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Katsuki plays with his hair a lot.
Eijirou notices it a few months after they first start dating. The urge to keep up some kind of appearance, the hesitation of what if falls away.
They do early morning dinner dates after night shifts, wandering through the convenience store halfway between their homes, half kitted out in hero gear. Katsuki has his eye mask around his neck, gauntlets in his gym bag, as he studies the fried chicken in the warm items counter. Eijirou contemplates a grilled salmon onigiri from the lineup of glistening plastic wrap.
Eijirou walks up to Katsuki after making his choice, “you decided yet?”
Katsuki looks at him, reaches up to brush some lazy strands of hair off Eijirou’s forehead, “yeah, getting a pork bun.”
They pay and eat at the benches in the front window of the store. The sky glimmers a deep blue of pre-dawn, and people are starting to go about their day. Plastic onigiri packaging lies on the laminate tabletop, and civilians passing by this convenience store a few minutes before six might have caught a glimpse of Ground Zero planting a kiss, fingers in Red Riot’s hair.
*
Eijirou delights in the fact that their eyes are red. It's a their, something they share.
He notices when they're in their first year at UA. They're still friends then - best friends, Eijirou tries out sometimes, and he feels that it's so presumptuous of him. But Katsuki's companionship doesn't come easy, unlike how Eijirou makes the effort to be thoughtful and warm for everybody. So when he's the first person Katsuki agrees to tutor, something about being a first makes Eijirou swell with pride.
Katsuki breaks down Eijirou's equations line by line, always sounding a little exasperated, like he can't believe that he's doing this, that this needs explaining. "How the heck did you get from that to this?" He prods the result, "you have to show your damn working."
Eijirou hastens and backtracks, laying it out step by step. Everything in his mind onto the page. He hesitates less than he normally would in class, spurred on by the expectant tone of Katsuki's voice - it sounds a little like you know this just do it.
Eijirou finishes the final line of calculation and points out, "I was right though?"
And Katsuki rolls his eyes and grabs a red pen to draw a number four on his page, circles it like the teachers do, "and now you've got full marks instead of half." Looks him right in the eyes and smirks, "hair-for-brains."
Oh , Eijirou thinks, dazzled by that red.
*
Katsuki blushes furiously. It's one of Eijirou's many favourite things about him.
Katsuki is usually unphased when it's just the two of them. He smirks into twilight kisses, is brazen in his intentions. His palms are scorching, and Eijirou melts into his touch easily, willingly. There are mornings when Eijirou splashes his face with cold water, cheeks pink with the memory of yes, yes, god Katsuki yes .
So indeed, Katsuki is not one to blush privately.
But Eijirou confirms over and over that Katsuki has not reconciled his affections with Eijirou with his public hero persona. He knows that he’s tormenting him, because Katsuki flushes bright red and he swears and mutters, but Eijirou just can’t resist.
Their agencies don’t cover the same areas, they have different patrol routes, so Katsuki can rest easy that he will not be ambushed with Eijirou’s affections on a daily basis. However, hero work is incredibly collaborative, and it just so happens that they are called to the same large-scale havoc, attend the same investigation meetings, and often cross paths debriefing at the same police stations.
Eijirou is in the middle of such a debrief when Katsuki walks in, carrying the smell of salted caramel and smoke. The station is busy today, there have been a handful of minor incidents on top of the usual non-quirk related misdemeanors and civilian reports. Twenty minutes in and struggling to get Eijirou’s account of the scuffle on paper, the detective sighs and laughs a little weakly, apologising once again as he stands in search of a free interview room. Eijirou turns to watch him go, and in doing so, catches sight of an unmistakable bright orange X.
Eijirou is quiet as he marvels at a grimey-faced Katsuki speaking with a couple of detectives. As previously established, he has a lot of favourite things about Katsuki, and post-fight bristling with adrenaline, palms smokey version of him is certainly one of them. It’s winter, so he doesn’t get a full view of his expression thanks to the high collar still zipped up.
Eijirou feels terrible, because that detective is going to come back and he’s going to be so distracted. He sighs to himself, tearing himself away from watching.
But he’s also a man willing to compromise, so when the path through the detectives’ desks towards the interview room happens to cut close to where Katsuki is standing, Eijirou excuses himself with a wink and a small bow.
The detective is stunned as he watches Red Riot march up right next to Ground Zero, grab his collar, and pull him into a kiss. It's difficult to watch, but all the staff nearby are also fascinated. Not everybody has a good angle, but it's clear to a few people that Ground Zero's eyes flutter closed as though practised and routine.
Red Riot breaks away and hurries back to him, apologising, "sorry, I just had to. We're so busy these days I never get the chance." He's grinning, all shark teeth and sunshine. Behind him, Ground Zero snarls, but is otherwise unable to produce any words.
As Red Riot is led away to an interview room, a pair of onlooking police officers are unable to discern whether Ground Zero is angry or flustered. Either way, he's bright red.
*
Eijirou wakes from a fall, blinking into the darkness. Feels the rough of Katsuki's fibreglass cast against his side.
It throws up memories - of a call going to voicemail, of a call from the hospital looking for Bakugou Katsuki's emergency contact, of Katsuki murmuring a promise in his ear on their balcony. Eijirou swallows, trying to bury the memories in the pits of his stomach, and turns and searches in the darkness. Makes out the faint shadows and lines of Katsuki's brows, eyes, nose.
They usually sleep more tangled up, so close that he wouldn't have needed to search, would've just felt the warm exhale against his skin. An arm below Katsuki's neck, the other draped across his side. Legs overlapping, skin to skin, warmth brewing in the spaces between them.
But tonight, he searches. Reaches across the inexplicable vast emptiness of rumpled blankets and creased sheets. Gently, gingerly, finds the edge of Katsuki's jaw, dares to trace his jawline from ear towards the chin, then back up towards his earlobe, fingers resting in the hollow behind it.
In the murky darkness, Eijirou runs his fingertips lower, resting on top of Katsuki's pulse. It beats, steady and surely. An athlete's heartbeat, steady, slow, powerful.
Eijirou closes his eyes again, lets himself sink into sleep, the evidence of Katsuki's heart beneath his fingertips.
*
On duty, they stand shoulder to shoulder.
Ground Zero is built sturdy and lean where necessary. A weapon. Chest, shoulders and back built to withstand recoil, a narrow waist, but a strong core. Red Riot grows into the sturdy hero he declared as his destiny. He is a wall, a towering cliff, an unmoving mountain. Broad shoulders and back, legs planted firmly, deeply rooted with resolve.
Eijirou’s thoughts churn - they’ve been working on this for months, slowly uncovering information about a trafficking ring. Several teams across many districts had to pool information and hold covert meetings and reconnaissance operations to get to this point. Eijirou remembers his gut twisting in some of those meetings. He swears he’s heard Katsuki grind his teeth beside him when they see some photographs another team brings.
The both of them are reminded over and over by good-natured collaborators that this large operation takes time. They’re going to be able to formulate a foolproof plan that will bring down the ring in one swoop. Everyone will be accounted for. All these statements are spoken as declarations at these meetings, but sometimes Eijirou thinks it sounds like excuses.
He thinks that of course they’re excuses, because in taking their sweet time, there have been people they haven’t been able to save. People who have already hurt. His thoughts churn with a familiar frustration as police form up behind them. His jaw is stiff as the air around them stills, a faint crackle of a radio in a police vehicle parked behind them.
A rustle of movement, and Eijirou turns to see Katsuki raise a fist.
Red Riot knocks his fist against Ground Zero’s, squares his shoulders, and places his faith in his resolve, running deep.
*
They fight.
Katsuki spits fire and Eijirou feels the hurt immensely. He's not entirely sure how suggesting that Katsuki see a doctor has escalated into a yelling match across the apartment, but it has, and it really demonstrates his point.
Eijirou yells too, but when he doesn't feel heard anymore, he just walks out.
He ends up cupping a mug of tea at Mina's apartment, eyes watery and surrendering to the occasional sob. Mina looks at him with concern, and Eijirou sees anger when she looks away. He tries to sleep on it, but spends more time awake than asleep trying to find words to say in the morning, and none come. A car alarm pierces the darkness, and Eijirou finally lets the tension pulling at his heart and lungs fall away to give way to anger rushing through his veins.
He makes his way back before the sun rises because he has a job to do and they don't live apart anymore. He opens the door to find Katsuki asleep on the couch - not even lying down - as though he'd been waiting and had fallen asleep inadvertently. Eijirou wants to feel touched, to find some kind of warm sentiment in it, but he still feels wronged so he grits his teeth and walks past.
Half-dressed in hero gear and hair unspiked, Eijirou stops short of putting on his boots to drop his gym bag and shake Katsuki awake.
He regrets it immediately, when Katsuki opens his eyes and Eijirou doesn't see anger. Instead Katsuki gasps and cries and cries as the first rays of sunlight seep through gaps between neighbouring apartment buildings. He swears and buries his head in his hands and tries to start to say a bunch of different things. Eijirou thinks he hears the start of I messed up and I'm going to get help and I thought you weren't going to come back.
Eijirou feels an ache that blooms across his chest as he leans down and drags Katsuki's hands away from his face. Finds it hard to draw breath as he looks him in the eyes and refuses to say it's okay. Instead, he says, "get cleaned up. We're going to figure this out later."
*
Prodding Eijirou's bruises after sparring practice morphs into a lingering press against his bicep, a thumb in the hollow of his elbow. Eijirou always thinks Katsuki’s touch is like fire, burning, but he's never sure if Katsuki really just does run warm, or if it's in his head.
Eijirou's head fills with these thoughts in locker rooms, in the school sick bay, and after a field trip training for water rescues.
Katsuki grips firm, fingertips still fiery underneath the cold waves. They’re both drenched after the afternoon of non-stop drills, hair stuck to foreheads, sweat or sea water, indiscernible. Eijirou tightens his grip on the rescue board with his free arm, and forces out a light laugh, “thanks man, guess that really took it out of me.” The tide pushes against him, and he wills his core to stay firm and centred and balanced. The sand shifts beneath his feet, and Katsuki keeps holding onto his arm. Eijirou fears that his will to stand firm, unmoving, is slipping away just as the particles beneath him are pulled away by the deep blue.
Before he is pulled under and loses sense of where he ought to stand, he kicks off as a wave rushes up. Katsuki swears as they break apart. Eijirou calls over a challenge, announces a race. The boys scramble onto the boards, chests to fibreglass, arms carving through foaming ocean, thunderous as they wash up against the shore.
Eijirou rolls off his board, wanting to laugh but also trying to breathe. There’s water in his ears, but still he hears Katsuki's harsh laughter as he soaks up a small victory. He tilts his head and one ear empties, sounds of his classmates, the ocean, his own breathing rushing back.
He keeps lying in the sand as Katsuki approaches, rescue board dragging a dark line across the shore. “Tch, don’t tell me that took it out of you,” he leans over Eijirou, flattened hair dripping seawater, beads run down the curve, the groove of his shoulders. He’s trying to hide it, but Katsuki still breathes heavily after the sprint to shore.
The tide rushes in, a few millimetres running up, pulls and digs Eijirou deeper where his edges meet sand. He shivers, cold up the line of his spine, fire in the hollow of elbow.
Eijirou doesn’t know where to look.
*
When Katsuki leans his back into Eijirou’s chest, he sighs. Eijirou can feel the breath escape, collapsing beneath hands held at his waist.
Katsuki's weight against his chest feels like a million things. It feels like every other time they've leaned into one another, under streetlights exhaling clouds in cold winter air, crushed between other commuters but blessedly so against one another. It feels like safety, a reprieve.
Eijirou feels it all immensely, the warmth, the solid of his back, muscles coiled with tension. Katsuki would never admit it, but maybe it's a surrender, the reluctant admission that today, this last battle, was too much. Eijirou says nothing, but turns to plant a kiss on his ear, on the edge of his jaw. Leans down and presses cheek to cheek. He inhales sandalwood and a burnt sweetness as he reminds himself that Katsuki hates to be asked what's wrong and do you want to talk about it.
There are things that Eijirou still doesn't fully understand about Katsuki. He feels the urge to protest when Izuku comments on it - you really get him. You’re wrong, he wants to say, there are so many things he doesn't get about Katsuki. He has made many a good guess, and there are things that he understands in theory, and there are glimpses of truth and clarity in the tumble of self-doubt and hatred and despair when it's finally too much. Eijirou does his best to understand but he knows now that try as he might (as he must), there might always be a demon he cannot slay on Katsuki's behalf.
What Eijirou does understand though, is that Katsuki was - still is - overflowing. With adrenaline, with nerves, with unforgiving determination, with dreams. Katsuki is not one to long and hope, he takes what he wants and will pull himself apart over and over if it means manifesting a dream into reality with his own bare hands. Eijirou hurts when he watches, but he is also unwillingly starstruck, unable to tear himself away from how brightly he burns (but he burns, Eijirou feels guilty gazing upon this star, Katsuki burns).
Eijirou could never change his ways and so he must place his faith in the man he loves, that he too, would choose them over and over.
Eijirou finds his faith is rewarded when Katsuki chooses the space between his legs, leans backward against Eijirou. He drags Eijirou's arms around his own waist, rests his head back against him.
Eijirou understands that this is him choosing, declaring that he will burn right here.
*
In the summer of their second year, Eijirou gazes up at a blazing blue through half-lidded eyes. A cool slick of water undulating along his cheek. He blinks reflexively as water hits him, kicking his feet downwards and righting himself. Laughs as he finds Denki slicing an arm through the water to splash him again. Lit ablaze, Eijirou launches himself into battle.
There is cheering and laughter from the bleachers, and Eijirou calls out to the boys. Hanta leaps in eagerly, cannonball sending waves. Izuku abandons his towel quickly, and Shouto looks on, blinks a few times before he too decides that this is indeed how best to spend a summer day. Mezo and Fumikage leap into the fray wordless, eyes gleaming with the thrill of the challenge with everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Still with a grin plastered to his face, Eijirou searches for Katsuki. He catches him pulling a shirt on higher up in the bleaches, so Eijirou clambers out of the pool and heads in his direction.
Dripping up the concrete steps, he calls out, "hey Bakugou, come join!"
Katsuki stops and gazes down at him. Eijirou feels water drip out of his hair, down his neck, down his back. Summer heat clings to his arms. Eijirou swallows and tries again.
"Too cold for you?" Eijirou grins, wide and toothy.
Katsuki tears off his shirt and bounds down the steps. A wild glint in his eye as he grabs Eijirou on his way down, a barked laugh as he launches both of them into the water.
Eijirou hears himself yelp as he goes down, and he scrambles to hold onto Katsuki when he hits the water. His arms wrap around the other boy's waist, and in the quiet blue, he is free to hold tight under the pretense of a game.
*
Eijirou's thighs ache.
Not even just his thighs, it's his lower back, his knees, his ankle joints. It's not a kind of pain that's going to make him stop, but it feels heavy. Eijirou manages to chuckle to himself as he glances at Katsuki tearing up the trail, a little awestruck that this is his boyfriend's idea of romantic anniversary date.
Katsuki must have heard him because he looks back over his shoulder, one eyebrow barely raised. Eijirou grins and gestures to keep going. "You're gunning for the sunrise right?" he calls out.
Katsuki turns and continues up the mountain, but he must have slowed his pace slightly. Just enough so that Eijirou is right behind him ten minutes later. "You didn't have to slow down for me," he grins as they fall into the same brisk pace.
Katsuki scowls and huffs before grabbing Eijirou's hand.
Eijirou lets Katsuki pull him along. The undergrowth thickens, his calves itch where he’s brushed past shrubs. His headband feels damp with sweat. Katsuki holds a low-hanging branch out of the way, and mumbles “whatever” when Eijirou thanks him.
The sky is starting to brighten when Katsuki pushes Eijirou ahead.
“I don’t know the way but -” he starts, before he stumbles to a stop and finds a rocky peak and treetops beyond. Eijirou can’t find anything to say as the light breaks over the uneven horizon.
He sinks to the ground, fatigued legs loosely crossed, leaning back, palms resting on the rocky ground. Eijirou keeps looking forward as Katsuki joins him, “this is incredible,” he breathes, “you really know how to make a man feel special -”
Katsuki kisses like he’s saying damn right I do.
*
Eijirou realises that it's not for him to decide whether he's good enough for Katsuki.
He realises while confined to his home on sick leave, propped up against his pillows, gazing out at the view of somebody else's apartment window with the backing track of Katsuki cooking soup in his tiny kitchen. Eijirou thinks about how there's never enough sunlight in his studio - the building beside him is so tall it barely lets any in. But he feels warmed and comforted regardless, by the sound of Katsuki dropping something into water, a wooden spoon brushing against the metal sides of a pot as he stirs. He lets himself wonder what it would be like to come home and be taken care of like this.
It's a dangerous thought process. He knows how it ends because he has those hazy memories, an alcohol-heavy confession of how badly he wants to stop renting his dark box of an apartment, how much brighter and better Katsuki's place his - and god how good his apartment smells, it's not even the cooking, it's everything, there's something about his laundry detergent or cleaning product. Mina or Denki or Hanta (or all three of them) are usually available to interrupt him in the middle of maybe he has a scented candle hidden somewhere - that seems like something he'd do.
They are not here today, with Eijirou on sick leave because he broke and there's nothing he can do but oscillate between wallowing in his weakness and soaking up Katsuki's attention that he's convinced he doesn't deserve.
Eijirou isn't oblivious to how Katsuki feels anymore. It's so brazen, so obvious , Eijirou is knocked off his feet every time Katsuki shows up in his life. He used to be much more restrained, everything in his eyes looking like I want to, but I can't, but I want to . Now, when Eijirou apologises and says, "thanks, you really didn't have to", Katsuki looks up from the stove briefly, a crinkle in his brow as he says simply, "I don't do shit I don't want. It's whatever."
All their friends see it too, and Eijirou doesn't know how to explain when Denki is gesticulating wildly and loudly mouthing off about how he might as well be begging you to make a move it's soooooo obvious, just go get that dick you've been pining for, oh my gooood. Because it's not really about Katsuki. It's about how Eijirou blushes pink when he realises how close they're sitting while watching the Running Man hero special (no subs, just two tired off-duty heroes who don't know Korean), but also thinks I'm not good enough and uses both hands to hold his mug of tea as he crushes the compulsion to touch Katsuki's hair, his cheek, his arms -
Katsuki unceremoniously drags Eijirou's white, round, barely-big-enough-to-be-a-coffee-table, coffee table over to the side of his bed with one foot, then places a steaming bowl of chicken soup down. It's followed by green tea, a small bowl of rice, a delicately poached egg sitting in soy sauce, and pickled kelp. Eijirou feels awash with adoration, and he feels a heavy weight in his gut, the cold reminder of I'm not worthy. He tries to cover it up with "woah, this is amazing, you really didn't -"
"Stop saying that. Just get your ass down here and eat." He's frowning, not a scowl, but a soft displeasure. Eijirou has seen that look before, and he knows it now as the look that Katsuki gives in hospital rooms and school sick bays when he's bursting with something to say.
Eijirou looks at the spread, swirl of steam rising from the soup, a warm fragrance of salt and pepper melding with the sharp umami of pickled kelp. He looks at Katsuki, hand clenched into a fist resting on the table, a stiff jaw as he looks at nothing in the direction of Eijirou's floor to ceiling windows that don't let in enough light. He contemplates how everybody knows that Katsuki never does anything he doesn't want to, and in turn he is devoted to what he deems worthy.
Eijirou knows that all of this is how Katsuki declares over and over that he loves Kirishima Eijirou. He feels an ache that can't be attributed to his wounds, and he sighs inadvertently.
"What?"
Eijirou sighs again, swinging his feet off the bed and slowly joining Katsuki on the floor, legs loosely crossed. "Just, you're too good for me, y'know?" He laughs a little at the end, to lighten the mood, and he knows that maybe it doesn't reach his eyes.
Katsuki sees it all, and he blinks, eyes narrowing, "how 'bout I decide that."
Eijirou is so glad he's sitting, because he's suddenly weak-kneed and he's positive his feet couldn't possibly support his own weight. He beams at Katsuki, lets himself agree, "yeah good point," he says sheepishly.
Katsuki looks away, and Eijirou allows warm and peppery chicken soup to wash away his hubris.