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The scar by Kirishima’s eye is an old scar. It’s faded, flat against the surface of his skin, and small. It sits underneath his eyebrow, just blow the ledge of his brow, nearly invisible behind the slightly too long eyelashes, that aren’t manly at all, and the crease of his eyelid. Between those two things, most people don’t notice it. Despite the fact that it’s been there for most of his life, or perhaps because of that reason, Kirishima often forgets about it as well.
That’s why, when Tetsutestu sits at their table, tray clacking on the surface, there’s a brief moment of confusion when the other boy stares at him and says blankly, “Dude, what happened to your face?” His hands immediately fly to his face, and Tetsutetsu squints like he always does and clarifies, “There’s nothing wrong with your face, but, like. You have a scar.”
Kaminari leans forward and narrows his eyes too. There are only three people seated at their table, currently, and with two of them leaning forward and examining Kirishima like a lab specimen. It’s starting to get a little awkward, and Kirishima only realizes after a minute or two of suffering through it that they’re talking about the one next to his eye.
“Like you don’t have scars,” he mumbles.
“Of course I do,” Tetsutetsu replies. Kaminari slumps until his chin is resting on the table, and goes back and forth looking at the two of them, mostly by moving his eyes. “But I’m askin’ how you got yours.”
“You didn’t ask,” Kirishima points out. “Technically.”
This little piece of truth is lost on both Tetsutestu, who doesn’t care, and Kaminari, who’s got another thing on his mind entirely. “How would the two of you even get scars?” he asks finally. “Considering you’re both made of metal.”
“I’m not made of metal,” Kirishima corrects him, though with how freaky he tends to look with max hardening, he supposes he can see why Kaminari jumped to that conclusion. “And if you really wanna know, I did this to myself as a kid – my Quirk manifested for the first time, and I wasn’t prepared for it.”
“Wow,” says Tetsutetsu.
“Scary,” says Kaminari.
“I hardly remember it. What about you guys?”
It’s hard to imagine Kaminari with scars, owing to how slender and pretty he is. Like a member of a boyband, maybe. Which is why he’s always been surprised that Kaminari isn’t more popular with the girls in their class – perhaps Kirishima is just misinformed, but he thought that was the kind of look girls went for, these days. Or maybe Kaminari’s dorky personality was that big of a turn off.
As for Tetsutetsu, the man actually can turn into steel. Unless he has a scar with a similar history to Kirishima’s, it’s hard to imagine him being hurt in combat.
“I’ll go first!” Kaminari offers.
He seems a bit too enthusiastic about this, and then he stands up, and then he lifts the hem of his shirt, and that’s when Kirishima knows encouraging the two of them was a bad idea. Kaminari tugs down the waistband of his pants just enough to not be obscene, holds the hem of his shirt into place with the other hand. Where Kirishima is a little uncertain about closely inspecting an area so close to his friend’s crotch, Tetsutetsu seems to have no such inhibitions – presumably because he’s manly enough for it to not be weird.
Kaminari twists to the side slightly and points to a spot between his hip bone and pelvis, and proudly exclaims, “This is from walking into a door when I was twelve!”
Then he lets go of his pants and pulls his shirt a little farther up, creating a hill of fabric that bunches to its fullest point right below his pectorals. “Bakugou caught me offguard during training earlier here.”
“That’s not a scar,” Tetsutetsu points out.
“It’s not a scar yet,” Kaminari pouts, and lets his shirt fall back where it belongs, where it covers the dark red splotch from Bakugou once more. It wouldn’t be an issue if he’d already gone to see Recovery Girl, like he should have, but Kirishima is pretty sure Kaminari would pout even more if it did scar someday.
“Let me show you what a battle real scar looks like!” Tetsutetsu fires back.
For an instant, Kirishima is glad, because it means Kaminari sits down again. And then Tetsutetsu stands up instead, and he doesn’t stop at lifting his shirt up a little bit – he completely rips it off, and turns his back to them, so they can see the broad muscles, the little dip where his spin curves the sharp; angles of his shoulderblades, and the diamond shaped scar centered neatly between them.
“Surprise attack,” he explains. He turns to the side so they can see his left bicep and another thick, irregularly shaped scar. “This one is from training with Awase.”
“The guy with the Welding Quirk,” Kaminari mutters in acknowledgement. It’s weird, because Kaminari can barely remember what was discussed in class some days, but he can perfectly remember the names of people he’s only spoken to once.
“Yep. He fused a metal log to my arm, and then fused the log to the side of a building. I had to undo my Steel and then rip my arm free by force.”
Kaminari looks pale and vaguely traumatized. All Kirishima can think about is how cool that must have looked – bulging muscles and the hero determined to break free, no matter how badly he was hurt. That was the stuff real men, real heroes, were made of.
“Did you win?” he asks, and Kaminari shoots a look of horror that he’d even thought to ask.
“Of course I won!”
“All right!”
They high five and Kaminari is probably considering looking for a different table. But if he leaves and pesters Bakugou, who expressly stated he wanted to be left alone to study today, he’d be forced to explain his reasoning and probably be called a chicken shit and exploded again for it. Ashido is busy having a girls’ day, whatever that entails inside a high school cafeteria, with Hagakure and Uraraka. They’d tolerate him more than Bakugou would, but only barely.
He looks longingly at where Midoriya is sitting, surprisingly also alone, for a moment, but his rear remains planted in his seat.
Tetsutetsu continues, “I also have a scar on my eye! In almost the same spot as yours, as a matter of fact.”
“Really?!”
Kaminari looks at them both dryly, his enthusiasm for this topic having disippated. “Where is it? I don’t see anything.”
“It’s here!” he says, pointing to a spot near the corner of his right eye.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Look closely,” Tetsutetsu insists, bumping his finger against the spot. “Right here...”
That’s when it dawns on Kirishima – the reason they can’t see Tetsutetsu’s scar is because his eyelashes cover it up. Tetsutetsu has the longest eyelshes of anyone he’s ever met, but unlike Kirishima’s, they’re thick and wirey. It’s kind of manly. Like chest hair.
Kaminari makes an “uh-huh” sound and picks up his fork. “I wish Sero were here,” he mutters.
There’s a fifty percent chance Sero would make fun of Kirishima and Tetsutetsu for being muscle freaks, fifty percent chance he’d turn on Kaminari like a shark smelling blood in the water instead. But it doesn’t matter if he’s not here. They can see him a few tables over, where he apparently took a page from Bakugou’s book and begged Yaoyorozu into giving him an impromptu study session over lunch period.
Kendou wanders over to their table instead, and it occurs to Kirishima that she’ll be Sero’s replacement tonight. Although she’s probably her for Tetsutetsu, not them.
“This is an unusual sight,” Kendou comments, setting her tray on their table. As soon as Tetsutetsu realizes she’s there, his spine goes ramrod straight. “I thought you guys always ate with Bakugou?”
“He and Sero ditched us for a hot date with their math books,” Kaminari replies.
“Cool. Double date?” Kendou joked.
“I don’t think Bakugou is interested in dating,” Kaminari confesses. “Like, at all.”
“Mina has other friends,” Kirishima continues, in case anyone was wondering. It’s weird, because Kirishima could have other friends if he wanted to also, but… for some reason, he usually just hangs around with Bakugou.
“Anyway,” Kendou starts, a wry grin appearing on her face, “what were you guys talking about and what does it have to do with Tetsutetsu ripping another of his shirts in half again, like some kind of exhibitionist?”
If not for that single, pointed exclamation, Kirishima might have wondered if she’d noticed at all. Kendou hasn’t looked at Tetsutetsu once since she joined them, but that single sentence does the trick. Tetsutetsu is suddenly turning bright red and scrambling to fix his shirt, somehow.
While his bro is doing that, Kirishima feels it’s only reasonable to fill Kendou in. “We were comparing scars. Tetsutetsu’s got some pretty gnarly ones – ”
“Oh,” Kendou’s grin suddenly becomes very interested, and she begins by rolling up the sleeves of her uniform, “you think Tetsu has some gnarly battle scars?”