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Citrine eyes scoured the town, filled with exotic looking travellers mulling around the local stalls, “Woah… I can’t believe that the Todoroki crown prince is coming to visit our little town. They’re all so fancy. Man, I feel a little underdressed...” his voice was giddy like electricity, energy practically pouring out of the blond as he bounced on his heels.
“They’re not that much different from us…” a much less enthused voice spoke up, hair like the night blowing in the soft breeze.
“Aw, come one, Sero, you’re no fun-” the blond grumbled, glaring at his friend. The noirette shot him an unimpressed look in return.
“I don’t know, guys. I think these foreigners are super cute!” a feminine voice bubbled into the conversation, earning a triumphant, “Ha!” from her energetic counterpart.
The Draconian tribes of the West were known for their eccentric magicks. Kaminari Denki was born with the spirit of the lightning! He could store and discharge electricity almost at his whim: a power quite complimented by his citrine eyes and hair so blond it was almost yellow. Sero Hanta wasn’t much to look at with flat, black hair and charcoal eyes, but his body could release an adhesive agent that could stick just about anything together. The bubbly girl behind them was none other than Ashido Mina! With skin as soft as rhodochrosite and pink sapphire curls to match, the DragonKin could secrete acid on a helpful scale from ooo sticky to holy shit that’s my fucking bone what the fuck!
All three of them- despite their appearance as the three of them tripped over each other trying to watch the Easterners walk past- were elites and members of the head guard. They all had very important tasks to keep their tribe leader, Bakugou Katsuki, safe… not that the spitfire, brash, explosive blond couldn’t easily defend himself, but they were his ragtag group of guards. On a good day, he’d even call them friends!
The only one they were missing in their group was a DragonBorne by the name of Kirishima Eijirou. He had well kept crimson hair that matched his ruby eyes, and he had the power to harden his skin enough to snap a sword clean in half just by being hit with it! Realistically, he was the only one that Bakugou needed by his side. Together they were a fearsome combination of shield and… well grenade., but the moment all five of them hit the battlefield, they were unstoppable.
However, their battle capabilities weren’t the topic of discussion as the three battlebrained idiots as they walked down the dirt streets as if they were the Easterners that had come with Prince Todoroki’s caravan. Three sets of eyes were wide as they looked at the newcomers bubbling over their every day stalls.
“What do you think the crown prince looks like?” Kaminari whispered as if it was a secret.
“Hot, probably,” Ashido nodded, “I mean look at his followers…” They passed a number of enchanting looking foreigners from a freckled boy with forest green hair to a bubbly brunette girl with pink cheeks. They both had downright adorable smiles, so it was impossible to imagine their higher prince looking any different. Being pan made a day like this a feast for her eyes.
“I mean, he probably looks just like any other guy,” Sero interjected uninterestedly, “So do his followers, by the way. I’m sure a third party wouldn’t be able to tell most of us apart…”
“Hah! Sounds like someone’s fuckin’ jealous or somethin!” a strong, albeit cocky, voice laughed, “The Half N Half bastard isn’t much to look at though.” Windswept blond hair made its way into view, followed by a broad chest draped in only a fur lined scarlet cape. The deep red colour matched his eyes that shone like garnets. That was the very Bakugou Katsuki; the leader of their headstrong tribe.
“I’m not jealous! I just don’t understand what’s so unique about the foreigners…” Sero rolled his eyes, shrugging nonchalantly as he made a point to keep the color pink out of his line of sight.
Bakugou chuckled, hearty, deep, and snarky, as he shot a glance to a forest haired boy lighting up at a stall full of gems and weaponry, “I can,” the tribe leader mused, smirking as he watched the boy scribble out a few notes and drawings.
Red hair popped around the corner, huffing as the rest of the male’s body came into view. “Bro, can you please stop walking so fast? You are impossible to keep up with. I swear…” flashing a toothy grin was none other than Kirishima Eijirou. It only made sense for Bakugou’s right hand man to be right behind him, “We are literally the same height! How do you keep getting away so easily?”
“Uh, he’s over there, dude,” Kaminari pointed over his shoulder to the stall where Bakugou was practically leaning over the poor newcomer. They looked to be deep in conversation- one that was either flattering or embarrassing given the way the poor boy looked like a personified strawberry with the flush on his face. Kirishima perked up like a puppy at the sight of Bakugou and the newcomer, walking right past his friends without so much as a thanks in lieu of leaning over the forest haired boy’s other shoulder and picking up whatever slack Bakugou made the mistake of leaving.
“Well, they could be there all day, so we should get to the fortress before the crown prince finds it empty,” Sero shook his head, knowing that the poor newcomer didn’t stand a chance against the duo.
“Yeah, he’s definitely jealous,” Ashido whispered over to Kaminari who just shrugged, mumbling back, “Let him be.”
The trek to their meeting place was rather uneventful. Sero started sulking more with every newcomer Ashido called cute, and Kaminari was too busy trying to build up an image of the crown prince in his mind. Bakugou had called him a ‘half n half’ since he was known for being able to harness the elements of fire and ice.
Easterners, unlike Westerners, were known for their ability to manipulate the world around them in some form. Westerners were conjurers of things: Bakugou with his explosions, Kirishima with his skin, Ashido with her acid, Sero with his tape, and Kaminari with his electricity for examples. On the other hand, Easterners were known for being able to manipulate the gravity of things, manipulating their forms as something less human, manipulating fire or ice, and even being able to manipulate their bodies in order to create things!
Wayward citrine eyes saw a man in the crowd- a foreigner no doubt- looking around the scene like he was lost. He was absolutely gorgeous, with hair split down the middle into two even red and white parts. His cloths were a deep blue, almost a sapphire, with golden embroidery around it, giving him an utmost regal look. The man had a sharp jawline and piercing eyes- one an icy blue and the other a soft brown. An intimidating scar sat on his left side, around his icy eye and underneath his red hair, but it intrigued Kaminari more than anything.
The man looked exactly like Kaminari would have imagined the crown prince to be- well with a scar and an extra helping of good looks.
Not even paying attention to Ashido and Sero continuing to walk, Kaminari stayed back, watching as the man paced back and forth. He was quite an intimidating fellow, with his fancy appearance and the scowl on his face, so it was no wonder that no one wanted to approach him for fear of making the man more upset. Kaminari, however, lacked that awareness and walked right up to him, “Hey, bro! Is there something you need help with?”
Stopping dead in his tracks, the scowl seemed to melt off of the man’s face as he was left with a rather dumb, “Ah.” Coughing in embarrassment, the regal fellow shook his head, “I am here to meet up with the tribe leader, Bakugou Katsuki. However, it seems I have lost my way trying to find your castle. It is not as tall as I would have imagined it to be.” The man, no doubt the crown prince, spoke with a low, deep voice that nearly made Kaminari blush.
“Oh, uh, the fortress?” the blond supplied lamely, before quickly following up, “I take it you are the crown prince, Todoroki?” Great. He was getting nervous already.
“Yes. That is I.”
“Cool, cool, cool! So, uh, I’m on my way there! I can take you, if you’d like?” Kaminari offered rather shyly. Yes, it made the most sense for them to walk there together, but he didn’t want to offend the prince in any way.
“Really? That would be splendid,” Todoroki spoke monotonically, to most, but the DragonKin found it to be a rather soothing melody.
Normally, it would have been expected that the two walk in silence, but Kaminari instead spoke most of the way there. He pointed out landmarks, out (biasedly) famous shops, and kind people. He spoke to Todoroki like a friend- specifically because that was the only way he knew how to talk to people, but the crown prince didn’t seem offended. Rather, he seemed amused- not in a way of pointing out insolence, but more in a way that he seemed to be enjoying himself.
The walk seemed to end just as soon as it began as they made it to Bakugou’s residence. The explosive blond seemed to be talking to a tall woman with a long, dark ponytail. She seemed rather concerned, as did the male beside her with dark blue hair. Neither of them Kaminari recognized, so he assumed they were from Todoroki’s court. Ashido, Sero, and Kirishima were also there; although Kirishima was busy talking to the forest haired boy from before. There was another brunette girl looking around, so he assumed that they were looking for Todoroki.
“Oh, there you went!” Ashido proclaimed with a huff, stomping over to Kaminari, “Sheesh, we take our eyes off of you for one second and you’re gone like the treejumpers! Seriously, we were about to hunt you down!”
“That was my bad.”
Yellow irises went wide against their black sclera as Ashido looked at the person talking.
“I was lost. He was just helping me out. I apologize for the inconvenience,” Todoroki’s cool voice calmed down the situation.
“Sire! That is where you went! We were also worried sick about you!” the long haired guard in knightly apparel walked forward.
“I apologize, Yaoyorozu. I was lost.”
“Glad of you to finally make it, Halife. Now hurry up. We’re wastin fuckin sunlight,” Bakugou rolled his eyes, gesturing to the newcomers to follow him.
They ended up learning the names of the Easterners visiting. Of course, there was the crown prince Todoroki Shouto; he had the powers of fire on his left side and ice on his right. His head guard, similar in status to Kirishima, was the long black haired girl, Yaoyorozu Momo. She had the ability to manipulate her body by changing her own lipids into any material she wanted- which explained the gaps in her armour. Next up was the strict navy haired male, who they learned was named Iida Tenya. His legs were bonded to tech that made him run faster. The brunette girl with the cut bob was named Uraraka Ochako, and her ability was to manipulate the gravity of objects. Last but not least, the forest haired boy that caught their tribe leader (and his right hand man)’s eyes was Midoriya Izuku, who could manipulate his own strength!
Of course, everyone was downright fascinating, but Kaminari was in awe of Todoroki the entire time the conversation went on. The West and the East were going through tough times. Civil and non civil wars seemed to be breaking out along certain borders, so the Todoroki and Bakugou kingdoms had been considering an alliance. Neither were short of enemies, since they were both strong and well renowned kingdoms, but it was unlikely for their opposing neighbors to feel strong enough to pick up arms against them if they allied.
All in all, the delegations were a bit too uninteresting for Kaminari to keep up with, but he did his best to at least look engaged as the conversation fluttered around the room. More often than not, the blond kept zoning out to Midoriya’s mumbling. The Eastern boy talked up a storm… until Kirishima and Bakugou sat on either side of him; then he couldn’t form a sentence, but, really, who could blame him?
“That’s enough shit for today,” Bakugou spoke up, gaining the attention of everyone in the circle, “None one here fuckin’ wants to be here. I sure as hell don’t, so instead of playing shitty pretend, we’re callin it a fuckin night. Sparky. Shitty Hair. You two show our guests where they’ll be sleeping tonight. Plain Face and Black Eyes: tell everyone to get the food ready.” The explosive blond stood up, “We’re callin it a fuckin night.”
Iida, Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Todoroki
“So um,” Kaminari spoke up first as everyone started to disperse, “Who wants to look at their rooms first?”
“It is rather uncouth to end a meeting so early!” the blue haired male, Iida, spoke up. However, Uraraka yawned beside of him, “He was right, though, we’re all too tired to talk properly.”
Kirishima grinned, “I can take you ladies and Midoriya to your guyses rooms-” he said as if that didn’t have any underhanded meaning, “While KamiBro you can show his Majesty and Iida to theirs?”
“Works for me!” Kaminari agreed, only because he wasn’t in the mood to argue with his friend. A smarter move would have been offering to show the girls their rooms, while Kirishima could take the guys to theirs, but the blond wasn’t thinking about that until after everyone left and he was stuck with Iida and the far too pretty crown prince.
“You seem to be much more energetic now than you were during that meeting!” Iida proclaimed a bit too loudly for Kaminari’s tastes as he showed them to their rooms. Once again, the electric user was rambling away as if he was amongst friends rather than strangers, but Iida’s declaration immediately made him flinch.
“Ah… sorry…”
“Do not bother,” Todoroki’s cool voice nearly gave Kaminari a heart attack. He racked his brain, fearing that he had upset the crown prince by being too noisy, and that traced back to how talkative he was on the way there, and it was starting to get to the blond until Todoroki spoke back up, “It is rather nice to hear you talk. I quite like it.” He stated plainly, and Kaminari had to physically stop himself from sighing in relief.
“Really? A lot of people say it’s annoying…” the blond hadn’t meant to mumble out loud, but then he heard Todoroki’s, “It is not annoying… at least not to me,” and his tiny, gay heart soared.
Continuing the walk, Kaminari felt less self conscious of his bad habit as he pointed out things along the way. After dropping Iida off, the blond was alone with the dual haired prince. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he was talking about whatever came to mind, and not once did Todoroki interrupt him. Rather, he mostly nodded along with small hums during permitting parts. It felt really nice to just be listened to for once, Kaminari acknowledged the thought in his mind, but tried to push it aside.
After saying goodbye, the electric user let out a sigh of relief. His head swirled with thoughts and fears, with hopes and very unimportant bits of information.
Of course, Kaminari had resigned to himself, keeping quiet about his swirling thoughts. He passed by his friends, all dressed up for dinner as he walked to his own room. “What’s wrong with me?” the blond blew a raspberry as he took off his day clothes, “I mean, come on, crushing on the crown prince? Talk about out of my league…”
As if it was even possible, Todoroki showed up to dinner looking even more dashing than he had in the town square. Kaminari felt his heart betrayingly flutter in his chest as he snuck unwilling glances over to the heterochromatic male who seemed to be at least decently enjoying his meal.
From the looks of it, he trusted Yaoyorozu quite a bit, seeing as they sat close together and made simple conversation with the others. Iida also looked rather close… or maybe that was just Kaminari’s brain being mean to him. Kirishima and Bakugou were busy pestering Midoriya. Sero was talking to the newcomers, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was shooting glances over to Ashido who wasted no time getting buddy-buddy with Uraraka. The table was very lively! However, Kaminari couldn’t help but excuse himself early. He had all but drained his social battery just being alone with the crown prince.
All the blond wanted to do was take a bath and get some sleep. He wasn’t aware of the multicolored eyes watching him leave, nor did he hear the very polite, “Excuse me, I think I am full,” after he left. No, instead, he stopped by his room to grab a clean change of bedclothes and something to dry himself off with before he made his way to the hot springs.
The warm water soothed his nerves from the moment he dipped his foot into it. The heat pulled out all of his anxiety as he sank to his neck in the water. It was a rare moment when he didn’t have to think about anything; the sensation of the water was enough to sedate his brain long enough to relax. His toes tingled and the rock felt smooth beneath him as Kaminari settled into a position of comfort. He could close his eyes without seeing his fears and he could stretch his body out without judgement, feeling the muscles pull and then relax back into place when the water came over them.
Of course, his peacefulness wasn’t eternal. His haven was cut off by the quiet- yet still so loud- sound of someone else dipping their foot into the water.
Citrine eyes snapped up to see Todoroki standing there with one foot in the water. He looked a bit confused, then sheepish, before something seemed to hit him, “Ah, do you mind if I join you?”
“Haha, you’re fine! Uh, actually I was just thinking about getting out,” Kaminari lied, hoping that Todoroki wasn’t about to call him out for it.
“Ah.”
Was what the crown prince said instead. He didn’t look offended, just mildly disappointed as he looked down at the water.
“D-did, um, did you want me to stay?”
“Oh. You do not have to if you were planning on leaving,” Todoroki looked up with full confidence, and Kaminari was thankful that he stayed in water that was waist deep.
“Yeah, I was kinda lying about that…” the blond admitted sheepishly, expecting the crown prince to be mad at him like his friends would have been for trying to hide such a thing.
“But why?” was Todoroki’s reaction. It was genuine, earnest curiosity- even down to the way he slightly tilted his head.
Kaminari felt put on the spot almost, but his brain was too numb from the relaxing water to stop himself from saying, “Well, I figured you wouldn’t want to share the bath with someone like me.”
“Someone like you?”
“Y-yeah…” the blond sank back into the water, feeling exposed as he went on, “Well I’m probably kind of annoying, and you’re such a regal and amazing person… I just figured you wouldn’t want to hang out with me…”
Todoroki’s next words all but shocked Kaminari, “I think you are the amazing one.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You.” The heterochromatic male smiled- it was small and hard to see, but it was a genuine smile. “I admire the way you can say what you think. I have trouble with that, myself… People want me to hold conversations, but I can’t…” he admitted, messing with the water in front of him.
Kaminari felt the need to rebuttal, “But a lot of people say that I talk too much, and I can never stay on topic! I repeat myself a lot, and I talk a lot, and I’m doing it already! See?”
Icy blue and brown met citrine from across the pool, “And? It is still amazing. People always make remarks about me being too quiet. I just do not know what to say.”
“Neither do I most times,” Kaminari admitted, scratching the back of his head, “But you- you’re already amazing! Not only are you super strong, you’re really cool, and you’re attractive. I mean, not to mention the fact that you’re royalty- but also you’re so easy to be around, I mean-”
“You are the first person to say that…” Todoroki cut the blond off, and silence fell between the two.
“N-No way! That can’t be true. What about that Yaomomo girl?”
“Yaoyorozu is quite nice, but she says that I can be hard to talk to…”
“I-Iida? You two looked pretty close!”
“He gave me scrolls on how to communicate better, but they just do not quite make sense to me…”
“That brown haired girl, um, what was her name? Dang, I’m blanking…”
“Uraraka?”
“Yeah! Her and the green haired cutie! What about them?”
“Mhm. Uraraka is very patient, but I always feel like I disappoint her. Midoriya is great at teaching me new things, but he can be caught up in his own little world most of the time.”
“I can be caught up in my own world most of the time!” Kaminari all but jumped up. He wasn’t so sure why he was so set on making the crown prince hate him, but he just kept fighting back.
“You are,” Todoroki admitted, “But that is not a bad thing… I quite enjoy your little world.”
The blond sat back down, looking at his knees, “So you don’t think I’m annoying?”
Todoroki looked up blankly, “I have already said that, have I not?” They both looked up, making eye contact once more- or rather looking in each other’s direction at the same time, but it was Kaminari’s turn to let out an, “Oh. Yeah… I thought you were just being polite.”
“Is that not the polite thing to do?” Todoroki sounded a little lost.
“No, no-”
“No?”
“I mean, yes, it is the polite thing to do, but I thought you were lying to avoid hurting my feelings…” Kaminari admitted, fiddling with his hands.
“Why would I do that? Would it not hurt more to find out that I was lying?”
“Y-yeah, it usually does, but people do it all the time…”
After Todoroki let out a hum, the two fell into silence, but it was stressed or awkward. It was nice. Kaminari was the first to break it, glancing over at Todoroki’s position across the pool, “Uh, hey, if you want, you can come sit over here.”
Confusion melted into a smile as Todoroki did, in fact, make his way over.
While they were comfortable then, that was just the first step towards their happiness.