Archive of Our Own ^beta

Bakugou's wrists stung.

His hands were deep in his pants pockets, the sewed hem rubbing uncomfortably across the tender skin and making him itch to scratch and rub at the red burn marks. He clenched his fists thighter, pretended not to feel his muscles tense up to stop instinctive movements.

He wouldn't give in, not now, not later. Giving in felt equal to giving up, as things stood, and after the day he'd just had many, many things could be said of him, but he was no quitter.

Never had been, never would be.

By his side, Kirishima walked leisurely, one hand wrapped around his backpack straps and the setting sun painting his colors fierce. He was being quiet, eyes cast upwards as his mouth bent in a relaxed, absentminded smile - it was a twist so subtle and natural that Bakugou found himself compelled to call it unintentional and meaningless, as if smiling were just the default position his mouth assumed when not otherwise occupied.

Kirishima was a weird one.

Just that day, he'd been knocked out cold twice over, scraped and bruised and burnt, too, where Bakugou had gotten his hands on and let his quirk loose, and yet there he stood right then, as good as new, hair neatly spiked in his ridiculous style and eyes bright with a happiness Bakugou couldn't understand.

There was much about him Bakugou couldn't understand, in truth, and it was outright weird how little he found himself minding: it was easy to just be, with Kirishima. His overworking brain seemed to put everything on the back burner in favor of just existing, when Kirishima was around.

As a feeling, it was new. Bakugou hadn't really realized its presence till that day, but in hindsight he was sure it must have started back during the USJ attack - something about the way Kirishima's movements had naturally fallen in line with his own during their fight, or how he'd been willing to listen to Bakugou's reasoning and stand with him after it.

Back then, Bakugou had been too busy to notice how quiet that easy acceptance had made him, his brain, his insides. And every time Kirishima stood by him after, not writing his words and actions off as unreasoned and anger-fueled, questioning them but always willing to understand - Bakugou hadn't realized the feeling’s existence then either, but now he could tell it had been there each and every time, silently steadying him.

That day it had happened too often for Bakugou to miss, though. The way even in his overwhelming anger he hadn't felt alone, it was hard not to notice it: he was still angry, undeniably so, more than he'd been in longer than he cared to admit - he could feel it in his bones, in his muscles aching from quirk-overuse, in the sting on his wrists and along his jaw from the scrape-burns left by handcuffs and muzzle imposed on him as if his righteous indignation made him a wild rabid animal -

He was still angry.

But Kirishima, Kirishima made him feel like he wasn't alone in his side of the ring - and Bakugou wasn't used to that, to the feeling of someone standing ready to have his back turning him less vicious, and somewhere in his soul he was sure he should have questioned it, shied away from it, put up resistance against it. That he was supposed to fight it, someway, somehow.

He’d never been good at doing what he was supposed to do, though.

Kirishima had waited for him by the classroom door once Aizawa had dismissed them, waving at their classmates as they left with an easy smile, relaxed posture. He’d grinned at Bakugou as he’d approached him, raised a hand to fearlessly tug at the medal still locked between Bakugou’s clenched teeth till the hold had eased and his growling had stopped, wrapped the white and red strap around the golden plaque and seamlessly slid it inside one of the pockets of Bakugou’s uniform jacket.

“Let’s go,” he’d said then, starting walking without bothering to check he was being followed, and Bakugou wasn’t sure why he hadn’t protested to any of those actions, why he’d fallen in stride with him and quietly begun walking by his side - it was something new, after all, the leaving together after school.

A whim on Kirishima’s side Bakugou hadn’t been consulted on till he’d been confronted with the decision to whether follow or leave.

In truth, Bakugou didn’t even know where Kirishima lived, or up till where they were going to be able to walk together before having to split up - when he really thought about it, he knew nothing about Kirishima at all, aside from his quirk, name and value. All of which he’d just learnt that same day.

He wondered if that was enough to consider Kirishima even just an acquaintance, at that point. Definitely not enough to make them friends.

He wriggled his nose, put the thought on hold to focus on the low hum suddenly coming from his side.

“No school tomorrow,” Kirishima sighed, content in tone and posture, “what are you gonna do with it?”

“Sleep,” Bakugou immediately answered, and Kirishima laughed lightly, swayed a little to allow their shoulders to briefly brush together.

Anyone else Bakugou would have pushed away and snapped at for the motion, growled a threat, yelled a curse. Anyone else.

“Right?” Kirishima said, mirth still all over his voice, “after today, that’s the only right answer!” then he added, determined, with his eyes cast to the sky and his lips stretched in a smile, “sleep, eat, then back to training again.”

He knocked his fists together, a movement Bakugou couldn’t avoid following with his eyes, before continuing with a steady, low voice, “I have a lot I need to work on, seems like.”

It was true, but Bakugou didn’t voice that thought. He didn’t mention how it was true for himself and everyone else in their class as well either, or how it was just natural and logical for every and each of them to have yet to reach their peak potential - Kirishima seemed like the sort to hold himself up to different standards compared to everyone else, empty words like those wouldn’t have made much of a difference, for him.

Bakugou could empathize with that.

They reached the train station as the sun dipped its last behind the horizon; Bakugou's steps faltered for a short second, unsure whether that’d be the point where their ways parted, but Kirishima simply kept his stride steady as he walked through the open glass doors, didn't for a moment question whether he'd be followed or not.

Bakugou sighed: he didn't understand Kirishima much at all.

“You knew my way home,” he huffed, more of a statement than a question requiring answer or clarification, but Kirishima hummed his attention anyway, let out a short laugh as Bakugou came to stand by his side once more.

“Yeah man, we’ve been taking the same way to and from school for weeks,” he grinned, and then when Bakugou frowned at him he put on an affected pout, tilted his head so that he was looking at him through his thick, long lashes, “you never noticed? Am I that easy to miss?”

He could barely finish the sentence before a laugh escaped his lips, and Bakugou rolled his eyes, hit him with a shoulder a little more violently than necessary.

“You stick out like a sore thumb, broom-head,” he grumbled, promptly ignoring Kirishima's whining about his hairstyle when it started coming, “I didn’t notice ‘cause I didn’t care.”

“And now you do?” Kirishima asked, unwavering smile still stretching his lips as he bumped his shoulder playfully, skipped away as Bakugou made to reiterate.

He didn’t answer the question, tone too teasing for him to take seriously and topic too close to a sore spot for him to willingly consider - instead he grumbled half a curse under his breath, and avoided direct eye-contact till Kirishima skidded to a halt by his side, jutted a thumb at his back with half a smirk.

“That’s me,” he said, a warmth Bakugou didn’t understand covering his tone and expression, “have fun sleeping the day away, tomorrow!” then he turned around, brushed his card over the turnstile screen and moved across the barrier.

Sliding a hand out of his pocket to raise a finger in half a goodbye, the skin of Bakugou’s wrist scraped across the seams of his clothes, made a hiss nearly come out of him in startled sting. It made his mind go back to the day he’d just gone through, the grip in his chest tighter now that Kirishima wasn’t in close proximity to ease it away.

He scrunched up his nose, took a breath in, let it all out.

“Oi,” he said, catching Kirishima’s attention just before he got too far away to hear; he waited for him to retrace the couple of steps he had just taken, then frowned at the floor, at the walls, at the turnstile between them, at Kirishima’s too small eyebrows.

“Why were you there,” he pushed out in the end, gritted teeth and growled tone; Kirishima’s eyes widened the tiniest bit, before smiling slightly and settling on a long hum.

It was something Bakugou had been coming back to since waking up after his fight with Todoroki to Kirishima’s frowning face, his palms pressed to the bed Bakugou was laying on, his lips caught between two sharp teeth.

Why was he there. Why for him.

They were barely acquaintances, Bakugou knew nothing about him at all. He had done nothing to deserve such a behaviour, the way Kirishima had tried to protest at the handcuffs restraining his wrists, how he’d had to be told to leave, how he’d waited for him after and was still there then.

It made no sense.

“I guess…” Kirishima started, biting his lip softly, “I guess because I’d have wanted you there, had it been me.”

Bakugou’s eyes widened, his frown easing a little with the action. There were many parts of the sentence Kirishima had just thrown at him he could have taken issue with, he distantly realized, and yet the one thing that stood out to him in the moment was-

“You’d have wanted me there,” he repeated, and then scoffed incredulous when Kirishima nodded and smiled, “me, not Tapeface, or Sparks, or literally anyone else.”

Kirishima laughed, bright and startled, and then shrugged his shoulders as if to say what can you do. “Is it that weird?”

“Fuck yeah it is, you damn freak.”

Bakugou couldn’t really hold back his own smirk as laughter shook Kirishima’s shoulders once more, and as he watched him wave goodbye and turn to leave he didn’t bother trying to school his expression back in its natural, neutral state.

“Where are you going,” he found himself yelling after Kirishima, startling him to a stop and making him turn around once again to stare at him with confused, wide eyes.

“...home?”

“Yeah, no shit,” Bakugou huffed, then crossed his arms at his chest and waited for realization to dawn on the slow idiot in front of him with a roll of his eyes.

“Oh, oh! Chiba, I’m from Chiba!” he grinned, sharp teeth all on display, “where are you headed to, Bakugou?”

“Shizuoka,” he supplied easily, watching Kirishima light up like a Christmas tree and then scoffing at his frantic goodbye once he realized his train was about to leave.

As he made his way towards his own platform, Bakugou nodded to himself, storing the information away in the corner of his brain newly reserved to Kirishima and everything concerning him - it might have been little, just a few superficial facts in the endless list of things he still didn’t know about him, but at least it was something new.

There was too much disparity between how close he felt to Kirishima and how much of him he actually knew, Bakugou had decided. He wanted to fix it.

-

Waving through the cafeteria crowd, Kaminari on one side and Sero just behind them, Kirishima searched the space for the head of blond hair he was sure he’d seen just a moment before.

He ignored the voices around him to keep his focus sharp, tried to avoid bumping into anyone to keep his lunch as safe as he possibly could - Bakugou had been grumpy when he’d left the classroom earlier, but not exaggeratedly so as far as Kirishima could tell.

The ten minutes of ahead time he’d given him should have been enough to make him as agreeable as he could get.

After having swept his eyes over the crowd one more time, he sighed and scrunched up his nose, narrowly avoiding a girl who’d thought it a good idea to walk backwards and frantically wave her hands around while at it - Kirishima was starting to understand why Bakugou rarely elected to eat in the midst of that mess.

“Do you guys see Blasty?” he wondered loud enough to gather on himself his friends’ attention, but didn’t stop his own search to turn around and look at them.

Kaminari sounded surprised when he answered, but that wasn’t anything Kirishima hadn’t predicted already. “Why’re you looking for him?”

“Sure to have his table empty,” Kirishima shrugged, raising his tray to avoid a short, horned boy and then sidestepping a wide-shouldered, seven-feet tall girl blocking his path.

“Yeah, for good reason,” Sero snorted, but Kirishima wasn’t really listening to him anymore by then.

“Target acquired,” he whispered to himself with a smirk as his eyes finally landed on Bakugou, and then beelined his way towards him as best as he could with the crowd surrounding him: he was sitting at a corner table, an ornamental plant nearly completely hiding him away from sight and every seat around him, as expected, blissfully empty.

Kirishima didn’t bother to check if his friends were still following him - he felt a little bad in thinking so, but whether they were there or not was secondary to him, right then. After the Sports Festival and then their walk home together, Kirishima had been vibrating out of his skin waiting for his next chance to hang with Bakugou: he loved Kaminari and Sero like brothers already, he did, but Bakugou was something else.

Bakugou set Kirishima on fire.

Sadly, sort of literally too now and again, but it wasn’t anything Kirishima couldn’t deal with given his quirk that, for once, was exactly what he needed it to be - no, the fire Kirishima was talking about was one ignited inside him, one that made him feel bigger than he was, stronger than he could ever hope to be.

Like his goals were one determined step forward and ready for him to take, like he had everything it took to be exactly who he wished to be.

Since USJ, Kirishima couldn’t seem to get enough of the feeling of it, and Bakugou held in his hands both fuse and lighter, was an explosion even just in presence.

Spending time with him was turning into its very own kind of drug.

“Come on, he’s your friend too,” Kirishima threw over his shoulder, and Sero’s short laugh assured him that the two of them were, in fact, still just one step behind him.

“I mean, sure? We consider him our friend,” Sero said, wide grin audible in his voice, “jury’s still out on whether the same goes for him towards us, though.”

“I’m telling you, he doesn’t even know my name yet,” Kaminari huffed, “and my name is easy.”

Kirishima laughed at that, but didn’t bother to voice an actual answer to his distress - instead, he slid his tray on the table’s surface and plopped himself right next to Bakugou, grinning at him wide and happy when he turned around to look at him with a raised brow, cheeks puffed out with rice and a piece of meat dangling by his hovering chopsticks.

Kirishima felt his smile grow wider just looking at him.

“Hey man,” he said, picking up his own chopsticks and pulling them apart, “didn’t know you liked greens that much, you secretly a sheep?”

Bakugou rolled his eyes, but surprisingly didn’t immediately start yelling at him. He took his time to chew and swallow what was in his mouth, side-eyeing Sero and Kaminari as they settled on the opposite side of the table, and then began moving vegetables from his own tray on Kirishima’s with swift, precise movements.

Kirishima let out a strangled yelp of surprise, shoving his own chopsticks forward to intercept Bakugou’s and stopping them halfway between their lunches.

“What are you doing!” he whined in half a laugh, but Bakugou only pushed harder, twisting his hand to move around the chopsticks blocking his path; Kirishima was fast enough to stop him once more, and then again when Bakugou tried the other way.

“It’s called a balanced diet, jackass,” Bakugou said, calm tone in complete contrast with the mock-sword-fight they were currently engaged in, “you’d think a musclehead like you would know about it.”

“I don't need nothing but proteins to keep me healthy, bro,” Kirishima snorted, and then used the moment of stunned silence taking over Bakugou to push his hand back on his tray, tap at his chopsticks to make the leaves still held between them fall.

Bakugou looked at his tray, then back up at Kirishima, opening his mouth and then closing it again as if failing to find the right words to express himself - Kirishima could barely contain the laughter that was threatening to spill out of him, and when Bakugou pointed his chopsticks at his chest with a violent jabbing motion and made to snarl at him he nearly couldn’t stop his mirth at all.

Thankfully, Kaminari’s voice interrupted them before either could let a sound escape their lips.

“Who would have thought King of Explodo-kills would turn out to be a mother hen,” he grinned, prompting a wild laugh out of Sero and making Kirishima let out an undignified snort of his own.

“Oh fuck off,” Bakugou yelled, turning back around and jabbing his food as if it had personally offended him, “it was a good-ass name and you all know it!”

“It really, really wasn’t, dude,” Sero snorted, “it was as bad as it could get, accept it.”

Silently, Kirishima found himself ambivalent on the matter, but he kept himself quiet through fitting as much meat in his mouth as he possibly could - and it wasn’t like he thought Bakugou’s chosen name was any good for an actual hero, it was just that, at the same time, he found the pick so endearingly Bakugou that he couldn’t make himself fully dislike it.

In the privacy of his own head, he wondered when Bakugou had come up with the name. He imagined him a kid, dirt-smudged and bruised on the knees, running around yelling his freshly-chosen hero name at his friends and family and anyone close enough to listen. He imagined the same kid growing into the Bakugou he now knew, all frowns and yelled curses, yet still holding onto that childish name as if the best idea ever conceived.

He couldn’t really do anything to stop the snort that forced its way out of him at the thought.

“As if you assholes are any better off,” Bakugou huffed, having Kirishima’s attention immediately snap back on him, “one is a goddamn pun and the other is a shitty portmanteau, what the fuck.”

A short silence fell on the table, every chopstick pair stopped mid-air aside from Bakugou’s own - then Sero sputtered and Kaminari gasped, and through it Kirishima brought more meat to his mouth, chewed thoroughly and intently as he watched the scene unfolding in front of his as a particularly interesting movie.

“At least our names got approved!” Kaminari pointed out, puffed cheeks and scrunched up eyebrows.

Kirishima turned his eyes back on Bakugou as he heard him scoff, some of the greens that had been piled on his tray finding their way to his mouth and having him make a face, yet not moving his attention from the scene enough to have him lose its amusing thread.

“You fused together two words, fucking congratulation,” Bakugou sneered, jabbing his chopsticks in his rice bowl.

Like a ping-pong ball, Kirishima’s eyes turned back towards Kaminari, grinning without meaning around the food in his mouth at the affronted expression he was met with.

“Like Explodo-kills is any better!” he huffed, having Bakugou growl as he swallowed his food, point an accusing finger at him as he made to yell.

“What about Kirishima’s, then,” Sero interrupted before he could begin, jutting a thumb his way and with it bringing all attention suddenly once more on him.

Kirishima inhaled sharply at suddenly being put under the spotlight, making a piece of meat get sucked in the wrong pipe and forcing him to swallow everything in his mouth before throwing him in a coughing fit.

Kaminari pushed his glass of water towards him, and Kirishima gulped it all down in one go, slammed it back on the table with eyes still tearing up.

“Why are you pulling me in the mid-!”

“Fits him,” Bakugou interrupted, going back on the question with a tone so neutral and bored it felt like he hadn’t even noticed Kirishima hacking up a lung by his side not even a full minute before. Then, when all eyes turned on him sporting different degrees of stunned and surprised, he rolled his own and huffed out a sigh.

“It’s ballsy,” he explained, strained like it pained him to be more articulate than he usually needed to be, “‘s gonna make a lot of people expect shit out of him, and by picking it he’s saying he’s gonna be up to the task, ain’t he.”

He turned around to look at Kirishima straight in the eyes as he gritted out the last words, looking for confirmation that what he was saying was the truth, and when Kirishima nodded, slow and still somewhat stunned, a smirk opened up on his lips, sharp and fierce and setting Kirishima’s insides on fire.

A bonfire right between his lungs.

Oh, he thought, feeling shivers running down his arms and spine, his heart suddenly lodged in his throat and beating a thousand miles a second.

Oh.

“It fits him,” Bakugou repeated, turning back to his food with a final shrug.

On the other end of the table, Kaminari huffed and slumped in his seat with more theatrics than necessary. “I see we’re already picking favorites” he grumbled, and then turned around, reached his free hand out to pat Sero on a shoulder and then squeeze it with strength, “‘s okay, Sero’s my favorite anyway.”

“Oh, damn,” Sero said, grin wide and mischief dancing in his eyes, “Kirishima’s my favorite too, though.”

As Kaminari gasped in mock offense and Sero laughed in his face, Kirishima made himself tune them out. He turned back to his lunch, head low to avoid anyone noticing how red his ears had become, and allowed himself to dissect the feeling taking shape in his chest, look at it from every possible angle, poke at it, let it grow.

He was grinning, he realized after a while, and when he chanced a glance Bakugou’s way he found him looking his way and smirking too, so subtle it was barely noticeable.

The fire burned brighter.

-

Kirishima was laying on Bakugou’s bed, legs up against the wall and head falling off the mattress’ edge, a schoolbook between his hands and a focused pout on his lips.

It wasn’t the first time Bakugou had him over, nor, he hoped, would it be the last - still, too little time had passed since his first visit to justify how at home he was able to make himself inside Bakugou’s room.

How at home he looked, too, when Bakugou let himself watch.

Supposedly, they were studying and revising for the end of terms exams - supposedly, Bakugou was tutoring Kirishima in everything he had problems with, and supposedly Kirishima was working hard to make sure he’d get at least a passing score.

What actually was happening was that Kirishima hadn’t turned a page in his book for over half an hour, eyes cast somewhere just above its upper edge, and Bakugou had been so focused on not looking at him that it had taken him just as long to realize no studying had been happening for a while, by then.

He sighed, pushing himself up and out of his desk chair and padding his way towards his own bed. He looked down at Kirishima with crossed arms and a frown to his eyes, waited for him to come back to earth and realize he was being stared down, throw a sheepish smile at him, and then let himself fall on his bed, head on the pillow and legs across Kirishima’s midriff.

He heard the sound of the book closing and then hitting the ground, but Kirishima didn’t otherwise move from his position, which Bakugou found himself being grateful for.

It was comfortable, feeling his heat through the layers of clothing separating them, having his legs rise and fall with every breath Kirishima took.

As of late, Bakugou had come to realize, his feelings for Kirishima had begun to change.

Or, more than change, maybe it would have been better to say they had kept on growing as they always had, but their growth had taken them somewhere different from where Bakugou had predicted it would.

He noticed it in the way he couldn’t keep his eyes away. In how he seeked contact and proximity, in how his mind felt at peace only with red filling his view. In the neverending string of texts exchanged every second spent apart, and the minutes he lost tracing Kirishima’s shapes, counting his lashes, letting his voice wash over him.

It should have been troubling. Probably.

“You were supposed to read and then tell me what wasn’t clear,” Bakugou stated, eyes cast on the ceiling and arms folded behind his head. He felt Kirishima shift under his legs, the muscles of his abdomen contracting in a short laugh.

“I got distracted,” he apologized, and Bakugou raised a leg to push a foot in his side, insisting yet not as annoyed as he might have been.

“No shit,” he huffed, but didn’t ask for any further explanation - if Kirishima wanted to tell, he would tell.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, the hum of the AC making for a low, easy-to-ignore background music; distantly, Bakugou could hear his parents talking to each other on the ground floor, the television in the living room playing the news, a bike and then a car speed on the road under his window.

“Hey, Bakugou,” Kirishima asked, his chest vibrating and shifting under Bakugou’s legs with each word spoken, “am I your best friend?”

“Fucking obviously,” he replied without a moment of hesitation, tone incredulous but still as clear as he could make it.

Through the weeks of knowing him, Bakugou had come to the conclusion that, despite his flashy appearance and loud personality, Kirishima could be stupidly insecure on the most absurd and minor things - bluntness and honesty seemed to be what Kirishima seeked in those situations, and Bakugou prided himself with being both at all times, which had always made it easy for him to deal with the moods.

Even during the times he didn’t realize Kirishima was in one till after the conversation was over and done with.

The way Kirishima was laying loose-limbed on his bed, though, legs still up against the wall and eyes looking at a distant spot on the faraway floor, had Bakugou believing this was something different than the usual self-esteem problem.

Insecure-Kirishima tended to lock up and seek contact through every sense, experience told him.

They fell back into an easy silence, a handful of seconds spent counting Kirishima’s breaths through the rise and fall of his own feet, and then Kirishima spoke again, words mumbled as if voiced through teeth chewing at his lips.

“Is there anything I could ever do for you to stop seeing me as your best friend?”

“Why, you trying?” Bakugou scoffed. He wanted to get up on his elbows and look at Kirishima, see his expressions and read his posture, but if the conversation had been delayed till they weren’t facing each other there must have been a reason.

The lack of eye contact was making him ansty, but Kirishima’s short snort was enough to loosen his shoulders that much he needed to let himself fall back against his pillow.

“More like the opposite,” he huffed through a laugh, and Bakugou let himself think about it, hum his way through shifting thoughts and possibilities.

“Not counting anything that’d turn you into a villain?” he asked, waiting for Kirishima’s hum and nod before continuing, “as long as you don’t fuck with me, then no.”

“That’s not very specific, bro,” Kirishima groaned, but Bakugou could feel his grin in his voice, in the way a hand came up to pat one of the shins resting on his chest.

Bakugou huffed, rolled his eyes and tried again.

“Shit like lying, or getting on my case for who I am, or treating me like I can’t care for my own fucking self, or-” or anything that’d turn you into Deku, he thought, but didn’t say.

The way the hand on his shin tightened had him believe Kirishima had understood the feeling anyway, and Bakugou scoffed again, used his free leg to kick at him softly with the ball of his foot.

“That’s it?” Kirishima asked, still sounding like he was trying to chew right through his lips, and when Bakugou puffed a grumbled yeah he hummed to himself, dragged his legs down from the wall to bend them at the knees and plant his feet on the mattress.

“And what if-,” he started, then took a breath in, held it, pushed it out, “what if I said I’ve been thinking about kissing you?”

His voice sounded small and hesitant around his words, but Bakugou still felt it hit him like a kick right in the middle of his chest. For long seconds, his breath remained stuck in his throat, his muscles locked and tight.

All the while, Kirishima kept still under him, one of his hands on one of Bakugou’s shins, a thumb rubbing slowly up and down his clothed skin.

Then Bakugou made himself breathe in and out, pushed himself up to his elbows and further up to a sitting position, pulled his legs back under himself, shifted to curl a hand around the material of Kirishima’s shirt and pull him up to sit on the bed as well. Kirishima let him without offering any resistance, like a ragdoll under Bakugou’s scroaching fingertips throughout the whole process.

It felt weird, to move and shift the boulder that was Kirishima without meeting any opposing force - and yet, even plaint like that, Bakugou still found himself steadied by his presence.

His mind felt quieter than the situation would have probably demanded.

He took a second to look at Kirishima, his chewed-red, hesitant smile, honest and wide eyes, drooping styled hair. Soft, warm, inviting.

He pushed forward till his mouth was slotted against Kirishima’s, a chaste and fast press of the lips, a little off center, a little too brief. “Okay,” he said as he pulled back, hand still fisted in the hem of Kirishima's his shirt and knees pressing softly against one of Kirishima’s thighs.

The smile he received in answer, he realized with a subtle hitch in his breath, was brighter than any explosion he’d ever managed to produce.

-

The plastic chair Kirishima was sitting in was, quite frankly, way more uncomfortable than it had any business being.

The excessive way in which it was suddenly bothering him might have been on his own exhausted muscles demanding a softer resting place, or on the restless energy making him squirm every handful of seconds, shift a leg on top of the other, curl them both under himself, cross his arms, lay his chin on a curled palm, scratch at his head, back to crossing his legs - whichever the case, Kirishima’s body was aching inside and outside, and his butt especially was begging him to find a better place to sit on.

He wondered if it would have been fine to lay beside Bakugou on the small infirmary bed, or whether Recovery Girl would have yelled at him and thrown him out altogether as soon as she found out. He was sure he’d end up falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow if he tried to, so sneaking in and out before she could come back was out of the question as well.

He sighed, and crossed and uncrossed his legs once more.

On surface level, not a scratch was left on Bakugou’s body: when he’d been brought to the infirmary he’d had severe burns all along his forearms and palms from quirk overuse, a broken rib and a possible concussion, damaged ligaments in his wrists, a dislocated shoulder, one twisted ankle, a split lip and so many scrapes and bruises his skin had been a mess of red and blue, as far as Kirishima had been told - Recovery Girl had already treated him for all of it more than twenty minutes before, though. All Bakugou was left to do was sleep the healing off for as long as he’d need.

As far as backlashes went, Kirishima had found it to be excessive for a simple end of terms exam - the thought of it somewhat nauseating too, when he was being honest - yet, all things considered, he hadn’t expected anything less from the fight’s outcome after he’d heard about the match-up’s chosen for Bakugou.

He would have lied if he’d said he hadn’t expected way more damage and a lot less passing grades, in truth.

He shuffled in his seat, threw a glance at the open door and then toward the setting sun outside the window, down at the bed in front of him and on Bakugou’s relaxed, sleeping face.

He wanted to reach out and hold his hand.

Bakugou and he… they had kissed four times total, which wasn't much but was still more than Kirishima could say he'd ever done with anyone else. A long, languid one right after the first, groundbreaking peck, then one more still as Kirishima left his room to head home, once again short and chaste; the fourth had been two days later, a warm and kind press of the lips Bakugou had initiated inside the empty lockers room at the end of the school day - he’d been grumbling about everything and nothing at the same time, eyebrows furrowed and a small pout to his lips, and Kirishima had felt his heart swell just looking at him.

“I really wanna kiss you, right now,” he had said, and Bakugou had looked at him with an indiscernible stare for a short second, before bending forward and granting his wish.

Aside from that, their relationship hadn't changed all that much: they still texted, hung with Kaminari and Sero, studied together, shoved at each other as they walked to and from school side by side and poked fun at everything of each other they could harmlessly reach. Kirishima was unbelievably happy with the arrangement, in truth - his relationship with Bakugou was precious and fulfilling, and he could read it easily in Bakugou's smiles, his laughter and bright eyes, that his heart swelled just as much when they were together.

But now he wanted to hold his hand, and for the first time an unknown boundary became, to Kirishima, an unsolvable problem. Bakugou was too unconscious to enlighten him, after all.

Kirishima's hands twitched, and he pressed his palms together to stop himself from reaching out.

He would have liked to say it was to offer Bakugou comfort, the whole hand-holding thing, but he'd never been a good liar - really, it was for his own self, to calm his erratic heart and fidgeting body, that he seeked the warmth of rough fingers around his own.

Between his own aching muscles and Bakugou managing to cooperate with his nemesis to defeat the number one hero, Kirishima himself felt a bit like a failure, currently.

More than a bit.

Maybe closer to a lot.

Enough that he'd been worriedly stalling on going to find Bakugou till he’d been told Bakugou was too unconscious to yell at him for having had him waste his time tutoring him for the written portion of the exam just to spectacularly fail the practical part without even a scrape nor a direct attack to show for it, only a timer run out as he kept fighting concrete wall after concrete wall.

He might have been a little ashamed of himself, at the moment. The hand-holding definitely wasn't meant for Bakugou's benefit.

Bakugou was going to be angry and disappointed in him, once he came to. He was going to look at him and finally see the subpar mockery of an aspiring hero Kirishima had always been, and then take back the sparring privileges Kirishima was still unsure how he had deserved and gained to begin with, the free tips on how to improve he got regularly and unprompted, the wild sparks he saw shining in Bakugou's eyes whenever he looked at him. The sound of his name through Bakugou’s voice, the freedom to ask for kisses and actually get them, take back their easy friendship as a whole, maybe, once he'd know how far under him Kirishima really was, how much he didn't deserve to-

A groan coming from the bed startled him out of his thoughts, and he found himself leaning forward in his chair to hover his hands just shy of Bakugou's stirring shape without making a conscious decision of it.

He watched red eyes blink twice before finally opening, eyebrows curl into a frown to match with a snarling mouth. Another groan fell from Bakugou's lips as he tried to push himself up to his elbows, and then his eyes were focusing on Kirishima, still a little fogged over and half-lidded.

“What-” he started, voice thick and gravelly from disuse and sleep, but Kirishima didn't need for him to finish to know what he was trying to ask.

“You passed,” he said, a small smile tugging at a corner of his lips as Bakugou let out a huff, made himself fall right back against the bed.

“Of fucking course I passed,” he grumbled, sounding exhausted and ready to fall back asleep, yet steady and assured in the usual way that was unique to everything he did or said.

When his eyes closed again, Kirishima took a long breath in and let his smile disappear. So manly, he thought for the millionth time since getting to know Bakugou, but for once the sentence didn't light any fire in him.

He felt so small.

“What about you,” Bakugou asked after a moment of silence, eyes still closed and frown still firm on his face. The sentence wasn't really said as a question, didn't hold the inflection of anything that wasn't a flat statement  - Kirishima had long since realized that eight out of ten Bakugou didn't really do questions, though, and had learnt to understand his level of actual interest in the twitch of his lips, the tilt of his head, the tension in his shoulders.

There was quiet attention written all over him, right then.

Kirishima swallowed on a dry throat without answering, his body becoming stiffer and stiffer the longer the silence protracted itself. Then Bakugou groaned, quiet yet long and drawn out, and Kirishima felt his hardening run in ripples along his back and arms from how contracted his muscles had become.

“Great,” Bakugou said, raising a hand to rub at the bridge of his nose and then dragging it down his face. He wasn't proud to admit to it, but Kirishima, at the action, felt his eyes sting a little.

He'd known it was coming, the disappointment, the yelling, the change in how Bakugou would look at him from that day on, and yet now that he was about to live it he found himself wholly unprepared, wishing he had something to hold on to, maybe that hand he'd been longing for just a minute before, only a squeeze to get ready for-

“Camp’s gonna suck without you there,” Bakugou grumbled, and all thoughts inside Kirishima's head suddenly screeched to a halt.

“...what?” he mumbled, unsure he'd heard right. Bakugou groaned again, rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of one hand and then sighing in what sounded like defeat.

“Who else didn’t pass,” he gritted out, sounding more tired than annoyed, surprisingly. Kirishima took a second for himself to think it over, blinked once, twice, three times in stunned surprise.

“Uh, well, Sato? And Ashido and Kaminari, and-”

“Did you fuckers all fail?” Bakugou interrupted in a long groan, making Kirishima hum a long, uncertain sound before shrugging a bit.

“We're still unsure about Sero,” he offered, and Bakugou groaned harder and longer, brought up his hands to fit the heels right over his eyes and press down in obvious discontent.

“Camp’s gonna suck so fucking hard,” he complained in what, hadn't he been Bakugou, might have even been called a whine.

Kirishima wasn't sure he knew what was going on anymore.

He looked at Bakugou for a moment longer, eyebrows drawn in and lips twisted just slightly. “You're… not disappointed?” he asked then, making Bakugou scoff of a humorless laugh.

“Of course I'm fucking disappointed, haven't you heard a word I just said,” he huffed, and then turned around to lay on his side, brought an arm to curl under the pillow he was resting his head on, “being surrounded by those assholes for three whole days without you is gonna fucking blow.”

“No, I mean-” Kirishima started, then bit at his lip, looked away just to bring his eyes back on Bakugou not a moment later, “in… me, aren't you- disappointed in me.”

Bakugou blinked his lids open, once and then twice to adjust to the light. He wriggled his nose, furrowed his brows.

“Why the fuck would I be,” he said, “I ain't your mother.”

Kirishima took a wobbly breath in, squared his shoulders just to let them deflate and, with it, let go of a weight that had been about to choke him.

Bakugou wasn't disappointed in him. Okay, he thought, and a small laugh escaped his lips through a tentative, confused smile. Why wasn't Bakugou disappointed in him? Had he been expecting him to fail? Known he wouldn't have had any chance against an actual pro hero since the beginning?

Kirishima wasn't sure if he liked that possibility more than his originally feared reaction.

“Oi,” Bakugou said, calling his attention once more on himself; his eyes were half-lidded but intense as he looked at Kirishima, his backlit figure contrasting strikingly against the orange of the setting sun. The light shining through his wild, light hair made it look like an halo, a star dripping directly on the sterile pillowcase of the infirmary bed.

Through the tense silence that followed his call, Kirishima couldn't bring himself to look away from the sight of it.

“I passed,” Bakugou said then, sounding growled and heavy, “but I didn't win. I could barely lay a scratch on him, had to rely on fucking Deku to get around him, was out cold before the exam was even over,” the more words came out of his mouth, the lower and more strained his tone became. Kirishima looked at him with always wider eyes, but couldn't bring himself to utter a single sound to interrupt his assessment of his own trial - couldn't make himself try to reassure him, rebut anything he was saying.

He sounded angry and defeated, and Kirishima's heart grew heavier in his throat with every new word spit out as a curse.

Then Bakugou closed his eyes and took a breath in, let it out through gritted teeth. “We'll both have to work harder,” he concluded, and Kirishima forced himself to breath too, in and out steadily, before nodding with as much conviction as he could muster in the moment.

His eyes were watering up, he didn't know from which of the endless emotions currently swimming between his chest and head, but Bakugou didn't mention it even as he raised his hands to wipe at them. He only pushed himself to a sitting position, feet on the ground and shoulders squared.

“Let's go home,” he said, and Kirishima nodded once again, took his place right by his side as he started to walk away.

-

They were sitting on the floor beside Bakugou’s bed, backs against the hardwood frame and legs curled under themselves.

Kirishima had one of Bakugou’s hands between his owns in his lap, one palm around the back of it while the other hand played with his fingers, pulled them back, curled them forward. His movements were slow and measured, and Bakugou could feel the care in them as Kirishima’s soft skin glided across his rough one, blunt fingernails catching on the callouses just to sooth them with a tender gesture of his pads.

It was the same hand Kirishima had grabbed in Kamino.

Bakugou’s eyes were unfocused as he stared at the wall in front of him, the darkness of the room making blurry the edges of the furniture that lined it, turning shadows deeper and colors duller. The police had told him not to leave his house for any reason till school started again, and Bakugou had been spending his days like that, sitting or laying somewhere in his room, stare unfocused and too many thoughts whirring in his mind.

Kirishima had sneaked in through his bedroom’s window - climbed a tree and knocked on the glass till he was let in like he was out of a romcom from his mother’s teen years.

There was no ban on Bakugou seeing anyone, which meant there was no practical or logical reason why Kirishima had preferred sneaking in to knocking on the front door like any other time he’d come visit. Yet, for some reason, Bakugou was still glad he had decided to go that way.

Something about how the expedient had allowed him to be quiet all through it, Bakugou assumed. Quiet, after all, had been both a necessity and the bare minimum he'd required throughout the whole week.

He was done with that now, though.

As he let his head fall to the side to rest against Kirishima's shoulder, he twisted his hand between the ones holding it to twine their fingers together; he squeezed once, then one time more when Kirishima tightened his hold as well.

“I'm angry,” he said, voice low and rough from disuse catching in the back of his throat and coming out like a croak.

Kirishima hummed short, pressing a cheek between the blond spikes of his hair and then turning his head to sink his nose between it. “You have every right to be.”

He didn’t know the whole of it, Bakugou told himself. He didn’t know about Deku and All Might, or about Bakugou’s shortcomings and failures, the role he had played in destroying the man he admired the most. Kirishima thought he was talking about being captured and treated as a potential villain, or about the way the public had reacted to the chance of him changing sides, or even about being put to house arrest till he could be moved to school arrest.

And they were all parts of it, all things that were making him angry at the moment, but it wasn’t all of it.

Yet, Kirishima’s unquestioned certainty that he was right in feeling like he did still made Bakugou feel more present to himself. Like an anchor grounding him to the reality around him.

He sighed, and let the whole of his weight collapse against Kirishima’s sturdy, unwavering side.

“I’m fucking tired,” he groaned, hiding his face in the crook of Kirishima’s neck, “I need to sleep, tell me what you’re thinking about.”

At his request, Kirishima let out a small, amused laugh - his shoulders shook with it, briefly, and Bakugou felt the vibration of it run through his body and send shivers down his spine, make his chest flutter to a sudden, discordant note.

“You make it sound like my thoughts will put you to sleep,” Kirishima said with a smile to his voice. Bakugou scoffed, rubbing the tip of his nose across the bare skin of his neck.

“That’s because they usually do,” he huffed, and when Kirishima snorted he let a grin bend his own lips, hid it away in the soft fabric of his red t-shirt.

“Damn, now you’re making me regret thinking what I was thinking about.”

Bakugou hummed low, prompting him to continue and explain. He let himself close his eyes, focused on the sound of Kirishima’s deep breaths, on the feeling of their hands intertwined and pressing close. There was a strength in Kirishima’s hold Bakugou could nearly call desperation, in how he could feel his nails leaving marks in his skin, in the light layer of hardening he could sense starting to cover his palm, his knuckles, his fingertips.

Like he never wanted to let go.

Making himself be careful about his own quirk, Bakugou held back with just as much strength.

“I was thinking that I really like your hands,” Kirishima started, for a short second managing to squeeze even harder, “and that I like kissing you, too. That I- that I like it when you’re close enough for me to kiss you and hold your hand whenever I feel like it. That I never want you to be somewhere- somewhere I can’t reach you, again.”

Bakugou shuffled in his place, shifting closer to Kirishima to press their sides more solidly together.

“You reached me,” he said in a low grunt, pointing out an obvious truth he couldn’t allow Kirishima to forget, not when it was the only good thing that had come out of that night, not when he’d spent the past week replying the scene over and over again in his head to stop himself from going insane between nightmares and feelings of guilt.

He shoved at Kirishima with a shoulder just to make a point, but didn’t move his face away from his neck nor did he lighten the grip he had on his hand. In answer, Kirishima laughed again, snorted and short, and then shrugged lightly, started running a thumb along the side of Bakugou’s hand.

“Yeah, well,” he said, but didn’t articulate the thought any further. Instead he rubbed his nose between Bakugou’s hair, took his scent in as he pressed closer, sneaked his free arm around his waist to pull him in.

“I think I’m in love with you,” he breathed out, a loaded whisper dripping with longing, and care, and so much affection Bakugou felt himself going stiff between his arms at the sound of it, found his own breath hitching and stopping in his throat.

He still didn’t move away from him, though.

He let himself be held and surrounded by Kirishima’s warmth till his heartbeat came down to a normal rate once more, squeezed his hand with intent, pressed his face harder against Kirishima’s skin. Let everything about him calm him down and steady him, as it always did, as he knew it always would.

“I don’t know shit about love,” he said then, a low grunt he didn’t let himself dwell on too long in fear of getting lost through overthinking it, “never thought about it, never even fucking wanted it at all.”

He breathed in, breathed out. By his side, Kirishima didn’t try to interrupt him.

“But you’re- I want you,” he gritted out, “around, with me, as mine. Any way I can get you, now and- and fucking always, cause you make it all good,” as he said the last word he shook his head, finally pulling away from Kirishima’s neck just to look at him straight in the eyes, frowning eyebrows to match a steady stare.

“Is that what being in love is about?” he asked, making Kirishima huff out a short, flustered laugh. In the dim light of the room, Bakugou could just about make out the red high on his cheekbones, the pull of a smile at a corner of his lips and sharp teeth poking out through it.

“I think it’s different from person to person,” Kirishima said, “you’re the only one who can know what love is about in your case.”

“Then I’m deciding that’s what love is about,” Bakugou answered immediately, and the bright grin Kirishima sent his way because of it filled his chest with warmth, made the last week look like a distant, blurry memory for a short, wonderful moment.

It was like the sun shining right in the middle of his bedroom.

“Can I kiss you?” Kirishima asked a second later, tone soft and barely whispered, warm like his arm still wrapped around Bakugou’s waist and his hand still squeezing his fingers tight, pulling him closer, drawing him in.

“You don’t gotta ask every single time,” Bakugou huffed as their noses brushed together, as Kirishima’s breath fanned over his skin, their lips came to brush with every new word spoken by either of them.

“Answer’s not gonna change any time soon.”

-

[sent: 12:04am]

my feet are cold

bakugou my feet are cold

bakugooooooooooouuuuuuuu

[sent: 12:05am]

ba

ku

[received: 12:05am]

SO FUCKING WHAT

[sent: 12:05am]

go

youre up!

[received: 12:06am]

OF FUCKING COURSE I’M FUCKING UP YOU’VE BEEN SPAMMING TEXTS LIKE A FUCKING MANIAC

[sent: 12:06am]

shh

its midnight

dont yell

[received: 12:07am]

I WILL PULL YOUR INTESTINES OUT AND STRANGLE YOU WITH THEM DON’T FUCKING TEST ME

[sent: 12:07am]

ew

gross

what are you so angry about this late at night

[received: 12:08am]

YOU WOKE ME UP TO COMPLAIN ABOUT YOUR GODDAMN FEET

[sent: 12:08am]

i did not

thatd be silly

i woke you up to ask you to come over and sleep with me so my feet wont be cold anymore

[sent: 12:10am]

bakugou?

[received: 12:11 am]

OMW

Kirishima giggled as he reread the thread, then laughed harder as he listened to Bakugou land on his balcony with a loud thud and a curse, fought with the glass door till it slid open with a slightly-too-loud bang.

He looked at him from under his comforter as he stomped his way towards the bed, let himself fall on it and then wiggled under the covers without a word spoken, fixed the sheets around him, fussed with the pillow.

Kirishima's heart felt warm and full, and when Bakugou snuggled close against him, twined their legs together and rubbed his warm feet all over his cold ones, he couldn't stop himself from giggling again, plant a kiss between his messier-than-usual hair.

He closed his eyes, smile still wide on his lips, and let the novel feeling of having Bakugou doze off between his arms carry him to a peaceful sleep.

-

Bakugou recognized Ashido before he could see her from the sound of her skipping behind Kirishima and him.

Something about her light but purposeful steps had started becoming recognizable to him, since they had moved in the dorms and begun sharing more spaces than just the classroom and training gyms. He’d become able to recognize Kaiminari’s prancing and Sero’s long steps too, the scruff of Jirou’s slippers, Shouji’s heavy pacing and Tokoyami’s light one, Todoroki’s silent and careful maneuvering around the building.

It was annoying, how much useless space those informations were taking up in his brain against his will. Like those people mattered, like he should care and pay attention.

Ugh.

He knew the sounds Kirishima made moving around by heart too, of course, but he’d already known those for months by then, had made an effort to learn them and remember their nounces.

It was different. Everything about Kirishima was different.

Still, he recognized Ashido’s skipping before his eyes could take her in, and because of that he was ready when she tried to throw an arm around his shoulders, twisted away just in time to have her miss and nearly fall flat on her face.

He smirked at her pout, but didn’t bother to comment on the scene - she’d been trying to get the jump on him for days by then, since he’d snapped at her that heroes should be on high alert at all times and she’d deemed it an impossible task.

She’d realize how wrong she was, sooner or later.

From her position still bent a little forward, Ashido looked at him with a frowning twist to her lips and neat eyebrows, then shrugged and twirled around him, came to a stop by Kirishima’s side and linked an arm with one of his.

“You weren’t in your room this morning!” she chirped, brighter than the early hour should allow of her, “I came by and you didn’t answer!”

Of course he didn’t, Bakugou thought as Kirishima let a long ahh leave his lips, bright smile plastered on his face and eyes vaguely apologetic.

He always felt sorry about stuff he had no reason to be sorry over, the idiot.

“I was in Bakugou’s room,” he explained with a laugh, and then laughed a bit louder at Ashido’s surprised what for?

“I slept there,” he grinned, “but don’t tell, alright? It’s not really allowed, I think.”

It wasn’t, technically, but Bakugou didn’t care for it, and he was sure neither did Kirishima: it wasn’t like they were hurting anyone by sharing a bed, so as long as no one annoying caught them they’d keep on sneaking in each other’s room whatever the rules had to say about it.

What was the point of living one door away from his boyfriend if he couldn’t sleep with him, after all.

“You say that as if the whole boys’ side of the dorms doesn’t already know,” Sero’s voice suddenly came up from behind them, sounding tired through a loud, wide yawn, “you guys wouldn’t know subtle if it hit you square in the faces.”

Bakugou scoffed, rolling his eyes and rising his shoulders. Being subtle was for losers, and neither he nor Kirishima fell under the category - the point wasn’t about them being obvious in what they were doing, it was about everyone else not minding their own fucking business.

What Kirishima and he did or didn’t do at night was of no one’s concern but their own.

“Aw man, do you think Iida knows?” Kirishima asked, a soft whine that made his shoulders deflate under their own weight, turned his smile into a small pout, “I love the guy, but he’s gonna tell for sure if he does.”

Ashido patted him on the back with a long coo, trying to reassure him by pointing out that had he known Aizawa would have already been told, but the pout on Kirishima’s lips only got more pronounced. Bakugou leaned a bit to the side to press his shoulder against his in silent comfort, at that, while Sero only shrugged in disinterested answer, moved to stand on Bakugou’s free side with yet another yawn.

“Just sleep in your own rooms, dude,” he said, like it was the most obvious and easy solution to a problem that, as far as Bakugou was concerned, didn’t really exist to begin with.

He didn’t even know why they were talking about that topic at all.

“Fuck that,” he growled, reaching over to grab Kirishima by a wrist and starting to pull him towards Gym Gamma with angry, stomping steps, and then threw over his shoulder in a loud bellow, “we’ll do whatever the fuck we want to do, Four-eyes can suck my dick!”

From somewhere at his back, Iida’s scandalized words reached him in an high-pitched version of his typically stilted tone, obviously confused but nonetheless appalled by his declaration - he could hear Ashido and Sero’s laughter, too, from where he’d left them standing, and maybe Kaminari’s requests for explanations as well, if he focused hard enough.

He wasn’t focusing on them at all, though.

All he had eyes and ears for were Kirishima’s amused giggles as he allowed himself to be pulled around, light and bright enough to make a smile force its way out on Bakugou’s lips as well.

-

Kirishima made himself fall to sit on the ground, back against the wall and legs sprawled in front of him.

He took a long, gulped breath in, then leaned over Kaminari to reach his gym bag and retrieve his water bottle, downed half of its content in a single swing. Kaminari patted his shoulder, a movement just as exhausted as Kirishima felt, then made a face at the sweat now coating his palm as he dried it on one of his pants legs.

“Good job out there,” Ashido said from somewhere to his left sounding tired as well, and Kirishima nodded and thanked her, let himself slide along the wall till he came to rest against Bakugou’s side.

“How long did I last?” he asked to no one in particular, his eyes closed and breaths still heaved.

Bakugou raised a hand to push it between his damp hair, a short movement perfectly balanced on the line between affectionate and too forceful, and then shoved him away roughly and threw a towel at his face, mumbled about drying himself up before he caught a cold.

He was so immensely caring, Kirishima smiled to himself as he toweled his face.

“About five seconds,” he said in the end, prompting Kirishima to huff and fall right back against his side.

“It felt like a million years,” he whined, rubbing his nose against his shoulder left bare by his tank-top, “my muscles ache like it, for sure.”

He was trying a new technique out, Kirishima. He wasn't sure how it was going to look like exactly, in the end, but he already knew how he was going to call it, if everything went right: Red Riot Unbreakable, the ultimate shield, an unwavering fortress. Once ready, he knew it was going to look impressive, strong.

He’d spent the whole day on it, but for now he could last only a short handful of seconds before wiping himself out, and it was still nowhere near as strong as he wanted it to be. It was still a work in progress, like everything else with him.

He had a good feeling about that one, though.

“Stop whining,” Bakugou said, rolling his eyes at his theatrics as he always did, “you’re gonna have to make it last way longer than that, for it to be of any kind of use.”

Kirishima knew that, he didn't need Bakugou pointing it out for him - so he groaned, long and grumbled to let his displeasure with the comment known, but didn't answer in any way more articulate than that. He was too tired for it, all he wanted at the moment was to lay in bed with Bakugou and sleep the next week away.

They kept in silence for a long while, Kirishima distractedly listening to Ashido and Kaminari talk about one celebrity gossip or another as he caught his breath back, made himself indulge in the feeling of his boyfriend being solid against his side. He hadn't felt that content in a while.

“It looks good,” Bakugou said after a bit, eyes cast forward and somewhat unfocused, “tough.”

Then he turned to look at Kirishima, unwavering and intense, and Kirishima found himself smiling wide and bright, felt the now familiar swell of affection take over his chest and warm up his cheeks.

“Thanks,” he grinned, “I can't wait for it to be good enough to try it against you.”

The idea had come from Bakugou himself after all, though indirectly and so offhandedly he had made it nearly look trivial and obvious, not as groundbreaking as it had actually been for him; he wanted Bakugou to test it, to value it as unwavering as he’d deemed Kirishima the night before.

“I’ll turn you to dust with my Howitzer,” Bakugou scoffed, confidence dripping from every note in his voice. Kirishima could see the smirk starting to pull at the corner of his lips, though, excited at the prospect of it, and he couldn't avoid a smile blooming in answer to it on his own face.

His cockiness was so insanely attractive.

“It's a promise then,” he said, and then leaned a bit harder against Bakugou's side, dipped his head till it was resting properly on his shoulder.

“You guys are so weird,” Kaminari’s voice cut in, sounding confused and mildly disturbed, “who looks that happy while talking about beating each other up? I thought you liked one another.”

At the words, Kirishima found himself giggling in actual mirth; he turned a little to look at Kaminari, and offered him a smile when he found his eyes already on himself - the things that riled Bakugou and him up were hard to explain, after all.

It was less the beating up part of it, and more the thrill of a fight so close it kept them on their toes on who would come out on top, made Kirishima feel like he was strong, wanted, respected for his value and potential. That fire Bakugou's presence lit up in him, it burnt at its strongest in those occasions.

It was that, and a bit it was the beating each other up too. Bakugou was never as manly and bright as he was in the middle of a good fight, after all, and Kirishima's heart pumped wild and excited whenever a hit from either connected, whenever the sharp grin found its way to his lips.

It was hard to explain.

“Of course I fucking like him,” Bakugou said, pushing Kirishima off and then himself up to his feet, “I like that I can blow him up without him being a wimp about it.”

“So manly,” Kirishima mouthed as he looked up at him, and then snickered when he felt Bakugou's foot hit him on a knee and Kaminari elbow him in the opposing side at the same time.

“I'm going to take a shower,” Bakugou announced, picking up his bag and starting to walk away without waiting for an answer - Kirishima seriously considered scurrying to follow him for a few seconds, but his muscles were still aching too much for him to go through with it.

Just a few minutes longer then. If he fell asleep, Kaminari and Ashido were there to wake him up.

-

Bakugou let himself inside Kirishima's room quietly.

He closed the door at his back with a soft click, maneuvered his way around the dumbells left on the floor with accurate precision, one hand against the wall to guide himself in the pitch darkness of the night. He reached Kirishima's bed and sank a knee in the mattress, swung the other leg above him to straddle his hips, sit on his thighs over the comforter.

Kirishima didn't stir till he leant forward, placed a cold palm on his warm cheek - then he wriggled his nose, scrunched up his forehead in mild confusion.

“...Bak’gou?” he asked without opening his eyes, and Bakugou scoffed at him, let his shoulders relax with it.

“You're too heavy a sleeper,” he said, tone less accusing and annoyed than it might have been, than he might have wanted it to be, “what if I had been a villain?”

Kirishima hummed at him for a short while, twisting under him to make himself more comfortable and then taking a hand up to rub at his eyes, yawn in it wide and unrestrained.

“I can tell when it's y-” he started, but as his hand came away from his face and his lids finally opened the words seemed to die in his throat. His eyes were suddenly wide awake, and he pushed himself up to his elbows and then in a sitting position with one frantic, panicked movement, “what happened to you!”

He must have been a sight, Bakugou assumed.

Bandages covering at least three-fourths of his uncovered skin, everything else black and blue from bruises and scrapes; he felt a corner of his lower lip swollen and a cheek aching and pulsing, every muscle pulling and burning with even the barest of his movements. His hair was a mess, his clothes covered in dirt and dust, there probably was blood still under his fingernails and clogging his nose.

Despite all of it, Bakugou hadn't felt as good as he was feeling right then in a long while.

“Fought with Deku,” he said, bringing his hands up to grab at the sleeves of Kirishima's tee and then leaning forward to rest his head on one of his shoulders.

It was warm, like that. Kirishima's scent was soothing in a way nothing else was, for him.

His very own aromatherapy, he thought, and then nearly laughed at the absurdity of it. God, he needed sleep.

“What, why!” Kirishima yelled, hands waving wildly all around Bakugou’s body as if unsure where to rest first. Bakugou hushed him, not feeling up for yet another meeting with Aizawa in case he made a loud enough ruckus to wake the rest of the dorm up - he was in no mood to be told to go back to his own room, right then.

He let his weight collapse on the side, and brought Kirishima down with himself till they were both laying on the bed, Bakugou’s face hidden in Kirishima's chest and one of his legs still over his hips.

“It's okay,” he said, closing his eyes with the intention of falling asleep right then and there. He was most probably making a mess of Kirishima's sheets, he distantly realized, and made a mental note of washing them for him in the morning.

He was going to have to clean up the whole dorm anyway, after all.

“How is it okay!” Kirishima hissed, equal parts concerned and incredulous if his tone was anything to go by, and Bakugou moved a hand to pat him on the shoulder one, two times, threw that same arm around him to hug him closer.

He was too tired to deal with a panicked breakdown, right then, but when Kirishima clutched at his arms and let out a soft Bakugou, worried and slightly pained, he made himself hold him tighter and push his nose under his jaw, leave a kiss on the strong column of his neck.

Kirishima worried so much. He couldn't have been a hero, if he hadn't.

“I fought with Deku,” he repeated, “and Deku fought with me. I was… angry,” to use an easy word for it, “I won. Then All Might showed up, and Aizawa got pissed and put us to house arrest,” that part of it blew, but it wasn't like he hadn't deserved it. Still bullshit, though.

Kirishima was silent for a long while, long enough that Bakugou nearly found himself falling asleep. The soft, wide hands coming up to card between his hair after a bit didn't help his state of wakefulness in the least.

“I couldn't have helped with it, could I? It had to be Midoriya,” Kirishima mumble in the end, every word mouthed right between Bakugou’s hair. He sounded resigned, soft on the side of broken, and Bakugou let out a long growl in answer to it, clutched him harder and pressed in closer.

The truth was that Bakugou didn't know.

He didn't know if Kirishima could have helped, if talking to him could have made enough of a difference for him to not need this, the fight, the yelling, the crying, All Might’s words at the end of it all and the clarification of what he had to do now, set down a new goal, better understand his limits and shortcomings. He didn't know if Kirishima could have helped him avoid all of it, find a different way to clear his head and calm his soul.

But that didn't mean he hadn't wanted to try anyway.

The words had been on the tip of his tongue for weeks, every time they held each other, every moment spent quietly together, every evening in the common room with their friends and every afternoon training and talking and kissing, the mornings getting ready side by side and the nights keeping each other up through text after lights-out. When Kirishima had opened up about his own doubts and insecurities he’d wanted to the most, felt one step away from letting it all come out, lean on Kirishima the same way Kirishima was leaning on him.

It hadn't been his secret to tell, though, and it still wasn't then, and it never would be in the future either.

It was unfair to Kirishima, but he couldn't do anything about it.

“You are helping,” he settled on saying in the end, pressing Kirishima as close to himself as the comforter still between them allowed, “what's between Deku and I has to be dealt with between Deku and I, but that doesn't mean I don't want you here every step of the way, too.”

He took a breath in, filling his lungs with Kirishima's earthy, calming scent.

“It's selfish,” he concluded, nuzzling under Kirishima's chin, “I’m selfish. I had to pick burning everything down till there was nothing left to get rid of the bullshit in my head, and now that it's empty I'm here to have you make it good for me.”

The fight had left him jittery and restless in a way he hadn't experienced before - alone with the feeling that he should have been thinking about something, worrying about it, dissecting it, like he'd been doing for the past year and a half uninterruptedly, constantly.

There was nothing left to obsess over, though. All Bakugou needed to do was calm down enough to sleep, let unconsciousness help his mind get used to once again having a clear path ahead of him. And Kirishima made him steady.

His warmth, his scent, his presence as a whole.

He loved him so ridiculously much.

After a long second of silence, Kirishima huffed and started pulling the covers from under Bakugou, threw them over him and then snuggled close, twined their legs together.

“It is pretty selfish,” he said, mouthing at the crown of Bakugou's head and then planting a soft, chaste kiss just shy of it, “but I get it. I’m selfish too, after all,” he added, and then elbowed him gently in the side when Bakugou scoffed in incredulity.

“I am,” he insisted, “there's things I can't avoid being selfish on, you know,” he paused for a second, breathed in and then out before leaning forward to mouth the next words against his skin, “you’re between them, sometimes. Like how I want you to always come back to me, in the end.”

He sounded strong despite the quietness of his words, as he said so. Intense, like it was a confession coming straight from his bones.

Somehow, Bakugou found a way to press even closer to him, twist a hand in the back of his shirt, bend the other to twine their fingers tightly together between their chests.

“Who the fuck else is there even, if not you.”

-

They were laying on the floor of Bakugou’s room, Kirishima on top of him, sharp teeth nibbling at his lips and leaving pecks all over them.

His mouth was stretched in a smile all through it, because he was happy, and feeling good, and his grins were never easy to rein in when his chest was that full and warm. When life was so bright and nice all around him.

It had been a good day.

It had been a great day, in truth, spent riding high on the success of the night before, his friends looking at him and beaming, his name plastered on the headlines of news-sites he’d only ever dreamed of making an appearance in - Red Riot, the new rising sidekick, they said, praising his actions and shooting high with their predictions about his future.

He could barely believe he hadn’t spent the whole day walking around in a particularly realistic fantasy.

Under him, Bakugou’s lips were pushed out in a soft pout, his hands lightly toying with the hem of Kirishima’s shirt without properly holding on, his muscles less relaxed than they would have been any other time.

Despite himself, Kirishima’s shoulders shook with a short laugh.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” he said, nuzzling his nose beside Bakugou’s and then pecking his cheek softly, still smiling, “we both know you’ll catch up fast.”

“‘course I will,” Bakugou grumbled, sounding put out. He reached upwards with his neck, planting his lips on Kirishima’s own and insistently sucking and licking at them till he stopped smiling too wide, let his mouth relax enough to be kissed properly and deeply.

Kirishima hummed in it, feeling contentment fill his heart.

The fact that Bakugou was kissing him at all was enough to make him not worry about his bad mood too much: he’d been grumbling and growling the whole day long, teeth clenched and muscles tight, but whatever it was that was going on in his head had to be more about him than it was about Kirishima’s successful debut.

He’d tell if and when he wanted to tell.

Meanwhile, Kirishima enjoyed his presence under him and his warm lips on his own, the quiet joy of having Bakugou’s undivided attention on himself after a day of being made a fuss over by everyone else he cared about. He was good, Kirishima thought. He really was good.

His wild grinning put an end to their kissing again, and Bakugou scoffed as he let his head fall back on the floor, closed his eyes and frowned at nothing.

The silence was nice too, and Kirishima made himself enjoy it fully as he laid down to rest his head on Bakugou’s chest, let his breaths sync with the steady beat of his heart. He could have spent the rest of his life feeling as he did right then.

Then Bakugou took a long breath in, raised his hands to push between Kirishima’s limp hair, card through it with long, careful movements. “Show me,” he demanded, grumbled as he’d said everything else that day.

It took Kirishima a while to understand what he was talking about, but when he did a sharp grin bent his lips once more. “Unbreakable?”

“Yeah,” Bakugou huffed, “you can hold it half a minute, right?”

“Something like that,” Kirishima pushed himself up on his forearms, looked down at Bakugou’s still frowning eyebrows and closed eyes. He waited for them to open before focusing on his quirk, feeling it start rippling at his arms and along his spine, his legs, the nape of his neck.

It was harder to breathe when his quirk was pushed to those extents, but, even if it hadn’t been, the way Bakugou looked at him as he completed his shifting would have knocked the air out of his lungs anyway.

Eyes half-lidded and somewhat unfocused, teeth catching at the inside of his lower lip, red starting to color his cheeks and ears, the base of his neck. Like he was looking at something beautiful, something he wanted.

Shifting his weight on his arms made Kirishima’s joints crack and grind, and his voice rasped inside his throat when he took a breath in, pushed it out to talk.

“Bakugou,” he growled, more out of impossibility to make his tone anything different than a real intention for it - it might have come out soft and breathy had his quirk been inactive, but under him Bakugou didn’t seem to mind the gravelly quality Unbreakable imposed on it.

The way he swallowed and raised his hands to his face, tracing his thumbs along his hardened jaw and cheeks with careful, focused movements, had Kirishima nearly think the opposite. If he hadn’t known any better, he might have called Bakugou’s expression awed.

He felt his insides twist at the thought of it.

“You look-” Bakugou started, fletting his eyes along his features as if trying to take all of him in at the same time, “strong.”

Had it been anyone else laying under him in that moment, Kirishima might have worried the smile that pulled at his hardened lips in answer to the assessment could have resulted scary, or grotesque, even. Bakugou was different, though.

Kirishima’s insides were burning.

“I feel strong,” he said, low, like a secret. Bakugou’s careful hands on his face were impossible to feel through the hardened skin, the touches too delicate to pass through the impenetrable fortress Kirishima had made of himself, but for a moment he still wished he could close his eyes and lean into it, feel the heat of Bakugou’s palms turn his skin flushed and warm.

Instead, they kept looking at each other for a long, quiet moment, and when Bakugou started letting sparks ignite all over his hands Kirishima’s grin turned even wider, then broader still as Bakugou’s lips twisted wild and sharp in an answering smirk of his own.

He was so bright he looked alight, like a firework in the dead of the night.

Kirishima wanted to bend over and kiss him senseless, but his mouth was too harsh and full of edges for it to work without harm being done, right then - though, given the look Bakugou was giving him, he doubted he would have minded the attempt anyway.

At times like that, when he had to take on the role of metaphorical breaks between the two of them before a crash could happen, Kirishima hated how attractive and out of his mind his boyfriend could be at the same time.

“You are strong,” Bakugou stated, voice low and steady as the sparks on his palms grew in intensity with each detonation, his grin became wilder and sharper each passing second Unbreakable kept up unwavering.

And when he said it like that, like an indisputable, absolute truth, Kirishima couldn’t do anything but believe him.

-

Bakugou had never been scared for a life that wasn't his own, before.

It gripped at his throat, made him sick to his stomach to the point where he was beginning to feel bile rising; there were so many panicked thoughts running through his mind that all he could hear was loud, oppressing statics, and his eyes were wet, though he wasn’t sure whether it was from tears or his not having blinked once since the news had started airing.

He wasn't breathing. He wasn't even sure if he could breathe.

Kirishima hadn’t been mentioned since he’d been shown on a stretcher at the beginning of the news program, covered in bandages from head to toe, barely awake and yet still smiling.

He’d been smiling, Bakugou reminded himself. That was a good sign.

Most of anything else the reporters had been droning on over were the yakuza group that had just been taken down, the girl the heroes had managed to rescue, Sir Nighteye’s critical conditions, especially, as they stood in front of the hospital they weren’t allowed inside, showing the same images of his battered body over and over and over again.

Bakugou wasn’t listening to any of it, because nothing they were saying was concerning the one thing he cared about.

That was good, too, he reminded himself once more. It meant Kirishima’s life wasn’t in danger like Sir Nighteye’s was, if they weren’t talking about him. It was another good sign, he told himself. It had to be.

Bakugou was starting to think he’d forgotten how to breathe.

In, out, he forced himself. Air in his lungs, keep it in, push it out. Inhale. Exhale. Kirishima was fine. Battered up and covered in bandages, but he was fine. Again, breathe in, breathe out. He was strong, he didn’t give up, he was smiling as he was being carried away, on a stretcher, barely any skin visible or rid of bruises and scrapes, fresh blood seeping through the bandages on his arms, on his chest.

In.

Out.

He choked on a breath, and let his eyes tear up to avoid the coughing fit that would have made him move his attention away from the television screen. On the news, they were alternating views of the hospital from above to views of the hospital from the front.

The hospital in which Kirishima was being treated for the wounds the raid had left on him.

It was the coughing he was refusing to give in to, Bakugou cursed at himself as he clenched his fists on his knees, pretended not to feel Kaminari and Sero leaning a bit closer to him on each of his sides, press their shoulders lightly against his own.

It was the coughing.

That was the only reason for the tears he was using all his strength to not let free.

-

Kirishima was pressed against a wall, Bakugou's hands in his hair and his mouth pulling soft moans out of him every twist of his tongue, every nip of his teeth.

He was trying to keep himself quiet, as he could hear people chattering and walking by so close they nearly felt right beside him - they were hidden away in a side alley out on school grounds, Bakugou and he, the cultural festival going on in full swing just a few paces from them and adrenaline still pumping through them both from a well-done show.

He twisted his fingers on the lower hem of Bakugou's band shirt, and grumbled in quiet disappointment as he felt against his knuckles the fabric of the button up he was wearing under it instead of the naked skin of his hip. Bakugou pushed more insistently against his lips, sucked and nipped at his lower one, ran his tongue along the tips of Kirishima's teeth as he always did when he wanted him to use them, and Kirishima bit down lightly on his tongue, let out a muffled moan at the feeling of Bakugou shivering under his hands.

He'd pulled him aside soon after the class had split into groups, Bakugou, a hand around his wrist forcing him to come along and not giving him any time to question the action at all, before being shoved roughly against the wall and made to melt under expert touches.

Kirishima had given in easily, as it had been a while since they had last made out like that - mostly his fault, he was loathe to admit.

But he wasn't going to think about that, right then.

Bakugou pushed a knee between his legs, pressed his chest so close to his Kirishima could feel his heart beating through it, and he let a hand slide up along his spine, twist in the soft blond hair at the nape of his neck and hold on; when Bakugou started moving down to trail kisses on his cheek, his jaw and neck and just under his ear, slid his hands down from his hair to grip at his shoulders and then his waist, Kirishima tilted his head to the side to give him more space, arched his back to push closer, pull him in.

He had to focus on his muscles to not lose his grip on his quirk and accidentally tear Bakugou’s skin up, but it was hard with how warm he felt, how overwhelming and all-encompassing.

He wanted to kiss him again.

“Bakugou-” he said, pulling a little at his hair to have him draw back and come up, but Bakugou only hummed in answer, tightened his hold on his hips, pressed open-mouthed kisses along the column of his neck, nipped at his jaw.

Despite himself and the situation he was in, Kirishima found giggles falling from his lips at his boyfriend’s behaviour.

“Bakugou, come on,” he tried again, voice breathy both from his own amusement and Bakugou’s actions, “kiss me.”

“I am kissing you,” Bakugou mouthed against one of his cheeks, nibbling at it and then planting a peck right in the middle of it.

Kirishima giggled again. “Don’t be purposefully daft, you asshole,” he half-whined, half-laughed, bringing up his arms to throw them around his shoulders, “you know what I mean, come back here.”

In answer, Bakugou hummed again, nosing at his cheek and then his temple, pressing butterfly kisses on his forehead and eyes, on his scar and the bridge of his nose. When he finally came back down to his lips, Kirishma sighed into his mouth and opened up for him easily, let the movements of their tongues drag on for long minutes in a languid, lazy rhythm.

It felt good, to kiss Bakugou like that. Like they had all the time the universe had to offer, like the world around them had ceased existing the moment their lips had made contact.

He'd missed it.

As they came apart, Kirishima kept his eyes closed and leaned his head against the wall at his back, felt Bakugou’s forehead come down to rest on his shoulders, nuzzle at the crook of his neck.

“You liked the show?” he asked after a while of comfortable silence, his arms holding Kirishima loose around his waist and every word tickling the skin of his throat with his warm breath.

“‘course I did,” Kirishima hummed, “you were amazing. Everyone was.”

Still hidden in the crook of his neck, Bakugou nodded once as if he’d been expecting that answer, and then pushed a little bit closer, waited for Kirishima to twist his fingers between his hair before speaking again.

“You didn’t say,” he grumbled, making Kirishima snort a laugh that shook his shoulders and chest - he sounded somewhat close to a pout, a tone that was both rare and always welcome, as far as Kirishima’s feelings went.

“You just grabbed me and started making out with me, I didn’t have much time to talk at all,” he pointed out, leaning a cheek on Bakugou’s head and rubbing his face between his blond, messy locks, nuzzling his nose in it, taking in his scent.

Again, Bakugou nodded as if he’d known the answer before hearing it. He took a breath in, and Kirishima could feel him wriggle his nose in the way it brushed against the skin between his shoulder and neck.

“You never said through rehearsals either,” he added then, his voice now closer to a growl than a pout. His grip on the back of Kirishima’s shirt tightened, the strength in his arms’ hold growing in intensity as he pushed closer, pressed him against the wall as if trying to prevent him from running away, trying to escape.

It was useless effort, really.

Kirishima’s body had grown so stiff he doubted he could have moved even just an inch.

“I don’t-”

“You’ve been avoiding me.” Bakugou cut him off in a hiss, “you’ve been since the goddamn raid.”

Kirishima closed his eyes, and once again let the back of his head hit the wall behind him.

It should have been obvious since the start, but he really had been an idiot in hoping Bakugou wouldn't notice. He'd just hoped that, between the provisional license course and the band rehearsal, Kirishima's own supplementary lessons, they would have been busy enough for him to find it natural, that they had temporarily drifted apart a bit - spent less time together, didn't kiss as often, didn't train as much.

Stupid, he’d been so stupid.

“I haven’t,” he said, because apparently he still hadn’t reached the peak of stupid he could reach, “I was with you and the guys in Kaminari’s room just two days ago, wasn’t I?”

Bakugou growled, but still didn’t pull back to look at him in the eyes as he answered in what Kirishima was starting to recognize as genuine anger, “fucking- sure, with me and the guys, don’t fucking insult me by treating me like I’m an idiot, Kirishima.”

He wasn’t trying to. The truth was, Kirishima had lost sense of what he’d been trying to do a long, long time ago.

He’d dug a deeper hole he knew how to come out of, found himself with a shovel in hand and begun using it as a mean to hide the pathetic, ridiculous imitation of a man he was, and then had kept going in panicked reaction the deeper he got himself into that whole mess.

He hadn’t meant for any of it to happen.

In the silence that followed, he made himself breathe in and breathe out, twisted his arms till one was curled around Bakugou’s shoulders and the other let him card his fingers through his blond hair, slowly and methodically, a calming rhythm to his running heart.

The sounds of the festival reached their spot in the hidden alley as if coming from another universe altogether, making time feel as if distorted and dilated, and Kirishima used those endless minutes to find a way to explain, make his voice strong enough to not give out on him if he tried to open his mouth and talk.

In the end, Bakugou beat him to it.

“I’ve been trying to understand,” he said, the low growl nearly impossible to make out mumbled as it was directly against Kirishima’s skin, “but I can’t fucking- I can’t- I’ve been trying, Kirishima, for weeks,” he stressed, his hands becoming warmer and warmer through the shirt and against the skin of his back, “but I don’t know- what the fuck it is that I did.”

Oh no.

“I can’t figure it out. And apologies when you don’t know what the shit you’re saying sorry for are utter bullshit, but-”

Kirishima didn’t let him finish.

He pushed off the wall to hold him harder against himself, pressing kisses to everything his mouth could reach as his fingers tightened in his hair, his arms rippled with his quirk from the strength he was using to keep him close.

“It’s not your fault,” he hissed, feeling his throat constrict as he tried not to break down before he could explain anything, fix the mess he’d made, “God, Bakugou, Bakugou, how can you think it’s your fault.”

He was always so ridiculously, incomprehensibly caring in the most convoluted ways, Kirishima couldn't believe he hadn't anticipated this happening.

“How is it not,” Bakugou growled, the scent of smoke in the air making Kirishima figure he’d lost control on his quirk and was probably burning holes in his shirt as he spoke, “you had your door locked and didn’t answer the night you came back, and ever since then you-”

“I was ashamed,” Kirishima blocked him, feeling his arms turn to stone and being unable to do anything to stop it, through the memories of that day.

The night of their return from the mission, Kirishima had been ashamed of everything he had tricked himself into believing he was for the past weeks - he’d thought himself on top of the world, indestructible and unwavering, and instead he’d broken down to pieces during the first serious mission he’d been part of.

Bakugou had believed so much in him, in his potential and value, and instead-

After Bakugou hadn’t even tried to approach him in the common room, he’d convinced himself he would have only seen disappointment in his eyes had they interacted that same night - so he’d hidden away, and pretended not to hear him when he’d knocked on his door and then his balcony a few minutes later. He’d kept his eyes low and their distances wide when he’d come back from the provisional license course the next day, too, but Bakugou hadn’t tried to approach him again. Not that day, nor the one after or the next still.

Because Kirishima was an idiot, the lack of attempts had hurt him just as much.

Bakugou had seemed content enough with spending his time with Sero and Kaminari for the next few days, and then Jirou and Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami too once the band was officially formed - because they were stronger than him, and manlier than him, and not a walking disappointment in the same way Kirishima was, a voice had kept repeating in the back of his head, making it harder and harder to approach Bakugou at all.

Kirishima would have liked to say it had taken him longer, to figure out Bakugou was just trying to give him the space he’d implicitly asked of him.

The truth was, though, that he knew his boyfriend too well to let his negative moods trick him for long when it came to him, and every avoided interaction after the first week was just-

“I didn’t know how to explain to you how much of an idiot I am,” he said in a hiss halfway between a growl and a whine, hiding his face away in Bakugou’s hair and scrunching up his eyebrows, “and the longer I avoided the issue the more I made a mess of it, and the more time passed the more I didn't know how to tell you that I was just ashamed and- and jealous without you being even more disappointed in me for it, and then I thought that maybe you would- you would write it off as being busy for the festival if I started acting normal again from today on, so I just-”

Kirishima had been expecting the explosion since he had started talking, so it didn’t really hurt nor shock him once it came - Bakugou had moved his hands to grip at his hardened arms before detonating too, which made the collateral damage minimal as well.

Still, the aim at his biceps made it obvious Bakugou wanted to be let go, and even if he knew he deserved it he still pouted as he relaxed his hug, let his arms hang limp at his sides.

The kiss, on the other hand, was completely unexpected.

It was forceful and sudden, Bakugou’s palms squishing his cheeks and holding his face in place as he pressed forward, sunk his tongue in his mouth, bit at his lip till it began to hurt.

The immediately subsequent explosion straight in the face should have been expected, but even in its small dimensions it still caught Kirishima completely off guard.

He had no clue what was going on anymore.

“You goddamn asshole, I thought you were trying to break up with me!” Bakugou yelled, pointing a finger at Kirishima’s face and then trying to explode it again. It was mostly habit born from their endless amount of sparring matches that had Kirishima manage to evade the attack before it could connect, one arm raised to push Bakugou's hand away and have it detonate harmlessly against the wall. He'd executed that same move enough times to not need even a spare second to think about it, by then.

Luckily too, as he was too stunned by Bakugou’s accusation to really think about anything at all.

“I- what?!” he gasped, confusion making way to complete bafflement as his brain finally registered the words, “why would I break up with you, you’re the best thing ever happened to me!”

“Damn straight I am!” Bakugou shouted, and then threw an arm forward, making Kirishima instinctively raise a hand to block it in its path and curl hardened fingers around the ones aiming at his face to snuff out the incoming explosion.

The palm didn’t detonate, though, and Bakugou used Kirishima’s stony hold to pull him forward and against his chest, wrapped his arms around his shoulders, pressed against him with all the strength he had in himself.

“Fucking shit, you piss me off,” he growled as he tightened his embrace even more, and the absurdity of that sentence paired with his actions nearly made Kirishima unsure on whether he wanted to laugh or cry.

Instead, he tentatively brought his arms forward to wrap around his waist, pressed his unsure smile against his collarbone and took his scent in.

“I’m sorry,” he said, because he felt like he had to, felt like he would need to for a long time still.

“You better be,” Bakugou huffed, his contempt sounding dangerously close to the edge of exasperatedly fond. Kirishima felt him take the few steps back that separated them from the wall behind Bakugou’s shoulders, and followed him blindly till he could lean all his weight against him, feel the rumble of his words through his warm chest, “just fucking speak up, next time.”

Kirishima nodded, feeling light around his heart and inside his mind, and when he leaned up and forward to catch Bakugou’s lips with his own he first received a huff and a grumble right against his skin, making his cheeks tingle and a laugh shake his chest.

The kiss that followed was one of the most reassuring and kind Bakugou had ever gifted him with, and he let himself indulge in the slow movements of it for as long as time allowed him to.

-

Sitting on the dorms’ kitchen counter, Kirishima swung his legs back and forth, the heels hitting the cupboard under him with a dull thud every second and the next.

Bakugou had found it irritating, at first, but by now it was just another background sound like the fridge whirring, the oil popping in the pan he was carefully laying beef chunks in, Ashido and Jirou quipping at each other sitting at the table a few feet at his back. It was methodical work, and he found it easy to get lost in as he kept his ears attentive to catch any imprecision in the text Kirishima was reviewing.

English had never been Kirishima’s best subject, but with his tutoring Bakugou was proud to say his grasp of it had made leaps. Some things still confused him, though.

With his chopsticks, he picked up a small piece of beef and blew on it, then turned towards Kirishima and presented it to him.

“Open up,” he said; as Kirishima did just that and then chewed on the meat with a stupidly unnecessary blissed out expression, he put aside the beef and started adding vegetables in the pan in its place, moved them around, let the oil pop.

“You messed up,” he said then, waving the chopsticks towards the piece of paper Kirishima had written his answers on and was reading off of, and then snorted when his eyes widened and started frantically scanning the words.

“What, where!” he whined after swallowing, “I was so sure I had gotten them all right, this time!”

Bakugou reached over for the beef once more, added it in, then soy sauce right after it, “last sentence, simple past doesn’t work there.”

Kirishima whined, deflating forward and letting a pout twist his features. He reached for his eraser to get rid of the mistake, then tapped the pencil on the now blank space as he tried to figure the actual answer out.

“Why must English have so many pasts even,” he grumbled to himself, and Bakugou rolled his eyes at the complaint, started separating the stir-fry in the two plates he’d put aside before starting cooking.

It had become an easy routine for them as of late, to settle in the kitchen for last minute revisions in the evening after sparring, Bakugou cooking something fast and simple and Kirishima’s voice unsurely making its way through the subjects he had most problems with.

Bakugou found it calming and grounding, had him let go of any residual anger he might had had left from the day, made him loose and relaxed enough to easily fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He pushed a plate under Kirishima’s nose, and waited for him to take it before making his way to stand between his legs, back pressed against his wide chest as Kirishima’s feet crossed before his thighs.

“Tell me the tenses and what you use them for,” he instructed then, picking up his chopsticks and plate and starting to eat. He heard Kirishima hum around a mouthful of food, a sound that turned fast into a moan and made him snort at the theatrics of it.

“This is so good, Katsuki!” he groaned, stuffing even more food in his mouth, “how do you make even simple stuff like this taste like gourmet!”

“By being the fucking best,” he gloated, scoffing and rolling his eyes, but couldn’t avoid the warm feeling around his heart at the compliment, couldn’t make himself not relax against Kirishima’s warm body and reach back to push even more meat on his plate from his own.

Making Kirishima happy was always its own kind of victory.

“Is it really that good?” Ashido asked from her place at the table, having Bakugou turn sharply to look at her and finding both her eyes and Jirou’s trained on him, “Bakugou never lets us try his food, right, Kyouka?”

Jirou nodded and hummed, low but steady, somewhat searching with her stare, but Bakugou only scoffed and turned back to his own plate, took his time to chew and swallow before giving any sort of answer.

“That’s cause you ain’t Eijirou,” he shrugged, and at his back Kirishima laughed sudden enough to snort, raised a hand to his mouth to avoid spitting out the food he was eating.

Gross. Bakugou nearly couldn’t believe he was in love with that mess.

“You could call them BF privileges,” he grinned, “right, Katsuki?”

“Damn straight.” There were a lot of things Bakugou did for Kirishima that were out of the question for anyone else, he believed his classmates smart enough to have figured that out, by then.

Ashido and Jirou still didn’t look convinced, because of course they didn't.

“Are we even sure he’s really that good, though?” Ashido mused, one painted nail on her chin and eyes turning up to the ceiling, “I say Kirishima is too much a biased source, he’s obviously not objective enough when it comes to Bakugou.”

Behind his back, Kirishima sputtered and started to try and defend his word, and while he was at it Bakugou finished the food on his plate, moved away from Kirishima’s embrace to start cleaning up after himself.

“I know what the fuck you’re doing,” he said, interrupting the bickering now going on between Kirishima and Ashido, “and it ain’t gonna work. If you wanted food, you thought about it before Lunch Rush closed up the cafeteria.”

He didn’t even try to suggest they cook for themselves, as by now he was well acquainted with how disastrous in the kitchen nearly all of his classmates were - if they were lucky, Frog would take pity on them and fix something for their sorry asses.

Trying to goad him into cooking through implying he wasn’t actually any good at it might have been a good strategy, and fuck did he hate how well his classmates had begun to know him, but making food wasn’t something he needed everyone to acknowledge him as the best at.

All he needed was for Kirishima’s appreciation, in that field, and he got that more than enough without needing to ask for it.

“Buuh, that’s boring!” Ashido whined, “would you really let us die of hunger like this?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, and then threw a middle finger up at his back when he heard Jirou comment on how little heroic a behaviour that was.

“Thought you had gotten better about saving,” she chided - Bakugou didn’t need to turn around to know she was smirking at him, but before he could start yelling at her to fuck off he felt Kirishima’s chest align once more with his back, one of his arms come forward and around his body to deposit his empty plate in the sink in front of him.

“I’ll clean up, move out of the way,” he said lightly, “you cooked, after all.”

That was another cheap trick Bakugou recognised easily enough: pushing close against him, enveloping him in Kirishima’s warmth and scent, offering to do in his place something Kirishima knew damn well Bakugou hated with a passion.

It was harder to say no when it was his boyfriend asking, though.

Bakugou hated how easy he was, in those situations.

At his back, Ashido made a gasping noise, slammed a hand down on the table in front of her just for the theatrics of it, “Sensei!” she yelled at Bakugou, “Kirishima’s trying to get out of doing his homework!”

He knew he was. He also knew that, hadn’t Kirishima let go of him to turn around and gape at Ashido in mock betrayal, he would have let him get away with it.

That was, for sure, something he should have been way more bothered by.

Fuck Kirishima’s stupid ability to play him like a fiddle thanks to his stupid-ass attractive voice and scent and body, and fuck any chore that forced him to keep his palms wet enough that his sweat got instantly washed away, too.

“The tenses, Eijirou,” he growled as he pushed his hands back between soap and warm water, and Kirishima whined as he pushed himself back up on the counter, started swinging his legs back and forth with the same rhythm as before.

-

“And it would be nice to have an all-girls agency once we go pro,” Ashido was saying, seated on Tsuyu’s desk and surrounded by the other girls in the class, “we could ask Kendou and the others to join, too! I bet we’d be the most popular joint agency in no time!”

She was probably right, Kirishima though from his perch on Bakugou’s desk, but she'd changed idea about who she wanted to team-up with so often already that he doubted the plan would ever come to fruition.

Still, teaming-up sounded cool. Kirishima had been thinking about it enough himself, as of late.

“Watchu think about it, Katsuki?” he asked lightly, and then chuckled when Bakugou hummed in distracted question, “team-ups, what's your opinion of them?”

“Fucking waste of time,” Bakugou said without raising his eyes from his phone, tone grumbled and frown focused.

Kirishima didn't take the answer to heart, used by now to Bakugou's easy dismissal of most teamwork-related concepts. Instead he leaned over to see what had his attention so rapt, and discovered his fingers tapping fast on an app game he'd never seen before - there were explosions going on, though, which was to be expected in a weirdly endearing way.

Bakugou was really cute, when you knew where to look.

“Yeah? I think they might be worth a shot,” he hummed as he watched Bakugou expertly blow up small avatars on his phone screen - it was an hypnotic sight, Kirishima could understand why he seemed so taken by it.

Bakugou scoffed, derisive. “What, you been seriously considering that bullshit?”

Kirishima laughed and shrugged lightly, moved back to turn his eyes once more on the rest of the class.

“Somewhat,” he said, which was as much of an understatement as he could get away with without lying.

Truth was, Kirishima had been more or less obsessed with the thought since he'd by accident let himself indulge in it. The idea of teaming-up with his friends, which had in turn become teaming-up with Bakugou, and then twisted just enough to begin looking like partners, more than just a cooperation.

He'd been trying to find a good moment to bring it up with him ever since.

Sometimes, he still wished he had the same kind of brazen confidence Ashido seemed to be naturally gifted with - the guts to say everything he thought the moment he thought it, without a care for how it would sound or whether he’d change his mind two minutes after voicing the idea. She’d always seemed free, to him, in a way unattainable to his own self.

He was working hard to cover that gap between them as much as he was able to, but some things still tripped on his tongue and remained stuck on the tip of it.

A work in progress, a work in progress.

“Oi,” Bakugou said after the silence between them protracted too long. Kirishima hummed and turned around to move his attention away from the class and back on him, first his head and then his eyes, just to find Bakugou still fully focused on his app game.

That was a multitasker for you, Kirishima snorted.

After another long second of quiet, Bakugou’s attention moved up just long enough catch his eyes, frown at him with an impatient twist to his lips. “Spill it,” he ordered, but Kirishima kept silently looking at him even after his focus turned back on his game, thinking, considering.

It wasn’t like he was scared of talking to Bakugou about the idea for fear of being rejected - worse came to worst, Bakugou would shoot the possibility down and they’d move on from there. He wanted Bakugou to do with his future what he thought would be best for it, Kirishima, and if it turned out a partnership wasn’t in line with his plans he wouldn’t hold it against him.

He knew how important being number one was for him, after all.

What was stopping him from voicing the thought wasn’t that in the least. It was how Bakugou would react to him having thought about it at all, that scared him.

Would he think him weak? For dreaming of having a partner to work by the side of, share with them the burden of the pro-hero life and everything that came with it. Would Bakugou interpret the idea as Kirishima being unable to make it by himself? Trying to use Bakugou’s sure-to-come fame to make himself shine a little brighter as well?

He hated the thought of it. Of Bakugou misinterpreting his wish to share a future with him as an attempt to steal from him.

Then again, no way to know if not by asking. He’d already brought up the topic and made Bakugou press about it, there was no way to turn back at that point.

Be a man, he told himself. No regrets.

“More than what Kamui and Mt. Lady and Edgeshot have going on,” he started, keeping his eyes steady on Bakugou to catch even the slightest reaction to his words, “something like the Pussycats... wouldn’t be bad. Is what I’ve been thinking.”

Something where they shared a name and were rated together. Something in which the world would consider them an item, one single entity, only one hero.

Now that he’d voiced it, it sounded more like a marriage proposal than a suggestion to maybe be work-partners in the future. Kirishima felt his cheeks heat up at the realization of it, and then shook his head at how silly the comparison was.

But Bakugou’s hands stilled on his phone at the words, every muscle in his body tightening for a short, nearly impossible to notice second. Kirishima still caught it, though, and with it noticed the flush on his ears and at the base of his neck, too, short lived as it was.

Ah.

His heart was pounding in his chest louder and wilder than back when he’d asked for a kiss for the first time.

The moment was way more fleeting than how it felt, and before he knew it Bakugou’s fingers started tapping on his screen again as if it hadn’t happened at all. “You got someone in mind for it?” he asked, tone forcefully light and disinterested.

The smile that made his way on Kirishima’s lips at the reaction was small and tentative, yet as genuine as they came.

“You know who,” he said, his voice coming out a soft whisper without him making a conscious decision of it, quietened by the warm feeling slowly enveloping his chest. It took a while, but in the end Bakugou nodded his understanding, hunched his shoulders and lowered his head.

He opened his mouth to answer, but Kaminari’s voice calling for Kirishima from the classroom’s door interrupted them both, had them turn sharply towards him in startled surprise.

“Tetsutetsu’s looking for you,” Kaminari said, grinning wildly and looking overly excited, “he’s in the cafeteria, come on, I feel like this is gonna be fun!”

Despite himself, Kirishima felt excitement start to buzz inside his stomach as well - Tetsutetsu seeking him out was always marker that something interesting was about to happen.

He really wanted to finish his conversation with Bakugou, though, and as he looked back and forth between the door and the desk his legs started to bounce, his arms tightened as indecision made his quirk ripple all over them.

Bakugou scoffed, elbowing him in the side without putting away his phone.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, low and grumbled but sure and unwavering, turning Kirishima’s insides alight with sudden, giddy happiness, “now fucking go, you’re making a goddamn earthquake of this desk.”

Kirishima nodded of a jerky movement, jumping down from his perch and skidding his way to the door. Think about it was way more than he’d hoped for, and the way Bakugou had reacted to the proposition made him bright with the possibility of his feelings being mostly positive, on the matter.

It was stupid, but Kirishima felt like he’d just successfully confessed all over again.

He stopped at the door, one hand on the frame and a bright smile on his lips. “I love you, Katsuki!” he shouted, “you’re the best!”

Even from the other side of the room and with the light hitting Bakugou from the back turning all his shadows sharper and deeper, the smirk he received in answer was still as clear as the sun, to him.

“Fucking love you too, bitch,” Bakugou grinned right back at him, making him laugh loud and bright, filling his chest with more butterflies than he knew what to make of, “now get the fuck outta here already, Sparks has left you behind.”

Kirishima saluted him, still smiling wide and elated, and then started to run to catch up with Kaminari’s departing back.

-

Bakugou had run there.

He’d been in the middle of his own internship, patrolling the bustling night streets as he’d become accustomed to in the last month, when Kaminari’s sudden call had stopped him in his tracks, made his heart jump in his throat and stop his breathing.

Not again, he’d thought over and over as he'd dropped everything and begun to run. Not again, and why him, why always him.

He’d thrown himself through the hospital doors with his breath coming short and his palms over-sweating dangerously - he’d yelled at the receptionist to tell him where he was, and found Kaminari and Tokoyami pacing the corridor he’d been directed to, yelled at them as well for lack of anything better to do, because they had been there with him, because they weren’t the ones currently undergoing surgery behind a door he wasn’t allowed to cross.

Recovery Girl was away, they told him.

She’d be over the next day to fix everything as she always did, but until then it was traditional medicine for Kirishima. Bakugou yelled again at the news, shouted questions about what the fuck she could ever have to do that was more important than helping Kirishima as soon as possible, screamed till he was told to either quiet down or leave, and then he sat down and heaved every breath, seethed his anger to avoid crying his fear.

He didn’t speak to anyone as the rest of the class filed in one by one, moved only to remove his mask and gauntlets, press his fingers on his eyes, between his hair.

It felt like years passed before the door opened and they were told everything had gone as well as they could have hoped for.

“You’ll be allowed to see him in half an hour,” the doctor said, “but he’ll probably still be asleep by then.”

Bakugou couldn’t clearly remember much, aside from that single sentence.

He paced back and forth before the door to the room Kirishima had been settled in for the whole length of those thirty, agonizingly slow minutes, ignored anyone who tried to speak to him all through them. Sounds were statics in his ears, his own heavy breathing and pounding heart the only noises his brain could register.

He didn’t stop feeling like throwing up till his hand was safely wrapped around Kirishima’s unconscious one.

“He’ll be fine,” Sero said from behind him, sounding as if he were talking to himself as much as he was to him. Bakugou didn’t need to turn around and look at him to know how pale his face was, how dark his eyebags and shaky his fingers, but he did anyway just to glare at him.

Just to find another outlet for the anger he was feeling.

“I fucking know that,” he hissed, tightening his hold on Kirishima’s hand till both their knuckles turned white, “he’s too strong for this to keep him down. He’s the strongest person I know.”

“Am I really?”

The voice, for weak and shaking that it was, hit Bakugou like a punch straight to his guts. He turned around sharply, and when his eyes met softly smiling lips and half-closed lids he took a harsh breath in, kept it inside to avoid a sob.

Kirishima looked tired and frail, skin either too red or too white, stare unfocused and shivers running all along his arms, but he was awake.

He was awake.

“Fuck you,” Bakugou growled with the little strength he had left, let himself collapse to sit on the bed by Kirishima’s hip, “stop fucking doing this to me, you ass.”

It took a while for his words to register, but Kirishima’s smile turned pained once they did, twisted downwards at the corners in what Bakugou, by then, easily recognized as an incoming apology.

“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” he hissed before he could voice that thought, screwing his eyes shut and leaning down to rest his forehead on his unbandaged shoulder, “what’s the fucking point if you always end up here anyway.”

Sero approaching the bed and beginning to fuss over him put an end to the conversation before Kirishima could answer the accusation, but from the way he had tensed under him Bakugou knew he’d just been about to apologize again.

It was stupid, he was aware it was.

He knew that getting hurt was part of the package of being a pro-hero - he’d known before he had started attending UA as an easy concept made obvious by common sense, and he’d known after thanks to copious direct experiences with it, both personal and of anyone close to him. Kirishima getting hurt wasn’t something he had any right to get angry over, and it wasn’t something he should be entitled an apology for.

Bakugou didn’t want an apology.

He wanted a way to make sure Kirishima never needed a hospital stay again.

Around him the room had slowly filled with their classmates, worried voices carrying through the air and mixing in a single buzz Bakugou was doing his best to ignore - he focused on Kirishima’s tired voice and quiet apologies, his chest vibrating and heart beating under him, his breath brushing one of his ears with every word he spoke.

On how alive he felt, how alive he was.

“I’ll do it,” Bakugou said, loud and clear enough to put an instant end to the chatter in the room. He raised his head till he was looking at Kirishima, stare as steady as he could make it with eyes that felt wet and ready to overflow any moment.

He was scowling, he knew he was, an expression that anyone else would have interpreted as anger from him, a warning for incoming rage and destruction - from the twist of Kirishima’s lips and eyebrows, he knew he was easily coming across as simply determined, to him.

Bakugou loved him so much it was starting to become painful.

“I’ll do it,” he repeated, quieter, only for Kirishima to hear, “partnership, right? I’ll fucking do it.”

Kirishima’s face twisted from confused to surprised, to happy, to concerned, to a mixture of all four Bakugou couldn’t fully make himself grasp. He kept his eyes steady as Kirishima’s searched his features, aware and dismissing of the stares from the rest of the class on him, on them, trying to understand what exactly was going on at the moment.

“Katsuki…” Kirishima started, his voice wavering on the last sound, breaking on the k, but Bakugou knew what he was about to say, and he didn’t let him finish - he pulled the hand he was still grasping up to his chest, squeezed it with intent to quiet him down.

“This isn’t only about you,” he hissed, so low he was sure no one but Kirishima would be able to hear him, “I didn’t say yes from the start cause I thought having you that close might fuck with my focus, but it can’t be worse than not knowing when you’re next gonna take a trip to this fucking shithole. I know you feel the same.”

He squeezed Kirishima’s hand again, hard, and waited for his eyes to come back on his before continuing, once more loud and clear.

“I’ll have your back, and you’ll have mine. No downsides.”

He pretended not the hear their friends’ voices at his declaration - Ashido’s gasp, Jirou and Sero’s cooing, Kaminari’s delighted surprise, Deku’s watery Kacchan.

He only focused on Kirishima, his eyes widening and his lips stretching, smiling up at him, quieting the storm inside his mind and chest.

Partners, he thought, and breathing finally started coming easy again.

-

They were sprawled on the long couch in the common room, the top of Bakugou’s back against an armrest and Kirishima between his legs and on his chest, chin resting on his pecs, one thumb lazily scrolling through his twitter feed.

Around them, their friends were lounging between the free couches and the ground, gossiping as they did with a light lilt to their voices, happy tone to every spoken word - Kirishima wasn’t really listening to them, attention already too split between the news he was reading and Bakugou’s hand carding through his hair.

It wasn’t till Ashido’s giggled words registered in his mind that he focused back fully on the topic of conversation, eyes wide and eyebrows high.

“Uhm, what?” he asked with an unsure laugh, startling Bakugou out of his sleepy haze as he pushed a little up to his elbows, turned to properly look at his friends with a tentative smile.

Ashido looked at him in surprise for a long, silent second. “You didn’t know?” she asked then in a gasp, “I thought everyone knew about them dating, by now!”

She was talking about Midoriya and Uraraka, Kirishima knew. He knew, just like he knew that they had started dating about a week prior - it would have been hard not to know, given how much of a flustered, happy mess they had been around each other since then.

That wasn’t what Kirishima had been talking about, though.

“Not that, I mean the other part,” he said, grinning despite himself at the weird looks everyone else in the room was sending his way, “about how they’re the first couple in the class...?”

It felt stupid enough to say that he found himself laughing by the end of it.

Under him, Bakugou stiffened at his words, turned slowly to look first at their friends and then at him. “What,” he said, more of a statement than a question, but Kirishima could only shrug in answer anyway.

Maybe she meant couple as in boy and girl…? That would have been pretty rude of her, though, and he knew Ashido wasn't about that, not even as a joke.

She blinked at him a few times, turned to look at Kaminari and then Jirou as if searching for some sort of support or explanation - both of them stared at her with expressions just as lost, though. All three of them turned towards Sero, but even from him the only answer was a confused shrug.

Kirishima felt his smile begin to turn a little crazed as his eyes jumped from one friend to the next.

“You’re joking, right?” he asked in a startled laugh, but the stares he got in answer were enough of a reply without any of them needing to open their mouths.

Kirishima couldn’t believe he was actually living that moment.

“What,” Bakugou started, pushing up from under him and moving away the hand he still had between Kirishima’s hair, “the fuck.”

“Why?” Kaminari asked, sounding a little put out through his annoyed pout, “is there anyone else?”

The wild laughter that started shaking Kirishima’s whole frame couldn’t have been helped even if he’d tried to avoid it, and Bakugou’s shout of yet another what the fuck!, angry and incredulous and affronted, only made his laughter worse. He let himself fall back against the couch seat, then rolled to the side till he fell on the floor - he felt Bakugou kick him and yell at him to stop it, but the action only had the opposite effect on his mirth.

He felt tears start to gather at the corners of his eyes, and his abs were beginning to hurt from the strain they were being put under.

“What!” Kirishima heard Ashido shout, and then she was on top of him, shaking his shoulders to make him stop laughing and explain, “how do you know gossip we don’t! This makes no sense!” she whined; if Kirishima laughed any harder, he was sure he was going to die of asphyxia.

“You can fucking say that again!” Bakugou yelled, “how the fuck don’t you know!”

“Instead of just shouting about it, tell us already!” Kaminari huffed in what was starting to sound like impatience, Jirou and Sero nodding by his sides, telling Bakugou to either spill or quiet down.

“Oh my god,” Kirishima wheezed, rolling on the ground to push Ashido off of himself and then coming up to a sitting position.

How has this even happened, he giggled to himself - and then, before a new shouting match could begin, he grinned wide and bright, dried his tears with the heel of one hand.

“Katsuki's my boyfriend,” he said, the absurdity of having to spell it out throwing him into another fit of giggles and making it hard to complete his next sentence, “we’ve been dating for- for-”

“For nearly a fucking year,” Bakugou finished for him, sounding just as angry as before, “it was fucking June, what the fuck!”

The stunned silence that followed didn’t help Kirishima’s mirth in the least.

“What!” Ashido shrieked, kickstarting shouts from the other three as well and Kirishima, Kirishima really needed to stop laughing already if he wanted to have any air left in his lungs, but Kaminari asking why they would keep it a secret wasn’t making things easy on him at all.

“We sleep in the same goddamn bed every fucking night, how’s that keeping it secret!” Bakugou bellowed, his face turning redder every passing second.

Kirishima wanted to reach out and hold him to make him calm down, but he was too deep in hysterics to be of any use, so instead he just wheezed out, “I’m pretty sure I’m not much- not much quiet when I yell that I love him in the middle of class, holy fuck-”

“He was just laying on me! I was petting his fucking hair!”

“You guys have always been weirdly affectionate and physical, how were we supposed to know!” Kaminari complained waving a hand around in exasperation, and somehow Bakugou growled even harder.

“Yeah, cause we were fucking dating!” he yelled, sounding incredibly close to exploding on the spot.

Kirishima was going to die of laughter before that conversation was over.

“I thought you two were pining!” Sero shouted in what sounded dangerously close to betrayal, and between his tears Kirishima could see Jirou nod by his side, sink in the couch backrest with a huff.

“Everyone in class thought so,” she said, “we’ve been waiting for one of you to make a move for months.”

From her place by his side, Ashido groaned and let herself slump backwards, lay on the floor to stare at the ceiling above them with a frown to her eyebrows and a pout to her lips.

“I can’t believe this, I missed celebrating my bestie getting his first boyfriend,” she groaned. Kirishima felt a bit bad about it, but he couldn’t avoid the chuckle that escaped him at that whine.

“Mina,” he said, trying and failing to keep his laughter in, “we weren’t even besties yet when Katsuki and I started dating.”

“That’s so long ago!” she whined loudly, and then pushed herself up once more, reached over to the coffee table to pick up her phone and start tapping on it, “I need to tell everyone.”

“Great,” Bakugou groaned, letting himself fall back against the couch and then throwing his arms wide, waving them impatiently till Kirishima crawled back between his legs to let himself be held.

Kaminari’s soft, “Oh, now that makes so much more sense,” sent him back into a giggling fit, but the hands sinking between his hair quieted him down with way more ease than anything else could ever have.

“I thought I had fucking avoided the goddamn prying,” Bakugou growled in genuine annoyance, and Ashido’s elated oh no, not on my watch only made his mood worse if the angry vibrations shaking his chest were anything to go by.

Kirishima grinned to himself, closed his eyes and let his nose sink in the soft fabric of Bakugou’s shirt. The prospect of having people make a fuss over them didn’t bother him all that much, in truth: it felt a little weird to have all of it happen at that point in their relationship, but he couldn’t say he minded the idea of talking about himself and Bakugou in the least.

Every single memory with him was a good one, after all. Try as he might, he couldn’t see anything wrong with an afternoon spent reminiscing about them.