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Todoroki looks up from his math homework to stare at his boyfriend, laying on his bed with his phone in his hand, scrolling aimlessly.
Bakugo doesn’t look away from his phone straight away, but when he does, he’s met with the intense gaze of grey and blue eyes. “What?” he asks.
Todoroki shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says. He’s quiet for a bit, but Bakugo waits, knowing there’s more. “I was just thinking about your eyes.”
“Haah?” slips out of Bakugo’s mouth involuntarily, making his confusion evident. “What about my eyes?”
“They’re very…” Todoroki pauses, trying to figure out the best words to form what he wants to say, but instead what comes out is, “red.”
Bakugo snorts. “Yeah, I know I have red eyes.”
“No, that wasn’t what I meant,” Todoroki tries again. “They’re very… intense.”
Bakugo’s eyes narrow. “You got a problem with my eyes?”
“No!” Todoroki shouts immediately. “I like your eyes,” he says, trying to pour as much sincerity into his voice as he can. “A lot.”
Bakugo scowls. “Even when you say nice things, your deadpan voice makes it sound like you’re making fun of me.”
Todoroki sighs heavily. He thinks this is that feeling Midoriya mentioned: being so frustrated that you want to pull your own hair out. He wished he was better at words, and that he could use them instead of feeling trapped by them.
“But,” Bakugo continues, sitting up, “I already knew that you were shit at expressing your feelings when I decided to date you.”
With a few words, all of Todoroki’s frustration is blown away, and the tension that had been running through his body is relieved. He feels lighter, even though his heart feels like it’s beating just a little bit faster.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Bakugo grimaces, but Todoroki can see the faint blush creeping on his cheeks before Bakugo flops back onto the bed and turns away in an attempt to hide it.
Todoroki decides to let it go this time, not wanting to embarrass Bakugo further when Bakugo had just been trying to comfort him.
“Well I mean it,” he says. “I love your eyes.”
“Yeah?” Bakugo asks, amusement seeping in his tone. “What about them?”
“Well…” Todoroki pauses, again searching for the right words. “When they’re intense, it’s almost like they blaze. I feel like your red eyes give off much more of an impression of fire than my blue one does. And when you’re angry, it’s actually quite entertaining.”
“Shitty Half-and-Half,” Bakugo interrupts him. “You’re saying you think it’s funny when I’m mad?”
“No,” Todoroki corrects him automatically, then proceeds to think about it. “Actually, maybe yes.”
Bakugo scowls but doesn’t say anything else.
“But my favorite,” Todoroki continues. “Is how your eyes are when you wake up and you look at me. It makes me feel…,” Todoroki stops. What would be the best way to say this? “Cared for,” he selects.
“Tch,” Bakugo responds. “Fucking idiot. The word you’re looking for is loved.”
“That too,” Todoroki agrees.
“Idiot,” Bakugo repeats, opening up his arms. Todoroki’s body responds immediately, getting up from his seat to fall into his boyfriend’s embrace. “Fucking idiot,” Bakugo says again, burying his face in Todoroki’s shoulder, and wrapping his arms around his waist.
“I love you too,” Todoroki murmurs into Bakugo’s neck.
They stay like that for a bit, before Bakugo pulls back to stare at Todoroki directly. “What’s with the sudden interest in eyes?”
Todoroki looks away, unable to hold Bakugo’s gaze as he tells him, “I was thinking about mine.”
His tone of voice makes it clear to Bakugo that he was thinking about much more than just eyes. “What about yours?” Bakugo asks, his voice softening as he suddenly realized the discussion they were headed into.
Todoroki lets his head fall onto Bakugo’s chest. “I was thinking about how your eyes make it very clear who you are,” Todoroki starts, and if he wasn’t acting like this, Bakugo would’ve given him shit for avoiding the question. But like this, he knows Todoroki will get to it eventually.
“And?” Bakugo prompts, knowing there’s more.
“Your eyes… they say what you want them to say,” Todoroki is silent for a bit, and Bakugo doesn’t push him. “But mine… If words are already difficult to express myself with, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do so with my eyes.”
Bakugo can’t help but tease him a little. “So you’re saying I’m easy to read?” he asks, trying to keep his smile out of his voice.
“No,” Todoroki shakes his head, and his hair tickles as it brushes against Bakugo’s neck. “Well, not all the time. You hide pain very well.”
And that’s as close to his own emotions as Bakugo is willing to get. “And what does this have to do with your eyes?”
Todoroki voice comes out monotone. “I was thinking about how my blue eye is exactly like my father’s.”
Ah, Bakugo thinks. There it is.
There’s silence for a long time. Bakugo rubs his hands in circles on Todoroki’s back, feeling his breathing start to get a little uneven. Even after two years of dating, he knows Todoroki still has a difficult time opening up about how he really feels, unlike the ease with which he insults his father. Behind Todoroki’s blank stare, Bakugo knows there are deep internal scars and burns that he can’t fix, even if he wishes he could.
“I think that’s how my mother saw my father in me,” Todoroki finally says, and it’s like speaking those words has opened up a dam, because the rest of his thoughts come pouring out. “Through this eye. Because my face resembles my mother almost exactly. And my hair isn’t similar to his except in color. But she must have seen him in this eye,” he points at his left eye. “She saw something here that scared her so much she—“
Bakugo tightened his hold around Todoroki before he could finish his sentence, and when Todoroki blinked, he realized his vision was blurry. “Sorry,” he mumbled. When he lifted his head a little, he saw tear stains on Bakugo’s shirt. “Sorry,” he said again, reaching up to trace them lightly with his fingers.
“You idiot,” Bakugo mumbles, but there’s no menace, and it’s so soft that Todoroki wants to wrap himself in Bakugo’s voice when it sounds like this.
Todoroki has never been good at expressing himself, or even knowing how he feels. But when he’s with Bakugo, when he’s in Bakugo’s arms, he feels so safe and so… so loved, that he can’t help it when his emotions burst out.
“I’m not gonna say cheesy shit ‘cause you know I hate that,” Bakugo suddenly says, a little bit of gruff returning to his voice. “But I am gonna tell you the truth. Which is that, between your grey eye and your blue eye, I don’t see anything different.” He runs his hands through Todoroki’s hair as he speaks, gruff tone contrasting with his gentle caress. “You idiot, you’re just you. Not him. Not anyone else. Just you.”
And Todoroki really can’t contain it then: the swell of emotion and overwhelming affection that surges over him as he squeezes Bakugo so hard he yelps. “Idiot!” Bakugo hisses.
Todoroki stares straight into Bakugo’s eyes, crimson red mixed with slight irritation and incomparable warmth. “Can I kiss you?”
“Wha—?” Bakugo’s cheeks flush deep red, and he turns away, his arm coming up to try and hide his expression.
Todoroki can’t help but internally grin. After two years together, Bakugo is still so shy.
“Are you gonna fucking do it or not?” he hears his boyfriend mumble, and Todoroki laughs lightly before leaning down into Bakugo.