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Bakugou Katsuki is a petty asshole, put mildly and kindly.
Not that Kirishima thinks Bakugou honestly cares in the slightest about what his friends and classmates and the general public think of him, or say to/yell loudly and repeatedly at him, so long as it doesn’t imply any sort of comparison where he’s at the tipping side.
His conviction, his total and utter self-belief and self-reliance—they're things Kirishima actually admires a great deal if he turns the other cheek on all the aggressive huffing and puffing. Which coincidentally Kirishima does a lot, these days, quickly and with a blush, donning the heavy air of somebody caught red handed.
But if Kirishima were to channel his inner poet (as Midnight tasked them to do in their arts class), he would describe Bakugou Katsuki as a flammable, foul-mouthed gas contained within a frail, easily offended material and reinforced with a fragile ego with fists made for pounding, and everything else around him is the flame. He’s a fuse on the verge of bursting at any given time and burning everything with him.
Logic (Kaminari, Jirou) would say pursuing him with his heart on his sleeve is stupid, heinously self-sabotaging, and wrong, just wrong, are you crazy? But enthusiasm (Sero, Ashido) responds with a green light, a thumbs up, and tips on the art of wooing.
Kirishima, with the easy grin of somebody basically unbreakable in the face of explosions, compromises by promising to call if things go awry.
×
When they spring out of each other’s space again, Kirishima grins and huffs, “This is kind of fun, right?” His lungs and muscles are on fire, but his body’s alive, humming, feeling the strain of hard effort.
Bakugou snarls. “It’s fucking not when you have to fucking say it all the damn time.”
“I feel like I always have to be happy to make up for your scowl, dude,” Kirishima laughs.
“Stop fucking talking.” Bakugou lunges with a fist that he dodges easily, ducking low and to the side and aiming a punch of his own at the other’s stomach.
When it comes to sheer muscle power, Kirishima’s sure he can beat Bakugou. His hardening quirk only means anything on the field if he punches hard enough—his arm muscles are pretty much honed to land a painful strike.
But Bakugou’s always had the propensity to react on instinct rather than on word-for-word analysis like Midoriya, which although means that Midoriya’s tactics are more likely to yield better results in the long run, on hand-to-hand where you rely on nothing but the speed of your hit it just means that Bakugou is one hell of an opponent.
Like how he twists on his feet on the last second, Kirishima’s punch grazing just his side, and jabs a knee hard into Kirishima’s ribs.
His surprise and loose footing more than the force of the hit send him careening right into the chainlink fence, cheek-first. “That was cold, Bakugou. Just cold,” he says, massaging his ribs.
“If you want to be a hero, learn how to duck properly, fuckmunch.”
They agreed never to use quirks in their sparring sessions, both because they were usually held on the rooftop of Kirishima’s apartment building, and because they both wanted to hone their hand-to-hand combat skills. Secretly, Kirishima thinks it might also be because of the exhaustion they get from measuring up to their classmates and heroes, scrabbling to meet people’s expectations and prove the rest of them wrong—
It’s a sigh of relief, to not take something seriously and urgently once in a while.
Kirishima can see it in Bakugou, too, in the way he holds out from exploiting Kirishima’s momentary lapse and grins instead, fierce and smug and eyes just a little bit lacking of their murderous leer. “What, already fucking tired, shitstain? Thought you’d have more stamina than that.”
Kirishima’s never had trouble identifying what he feels. He’s never had the need to, because most of them have been aligned to heroism, to getting stronger and doing good, and he’s always had that natural tendency to approach everything with friendly grace.
His feelings are always simple and straightforward, so he doesn’t bother labelling them. Which is why it threw him off when Asui pointed out two weeks ago, in that innocently indifferent voice of hers, that he liked Bakugou.
He’d blushed and laughed it off, but suddenly he was painfully aware of how his gaze tracked Bakugou’s movement from the door to his desk, how he was filled with this nervous anticipation every hour leading up to their occassional afternoon spars. And how freaking good he looked that first time he smirked just this side of sane and giddy when he’d out-maneuvered Kirishima.
It hit him completely out of nowhere and everywhere, the amount of affection and awe he has for the guy.
It hits him now — Kirishima’s whole body singing at that look, confidence and ease, at the afternoon light glinting gold at the edges of his fist like he’s holding the sun himself. Kirishima’s heart pounds. He grins. “I’m only tired if you are.”
“Like hell I am!”
×
“That was good,” Kirishima says an hour later, fresh from the shower and still dripping with wet hair, stuttering on his steps and throat drying a little bit when he sees Bakugou's changed into those body-fit tank tops that nicely outline his muscles. And he’s on Kirshima’s bed, the good-looking bastard.
Bakugou looks up abruptly and growls, “What?”
Kirishima jumps right along with his heart, flushes. Right. Don’t look so obviously, bro, and not too long, hisses Kaminari in his head. And when he catches you, play dead.
He covers up his slip by saying, “Um, that was good?” He walks over and flops into a seating position next to Bakugou, wearing that damning tank top, and he has to stop thinking about that now. Maybe later...
“Oy, fucking watch it,” Bakugou snaps, securing the laptop on his thighs.
“Man, I feel so stretched out! Like a beaten dough, you know? Have you ever baked before?” Kirishima glances at the screen where a movie was still buffering. He doesn’t recognize the title, but it probably involves explosions, cars, or exploding cars. Or a sci-fi/fantasy thriller.
They picked up on the semi-habit of hanging out at Kirishima’s place after sparring. Sweaty and hopeful, he’d asked Bakugou one afternoon if he’d like to stay for a while, slyly implying he could beat Bakugou at Mario Kart, and Bakugou had replied with a growled, “Fucking say that again and I’d beat your ass. Let’s fucking go, shitfuck.”
Kirishima kept his hardest trying to win, because Bakugou couldn’t go home unless he surpassed him, swearing colorfully and gloriously every time he failed. He fumed and gave up at 9 P.M. on account of it being a shitty game.
Three days after that, Bakugou surprised him by challenging him himself. Somehow they managed to make a routine out of it, shifting from video games to movies to video games and there was mostly a pattern to when they’d hang out, but Bakugou declined sometimes just to mess with the unspoken schedule.
“Keep talking shit and I’m leaving,” Bakugou grunts now. It’s an empty threat by this point, by the amount of quips he’s thrown around and never actually committed to, even if Kirishima’s chest still pinches tight sometimes when he thinks that Bakugou could. “And of course I fucking have.”
“Of course you fucking have,” Kirishima retorts, though he doesn’t contest the thought. Bakugou had brought food over one time, a tupperware of homemade taiyaki that melted on his tongue. It was like chewing sweet, fluffy clouds. “Dude, then how come you never made me bread? Or cake?”
“Because you keep god damn annoying me, fucking shut up, it’s about to start.”
The opening logos are playing, so he takes one earphone out of Bakugou’s ear for himself and settles more firmly against the pillows at his back, the warmth of Bakugou’s side seeping into his.
The movie is about aliens, but it’s animated and funnier than what Bakugou normally chooses. Kirishima keeps hiccuping a laugh at the guy who somehow ends up finding every alien in the city, despite his total vehemence. Bakugou runs an open commentary on exactly why and how something is stupid, which pulls a laugh out of Kirishima, too, his heart swelling.
This — this is good, comfortable. He feels right at home up against Bakugou where their shoulders and arms touch. He can feel Bakugou start to relax beside him half way through, the hard lines of his body beginning to slip away.
He notices, too, the bruises on his knuckles that probably directly mirror his. “Hey, Bakugou —”
Without thinking, he reaches out to grab Bakugou’s hand—and tenses when Bakugou does, awareness zapping the slow descent of drowsiness out of Kirishima’s body, snapping his hand away like he’d touched Kaminari during a particularly exciting lesson.
“Shit, sorry, sorry, dude,” Kirishima stammers, “I, um, your hand, it's—” and drops off there.
Bakugou’s silent and still, and the glance Kirishima risks to take in the furrowed brows and angry lines of his face tells him he’s grinding something to bits in his head, tells him as much that he’s ruined this.
He’s ruined his chance, this fragile thing that he’s been having with Bakugou for the last couple of weeks. For all that it had happened so easily, their routines shifting and reforming around their plans and becoming routines of their own, this is still just beginning to take root, and he—he’s ruined it all because he hadn’t been thinking.
Bakugou tolerated light touches—an elbow on the shoulder, an arm to an arm. Hell, he spars hand-to-hand with Kirishima. But there's always been some sort of line where his hands were concerned. They were his most important asset, and he'd never let anybody touch them outside of matches. Kirishima hadn't really understood, but he'd known, and he knows now that he's messed up.
“I’m, um,” he clears his throat. “I’m getting you some ice, for that—for your hands.”
He stands up, but then there are fingers clamping around his wrist, and a roughened voice saying, “No, fuck. Sit down.”
“Dude, your hand—”
Those fingers tighten almost painfully, Bakugou’s eyes angrily bearing down on him. Kirishima wills himself not to instinctively harden his skin.
“Fuck you. You have the same fucking bruises, shitstain. Sit down and don’t fret about me, I can handle myself,” Bakugou snaps, tugging Kirishima down sharply.
“Okay, man. Sorry. I was just.“
Bakugou glares at him, accusatory and baleful, but there's almost something vulnerable in there, doubtful. He looks away and works his jaw. Then, "Just answer me, Kirishima. Do you—do you fucking, like me, or something?"
Bakugou had turned around at the word 'like' and he stares him down now, hard and unflinching, and Kirishima can tell it's taking a toll on him to keep his gaze. And, o god. Even now, Kirishima's chest blows up like a balloon at how manly Bakugou is, facing him head on like this.
Kirishima takes a deep breath. He tells himself, if Bakugou can do this so can he. “Y-yeah,” he stutters. He tells himself, when Bakugou glares harder at him, that he’s faced villains more than once, and that’s more than what most of their school mates at U.A. have faced. He tells himself this was bound to happen, if he really wanted to woo Bakugou, and he could admit he hadn’t been honest with Bakugou from the start when he first started looking at him differently, started regarding the things they did in a more than friendly light. Honesty is good, heroic virtue, and a hero isn’t a hero because of what they wear, but because of what they do and what they believe in. So he says, more firmly, “Yeah. I, um, I do. I like you, because you’re so confident and self-assured. And you're—” He gestures weakly to Bakugou’s body, and flushes, because he means to encompass all Bakugou is — strong and unbreakable and fearless — but now it just seems he means his body. “I mean, you look great, man. You have a nice face. But your, your beliefs, too, they’re —”
“Shut the fuck up,” Bakugou tells him, looking and sounding strangled. And Kirishima almost wilts, he almost tries to stand up again even if it is his own home because he can’t think and breathe right now, but then Bakugou grips his wrist again and settles back down on the bed.
But the sunlight paints the pink on his cheeks very clearly and he thinks, no, no way. “Are you — do you —”
“Yes, dumbass,” Bakugou hisses,turning again to glare at him despite the deepening red on his face. “I can’t believe you haven’t fucking noticed.”
Kirishima’s head spins wondrously. “Wha—what?You never said anything, dude.” His heart is making a riot in his chest and his whole body is singing, like on the rooftop, like every time Bakugou gives him a piece of himself that he rarely gives anyone else — except this time it’s better, brighter, claws at the doubt he’s had for weeks and unravelling the hope underneath. He can’t believe —
“That’s fucking rich coming from you. I’ve been noticing you noticing me for fucking weeks and you never said anything. Inviting me over was the least subtle thing you’ve ever done.“
Kirishima doesn’t point out that he hadn’t known he liked Bakugou before he invited him the first time, and sometimes it was Bakugou following Kirishima into their apartment. “You knew? Why didn’t you tell me? Obviously I wouldn’t’ have turned you down.“
Bakugou huffs. “Not like I was sure, since your sorry ass is so bent on making friends and building bridges where they’re not needed. And I’ve been fucking coming over to do normal shit with you, and I even made you fucking food, if that hadn’t clued you in —”
“You like me, fuck. You really do,” he whispers to himself in wonder. He recalls the moan he’d accidentally let out when he first bit into Bakugou’s taiyaki, and the furious blush Bakugou — well, both of them — sported. “So the taiyaki, when I made that sound —”
“Shut the fuck up about that, I said!” And Kirishima would expose himself to that murderous leer a thousand times if it meant he could keep looking at the gloriously red flush reaching Bakugou’s ears.
“Okay, okay.” He can feel the grin on his own face as Bakugou readjusts the laptop on his thigh from where it had fallen to the side during the whole thing — Bakugou likes him,holy shit— and pops an earphone in one ear, resuming the movie without waiting for Kirishima. Which is rude, but Kirishima is willing to give him that small leeway because, o fuck, Bakugou's sorta kinda maybe willing to be his boyfriend.
“Can I at least look at your hand, dude?” he asks a few minutes into the movie.
Bakugou grunts and Kirishima grins, feeling awesome and downright incandescent. He examines the bruises delicately, smudges of red and purple, and turns it over to scrutinize his rough palm, tracing the lines with his thumb almost reverently. This is a weapon and he knows Bakugou sees it as such, as a fundamental tool to heroic victory. But to Kirishima right now, it’s little more than a hand to hold, which seems equally as important. So he slides his fingers along Bakugou’s and squeezes.
“You know, as your boyfriend, I’m entitled to as much taiyaki as I want,” Kirishima says, daring. He feels way past daring—he feels like he can fly.
Bakugou replies with a blushing, “Fuck you,” but doesn't correct him. And squeezes back all the same.