Archive of Our Own ^beta

Katsuki picked up the hobby mostly because his therapist said he needed a less aggressive way to work out his feelings. Katsuki wasn’t sure how the hell ‘art’ was supposed to do that, but fine, whatever. He tried borrowing a sketchbook from Kirishima and drawing like that, but he hated it: all his lines were wobbly and he kept smudging shit and Katsuki didn’t know how to be bad at things like this, so his therapist told him very kindly to maybe try something else. Something more subjective, something where he wouldn’t be thinking about the flaws during the process. She suggested photography.

God, fuck art.

As it always turned out with him, the simplest actions wreak the biggest havoc. Such as picking up a stupid camera.

“Hey,” he said, and Kirishima turned away from the dishes to look at him, easy smile on his face. Katsuki raised the little camera, fast before Kirishima could realize what he was doing, and snapped a picture.

Click.

“No!” Kirishima yelped, hand immediately coming up to hide his roots. “Man, not cool! This is breaking the bro-code!”

“The bro-code means I have to pretend your fire hydrant hair is fuckin’ natural?” Katsuki snorted. “Like hell.” 

Kirishima carefully, pointedly, not looking away from Katsuki at all, picked up the pencil sitting next to his sketchbook and wrote the new rule on the stupid Bro-Code list he kept on the refrigerator. He wrote it incredibly sloppily, and half on the refrigerator so that little pencil marks made their way off the paper and slanted down towards the handle.

“I never signed that,” Katsuki pointed out, because he hadn’t. Kirishima had tried to get him to and it had ended up with a wrestling match on the living room floor that Katsuki had won after trying to shove the TV remote in Kirishima’s mouth, thank you very much. “So it’s not legally binding. You have soap in your hair.”

He looked back down at the little camera screen, ignoring Kirishima’s whining about that too. It wasn’t a great picture, not at all. It was slightly blurry because Katsuki had been moving fast, and Kirishima was just standing in a messy kitchen, hands in a sink full of dishwater, the flash clearly visible in the window behind him. But the morning light was good and - damn it, Kirishima looked good too, with that fucking smile on his face, that warmth in his eyes. It wouldn’t come close to winning any awards, but Katsuki didn’t regret using his first photograph on him.

Kirishima padded over to the kitchen table, face curious. His voice, though, was carefully neutral. “I thought you were gonna draw.” He was already over the soap and the bro-code and his black roots. From anyone else, Katsuki would have bristled immediately, ready for a fight, but Kirishima was just - curious, that’s all. He never went into a conversation looking to judge, only to help. That was why he’d chosen Kirishima as his Accountability person, because his therapist told him he had to ask someone, and Kirishima had agreed to do it.

 Katsuki was supposed to tell him his goals, so that he’d have a support system and was held accountable for doing things during the part of the week where he was free of sitting on a stupid couch in an office talking about his feelings. 

He only said about 60 percent of his goals, but he figured that was pretty good for him. 

“Fuck you,” Katsuki said anyways, setting the camera down for Kirishima to inspect. His father had leant it to him. Katsuki had had to endure an entire explanation of every single camera the man owned, and he owned a lot, but he’d eventually picked out this one: almost fifteen years old, nicked and dinged to pieces. The black paint was worn where his father’s fingers had curled around the body. Apparently, it was the camera that made him fall in love with photography. This small one, out of the dozens he had sitting in his office. Katsuki wasn’t gonna go that far, but he wasn’t entirely displeased with the way this small one sat in his palm, with just a little bit of heft. “It was - ugh. The bitch said I was taking it too aggressively. I thought this was supposed to help me work out my fucking aggression - stop fucking laughing.”

“Sorry!” Kirishima covered his mouth with his hand. He’d cleaned all the soap out of his hair, which meant he just had some dark patches of red, damp hair hanging around his face. He hadn’t put it up today; he usually didn’t when they were just hanging around his apartment, but Katsuki liked that he was one of the few people who got to see it like this, soft and loose. “Only you could take art aggressively.”

Katsuki crossed his arms. “It wasn’t good.”

Kirishima snorted, the corner of his mouth turning up. Katsuki liked that expression. “Of course it wasn’t, man, you’ve never drawn a thing in your life.”

Never mind, Katsuki hated him. “Like you have room to talk!”

Kirishima flicked his forehead. “What, you think I was just magically good at art?” He snorted. “I was absolutely shit, I was just lucky enough to start as a kid, so I didn’t know how shit I was.” 

Katsuki had seen the sketchbooks that Kirishima always left lying around and while it might logically make sense, it was far easier to just believe that Kirishima had just never been shit at art. Even his little sketches, the ones he did while curled up on the couch, legs tucked behind Katsuki’s back while he played video games, were good, loose and sprawling across the entire page because Kirishima drew with his entire arm. Katsuki crossed his arms. “Whatever.”

“You’re welcome,” Kirishima replied, padding back into the kitchen to return to the dishes. “In return, you can help my dye my hair this weekend.”

Katsuki took another photo of his back. “Tch.”

-----

Katsuki hated his stupid friends because they were all camera hogs. Every single one of them was a slut for attention. The second he even reached for his camera, they’d slam up against each other, throwing up peace signs and making duck faces or whatever the hell kind of shimmy Mina was doing.

“I’m not fucking doing this so you can get a new profile pic,” Katsuki yelled when Mina threw her arms up, blocking the view of the lake that Katsuki was trying to photograph. 

“Who cares why you’re doing it,” she replied, fluffing her pink hair. By now, they all knew he had homework from his therapist: five photographs a week, and they’d all promised to support him, swearing allegiance or whatever bullshit over their ramen dinner last week. She grinned, one red-nailed finger pulling down her silver framed sunglasses so she could wink at him. She looked like a walking fashion accident. “I have Insta followers who need to see my beauty.”

“You look like a fucking alien,” he told her, snapping the pic. Click.

“An alien queen,” she said, hardly bothered. She stuck her tongue out, showing off her piercing, and Katsuki snapped another one. “Ooooh, that’s gonna go so well with my aesthetic!”

As far as Katsuki could tell, Mina’s aesthetic was “as neon and blinding as possible” and he hated that she made it work when she was constantly wearing clothing that burned itself into Katsuki’s retinas. Even though they were just at the park and there was no one to impress, Mina was still in hot pink zebra print with a neon yellow jacket. He hadn’t even wanted any of them to come along, he’d just briefly mentioned wanting to take the train to a nearby park and take pictures and suddenly they all wanted to come too.

“We never get a chance to hang out anymore,” Kaminari whined when Katsuki gave him a resounding no, which never seemed to work anymore. Katsuki pointed out that 1) they were hanging out right now and 2) they’d be hanging out all the time on campus again once school started because they still had nearly two years left at university, it was just that everyone was busy with internships and jobs and having a summer (not Katsuki, of course, he wasn’t a lazy fuck). 

Mostly that had resulted in Sero and Kaminari making kissy faces at him, pleased that he’d basically promised to spend time with them when summer break was over.

“Fuck off,” Katsuki snapped. “I see you all way too much.”

“Really,” Kirishima said idly, perusing the menu for dessert. His ramen bowl was completely empty and he’d started on Katsuki’s curry once he’d finished that. “Then why’d you come over yesterday and make me watch shitty movies with you?”

Kaminari and Mina hooted at them both and Katsuki cursed the fact that he’d never been able to forcibly get rid of the blush on his ears when he was flustered.

Stupid Kirishima for exposing him like that. And right here in this stupid ramen shop, Katsuki could not - would not - say because my mother is horrible and I have to live with her and you have an apartment free of parents. He did not say because I like your place better than mine, it feels more like home. He did not say because you make me feel better. 

“Because it’s a fucking crime that you haven’t seen that All Might movie,” he said, which was in fact how he’d started the conversation yesterday afternoon, holding up the DVD box. “It’s a classic.”

“You never wanna watch the Crimson Riot films with me,” Kirishima fake-wept, brushing away non-existent tears from his cheeks. “I feel so ignored! Mina, he’s ignoring me.”

Mina pat his shoulder. “Bakugou, treat him better!”

“No.” Katsuki shoved Kirishima’s chopsticks aside when he tried to reach for the last piece of beef on his plate. “Then you might actually think I like you.”

“We know the truth!” Kaminari shouted, then Sero said, “You can’t handle the truth!” and Katsuki gave up and pushed his bowl over to Kirishima, who descended on it happily.

Really, when had saying no to these idiots stopped working on them? When did they become good enough friends that they knew what he meant? That he wouldn’t actually be mad when they showed up at the train station, waiting for him.

Taking profile pictures, however, was still not happening.

“Was it a good photo?” Mina asked, bouncing on her toes to try and see the screen. 

“No.” Unfortunately, it had actually been a good photo. Katsuki vowed to never let her get her hands on it.

Katsuki just wanted a picture of some fucking ducks.

“Me too, Kacchan,” Kaminari said, throwing his arm around Mina’s shoulder. They beamed at Katsuki with matching idiotic smiles, so big that extraterrestrials could probably see them thousands of light years away and that was why they hadn’t come to Earth yet. “Don’t you want to savor these memories!”

Katsuki turned his back on them. “Like hell I do!”

Kirishima threw his arm around Katsuki’s shoulders, leading him a few steps away easily. “Come on, man,” he said, leaning close to Katsuki so that no one else could hear him, least of all the idiots making fools out of themselves by cheering at a bunch of swans. His breath ghosted along Katsuki’s cheek. “I’ll come back with you tomorrow for some duck pics, but forget that for now, yeah? Let’s just have fun!”

Katsuki ground his teeth together, feeling the full weight of Kirishima’s gaze on him. “Fine,” he grumbled. Tomorrow wouldn’t be too bad, if it was just Kirishima, who knew how to shut up occasionally. “Let’s make memories or what the fuck ever.”

“Yes!” Kirishima pumped a fist in the air. “Group photo!”

“What?” Katsuki yelped, because he didn’t agree to that, but it was too late, Kirishima was lifting the camera out of his hands and flagging down a teenager with blonde hair. 

“Excuse me!” He smiled, gesturing. “Can you take a picture of all of us?”

“I hate you so much.”

“Oh, sure,” the stranger said cheerfully, taking the camera. Kirishima dragged Katsuki over to the railing, which only worked because his hand was holding Katsuki’s and Katsuki was distracted, but he let go to throw his arm around Kaminari’s shoulder. Sero, on Katsuki’s other side, held up bunny ears behind Katsuki’s head and he wasn’t even remotely subtly about it.

The picture, when it came out, starred Mina in the middle, arm around Kaminari, while Katsuki, slightly blurred, attempted to slap Sero’s hands out of the way and Kirishima threw back his head and laughed.

Katsuki didn’t hate it.

-----

He ended up sending a picture of Mina for her Instagram. It was, unfortunately, a great picture; her all neon, pink hair flying in the wind, sun glinting off those silver sunglasses. Even her glittery pink lipstick looked great. She uploaded it to Instagram immediately, tagging Katsuki, which was very annoying because suddenly dozens of people were following him because Mina had several thousand Instagram followers.

Katsuki had exactly three pictures on his Instagram. One was a picture of a mountain that he’d taken while hiking with Kirishima last year, one was a picture Katsuki had taken at a concert that he’d gone to with Kirishima, but only because the tickets were cheap as hell, and one was a picture of a cat that was not his. It was also a picture he hadn’t taken or posted; Kirishima had done both. Frankly, he didn’t care about having Instagram, but Kirishima had somehow convinced him to get one. Probably because Kirishima wanted to tag him in things.

He was starting to sense a pattern.

“Mina wants more fucking pictures from me, but none of these are good.” Katsuki gently put the camera down on the throw pillow in front of him. That carefully done, he threw himself onto the ground, annoyed. They weren’t objectively bad photos, Katsuki had learned some shit growing up with fashion designers as parents, but Katsuki didn’t work with not objectively bad. He worked with fucking amazing.

“Don’t commodify your hobbies, man,” Sero said, pointing a piece of pizza at him. He was sitting cross-legged and he looked tired, really tired, because he was working two part-time jobs this summer. The purple circles under his eyes were painted an unsettling lurid pink by the glow of the TV flickering on mute in front of them.

Katsuki stared down at the sagging pizza tip, the broccoli taunting him. He was beyond confused. “I’m not selling them.”

Sero gave him a patient smile, like he was oh so silly for not understanding. Fuck Sero. “Just tell Mina you don’t want her to post them then.”

“That’s not the point,” Katsuki said, frustrated. He reached for his own slice of pizza from the box balanced on Kirishima’s knee.

“What’s the point, then,” Kirishima asked, biting down on his own Meat Lovers Supreme pizza. He always got a box all to himself. “Is the point that you think you’re not good at this? ‘Cause I thought the point was to be shit.”

“I’m not shit at anything, asshole!”

“Except being humble,” Kirishima added, letting out a little shriek when Katsuki elbowed him, hard. He was built like a tank, so it probably hurt Katsuki more. “Rude! This is hard truth friendship time, Bakugou! Hard! Truths!”

“It’s your turn, then!”

“You’re not done!”

“Can’t you be the best at being shit,” Sero suggested. Kirishima laughed, throwing his head back so far that he almost smacked it on the couch cushion behind him. “'Cause you said the point of this was to have a hobby.”

What his therapist had said, actually, was that Katsuki needed a hobby that he didn’t feel the need to be good at, blah blah blah, to help with his inferiority complex and his need to be the greatest ever. Like hell was Katsuki telling Sero any of that, though. “I said the point of it was to work out my aggression.”

Sero waved a hand as if to say same difference.

“Not to well, actually you, but dude, all you said was you had to take five photographs a week,” Kirishima pointed out, taking a swig of his orange Gatorade. His knuckles were a little bruised and red from his judo match and he’d won, which is why he was allowed to have victory pizza. “And it’s only been one week and you’re already stressed about whether or not they’re good. Maybe, like don’t look at them or something.”

Katsuki stared at him. “What?”

“You gotta stop treating this like a competition!” Sero propped his feet up in Katsuki’s lap and laughed, fully laughed, when Katsuki swatted him away. “We know you’re a winner, but this doesn’t really seem to be about winning, yeah?”

Katsuki raised his chin. “I don’t know how not to win.” He meant it to sound challenging, but it fell flat. He just sounded weak and too young; his voice so small in the expanse of the living room. Both Sero and Kirishima had that look in their face, the pitying one that meant Katsuki was more fucked up then he’d thought he was. Fuck, Katsuki hated that look. He stared the both of them down, daring them to say anything. 

“Well,” Kirishima said eventually, after he and Sero definitely had a five second conversation about what to do with this whole situation and clearly decided to let it go for now, thank fuck. “Just maybe take kinda ugly photos. Like things you know won’t be pretty, so you aren’t so drawn into to thinking about how good they have to be.”

“Like if you take a picture of a crack in a sidewalk!” Sero held up a finger. “Or like, wet cement! That’s not gonna be a good picture, so you don’t have to worry that it won’t be good ‘cause you know it won’t be good!”

“And then just don’t look at them after, maybe,” Kirishima agreed with a nod, reaching over to Sero for a fist bump. “I can get them developed for you.”

Katsuki considered that. If he didn’t look, then they probably wouldn’t suck so much. If he never looked at the picture screen, then - well, he’d just know they were shitty. “Take pictures of things I know are ugly, huh.”

“Yeah.” 

Katsuki considered that. He raised his camera up and snapped a picture of Kirishima immediately.

Kirishima cut him a mock-disappointed glance. “I’m beautiful, so don’t even try,” he said, wagging his finger at Katsuki before picking up the remote and putting on the news. “Try a pic of Sero instead.”

-----

As per usual, Katsuki was half-asleep before the movie was over, curled up on the rug, one of the throw pillows from the couch underneath his head. Kirishima’s leg was stretched out against his back, keeping him warm, and he groaned when Kirishima moved to stand up.

“Such a baby,” Kirishima whispered, letting out a tiny little laugh. “Come on, man, let’s get you to the couch.”

He slid his hands under Katsuki’s knees and shoulder and Katsuki curled against him, tucking his cold nose against Kirishima’s chest. 

“Aw, take care of our princess,” Sero teased, and Katsuki felt his weight shift as Kirishima picked up a leg and kicked Sero solidly in the shin. “Ow!”

“Don’t,” Kirishima whined.

“Alright, alright,” Sero laughed. There was a shuffling noise, the sound of boxes and glasses being picked up from the ground. “You gonna keep him?”

“Yeah, it’s late,” Kirishima said, dropping Katsuki on the couch. Katsuki sighed. Good. He didn’t want to leave. He was comfortable. “You?”

“Got work tomorrow.” Sero let out a yawn and it made Katsuki yawn too. “Besides, you’ve got your hands full. As per usual.”

“You’re a cruel man, Sero,” Kirishima said flatly, and Sero laughed, his familiar derisive bark, and then there was the heavy pad of feet and the slight creak of the front door as Kirishima walked Sero out. He always did that, even though all his friends practically lived at his apartment and it was just as much their home as his. Even though the front door could be seen from the couch, even though the door automatically locked behind them, Kirishima always walked his friends out, opening the door for them and giving them a giant hug as they left.

Kirishima was the only person to hug him on a regular basis, though Sero and Mina and Kaminari had all gotten comfortable throwing arms around Katsuki's shoulders and - Katsuki curled up, tucking his hands against his chest. That part wasn’t so bad. It was cute, even.

Katsuki got into such dangerous territory when it was late at night, when the lights were off and he could see echoes from the TV painted across the back of his eyelids, flickering on and off and on and off and - oh, it went dark. Kirishima must have turned off the TV.

“Hey,” Katsuki mumbled, throwing a hand over his eyes.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Kirishima teased, and Katsuki took a deep breath in, imagining that this was real life he got to keep, not just for once a week when he was too tired to go home, but for forever. He wanted to trap this feeling in a bottle, the warmth and the sleepy fondness in Kirishima’s voice, to keep it close forever. “You staying?”

“Fucking obviously,” Katsuki said, removing his hand from his eyes and looking up. He couldn’t really see much with the lights off, but he could tell, a little bit, where Kirishima was: his shoulders kept dipping in and out of the pale light from the window. “This is my apartment.”

Kirishima laughed, the line of his neck exposed, black silhouette against the orange streetlights. “You do practically live here, man,” he agreed, reaching down to ruffle Katsuki’s hair. Katsuki raised one hand to bat at him half-heartedly, but he was either too tired or tired enough not to care, because instead he just ended up with his hand on Kirishima’s, fingers lightly circling his wrist over his pulse point. Kirishima cleared his throat. “I don’t mind.”

“Yeah,” Katsuki said absently, as Kirishima pulled his hand back, loosely shaking Katsuki off. “Where’s my camera?”

“You’re dead tired.”

“One more,” Katsuki mumbled tiredly. “This is the last one I’m gonna take, okay, it’s the last one. Just - come on.” There was a soft clunk and then Katsuki felt the cool frame of the camera being gently pushed into his hands. He raised it up, not bothering with the flash. He could see Kirishima’s face clearly now but he didn’t think the camera would capture it, not really. It would be grainy and gray, none of the vibrant red that Kirishima embodied showing through, but that was okay. He was supposed to be taking shitty photographs, this could be his first one.

Kirishima looked at him, steadily, not smiling, eyes warm. Click.

He must have fallen asleep right after that, because he didn’t remember looking at the photo. Kirishima must have eased the camera out of his hands.

When he woke up, the camera was sitting on the coffee table, next to the empty, greasy pizza box and a few glasses ringed with water stains. It had a piece of paper taped over the screen so that even if Katsuki wanted to look at the photo, he’d have to peel the paper off first. 

It had a smiley face drawn on it.

-----

Eventually, they all got used to the camera that Katsuki kept a hand on at all times. They stopped posing and vamping, and Mina stopped begging him to send her pics when he explained, as politely as possible, that he fucking couldn’t. After a few weeks, it was like they barely remembered he was taking pictures at all. (Except for Shinsou, who refused to be in any. He kept covering his face with a hand, talking about incriminating evidence, which was worrying as all hell, but Katsuki wasn’t even gonna touch that.)

Kirishima took the little memory card to the photo place every couple of weeks. Katsuki had protested, at first, because why even bother printing them out, but Kirishima had been adamant. “You’re gonna want to see these one day,” he promised, holding the thick white envelope above his head where Katsuki couldn’t reach it, full of tantalizing, purposefully shitty photographs. “I peeked, so I know.”

Katsuki elbowed him in the stomach, hard; Kirishima doubled over with a wheeze.

He left Kirishima with the envelope as he walked away, though, so Kirishima would know he was grateful. He wasn’t sure where Kirishima hid them, but - fuck it, he was probably right, Katsuki would want to see them one day.

Five photographs a week very easily became ten, then twenty, then Katsuki wasn’t keeping count. He wasn’t sure what that meant, really, but his therapist seemed to think it was great. She also seemed to think it was super fucking funny that he was only taking bad pictures that he refused to look at. Asshole.

Summer break was over before Katsuki even knew it, bringing his new course load and his new classes. So he framed it as wanting to get the most of his summer vacation, casually mentioning it in passing while he was in Kirishima’s kitchen, making them dinner. 

To say that Katsuki had conned Kirishima into driving him to the lookout point above Musutafu would be incorrect because Kirishima had offered, technically. But it also was a lie to say that Katsuki hadn’t known how it would play out. He’d just - casually mentioned to Kirishima that he was thinking about taking the bus up to the lookout point at the base of the mountain. He knew Kirishima knew what he was talking about, and no one else, because he’d taken Kirishima hiking there a few times. And just like that, Kirishima had lit up and said let me come along!

The car was a bonus, he’d have wanted Kirishima to come along even if he had had to take the bus.

He hadn’t told Kirishima where they were going, the first time. He’d just said “wear sturdy shoes” and had planned to bring all the rest of the equipment himself. The trail he was taking Kirishima on was easy, with a small incline, and barely took an hour to get to the top.

“This is where you wanted to take me?” Kirishima had asked, voice a squeak.

Katsuki cast an eye around, trying to figure out what had gotten Kirishima so worked up. “The - no, not the fucking parking lot, idiot.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the mountain. “We’re going hiking.”

Bizarrely, Kirishima had looked both relieved and devastated for a second before his face went startlingly neutral, completely blank. Then, so quickly Katsuki wondered if he imagined it, Kirishima was back to normal. “Great!” He chirped, opening the car door and dragging his backpack out with him. Through the tinted windows, it was hard to see his face. He’d been begging Katsuki to take him hiking for months, saying it was going to be the greatest bonding time but suddenly Katsuki hadn’t been so sure.

It had been a stupid of him to doubt. By the time Katsuki was out of the car, Kirishima’s smile was real, excited and wide. And he’d proved to be a remarkably good hiking partner, enough that they kept going hiking. 

But it was an hour by car to the lookout point, double that on the bus, and Katsuki much preferred slouching in his seat, the leather warm against his back, Kirishima’s laugh against his ears. Even if Kirishima was such a buzzkill about it and wouldn’t let Katsuki put his feet up on the dash.

“So are we actually hiking today,” Kirishima asked, cutting a glance at Katsuki. “You forgot your itinerary.” He’d forgotten his sunglasses again and Katsuki was wearing the extra pair from his glovebox. He’d turned the camera around to take a selfie, which surely looked ridiculously stupid, but the piece of paper blocked him from seeing. “You never forget to include an itinerary.”

Katsuki shook his head. Like he’d forget to bring an itinerary if they were going hiking. “I didn’t forget. I just want to go around the campgrounds,” he said, fiddling with the settings on his camera. He’d been fussing with the windows until Kirishima had set the baby lock on them. “And the park.”

Kirishima snorted. “Did you only invite me to drive you?”

“I didn’t invite you.”

“That’s a yes!” Kirishima crowed, thumping the steering wheel with one excited hand. He was paying attention the road, so Katsuki allowed himself a small smile, half-hidden when he looked out the window at the trees racing together. “Man, you really use me so much as a chauffeur so much now that you’ve got your license suspended.”

“Sue me,” Katsuki sniffed, taking a picture of Kirishima at the wheel, one hand fiddling with the finicky radio. His jacket was off, the top was down, and he looked like summer incarnate, tan and freckled and golden even though it was quickly turning to fall. He had a whole stack of colorful thread bracelets on his wrist, from a slumber party a few weeks back, and already they were worn, not used to his heavy-duty life. Katsuki pointedly did not look at the five slim bracelets on his own wrist. 

Kirishima settled on a station he liked, something fun and poppy that Katsuki had never heard of, and settled back into his seat. “I think you’re forgetting that you were the one getting sued.”

“I didn’t get sued,” Katsuki snapped, because he didn’t. That wasn’t how a suspended license worked. He just had to show up to court, it wasn’t like the city was suing him. They just thought he’d gotten way too many speeding tickets in too few months, and they might be right about that, but what’s the point in doing anything if you couldn’t go fast? (Another thing he was working on with his therapist) “The city isn’t suing me for speeding.”

Kirishima waved a hand like none of that mattered. Bastard had probably never gotten a ticket in his life. “It’s a good thing your house is on the way to campus, man, ‘cause otherwise you’d be walking!”

“No I wouldn’t,” Katsuki dared, and just like that, that same phenomenon, the thing Katsuki might have to call fondness, alit in Kirishima’s eyes. Katsuki felt it every morning, when Kirishima peered at him blearily over the steering wheel, raising a hand in greeting while Katsuki tossed his backpack into the back and they headed along the road to their eight a.m. lectures, silence comfortable.

Kirishima quirked the corner of his mouth up in a smile. “Naw,” he said gently, glancing at Katsuki for just a second before focusing his eyes on the road again, at the yellow lines and blurred white dashes. “You wouldn’t.” 

“Damn right,” Katsuki said, pulling his baseball cap low over his eyes, inexplicably pleased at Kirishima’s confession. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that Kirishima would go to the ends of the earth for his friends, but the knowledge still kept a little fire burning, somewhere in Katsuki’s chest. “Wake me when we when we get there.” His fingers found the seat controls, sending his seatback down, down, until he could see more the corner of Kirishima’s ear than any more of Kirishima.

“No, you can’t go to sleep,” Kirishima whined, reaching over and hitting Katsuki’s knee several times, like an ambush. Katsuki grunted. “You know how bored I get while driving!”

That was true, though unimportant - Kirishima was an excellent driver, even when he was bored. Driving instructors probably loved him. “Fucking shut up.”

“Beauty rest is not going to help your ugly mug! I will keep talking until you pay attention to me,” Kirishima threatened. “We have another thirty-two minutes to go. I can definitely talk for thirty-two minutes non-stop.”

That was definitely true. He could be really annoying about it, too. “You never give up, do you.”

“Never!”

Katsuki raised his seat back up. “Yeah, I like that about you.” There was silence in the car. “Are you blushing?”

“That’s unfair, Katsuki,” Kirishima protested. His cheeks were bright red, his teeth digging into the soft red of his bottom lip. He looked like - a schoolboy with a crush, honestly. “You never say nice things to me!”

That hit Katsuki sharper than he’d probably meant it to, even with the use of his given name to soften it. Kirishima probably hadn’t meant anything by it at all but it still felt like ice, shivering down his spine, cracking underneath him. No, he wasn’t nice. He was never going to be nice. But fuck, Kirishima was really fucking nice.

“I,” Katsuki swallowed. Tried to say the words again, but nothing. Kirishima waited for him. Kirishima was always waiting for him. “Would you. Want me to?”

Kirishima startled. “No, ‘course not.” One hand left the steering wheel, reaching out for Katsuki’s hand where it was gripping at his seatbelt. He drew it back to him, Katsuki’s arm stretched across the front seat like a wing. Katsuki imagined that Kirishima would tilt his head down, just a sliver, and kiss his knuckles, soft lips against the sensitive back of his hand. Kirishima exhaled, but he stayed focused on the road; left their hands against his shoulder for just a second. “Then they wouldn’t mean anything.”

“You compliment people all the time.”

“Yeah, but I’m me and you’re you,” Kirishima said easily. “You don’t give ‘em out with they aren’t earned! But that’s what makes them worth it. I know you’re never lyin’ to me, man.”

“I don’t think that’s how friendship is supposed to work.” He wouldn’t have admitted it before, but Kirishima’d seen just about everything awful about him by now and had judged him for none of it.

“Yeah, but we’re best friends, and best friendship means knowing your bro better than anything,” Kirishima declared, so cheesily that Katsuki untangled their hands to flick his cheek. 

“You’re a fucking moron-”

“It’s true!” Kirishima protested, batting his hand away. “Just because you don’t say it in nice words doesn’t mean you aren’t being nice to me! We all know what you mean, man, we all know how to find the compliments you’ve giving out.” He scrubbed his free hand, the one that had been holding Katsuki’s a minute earlier, against his red face. “I just didn’t expect to hear you say it so sweetly.”

Sometimes he said things so plainly Katsuki wanted to just leave to avoid thinking about what it might mean. Sweetly, the fucking idiot had said. Like it wasn’t embarrassing at all, like Katsuki had the ability to say words like he did, honeyed and sweet like cotton candy.

Katsuki pressed his forehead against his knee, drawn up to his chest. He’d always been someone who only wanted the best friends, the cream of the crop, but that had always meant he’d never had any friends. He’d always thought that no one matched his level, but really, it was the opposite. No one had considered him good enough to work for his friendship. They were probably right about that. 

“Don’t get used to it,” he said, instead of making promises to be better to one of the only people who had thought he deserved friendship. 

“I won’t,” Kirishima said honestly, putting on his blinker to turn off the highway and onto the access road that lead to the campgrounds and the visitors center. They were almost there. “I would never take you for granted.”

-----

Usually, at the lookout point, Katsuki would push through the parking lot and the crowds of people up to the little office that served as a visitor center and immediately head up the trails. He didn’t often stop at the lookout point, which had a stunning view on the city and a few picnic benches. The view was better higher up, of course, so why stop?

But he wasn’t hiking today. Partly because he was tired, so tired, from his stupid internship, and partly because he knew that Kirishima was tired too, from training, and he wasn’t gonna drag a sore, aching judoka up a fucking mountain.

So when he pushed out of the car, left knee aching from sitting on it too long, he headed left towards the picnic tables and the binoculars.

“Oooh, we’re finally going to the lookout point,” Kirishima cooed, giggling like he was back in high school. He caught up to Katsuki in just a few steps. “Risqué.”

Katsuki turned and stared at him. “It’s just a fucking pile of dirt.”

“Sexy dirt!” Kirishima agreed, pulling his jacket on to combat the chilly wind this high up. “You know, it’s Makeout Point!” 

This picnic bench did not look particularly romantic, especially not with the children and families littered around, getting ready to hike. “This is a makeout point?”

“No, it’s Makeout Point,” Kirishima corrected, clearly thinking about it as a name instead of a description. “Everyone comes out here to make out in their cars, obviously. You didn’t know?”

“Why the fuck would I know that?”

Kirishima grinned. “I forgot you were a nerd in high school.”

“The fuck? I was not.”

“Do you only say cusswords so people don’t think you’re a nerd?”

Katsuki wasn’t even going to dignify that with a response. Kirishima’s laughing let him know that he clearly thought it was a resounding yes. “You’re so funny, Bakugou!” Kirishima wiped at a tear, still wheezing. “All the popular kids in school would drive out here on weekends, you know, play loud music and hookup in the back of cars.” He tapped the picnic table to the left, right in the center of a heart with two people’s names inscribed. They'd probably never talked to each other again the night after they’d carved it.

“Even you?”

Kirishima snorted. “What kind of guy do you think I was,” he said, shaking his head. “Not popular, I can tell you that much.”

“Bullshit.” Katsuki had seen Kirishima make friends with literally everyone. He could make friends with wild animals, and Katsuki was including himself in that category. University wasn’t the same as high school, where there are cliques and social circles to worry about, but Kirishima managed to blaze through all of those, too. Katsuki did not know a single person who disliked Kirishima Eijirou.

“I was pretty different in high school,” Kirishima said. “Don’t worry, I was a real loser back then too. We match!”

Suddenly, stupidly, Katsuki wanted nothing more than to go back in time, to be fifteen and to meet Kirishima, to burn under the force of his energy. He thought maybe things wouldn’t have been so entirely shit this past year, if that was the case. Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten into fights and broken his nose and broken Deku’s nose, maybe he would have been able to remember any of March or April, instead of just study sheets and essays and the feeling that he was drowning, always.

That was putting too much on Kirishima, though, to have expected him to fix Katsuki four years ago, instead of just this last year.

“I wasn’t a loser,” Katsuki said coolly. “And I don’t hang out with them, either.”

Kirishima took a seat on the picnic bench, propping his chin up with an elbow on his knee. “You would not have even noticed me.” Katsuki studied his face, but he didn’t seem to be upset about it. He seemed like that was in the past. “I was real boring. And a coward. You wouldn’t have cared, no one did.”

“So?” Katsuki said, turning around. He tried to imagine a boring Kirishima, but the only thing playing on loop in his mind was a memory of Kirishima fucking flooring it in his car, determined to beat Kaminari as they raced down by the river, Katsuki yelling encouragements even though they were both being stupid. “That isn’t who you are anymore, so what’s that matter now?”

“Nothing,” Kirishima said happily. “You’re right.”

Katsuki ignored that, stepping around some stupid kids and picking his way a little farther down. Kirishima didn’t follow him, maybe sensing that he wanted a minute alone to study the view.

And it was a wonderful view, truly, the city sprawled underneath them like a tiny village that Katsuki once had a chance to see in a museum. It had been fascinating, looking at the tiny people and the tiny river and the little plaques pointing out how this town had carved out a quarry following the natural rivers, and how the mountain was a natural defense. He’d taken Kirishima back there last year, because he’d figured a geology major would like it, and Kirishima had been delighted, lifting the little lever that sent water down the river and over like a child.

This tiny city’s river wasn’t controlled by a lever, it rushed down the center, dividing the city up into sections. From this far up, it looked a bit like a set of lungs, spindly bronchus arcing out across the city until the river turned into streams then disappeared into nothingness. Katsuki had fallen into one of those streams, once, as a kid; it puttered by his house, barely a few inches deep.

The sun glinting off rooftops and cars and stovepipes practically blinded him when he looked through the viewfinder, but that was fine. Good, even, because he couldn't even see what he was taking pictures of, if he was managing to capture the whole city, but he thought the important part was that he’d remember the sun, hot and sticky against the back of his neck, and the cool breeze tugging at his shirt. 

He turned around to find that Kirishima had clearly bummed a cigarette off someone. He was sitting on top of the car hood, one red sneaker up on the glinting bumper, cherry red hair and cherry red coat striking against the impossible blue of the sky and the sleek black of the car. He tilted his head just an inch to light the cigarette, sharp jawbone exposed to the golden sunlight before smoke furled up and obscured it.

Katsuki was not supposed to take pictures of beautiful things, but he raised up the camera, capturing this image forever anyways. Then-

“Hey!” Kirishima yelped as Katsuki reached out and snagged the cigarette out of his mouth.

“Fucking unhealthy bastard, do you want lung cancer,” Katsuki snapped, dropping the thing into the dirt, grinding down on it with his heel. “You think you’re gonna make it to the fucking Olympics if you smoke?”

Kirishima stared down at the smoldering cigarette on the ground. “Aw, man,” he said, dejected, then, “Hey, will you take a picture of it?”

“Get fucked.”

“Thank you for caring about me so much, Katsuki!” Kirishima hollered as Katsuki walked away, and Katsuki was glad his back was to the damn idiot or he’d be teased about how red he was turning. Bright red, probably, he felt hot all over. Even his damn ears were warm. It was different then in the car, when Kirishima was feeling especially fond and there was no one else to hear. 

 Kirishima only ever called his name to tease him and it worked. Out here in public, it tied them both together, marked them as - well. Nothing, actually. They weren’t anything, just two friends, so maybe the worst part was everyone else thinking oh, they must be something and oh, how cute and what a sweet couple and no one had to know, of course, but Katsuki knew it was a lie. He was a failure on this count.

He took a few more steps, bringing himself back up to the railing, Kirishima hovering so close behind him that Katsuki could feel his body heat. You couldn’t deny that view.

-----

Kirishima’d been acting funny. Katsuki didn’t go out of his way to notice or anything, but it was obvious. He kept spilling his coffee all over himself and staring off into space, more than usual. He was sometimes spacey normally, but he’d gotten into the same prestigious university that Katsuki had, so he wasn’t a dumbass, yet he kept acting like a fucking dumbass. Even more so than usual. Usual dumbassery was forgetting to stir the curry or falling out of a tree after rescuing a cat. 

Unusual dumbassery was Kirishima spacing out and tripping over the curb three times in a row, even though he tended to always stare down at his red sneakers when he ran. Unusual dumbassery was Kirishima forgetting his headphones during their morning run, and then his keys, so they had to double back to his apartment to get them and lock the door. Unusual dumbassery was Kirishima stepping on the backs of Katsuki’s heels and pulling the damn sneaker off.

Katsuki jerked his headphones from his ears and shoved Kirishima. “Alright, fucking out with it!” Kirishima actually tripped a little bit, which was more dumbassery - to be so out of it he didn’t even notice Katsuki was coming for him, to be so unbalanced that he stumbled over the curb and into the street, looking at Katsuki with an exaggerated frown. Katsuki reached down to slid the heels of his damn sneakers back on, wincing at the scrapped skin there. “Get out of the street, moron!”

Kirishima huffed as he hopped back up onto the pavement, bouncing up and down a little bit. “You put me there!”

“Whatever,” Katsuki said, jerking his head. Kirishima nodded, picking up the pace beside him again. Katsuki left his headphones curled around his neck and kept his gaze focused on the horizon, at the trees up ahead, at the crosswalk they’d be coming to in a minute. He could see Kirishima just out of the corner of his eye, his comfortable running pace, the familiar controlled swing of his arms. “Tell me what’s on your stupid brain that’s got you acting weird.”

“Nothing!”

“I’m not a fucking idiot!” Katsuki roared and Kirishima slammed his hand over Katsuki’s mouth, pulling them both to a stop again.

“It’s six forty am,” he hissed. Katsuki blinked at him, because yeah, that was true. It was forty minutes into their run, which usually started promptly at six and took the loop out the city and down to the nearby park, twice around the pond, and then back up, except for somebody had been a dumbass and so far, the run had been abysmal. Katsuki wasn’t used to having abysmal runs with Kirishima, who was traditionally, an excellent running partner. “We are in a residential neighborhood, Bakugou!” He gave Katsuki a Look. “If I let go, will you promise not to yell again?”

Katsuki nodded and Kirishima pulled his hands away from Katsuki’s face. “Tell me what’s goin’ on and I’ll shut up.”

For a second, he though Kirishima wouldn’t say anything. He was balanced on the edge, leaning back so that he wouldn’t go sailing over, but then Katsuki said, “Come on,” and felt the weight shift.

Kirishima slammed his hands together and bowed his head. “Please will you take pictures of my match tomorrow?”

Katsuki frowned. “The fuck?”

“Take pictures of my match.” Kirishima bowed his head even farther. A sweat droplet slowly made its way down his left bicep. He’d touched up his roots yesterday, Katsuki could tell by the red water splotches on the usually white bathroom sink. He always made sure his roots were hidden for a match. “It’s gonna be a really tough one.”

“Uh, yeah, I know,” Katsuki said, confused, because Kirishima had literally been watching videos of the other judoka’s matches for a solid week now. Katsuki was well used to Kirishima’s pre-match rituals, which included research and playing only classic rock for the twenty-four hours before a match like he was a forty-year-old man. “But why?”

“I like the way I look in your photos,” Kirishima said, tilting his head up just a tiny bit, so that Katsuki could see his eyes through his thick lashes. “They make me feel strong.”

If Katsuki ever had a heart capable of feeling things, it would be going double-time, pounding against his ribcage like a weak, fluttering bird. He licked his lips, nervously, could taste the salty sweat on his upper lip. “Uh, sure.” He’d been planning to go anyways. He went to all Kirishima’s matches, so long as he didn’t have classes. “But they’ll be blurry. Probably.” 

“That’s fine,” Kirishima said, jogging in place while they waited for the walk sign. “I just - I’m really nervous, man. I’m so fucking nervous.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

Kirishima gave him a wild smile. “Not subtle, huh?”

“Never in your life.” Katsuki confirmed. The walk sign flickered over and they set off again. “What the fuck are you so nervous about, it’s not like those bastards have anyone like you. You’re not gonna drop.”

Kirishima snorted. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Not maybe.”

“I’m not you, dude,” Kirishima protested. “I get scared.” He took a deep breath in, chest rising and falling under his shitty Suns Out Guns Out t-shirt. “I’m just hoping maybe if you take pictures of me, I’ll see it through your eyes.”

Katsuki bit the inside of his mouth to avoid saying anything stupid, like are you stupid? You can’t go around saying things like that.

But he brought his camera. Kirishima fucking dominated the match. Katsuki got a shot of his victory fist, up in the air, ridiculously wide grin on his face.

-----

Katsuki could not drive. He didn’t have a car, first of all, and he didn’t have a valid license, second of all. Which meant if he wanted to drive out to the Lookout Point, he’d have to get Kirishima to do it.

That was the thought on his mind as he walked the two and a half miles to Kirishima’s apartment at two in the morning. He’d stormed out of his parents’ house, backpack in hand, which probably hadn’t been the smartest idea, but it was the only idea he had.

His fucking mother. Evil bitch. Fucking what did she know about his photography? Nothing, because he specifically hadn’t told her what he was doing, and then she was off yelling again about how he was slacking off even in his hobbies, she was always telling him he wasn’t worth shit and Katsuki was halfway down the street before he’d even realized he’d left. 

And his fucking mother was texting him now, blowing up his phone with messages like running away again katsuki and your friends’ll get tired of you one day and Katsuki hated that it felt like she was rummaging around in his brain and pulling out his worst fears. 

His feet slammed against the pavement. 

Katsuki had a key to Kirishima’s apartment. He’d received it over a year ago, somewhere in second semester. He used it often enough that Kirishima usually wasn’t bothered to come home and find Katsuki there, studying on his couch. Usually, he’d just tell Katsuki he looked cute wearing glasses and ask what was for dinner.

Kirishima, however, was probably definitely not expecting Katsuki to enter his house at two in the morning. It wasn’t technically breaking in, because of the key, but… still. 

Fuck, but he wanted more than anything to pound his fist against Kirishima’s bedroom door and get him to drive him out to the Lookout Point, but fuck, his mother was right. Bitch. Katsuki was selfish and self-absorbed and Kirishima was his perfect opposite.

Katsuki took and took and never gave, and Kirishima would be happy to give and give until he had nothing left.

He carefully unlocked the door. The apartment was dark, Kirishima’s bedroom door closed. Katsuki pulled up his phone flashlight - wincing as he saw another message from his mother - and quietly pulled off his shoes. Kirishima wouldn’t find it that odd if he woke up in the morning and Katsuki was asleep on his couch. Katsuki had broken in and done weirder things. Like once he’d cooked two different meals at four a.m., and Kirishima had eaten most of it for breakfast the next morning, never asking why Katsuki had felt the need to make two dinners, which was great, because Katsuki hadn’t really known. 

“Bakugou,” he heard, and he jerked his head up. Kirishima was standing in his bedroom doorway, blinking in the light and rubbing at one eye with a fist. His hair was smushed on one side where he’d been sleeping, he had red lines across his cheek from pillow creases, and he nearly tripped over the hem of his own sweatpants. He sounded dead tired and Katsuki hated himself for waking him up. “Where’s the fire?”

“Shit.” Katsuki dropped his backpack. He kept his voice low, trying as hard as possible not to let Kirishima know anything was wrong. “Go back to sleep.”

“But why’re you here at,” Kirishima squinted as he tried to get his brain to work. Katsuki’s left boot dropped with a thud and he winced. “At early.”

“Fight with the hag,” Katsuki told him. “Go back to sleep.”

“You come too,” Kirishima yawned, holding his hand out. “You’re cold. Cause it’s, like. Cold out. And you’re crying.”

The second he said that, Katsuki realized he was freezing. And crying. He hadn’t noticed either. Which was probably why he let himself grab Kirishima’s hand and fold himself against Kirishima’s chest. Kirishima shuffled them backwards, sleepily, like stupid little penguins, until the back of his knees hit the mattress and he tumbled over. He didn’t even bother getting under the covers, just flopping down and pulling Katsuki with him.

Katsuki buried his face in Kirishima’s chest, Kirishima’s arm pulling him close. He was already asleep again, breath steady, but Katsuki pressed his eyes closed and figured he’d never fall asleep, not like this, so close it felt like they were welded together.

Katsuki couldn’t tell if this was success or not.

-----

It seemed impossible, but of course it wasn’t: Kirishima lost a match. A pretty big one. Katsuki had never paid too much attention to how matches and rankings all worked, but Mina was biting at her fingernails and completely fucking over her electric blue manicure.

“He really went down,” she worried, dragging Katsuki out of the bleachers (Sero was grabbing onto the strap of Katsuki’s camera and Kaminari was holding on to Sero’s backpack) immediately after, even though two other judokas were starting and people were hissing at them for standing up. “He doesn’t go down.”

Kirishima had gone down spectacularly, with a thud that was audible even six rows up. Katsuki wasn’t so far away that he couldn’t see the pained face Kirishima was making as he struggled, or the way he screwed his eyes closed in defeat when the referee assigned him the loss. Katsuki hoped he hadn’t gotten that in the stupid picture. He itched to peel off the worn Post-it note and check.

They waited outside the locker room for ages, but Kirishima didn’t show up.

“Shit,” Sero said, sinking to the floor. He checked his phone, but there were no messages. “He’s really upset.” Usually when Kirishima was upset, he liked a whole crew dedicated to cheering him up and watching stupid movies and bringing him ice cream. A complete cut off of all communication was… unprecedented, and probably really fucking bad. He was fucking avoiding them, for fuck’s sake. Maybe he hadn’t even changed, maybe his shit was still in the locker room.

“He’ll have to win his next three matches to still remain in the rankings for championships,” Mina said, bouncing up and down on her heels. Her left hand was completely clear of nail polish. “He was a shoo-in to win this one, too. He’s not for the rest.”

Katsuki tilted his head back until it hit the white cinderblocks that made up the wall. The fluorescent light above them was flickering. “I’ll find him,” he said, straightening up. “Sero, can you drive me to his place?”

“We can all-”

“No,” Katsuki said stubbornly. He felt weirdly sure about this. Kirishima was avoiding them all, he wouldn’t want all of them. But Katsuki had already been seen at his lowest, by all of them. Maybe that was different. Maybe Kirishima wouldn’t mind if it was just him. “I don’t think he’s gonna want to see all of you like this. It’s better if it’s me. Fuck up to fuck up.”

“Dude, you aren’t a fuck up,” Kaminari disagreed. “I mean, except for that time you dumped me in the pool and I had my phone on me. You fucked up that time.”

Katsuki stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest. “That was your own fault.”

Mina hesitated. “You aren’t the most tactful, Bakugou.” She started chewing on the thumbnail of her right hand, little bits of blue polish flaking against her glittery pink lips. “You’re a little more, um.” She made a face, looking at Sero for backup. “Tough love.”

Katsuki shrugged. “Maybe he needs that,” he said. “He didn’t even fucking show up, Mina! How the fuck do we know what’s right!”

The other three all looked at each other, judging whether or not it was a good decision. Katsuki waited impatiently. He thought maybe Kirishima did need tough love, no fancy words or sympathy. He probably felt like complete and utter shit and would feel worse if his friends tried to cheer him up. That was how Katsuki always felt, when he was upset. But if the other three decided otherwise, Katsuki would back off. They were better at this then he was.

“Okay,” Sero said eventually, holding up a finger. “Text when you find him, okay? And let him know we can all come over, if he wants.”

“If he wants to be babied, I’ll call,” Katsuki repeated, rolling his eyes. He’d probably need fucking backup, anyways.

Sero shook his head and ushered Katsuki towards his red car. “Not comforting, dude.”

Kirishima’s car was gone from the lot.

The ride over to Kirishima’s apartment was… pretty silent, mostly full of the errant buzzes of Katsuki’s phone as Mina, Jirou, and Kaminari all chimed in and were general nuisances. Kaminari had gone inside the locker room and found Kirishima’s bag. Sero made Katsuki read out every single text to him, because he was driving, and Katsuki only did it because Sero’s hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel and the texts seem to be helping, even if they made Katsuki feel way too normal even though this was a semi-emergency situation. He didn’t want to feel normal, not when he wasn’t even sure if Kirishima was in his stupid apartment.

“Text us if he’s there,” Sero said worriedly when he pulled up to the curb outside Kirishima’s apartment building. He bit his lip. “Like, immediately.”

Katsuki reached into the backseat and grabbed his backpack and camera. “Yeah, whatever Mom.”

“Don’t even try!” Sero said. “You’re definitely the mom.” 

“I am not-”

“You make us all drink water and go to bed early,” Sero countered as Katsuki climbed out of the car. He lowered the window so he could keep talking. “If anything, I’m the wealthy drunk uncle.”

Katsuki squinted at him. “This family sucks.” He looked back up at Kirishima’s building, suddenly nervous. He was practically sweating through his shirt. Katsuki swallowed. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he should just leave it to Sero and Mina and Kaminari, who all understood each other in intangible ways that Katsuki couldn’t parse or untangle. He looked back at Sero, who was slumped over the wheel. “You’re not gonna leave, are you.”

“I might go get McDonald’s,” Sero said seriously. “‘Cause I’m hungry.” And a stress-eater. “But I’m gonna wait for you to text, first, then I’m coming right back.”

“I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”

Sero snorted. “I know that. But if Kiri wants me there, I’m gonna be there.”

“I fucking got this,” Katsuki declared, but he didn’t sound confident, not at all. He sounded like a stupid kid who needed a parent to approve all his decision.

“You got this,” Sero said, grinning. “You so fucking got this.”

Katsuki slammed the car door shut and jogged up the front steps, waving to one of the elderly women who lived on the first floor. He didn’t wait for the elevator, instead taking the stairs two and a time until he got to apartment 31.

He knocked twice, then turned the key in the lock. “Hey.” He didn’t turn on the light, instead choosing to just squint through the dim grey. “Kirishima? Are you here?”

“No,” Kirishima said.

Katsuki let out a sigh that he would deny was relieved. “It’s just me,” Katsuki said, reaching down to pull off his sneakers. He paused, bent over, and sent a quick text to the group chat: Found him. “I’m coming in.”

“No.”

“Too bad, you shouldn’t have given me a key,” Katsuki said, setting it down with a metallic clunk on the countertop. He rounded the couch and stared down at Kirishima, who was curled up with his head under the throw pillow. He hadn’t even changed out of his uniform, or his leather jacket for that matter, and he was missing one sock. There were used tissues lying all over the floor. How fast had he fucking driven to get here, collapse on the couch, and go through an entire box before Katsuki arrived?

“Wow,” Katsuki said flatly. “You look fucking miserable. Shove over.”

He bodily pushed Kirishima’s feet off the couch and settled down, over Kirishima’s protests. “Okay, go ahead.” God, he really couldn’t do comfort, or anything close to it, really. “Cry or whatever.”

Kirishima laughed, a stupid watery laugh. It sounded horrible but also genuine, and there was a glimmer of joy in Kirishima’s eyes before he pulled the pillow back over his head. There you are. “You’re so mean, Bakugou!”

“You knew that,” Katsuki said. “This is my own brand of caring. You’re sad and it fucking sucks and you’re gonna get through it. If you want someone to be nice to you, I’ll call fucking Black Eyes over here and she can pamper you, but you’re not getting that shit from me.” He carefully removed the pillow from Kirishima’s head. His eyes were red and swollen. “Do you want me to call Ashido?”

Kirishima grabbed his pillow and wiggled around until his head was on Katsuki’s lap. “No.” He turned his head, just a little bit, so that he was staring up at Katsuki, eyelashes all clumped together from tears. “Just be sad with me.”

“Okay,” Katsuki agreed, relieved. He could do that, probably. “You can be sad today but tomorrow you get over it.” He carefully lowered his hand onto Kirishima’s back, trying to be soothing as he rubbed circles right between Kirishima’s shoulder blades. Kirishima liked touch. It made Kirishima start crying again. “Fuck.”

“Sorry,” Kirishima said, covering his face with his hands. “Sorry!”

“Don’t be fucking sorry,” Katsuki told him, reaching for another tissue. He could feel Kirishima’s back trembling against his palm. “You cry at everything. It’s okay. Good, even. Just, uh, let it all out.”

Kirishima hiccupped. “You suck at this.”

“Well, sorry-”

“It’s good,” Kirishima interrupted, giving him a horribly wobbly smile while still sobbing his fucking eyes out. The pillow under his head was turning dark with all the tears. “Thanks for trying, man.”

Katsuki sighed, running his other hand through Kirishima’s hair. “Look,” he said awkwardly, fixing his eyes on the blank television because if he looked down at Kirishima, he’d absolutely die. “You- you really will get through it, okay? You’re the strongest person I know. Me included, even. So it’s gonna be okay.”

Kirishima absorbed that for a second, then sat up so quickly he almost slammed his head into Katsuki’s chin. “Thank you, Katsuki,” he mumbled, throwing his arms around Katsuki’s neck and burying his face in his shoulder. “Thanks.”

Katsuki patted his back awkwardly and let him cry there, a comfortable weight against his chest. And Kirishima was heavy, no doubting that, and not letting up at all. But he didn’t seem to mind that Katsuki was absolutely shit at this, so Katsuki didn’t mind that Kirishima was being a dumbass and getting snot all over his shirt. He just hoped Kirishima was gonna fucking feel better after he was done crying himself out.

Katsuki nudged him eventually. “Hey.” Kirishima had mostly stopped crying but he had to be exhausted by now. “You should eat something. You want me to order pizza?”

Kirishima sniffled against Katsuki’s shoulder. There was definitely going to be a giant wet stain there. “Pizza is only for winners.”

Shit. “You are a fucking winner,” Katsuki said, smoothing a hand through Kirishima’s hair. Kirishima sighed, long and deep in a way that made Katsuki’s heart ache. “You tried. You gave it your fucking all, didn’t you?”

“I guess.”

“And you’ll do it again, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’re a fucking winner,” Katsuki declared. “So you want pizza?”

Kirishima pulled back, rubbing at his eyes. Katsuki’s legs ached from where Kirishima had been leaning on him. “I want to be a winner on the outside and the inside.” His frown looked stupidly unnatural on his face. “I’m only a part-time winner! You’re a full-time winner, Katsuki.”

Katsuki flicked his cheek. “I’m in therapy for that.”

Kirishima let out a throaty chuckle, a smile, a real smile, breaking across his face. He still looked like absolute shit; his eyes were so puffy he probably couldn’t even see Katsuki’s face, but he looked lighter. “Will you make me dinner, Katsuki?”

“Yeah, you needy bastard, I’ll make you dinner,” Katsuki said. “The best fucking dinner you’ve ever had.” He’ll show up every single other dinner he’s ever made, and some of them had been fucking amazing, but that was fine as long as it made Kirishima feel better.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Kirishima assured him. He wrapped his hand around Katsuki’s wrist, thumb over his pulse point. “And thanks, man. For everything. I know this isn’t your thing.”

“Yeah, well,” Katsuki said uncomfortably. “Ya know. It’s you.”

Kirishima’s smile this time wasn’t weak. It was blinding.

-----

Out of all the idiots he called friends, Momo was obviously the best study partner, because she wasn’t an idiot and she knew how to shut up.

Jirou and Sero were second-best, because they also knew how to shut up, but they usually had more questions. Today, Katsuki was with both Kirishima and Jirou - Mina was absolutely horrible at studying and refused to do it with Katsuki, which was fine, because Katsuki refused to do it with her. Usually Jirou studied with Momo only, which Katsuki didn’t really get: he didn’t find study dates anything close to romantic, but with finals, volunteer work, and Jirou’s band, he figured that study dates were the only times they really got to be together. 

Kirishima and Jirou were good study partners only, and only, if Kaminari didn’t join them. Jirou and Kirishima knew how to 1) keep their voices down and 2) only ask appropriate questions. Kaminari on his own could do that, but once the three or sometimes four, if you included Sero, of them got together, Katsuki should really learn to just give up. Except he didn’t do giving up.

“This is a study room,” he growled out, tapping his pen against the book. Kaminari had sauntered in about ten minutes ago, ruining a perfectly good study session. Jirou now had Katsuki's camera in hand, pointing it at Kaminari while Kaminari was pantomiming some sort of drama he’d had with a group project partner in class, and he was pantomiming it because Katsuki didn’t fucking abide speaking during study time.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m voguing.”

Katsuki’s gonna fucking have those stupid images on his camera now and he wasn’t allowed to fucking delete them. “You’re leaving,” Katsuki announced, shoving his foot against the back of Kaminari’s chair.

“Nooo,” Kaminari whined, latching onto the table while Katsuki tried to tip him. “It’s study break time! Ten minutes.”

Katsuki checked his watch. “Fine.” But only because then in ten minutes, he’d get the pure satisfaction of kicking Kaminari out of the room and returning back to his anatomy notes. He couldn’t fucking memorize the human cardiovascular system in this chaos.

“So!” Kaminari fluffed his hair and settled back into his seat, content with the knowledge that he had ten minutes to be a fool in. “You know that redhead in your literature class?”

“Yes, I know Kirishima,” Jirou said dryly, flipping a page in her textbook. Katsuki snorted.

Kaminari huffed. “I know you know I mean that girl who wears her hair up in the two buns,” he said, putting his hands up on his head to imitate them. He looked ridiculous. “Do you know if she’s dating anyone?”

Jirou gave him an exasperated look. “Again. Who?”

“She is,” Kirishima chimed in, looking up from his notes. Of course he somehow knew that, Kirishima was friends with everyone. Even people in different departments. “She’s also in my art class, and we’re friends! She’s taken.”

“Speaking of taken-” Jirou said suddenly.

“No,” Kirishima said quickly, ducking his head and pretending to go back to his notes. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his hair, all the way past his eyes. It didn’t make much difference; they were both the same shade of fire engine red and they both stood out against the black chairs and dismal gray walls of the study room.

Jirou pulled the hood back down, lightning quick. “Takashi was looking for you.”

Katsuki stiffened. Takashi was Kirishima’s ex-boyfriend. Katsuki barely remembered the guy, having been in the middle of his own personal crisis when they were dating, but he did remember their rather spectacular, very public breakup on the steps of the dining hall.

Kirishima sighed, accepting his fate. “I know.” He closed his notebook, rubbing his fingers along the worn edge. “He saw me in the quad yesterday. He wants to get back together.”

“Well, that’s an easy no,” Jirou snorted. 

“Well-”

Jirou slammed her book closed. “Tell me you did not get back together with him!”

“I didn’t!” Kirishima held his hands up. There was always a but with him. “I’m not gonna! But-” ah, there it was. “We broke up so badly, maybe we could still be-”

“You don’t have to be friends with every guy you had a bad break-up with,” Katsuki said flatly, pointedly not removing his eyes from his textbook. Out of the corner of his eye, Kirishima looked shocked to get his input, which was fair: Katsuki didn’t do relationship talks. Especially about Kirishima and his last boyfriend, who had gone through their death throes mostly without Katsuki’s awareness. The breakup, at least, had been a surprise. He’d never liked the guy, but he’d mostly chalked it up to the fact that Takashi got all of Kirishima’s time, and Katsuki was fucking lonely, greedy as hell, and unable to control himself. “Especially since he doesn’t deserve it. He was shit for you.”

He thought that was true, even objectively - Kirishima had sure smiled a lot less with Takashi around. Katsuki ground his teeth together. Where was the line between being proprietary and being concerned? How was he supposed to find it? How was he supposed to know if Kirishima and Takashi were meant to be and he was just being horrible? There wasn’t a way to practice this shit. And Kirishima wasn’t even proposing dating the guy again, just being his friend, and already Katsuki wanted to snap his damn pencil in half.

“Yeah,” Jirou agreed. That was a point in Katsuki’s favor, then. “He didn’t even like your friends. And also, I still remember peeling you off the floor of that disgusting bar while you cried and then puked on my shoes.”

Katsuki lifted his head. “What?”

“Good people don’t do that to people,” Jirou said, like Katsuki was agreeing, but that wasn’t what Katsuki had tuned in on. He remembered the break-up, he remembered helping load Kirishima into Jirou’s tiny car while the guy sobbed. He didn’t remember hearing anything about Kirishima getting so drunk at a bar afterwards that he’d made himself sick. He should have heard about that. 

“It wasn’t that bad,” Kirishima assured him, his hand feather-light on the corner of Katsuki’s arm. Of course Kirishima would know what was eating at him, stupid perceptive motherfucker.

Katsuki shook his arm off, feeling - frankly, left out of the loop. He wasn’t used to that. He was used to purposefully taking himself out of the loop, and was that why Kirishima had never told him very much about this? He’d probably thought Katsuki was too busy and didn’t care, but even despite his not-so-quiet implosion, Katsuki should have cared about his friends. 

“He was a dick who got pissed that you cared about your friends,” Kaminari said lowly, crossing his arms. “Man, he hated us. He hated Bakugou. You can’t date someone who hates Bakugou.”

"You hate Bakugou,” Jirou said, spoiling her own point, then, “Ow, don’t push me!”

“Bakugou is my friend so I get to hate him,” Kaminari declared, throwing his arm around Katsuki’s shoulders. “He hates me back, that’s equality!”

“Damn right,” Katsuki agreed. “Get off.”

Kaminari laughed and the conversation moved on, but Katsuki didn’t. He tried to absorb his notes and his text books and how many bones were in the human body (206) but he kept getting caught off-guard, reading the same fact about how there were three tiny bones in each ear. He growled; concentration completely shot. Fucking Kirishima. Infecting him with his… goodwill, or whatever.

He hadn’t realized that he was the deciding factor in Kirishima’s breakup.

He closed his book, everyone staring at him like he had two heads, because he had this study room for another two hours, according to the sign on the door. “I’m gonna get a snack.” He pointed at Jirou. “I’ll kill you if you leave this room.”

“Your threats leave something to be desired lately,” Jirou said promptly. “But sure.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “What do you fucking want from me, you want me to say I’ll use your body as a cadaver for my fucking anatomy class?”

“Yes, that’s poetic!” Jirou called after him, rushing to get it all out before Katsuki closed the soundproof study roomy door. She just barely made it.

He was only four steps down the hallway before Kirishima said, “Wait! I need snacks too!”

Katsuki snorted. “You just ate a whole bento.”

“So? We have the study room for another two hours and finals are coming up.” Kirishima wrinkled his nose. “And I can’t shove another textbooks worth of rock names into my brain without, like, some Cheetos.” 

“Those are disgusting,” Katsuki said. “And not in your diet plan.”

“I get cheat days,” Kirishima whined, throwing his arm over Katsuki’s shoulder. 

He was usually really good about it. Partly because Katsuki cooked for him half the week, but Kirishima was capable enough in the kitchen. Katsuki just - wanted to help him.

So why didn’t he when Kirishima needed him?

“Hey. Kirishima.”

Kirishima paused his whining, which he’d been doing while Katsuki thought. “Yeah?”

“Sorry I didn’t care.”

Kirishima had no idea what he was talking about, that was clear from the way his brow furrowed. “Huh?”

“With you and fucking Takashi,” Katsuki clarified. The words tasted like bile coming out. “I should have. I was going through shit and I should have - I should have let you talk to me.”

Kirishima raised an eyebrow at him. “You hate this sort of stuff.” He sounded amused. Dick. Katsuki was trying to share his real feelings and communicate here.

“But you don’t,” Katsuki said through gritted teeth, like maybe he could cage the emotion and be rational about this if he locked the anger away. “You like to talk and you didn’t even try-”

Kirishima grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize that it upset you-”

“It didn’t upset me until now.”

“Look, man, you had your shit going on,” Kirishima said. “And it was like, way bigger than my relationship drama, right? I didn’t think you needed to be hearing about that at the moment. The best I could do was be there for you.”

Katsuki curled his hands into horrible fists, nails digging into the palm of his hand. He wouldn’t have listened, and maybe he would have tried and maybe he wouldn’t have tried, but he’d have felt like shit for not caring or not being able to care either way. It was probably a smart decision that Kirishima hadn’t told him, but it still stung. “Why did you break up?”

Kirishima tilted his head. “Lots of reasons,” he said. “I mean, we were hardly perfect. But - hm. I guess he wanted more of me than I could give?” Kirishima rubbed at the back of his head. “I wasn’t gonna give up time with you and everyone just to make him happy, and he wanted me to.”

Katsuki chewed on the corner of his lip. “So he broke up with you because you were taking care of me?” Because there was no doubt that Kirishima had been. He’d been making sure Katsuki woke up and ate properly, on his worst weeks, and definitely that sort of thing wouldn’t endear him to his best friend’s boyfriend. “Is that why he hates me?”

“It’s not personal,” Kirishima assured him. “He hated Jirou too. But yeah, I don’t think he liked that I was always dropping him to help you. You needed me! But he didn’t get it, man. It wasn’t about you, it was me. ‘Cause I want to be someone my friends can rely on. All of them. And that’s really what he didn’t like.”

“So I ruined your relationship?”

Kirishima stared at him, then took three steps closer. For a second, Katsuki thought he was doing in for a hug, and then Kirishima bodily grabbed him and threw him over his shoulder. Katsuki shouted. 

Kirishima shushed him, like Katsuki wasn’t hanging over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “This is a library!”

Katsuki beat his fist against Kirishima’s back. “Let me down, idiot!” People were staring at them, because you didn’t see students carrying their friends over their shoulder down the library stairs commonly. Katsuki felt his face begin to burn.

“Nope, because you’ll definitely run away from heart to heart time.”

“It’s always heart to heart time with you, asshole!” Katsuki sighed. “Just accept my fucking apology and let me down.”

Kirishima actually had the gall to laugh, his shoulders under Katsuki’s stomach shaking. “I can’t accept your apology because you clearly weren’t listening!” He snorted, arms shifting under Katsuki, who clung to the back of his shirt as Kirishima opened the front doors of the library. “You didn’t ruin anything! I ruined it by refusing to give up my friends. You and Jirou and Sero and everyone. Don’t get a big head. He ruined it by wanting me to be someone else! You might have been a factor, but I’m capable of making my own mistakes, you don’t have a monopoly on them.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” Kirishima said mildly. “‘Cause I don’t think you do.”

Katsuki let his arms hang down, blood rushing to his head. At least no one could tell he was blushing like that. “You’re using my therapy against me.”

“You’re using your therapy against you,” Kirishima corrected, which didn’t even make sense. He felt himself tip alarmingly and then his feet touched the ground again, his hands on Kirishima’s shoulders to steady himself. They were outside on the library steps. Fuck, he was definitely bright red. “Feeling better?”

“Nauseous,” Katsuki snapped, just to be a dick. “Can I at least apologize for not being there for you?”

“Yeah,” Kirishima said, “But only if you recognize you weren’t in a place to handle that, and that’s okay. That’s why people have lots of friends, so if one can’t help you carry the load, you have another!”

Katsuki snarled. He hated that that made some sort of stupid sense. “Fine.”

“Great! Let’s get lunch.” Kirishima shrugged. “Snack. Whatever.”

“I didn’t even thank you, though.”

“I haven’t bought you anything yet.”

“Not that.” Katsuki poked Kirishima in the chest. “For - helping me. I don’t even know if I’d be okay without you and I never once fucking thanked you.” His therapist had very annoyingly pushing him to do just that. “So. Thank you.”

Kirishima gave him a soft smile. “Yeah, man,” he said. “Anytime. Hopefully you never have to return the favor, but I know you’d do the same for me.”

“Of course I would,” Katsuki said thoughtlessly, which - he paused. “Yeah. Of course I would.”

He ignores Kirishima’s protest of dude, I know, because that wasn’t the point. The point was he’d never said that to anyone, the point was he’d never had anyone to say it to. And he’d said it so easily, without even thinking about it. And he’d fucking meant it. Take that, he mentally told his therapist. Fuck, maybe he was doing a little better.

-----

On his year anniversary of taking stupid photos, he figured he wanted to look at them.

“You sure?” Kirishima panted. They were sitting in his apartment -well, Katsuki was sitting, Kirishima doing handstands against the wall, feet pointed straight towards the ceiling. His hair was in his mouth as he tried to grin. “What if they suck?”

“They suck,” Katsuki said confidently, sending him a quick grin. “But I took ‘em and I want to see ‘em.”

He’d been definitely taking more than five photos a week for a while, but he also wasn’t going week by week anymore. He tended to grab the camera when he felt like it instead of taking it with him for homework, because it was a true hobby he let himself indulge in, one he probably sucked at, but he didn’t hate the feeling of capturing a memory.

So Kirishima unfolded himself down from the wall - Katsuki pointedly not looking at where his shirt fell down across his chest and exposed his abs - and fetched the photos. He brought out twelve white envelopes, with the bright orange FastPhoto logo stamped on them. Someone had labelled each pack with the month it was taken. 

Twelve months of taking five photos a week was not a small number of photos. It was almost three hundred photos, most of which were probably kind of blurry, and only ten of which Katsuki had even seen. Katsuki slowly spread them out across the floor, in rows. He didn’t want to lose track of when he’d taken them. Kirishima had written dates that he remembered on the backs of some, some Katsuki remembered too. Some he didn’t. 

There, back last July, there was the picture of Mina in the park. In October, Katsuki had gone hiking and there were twenty pictures of the view of the city from the mountain. There was a whole series in January that Katsuki barely remembered - he also featured in a few, at some weird party he looked displeased to be at, so clearly someone else had taken those. There was a set from one of Mina’s dance performances. Most recently, there was a set from his birthday, featuring him angrily wearing a party hat. Mina was coercing him to blow out the candles on a truly ugly bright orange cake.

It had been delicious, though, Katsuki remembered that. Lemon and orange. Kaminari had made it. Apparently, he’d also decorated it, which was why it looked so bad.

They spread over the entire living room, up to the edges of the wall and the corners of the couch. Where Kirishima was sitting, cross-legged, there was a tiny circle where Katsuki had worked around him.

It was painfully clear, especially with Kirishima in the damn room, that there were more pictures of Kirishima than Katsuki had expected. In fact, he dominated them all. There were photos of his matches, often blurry, sometimes sweaty and holding his fist up in the air. He was over here in this corner, with all the pictures from July, where he appeared at the beach and flipping Sero off while Sero stole his ice cream. Here he was with Momo having an eating contest. He was here in these hiking photos and he was here snoring away in February and he was here in June, forcing Katsuki to take a selfie with him, grin wide. He was there in this stupid birthday party they’d made Katsuki had, mostly behind the camera, but there was one photo of everyone where he’d set the timer up and was a tiny bit blurred from running into the picture and crashing into Jirou.

Katsuki picked up one from December. Kirishima beamed up at him, smile glossy.

“Shit,” Katsuki said, putting the photo back down in its spot. “I think I’m in love with you.”

He didn’t look at Kirishima when he said it - or he did, he looked down at the picture of Kirishima sitting on the steps, one hand thrown up in a peace sign, the blue summer sky behind him. He wasn’t even sure he’d meant to say it, but it had been boiling up and over for a year now and Katsuki just - couldn’t look at all these fucking photos and fucking pretend anymore. Not when his life was right there.

“Uh,” Kirishima said, and Katsuki felt his ears heat up. That didn’t sound good. “Dude, are you just figuring this out?”

“What?” Katsuki jerked his head up. Kirishima was sitting right where he left him, surrounded by dozens of photos of mostly him, legs crossed like a child at story time.

Kirishima held up a photo from July - him at the beach, sunburned, hair down, smile wide. “After the first month, man, I thought it was kind of obvious.”

Katsuki was going to burn alive and he was taking these pictures with him. 

“Fuck,” he said, crossing his arms. All the photos of Kirishima smiling were just mocking him now for being a stupid fucking idiot. “Well, fuck you for not letting me know!”

Kirishima blinked, still holding the photo up. His thumb was covering the ice cream that the photo-him was holding as well as the stack of friendship bracelets he’d had that summer, all of which had all worn off by now except one, leaving him with an odd tan-line that curved towards his elbow. “About… your own feelings?”

“Yeah!” Katsuki waved his arm, encompassing the entire living room and the roughly three hundred and twenty photos on the ground. A year of his life right there and he hadn’t even fucking known he was in love. “How was I supposed to know? It’s not like I was looking at these fucking pictures! I didn’t get some cheat sheet, like you!”

Kirishima giggled. Honest to god giggled, like this wasn’t the most embarrassing thing of Katsuki’s life, and in the past two years, he’s been made to do a lot of deeply embarrassing things and some of them had even been photographed. None of those stung so much as Kirishima giggling, though, like Katsuki’s acting silly instead kind of broken-hearted. “Sorry,” Kirishima apologized. “Sorry! I thought you knew. Everyone knows.”

Katsuki swallowed. “Oh.” That… did explain a lot of things his mother said. And Jirou. Fuck. Everyone knew. Everyone knew that Katsuki was a fucking idiot who had a crush on the most unattainable, perfect guy in the world who was his best friend who was not ever going to fall for someone like Katsuki. They probably pitied him. “Great. I’m gonna die alone and everyone fucking knows-”

“Hey!” Kirishima yelped, scattering a bunch of photos as he sat up. “I didn’t say that! I’ve been in love with you since like, first year!”

Katsuki opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it. “What?” He sounded like he was being strangled. “That was like - a year ago.” He was good with math and dates. It was at least a year and a few months ago.

Kirishima puffed up his cheeks, his ears turning as red as his hair. “Yeah.”

“And you didn’t do anything about it?”

“Well, you weren’t doing anything about it!” Kirishima threw his hands up. “I thought that was my answer, you know?”

“I’m not some coward-”

“Obviously I would not say you were a coward, bro,” Kirishima said, holding up a placating hand. “I just mean that you’d probably have made the first move if you wanted to!” Katsuki figured that was a far assumption, considered the first thing he did after figuring out was confess. “And since you didn’t, I figured you didn’t want to.”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t I want to?”

“Uh, ‘cause you got shit to do, first of all,” Kirishima said, starting to count on his fingers. It sounded like a list he’d said to a lot of people. “Second of all, you hate romance. And third of all, it’s me!”

“It’s you,” Katsuki repeated. What the fuck did that mean? “What?”

“Well, you know,” Kirishima shrugged. “You can’t help who you have a crush on but you can help who you ask out. And I’m no one’s idea of a perfect boyfriend, I’m kind of needy-”

“What,” Katsuki said flatly. Kirishima looked surprised. “The fuck. Who the fuck ever told you you wouldn’t be? Did Takashi tell you that? Who the fuck wouldn’t want to be with you? I’ve been spending fucking months thinking about kissing you and dating you and living here with you and seeing your shitty face every morning when I wake up, so who the fuck made you think you were anything less?”

Kirishima grinned. How could he be grinning at a time like this, when Katsuki wanted to murder someone. Katsuki watched his mouth form words that didn’t make sense. Had Kirishima really just told him “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters! Why wouldn’t it matter?”

“Because you’re telling me different,” Kirishima said simply. “Come over here?”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Katsuki muttered, before he did what he was told and went crawling across photographs until he was in the little circle that Kirishima had cleared around him, their knees knocking together. “For the record, I hate you.”

“For the record, I know you’re lying.” Kirishima grinned, winding his hands around Katsuki’s waist and pulling him even closer, so that Katsuki was between his legs. Katsuki barely had a second to think before Kirishima’s lips were sliding against his, warm, hot and Katsuki gasped. 

Fuck, he’d wanted this so badly. No wonder he’d been in denial, if he’d even thought about a fucking kiss being this good, he’d have exploded long ago. Those dreams didn’t even come close to the electricity and warmth here, racing down Katsuki’s spine. Kirishima’s hands were burning on his waist, his chapped lips were insistent and warm and Katsuki could die here, happy.

He broke away, gasping for breath. “Shit,” he said, resting his head against Kirishima’s shoulder. He was allowed to do that now, right? “Fuck, you make me so fucking happy, you know?”

Kirishima pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Dude.” Katsuki snorted and Kirishima laughed. With his ear pressed to Kirishima’s chest like this, Katsuki could feel the vibrations through his whole body. He didn’t hate it. “Babe? Is babe okay?”

“It’s fine,” Katsuki said, ignoring the shiver racing up and down his spine - or maybe that was the backs of Kirishima’s knuckles, slowly tracing down every knob of his vertebrae. He curled his fingers in Kirishima’s shirt. He really though he’d never get here.

“You love it,” Kirishima said confidently, leaning back against the couch. Katsuki went with him. “You said you loved me.”

“You said you loved me back,” Katsuki mumbled, half-embarrassed. “Taking that back?”

“Never! You’re going to have to date me forever!”

Katsuki laughed, leaning back to look Kirishima in the eyes. They were warm and soft, red velvet and sweet. How had he not noticed that Kirishima was always looking at him with those eyes? So in love? “Fuckin’ clingy as shit.” He shook his head. “You’re lucky I like it.”

“Yeah, I’m lucky!” He pressed another kiss to Katsuki’s mouth, so easy, as natural as breathing. “Real lucky. You make me so happy too, you know.”

-----

The gift was wrapped in bright orange polka-dotted wrapping paper, with a giant purple bow. Mina had definitely wrapped it. 

“Go on, babe,” Eijirou urged him.

“Yeah, babe!” Mina threw her arm around Katsuki’s shoulder and made kissy faces at him. Katsuki shoved her off and she managed to leave a perfect red kiss mark against his palm as she slid into the seat next to him, poking at the rest of her dessert.

He squinted up at Eijirou. “What the fuck is this.”

“It’s a present, Katsuki,” Eijirou said patiently, poking his head out from beside the camera so Katsuki could see the fond look on his face. “Surely you’ve heard of them before.”

“It’s not my birthday,” Katsuki said suspiciously. He hadn’t expected this. He’d personally just expected to show up to dinner like normal, Eijirou’s hand wrapped around his. Eijirou always said it was to protect him from the cold, because my Katsuki has such a weak constitution and then Katsuki would end up elbowing him because who’s weak, fucker? But Eijirou would just fucking laugh and wrap his arms around Katsuki in a bear hug, which … fine, Katsuki did get cold easily, so it was fine.

“Nope,” Eijirou said. “It’s Christmas.” 

“It’s November 3rd.”

“To be fair, we were going to get this for your birthday,” Sero added, “But then Mina overspent on her credit card by a lot and Jirou had hospital bills. So it’s very, very belated.”

“The hospital wasn’t my fault,” Jirou complained, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear. She’d been in a minor car accident last February after someone rear-ended her car and sent her into a telephone pole, but all traces of that were gone from her smile now. “But this was my idea!”

Katsuki ignored all the boos and whispers directed at Jirou for taking all the credit. “I’ll remember that if I hate it,” Katsuki said, pulling the giant ribbon off. He passed it to Mina, who wrapped it around her neck like a scarf. Under the ugly wrapping paper was a nondescript box with a red lid. 

Katsuki pulled it off.

There, under the box, nestled in bright blue tissue paper, was a camera. A nice camera. One that Katsuki had been looking for months, sometimes just clicking over the tab on his laptop’s browser just to look at it and how beautiful it was.

“He’s speechless,” Jirou announced, grinning. “We did a great job.”

“That’s because this shit is expensive,” Katsuki said, mouth dry. “Way too expensive.” He should know, the little red price tag on the website mocked him every single time he checked, waiting for some sort of discount. He’d figured maybe for his birthday next year, his dad knew he wanted it because they talked cameras and photography a lot, but it was still a pipe dream, something he’d considering buying for himself at graduation, if he got a job in the lab he wanted.

Kaminari shrugged, looking all too pleased with himself. “Consider it payment for three years of tutoring my dumb ass.”

“And when you cooked for Jirou and I, when she was in the hospital,” Momo chimed in. She folded her long fingers against Katsuki’s wrist. “That was very kind of you, Bakugou.”

While theoretically Katsuki knew that Momo was rich as shit and a camera like this probably didn’t cost any more than her expensive black boots, it still was too much, especially if all the others to pitch in. They were all just stupid college students. Sero worked two fucking jobs!

The compliments, too, so unexpected. Katsuki suppressed the urge to cry. He was not kind and yet all these stupid idiots found reason to care about him. 

“Babe?” Eijirou asked. “You good?”

“I, yeah,” Katsuki said, blinking away the tears. He lifted the camera out of the box, carefully. It was sleek and clean, the black paint so glossy that Katsuki could see his reflection. The body hadn’t been worn yet by nicks and scratches. This time, Katsuki’s fingers would be the ones to wear away at the camera grip, not his father’s.

“Happy belated birthday, man,” Sero added, throwing his arm around Katsuki’s shoulder. He had to lean around Mina awkwardly to do it but he was clearly committed. “We love you!”

“Yeah,” Katsuki said again. He cleared his throat. “Me - you guys too.”

“Aw, babe,” Eijirou cooed. “Okay, everyone squeeze together, I want a picture.” He waved Katsuki’s camera - his old camera! - about, grinning.

Katsuki reached out with his spare hand, the one Jirou wasn’t holding, and beckoned impatiently. “Babe, get in the picture too.” He waved over one of the waitresses.

Eijirou gasped, turning bright red. Katsuki frowned - what was he-

“Yeah, babe,” Sero said over Kaminari’s hooting. Katsuki gaped, glaring at Eijirou like this was all his fault. Eijirou shrugged, still blushing. Shit. They were always making fun of Eijirou for using terms of endearment and the first fucking time Katsuki had done it back - why did he even hang around with these idiots?

He fingered the gorgeous camera in his lap. Well, they were pretty good. “Ei, come on,” Katsuki said impatiently. “All of us.”

They all squeezed together around the table, the waitress raising the camera up to eye-level.

He was allowed to look at the pictures he took now, under solemn oath to not get too obsessed. He looked at them but didn’t post them to Instagram or hang them up. He kept the sticky note over the viewing screen but he looked at the print outs that Eijirou brought home. He was doing good, and when he wasn’t, his stupid friends were all there to help him.

This one, though - his friends hanging around him, Sero giving him bunny ears again, the zipper of Momo’s jacket pressed against his ribs painfully, and Eijirou, hand reaching back to hold Katsuki’s - this picture he would put up on the wall.