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“I’m kind of in love with you.”
It wasn’t quite how Kirishima had expected to admit the feelings that had been steadily growing for the best part of two years, but hey, Bakugou liked it when people were upfront with him. Considering how close they were getting to graduating from UA, he figured it was now or never. Although maybe not this exact moment, he mused as he saw Bakugou’s shoulders stiffen and his grip on his pen tighten across the table. The early March sunset filtered into the room through the window, though the air outside was still cool enough that it was not yet open. Golden sunlight had been falling across Bakugou’s face, and while his face had been calm as he focused on his work, he had looked almost angel-like. The words had just slipped out, staring at such beauty.
Bakugou recovered almost instantly, eyes not moving from the task in front of him. “Good.”
“…Good?” Out of all the things he had been expecting to hear, this response was surprising. It was also much less brutal than some scenarios he had imagined. He let his shoulders relax when the harsh rejection he was partially expecting never materialised. Rude of him really, to expect it of Bakugou even after how far he had come over the past few years.
“Yeah. You’re the only fucker worth spending any time with around in this damn place.” His shoulders hunched slightly as he prepared to continue, and Kirishima listened intently, knowing whatever he was about to say would be important. Bakugou’s eyes flicked up momentarily before returning to the desk. “I want to try dating you, Eijirou. It’s just-” he cut himself off, more anxious than Kirishima had seen him in a while.
He reached across the desk to grab Bakugou’s hand, rubbing soothing circles into his skin. Calming Bakugou down had long been as easy as a touch from Kirishima. Nobody quite understood the phenomenon, but Kirishima wouldn’t complain about it. Despite this, Bakugou drew further in on himself and didn’t speak for a moment.
“Bro? If you need time, I can leave-”
“No, I need to say this now. I’ve been talking to Jirou, and she helped me work some shit out.” He took a deep breath and looked Kirishima straight in the eyes. “I’m aromantic.”
“Aromantic,” Kirishima repeated softly.
“Yeah.” Bakugou continued to speak, but Kirishima couldn’t hear him over the rushing in his ears. Funny, how you can prepare yourself for a situation like this, but as soon as it becomes real life it’s no longer bearable. There wasn’t even anything Kirishima could do, it was just an integral part of who Bakugou was. Hope that had been developing, making Kirishima believe that Bakugou could love him back, was crushed in an instant.
“…If you could come to accept that…”
Kirishima had definitely read some signals wrong over the past few months. On some level, he really had convinced himself that Bakugou loved him back. But now wasn’t the time for thoughts like this. His heart might be breaking, but his best friend had just told him something incredibly important. Though it would surely take him time, he could get over this, and then they could both move on with their lives.
“Eijirou.” Realising he’d looked down at his hands and his vision had gone slightly blurry, he snapped back into the room. He plastered a grin on his face and wiped his eyes quickly. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Sorry, sorry. I get it dude, and I one hundred percent support you. Seriously. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.” Enough damage had already been done to their relationship today. He wouldn’t let it escalate any further.
“What? No-”
“Hey, you know what? You can just forget this ever happened. I’m just gonna,” he said, scrambling to his feet and making his way to the door. When he looked over at Bakugou he saw a flash of hurt in his eyes, and helplessly attempted to rectify the situation. “It’s okay, Katsuki. I’ll be over this by tomorrow. I promise.”
Bakugou’s face hardened in a way Kirishima hadn’t had directed at him in a long time, but he didn’t have the brain capacity in that moment to dwell on the reasoning. “Whatever, fine. Leave then.” The awkwardness in the room became tangible. And maybe Kirishima could have fixed it if he had stayed. As it was, it took everything he had to stop his smile from falling from his face, even then feeling it wobble. He closed the door softly and calmly walked the short distance to his room.
He managed to close the door behind him before he fell to his knees and wept.
--
He could do this.
After a rough evening and an even rougher night’s sleep, Kirishima had woken up tired but determined. Bakugou had done nothing wrong; he’d known this from the second Bakugou had confided in him. This was Kirishima’s issue to deal with. Bakugou’s friendship was one of the most important things in his life.
Which was why it was worrying to find Bakugou’s room already empty. They always walked to class together. If Kirishima was late, Bakugou would kick his door and shout until Kirishima appeared. Maybe Bakugou needed some space, an idea that was understandable despite the heavy feeling it created in Kirishima’s stomach. Still, he walked to class alone, disheartened but not yet beaten.
Unfortunately, Kirishima was not able to talk to Bakugou before class began. As soon as he steeped into the classroom, Midoriya had bounced up to him energetically (a feat considering the height and muscle mass he had gained since their first year) and began bombarding him with his idea for a new signature move involving Kirishima’s quirk. Any other time it would have been an intriguing conversation, but today he couldn’t help but feel restless as the seconds ticked away, Midoriya only stopping when the first bell sounded and Aizawa entered the room.
The rest of the morning was hectic with Japanese literature followed by history, with maths being the final class before lunch. He had been stealing glances at Bakugou all morning, though the blond had always been intently staring in any direction other than where Kirishima was. A surprising number of glances found him staring out the window, not paying nearly as much attention as usual. It was definitely enough to make Kirishima think he didn’t want to talk to him right now. He didn’t want to push him away any more than he already had, so he instead walked with Sero to lunch, both taking seats at their normal table.
They were quickly joined by Ashido and Jirou, who were chatting happily. Kirishima couldn’t help but look around the room every few seconds in search of Bakugou, and saw him after not too long walking with Kaminari. All seemed well until Bakugou started walking with his food towards the door. Kaminari tried to grab him but gave up much more easily than normal. He was frowning as he made his way over to their table.
“Hey, guys, anyone know what’s up with Bakubro?” Kirishima shrank down in his seat as all eyes turned towards him. When he didn’t volunteer any information, Kaminari continued, “dude, it was so weird. He barely said a word all the way here, and then when I tried to stop him from leaving, he didn’t even snap at me. Just said, ‘I’m not in the mood, Kaminari’. He used my name, bro. It was so creepy.”
Kirishima buried his head in his hands. “It’s all my fault,” he said, tone morose. “I told him I loved him yesterday and now he doesn’t want to see me.” The food in front of him was looking less and less appetising despite its inviting aroma.
Ashido’s brow furrowed. “Wait, so he doesn’t feel the same?” she considered for a moment before shrugging. “Huh. I could have sworn…”
Pitying eyes fell on him as he forced down a bite of food, then another. Only Jirou’s remained narrow. “Is that what he said?” She asked doubtfully.
Kirishima really did not want to be having this conversation. It was bad enough having to think about it at all, without having to give his well-intentioned friends a play-by-play. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t repeat the entire conversation without outing Bakugou, since he didn’t know who knew what. So instead he just sighed and said, “can we change the subject? This is still kind of fresh for me.” He wondered if the smile he had attempted looked genuine; he suspected not.
Jirou persisted, and Kirishima remembered Bakugou saying she had helped him with this stuff. He knew that out of all Bakugou’s friend’s besides Kirishima, he was closest to Jirou, and it looked like she was trying to stare at him hard enough that he would understand. “Just, it doesn’t sound like him. You tell him you’re in love with him and he says he doesn’t want to see you anymore? Sorry Kirishima, I just don’t buy that.”
“Well, he didn’t say it exactly like that,” he said, defensive. Then he frowned, recalling the most odd part of their conversation. “At first he said…good.” It didn’t make any sense. Was it pity? Surely not, Bakugou despised pity. It almost seemed cruel, but there was no way Bakugou would be that cruel to him. They may have hit a rough patch, but Kirishima was still his best friend, and he hadn’t yet been upset with Kirishima when he said it. He noticed then all three of his friends were looking at him with renewed confusion. “But he also said he wasn’t in love with me, I swear,” he clarified quickly. A slight lie, but Bakugou might as well have said it.
Jirou rolled her eyes somewhat rudely and Kirishima was reminded why Bakugou liked her so much. Ashido and Sero both looked as if they were struggling to do some kind of complicated equations in their heads, while Kaminari had clearly already given up on making sense of the situation. “Yeah, but surely that wasn’t it,” Jirou continued.
“He definitely said some other stuff after that, but I kinda had a lot on my mind by that point.” He crossed his arms. Couldn’t she drop it? He was already miserable. “Jirou, can you just lay off for a sec? You’re acting really unmanly right now.”
Finally, she seemed to feel some kind of remorse, holding her hands up. “Sorry, Kirishima. I don’t mean to make you feel worse. I just think you might have missed some integral parts to that conversation.” Kirishima knew that she was just as aware of the situation as he was, but at that moment he didn’t care; he needed time to think. She watched him for a moment more, before turning back to Ashido and continuing their conversation from earlier.
The conversation left Kirishima with a lot to unpack. The others all seemed to be relieved to move on from the weird tension of the previous moments, and Kirishima let himself be carried by the light banter and friendly teasing. He was glad they had individual training this afternoon, needing some time alone with his thoughts. He pretended not to notice his friends’ occasional apprehensive glances.
--
Ever since Kirishima had set his sights on becoming a hero, he had used working out as a way to focus on his body and clear his mind. The monotony of repetitive motion, chin up to the bar before slowly lowering himself back down, rinse and repeat. Instead of approaching Bakugou straight after class like he had first intended, he decided to head to the gym to plan his course of action.
The gym was quieter than usual and Kirishima was glad for it. Only Tokoyami was around, earphones in, feet hitting the treadmill rhythmically, filling the room with comforting white noise. While he loved being the centre of attention at times, it was equally nice to be in the same space as someone without any of the fuss, just existing. Kind of like how it felt to sit with Bakugou.
Bakugou.
Every train of thought since last night has eventually lead back to him. From the direction of their conversation last night, to Jirou’s knowing words at lunch, Kirishima was clearly missing something important. The only problem was he couldn’t understand what else there was to say. What had he done to make the mood change so thoroughly in such a short space of time? There was no way to understand what Bakugou was thinking.
That was the issue, wasn’t it? He had thought he understood Bakugou perfectly by now, but this situation had him truly out of his depth. And in this case, the only way he could truly know was to ask Bakugou. Jirou had implied that he had missed something Bakugou was trying to say. He’d been trying to tell Kirishima something, and Kirishima had been too wrapped up in his own thoughts to listen. He dropped back down to his feet, lying down on the cold gym floor and pushing his palms into his eyes. Bakugou hated being ignored, he was probably going to kill him.
None of that mattered. He picked himself up of the floor and rushed to the showers. What mattered was that he had hurt Bakugou somehow last night, and today he was going to fix it.
--
Nerves were creeping into Kirishima’s stomach as he climbed the stairs to their floor. The situation was precarious as it was, he didn’t want to screw up more. He still hadn’t decided exactly how to play this but he figured things could only go up from here. Besides, it was unmanly to avoid your problems. Kirishima was going to face them head-on.
Still, it took more courage to knock on Bakugou’s door than it took to face an average villain. There was no stomping to be heard on the other side, and the door opened without any fanfare. Forget anger; apathy was much scarier from Bakugou. A Slight scowl and hard, distant eyes. “The fuck do you want?”
Kirishima put on his best ‘forgive me’ face and said, “Katsuki please, I just want to talk to you. Can I have 5 minutes?” He looked unimpressed, but stood aside to allow Kirishima entry into his room. Kirishima stood anxiously while Bakugou closed the door and leaned against it, crossing his arms. For a moment, they just stared at each other.
“Well?” Bakugou clearly wasn’t in the mood to entertain Kirishima’s hesitancy today.
“Okay.” Kirishima took a deep breath, running his fingers through his loose hair. “Okay. So. Yesterday happened.”
“I thought I was supposed to be forgetting about that,” Bakugou said, teeth clenched.
Kirishima winced. “I thought that was for the best. I still don’t really get why you’re mad, man. I was trying to be supportive!” No response. He closed his eyes. “But you were talking last night, and I wasn’t listening to you. I’m sorry about that. I just don’t know what else there is to say. It’s okay that you can’t love me. I just have to get over it. We don’t have to be together like that, being just friends is fine too. Whatever you want.” A moment of silence. Kirishima was afraid to open his eyes.
“If you’re done putting words in my mouth. Again.” Kirishima’s eyes flew open in the scathing fire in Bakugou’s tone, echoed in his eyes. His hands were at his sides, balled up into fists. He looked like he was about to launch himself at Kirishima. “Think back, if your stupid head can recall, to what I said before I told you I was aromantic last night.”
“That it was good that I loved you?”
“And then?”
“Uh…”
“I said that I want to date you.” It was funny how words that had the power to make Kirishima so happy could be said with such rage. “I said that first for this exact reason. But clearly it didn’t matter what I fucking said, because as soon as I told you I was aromantic, everything else fell out of your thick skull.” When Kirishima flinched slightly, hurt, Bakugou seemed to come back into himself slightly, taking a deep breath and rubbing at his temples with the heels of his hands, eyes squeezed shut for a moment. “Look. I know how all this sounds. But you can’t just assume that just because someone uses a certain label that you know exactly what they want or don’t want.”
Kirishima was reeling; he was holding so many puzzle pieces, but none of them fit together. Thoughts were not guiding him through this situation. So, he stopped thinking. On autopilot, he stepped towards Bakugou and took both of his hands, holding them tightly. Despite everything, Bakugou still seemed to be calmed by his touch. Finally, he had done something right today. “Okay, so tell me. I promise I’m listening this time. To every word.”
It took a minute before Bakugou began to talk, but it didn’t bother Kirishima. He always had all the time in the world for Bakugou. “I’m never going to be in love with you, Eijirou. I don’t get butterflies when I see you, or whatever. None of those clichés. I can’t even imagine feeling like that.” Kirishima’s face must have dropped as he spoke because Bakugou dropped one of his hands and brought it up to cup his face. “Hey. I might not be in love with you. But I love you more than any of those romantic bastards ever would.”
Kirishima opened his mouth to speak, but Bakugou covered up his mouth with his hand. “I’m not done. I want to be the person you wake up to in the morning. I want to be the person you kiss when you come home. I want to take you out on dates and spoil you. And I don’t have to be in love with you to do any of those things.”
He removed his hand from Kirishima’s mouth. Kirishima took a moment while he processed what he just heard, mouth gaping open and closed like a fish. “You…want to be with me?”
Bakugou watched at him resolutely. “I don’t say shit I don’t mean.”
“And you aren’t saying this out of some sort of pity, or just to make me happy?”
“I don’t do shit I don’t want to.”
“But you aren’t in love with me.”
A grimace appeared on his face. His grip on Kirishima’s hand tightened. “No. I- no.”
Kirishima still didn’t really get it. But maybe that wasn’t the point. This was an experience he would never have, but one integral to the way Bakugou viewed the world. He might not know how this works or why Bakugou felt this way, but he did know how to trust Bakugou. That was one of the easiest things in the world.
“Okay. Then, can I kiss you?” He knocked their foreheads together, letting go of Bakugou’s hand in favour of rubbing circles into his waste with his thumb, moving his free hand up into his soft blond hair.
“Wait.” Kirishima pulled back immediately, but not too far. Insecurity was clear on Bakugou’s face, any walls he had put up thankfully gone again. An anxious frown appeared on his face, and it looked wrong to Kirishima to see a face of such uncertainty on someone usually so sure of himself. He wanted to talk it away, to kiss it away, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Bakugou had something else to say, and he would let him say it. “Doesn’t it bother you that I’ll never fall in love with you? You won’t…regret choosing me? I don’t want you to wake up one day that this isn’t- that I’m not enough.” One hand fiddled with the hem of Kirishima’s shirt. His eyes were glued to the spot.
Kirishima chuckled quietly, stroking his hand through the fine blonde strands before tracing it down his jawline and holding his chin. He tipped Bakugou’s head back slightly to make the other meet his eyes, and dropped the softest kiss to his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. “Silly Katsuki,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m in love with you. More than that, I want you to be happy. And if being with me, going on cute hiking dates and spoiling me makes you happy, that’s more than enough for me. I might not get it, but I’m okay with that as long as you are.”
A moment passed, then another, while Bakugou scrutinised Kirishima’s face for any hint of hesitancy or doubt. Finding nothing, he surged forward, catching Kirishima’s lips with his own. Kirishima closed his eyes and melted against him. He found it hard to keep a grin from spreading across his face, but forced himself to keep his cool. Too soon Bakugou was pulling back, and Kirishima opened his eyes soon enough to see tears in Bakugou’s before he was crushed into a hug. It felt natural to wrap his arms around Bakugou’s waste, with Bakugou’s head on his shoulder like it belonged there. (It did).
“Stupid Shitty Hair and your shitty brain,” Bakugou seethed against his shoulder. “Next time someone come out to you, maybe listen to what they’re fucking saying instead of whatever the fuck that was.” His voice sounded angry, but the wetness against Kirishima’s shoulder spoke louder. “’Just friends’? Say that shit to me again, I dare you.”
“I’m so sorry.” He tightened his arms and kissed the top of his head. “I’ll do better. I promise, I’m going to be such a good boyfriend that you’ll laugh about ever thinking you wouldn’t be enough for me. I’m going to love you so hard, Katsuki.”
Bakugou pulled back, wiping his face roughly with his sleeve and letting out a deep breath. Then he walked to his bed, muttering about needing a nap after all this and lying down facing the wall. Kirishima stood in the middle of the room, slightly uneasy from the mood shift and unsure as to what to do next. When he heard no movement from Kirishima, Bakugou twisted his head round to look at him. “Well? You coming or what?”
Kirishima beamed and snuggled up behind him, not tired in the slightest but not willing to pass up the opportunity to cuddle. He instead lay with his new boyfriend and listened as his breathing evened out, basking in the joy that not half an hour ago replaced his despair.
--
A few hours later, once Kirishima had realised it was not comfortable to remain in the same position lying awake trying to creep on your boyfriend, he was sitting on the floor and playing on the switch. As it turned out, Bakugou was a restless sleeper and had sprawled out across the bed, something Kirishima thought could be interesting if they ever actually shared one. He looked up at that moment, blushing at the potential implications of bed-sharing, and realising he didn’t know one extremely important piece of information. Bakugou had woken up while he hadn’t been looking, and was lying with his head rested on his hand, propped up on his elbow and staring at Kirishima. “Hey, Katsuki?”
“What.”
“You said you’re aromantic, but what about…sex?”
He grinned that maniacal grin of his. It was still soft with sleep. “Come over here and maybe you’ll find out.”