Work Text:
-i.
Denki Kaminari was, admittedly, not a smart man. It didn’t help that Japanese was not his first language, impeding his comprehension of nearly every lecture. It also didn’t help that his notes were half-formed thoughts written in between the scribbled doodles that caught his attention when class could not.
It also didn’t help that he had left them in class.
On a Friday.
When the assignment was due the following Monday.
He should have been completely, utterly, and totally screwed, forced to face the wrath of Aizawa once he returned, empty handed. He should have. But Kyoka Jiro was more than he deserved. The punk rock angel descended upon him and said the words he could have only hoped to hear:
“I haven’t finished either, let’s just work together. You can use my notes.”
And just like that, she was there. Laying on her back, chilling on his living room floor--because despite there being a number of seats, it would have been too expected if she’d just sat at the sofa or used the coffee table--reading aloud from the textbook.
“I don’t get iiiiit,” Kaminari whined, collapsing on the ground to lie the opposite way of her. “These numbers don’t make any sense! Is this really math or is it a new form of torture?”
After a beat, Jiro propped herself up on her elbows to look at him. “...Kaminari, this is History.”
“...” He didn’t react right away. Maybe the thought didn’t sink in immediately, or maybe he was trying to think of a way to dispute her. But when he couldn’t deny it anymore, Denki threw his arms over his face and groaned wordlessly. “I’m doomed .”
“You’re not doomed, you’re just an idiot,” she sighs, sitting up and crossing her legs. “What you need is a way to focus. You keep getting distracted.”
“If that was his problem, he should have called his loud friend or something,” a third voice piped in from the couch. The boy glanced up from his handheld game and smiled shyly at Jiro, ignoring the way Denki’s brow furrowed. “You’re too pretty, it’s a distraction.”
“Little dude has got some moves.” Jiro grinned and fell back onto the floor, picking up her textbook again. “I mean, it’s not true, but dang, kid.”
“Keiji, I thought you were doing your homework,” Denki managed, trying not to sound flustered or bothered in the least (he was failing miserably at that too). The boy, who shared Denki’s eyes but a mess of black hair and a bright yellow cowlick, shrugged at him.
“I finished it. Mom said I couldn’t help out at work, so I came to help you,” he answered plainly.
“You’re not helping-”
“You’re helping major-”
Keiji and Kyoka laughed at the same time. Denki simply retreated further into the cover of his own arms, until a nudge from Kyoka’s knee against his shoulder. “C’mon, Dummy, I’ve got an idea,” she urged him, sitting up and taking her phone out.
Kaminari watched through a gap in his cover as she fiddled with an app and turned her notebook to a fresh page. “What are you doing?” he asked, slowly coming out of hiding to watch her.
Jiro grinned, hitting a button on the app as a way of answering. Immediately, a simple beat started playing, something rhythmic and quiet but seemingly unending. Not until she hit it again. “You remember song lyrics, right? Let’s just turn it into a song, and you’ll remember it fine. That way if you ever need it for a test or an assignment or something, you’ll have it tucked away, up there.”
She double tapped his forehead with her index finger before turning to the notebook and rewriting some of the parts he was struggling with. She missed the flush that crawled its way up his neck and ears, taking over his face.
But Keiji didn’t.
“So are you two dating or something?” the younger boy asked.
Jiro laughed. “What? No way.”
Kaminari didn’t answer, but he did share a cringe with his younger brother. “Oof,” Keiji mouthed silently.
-ii.
Kyoka Jiro didn’t normally go… out. A coffee shop here and there, the record shop she frequented, but that was really it. The biggest excursions were concerts, but those were hardly social events. Beyond that, her parents got her the instruments she had, she shopped for clothes online, and met friends at their house.
A group movie outing was pretty much new territory.
She stood in the lobby, a half hour early, with her ticket in one hand and her phone in the other.
aren’t you late to being early Yaomomo?
Yes!! I’m sorry Kyoka, something
came up.I’m afraid Todoroki and I won’t
be attending the film this evening.
k 👌
“Weird,” she murmured, pocketing her phone and scanning the lobby again. She didn’t see any sign of the others, either, and surely she would have heard Bakugo before he even walked in. Maybe this was a bad idea, or they found something else to do without letting her know? And since when was Todoroki even invited to this?
Jiro’s jacks began to fidget nervously, tapping against each other for lack of anything else to do. The movie was going to start soon, and no one had even texted her. She would know, she’s been checking obsessively every thirty seconds now. Maybe she should just lea--
“Heeyyy! Kyoka!”
Leave it to Kaminari to show up out of the blue, running up to her like an excited puppy. He beamed at her, despite the way she was bristling, all her nervous energy burst out. “You’re late , you idiot!”
“Sorry, sorry! I had to help Kirishima coax Bakugo into going,” he explained.
Jiro looked around, looking for any more familiar faces in the lobby. “I don’t see them, though.”
“Yeah, I said I was helping, not that we did it. Kacchan got super pissy and told us to buzz off, so of course Kirishima went after him to make sure he didn’t incinerate an orphanage or whatever he does to cool off.” Despite himself, Kaminari was grinning wide, folding his arms behind his head like he didn’t have a care in the world. “You look super pretty, by the way.”
“Shut up, dummy,” she sighed, jabbing him lightly in the side with a jack. “I guess I should see if I can get my money back for the ticket.”
“What, why? We’re already here, let’s just go in,” he argues, his expression dampening for the first time since he ran up to her. “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”
“I don’t even know what kind of movie we’re seeing,” she argues lamely, allowing him to take her by the wrist and half-jog to the ticket taker.
For some reason, the look Denki gave her was more than enough to send a chill down her spine. “You’ll love it, I promise.”
Forty five minutes later, Denki was laughing hysterically on the sidewalk in front of the theater. Jiro was swatting his back with both her hands and her jacks. “It’s not funny!” she exclaimed, smacking him again. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it should have gotten her point across, at least!
“You--” he wheezed, gulping in air while he could before dissolving into laughter again. “You got us kicked out!!”
“You didn’t tell me it was a scary movie!” The defense was legitimate, but it didn’t break his mood. “Who even wants to see movies like that?!”
“I’unno, why did you kick the guy in front of us?!” he shot back, wiping his eye and clutching his stomach. “Did you see the look he gave you?”
The door behind them opened and Kaminari broke into another fit of giggles. The theater manager stood in front of the usher who had escorted them out. “Miss, you and your boyfriend need to leave the premises,” he said firmly.
As if she wasn’t embarrassed enough.
“He’s not my--”
“Both of you leave, now.”
Before she could argue any further, clarify anything, Kaminari’s hands were warm and heavy on her shoulders, leading her away. “But--”
“Let’s just get you home before any mOnStErS get you,” he snickered.
“You suck , Kaminari,” she grumbled, not about to object to an escort home after what she’d seen on the screen.
-iii.
It was just a concert. A small one, but a concert. Nothing social about that. They wanted to go and listen to music together, nothing unusual about that. It was something two friends planned for a weekend where they didn’t have any prior plans.
“Who’s this person and where’s my Kyoka?” her father asked, watching her pace in the living room.
“God, Dad, don’t do this now,” she grumbled, fussing with the hem of her dress. It was a Yaomomo custom, of course. The moment her friend found out what was going on, she had to get involved, fashioning the perfect dress in exchange for the pizza Jiro brought to her.
“You’re wearing polkadots,” he countered, sinking into the couch and stretching his arms over the back, watching her wear a trail into his floor. “Wait, you’re going to that rockabilly thing in the park, aren’t you?”
“ Duh ,” she answered, trying hard not to chew on her newly manicured nail. “Why else would I be dressed like this?”
The senior Jiro shrugged. “So what’s the hold up?”
“I’m--” As if on cue, the doorbell rang. By the time Jiro had finished looking over his shoulder and back to where Kyoka had been, she was gone. Off like a rocket toward the door, trying to reach it before either of her parents could react. But there was no preparing her for what was waiting on the other side of the door.
Kaminari stood there, one arm leaning against the doorway. His hair was slicked back, he wore a leather jacket and jeans, and he looked unlike he ever had before. He looked…
Kyoka gulped and thanked the powers that be that he couldn’t hear her heart. It didn’t matter how he looked. This wasn’t a date. They were just two friends hanging out because she definitely didn’t hear what she thought she heard the other day--
“You look amazing!” Kaminari exclaimed, throwing his bad boy lean and all her defenses to the wind. “C’mon, let’s get there before we miss it.”
The park was within walking distance, but it felt like miles. He was talking and her mind felt like a bass buzz was blocking out every word of it. At some point, one of them put her hand on his elbow as they walked into their destination, and he could feel her fingers begin to tap in time to the beat that was drifting towards them.
It was a sight to see once they were in the thick of it.
Someone had parked their old pick-up truck on the grass and set up all their equipment around it. And on it. The old car had been turned into a makeshift stage for a handful of local kids dressed in their best rockabilly gear. Leather jackets, greased hair, and poodle skirts were all around, dancing along to the high energy music they were blasting.
The energy itself was contagious. Whatever it was that was keeping Kyoka in her head on their way there seemed to fade away as soon as she heard the twangy riffs from the guitars and the fast tempo crashing out of the drums, she was happier than he’d ever seen her. “C’mon, dummy!” she cried, grabbing his hand and pulling him closer to the music.
Something about the music had her letting loose in a way he’d never seen before. There was no timid reluctance to be pulled out of her shell, no calling him an idiot for asking her to dance. Just spinning herself with the hand she refused to let go of and beginning to move before he even had a chance and a bright smile that he was sure she’d only ever shared with him before.
The late afternoon stretched into the night all too quickly without a sign of slowing down. It was only once the noise complaints started filing in did the music stop and the crowd start dispersing. Even then, as Kaminari was giving her a piggyback ride back to her place, she couldn’t seem to sit still, bopping her head and shaking her shoulders, humming the songs that stuck with her through the evening.
“Sooooo…. Did you have fun?” he ventured, leaning his head back. It almost shocked him when she leaned her head forward. They were practically cheek to cheek and he could smell… wait, was that deodorant or perfume? Did girls wear deodorant? Either way, she smelled nice and it was taking everything he had not to crackle with excitement.
“That was the most fun I’ve had in forever,” she admitted freely, the corners of her eyes crinkling with her broad smile. “Thanks for inviting me, Dummy. I had a blast.”
“I had no idea you were gonna like it that much, I would have asked you out sooner.” Before she had a chance to even consider arguing, he added quickly. “Didn’t even know you like to dance.”
“Not that I’m great at it. But there’s some music you can’t enjoy fully without moving to it. Music without dancing is kinda like…” Kyoka trailed off, thinking of a proper combination to prove her point.
But somehow, her idiot beat her to the punch. “You without me?”
“I--” She didn’t know what she was about to say. Luckily, she didn’t have to figure it out.
“Who the hell is this guy?” Her father asked loudly, squinting at Denki in the darkness. Kaminari stopped in his tracks and looked around, as if trying to find someone else for the father of his future wife to want to maybe probably definitely kill instead of him.
“Oh my god, Dad,” Kyoka sighed loudly, wiggling out of Denki’s grasp and making the last leg of her journey on foot, heels in hand. “Thanks again, dummy.”
-iv.
The new student was a point of contention between Denki and Jiro recently.
Denki, for one, was happy to have another English speaker in class to talk to. The fact that she was insanely pretty and fairly easy to get along with only really added to the list of reasons why he enjoyed hanging out with her. Besides, it wasn’t as if he and Kyoka were hanging out like they used to. She’d begun dodging all of his invites and then soon after, his calls. It seemed like the only time he got to spend with her these days was in school.
And for her part, Jiro… couldn’t even seem to place what it was about the girl she disliked. Yukiko was polite enough to anyone she wasn’t friends with, but she was friendly enough to get along with almost anyone. Maybe it was the brief, unhappy expression that seemed to cross her face whenever she looked at Kyoka, or… well…
“Can I be, like, totally honest with you?” Kiko asked, twirling the end of one of her pigtails around her finger. Jiro pressed herself against the wall, around the corner from where the two stood privately, listening in with her quirk like she knew she shouldn’t.
“Yeah, of course. You can tell me anything,” Denki answers, casually omitting that he’s the single worst person to reveal a secret to. Besides Mina, maybe. The girl stepped a little closer to him, shortening the gap. He gaped a little, having to look up at his classmate. “Uh.”
“I just… I’m really happy that you were in my class. It’s hard starting part way through the year, and you really made me feel welcome.” She sounded serious. She sounded sincere. Jiro could hear that just as she could hear the two sets of elevated heartbeats, and it made her stomach sink.
Not this.
She should walk away, should let them be, but something kept her cemented in place, listening to every word she didn’t want to hear.
“I’m glad that we got to be friends. But I’ve been wanting more, and I feel really selfish about it.”
“Heh… heh…? Kiko? What, uh. What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying I have a crush on you. Which sucks because you’re too busy chasing Jiro, who isn’t even giving you a second glance.”
Is that what it looked like? Well… that’s what it really was, wasn’t it? They were best friends. It made sense that people thought. Boy, girl, super close, people would think one of them had feelings for the other and it was the other person’s fault that nothing came of it. But that’s just… what they thought. There was no way Kaminari actually felt--
“First off, oof. That, uh. Maybe don’t put it so bluntly?”
What?
Kaminari’s back hit the wall with a quiet thwump before he slid down it. Yukiko mirrored his movement, crouching down next to him in the hallway. “Yeah, I like her and she doesn’t seem to notice, but… I’m fine with that. Being her friend isn’t a consolation prize or anything,” he explains quietly. “And holy crap, I’m super… honored? I guess? I have no idea why you’d pick me to have a crush on but wow. Thank you, I think. But… yeah, you said it. Sorry.”
“I don’t think I could date anyone else while I still have feelings for Kyoka.”
The world was spinning. Kyoka’s knees threatened to give out. What was he saying? That didn’t make any sense. Kaminari and Mineta were birds of a feather, they flocked to hot girls with long legs and shirts that didn't fit. And here he was passing up a prime opportunity to get exactly what he was after? For… her??
Yukiko sighed heavily. Jiro couldn’t see it but it sounded like her head moved to rest against his shoulder. “I kind of figured that already. Like I said, I’m being selfish. I just don’t see what’s so great about a girl that insults you all the time and gets pissy when you hang out with other girls.”
“First of all… she gets pissy when I hang out with other girls? Does that mean she’s jealous? That’s good, right? And second of all, she doesn’t mean any of it. Except Dummy. I like it when she calls me that, she sounds so sweet when she does it.”
Dummy, Kyoka thought, despite herself.
“Whatever, weirdo,” Yukiko told him affectionately, standing up. Guilt crept through Jiro’s veins, hearing the sadness fighting to stay out of her voice. “As long as you’re happy, I guess. I’ll just… go help Mineta oogle girls in the cafeteria or something. I’ll, uh… talk to you later or something.”
“Right… You sure you’re okay?” he asked as she began to walk away.
“Nope! But I’ll live. Go find your girlfriend, Denki.”
“She’s not my--”
“Yet.”
-v.
It wasn’t the first time she spent the night.
Their study sessions tended to go on for a while. There was a time when she thought putting a distance between them would help the weird feelings in her chest when the others spoke to him, or the sleepless nights when she would debate over texting him for hours just for his company. But the ache got worse and she decided to just try and go back to normal.
(As normal as they could be.)
So when it got too dark to walk home, or she missed the last train, Mrs. Kaminari would insist she stay over. But without any spare rooms, and neither willing to make the other take a couch, the solution was simple. A fairly decent air mattress on the floor of his room, covered in enough pillows and blankets to make a fort if she was inclined.
Tonight was different, though.
Way different.
The rain had started before Kaminari had fallen asleep, but the storm had only begun after he began to snore lightly. Which left Kyoka on the ground, eyes wide and watching the lightning illuminate the room. Lightning she could handle--if she couldn’t, their friendship would have been a strange one indeed, but they’d probably make it work.
It was the thunder that followed.
The kind that shakes the walls and floors of a house. The kind that left her shaking and jumping each time it clapped. It helped if she kept her jacks in the air, off of any surface that could send vibrations up through them, but god was it still too loud. Besides, how could she sleep if she was so focused on keeping her appendages floating in the ai--
Another crack of thunder shook her to her core and Kyoka whimpered, sealing her eyes shut and covering her ears with her hands. If she were home, she had plugs for her jacks that would cancel out the noise, but here? She had a few spare clothes and a toothbrush, that was it.
“Hey.”
It sounded muffled, but that was definitely Denki, wasn’t it?
She poked an eye open and looked at him helplessly, unable to hide how he found her. “What’s up?” he asked, stifling a yawn. “You okay?”
Kyoka nearly answered, an honest, unsarcastic no, but when another rumble jolted her again, Kaminari got the jist of it. “C’mere,” he beckoned, waving her up to his bed. The parts of her that would normally raise the alarm, let her know how bad of an idea this was, were drowned out by the storm outside. She relented, crawling under his blankets and pulling them up nearly high enough to hide her eyes.
For his part, Denki seemed hardly interested in anything strange. He rolled, his chest pressing up against her back, and reached for her earphone jacks. Gently, he guided them between the two of them, nestling them between her shoulder blades when she gave them enough slack.
Two heartbeats pounded solidly and it nearly drowned out the sounds outside. It was only when he draped an arm over her that she realized just how indisputably intimate this moment was.
We shouldn’t be in the same bed like this , she thought vaguely. But almost as if he read her mind, Denki murmured against her ear. “You share a bed when you stay over at Yaomomo’s, right? Same thing. Don’t worry about it.”
“R-right,” she whispered. Despite her reservations, she scooted a little closer, resting against him. His heartbeat was so… strong. Loud. Like him. It was relaxing her far more and far quicker than she expected.
The first time Kyoka Jiro was able to enjoy watching lightning streak across the sky through a window, and she was trying to shake the feeling of disappointment that settled in place of the fear. Same thing? This was… this was not the same thing at all.
This didn’t feel like she was sleeping next to a friend anymore.
-vi.
It was one of those days that seemed to never end.
Boring lectures back to back, no practical hero practice at all. Denki and Yaomomo had both disappeared somewhere during lunch. And to top it all off, she was asked to stay after class so Aizawa could discuss her “attendance issues,” but he spent the whole time just staring at his watch in silence. After what was apparently an appropriate amount of time, he just stood up and told her she could go before dragging his sleeping bag towards the faculty lounge.
“THERE you are!” Mina squealed the moment she stepped out of the classroom, bounding over to her.
“The weirdest thing just happened in there,” Kyoka started, but the alien queen wasn’t having any of it. She simply clamped onto her wrist and started running towards one of the exits. “Jeez, Mina, what’s the rush?”
“You’ve gotta see this!! I can’t believe it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“HIT IT, GUYS!”
The two burst through a side door into a courtyard in the school. Mina’s shout seemed to start something and it took Kyoka a moment before it registered that music had begun to play. Not just any music, that was… her band?
Sure enough, standing on the ledge of the fountain, was Denki Kaminari, with Tokoyami, Momo, and Bakugo around him. But this wasn’t a song they’d practiced together, not one of hers… it was a song she’d never heard before. Some indie-alt-rock-electronica mess that she definitely had no hand in, but had the rest of them written all over it.
“Band 1A’s doing a pop up concert!” Someone from one of the other courses called out excitedly, gathering around with a group of their friends. The crowd was decent and quick to form, nearly blocking Kyoka’s view of them. She looked over at Mina, confusion evident in her face. “What is this?” she asked, unable to believe Ashido had no hand in it whatsoever. Mina grinned, mischief and glee all wrapped up in one expression, before pushing her towards the crowd as the music, and Denki’s voice, grew more confident.
Kyoka had to push her way to the front row, squeezing in between her friends and classmates to get a good look. And what a look it was. Denki beamed the moment he locked eyes with her, not missing a beat in the song. He had that leather jacket again too, shrugged on over his uniform. This wasn’t a performance, it was a straight up attack.
And god, was it working.
It almost felt like someone else was jumping and cheering like a regular fangirl, some preteen at their first boy band concert. But it was her and she had to admit to that eventually. Just like she had to admit that it was definitely her and not anyone else that had shouted, “ My boyfriend’s a rock star! ”
But she didn’t have to admit it now. Not when he was reaching his hand out and pulling her up onto the fountain ledge with him, holding her steady with a hand at the small of her back and singing slower. Just for her.
“In spite of you, even out of view. Still I love all of you, I do.”
Her forehead pressed against his, she felt her heart explode and stop all at once while he sang a song about their beating hearts. She’d call the irony intentional if he was smart enough to pull it off.
The song was over before she could register the music was done, and Jiro was still standing there with him. The crowd was cheering. Momo was watching them with wide, hopeful eyes, her hands covering her mouth. But it was Bakugo who asked the burning question, more out of impatience than curiosity. “Are you two idiots together yet?”
“I, uh--”
“Yeah, we are.”
Her answer seemed to satisfy, because the Lord of Explosions stood up from his drum set and tossed his sticks over his shoulder. “ Finally. You said you’d clean my gear up if it worked, Sparky, get to work.”
And just like that, the spell was broken. The crowd began to disperse, their energy falling flat.
“What, that’s it?”
“Why do they only ever do one song? That’s not a concert.”
“Boo, you suck!”
Not that it mattered. Denki’s mood couldn’t be destroyed, not with Kyoka in his arms and hiding her face against his chest. “We are?” he asked quietly, needing the confirmation.
“We are,” she promised, holding him just a little bit tighter.