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Shinsou stands like a statue in front of the classroom door, staring, his forehead burning like he’s mad about how the first day came so quickly. He’s angry at himself above all. Intimidated in all the ways he shouldn’t be. He’s a hero as much as they are, he knows every face behind this door.
(Maybe that’s the reason he’s hesitating.)
He sighs just as footsteps shuffle around the corner, and come to a stop directly behind him. He knows it’s Aizawa but there’s nothing Shinsou wants to say. He waits for Aizawa to break the silence instead, to reassure him or scold him or call him a fool for being anxious at all.
Instead, a hand comes to rest on his shoulder. It pushes lightly.
“You’re late,” his sensei tells him. He keeps it in that always-lazy tone, like there’s nothing inherently special about today, like it was a given: Shinsou would end up a hero, and that’s all there is to say.
Aizawa clears his throat. Then it’s a joke they’re both in on when he adds, “Don’t make it a habit,” and drops his hand altogether. Shinsou apologizes under the twitch of a smile. He feels calmer, he's on top of it all. It’s easier to open the door now, to face his new classmates, rivals, and friends. Most of them fall somewhere just in-between.
And one doesn’t fall anywhere.
The desk next to Kaminari is the only open one, because of course it is. Shinsou’s life has been one sick lesson in irony from the day he got his quirk. He walks down the first column of seats as Aizawa announces that he’ll be joining their class instead of 1-B, a decision that apparently none of them knew until now. He catches a single scowl and more than a few welcome faces as he sits down. Kaminari is beaming wider than anyone else. Shinsou angles himself the other direction so he doesn’t get sunburnt by him.
Shinsou’s neck grows uncomfortably warm.
Kaminari was friendly during their team training battles, but anyone would say the same. Shinsou isn’t special. From a foot away he can still feel Kaminari’s smile, his daisy eyes, asking for something to play with. He’s not hard to figure out, for someone as good at reading people as Shinsou.
Kaminari is that fabled personality, he’s the type everyone crowds around and wants to laugh with and tease. Pretty boy who’s the life of the room.
It’s only when Aizawa begins the lesson that Kaminari says anything at all. “Welcome to the party.” Shinsou can barely hear it, but that’s the whole point. He can’t resist playing into a little whisper.
Shinsou tips his head toward Kaminari but keeps his eyes facing forward. He’ll lose if he sees that smile.
“Sorry it took me so long.”
“Me too.”
The reply is a surprise. Shinsou peeks at him, finally, only to see Kaminari leaning back in his seat, deaf to the lesson and blind to everyone else in the room. He’s biting at his pencil in a way Shinsou can’t stand, like it’s an accessory. Kaminari sinks his canines right into the wood when he catches his eye. Shinsou bites his own tongue the same way, presses down until it stings and he can convince himself he deserves it.
It isn’t going to be like this. Shinsou worked too hard, trained too long for this, and he hasn’t even planted his feet on the ground.
He flips his notebook open and breathes out, mouths the titles to himself as he writes them in the corner. Homeroom. Class 1-A. Hero Course. Shinsou Hitoshi. He earned them in a way no one else had to. This little blond with lightning in his hair, an elemental quirk that’ll always put him in the spotlight, what could Kaminari possibly want from him?
Why is he still smiling?
Shinsou frowns and clears his head, zeroes in on the moment, just like sensei taught him to do. No distractions. He can’t slip up now while there’s still a rush in his chest every time he thinks, I’m going to be a hero.
He forces himself to focus only on Aizawa and the sound of chalk on blackboard. His sensei and him share a single look, a raised eyebrow, and then Shinsou spends the rest of class filling page after page with notes. All nice and neat.
He draws stars in the empty margins.
The week passes and Shinsou falls into new routines, new studies and subjects and dreams. On Friday, he lingers in the classroom after homeroom ends. When he pauses at the front of the room, backpack slung over his shoulder, Aizawa reminds him of their evening training. He waits until Shinsou is looking at him sitting at his desk to add, “It didn’t take you long to catch up, Shinsou.”
Shinsou picks out the compliment, squeezes the strap of his bag. “I’m still behind in-”
“You aren’t,” Aizawa interrupts. “Not at all. I’d even say that these extra sessions are unnecessary.”
Shinsou catches his breath. He doesn’t know what to say, looks downward instead and loses himself in the detail of the wooden desk, like the answer is written in the grain. Aizawa is the reason he’s here to begin with. It’s hard to admit that he’s terrified of losing this structure now, and it’s even harder when Aizawa is the one pushing for it. When he looks back up, he hopes his expression gives nothing away.
Aizawa studies him. It’s the same way he would at the opposite end of the gym, holding a strip of his scarf and waiting for Shinsou’s first move. His eyes flash as he leans back in his chair and changes the subject. “You’ll miss lunch if you don’t hurry.” A pause, a smile in his eyes. “I think your friend is getting restless.”
It’s a moment before Shinsou catches on and turns to the door, where Kaminari is trying very hard to act natural. He stares at his phone screen and leans against the frame. He pretends he wasn’t listening. Shinsou says his goodbye to Aizawa and makes his way over, where Kaminari looks up, his smile guilt-ridden and blinding.
“Shinsou, hey.” He greets. He says it just like that - too warm, too natural. Shinsou doesn’t know why he’s acting so friendly, when for the last week he’d been giving Kaminari a stubborn, cold shoulder. Maybe he really is oblivious.
They turn to start walking down the hallway together, bumping shoulders more than once like they’re closer than they are.
Shinsou pushes training to the back of his mind for now. He can’t focus on it with Kaminari next to him, buzzing with a hum of electricity that feels a little like goosebumps. Shinsou is staring at him exactly like he’s been trying not to do, thinking about how Kaminari would have to stand on his tiptoes to reach him, how he pulls his books tight to his chest, bites at his own cheek while they walk. He’s the kind of cute that would turn anyone shy.
Whatever he’s thinking about, it’s been on his mind a while.
Kaminari bumps his shoulder again and spills his secret. “So, stop me if I sound crazy, but is there a reason you’ve been ignoring me?”
There is. There’s a reason he’s brushed off every look, every under-the-breath comment meant for them to share together in the back of the classroom. Rejected every smile and hello and goodbye. Shinsou is guilty as charged.
“Why would you think that?” He feigns surprise, because he has no defense that isn’t, pretty, you’re too pretty, it’s too much.
They’ve both stopped now, off to one side of the hallway while other students from other studies trickle past them. Kaminari leans on a locker and looks up from his tiptoe-height. He drinks Shinsou in like a painting, purses his lips trying to figure him out, why the object of his attention won’t give him the time of day. It must’ve never happened before. Shinsou would believe it.
Except now it looks like Kaminari has an answer. Slowly, so slowly, he melts into a cheeky little grin, like he can see right through him.
“You’re fucking with me.”
Shinsou plays it off with a smile. The back of his neck grows hotter by the lie.
Kaminari laughs like a song. “God, I thought I had you all figured out,” he peers from underneath his golden eyelashes. “Tall, dark, and handsome – but I guess you would like mind games.”
The grip on his book tightens tenfold, but then softens just as quickly. Shinsou knows he should be furious, that this is the same stereotype he’d been fighting his whole life, but Kaminari chewed it up and spit it right back out like it was never even on his radar. Pretty boy, clever boy. He isn’t scared of Shinsou’s mind games, he’s just wondering if they’re as fun as he wants them to be.
“Handsome?” Shinsou repeats.
“And tall, and dark,” Kaminari sways up and down on his feet. “It’s an expression.”
Before Shinsou can figure out what it means, if anything at all, Kaminari stands up straight and starts digging in his front and back pockets. After a second he comes up with a note, one folded in four that he offers to Shinsou. All of a sudden he looks like a criminal showing his payday.
Kaminari plays it off like it’s nothing, shaking his hand as he insists, “Here.”
“What is it?”
He snorts at the way Shinsou crinkles his eyebrows and asks it, all accusation. Shinsou is feeling off balance because he can’t get a read on any of this. There’s a looming feeling of vertigo from the way Kaminari called him handsome before, like he should know it about himself already and it’s ridiculous that he doesn’t.
“I dunno, it’s a secret,” Kaminari toys with him as Shinsou plucks the paper from his hand. He takes his time unfolding it, pulling the sides, rubbing the creases down with his thumb. He throws one last glance before he looks; Kaminari tilts his head back and dares him to.
He has perfect handwriting. It’s something Shinsou didn’t predict or even care to, but he’ll never forget it now, he devours every word of that note. Afterward, Shinsou bites the inside of his cheek and pictures Kaminari at his desk, impatient enough to write this as an afterthought, but not so impatient that he’d actually throw it. A terrible question. A bold question.
When it’s Shinsou’s turn to answer, not a single word comes to mind. So he reads it again. Touches the little loops that Kaminari adds to his kanji.
Kaminari must know already, he’s smart enough to know. The one who’d been ignoring him all week is suddenly stuck to the floor and speechless. Red ears, red heart.
“Is that a yes?” Kaminari blurts, the ends of his hair rising with static. In less than a second the current expands far enough to hum against Shinsou’s own skin, waves and ripples that have no right to feel so inviting. The note crinkles as he closes his fist around it.
Shinsou says yes, I’ll see you tonight.
So Shinsou saw him that night.
Then saw him the next one, and the next one, until suddenly it was hard to remember why he didn’t want to.
Kaminari is waiting for him on the rooftop of the dorm, facing the other way and sitting cross-legged on a raised slab of concrete. Shinsou’s chest tightens as the door closes behind him, and he shoots for the only empty seat under the night sky.
Kaminari tilts his head back and smiles. It’s infectious. He’s wearing that little black choker, high on his neck, one he never used to put on with his everyday clothes, so someone must’ve told him how pretty he looks in it – again and again and again.
“You’re gonna spoil me if you keep showing up,” he comments when Shinsou finally sits down. Kaminari acts like this isn’t their nightline.
Shinsou leans back on his hands. “Is that what I’m doing, spoiling you?” He wonders. “Aizawa-sensei just lets me out early from training if I’ve earned it.”
Earning it came through grit teeth and bruises and bloody lips, but it was getting easier to do. It’s almost an everyday occurrence, now; he’s doing his sensei proud.
Kaminari swings his legs. “Teacher’s pet.”
“Tch.”
Shinsou's ears go hot and he doesn’t deny it. Instead he turns and places his hand on top of Kaminari’s, runs it all the way to his jutted collarbone where he stops to build anticipation, until those big gold eyes look like fireflies. Shinsou hooks a digit underneath his black choker – and tugs.
Kaminari bites his lip and mumbles almost as an afterthought, “I like that,” but he doesn’t need to say it in the first place. Shinsou can see it on his face, split that smile wide open and read his mind through the crack.
“What else do you like?” Shinsou wonders. The tone of his voice hits some forbidden sweet spot it could never quite reach before, as he unhooks Kaminari’s choker and holds his chin tightly instead.
Kaminari visibly shifts.
For once he doesn’t seem have a quip back. Shinsou watches his cheeks darken, shade by shade, second by second. He swallows before he finally says, “Make me tell you,” and he meets Shinsou’s eyes with a spark of excitement once it’s finally out in the open. “I wanna know what it feels like. Use it on me.”
Shinsou’s face drains of color.
“I’m not-“ He doesn’t know how to say it, how to tell the story of his entire life starting from the day his quirk manifested to explain all the reasons why he won’t. “I don’t use my quirk like that.”
Kaminari scrunches his nose playfully at first, before he sees the way Shinsou’s expression stays placid, determined, and his starts to match it. “You’re serious,” Kaminari finally replies.
His hand drops from Kaminari’s chin as he pulls it back to his own chest. “I am.” On the surface he wonders if he’d soured the mood; while deep down that pessimistic part of him wonders if this was the reason Kaminari got close to him at all, to get a taste of his quirk that’s so uniquely wrong, taboo. Built for a villain and borrowed by a hero.
He can’t help but wince, then, when Kaminari starts giggling.
“Wait,” Kaminari manages to call out just as Shinsou starts to flinch away; he grabs his forearm and offers a smile that promises he’s only here for the right reasons. “It’s just funny, y’know. I’d already do whatever you wanted.”
Shinsou looks down and closes his eyes longer than a blink. He doesn’t like that feeling, or how his quirk seems to be the center of every connection he makes, even if Kaminari doesn’t realize he’s done it. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“But I do know. That’s the whole point.”
Shinsou doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing at all until Kaminari gets sick of the silence. He pulls Shinsou’s hand close, pressing his lips against his long, cold fingers, one at a time before nuzzling into his palm with easy apologies and sickly sweet static.
He’s thinking. Shinsou can always tell, he gets that mischievous and faraway look in his eye, no matter what he’s figuring out or how important it is in the grand scheme of things. Those little pursed lips would be nice enough to kiss if they weren’t so unpredictable.
"I wanna try something."
Shinsou warns him, "You won't change my mind," but Kaminari just smiles back, easy. Says, "Wouldn't dream of it."
It's irresistible the way he talks, every breathy little laugh. Shinsou laces their fingers together. He watches Kaminari look back at him, how his eyebrows starting to furrow in cute concentration, and Shinsou waits patiently for this pretty thing to tell him what he wants.
"D'you ever wonder what it feels like?" Kaminari finally asks. The question is innocent enough, he couldn't possibly know better to see how much it stings. Shinsou presses his lips together and slowly shakes his head; he'd rather not think about what it's like on the receiving end of his quirk, to be a puppet with your own body working against you.
Kaminari doesn't see the hesitation in his reply. Or maybe he does, and it's why he doesn't stop. "Tell me how you do it, again."
It, to control someone, to take away all their autonomy.
"They have to answer me, first."
Kaminari leans closer, pushes through that hum of living, breathing electric between them. "So answer me, Shinsou," and Kaminari finds the perfect way to make him do it. His voice lowers and becomes so deliberate and clear as he asks, "What do you want to do? Ruin me?"
Shinsou blinks with instant recognition. It's a quote from Kaminari's favorite book, the one sitting on Shinsou's desk, borrowed and dog-eared with a spine that's been opened a million and one times.
He sees exactly what Kaminari wants to do. Hold a mirror to his quirk and see how it feels to try it on.
Terrible, pretty boy.
After letting out a breath, Shinsou steals the reply right from Hemingway. "Yes. I want to ruin you."
Kaminari smiles and something shifts with it. "Kiss me, pretty please," his voice is dreamy, like a lazy request under the moonlight. Like he knows Shinsou can’t say no.
Shinsou doesn't even try. He tugs him forward by the choker and just barely brushes their lips together, savoring that friction shock he's so familiar with. He waits until his mouth is tingling before diving in for more. It’s mindless. Kaminari sounds lovesick all the way through, these little moans and gasps rolling out of him as they kiss for too long and yet still too little before Kaminari pulls away.
He catches his breath and unlaces his hand from Shinsou's wild, purple hair. They hold each others' gaze and unwind their beating hearts.
Kaminari licks his lips. "Let me into that head of yours, tell me what you’re thinkin'."
Shinsou's mind buzzes in return, yearning to reply like he really is under that spell his own quirk casts; he answered Kaminari and now he’s lost in him. It’s time to obey. To do whatever is asked of him.
He confesses to thinking, "You'd look good on my lap.”
Kaminari's cheeks turn red and not a second later he's straddling Shinsou's thighs, lowering himself down like he was getting sick of that rooftop seat, anyway. He drinks Shinsou's reaction to make sure that yes, he does look good. Very good.
"Call me pretty."
Shinsou doesn’t hesitate to do it. This game is torture, it's everything he's tried to reject and he can’t pull it close enough. "Pretty boy."
Kaminari wiggles on his lap when he hears it, devious, wearing a smile that Shinsou can hardly stand. Shinsou leans forward to repeat it by his ear just because he can. Pretty boy. He’s grabbing at Kaminari’s thighs while he says it, his skin so soft, humming with sparks. He’s pale enough to catch the moonlight and then wear it better. Prettiest.
"Mmm," Kaminari breathes it down. "Keep going, I like the sound of that."
So Shinsou keeps going; his hands travel back down Kaminari’s calves to grip his ankles, pull them up so his legs can crisscross nice and tight around Shinsou’s waist. Anything to get him closer. Their gazes meet this time and Shinsou doesn’t let him go.
“Pretty,” it rolls out like a dream. "I'd lose my mind for you."
"Yeah?"
Kaminari rolls their hips closer, and the way he does it while he cocks his head to one side, pretends to be innocent too, it sends Shinsou to another world. He’s already squeezing and grabbing at every inch of him as Kaminari closes his eyes and orders, "Touch me more," and so Shinsou doesn’t stop.
The moment stretches to the stars while he traces the curves of Kaminari's skin, from his hip to his collarbones, making every brush of his finger as deliberate as a kiss. It's impossible to ignore the way he moves on top of Shinsou's lap - back and forth, just barely noticeable.
“Shinsou,” Kaminari moans. God, his voice tastes like dessert. “If you could really make me do anything, what would it be?”
Shinsou twists his fingers into Kaminari’s hair like even the mere question of it is enticing. Then he tilts his head back to the sky and really thinks it through, because he’s never done something like that before, it’s his rule. His only rule. Kaminari seems intent on breaking it.
Now Shinsou pulls him closer as Kaminari sparks from his palms, hums electric. It's hard not to drink him in like this. Stare at his pretty choker. He loses himself bit by bit to a fantasy, until finally he’s bold enough to make it real.
“I’d get you a collar and make you wear it every day.”
He kisses Kaminari’s throat to make a point of it, and is almost startled when a laugh rolls back against his lips.
“I told you, Shinsou,” Kaminari reminds him, “I’ll do whatever you want already.”