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Kirishima wove through the crowd around him hastily, not paying more than a quick glance to the artworks on the walls. A still life here, a landscape there...
He walked through the rooms with a bounce in his step, adrenalin climbing with each passing minute. There was a kind of electricity under his skin, sizzling and keeping him moving until he found what he was looking for.
Kirishima couldn't say what it was but something inside him screamed at him to keep looking, to suck up all the information he could to find him. It was a drive deep within him, a feeling so natural as if it had been a part of him all his life.
Though it actually had only awakened a few months ago. Since then Kirishima had been unable to sit still when he could keep searching instead. Visiting every art gallery he could, spending his money on train tickets so he could drive into the next big town.
It was silly, a waste of his energy maybe. He should meet friends, work out and do his studies but the need inside him didn't budge, didn't let him go.
"Excuse me", Kirishima apologized as he pushed forwards, looking left and right, gaze glued to every sliver of yellow or red on the canvases. He needed to be here. He had been in every gallery so far, why couldn't he see him...
***
It had all started in his dorm room. Kirishima had done his homework, lying on his bed in his boxers, bag of chips in his hand. His text book lay before him and Kirishima turned the pages, looking for something of interest for his essay. And that was when he had found him.
A young, blond man with piercing red eyes. His face was so expressive, so delicate yet strong, that Kirishima was taken off guard.
The man was part of a group of warriors. Ancient rome from what Kirishima saw. He had lost his helmet, which was the reason Kirishima had been able to see his face and hair so clearly.
They were all in a battle with their opponents, swords in action. The painting had the title "The Battle Of Zama". 'The Second Punic War lasted from 218 until 201 BC', Kirishima whispered what he had learned in class.
His finger traced the man's jawline slowly, mesmerized. It was as if Kirishima was in a trance. He could only glance at the picture in his book and trace the guy's features with his eyes and digits.
Kirishima must have sat there for quite a while, eyes glued to the page, bag of chips still clutched in his left hand. A very long while.
The buzz of his phone against his butt cheek pulled Kirishima out of his staring contest with red eyes on paper and he took out his phone. /What the fuck!/
He must have been lost in thought for at least an hour because he was apparently already late for his gym date with Tetsu. Kirishima scrambled to his feet and snatched his gym bag of the ground, quickly stuffing his workout clothes into it before making it to the door.
***
This had only been the first but not at all the last encounter with the mysterious blond man from his history book.
About a week later Denki begged Kirishima to accompany him to their town's art gallery. It was small but often held very interesting exhibitions from local artists. Kirishima had visited it once during his history course.
He didn't have any homework or projects to work on and was actually a little bored so he agreed to go with his bro. Kirishima didn't expect to get out of the gallery all excited and mentally stimulated - he wasn't into art that much.
And yet he was the one who almost didn't want to leave the exhibition. "-irou. Eijirou!", a voice to his left had said urgently. Kirishima remembered only reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the painting on the wall to look at his best friend. "Hm?", he said absentmindedly.
"Dude, what are you doing!", Denki hissed, trying not to be too loud as to not disturb the other visitors.
"I've been to the next two rooms and only realised you were gone when I told you that old dude's face in that one painting looks like a wrinkled avocado but then it wasn't you but a woman I told that and she wasn't very amused."
Kirishima heard only half of what Denki said, his eyes and mind wandering over to the face on the wall once again. "What are you looking at?", Denki frowned. "It's him", Kirishima breathed out.
His head felt a little dizzy. In his mind Kirishima saw weird images swirling around. Nothing was clear, just blonde hair and red eyes.
A smirk. A dark rumbling laugh. A crooked finger beckoning Kirishima closer. A house on the country side. Sun streaming in through the windows. Tangled limbs. "EIJIROU!"
Someone shook Kirishima out of his trance. Literally. Denki held him by the shoulders - which was a hard task since his bro was much shorter than him - and shook him to get his attention. "What is up with you today? Have you drank enough water?"
Denki looked at Kirishima critically. "Yes", Kirishima croaked, throat dry. "Yeah, I have", he tried again after clearing his throat.
"I don't know what...", he trailed off, eyes once again searching for the ones drawn on the canvas before he shook his head slightly to focus once more.
"Sorry. We can keep going if you want", he tried for his signature smile but he was sure he was failing. It didn't feel right at least.
Denki seemed to not buy it either and put a hand around Kirishima, guiding him away from the painting he had stood in front of and chatting about random stuff to distract his bro.
Before they rounded the corner into the next room, Kirishima turned his head and got a glimpse of the title: Blond Boy With Tulip.
***
Since this encounter some strong urge had settled into Kirishima's bones, an urge to find this man. He had no idea if he was looking for him in artworks only or if his subconscious actually believed the man in the paintings existed in reality.
Fact was Kirishima was driven by this need and it scared him. More than that it fascinated him though. A man who appeared in paintings that were many centuries apart.
A face that seemed to travel through time to be captured on canvases by those worthy to do so, by those who saw the unmatched beauty in its features.
It was impossible. And yet it was reality. Before they had left the gallery Kirishima had taken a picture of the painting while trying not to look at it for fear he might drown in red eyes again.
Back at home with his phone next to his history book it had been clear as day: the men were identical.
Kirishima had immediately felt like a great discoverer. Only that he didn't want to share his discovery. He couldn't really tell why but some deep part of his heart wanted to keep the mysterious blond man all to himself.
Kirishima thought back to the images playing before his eyes in the gallery. And suddenly he realised the same thing had happened when staring at the picture in his book.
It was like having a dream and forgetting about it right after you wake up only to remember it after a while. Grey sky. Mud on his shoes. Screams of pain and roars of victory. Blood. So much blood.
Kirishima felt cold as he went through the images. Not due to the temperature in his room. It was a cold that came from within him.
All of a sudden he felt an undescribable sadness, as if he would never be happy again. A sorrow so strong he began to cry, to outright sob uncontrollably for a few minutes until he calmed down enough to breathe properly again.
"What the fuck", Kirishima whispered to himself, eyes wide and cheeks still wet. Something weird was happening and Kirishima didn't know how to react. All he knew was he needed to find the blond.
***
A few weeks later found Kirishima in Europe. He had looked forward to this trip for ages. It was only possible because for the past year Kirishima had been more ambitious than he ever had been in his life.
Studying instead of going out, doing side projects and charity events, taking part in the committee of his faculty and sleeping in the library. Not literally though. All that had led to getting a stipendium that would pay for this trip.
A journey through the times. Kirishima wasn't a history major for nothing. He loved searching for traces of time, old stories told through paper or stone, personalities that survived the ancient times they originated from.
And now here he was to see for himself what time had done to this part of the earth. His first stay was in Rome. After this he would stay in Lyon and finally he would move to Madrid. Kirishima was beyond happy.
The first days found him in an excited state, exploring his surroundings, trying new food, sightseeing, trying to learn a few words in Italian and bathing in the sun. He would stay two weeks in Italy and one week in France and Spain respectively.
It would be an adventure, Kirishima was sure. Especially after he saw him again. On his third day in Rome Kirishima stepped into an art gallery. On purpose. It was curiosity, he said to himself. Seeing if the blond boy was everywhere in the world, not just back at home.
So Kirishima bought a ticket and a permission to take photos (just in case) and wandered through the gallery. He admittedly didn't pay much attention to the exhibits after one glance confirmed they weren't portraying the man with the red eyes.
So it didn't take him much time to go through the exhibition. Kirishima was more than disappointed. He hadn't even seen a glimpse of his mysterious blond man and here he stood in the last room.
Only a few paintings and drawings lined the walls and a big sculpture rested in the middle of the room. Kirishima did a double take. He had just turned to the paintings on the left wall to search for the man when out of the corner of his eye he felt a piercing gaze on himself.
He whirled around and there he was. Standing tall in white marble, his body a landscape that alternated between curves and dips and valleys on the one hand and muscles and hard lines on the other.
A symphony of movement in a rigid monument of stone, made to overcome centuries while showing off the human form in such a vivid way.
Like a Greek God the man looked down on Kirishima and it took his breath away. He moved around the statue slowly, trying to take in all angles of the face and body of this beautiful human. Images rushed by before his eyelids once again.
The blazing sun above him. The water underneath. A cliff. White houses. Yellow and brown meadows. Burnt from the sun. A young man. Naked. Throwing a spear. Blonde hair waving in the wind.
Kirishima kept walking around the statue until a small woman appeared beside him and started talking at him in fast Italian while motioning towards the door. It was closing time.
***
Kirishima sat in the plane home three weeks later. He had a sunburn and raw feet from walking around so much but he was incredibly happy. He had seen a lot - learned a lot.
And found his blond man. In Lyon he had been laying on a picnic blanket in "An Evening In The Sun" and in Madrid Kirishima had looked deeply into his eyes in "Portait Of A Young Man".
With each artwork came the images, the feelings of something real, something faint but real he could remember as if he had dreamed of them before. Kirishima had taken pictures of each and every one of the artworks and kept them in a folder on his phone.
He spent the flight looking at them over and over and not getting much sleep despite his tiredness.
***
And so Kirishima found himself back in his home town and in the gallery Denki had taken him to these few weeks ago. The gallery had a new exhibition and with it Kirishima hoped for a new picture of the blond man.
A new drawing, a new painting, a new sculpture - a new sign that he was not only existing in Kirishima's head. He wove through the crowd around him hastily, too impatient, too keyed up. Something inside him was thrumming, a hectic rhythm fueling him to move, to search, to see.
There. Him. /Them/.
The painting took up most of the wall. It was clad in a beautiful golden frame but Kirishima didn't have eyes for that. On the canvas two colours sprung into the viewer's eyes. Yellow and red.
Two men, one with blond and one with crimson red hair, were intertwined in a tangle of limbs, an embrace so deeply intimate it made Kirishima's heart beat faster. As fast as the thrumming under his skin that had led him here.
The men in the painting were holding each other tightly yet gently, treating the other with the utmost love Kirishima had ever seen expressed in oil. He couldn't see their faces and expressions but he knew exactly what he was looking at.
The title read "Fate's Embrace". "I've found you", a raspy voice behind Kirishima said.
He knew who it was without turning around. He would recognise this voice anywhere although he had never heard it before. A shiver ran through his body as he finally laid eyes on the blond man he had searched for.
He was just as beautiful as in all the artworks. Actually he was even more beautiful.
His skin was pale and freckled. His lips full and pink. His hair was just as spiky as Kirishima knew it to be but oh so soft looking. And his eyes... his eyes were of an intensity Kirishima felt deep in his soul.
"Finally", he breathed as he just looked at the other man standing before him. Their eyes stayed locked together as they both let their minds be flooded by a new wave of images and feelings worth a hundred lifetimes.
Neither could say how long they just stood there but when Bakugou Katsuki finally asked "want to get out of here?", Kirishima Eijirou knew the answer could only be "yes".
He took the other's hand and their fingers entwined like they were meant to and together they walked into yet another life shared with each other.