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“You gonna help me or not?”
Izuku sighs, pulling at his hoodie strings. “I dunno. Still thinking about it.”
Bakugou Katsuki leans over Izuku’s desk, the black ink on his skin standing out in contrast with Izuku’s pastel notebooks. He grabs one and randomly flips through the pages and pages of neat notes. Izuku just stares, not sure if he is too scared to interfere or if he wants to keep staring at him. For fucks sake, when your longtime crush randomly asks you whether or not you’ll tutor them in Literature, you’re going to be taken aback a bit. You are also not going to mind the few extra seconds you have available to take them in.
Bakugou drops the pastel notebook back onto Izuku’s desk and rests his head on his palm. “Are you done thinking about it? I could ask some other dumbass, you know.”
“Exactly,” Izuku replies. “So why me?”
“Your desk is right behind me.”
“Okay. That’s fair.”
Bakugou grabs one of Izuku’s many gel pens and begins to scribble on the corner of the annotations Izuku is currently making on Macbeth . Izuku can’t do much but watch as he doodles, scribbling small circles.
“Do you mind?” Izuku scoffs. “This isn’t making me want to help you any more.”
“Yeah? Well I’ll stop if you agree to help me,” Bakugou says smoothly, the circles he is drawing progressively getting bigger. One of the loops intercepts the text on the page.
Izuku watches nervously as Bakugou’s scribbles begin to create chaos on his very neatly organized sheet of paper. “Alright, fine!” Izuku blurts, unable to stand the hideous scribbling in orange ink anymore. “I’ll help you.”
Bakugou snickers, capping the pen and throwing it back onto the desk. “That’s what I thought. Where should I meet you?”
“Your house?” Izuku proposes.
Bakugou shakes his head. “Nah, my mom can’t know I’m not doing well. Yours?”
Izuku responds with the same negative response. “What the hell do you think my mom’s gonna think if I bring you through the door?”
“Uh, who’s the hot guy?”
“No.”
“So then where, huh?”
“School library,” Izuku says. “At 5. It should still be open, we can spend the next hour working without being kicked out.”
Bakugou hums in agreement. “Sounds like a deal, Deku.”
“Deku?”
“New nickname for you.”
“I didn’t ask for it.”
Bakugou shrugs, looking a little too smug about the new nickname than he should. “Well, too fuckin’ bad.”
Izuku glares at him, prepared to let loose a string of unsavory words when the shadow of their teacher passes over them.
“Midoriya? Bakugou? Did someone die?”
“No, Aizawa-sensei,” Izuku replies quickly, covering the scribble on the corner of his page with his notebook.
Aizawa gives the pair the most deadpan expression he can muster. “Then why are you two talking?”
“Bakugou just wanted to borrow a pen,” Izuku says quickly. He hands Bakugou the orange gel pen he was using earlier. “Here you go!”
“Gee, thanks,” Bakugou responds, his acting unable to fool anyone.
It works fine in Aizawa’s book though, it seems. “Fine,” Aizawa sighs. “No more talking, though.”
Izuku nods, Aizawa heading back to his desk to stare at his empty computer screen for another half hour until the lunch bell rings. Bakugou, however, doesn’t turn back around to his desk. “I’m bored.”
“Finish your annotations,” Izuku instructs. “I’m going to work on mine, if you don’t mind. I’m also going to need that pen back.”
Bakugou doesn’t reply, throwing the pen back onto Izuku’s desk. “You’re so fuckin’ boring.”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m passing .”
Bakugou clicks his tongue, finally turning back to his own paper and giving it a death stare. Izuku bets that if he had a lighter on him he’d be burning the page right now. Finally, with Bakugou’s gaze away from him, Izuku can let a flush of red hit his cheeks. Did that really just happen? Did Bakugou Katsuki really just ask him to tutor him? Izuku is pretty sure he’s dreaming. He played it cool, right? Because he has been waiting for the day that Bakugou looks in his direction for literal years, ever since that day freshman year when Bakugou bumped his shoulder in the hallway. He had glared at Izuku then, but now? He still glares at him. But Izuku thinks it may be a little less malicious now.
Izuku sinks into his hoodie, using the bottom edge of it to hide his excited grin. Today at five, he may finally get the chance to know Bakugou.
When five o’clock does finally roll around, Izuku is already seated at a table in the library. There are a few students moving in and around the area, most of them only stopping in to find a friend before they leave together. Izuku already has his Literature notebook and Macbeth out, the pages open to what they had studied in class over the past unit or so. He taps his foot on the ground as he anxiously awaits Bakugou.
“Hey. What the fuck is all this?”
Izuku nearly jumps out of his chair. “Holy shit, dude! Don’t just sneak up on me like that.”
Bakugou rolls his eyes. “I didn’t sneak up on you, shithead. I just asked you a question.”
Izuku looks up at him, trying to stay on a relatively normal train of thought that doesn’t consist of his brain waxing poetry about how fucking chiseled this guy is, because wow. That black shirt is doing too much for him. Paired with the delicately lined tattoo sleeve and various piercings, Izuku is having a very hard time staying on the right track.
Bakugou stares at him. “Okay. Are you really going to ignore me right now?”
Izuku snaps himself out of it. “No! Sorry, just got lost in thought there for a second. And you did sneak up on me, but whatever. Sit down.”
Bakugou throws his bag down next to him and sits pulling out his notebook with a ripped cover and a broken pencil.
Izuku almost backs away in disgust. “Seriously? That’s what you take notes in?”
“Yeah, the fuck else am I supposed to use?”
“A better system, first of all,” Izuku says, pointing to his well organized notes with their own highlighter color coding system. “You’re probably failing because that looks like a huge mess. You need to get more organized.”
“No I don’t!” fires Bakugou. “This works just fine for me, thank you. Now stop being so fucking judgemental and explain what the hell has been going on in class.”
“You know, are you sure no one else could help you?” sighs Izuku. “Because you are quite the pleasure to work with.”
Bakugou leans back in his chair, stuffing his hands in his cargo pants pockets. “Holy fuck, are you stuck up. I didn’t say shit to you and you’re already insulting me!”
Izuku squeezes the gel pen in his hand. “Stuck up?! You have got to be shitting me with that.”
Bakugou scoffs, pulling something thin and black from his pocket and glancing around. “No, I’m not.” Once he deems the coast clear, he puts the object to his lips and breathes in. When he exhales, a thin cloud of white vapor follows.
“In the library?” Izuku panics, trying to convince himself that was not at all attractive. “Do you want to get caught?”
“Maybe,” Bakugou shrugs. He holds the vape out to Izuku. “Want some?”
Izuku holds his hands up, as if the glorified USB stick is going to punch him in the lungs. It already is to Bakugou, anyway. “Hell no! That is going to kill you, you know.”
“Good.” Bakugou inhales the vapors again before stuffing it back into his pocket. “The fuck are we working on in class again?”
Izuku, still recovering from his fear of USBs, fumbles for the assignment sheet Aizawa-sensei had given the students at the beginning of the unit. “Uh, well, we are working on annotating the fifth act right now. Then we are going to have a class discussion on Thursday before our exam on Friday.”
“That all this week?”
“Yup.”
Bakugou takes another hit of the vape. “I hope this kills me by then.”
Izuku ignores him, continuing, “We can start with the act five annotations. That should be simple. Do you have your paper copy?”
Bakugou shuffles around in his bag before bringing out a very crinkled packet of paper. “Yeah.”
Izuku scrunches his nose at the disorganization. “Okay, we can make this work.” He says this mostly to comfort himself. He smooths out the packet, glad that it at least lies relatively flat. Izuku grabs a pen from where he had laid them out in perfectly straight lines and hands it to Bakugou before grabbing another for himself.
“Why’d you give me one of these?” Bakugou asks, though he uncaps the pen. “I already have a pencil.”
Izuku side eyes the pencil that Bakugou most likely found on the floor. “Uh, no. I’m going to introduce you to my system. Then maybe you can stop being such a fucking deliquent and actually learn to read.”
That’s when Bakugou does something Izuku never expected. He bursts out into laughter, nearly doubling over as the sound explodes from his lips. A few passing students give him weird looks. Izuku tries to say something to stop the weird stares, but Bakugou keeps on laughing.
“What the hell is so funny?” Izuku finally asks as Bakugou begins to catch his breath.
“You swore!”
“What?”
Bakugou runs his fingers through his wild blond hair. “It has the same effect as a little kid swearing, holy shit. Like you aren’t meant to say it.”
Izuku isn’t sure how to respond to that. “Well I, uh, I’m not exactly sure what you want me to do with that information.” He clears his throat. “Can we please get back to Macbeth now?”
Bakugou lays his head down on the table, resting it on his outstretched arm. “Fine. Start explaining.”
Izuku stares at him, from his cheek squished against his arm to the strand of hair that lays over his nose so perfectly that it moves gently with every breath.
“Right, um. I hope you’ve read it through once, because-”
“Nope.”
“Let’s start there then.”
Izuku continues to tutor Bakugou for as long as he asks. They don’t have a routine or a schedule. Some days, Bakugou will mess with Izuku’s notebooks in Literature until Izuku snaps and asks what he wants, to which Bakugou will keenly reply with a plea for help on that night’s homework. Izuku always resists, and Bakugou always insists. In the end, Bakugou always wins, Izuku appearing infuriated but secretly high-fiving himself for the time he can now spend with Bakugou.
A month or so goes by since their first tutoring session, the ones in between just as chaotic and unimpressive as the first. Izuku is doodling in the margins of his notebook (a new habit he thinks he picked up from Bakugou, but he won’t truly confirm the source), when his neighbor raps twice on his wooden desk. Izuku looks up, the fiery eyes of Bakugou giving the opposite of a warm greeting.
“Yeah?” Izuku says. “What do you need help with today?”
“Can I crash at your house later?”
That’s new. “What?”
Bakugou sighs and rolls his eyes, as if it is obvious why he is asking. “I got a new piercing yesterday.” He sticks out his tongue to show Izuku the metal stud now in his mouth. “My mom’s pretty pissed about it. So can I stay with you for a few hours after school? She leaves on a business trip at nine tonight, so I’ll go home then.”
“Uh,” is all Izuku can muster for a few moments, still fixated on the fact that Bakugou has a tongue piercing now. He is absolutely certain that there are cameras somewhere; a reality TV crew is most likely laughing at his completely whipped expression right now. Bakugou stares at him, waiting for a sentence.
“Y-yeah. Yup. Yes. It’s fine,” Izuku finally says. “My mom gets back from work at six though so you’re going to need to hide in my room after that.”
Bakugou taps his fingernails on Izuku’s desk. “Done that before. Sounds good. I’ll walk with you once class is over then, I guess.”
“What?”
“What, what?”
“What do you mean you’ve done that before?”
Bakugou smirks. “What do you think?”
Izuku covers his ears with his palms. “Oh my god, gross! Why would you say that?”
Bakugou takes one of Izuku’s highlighters, uncapping it and coloring in parts of the black fire tattooed on his right arm. “You asked, dipshit.”
“I didn’t need to know that , though! Fuck, I need to cleanse my brain of that information.”
Bakugou snickers. “There’s the swearing again. And don’t be such a prude, I didn’t even say shit about what we did.” He laughs as Izuku makes a face.
“Ugh. Whatever.” Izuku eyes the highlighter, making a grab for it. “And I’ll take this back, thank you!”
“I was using that!”
“To color in your shitty fire tattoo? Yeah, okay.”
Bakugou sticks his tongue out at Izuku and turns back to his desk. Izuku begins to wonder if god is real, and if he is, if he is laughing down upon Izuku at this very moment. To cope, Izuku pulls at his hoodie strings, sinking back into the soft green fabric. He stays that way for the rest of class, Aizawa-sensei either too entranced in teaching this riveting lesson on poetry or not caring about whatever Izuku got going on. To confirm, it is the latter.
Bakugou follows Izuku out of class just as he promised. Izuku wants to joke with him and tell him that he looks like a lost puppy, tagging behind him like that, but he knows that Bakugou will probably punch him. He is already trailing a few feet back, not wanting to be seen directly beside Izuku. Izuku doesn’t care too much, though, still fixated on the idea that he is going to have to hide Bakugou in his room. A boy. A very pretty boy. In his room. This is going to be a lot, even by Izuku standards.
Izuku’s house is walking distance from the school, so they start the short walk from the campus down a dirt path with a little distance between them. When they are out of eyesight of any potential classmates, Bakugou speeds up, finally walking with Izuku side by side.
“How far away is your house?”
“Not far,” Izuku replies. “It’s just down the path, over the bridge, and then a block down the road. It should take us around ten minutes.”
“Okay,” Bakugou replies awkwardly. He opens his mouth as if he wants to add something else, but no sound comes out and he closes his mouth again. Izuku watches discreetly as he shoulders his messenger bag, his eyes glued to the array of sticks on the ground. He finds them a little too interesting than they actually are. Izuku just assumes that he has a leaf collection.
“Why the tattoos?” Izuku asks to fill the weird silence. “I don’t know why anyone would want to get stabbed a million times.” He doesn’t expect Bakugou to answer.
“I like the way they look,” Bakugou replies honestly. “I saw a design and wanted it, so I got it. Simple.”
“Oh,” Izuku says, “Same thing for the piercings too, I assume?”
Bakugou hums. “Yeah. I like them, so I get them.”
“Do they hurt?”
“A little. It’s not too bad, though.” Bakugou looks at his face thoughtfully. “You’d look nice with a rook piercing. A helix too, and a tongue piercing like mine.”
“Oh,” Izuku says. He thinks that’s the only thing he is capable of saying when Bakugou is looking at him like that. Like he could stare at Izuku’s face for hours.
“Do you want to get them, Deku? I have a needle in my bag,” Bakugou explains.
“Oh, god, no!” Izuku stammers. “T-there’s no way I can make an impulsive decision like that. Not now. Maybe later?”
Bakugou clicks his tongue. He does that a lot, Izuku notes. “Whatever.”
They approach Izuku’s house. It’s quaint, and once Izuku opens the door, the well decorated living room greets them. Inko has always had a knack for decor and artwork, so she was always putting things up in the house.
“Welcome in, I guess,” Izuku says as he slips off his shoes. “Do you want anything to eat?”
Bakugou shakes his head. “No. I’m okay.”
“Alright,” Izuku says, walking down the hall to his bedroom. Once again, Bakugou follows him like a lost dog. “Please don’t make fun of me,” Izuku explains before he opens his bedroom door. “I just thought All Might was really cool when I was a kid.”
“All Might? The comic series?”
“Yes,” Izuku admits. “Just keep any negative thoughts you have to yourself. Trust me, I already know.”
“I don’t think I can make any such promises.”
Izuku braces himself for the relentless laughter that is sure to come as he swings the door open. He walks inside, Bakugou following. They both drop their bags next to Izuku’s desk as Bakugou takes in the plethora of All Might collectibles on Izuku’s bookshelves. In fact, there may be more All Might figurines than actual books.
“Holy fuck,” Bakugou says, sounding more in awe than Izuku expected. “You really weren’t lying, huh?”
“Nope,” Izuku admits miserably. “It’s unfortunate.”
“I like the sixth anniversary figurine. I never got to get it.”
“What?”
Bakugou points to the figure, one of All Might in his classic pose. “That one. I wasn’t able to get it when it was released. I tried to convince my mom to wait in line with me when the store opened but she was busy with work.”
“You like All Might too?”
“Yeah, obviously.”
Izuku beams. “I had no idea! Why didn’t you say something? Finally, someone else who follows these freaking comics! What’s your favorite volume?”
Bakugou holds his hands up. “Jeez, calm down, Deku. I just mildly like them. I’m not obsessed.”
“Sure sounds like you are. The sixth edition shit was five years ago, when we were in middle school.”
Bakugou scoffs. “Whatever, Deku.” He sits down on Deku’s bed, chewing at his lower lip. “What was the Literature homework again?”
“We don't have any,” Izuku replies, sitting down next to Bakugou. This is the closest they’ve ever been, Izuku notes. For the first time, he notices the paper thin scar on the side of Bakugou’s neck. He wonders how he got it.
“Really?”
“You don’t listen in class, do you?”
“Nah,” Bakugou says. “Too busy staring.”
“At what?”
Bakugou laughs, as if it’s obvious. “What do you think?”
Izuku feels their pinkies touch. “I-I don’t know,” he answers honestly.
Bakugou frowns. “I didn’t know you were this dense. You’re a smart guy, put the fuckin’ pieces together.”
Izuku shakes his head, completely stumped. “I don’t know! Just tell me.”
Bakugou rolls his eyes, annoyed. “Fucking hell, I gotta spell this out for you too?”
“It may help a bit, yes.”
Izuku almost gasps when Bakugou puts his hand on his neck, pulling his head in. “What the fuck are you-” he starts before being cut off.
From the many hours he definitely did not spend thinking about kissing Bakugou, he expected him to be a lot less gentle than he is. Everything about Bakugou screams rough and messy, from the way he always sags his pants to the atrocious way he keeps his notes. Izuku didn’t expect him to cradle his face so delicately, or gently brush his thumb over Izuku’s freckles. When he eventually pulls away, Izuku feels like he needs a few moments to gather his bearings and update the Bakugou Katsuki folder in his brain, but Bakugou doesn’t give that to him.
“Does that fucking help? Or do I need to do that shit again?”
Izuku blinks, once, twice, three times. “I, um. It answered it, kind of. I think I need a little more information th-”
Bakugou is kissing him again, with the same gentleness as the first. Izuku is still not entirely prepared to be kissing Bakugou right now, but at least he has the sense to hold onto Bakugou’s wrists to keep him grounded.
This time when Bakugou pulls away, Izuku is prepared with what he wants to say.
“You’re good at that.” Nope. That was not what he wanted to say. Midoriya Izuku is a poet with words.
“Really?” Bakugou smiles. “I didn’t get that from how red your fucking face is right now.”
Izuku goes to pull at his hoodie strings but Bakugou stops him. “Don’t,” he says. “It’ll ruin it.”
“Okay?” Izuku lowers his hands from his hoodie strings, balling them up in his lap instead.
“So,” Bakugou goes on to say. “We don’t have any lit homework.”
“Nope. We established that we in fact do not.”
Bakugou hums. “So I guess our afternoon is free.”
“Yup. It’s free. We have nothing we have to do.”
The silence is palpable for the next few moments as Izuku takes extreme interest in the threads on his All Might bed sheets. When he catches a glimpse of Bakugou again, he is averting his eyes.
“Are we, um, going to talk about that or…?” Izuku asks. Bakugou keeps his eyes on the white painted wall as he responds.
“Not unless you fuckin’ want to. Otherwise, forget it.”
Izuku doesn’t think he can flush a deeper shade of red, but his face seems to take that as a challenge. “O-Okay, well I do, so, can we talk about that? Because what the hell?”
Bakugou plays with the stud on his earlobe. “I think you know why I did that.”
“Yes. Yup. I confirmed that.”
“So is it mutual?”
Izuku thinks that if he wasn’t so frozen in place he would have toppled off the bed. “Yes. Yeah. For sure.”
Bakugou finally turns his gaze back onto Izuku. Izuku, on the other hand, thinks he is about to need to go to the ER. Cardiac arrest is imminent.
“Good,” Bakugou whispers before leaning in again. Izuku doesn’t hesitate to do the same. At least, until he hears his mother’s car pull into the driveway.
Izuku scrambles to push Bakugou away, though Bakugou makes several attempts to pull Izuku back to him.
“My mom’s home early, shit!” Izuku says, hoping that it’s enough information for Bakugou. “I think you need to go.”
“What?” Bakugou replies, still in a bit of a haze. Izuku grabs his bag from the floor and stuffs it into his arms.
“Out the window,” Izuku demands without a second thought.
Bakugou looks at him in disgust. “Out the window? Are you serious right now?”
“Do you want to be yelled at by my mother? Oh my god, she’s going to kill me if she sees you here.”
Izuku continues to push him towards the window. The drop is only a few feet onto the grass since they are only on the first floor, but Bakugou looks at him with an annoyed expression anyways. Izuku probably deserved that.
“Fuck, fine!” Bakugou finally concedes, pushing open the window. Luckily, it’s just big enough for him to crawl through. As he makes his daring escape, Izuku keeps an eye on his bedroom door, listening for the sound of his mother’s feet if she approaches. From what he can tell, though, she is still getting out of the car and hasn’t entered the house yet.
He turns around to see Bakugou pouting by the window, an annoyed look on his face.
“I know, I know,” Izuku tries to comfort him. “Sorry I just don’t want her to freak out.”
“Right.”
Izuku sighs, leaning through the window to give Bakugou a chaste kiss. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow then, right Kacchan?”
“Kacchan?”
Izuku shrugs. “If you get to call me Deku, I get to call you Kacchan.”
Bakugou thinks about it for a moment. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Izuku?” His mom is approaching his bedroom door.
Izuku gives Bakugou another quick kiss before shutting the window just in time for Inko to open his bedroom door.
“Hey, honey,” she says as she walks over to the window. “Everything okay? You closed that window pretty hard.”
Izuku sneaks a look out the window, relieved to see that there is no trace of Bakugou there. He’s probably laying on the grass right now, or jumped into the bush on his right.
“Everything’s fine,” Izuku says in the calmest voice he can manage. “It just slipped.”
“Okay,” Inko says, not seeming to catch on to anything. She starts to leave the room, but not before pausing in the doorway.
“Does it smell like caramel in here to you?”
“Nope!” Izuku lies, though it very much does.
Inko hesitates for a few moments before deciding that her senses must be deceiving her, and closing the door.
Izuku hears an earful from Bakugou the following day about how annoying it was to jump out a window. He still agrees to take him out to coffee after school, though.