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What do you want?
Katsuki grimaces when he looks up from his phone and sees the rest of 3-A in a circle, talking. There’s Mina in the middle of the couch, her legs under her and a blanket wrapped around her body; Tsuyu is on her left, scratching behind her ear and listen carefully to what is being said; Sero is on Mina’s right, an arm wrapped around her waist, his head on her shoulder. He’s smiling dreamily at her, and Katsuki thinks that he isn’t listening at all.
Kaminari is moving his hands in the air, screaming about something or the other as Yaoyorozu and Jirou lean on each other, laughing quietly every time they have to move to avoid getting smacked by Kaminari’s hands. Todoroki is on the floor, his legs spread wide with Midoriya right in the middle; Todoroki is whispering something in his ear, and Midoriya covers his mouth when he laughs. Iida and Kirishima are yawning but still listening, eyes plastered on Kaminari. Shinshou is rolling his eyes, his left hand pressed against Kaminari’s right knee. The rest of the class is already asleep—Katsuki should go to sleep, too, but he can’t stop staring at his classmates.
It’s something he’s been doing for the past two and a half years. It’s like a habit by now, something he does unconsciously. Katsuki drops his phone to the sofa and tries to listen to what Kaminari is saying, something about Shinshou and him almost getting killed by a monster a day before—but he can’t concentrate hard enough. Katsuki was never really interested in their talking, it’s their interactions he likes.
The way Iida moves his hands up and down when something irks him, when he’s talking about rules, when he’s excited; the way his head lolls to the sides when he’s so tired he can’t even support his own body, like now. Katsuki likes the way Mina curls a finger in her hair when she’s concentrated, even if he would never say it out loud. Todoroki’s hand grasping Midoriya’s like a lifeline, how Shinshou, for all his dropped eyes and grimaces, never lets go of Kaminari.
He grimaces. Kirishima has his red hair pulled down, still wet from the shower he took before dinner. Katsuki stares, quite shamelessly, at the way a few droplets of water run down Kirishima’s shoulder to his elbow to his wrist and to the floor; there’s already a little puddle beside his hands on the floor. Katsuki grimaces harder, as if this could make himself stop from staring. But he doesn’t. He stares and stares and stares at his tanned skin and his white pink red scars, his calloused hands, and the scar above his eye. He keeps grimacing, as if it would do him any good.
Sometimes he thinks that he should talk more in these situations. Maybe drop a snarky comment, roll his eyes like Shinshou does or maybe laugh like Mina. Katsuki should sit closer, in the circle, and listen more carefully, actually focus on the topic. He knows not even one of them would mind if he did. But Katsuki sits in the sidelines, quiet and still. He pretends that he doesn’t care, not even one bit, and this way it’s simpler.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” Uraraka asks him, flopping on the seat beside him. Katsuki scowls at her, but Uraraka never really cared much about his faces.
“None of your business,” he spits, but he knows better. Uraraka isn’t going to desist so easily. She grins and moves closer, leaning in and resting her head on his shoulder. Katsuki doesn’t pull away. “Why aren’t you with them?”
Uraraka shrugs. “I don’t feel like talking right now.”
She says it so easily. She doesn’t feel like it. She doesn’t want to talk right now. Why doesn’t Katsuki go and sit with them? He could give her a million reasons, if she asked. But she doesn’t. Katsuki is a little disappointed.
“Tomorrow a couple of us are going to go grab a bite at the mall.” She nudges his ribs with her elbow. “Wanna come?”
He shakes his head. “I think I’m getting sick,” which isn’t a lie—he’s been getting sick for a week, with headaches and coughing fits and mucus all over the place.
Uraraka pulls a sad face, whining. “Such a shame. Kirishima’s gonna come.”
She says it so casually. Katsuki wants to punch her—would have done it—but just then he catches Kirishima staring at him, red hair plastered to his cheeks. He flashes a toothy smile and waves, eyes crinkled as he closes them. Katsuki waves back, a little awkward. He feels Uraraka laugh beside him, but pretends he doesn’t.
*
At one point the following week, Katsuki gets so sick he can’t even leave the bed.
He’s got a fever, probably the worst he’s ever had in his life. He feels hot all over the place, but if he gets out of bed he gets so cold it’s almost as if he were in Alaska. He’s wearing two pair of socks and a scarf; he feels his cheeks red, he’s sweating so much his whole room smells of burnt sugar. Katsuki hasn’t eaten anything in a day even though Iida and Kirishima have brought him food, and he’s been ignoring his mom’s calls for even a longer time.
Getting sick sucks so much, but more if you’re Katsuki. He doesn’t like to be confined to his bed, doesn’t like to sweat and not being able to make explosions, hates the fact that everyone else is training hard while he’s trying to sleep. But the thing he hates the most, something he’s never going to forget himself for, is the fact that no one’s tried to stay with him so far.
Katsuki likes to think that he understands—exams are getting closer and it’s their last year at school. He’s so sick he can’t even move, and no one wants to get sick too. So they talk to him through the closed door, yell at him to get better soon, leave him soup and rice balls at the other side of the door and expect him to get up to get it. But Katsuki can’t move, not even a little bit, so he doesn’t eat and he doesn’t answer back and he grabs the sheets so hard his knuckles have turned white and his fingers hurt.
It’s understandable, he thinks, he tries to think so hard, that no one would want to be with him right now, even if the last thing he wants in the world is to be left alone. He dreads being alone when he’s sick, reminds him too much of when he was little and his mom wouldn’t come inside his room as she feared getting sick. His dad came in and fed him while she stood outside and said, sorry baby, sorry sorry sorry.
Katsuki drapes the blankets over his mouth, trying not to think about it too much and failing spectacularly. He drinks his medicine and hears Mina laughing so hard outside of his door that she probably gets milk out of his nose by the way Katsuki hears Sero laugh at her. He closes his eyes and tries to sleep but then Kirishima knocks on his door and asks through it dude, you okay? And Katsuki doesn’t answer and tells himself he’s too tired to do anything.
What do you want?
He probably deserves it. Katsuki thinks of the past three years, of how hard he was on everyone, how stubborn and hot-headed and mean, and thinks this is probably karma getting back at him. It’s too late to make friends now, he reckons. He was such a jackass to everyone, why would they want to be friends with him? It’s too late, too late too late too late—
“Bakugou?”
Uraraka knocks on the door but Katsuki doesn’t answer. And because she’s Uraraka, she keeps knocking until he screams, “What!”
He can practically hear her laugh when she answers, “Oh, so you’re awake,” and comes barreling inside.
She’s so shameless, he thinks when Uraraka flops by his feet, patting the mattress by her left. “Your bed is so comfy,” she says. She hasn’t even closed the door.
“What do you want?”
“You seemed lonely.”
“I am not.”
“Whatever. Aren’t you bored? Aren’t you hungry?”
Katsuki scoffs. “Leave me alone.”
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Stop being such a baby. You’ve got us worried.”
Who would be worried about me, he thinks but doesn’t say it out loud. Out of everyone in 3-A, Uraraka is probably the closest thing Katsuki’s ever had to a friend. She is a pain in the ass, surely, but she’s not so bad to have around either. Katsuki keeps frowning at her, though, and she keeps ignoring him, like always.
She tells him about their training. She’s got a bruise in her ribs and she shows him. She speaks tirelessly about how cold it is outside, how lucky he is of being sick since he doesn’t have to step into the cold. Katsuki doesn’t think she’s right, but she looks so excited telling him about classes and cold and stuff he doesn’t have the heart to interrupt her. She smiles more often than not, her cheeks rosier because of the weather, and it has Katsuki smiling back at her, flashing teeth and everything.
Sometimes Katsuki wonders if she really likes him, or if she’s just taking pity on him for being so alone in a place so full of people. It makes his blood boil, just the thought of it, but once Katsuki starts pondering about it he just can’t stop. He feels like punching a wall, like kicking somebody, like pressing his hand against the stove and burning himself. It’s like anger but at himself, so hard and painful it almost sets him on fire.
*
Kirishima comes later at night when everyone’s sleeping, Katsuki included.
He wakes up to the knocking on the door, faint and slow, as if Kirishima didn’t want to wake him up even if he’s knocking on the godamn door. Katsuki stirs under the blankets, stomach grumbling and hungry, and only answers because he knows everything about Kirishima, from the way the knocks to the way he likes his eggs in the morning. Which is creepy as hell, but Katsuki’s too done to care about any of that right now.
Kirishima comes in quietly, his shape alight by the moonlight through the window. Katsuki hums in greeting, and he can feel Kirishima tensing at the sound of his voice. Awkwardly, he says, “Hi.”
“You can sit on the bed,” Katsuki says after he catches Kirishima looking around the room for someplace to sit. He nods his head and sits at the foot of the bed, where Uraraka was a couple hours ago. Katsuki would’ve tensed, would’ve panicked, would’ve burst into flames, but he thinks his fever has gotten worse and so he doesn’t really care about anything.
“You look really bad,” Kirishima blurts out.
“Jeez,” Katsuki grins. “Thanks.”
Kirishima shakes his head, smiling. “Y’know what I mean.”
When Katsuki looks at him, at his red eyes and red hair and scars and skin, he can’t stop thinking about how much he wants to put his tongue all over him. He pictures it, right now in the darkness of his room. Pinning Kirishima to the bed, kissing him senseless, kissing him until the end of times.
What do you want, Katsuki?
It’s not going to happen because Kirishima doesn’t like him enough to be his friend, let alone to be his boyfriend. Is Kirishima into guys, even? Katsuki doesn’t know and he doesn’t like to think about it, so he closes his eyes and pretends to be clueless, ignorant, and stupid. He remembers the other day in the common room, everyone in a circle and Katsuki out of it as if he had the flu. Even if Kirishima liked guys, he wouldn’t like one like Katsuki.
“—it was fun, I wish you were there,” Kirishima is saying, hands flying in the air, cheeks flushed and lips quivering into a smile bigger than the sun. Katsuki grins and his head hurts so much so much so much he’s probably going to die from an aneurysm at any minute now. “Do you get sick often?”
“No,” Katsuki says. It’s not true. He gets sick often, only he doesn’t acknowledge it unless it gets this bad. He usually hides it and takes painkillers, possibly too many, presses a cold compress against his head when he sleeps to get the fever down and keeps on like nothing. Bakugou Katsuki doesn’t like to get sick, and so he doesn’t like anyone to know when he is. “No,” he repeats, “no, no, no.”
Kirishima looks at him funny, raised eyebrows and wrinkled eyes and worried face. “Bakugou?”
“Yeah,” Katsuki breathes. He moves under the blankets—or rather he tries to, because he can’t. He doesn’t feel the tip of his fingers.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
Katsuki shrugs. He suddenly feels like he wants to cry which is stupid because he doesn’t cry. Not when his mom didn’t come in when he was sick not when he watches his classmates bonding as he stays on the sides not when he feels so alone he wants to go away and never come back, leave his dreams and stop still for just a second, only a second.
When he looks at Kirishima he can see his mouth moving, but he can’t hear his words. Katsuki imagines him speaking soft words to him, words he wished his mom said but never uttered. He feels so alone, so alone he just wants to curl up into a ball and disappear. And he thinks more often than not, when he’s in his room and he can’t sleep, what does it matter anyway, if he’s the number one hero or not? He thinks of Endeavor, alone in the top of the mountain, son become villain, wife become soulless. What does it matter if he’s the number one if he’s left a trail of blood behind, if he hasn’t made a single friend? If everyone hates him?
Kirishima presses his palms against Katsuki’s cheeks, his body bent over Katsuki’s. He looks him in the eye, red against red against red. His hair is pulled down and it falls over Katsuki’s face. All he sees is red red red red red red—
“Don’t cry,” Kirishima is whispering, as if he were telling him a secret. “Bakugou, don’t cry.”
But he can’t stop. His head hurts and he’s hungry and he wants to fall and never come back up, maybe drown in a puddle of his own tears. Katsuki remembers the puddle around Kirishima’s hand and he thinks it wouldn’t be that bad, drowning in there.
What do you want what do you want what do you want—
“I want friends,” he sobs, ugly sounds coming up his throat. Kirishima stops talking his sweet words, mouth hanging open and eyes wide. He brushes Kirishima’s hair out of his face and doesn’t even try to wipe the tears away. “I don’t want to feel so alone,” he continues, feeling more like an eight-year-old than an eighteen-year-old.
But Katsuki’s been keeping those words to himself for so long, so so so long it feels so good to say them out loud. He holds Kirishima’s wrists and pulls him closer into a hug, cries into his shoulder and cries harder when Kirishima wraps his shoulders around him, presses his thumb against Katsuki’s shoulder and rubs circles over it. He feels his breath hot on his neck, but he can’t hear a word he’s saying.
It’s like he’s drowning. Katsuki’s trying to come up for air, but gallons of water are pulling him down down down and he’s trying not to breathe, but it’s just too much.
“Bakugou,” someone’s whispering, maybe his mom and dad or maybe Uraraka, hopefully Kirishima. “Bakugou. Bakugou.”
If he hadn’t been such a pain in the ass, he thinks. If maybe he didn’t get so angry so easily, if maybe he didn’t jump at someone’s throat at the slightest misunderstanding. If he hadn’t been such an asshole. Katsuki wants to go back in the past, kick himself silly and scream at his fifteen-year-old self, at his ten-year-old self, at his two-year-old self. Stop being like this. Stop being so angry. Stop it.
“Katsuki,” Kirishima whispers into his ear, hugging him tighter. “I’m your friend.”
It feels like a blow to his stomach, a thousand pins prickling at his skin at the same time, a bomb exploding inside his body. So he says, cries, “No.”
Kirishima laughs breathily. “What do you mean, no? Of course I am.”
“No,” Katsuki repeats, breathless. “Why would you?”
“Because I like you.” Katsuki’s heart seems to stop inside his chest and he dies for a second before he’s reborn all over again, tears stopped by the shock of it. Kirishima repeats, “I like you, stupid. Stop speaking nonsense. You’ve got lots of friends.”
“No, no. No. No one likes me,” he says like a mantra, something he’s been thinking forever. Something his mom’s been telling him forever. You won’t make any friends if you don’t calm down, she says, no one likes a hot-headed boy like you, Katsuki.
Kirishima sits up, straddling Katsuki. He cups Katsuki’s face with his warm hands and squeezes, his brow furrowed. He looks angry, and if Katsuki didn’t know any better, he’d say Kirishima was about to hit him. “What are you talking about?”
Katsuki opens his mouth but Kirishima doesn’t let him answer. He sounds really pissed off. “Katsuki,” he says, Katsuki’s name in his tongue sounding awkward but great, “literally everyone in here likes you. Literally. Everyone. You just don’t see it because you’re convinced that they don’t, but that’s not true. God, I—just—don’t think like that. You’re not alone.”
He doesn’t know what to say. Katsuki stares wordlessly at Kirishima, face red with anger and feeling, his eyes watery as if he were going to cry too.
Then his face softens and he starts rubbing his thumb against the apple of Katsuki’s cheek. “Kaminari is always telling me he wants you to join us when we hang out outside school. Mina wants you to come when we watch a movie in her room on Saturdays. Midoriya really, really wants you to like him. Yaoyorozu told me once she wants you to teach her to cook. Uraraka loves you so much, she’s always worried about you. And I. Bakugou.” He leans in, their mouths just inches apart. “I really like you.”
Tears flood his eyes, and Katsuki doesn’t know what to do with himself. He covers his eyes with his arms, his chest heaving as he sobs, Kirishima’s hands never leaving him. He lies besides Katsuki, their bodies pressed flush, and lets him cry for what feels like hours.
Katsuki feels like he can’t stand his own body, like he wants to jump from the window and splatter to the floor. He didn’t know, he didn’t have any clue, that all of them wanted to do things with him—doesn’t quite believe Kirishima’s words, not really, but then Kirishima is whispering soft words into his ear, pressing small kisses to the back of his hand, to his cheeks, to his closed eyelids, and it almost feels like it’s true.
*
Later that year, when they are a little older and wiser, Katsuki grimaces at Kaminari’s words.
They are all sitting in a circle around the coffee table, and Kaminari is trying to tell them a scary story that isn’t working at all. Mina is laughing under her breath and holding Sero’s hands, Todoroki has long since fallen asleep and Midoriya has given up on trying to wake him. Shinshou has his hand pressed against Kaminari’s waist and Jirou and Yaoyorozu are whispering things to each other.
Bakugou leans on Kirishima’s shoulder, his cheek pressed against Kirishima’s shoulder. They are holding hands, and Katsuki can’t help but sigh dreamily when Kirishima starts rubbing circles on Katsuki’s skin. He glances at Uraraka in front of him and she flashes a smile as big as the sun.
What do you want?
Katsuki smiles back, looking around the circle, looking at his friends.
I want this.