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Bakugo couldn't understand why you of all people, one of the most goody two-shoed people in the class snuck out of the dorms almost every night. He himself wasnt known to pay much attention to his other classmates but you had always interested him and when Class 1-A had moved into the dorms the interest only grew.
At the beginning of the year, he paid no more attention to you then he would a speck of dust, just like the rest of the students but as the year went on he began to notice things, you weren't scared of him at all maybe you found his anger and harsh temperament startling from time to time but in the end you always ended up laughing him off. At first that had bothered him... A lot... maybe more than a lot he loathed you for quite some time if he was being honest. He couldn't understand why you sought to beat him and that stupid nerd in everything as well. He and Deku may be at the heart of the rivalry but in every competition you were right behind them, it annoyed him at first just like his hatred for you did but after a while, he began to notice other less annoying things about you which only managed to make him more annoyed.
He didn't need distractions so when he began to pay more attention to you he only got a worse attitude when you were around. You sat in front of him in class and he always found himself staring at the back of your head during Mic's English lessons or noticed his eyes following you when you found your seat with Deku and the rest of his loser friends at lunch.
When this started happening he only found himself adopting a meaner personality than usual with you but again you just continued to laugh at his attitude. More than anything about you he hated the fact that he had zero impact on you while sometimes the only things that would pop up in his mind were stupid facts about you.
The first night he had witnessed you sneaking out was a school night, it was very unlike him to be up past 9 pm, he was an early riser after all and needed his sleep but it was the first time he had actually lost track of time wondering about you. He was staring absent-mindedly out his front-facing window when he noticed movement down the yard. He looked down to notice your unmistakable head of (h/c) hair ( he could identify it quite well after all he spent a lot of time looking at it ) but he was confused as to why you were out. Curfew was a solid 8 pm and they got in a decent amount of trouble if they were found outside of the dorms any later. He glanced at his clock and it read 10:23 pm. He was upset with himself for staying up so late but he continued to watch you none the less instead of going to bed.
You looked up at the school building, you were clearly checking to see if anyone was watching you. His lights were off so he doubted that you could see him but he refrained from moving anyways. Seemingly satisfied that no one was watching you you started quickly down the path away from the dorm into a wooded area. He was highly confused at this point and didn't understand why you had left the dorms at such a late hour and without anyone else at that. He knew he should just go to bed and ignore it but he couldn't help waiting up for you even if you didn't know it. The world wasnt safe for UA students anymore he was only doing his duty as a hero right...?
It had been nearly an hour before you returned, his clock read 11:15 pm and he noticed that you were now carrying a glowing jar. Being so far away he couldn't tell what was in it other than flickering light but he again had to refrain from moving closer to the window to get a look. Your quirk didn't have anything to do with creating light so this only interested him in your situation more. Though after you had entered the building he refused the thought of leaving his room to confront you. That would mean admitting that he had noticed you leaving ad coming back and he refused to acknowledge that he cared one bit.
This went on for some time, he would watch you leave ever night and come back with the same jar of glowing light. His sleep schedule now became accustomed to staying up until you came back every night. He always made an excuse for himself about it, never actually thinking of the fact that maybe he just cared about what you were doing literally EVERY night of the week.
He had enough at about the 17th time it happened... not that he had been counting or anything like that. He waited at the entrance to the boy's side of the dorm ad you walked right past him. He waited a few seconds after you had walked out of the building before following you. He followed behind you for about 15 minutes before you moved past the tree line and into a clearing. It was the same one where you and the rest of his dumb classmates help picnics on the weekends but it was now quiet and he could see little sparkling orbs flying around.
You moved into the clearing as sat under the single tree that inhabited it. Bakugo didn't go past the treeline in his fear of getting caught so he just watched you. Before he knew it there were floating lights all around the clearing. It took him a few moments to realize they were fireflies or lightning bugs as some people would call them and he finally came to the conclusion that the jar you brought home every night had fireflies in it.
He felt stupid, he had thought of some of the worst scenarios when he watched you leave school but this was not one of them. You left the dorms every night to simply enjoy nature and him being an idiot thought you were off meeting some boy from the other classes.
Feeling more like a stalker now than ever just standing there staring at you as you stared at the bugs with the jar empty behind you he turned to leave.
" I know you're there Bakugo one of your talents is not stealth no matter how you excel at everything else. " he stopped short as your voice rang out over the clearing.
He was practically frozen. " You're not very covert, " you continued " maybe if you're going to watch me through the windows you shouldn't sit pressed up against the glass. "
You had seen him??? He was sure your eyes had passed right over his dorm each time but maybe you were a lot sneakier than he thought.
He turned around and walked past the remaining trees and into the pale light of the clearing. " If you noticed me beforehand why didn't you just say something? " He asked. There was no point trying to come up with an excuse especially if you had seen him all the previous times you had left.
You brushed off his question " They are very pretty arent they, where I lived before we came to the dorms was so populated that they were a rare sight. " You finally looked over at him and he decided that one of the few things he didn't hate was the way the light from the bugs reflected in your eyes.
" Come sit with me, there's no reason for you to be standing there, this is the best place to watch them from. " You said eyes drifting away from him and back to the fireflies.
He didn't know what he was doing, he should head back to the dorms and get some rest but disregarding that he strode over to you and took a seat leaning up against the broad base of the tree.
This had to be one of the most ridiculous things he had ever done and he couldn't believe you weren't angry at him. He had practically stalked you into the woods in the middle of the night who even does that???
He had obviously lost himself in thought once again because all of a sudden you were laughing and he felt his ears turn pink. " What are you laughing at.. Extra " the word on the end was almost added as an afterthought but he couldn't bring himself to call you anything else.
" Well Katsuki, " you said using his given name causing his face to feel hot " your face looks funny. " That shocked him, he was normally the blatantly rude one but now he was the one being made fun of.
" Oh yeah and what's so funny about it? " He said
" It gets all scrunched up when you lose yourself in your mind, for someone who hates Izuku so much you two have a lot of the same habits. " You said plainly to him.
He felt himself sputtering at that "How... How dare yo- " he began before you cut him off.
" Would you like to catch some lightning bugs with me? " you said amid his sentence. He couldn't help staring at you with his jaw slack then. What was even happening in his mind? Did he actually ... want to do that with you, what a childish notion but all the same when you held out an extra jar to him he found himself accepting it and standing alongside you.
" I usually get around five, some of them fly too high for me to get so you might have better luck! " you said. You wandered around the field trying to gently coax some of the bugs into your jar. Bakugo just followed not even attempting to catch some of his own and just watched the delight in your face as you walked around after the small insects.
You turned and smiled at him and he could swear his heart skipped a beat. " You know I can't sleep without a light... " you started turning away from him again " So I come out here and get natures own light and bring it into my room. " You finished catching your third bug.
If anyone else had told him that he would have been on his ass laughing but it only endeared you to him more. You always came off as such a badass during school competing with even him for attitude on occasion and yet here you were catching your homemade nightlights and spilling what should be embarrassing secrets right to him.
" Why would you tell me that of all people? " he asked " You hate me.. " he ended it with stopping short. He finally said it out loud the thing that bothered him most about you. No matter how fascinated he was with your personality... you absolutely detested him and it all of a sudden felt wrong for him to be anywhere near you. Someone so good shouldn't be around someone as crude as him and that's what he hated, he hated that even for you he couldn't change himself he couldn't tone down the explosive attitude that came with his power because he had been doing it for so long he didn't even know how to.
You turned around and capped your jar of bugs and set it down on the ground behind you lightly before reaching out for his. He offered it up with no resistance he hadn't even tried to gather some of his own and now he regretted it, maybe it would have stopped him from letting his emotions get the better of him a few moments prior.
You placed his jar down on the ground net to yours and faced him again, he was ready for you to tell him that he was right, that you really did help him and he was no better than Mineta for following you out into the woods but you didn't. No, actually you walked right past him and over to the tree to sit down again and proceeded to pat the ground next to you once more.
He once again should have left at this moment, he knew he couldn't handle the vulnerability that he had at this moment, he knew it was time to shut himself down once again but he couldn't help it and so he walked and sat next to you once more.
You looked up at him and he really noticed the difference in height then and almost smiled. But he sat there and braced himself for you to talk.
" I like you very much Katsuki you're very intelligent. I don't think I've hated you. " You said smiling at him.
That astonished him to put it plainly, people often told him how amazing he was the yhad been doing it since he was little. It was always how strong he was or how intimidating. It was never on his intelligence which was maybe something he valued even more than his strength.
He didn't know what to say but you continued to speak " At the beginning of the year I didn't understand why Izuku seemed to admire you so much, yes you were clearly very powerful and your control over your power was impressive but you were so rude to everyone at the beginning that I didn't get it for a while, so I started to pay attention to you. " You swallowed once and looked away from him before continuing " You are extremely smart and even when it seems like you don't have a plan you manage to execute things in ways I know our other classmates couldn't think of so I started to admire you too and when I noticed you watching me when I left the dorm I was worried at first that you would bring it up in front of our other classmates but you pretended not to know so I pretended not to notice either. " You finally looked back at him again smiling at the clearly dumbstruck look on his face. " I felt safer knowing that you knew which direction I went in after a while. All the league attacks made me worry about leaving the dorms for quite some bit but I knew that even if you didn't like me that much you would protect me. " You finished talking and stared up at the moon " You're going to make a great hero Katsuki I can tell even now because just being in your presence makes me feel safe. "
The shock of your words finally settled in his stomach, " I ... make you feel safe? All I do is scream at you! " He exclaimed the first words that came to his mind without stopping himself.
" Yes you do, King Explosion Murder. " You said giggling at him.
His face turned red at the use of his stupid idea for a hero name... it had seemed cool at the time.
" We should go back, " You said standing up and shoved the empty jar into your bag while you held the full one to your side " We wouldn't want to get you to put on house arrest again now would we? " You stated all but ignoring your emotional output a few minutes ago.
This whole night seemed like one of not having control over his own body but he stepped towards you and took your face in his hands. Your eyes were filled with bewilderment as he leaned down and placed a kiss on your forehead and then proceeded to grab your hand.
" You're right, let's go back." he couldn't look at you his face felt so red that he wouldn't let you see him like this and so he forged ahead with your hand in his right into the woods.
---
It took about 15 minutes to arrive back at the dorms and at no point did his hand leave yours. Even when he opened the door for you his own hand found its way back to yours as you both walked to the elevator. When you finally arrived at the part that split off from the boy's side to the girls he turned towards you again. " You said earlier that you thought I didn't like you. " He said looking down at you for the first time since the clearing.
You hummed in agreement to this and looked down at your still clasped hands. " I'm now starting to think I might have been wrong. " You laughed grinning at him.
" You definitely were. " He said leaning down once more to give you a proper kiss goodnight.
---
+Bonus Scene +
He yawned as he made his way down the stairs into the common area. He hadn't made it back to his room until at least 12:30 in the morning and he thanked whatever was out there that today was an off day for him and the rest of the class.
He entered the common room and had to suppress a delighted smile as he saw you on the couch with Mina and Sero laughing at something one of them had said. He stuck his hands in his pockets and made his way over to where you all sat and tried to ignore the hot feeling in his face as he saw you light up at his presence.
" Good morning Katsuki! " You said brightly to him and gave him a dazzling smile that almost made his heart explode right there. Mina and Sero both looked back and forth between yourself and him. Not even Kirishima was allowed to use his given name that couldn't be right, even a few of his other classmates turned around at this and ogled the situation before them.
" Good morning firefly. " He said smirking at you, you smiled at the name and blushed a bit as he sat down right next to you and threw an arm right over your shoulders. Everyone now turned around at this point, they were used to him giving people nicknames but not... cute ones.
He decided he was going for the wow factor today for sure as he made himself look deeply into your eyes and laid his lips down right on yours in front of the whole entire class.
There was definitely a lot of gasping but what really made him smile was the high pitched scream from Kaminari " wHat ThE HeLl iS hapPeniNg!?!?! "