Chapter Text
There is a special kind of coldness that can only be felt in the dark.
A coldness that feels like it was once alive, but is no longer. It makes one think of how they someday will not be either.
Darkness is not just the absence of light, and similarly, this coldness is not just the absence of heat.
Kirishima is not scared of the dark, but he finds no comfort in being cold.
He finds nothing redeeming in the way his hands shake, the way his lips go numb, the way his pulse feels slow in his veins.
This darkness and this coldness go hand in hand, though.
So no, Kirishima is not scared of the dark.
Kirishima hates the dark.
--
He wakes up like he does nearly every night. Freezing, alone, and with his hardened hands ripping his sheets into ribbons.
Kirishima does not remember the nightmare, but he knows that its existence is the only explanation for the situation he finds himself in.
He becomes more aware of his own body, aware enough to feel the chill in his skull, the way his teeth ache, the way his muscles change from one kind of frozen to another as his quirk flickers on and off.
As his breathing slows, the cold takes hold with renewed force in his chest.
He feels stagnant, suspended. Paralyzed by the frustration of another night that led him back here.
Somehow he always finds himself here.
--
Every night he thinks,
“This. This is it. This is the coldest I can get. There is nothing beyond this. There is no heat left to leave.”
But darkness is not just the absence of light, and this coldness is not the absence of heat.
And so, the next night comes. And he is proved wrong.
--
It is a pattern. A cycle. An unbreakable chain.
Once Kirishima falls asleep, he always has a nightmare that he cannot remember.
He wakes up alone at night. He stays awake for a long time. He watches the light creep into his room as the sun rises.
The coldness loosens its grip just enough for Kirishima to find the strength to move. Or maybe the fear of failure, the fear of falling behind, the fear of being forgotten is just strong enough to force him to move.
And he moves. He moves through the day. He eats breakfast. He tries to pay attention to class. He eats lunch. He tries to focus during hero training. He does homework in the common room until Sero pulls him away to hang out with the group. He smiles and laughs. He talks with his friends. And all the while, he dreads his room. He dreads nighttime. He dreads the comfort of other people fading.
He worries about what he knows will happen once he is alone, once he falls asleep.
He fears the loneliness he condemns himself to.
He condemns himself anyway. He falls asleep anyway. He has a nightmare he cannot remember. He wakes up freezing and alone.
It is a pattern. It is a cycle. An unbreakable chain.
He thaws and freezes in turn. He wonders how long he can keep this up. He hopes he never finds out.
--
He wakes up like he does every night. Freezing, alone, and with his hardened hands ripping his sheets into ribbons.
He cannot remember the nightmare, he only knows that it happened.
The room is cold. His bones are coated in ice. His breath is crystalizing in his lungs. His head feels like a lead weight sinking into his pillow. His skin feels waxy. His eyes feel like glass.
Kirishima feels dead.
Not cold and dying. He feels cold and dead.
The realization startles him so much that the pattern changes. The cycle shifts. The chain snaps.
He sits up in bed. This is new. He is not frozen.
He decides to move on purpose, he needs to prove to himself that he is still alive.
He swings his legs around and touches them down on the cold floor. This is new. He is not paralyzed.
He walks across the room, he opens the door, he closes it behind him. He walks down the hallway, down the stairs. This is new.
He moves like a ghost, but he moves. It is new. It is something.
He stops moving once he reaches the common room.
He is not sure what he was expecting to find down here. Maybe some residual warmth or comfort from a space that spends so much time being full of life. Maybe a place that is calm and cold just like his room, but is at least a change of scenery.
Whatever he was expecting to find, it was certainly not this.
Bakugou is sitting on one of the soft green couches, positioned so that he can stare out the large windows lining the far wall.
His knees are pulled up to his chin, his hoodie is at least two sizes too big. He looks small, he looks soft and tired. He looks like a different version of himself.
He is holding a mug, and as Kirishima watches from the doorway, he brings it to his lips in the most gentle gesture he has ever seen him perform.
In theory, Kirishima knew that Bakugou couldn’t truly always be so volatile, but seeing it in person wasn’t exactly something he imagined would ever happen.
The scene is bathed in a warm orange from lights that have been left on in the kitchen.
Kirishima finds himself frozen all over again. Not with cold or fear. No, this time he’s just transfixed.
The only word that Kirishima can think of is lovely.
Bakugou looks lovely in the soft light, without a trace of a scowl on his face. He sighs and takes another sip from his cup. The sleeves of his yellow sweatshirt are pulled down over his hands.
Something in Kirishima’s chest aches in a way he’s not used to, in a way that has nothing to do with the cold. He hardly has a word for it.
Yes, Bakugou looks lovely.
Yes, Kirishima is transfixed.
--
Kirishima stands still in the doorway for much too long. He’s at a crossroads.
His first path is to turn around, to walk back upstairs, to go back to sleep, to pretend he never saw the scene in front of him. He can’t imagine that Bakugou would want him to have seen the scene in front of him.
His second path is much scarier. He could walk into the room and see what happens. Kirishima really has no sure idea of how Bakugou will react to being bothered in the common room at three in the morning, but he can imagine that it involves more than the usual dose of yelling.
He is saved from deciding by Bakugou glancing in his direction.
Their eyes meet. Bakugou’s face immediately slides from peaceful and relaxed straight into his trademark scowl.
Kirishima almost sighs.
Here we go.
“What the fuck are you doing down here?”
His voice isn’t quite as harsh as usual. It sounds more like he’s trying to get into character than anything. Kirishima almost balks.
That was… not what he was expecting.
After another moment of Kirishima just standing there, Bakugou lets out a ‘tch,’ before turning back to face the window. He’s a little more hunched in on himself, his posture is no longer relaxed and safe. His scowl is fixed in place, and his hands are gripping his mug tighter than before. He looks on edge, like he’s poised for some undetermined thing to happen. But he isn’t yelling or blowing anything up.
It makes Kirishima incredibly nervous.
Although his presence has obviously ruined Bakugou’s peaceful moment, Kirishima isn’t facing a major fallout for it.
He has no idea why.
What the fuck?
Kirishima stays fixed in the doorway for another moment, still in his crossroads. He could just walk back upstairs. Back to his room, back to lost sleep and darkness and coldness and nothingness, back to nightmares, back to loneliness.
Or he could walk into the warm room with the lovely boy and the soft light and the air that smells like tea.
This shouldn’t be such a hard decision but Kirishima finds himself stuck anyway.
Bakugou sighs.
“Are you just gonna stand there all night, Shitty Hair?”
Kirishima’s legs move without him telling them to. He walks into the room. He does the brave thing.
The angle of the light flowing from the kitchen changes as he moves away from the doorway, making his way towards the couches.
The room glows, the glow catches tiny pieces of dust in the air, and even though Bakugou is scowling still, Kirishima is struck once more by how lovely he looks, all golden.
Kirishima is pretty sure it is an okay thought to have about his best friend. Well, he’s not really sure. He doesn’t usually describe people as lovely, and he knows no one else has probably ever thought of Bakugou as such. He knows Bakugou would probably snarl at the thought of someone seeing him that way.
Kirishima stifles a yawn and takes the opportunity to look away. As lovely as Bakugou looks, something about it makes his heart hurt in between his ribs.
He steps closer and closer. He sits on the couch between Bakugou and the door. He pulls his legs up to sit with them crossed.
He breathes in through his nose sharply, steadies himself, and looks at Bakugou again.
Again, Kirishima doesn’t know exactly what he was expecting, but it was definitely not what he finds.
Bakugou is staring at him with wide eyes. His face is softened again, there is only a barely-there crease between his brows.
Kirishima’s heart beats faster.
“What,” he pauses. He wets his lips. “What are you looking at?” He asks even though somehow, he is pretty sure he knows the answer.
Bakugou is snapped out of his trance, and his scowl comes back in full force.
Fuck, Kirishima ruined it. What ‘it’ was remained undetermined, but Kirishima knew two things.
Bakugou had been looking at him like… like he was something beautiful.
And Kirishima had liked it.