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Izuku’s breath catches as Shouto’s teeth tug gently at his earlobe, sensation zinging down his spine. As nice as this is, however…
“I thought we were going to study.” It comes out a little hoarse.
He chuckles as Shouto pulls back, catches his eye, and very deliberately shoves the textbook off the bed. It lands on the floor with a solid thump and Shouto closes the distance again.
He’s warm, so warm, even through the layers between them. Izuku shifts in his lap.
“I am studying,” Shouto says, somewhat muffled against Izuku’s neck, breath hot on his skin.
“Mmm.” Izuku angles his head to allow better access, fingers threading through Shouto’s hair. “And what exactly is it that you’re studying?”
Shouto’s hands wander — one ghosts up along the outside of Izuku’s thigh, awakening nerve endings with every featherlight touch, and settles on his hip, coaxing him closer. The other slides up past his chest to cup his jaw, long fingers laid against the side of his neck, thumb stroking his cheek.
“Physiology,” Shouto murmurs, and Izuku snorts.
“That’s funny— ah—” He can’t help the sound his throat produces when Shouto’s open mouth meets the junction of his neck and shoulder. “I didn’t think either of us were— ha— enrolled in a physiology course— mm— ”
“My mistake.” Shouto’s tongue makes contact with Izuku’s collarbone and Izuku lets his eyes drop closed, breathing hard. “I meant chemistry.”
“Oh my god,” Izuku says, wheezing with silent laughter. “That’s so bad, Shou.”
Shouto pulls back, revealing lips curved in a smile that might be even more distracting than everything else he’s been doing throughout the evening. “Are you complaining?”
“About your jokes, maybe.” Izuku grins. “Not about your—your— kisses.” His face heats up, and he’s sure he must be bright pink. This is all still…pretty new.
“My kisses?” Shouto echoes, lifting an eyebrow.
Izuku presses his hands to his cheeks. “Don’t tease! I don’t have the—the vocabulary yet.”
“Sorry,” Shouto says, tugging one of Izuku’s hands away from his face and interlacing their fingers. He presses a kiss — yes, a kiss — to the back of Izuku’s hand, and Izuku squeaks.
Will he ever get used to how free Shouto has been with expressing affection ever since they’d had that heart to heart a few weeks ago? Now that they’ve established what they mean to each other, it’s like the floodgates are open. Shouto’s usual stoic demeanor has basically dissolved — admittedly, he has always been warmer with Izuku than most, but this is different.
Now whenever Izuku catches him staring, rather than finding an inscrutable expression, it’s with a gentle curve to his lips and warm fondness in his eyes. All Izuku can manage to do is stare back at him, probably with a ridiculous dopey grin on his face. He wouldn’t know. He’s looking at Shouto, not a mirror.
Neither of them have been doing a fantastic job concentrating in the one class they share. Hence, studying. Or, well, trying to.
“Come on,” he says, giving Shouto’s hand a squeeze. “We went to the effort to find a class that could count as a core req for both of us. Formal logic now, chemistry and physiology later.”
Shouto blinks at him slowly. “I’d like to point out that you are the one that decided to climb into my lap.”
“I know, I know.” Izuku groans and maneuvers himself off of Shouto to flop facedown on the bed. “You’re too hard to resist.”
The mattress shifts beneath him as Shouto bends to retrieve the discarded textbook. Izuku props his chin in his hands as Shouto locates where they’d left off and sidles up next to him, shoulder to shoulder.
They have a midterm in three days. He really should pay attention. Really tries to listen, as Shouto pulls out his phone and starts listing off the topics that will be covered, as he flips through the book, fingernails making the slightest indentations in the page wherever he points out the relevant sections. But his eyes trail up from Shouto’s hands to his muscled forearms, across his chest where his shirt is pulled taut, and up along the line of his neck.
“You alright there, Izuku?” Shouto asks, voice tinged with amusement.
“Huh?” Izuku blinks. “Fuck,” he groans, dropping his head into his arms. “How are you so attractive?”
“Conscientious skincare and a rigorous exercise regimen,” Shouto deadpans, and Izuku laughs.
He knows for a fact that Shouto had used bar soap on his face up until a few months ago when Aoyama had found out and hassled him for weeks in the group chat until he’d agreed to change his ways.
Izuku turns his head and looks up at Shouto. “Maybe I need an incentive to be able to focus.”
He rolls onto his side, tilting his face and putting on a sultry expression. Well. What he hopes is a sultry expression. He probably just looks like an idiot.
“Oh?” Shouto smirks, angling closer despite the whole idiot thing. “Sounds more like economics now.”
“Nooo, don’t make it like a weird transactional thing,” Izuku whines, pressing his forehead to Shouto’s shoulder.
“Okay, fair.” Shouto laughs, hand coming to Izuku’s waist, fingers curling gently. “Psychology, then.”
“That works.” Izuku heart thuds against his ribs as Shouto traces small circles, his touch exhilarating even through fabric. “Motivational science,” he adds, a little breathless.
The pad of Shouto’s thumb finds skin, then, just under the hem of his shirt, and Izuku gasps quietly.
“This okay?” Shouto asks, voice soft.
Izuku hesitates. It’s been a few weeks, but they’ve been going slow, and this would be new territory. Any of their friends would probably be incredulous if they found out how little ‘progress’ they’ve made on the frontier of physical exploration — especially considering the fact that their beds are pushed together.
But there’s a difference between cuddling through the night — there’s no way he’s passing that up — and...this. Whatever this might lead to.
Shouto’s fingers retreat back to the external surface of his shirt, even though Izuku hasn’t said anything. “We don’t have to,” Shouto says, and slides his hand to rub Izuku’s back instead. “It’s okay.”
Izuku shifts to meet Shouto’s gaze, teeth pulling at his lower lip. It’s not like he doesn’t want to—to develop things between them, in that regard. He just needs a bit to get his mind wrapped around the concept. It doesn’t matter that he objectively recognizes how irrational his worries are, they still send jolts of anxiety through his system whenever his thoughts touch upon them.
That Shouto might not be happy with—well, with him, with anything that happens with him. That he’ll break up with him immediately upon realizing that Izuku has somehow faked his way into making him think he’s interesting or worthy of attention. That he’ll stop being his friend altogether. Move back to Japan, never speak to him again, tell all their friends how boring and awful he is—
And, of course, of course, Shouto would never do any of that. Consciously, Izuku knows that what they have means more to him than that, even disregarding the relatively new development into romantic territory. But it’s an unknown — an unknown scenario for which he hasn’t been able to bring himself to confront his worst fears and work through the worst possible (more accurately, impossible) outcome, and therefore some primitive part of his mind equates it to the end of the fucking world.
Maybe some time spent studying real psychology wouldn’t be totally useless.
But he also knows that the only way to get past these baseless worries is to try something just a little bit scary and force that overreacting segment of his mind to face the fact that nothing bad happened as a result.
He swallows. “We can— I want— Maybe just—” Goddamnit. Words. “Can we just, like, do more of what we were doing before, but with, um, without shirts?”
The last word comes out an octave higher than the rest, and he resists the urge to hide his face again. “After we get through the mock exam,” he adds, quickly. The whole point of this was for motivation to study, after all.
Shouto’s eyes go all soft and gentle and understanding — and Izuku can’t help the small sigh that escapes his lips.
“Of course, Izuku. Anything you want.”