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“Okay, okay. Truth or dare, anyone?” Kaminari asked, head flopped over the side of Sero’s bed and making upside down finger guns at his friends. Katsuki rolled his eyes, slouching into the pillows, but Ashido seemed to light up.
“Yes, yes, yes! I like the way you think,” she said, making finger guns back. Sero chuckled, opening another bag of chips and refilling the bowl that sat on the floor between them.
“Alright, but nothing too crazy,” he agreed.
“I’ll go first!” Kirishima raised his hand.
“Yes!” Kaminari fist-bumped the air, then flipped around so he was laying with his head in his hands, elbows digging into the mattress. “So, which will it be?”
“Dare, of course. It’s the manlier option.” The room groaned at his answer, but got back on track soon enough.
“Okay, I dare you to…” Kaminari trailed off, tapping his finger on his chin while he thought. “Oh! I know! I dare you to prank call Iida! That would be hilarious!”
The rest of them laughed along, nudging Kirishima on to do it and giving him ideas of what to say, but Katsuki wasn’t having any of it.
“Fucking hell, you guys are riduclous,” he said, getting up and marching for the door.
“No, don’t leave!” Ashido called out after him.
“I’m just going to the bathroom, jeez, I’ll be back,” he grumbled, stepping outside and slamming the door behind him. The buzz of laughter quickly picked up again behind the door and he let out a sigh as he marched down the hall, his shoulders relaxing slightly now that he’d gotten a break from his friend’s ridiculousness.
However, upon opening the door to the bathroom, he instantly tensed back up when he saw Izuku washing his hands at the sink. He turned the water off and went to dry them, when he noticed Katsuki standing in the doorway and instantly lit up in that stupid smiley expression he always made around his friends.
“Oh, hi Kacchan!” he said. “Um. Are you just gonna stand there, or…?”
“Tch. Shut up, Deku,” Katsuki walked briskly past him, his cheeks heating up with the embarrassing realization that he’d just been standing there, staring at him.
“U-um. Okay. See you in class tomorrow!” Izuku called out as he left, Katsuki still obstinately ignoring him as he went about his business. He finished up, washed his hands, and dried them off, all with a frustrated growl in the back of his throat. Why did he have to be so stupid everytime he interacted with Izuku? The pathetic nerd shouldn’t mean anything to him, and yet here he was, freezing up at the sight of him, stumbling over his words like a schoolboy with a crush.
He looked into the mirror, pushing his bangs back with one hand, and ground his teeth with even more anger when he realized he was still blushing. He hated to admit it, but it was moments like these that made the truth too glaringly obvious to ignore; he really did have a big, fat crush on the nerd.
Grumbling and shaking his head, he pushed the feelings down like he always did, determined that if he simply ignored them for long enough they would go away, and took a steadying breath to clear the blush from his cheeks. When he left the bathroom, he was all settled and back to being annoyed about having to hang out with his idiot friends, the stupid little encounter in the bathroom forgotten. When he got back to Sero’s room, he reached for the doorknob and secretly hoped that they were done with their game of truth or dare by then.
Unfortunately for him, as soon as he opened the door, everyone turned to him with the same idiodic grin on their faces.
“Guess who’s turn it is!” Ashido said, clapping her hands together.
“Truth or dare, bro? Which will it be?” Kirishima asked.
Katsuki closed the door.
“No, no, wait!” Kaminari called after him, opening the door back up and practically dragging him inside. “C’mon, man, it’ll be fun! We just want to include you!”
“Mmmmm… fine,” he grumbled out, walking in slowly and obstinately like a toddler who’s about to throw a tantrum.
“Yay! Okay, so truth or dare?” Ashido asked, not wasting a second.
Katsuki huffed, sitting down on the bed again.
“Truth, I guess. To get this over with faster,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
“Um…” they all racked their brains, thinking of a question, and then at the same exact time, Kirishima and Ashido both seemed to get an idea.
“Okay, would you rather–” Kirishima started, only for Ashido to slap a hand over his mouth.
“No, no! Shut up, I have the perfect question!” she said, a devilish look in her eyes. “Bakugou… who do you have a crush on?” she asked, grin widening into something almost maniacal.
“Like hell I’m answering that. Besides, Kirishima started talking first, let him finish,” Katsuki grumbled, trying to sound like he didn’t care even as he felt his face growing warmer.
“Oooh! Looks like you struck a nerve!” Kaminari said, elbowing Ashido in the side. “I think we should keep this question.”
“Fuck you guys, I already said no. Shitty hair! What was your question,” Katsuki demanded, practically fuming at this point.
“Yeah, c’mon Ashido, at least let him finish,” Sero agreed, smacking her hand away from Kirishima’s mouth.
“Nope! I’m way more interested in this now,” Kirishima said, much to Kaminari and Ashido’s delight.
Katsuki growled to himself, sounding like a pot about to boil over, and finally just screamed, “Fuck!” as a few little explosions went off in his palms.
“Fine, but only to get you off my fucking back,” he said, his outburst having calmed him slightly. “But! You can never, ever bring it up again, and if you tell him I swear to god you are dead. Dead! You understand?” he threatened, drawing a line across his throat with his thumb.
“Him?” Kirishima raised an eyebrow, the rest of the idiot’s slack-jawed expressions speaking for themselves.
“Fucking hell,” Katsuki rolled his eyes. “You guys seriously didn’t realize I’m gay?”
“W-w-well, you never said anything about it!” Kaminari put his hands up in defense.
“Yeah, how were we supposed to know?” Ashido agreed.
“Although… it does kind of make sense,” Sero nodded to himself.
“Don’t go making such a big deal about it,” Katsuki rolled his eyes, picking at some lint on his shorts.
“Right, right! You haven’t even answered the question yet!” Ashido suddenly remembered. “Well, go on? Who is it?”
Katsuki bit his lip, feeling his cheeks get ever warmer just from thinking about it. If he said it aloud, it would suddenly be real. He wouldn’t be able to deny it anymore, because people would know. Well, maybe not everyone, but at the very least these idiots.
Sighing, he relented to the storm of emotions in his gut and decided to just get it over with.
He sucked at denying it anyways.
“It’s Deku,” he whispered.
“Huh?” Kaminari tilted his head in confusion.
“Deku. I said… I like Deku,” Katsuki grumbled out, just a tad louder.
“N-no, we heard you,” Kirishima shook his head, the same dumb look of disbelief on his face. “It’s just… surprising, is all.”
“Yeah, jeez, I thought you like… hated him?” Ashido joined in.
“Yeah, well, maybe I did, but… here we are now, so fuck off,” Katsuki hissed, taking up the defensive once more.
“Actually, that also makes a lot of sense. Love and hate aren’t really opposites, but two sides of the same coin. It’s passion and indifference that are opposites,” Sero started, getting a lot of questionable looks from the others. “What? Has no one else read Pride and Prejudice?”
“Ha! Of course you’d be into sappy stuff like that!” Ashido laughed to herself, and Katsuki let out a tiny sigh, glad their attention was finally diverted away from himself. He didn’t want to admit it, but he actually completely agreed with what Sero was saying. At the very least, if it was true then it finally gave him an explanation as to why his feelings for Izuku had seemingly come on so suddenly; they hadn’t.
They’d always been there.
—
Izuku was confused.
For some reason he couldn’t explain, Katsuki had started being friendly to him. Well, not completely. He was still grouchy and called Izuku a nerd or an idiot most of the time, but he was actually interested in talking and hanging out with him instead of just ignoring him and staring him down threateningly every time he saw him.
Of course, that still happened sometimes. Whenever they ran into each other unexpectedly, he’d just see Katsuki glaring at him from across the room or hall or street or wherever they were as if Izuku’s mere existence was a pain to him.
But, when they planned to meet up, usually to train, go for a run, or study together, Katsuki was usually pretty cordial, and even if he was grumpy Izuku was still happy that he actually wanted to spend time with him, so he didn’t care.
Over the course of the next month, the instances of hanging out with Katsuki alone became so frequent that he started to get suspicious. There was just no way he could fathom Katsuki actually wanting to spend that much time with him unless something else was going on.
Of course, the stupid little crush he had for his childhood friend would like him to believe that maybe Katsuki was doing it because he actually liked Izuku and wanted to spend time with him, but the logical part of him couldn’t accept that as answer. So, he considered the options. Maybe Katsuki was trying to get close to him because he was taking the whole “being rivals” thing a bit too seriously and wanted to make sure Izuku wasn’t surpassing him. Or, he could just want someone to train with, as most of their activities consisted of working out or studying, and he just finds Izuku the most compatible or skilled or something like that. It was a flattering thought, and more reasonable than Katsuki actually liking him, but still hard to believe. No, it had to be something else, but he had no idea what.
Finally, it got the point that Izuku decided to do some investigation of his own.
He spotted Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero studying in the library together, Katsuki nowhere to be seen, and he took a seat near them, clearing his voice to get their attention.
“Oh, hey Midoriya. What’s up?” Kirishima asked in a hushed voice, looking up from his history textbook.
“Um. Nothing, er… well, you guys are Kacchan’s friends, right?” he asked, silently cursing himself for phrasing it so awkwardly. Of course they were Katsuki’s friends, everyone knew that.
“Uh, yeah? What about it?” Kirishima answered.
“Uh… he’s been… acting weird lately,” Izuku continued, trying to choose his words more carefully. “Like, haven’t you noticed that he’s hanging out with me all the time? Isn’t that… weird?”
They all looked at each other, and Kaminari opened his mouth to say something, but Kirishima quickly slapped a hand over it.
“Nope! Not weird in the slightest!” he answered, which only made it sound even more suspicious.
Sero sighed, shaking his head, and turned to Izuku.
“Look. It’s nothing serious, really, he just wants to be friends with you again. He’s said as much to us, but he’d kill us if he knew we told you, so that’s why they’re being all… weird,” he clarified.
“Oh. So, that’s it?” Izuku asked.
“Yeah,” Kirishima nodded. “Sorry if it’s weirding you out, he’s not the best at making friends, haha! Don’t we all know that, huh?” he said, slapping Kaminari’s back to get him to nod his head in agreement.
“Well, okay. Thanks,” Izuku nodded, and got up to leave as they all went back to their work. He paused, however, when he realized Kaminari was writing something down rather surreptitiously, as if he didn’t want the other two to see.
Intrigued, Izuku lingered, walking around to the other side of the table and pretending that he was looking at the books on the shelf behind them, all the while watching out of the corner of his eye as Kaminari shifted the paper a tiny bit closer to him and pointed to the text at the bottom.
All it said was Ask Mina.
—
Things were going well for Katsuki.
After that god-forsaken game of truth or dare, he finally stopped being such a wussy about his crush and decided to actually try and reconnect with Izuku. Even if the nerd never liked him back, he at least wanted them to be on good terms again after the shit-show that was middle school.
So, he started out slow. He purposefully went to work out at the same times Izuku did, and made a point to actually talk to him, until it just became a thing for them to work out together. From there, it wasn’t unreasonable to invite him to run with him whenever he went for a morning or evening jog, and once it seemed Izuku was used to casually talking to him between classes, he offered to study with him when Izuku expressed some difficulty in understanding their math lessons. With all that combined, he was seeing the nerd alone just about every day and talking to him was getting less and less scary. They still always had to have some kind of excuse to see each other, either training or studying, so it was his next goal to work up the courage to actually ask Izuku to hang out without such an excuse.
Of course, this posed a number of challenges. First, it would require some sort of admission of the fact that Katsuki thought of them as friends, and second, it would require Izuku to agree, to accept that friendship, and Katsuki was worried that he might not. Sure, he always acted happy to see Katsuki, but Izuku was nice to everyone, so that didn’t necessarily mean anything. There was a chance he was just putting up with Katsuki’s attempts at reconciliation, but that one he pushed a little too far, tried to breach the gap between classmate and friend, Izuku would put his foot down and deny him access to even that level of a relationship.
That, of course, didn’t bode well, because if Izuku didn’t even want to be friends with him, then any dream of a romantic relationship could go right out the window.
Except, he doubted he’d ever be able to give it up. If Izuku didn’t, couldn’t like him back, he was afraid he’d be pinning after him forever, never able to move on, and that scared him even more than the prospect of rejection itself.
—
“H-hey, Mina?” Izuku asked, finally having caught her alone after two days of trying.
“Hm? Oh, hey Midoriya, what’s up?” she asked.
Izuku released a sigh; he was a little worried about talking to her since they’d never really spoken outside class, but luckily she was just as friendly and bubbly as she always seemed, so perhaps this wouldn’t actually be so hard.
“Um, this is going to sound weird, but, uh…” he paused, formulating the words as he played with his fingers nervously. “The other day I was talking to your friends… you know, um, Kirishima and Kaminari and Sero… anyways, I was asking about Katsuki, because I thought it was weird that he was hanging out with me so much all of a sudden, and um… Kirishima and Sero told me not to worry, that he just wanted to be friends with me, but Kamianri kind of… seemed off? Like, he wanted to say something else, but the other two stopped him?” Izuku slowed down, moving back a bit when he realized that Mina had a devilish grin on her face. “Uh… and so… Kaminari slipped me a note telling me to ask you, and… uh…”
“That’s all I need to hear. Come with me, I have a secret to tell you,” she said, grabbing him around the shoulders and leading him around the corner, behind some stairs where no one would just walk by and be able to eavesdrop.
“Look. Those other three are too chicken to risk getting blown up by Blasty Mc. Splode, but lucky for you, I have no such self-respect,” she said a bit more confidently than Izuku would have expected. “Basically, the little secret that no one wants to tell you is that Bakugou’s hanging out with you… because he has a crush on you,” she said, practically shaking with excitement. “Isn’t that crazy?”
“Y-yeah,” Izuku nodded, frozen in surprise. “That’s not… there’s no way. You have to be mistaken.”
Ashido laughed.
“Trust me. I wouldn’t believe it either, unless I’d heard it from him himself,” she said, giving a little shrug and a wink before walking off.
Izuku stood there, still too shocked to do anything, until he finally realized his mouth was open and snapped it shut in embarrassment.
He didn’t know what to believe, but he knew there was only one thing left to do if he wanted to find out the truth.
—
The fluorescent bulb illuminating the dorm room buzzed softly, exerting all its effort into keeping the room brightly lit even as the darkness pressed in from the shadowy night just beyond the window. In the silence, it could have been a distracting noise, but Izuku and Katsuki were so consumed with their homework that they hardly noticed it at all, or better yet, found it a comforting rhythm to keep themselves concentrated on the complex algebra problems in front of them.
Izuku’s mechanical pencil squeaked on his paper, interrupting that rhythm and queuing Katsuki to look up.
“Mmmn,” Izuku grumbled, biting his thumbnail absentmindedly. “What did you get for number seventeen?”
“Seventy four,” Katsuki replied. He’d just finished that one.
“How, though?” Izuku looked up. Then gulped back whatever he was going to say next and shook his head. “No, no. You’re probably right. I think I must have made an arithmetic mistake somewhere.”
Katsuki raised an eyebrow, watching with a laugh in the back of his throat as Izuku began to scour his work for an error like his life depended on it, then scooched around so he was sitting behind him. From that angle, he was able to review Izuku’s work over his shoulder, and when he caught the mistake, he reached over and pointed at it, leaning forward far enough that his mouth was right behind Izuku’s ear as he spoke.
“You forgot the ten, here,” he said.
“O-oh,” Izuku nodded, leaning away from Katsuki’s breath, and quickly redid the problem, carrying the missing ten through until he, too, found the answer to be seventy four. Upon circling the number, his hand seemed to freeze with his pencil hovering an inch over the paper, and Katsuki turned his head slightly to see what kind of expression he wore.
Wide eyes. Faint blush. Tight lips.
“Um… Kacchan?” he forced out.
“Hm?” Katsuki broke away as if he had just woken up from a trance and leaned back on his hands to put distance between their faces.
“Nevermind.” Izuku put his work down. “Can we take a break? I’m… having a bit of trouble concentrating.”
Katsuki shrugged, then realized Izuku wasn’t looking at him.
“Sure.”
Izuku yawned, the sound almost certainly faked, and stretched his arms out over his head, then slowly turned around. He looked at his hands for a long time, simply running his thumbs over each other, then took a sharp breath in and began to speak.
“We, uh, we’ve sure been spending a lot of time together, huh?” he noted.
Katsuki shrugged.
“I guess. It’s not like we don’t hang out with other people too, tough.”
“Well… yes. But, what I meant was, we’ve been hanging out a lot for us, you know?” Izuku gulped, and Katsuki looked away.
“Mmn,” he shrugged again.
Izuku let out a long sigh, blush brightening as he looked to the side.
“Do you… do you like me Kacchan?”
“What makes you think that?” he snapped out, eyes suddenly wide and heart rate running ahead of him.
“W-well… I don’t know.” Izuku scratched the back of his neck. “I guess… I guess someone mentioned to me that you… might.”
“Tch.” Katsuki dug his brows together. “Those traitors,” he hissed.
“So…? You do?” Izuku pushed his question through.
“Yeah? And what’s it to you?” Katsuki clamped up, mouth pressing shut and eyes glaring as far to the right as possible.
“What’s it to…” Izuku chuckled, then shook his head slowly. “Kacchan. It matters to me because… because I like you too.”
The buzzing of the light took over in the ensuing silence, its glow suddenly too bright to be illuminating every inch of their lanky, teenage bodies sprawled out on the ground. Every crevice of their expressions, Izuku’s expectant and Katsuki’s shocked. Every beautiful ridge in Izuku’s irises, lines of emerald and viridian swirling out from a widening deep black center.
And then his hand, covered in sweat, slick against the hardwood floor, slipped out from under him so his back landed hard and sudden on the ground behind him.
“K-Kacchan!” Izuku leaped up, but soon settled into a smile as Katsuki let out a comedic groan and let an arm lie limp across his eyes.
“See what you did to me, you damn nerd? You’re so fucking cute I can’t even sit up straight and talk to you without making a fool of myself.”
Izuku giggled, helping pull him back up to sitting, until their faces were practically right next to each other.
“Is that why you’re always staring at me?” Izuku asked, unable to wipe the goofy grin off his face.
“Maybe,” Katsuki forced out, making Izuku laugh again.
“Don’t worry. I… I stare too, sometimes. I’m just better at not getting caught,” he admitted, putting his hand over Katsuki’s.
“Tch. Yeah, and why’s that?” Katsuki asked jokingly, but it made Izuku’s gut twist with heavy emotions just thinking of the answer.
“Because… because I’ve had a lot of practice,” he admitted, voice lowering to a whisper. “I’ve been staring at you since… since we were little kids.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened, realization taking over him, and he flipped his hand over so he could hold Izuku’s, rubbing his thumb over his knuckles.
“Shit. Don’t tell me…?” he asked, and Izuku started nodding without letting him finish. “This whole time?” Izuku kept nodding, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.
“When did…” Izuku started, but had to stop to get control over his voice. “When did you realize?”
“I don’t know,” Katsuki shrugged. “A… a couple months ago? But it feels like… longer than that. Like I’d known it, but… but I didn’t want it to be true, so I didn’t think about it.”
Izuku looked up at him then, a sad smile on his face, and blinked away his tears as he reached his free hand up to caress Katsuki’s cheek.
“Well… you don’t have to pretend anymore. I’m right here,” he said, and that was the last thing Katsuki needed to just lean and kiss him. Izuku practically melted against him, the pair moaning into each other’s mouths from the sheer intensity of the moment, and when they broke apart, arms wrapping around shoulders to hold each other tight, everything felt right.
—
“Alright, which one of you dumbasses was it, huh?” Katsuki demanded, crashing his friend’s game night to get some answers out of them.
“What are you talking about?” Kirishima asked, looking genuinely concerned. Kaminari, on the other hand, had gone completely white.
“It wasn’t me, I swear!” he said, flailing his arms around in front of his face.
“Like I’m gonna believe that shit!” Katsuki said, stalking towards him with his hands raised, mini explosions going off as a warning.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa! What is going on?” Sero asked, trying to de-escalate the situation.
“This dumbass spilled my secret even though I specifically told him not to!” Katsuki said, picking Kaminari up by the collar and shaking him.
From the corner of his eyes, however, caught sight of Ashido smirking from her perch on the corner of the bed, and he instantly realized what had really happened.
“No. Wait. It was you!” he said, practically growling.
She started to laugh, and Katsuki knew he was fucked. Of course she would do it; she wasn’t actually afraid of him, and no berating beyond actually hurting her would get her to regret it.
“Oh, c’mon! It all seemed to work out in your favor though, didn’t it?” she said, which got everyone to look at Katsuki questioningly.
“How do you know that?” he asked, crossing his arms, and Ashido smirked once more, simply pointing to her neck. The other three scanned their eyes back to Katsuki, and gasped when they saw what she was talking about.
Katsuki went white.
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit, he had a hickey, didn’t he?
“Oh my god! Bakugou got his man!” Kaminari bursted out, clapping and laughing and getting the rest of them excited and cheering too. Katsuki just sighed, his reconnaissance mission basically failed. He’d never simultaneously hated and loved his friends more than that one moment, but here he was, surrounded by a bunch of annoying idiots who somehow actually managed to help him pursue his crush, all thanks to a stupid fucking game of truth or dare.