setting for battle. Bakugou always makes the first shot, and Shouto just tries to stay out of the line of fire. It doesn’t really make sense for Bakugou to spare him that much attention when all he used to do was express his disdain for Shouto’s general existence.
Though, expressing that disdain was a form of attention, too. A negative one, sure, but it still meant Bakugou’s thoughts were occupied by him.
“So, he likes me?”
“Oh, definitely! It’s kinda sweet seeing him crush on you.”
Well, that’s a clear answer to his and Iida’s question. “He really didn’t act like he has a crush on Iida and I, though. I know you’re gonna say neither of us are very aware of social cues like that, but I think I can pick up enough to know he was just saying he doesn’t hate us anymore.”
“It’s more than that, trust me. I know Kacchan.”
“You say that, but sometimes I doubt how true it is.”
Midoriya smacks him in the shoulder. “I wouldn’t say anything if I wasn’t certain it was true! Especially not about him and feelings.”
“Alright, well, I still think you’re exaggerating, but Iida is talking to Kirishima right now. We’ll see what he gets out of that.”
—
“Dude, how do you not see it?! Bakugou really likes you! You two were so evenly matched in this year’s Sports Festival, he actually laughed after you guys came off the field because he was that hyped up!”
“Is that not simply him reacting to a victory?”
Kirishima shakes his head. “It’s like you haven’t even been looking at him. After battles, real or fake, Bakugou gets really quiet and always looks kind of annoyed, even if he’s throwing around those confident grins and taunts while he’s actually fighting. After fighting you, he laughed, and wasn’t even entirely that really menacing one! He looked happy, y’know?”
“Bakugou-kun has made it very clear that he appreciates those who can evenly match him and make him actually fight for a win… but respecting me for keeping up with him doesn’t mean that he likes me.”
“You haven’t experienced a Bakugou-smile, though, Iida! They’re super rare, but those babies don’t play around. If you get treated with a real one, you better treasure it.”
“But the whole point is that he has never smiled at me that way, nor at Todoroki-kun.”
“But if he’s smiled about you guys to me, then that has to mean something! I’ve been learning how to read him, and this isn’t nothing.”
Tenya paces quietly on Kirishima’s rug. He doesn’t want to alert Bakugou that he’s there, and even though they don’t know if the blond went back to his room next doors or not, they’re keeping their voices down in caution.
Kirishima plops into his desk chair and sits on his hands, grinning at Iida with razor sharp teeth. “You should try to talk to him more, you really might find some things out that you wouldn’t expect from him.”
“Approaching him never becomes easier, though. He dragged Todoroki-kun and I out after dinner, then left without letting us get a word in.”
“So you have to make him comfortable talking to you! This is an opening! It’ll probably be easier to get him to listen to you, now that it’s out in the open that he likes you guys in some way.”
Kirishima is making such an eager face at him, it makes Tenya want to give in immediately. As class president, of course he wants to know all of his peers better, and Bakugou is one of the people who always manages to elude him. Now that he’s been given a chance, how can he pass it up?
“We… we’re going to try to figure him out. I appreciate your encouragement, Kirishima-kun!”
“Hell yeah!” Kirishima pumps a fist in the air. “Go get your man!”
Tenya’s face absolutely does not burn as he leaves and heads to the elevator.
—
“So… it’s romantic?”
“Midoriya seems to think so, but I have my doubts. Obviously, I don’t really see Bakugou as the kind of guy who’d have those kinds of feelings for people.”
Tenya laughs lightly, a bizarre image coming to mind of Bakugou procuring roses from his locker and offering them to a swooning somebody. “It’s not quite that easy to tell. For all we know, it could be something he keeps better hidden than most other teenagers. He was a closed book, but now it’s like the cover has been opened.”
“That’s… a weird analogy, but you’re right.” Todoroki pouts slightly as he stares down at his hands, mind working as they try to come up with a plan.
Suddenly, it hits Tenya that he doesn’t quite know what they’re planning for.
“Todoroki-kun, do we like Bakugou-kun?”
“...He’s alright, now. Our remedial classes last year helped a bit, but I’d say our relationship is barely toeing the line of ‘friendly rivalry’ right now. If you haven’t noticed, neither of us are that friendly.”
“And yet here you are,” Tenya smiles, “being my friend.”
Todoroki swats his hand. “You and Midoriya are different. You don’t go through what we went through last year and not end up friends.”
“It’s the same for Bakugou-kun, isn’t it? He went through just as much, if not more than us.”
“I wasn’t gonna disagree with that,” Todoroki says sourly. A hint of darkness weighs down his expression as he continues, “I’d never wish what happened to him on anyone. Rescuing him is one of the most valuable things I’ve done here.”
Tenya nods, agreeing wholeheartedly. “Even though we were in trouble, I don’t regret what we did for a second.”
“So…”
“As for my question then… I think it’s safe to say that we like him, but, is it romantic?”
Wrinkling his nose, Todoroki replies, “I really don’t think so.”
“You can’t brush it off so easily! We have to think about this!”
“But why? It doesn’t even matter if Bakugou meant it platonically.”
“So you don’t believe Midoriya-kun and Kirishima-kun?”
“Don’t look at me all disapprovingly like that, Iida,” Todoroki huffs. “Their opinions seem romanticized, but I’m not just going to say they’re wrong.”
“Then you think there’s a chance.”
“Yes, Iida, okay. There might be a chance that he likes us and there might be a chance, a very small chance, that I like him. But you can’t pin this all on me. What about you? What do you feel?”
“I… I can’t say that I’ve thought a whole lot about it.” Todoroki groans, slapping a hand to his forehead, but Tenya powers on through the interruption. “It’s not as if I think about romance often! I’m a hero in training; we all are! I don’t think that it’s impossible that I could think of him that way, but I don’t right now. Neither of us are close enough to feel that way, I think.”
“So, if it was a confession, we’d reject him?”
“No! That’d be cruel!”
“But we don’t like him.”
“We have the potential to, though.”
Todoroki’s stare bores into him. “You sound like you want to fall for him.”
Immediately, Tenya’s face heats up. “It’s not like that! I just want to give him a chance!” The skepticism radiates off Todoroki in waves, but he resolutely keeps his ground. “It’s only fair that we show that him we like him since he took the effort to tell us.”
“What’s with you and being fair all the time? Sometimes, you just have to leave things as they are.”
At that, Tenya shakes his head, brows set in conviction. “Not when it comes to feelings. This is more important than a game.”
“What do you suggest we do, then?”
“We go to him.”
—
“What are you doing here?” Katsuki says, eyes narrowed at the two wandering into the kitchen. Iida looks somewhat wary, while Todoroki just looks bored. How is that guy always so passive?
“I… was looking for a snack,” Iida says, promptly being met by an elbow in his side.
“He means that we wanted to talk to you.” Todoroki is pushing down Iida’s arm that’s closer to him, completely ignoring his aborted sounds of protest.
“Yeah? So talk then. I’m trying to cook.” He sets his knife down on the chopping board, turning around to lean casually against the counter, arms crossed. Katsuki can only imagine the kind of bullshit they’re going to spew after his confrontation earlier. He’s been spending the rest of the evening stewing over it, wondering why he let his idiot best friends talk him into saying something so out of left field. It isn’t often that Katsuki just tells people not only that he doesn’t hate them, but that he likes them.
It’s too mushy for his self-image.
“Well,” Iida starts hesitantly, “we’d like to get to know you better as friends! We both agreed we aren’t very close to you, so we want to at least try.” The room is silent for a few moments. Katsuki feels unsettled at the repetitive use of ‘we’.
“You don’t share a brain, do you?” He rolls his eyes. “Stop acting like you speak for the both of you. Maybe half-n-half has something to say, huh?”
“You’re right,” the bastard says, stepping forward. “Bakugou, I like you too.”
The hell?
“Yeah, uh, no, not that. Definitely not what I was thinking.” Katsuki flicks his wide eyes from Todoroki to Iida, seeing the latter horrified and probably regretting his decision to come down here.
“I mean it though. I thought about what you said, and I think I feel the same.”
“You think?”
“I mean, it’s hard to say. We weren’t really sure what you meant by your words?”
“How many things can ‘I like you’ mean?” Katsuki’s frustrated now, because dammit, he tries to say things without giving away too much, without laying his deeper thoughts out in the open, but when it leads to more misunderstandings than anything else, he doubts how good of a defense it really is. “So what if I might want to talk to you guys sometimes? So what if I don’t entirely hate sitting by you or training with you? Is it really that hard to understand?”
Iida speaks up again, finally. “Bakugou-kun, you keep saying you ‘might’ feel certain ways about us? Why do—”
“Because I don’t know, alright?! Kirishima and Deku wanted me to say something so I could get it off of my mind and theirs, so I did it, but fuck if I know exactly what I feel or want. That’s all I can give you.”
“So,” Todoroki raises a hand, “it’s not platonic?”
Embarrassment clings to Katsuki like drenched clothes against his skin, and he grits his teeth. “Don’t ask me things like that unless you wanna make sure I never talk to you again.”
“Bakugou-kun, we understand.” Iida’s voice sounds calming and encouraging, and focusing on it slowly brings Katsuki back from the sharp edges of his anxiety. “The last few hours… we’ve spent them trying to understand what we feel, too. It isn’t exactly something we’d considered before, as you can probably imagine, but… that doesn’t mean we’ve struck it out of our minds.” He looks at Todoroki then, silently pushing him to continue.
Todoroki exhales. “I’m sorry, I over exaggerated a bit with that confession. It’s true, neither of us exactly know how we feel about you.” The way Todoroki looks at Katsuki then, like he’s trying to bore into him and learn what’s below the surface, makes him tighten his arms against his chest. He feels exposed with the two of them looking at him, trying to figure him out, but he can’t say he entirely hates it either.
“So,” he starts, swallowing against his parched throat. “None of us know anything except that we don’t hate each other?”
“And that we want to figure it out. With you.” Iida smiles at him, and Todoroki ducks his head slightly to look at Katsuki through his lashes. They’re both endearing in an awkward way, and since Katsuki started this anyways—though he’ll still blame it on his asshole best friends—he might as well give in.
“Yeah. Well. Alright. We can do that.”
“Yeah?” Todoroki looks hopeful, and it stirs something in Katsuki to know that he brought out one of those rare expressions.
He nods, scratching at the nape of his neck. “No need to get sappy about it,” he mutters. When Iida laughs, Katsuki looks up.
“That went much better than I’d anticipated, actually.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you what I was going to say in advance,” retorts Todoroki. “You would have stopped me.”
Katsuki lets himself smile just a little at the half-hearted argument that continues in front of him, huffing a laugh through his nose when he realizes the other two are slowly drifting closer to him.
Yeah, he could get used to this kind of company.
—