Work Text:
i.
“Are you seeing that?”
“What, Kami?” Mina asks, looking up from where she’s been trying to scribble out the solutions to the math homework for the last 30 minutes. She’s not getting it, but hopefully the tutoring session that Bakugou promised tomorrow can help clear some of it up.
“That,” he gestures vaguely with his hands over to the kitchen from the sitting area.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, babes.”
Kaminari lets out an unintelligible noise of frustration and waves his hands around some more. “Yaomomo is in the kitchen with Bakugou!” he whisper-yells.
It’s true: Bakugou is at the stove, frying up some veggies and leftover rice in the wok he brought from home (and promptly forbid anyone else from touching) while Yaoyorozu is steeping herself a cup of her fancy tea on the counter across the room. For all intents and purposes, they aren’t interacting.
It shouldn’t be shocking, but it is.
“Holy shit,” she whispers back.
Mina wouldn’t call Bakugou a tyrant in the kitchen, but that’s just because she’s nice like that. You’d think after so long he would have figured out how to share a communal space without complaint, but to this day, whenever anyone steps foot into the kitchen while he’s cooking, he makes his displeasure known. Mina does have to give him some credit though, he’s improved a lot since they first moved in. It only took a month to get him to stop throwing whatever he had in his hand at the first sign of someone coming in (at least it was Kirishima who he threw the knife at, and Mina doesn’t think she’ll see Bakugou as apologetic as he was in that moment ever again). Now he only resorts to grumbling under his breath when someone else walks in, which, while not necessarily a warm welcome, is tolerable.
But Bakugou isn’t making a peep. If Kaminari hadn’t pointed it out, she wouldn’t have ever known that Yaoyorozu was there.
“Do you think he took his hearing aids out and doesn’t know she’s there?” Kaminari asks.
Mina squints, then shakes her head. “No, I can see them in his ears. He knows she’s there.”
“What the fuck.”
Mina nods. “What the fuck,” she agrees, leaning back against the couch in contemplation.
“I literally didn’t he was capable of being civil while he’s cooking,” Kaminari says, leaning back with her.
“You don’t think…” Mina starts.
“Think what?” Kaminari’s brow furrows.
“Well, you don’t think there’s something going on between them, do you?”
Kaminari scoffs. “Absolutely not. It’s Bakugou and Yaomomo we’re talking about, they have literally nothing in common.”
They watch Yaoyorozu pull the teabag out of her mug and throw it in the garbage bin under the sink. She has to walk past Bakugou to get out of the kitchen. For the sake of such an expensive cup of tea, Mina hopes the peace can last.
“Smells good, Bakugou,” Yaoyorozu says as she walks past. “Enjoy your evening.”
Bakugou looks up from his stir fry, and Mina tenses for an explosion.
“Thanks, Ponytail. You too,” he grunts.
“What the fuck.” Mina and Kaminari say in unison.
The math homework remains abandoned for the rest of the evening.
ii.
Sero’s swinging between buildings in Ground Beta, trying to do reconnaissance while the rest of his group tries to come up with some sort of plan. It’s him, Todoroki, and Kirishima against Yaoyorozu, Jirou, and Bakugou in a capture the flag scenario. Going against a group like that is an opportunity to work on his stealth and strategy, and he’s doing his best to run probable solutions in his mind while moving as quietly as possible.
With Bakugou on the other team, he’d normally be following the sound of explosions to try and figure out where they’re hiding, but he hasn’t heard any yet. Jirou must have asked him not to set any off so that she can listen for them, he figures. Shit, that means they’re looking for him, and he speeds up his search for their base.
The murmur of voices causes him to stop his swinging, and he quickly tucks himself into an alcove on the roof of one of the buildings to listen. The voices round the corner underneath him, and he sees Yaoyorozu and Bakugou jogging below.
“How the fuck did anyone expect you to do hero work in a goddamn pair of heels?” he hears Bakugou say. Sero realizes he needs to work on his cardio a lot more than he thought, if they’re able to hold a conversation while running without even sounding winded.
“I’ve worn them for most of my life, so while I was surprised when I got my costume, I quickly adapted, and now they don’t really bother me anymore.”
Bakugou scoffs. “How many fucking blisters do your feet have?”
“They’re really not a problem, Bakugou. I can make myself bandages for them easily–“
“Nah, fuck that Ponytail, I’m going to the support class after this and I’m going to yell at them until they make you a pair of combat boots that you can actually fucking walk in.”
That… actually sounded like concern, or something like it. It was definitely one of the most thoughtful things he’s heard the class’s resident prickly pear say.
Sero realizes the two of them are headed right towards where Todoroki and Kirishima are waiting for him to come back with the location of the flag, and he quickly warns his teammates through their earpieces and gets back to looking.
“Hey guys,” he adds.
“What is it, Cellophane?” Todoroki asks.
“Have Bakugou and Yaoyorozu started acting differently around each other lately?”
“What does this have to do with the exercise?”
“Um, I don’t think so,” Kirishima answers, always much more helpful than Todoroki. “Why?”
“Hmmm,” Sero says. “Never mind, I’ll tell you guys later. The two of them are about five minutes out from your location. Do you want help holding them off or should I keep looking for the flag?”
He can hear the smile in Kirishima’s voice when he answers. “Oh, we can take them. Find us the flag, dude.”
“Roger that.”
iii.
The great thing about short-circuiting your brain on a regular basis was you always had an excuse for forgetting things, Kaminari figured. Not that he had done that today, or even anytime in the past week, but still. It also didn’t mean he didn’t still need to go get the textbook he’d forgotten in his desk for the paper he was supposed to write for English tonight. But at least no one asked too many questions, right? He wasn’t up to anything other than grabbing his forgotten textbook, he promised. It was just kind of embarrassing to be so scatterbrained sometimes.
Sighing as he walked back through the hallways to the classroom, all he wanted was to go lay down for the night and not get up. Maybe convince some of his friends to play video games with him in his room, eat some junk food, and pass out early. But unfortunately, textbooks had to be retrieved, essays must be written, and he must get yelled at by his angry Pomeranian-adjacent tutor/personal math god about the quadratic formula. Such is life. Woe is him.
He stops at the door to his classroom, one hand on the handle to pull it open when he hears the dulcet tones of aforementioned Pomeranian speaking in an uncharacteristically neutral tone.
“Are you going to be at any of the shows this weekend?” Kaminari hears Bakugou ask.
“Ugh, please don’t remind me.” Is that… Yaoyorozu? Complaining? “I told my parents I couldn’t attend any of them this week, and so they’re making me go to almost all of them on the weekend.”
Bakugou huffs a laugh. Bakugou laughs?? Like, not at someone else’s expense? “Fuck, I hear that. The hag told me I have to go to at least three of the shows or else I have to give the credit card back.”
“Oh, I hate when that’s the threat they use. Like, I’m not that materialistic; you could just ask nicely.”
Kaminari thinks back to the first couple weeks of living with Yaoyorozu in the dorms and knows that no matter how nice she is, she literally has no idea what it means to live life without exorbitant amounts of wealth. No offence to her, but she probably is that materialistic, she just doesn’t realize it.
He hears Bakugou scoff. “I hate that threat because it’s basically the only one that works on me anymore, and they fucking know it.” Oh right, Bakugou’s parents are fashion designers; he’s a rich kid too. He’s just not as accidentally obvious about it as Yaoyorozu is.
Yaoyorozu laughs. “What, can’t live without your specially imported peppers?”
“Hell no, Yaomomo. They make food worth eating.” What body snatcher came and replaced the Bakugou he knew with such an obvious imposter?
“Let me know when you decide which shows you’re going to go to, we should try and see the same ones. It’ll be nice to see a familiar face.”
“I have to go to my parents one for sure, but I’ll let you know when I decide on the other ones. At least then I won’t have to sit to two fuck knuckles the whole time.”
Kaminari hears Yaoyorozu snort, which is an uncharacteristically unrefined noise from her. “We’ll find you an aisle seat then, Bakugou.”
There’s a lull in the conversation, and Kaminari uses it to pull the door open with a bang and stroll into the classroom. He sees Bakugou jump at the sound, and momentarily feels bad until he realizes he’s not jumping because it was loud but because he was sitting pressed up against Yaoyorozu as they lean over a stack of papers on her desk.
“Oh my, what do we have here?” he teases. “You two are looking especially cozy, all alone in this classroom.” Damn, he didn’t think Mina was right when she suspected something happening between the two of them, but this is rather damning evidence in favour of some sort of relationship developing between the class’s most unlikely pairing.
“Fuck off, Dunce Face.” The tips of Bakugou’s ears go red, and Yaoyorozu’s cheeks match. Kaminari is thrilled.
“Don’t worry, I know when I’m not wanted. Let me just grab my textbook and then I’ll be out of your hair,” he says as he makes his way to his desk to grab the book.
“You don’t know shit, discount Pikachu,” Bakugou growls.
“Oh, don’t I, though?” he says with a grin before shutting the door behind himself.
Shit, he owes Mina money now.
iv.
When Momo asked Jirou to meet her down at the support department, she braced herself for flying objects, explosions, and far too many loud noises for her liking. What she didn’t brace herself for was all of those things being combined into one compact package known as Bakugou Katsuki.
He’s leaning against the makeshift change room someone had the forethought to make in the corner of the workshop, yelling vague threats at anyone who comes too close to him or the curtain. She doesn’t know anyone else, and Momo said she’s here already, so she has no real choice but to go over and ask him if he’s seen her.
“Hey Blasty,” she greets. He doesn’t yell at her to back away like everyone else though, which she takes as a sign of progress of their own friendship. She’s flitted between friend groups somewhat, and it’s nice to know that she’s finally starting to get accepted by the self-proclaimed leader of the one she likes best (her friendship with Momo notwithstanding, but that was different).
“Ears,” Bakugou says in greeting. “Thank fuck you’re here. Momo said you were coming but she wanted to change before you got here, and there’s fucking perverts who keep trying to peak into the change room.”
Oh, he calls her Momo too. When did that happen? And why does it make her stomach feel like it’s full of fire ants?
“Damn, you’re telling me you’ve been fighting off an entire room full of Minetas?” She tries to play off what is objectively super creepy as a joke. But oddly enough, she trusts him enough to know that he wouldn’t have let anything actually happen to Momo. Maybe it’s the first naming. She can tell he cares about her, somehow. If only she could figure out how much.
Bakugou snorts at that. “I don’t think most of these fuckfaces have seen a girl other than the pink-haired chick from the Sports Festival before, and she probably convinced enough of them to test her devices that they’re more afraid of her than interested in seeing her rack.”
It was Jirou’s turn to laugh. “Well, I’m sure Momo’s honour thanks you, kind sir.” She flourishes her statement with a gratuitous bow. “But this humble servant can protect her from now on, if you would like to take your leave.”
“What am I, a fucking feudal lord?” Bakugou snaps. “Whatever. See you tonight for the movie,” he says on his way out.
Jirou snickers. She loves how easy it is to rile him up.
“Kyouka? Is that you?” Momo calls from behind the curtain.
“Yeah, I’ve relieved Bakugou as your protection detail.”
“Oh, perfect timing,” she says. “Can you come in here for a second, I need someone to zip me up.”
Jirou feels her cheeks go red at the thought. “Um, sure. Okay. I can do that. Yeah. Okay. Coming in now,” she says, pushing aside the curtain to see her friend’s bare back.
Momo’s got her hair down for once, and she’s pulled it over one of her shoulders so that Jirou can access the zipper at the back of the jumpsuit she’s wearing. It’s not nearly as tight as her regular leotard but has the same colour scheme and belt. It looks thicker as well, which Jirou hopes means it's warmer too. While the cloak she’d worn occasionally was cool, it wasn’t very practical.
Jirou clears her throat and does the zipper up instead of continuing to stare, stepping back when she’s done. “Is this the new costume?”
Momo turns and smiles. “Yeah, what do you think?”
“Looks great,” Jirou coughs.
“I’m glad you like it. Would you like to see the features I asked them to install?”
“Of course,” Jirou teases, “I didn’t come all the way down here just to zip you up.” I mean, she probably would have if Momo asked.
They step out of the change room, and Momo starts demonstrating all the various features of her suit. There’s a temperature regulator installed in the collar (“I got the idea from Todoroki’s suit,” Momo explains), and loops placed conveniently around her body that allow her to hang onto her creations while keeping her hands free. It’s finished all off with a study pair of boots that look so comfy, Jirou’s tempted to get a pair herself.
“How are you going to be able to make anything without your skin showing, I thought you needed that for your quirk?” Jirou asks. It’s a fair question, she tells herself, no ulterior motives here.
Momo’s face lights up. “That’s the best part. Bakugou and I figured out that I don’t need my skin exposed to create things, I just need to be able to access what I create. So, he kept threatening the support students to figure out a fabric that can phase objects through it, and they did!” Momo is glowing with excitement. “They examined some of Lemillion’s leftover hair from when they made his suit and were able to tell me the chemical structure that allows it to phase through walls with him. Once I had that knowledge, I recreated it with my quirk!”
Momo pops a Matryoshka doll out of her shoulder and into her hand to demonstrate. “See? Now I can make objects all over my body! And I was able to incorporate Kevlar into the strands, so it’s bulletproofed too!”
“Holy shit, Momo, that’s awesome.”
Momo’s face reddens. “I’m glad you think so, Kyouka. I was really excited to show you.”
Jirou nervously twirls one of her jacks around a finger. “I love it, Momo. Looks great on you.”
“Thank you.” Momo smiles. “Katsuki helped me a lot, and it still needs some tweaking, but I’m really proud of how it is turning out so far.”
Jirou feels the fire ants returning. “Yeah, Momo. You should be proud.”
Momo admires the suit in the mirror, and Jirou wonders how the hell she missed Bakugou and her friend getting so close together.
“The one downside is it zips in the back. We couldn’t figure out how to make zippers out of the fabric, and it’s much more useful for me to be able to produce objects from my chest than my back,” Momo says.
“Um, I– uh, don’t mind helping you, Momo,” Jirou stutters.
Momo twists to look at her. “Really? That– that’d be a big help, Kyouka. Thank you.”
“It’s really no problem,” Jirou says, and feels her face burn. “You’d do the same for me.”
“Of course,” Momo says, before she goes back to admiring her new suit, moving around to check the fit. Jirou watches her as she gets more confident in her new hero costume, not as concerned about becoming overexposed with every move, and feels something in her chest expand almost to bursting.
Jesus Christ, what did she sign herself up for.
v.
Kirishima is pretty sure his friends thought he was lying when he told them that Katsuki is a cuddler. But every time Katsuki comes over to his room by himself lately, he finds himself with a lap full of his friend inside an hour.
Katsuki’s said it’s because Kirishima keeps his room ‘too fucking cold like holy shit how do you still have all your toes Ei,’ which isn’t an unfair assessment. He can’t help it: he runs hot. And maybe he intentionally turns it down a degree or two when he knows Katsuki’s on his way over, but maybe Kirishima’s a cuddler too, sue him.
And this is how they find themselves one day after school: Kirishima, sprawled out on his side in bed, fighting to keep his eyes open while Katsuki leans against his stomach, scribbling out homework answers in preparation for another of their group study sessions in a couple hours. Kirishima’s tracing nonsensical patterns on Katsuki’s back with an elbow braced on his own hip to keep his arm up and has been told expressly that he’s not allowed to stop. He lets his eyes slip shut, but keeps his hand moving, the motion just as soothing for himself as it is for Katsuki.
He feels Katsuki’s phone buzz where it’s beside him on the bed and instinctually braces for his own to do the same. They’re in almost all the same group chats, so when Katsuki gets a text, he usually gets the same one. Yet there’s no buzz this time.
He feels Katsuki shift under his hand to pick up his phone and read the text. He snorts a laugh at what he reads, and Kirishima mentally runs through his catalogue of people Katsuki could be texting that would elicit that kind of response. It’s not his dad, because Kirishima knows he only ever calls. It’s not his mom, because those texts always set off a round of grumbling rather than a laugh. It’s not Midoriya or Todoroki or any of his remedial course friends, because if it was the phone would be on the other side of the room. And it’s not any of their friends, because they’d send whatever it was in a group chat, and he’d have gotten the notification too.
Who? Kirishima writes on Katsuki’s back, because his friend took his hearing aids out when they started bugging him and Kirishima said he was going to nap.
Katsuki just shows Kirishima the conversation, forcing him to pry his eyes open. Yaoyorozu’s sent him a picture of Kaminari with his whole head under the sink, captioned “Sero gave him 1000 yen to eat one of your peppers again,” and as Kirishima watches, another text comes in saying “Don’t worry, I already ordered some new ones with my grocery order. Should be here in time for dinner :)”
Kirishima gestures for Katsuki to turn the phone back around to reply and tries to control his shock. Since when were Yaoyorozu and Katsuki on texting terms? On grocery order terms?
Kirishima taps Katsuki’s shoulder to get his attention again, more alert than he was a minute ago.
“Why is Yaoyorozu texting you?” he signs, spelling out her name one letter at a time. He’s been learning to sign since he met Katsuki, and after a couple years, he’s starting to get fast at it.
“We’re friends,” Katsuki signs back. He reaches over to the side table to grab his hearing aids, but Kirishima stops him with a hand on his arm.
“You don’t have to,” he signs.
“You’re tired.” Katsuki replies. “I don’t mind.”
“Ok, thank you.” He gives Katsuki a moment to put them in before speaking out loud. “I didn’t realize you guys were friends.”
Katsuki hums, and Kirishima feels it vibrate through his back. “She’s cool, and we get along.”
“Oh,” Kirishima says. “I didn’t think you guys really knew each other.”
“Our parents work in similar fields, so we recognized each other at some of their work events that we got dragged to and started talking. I don’t know. Does it really matter?”
“I mean, not really. It’s just kinda surprising, you know?”
“Why’s that?” Katsuki asks, and it’s not mean, though a few years ago it definitely would have been. “We’re both top of the class, aiming to be heroes, had a similar upbringing, and have a couple other things in common.”
“Well, when you say it like that,” Kirishima smiles.
Katsuki sighs, and scrunches up his face, as if what he wants to say pains him. “Momo’s really smart, talented, helpful, surprisingly funny, and understands what it means to grow up like we did. Sometimes it’s nice to talk to her.”
Kirishima tries to hide his surprise. He knows Katsuki’s been working on being more expressive, but he hasn’t ever heard such high praise from him. Some part of him feels stung with jealousy. How come Katsuki hasn’t ever said anything as nice about him? He thought they were best friends. Well, he thought there was a possibility they were slowly becoming more than that, but it seems like he read something wrong along the way.
“Wow,” Kirishima coughs. “You must really like her.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Katsuki says quietly, and god Kirishima really misinterpreted a lot of their relationship, if Katsuki’s telling him about liking Yaoyorozu.
“Oh,” Kirishima says, trying his damnedest to keep his voice steady. At least Katsuki’s turned around to work on his homework again. “That’s cool.”
Katsuki grunts noncommittedly, and Kirishima pretends to fall asleep. The spend several hours in silence, Katsuki working away, Kirishima running through every interaction he’s seen between the two of them, trying to figure out what he missed.
Mina and Kaminari had told him about watching Katsuki and Yaoyorozu in the kitchen together, but Katsuki’s been letting him actually help make dinner occasionally, so that hadn’t felt as groundbreaking as they had acted like it was. But there was that time during the capture the flag scenario last week that Sero had asked if they had thought they were getting closer. Kaminari had also described seeing the two of them sitting close together in an empty classroom when he went back to grab something a few days ago. And now that he thought about it, there were several periods of time these past couple weeks that Kirishima couldn’t find Katsuki, and he didn’t remember seeing Yaoyorozu around then either.
Shit, this had been happening around him without him knowing for a long time, hadn’t it? How could he have been so blind?
He pulls out his phone after a while and shoots off a text.
“Hey mina, can we talk before studying tonight?”
+i.
It all comes to a head, like it always does, at one of their movie nights. The six of them are piled up in Sero’s room, which has been voted to be the least offensive (Bakugou has never and will never let anyone except for Ei into his room, but he thinks it would have won otherwise), when Bakugou’s phone vibrates with a text message.
“Who’s texting ya, Blasty?” Mina asks from the other side of Ei where the three of them are sitting on the bed.
He’s not quite sure why he actually answers her instead of telling her to mind her business, but he says “Momo.”
“Oh, Momo, is it?” Kaminari asks, wiggling his eyebrows in a poor attempt to raise just one of them. He’s sitting on the floor, fiddling with the rug.
Bakugou cocks his head to look at him, lifting a single brow with ease. “What are you on about, Dunce Face?”
“Nothing, nothing,” he laughs. “You should invite her to come watch with us, Bakugou.”
And he’s not stupid. He knows what Kaminari thinks is happening between him and Momo. But he’s seen the movie they picked before and had a boring week. Why not fuck with him a little bit?
“Alright,” he says simply, texting Momo to come.
“Is Kyouka there?” is the text he gets in response, and he snorts. Ever since Momo told him about her crush on Ears, she’s been trying to get him to act as a wingman, much to his chagrin.
“Yes, you useless lesbian. The other useless lesbian is here,” he sends.
“Okay! I’ll be there in ten!”
“Momo’ll be here in ten minutes,” Bakugou says.
“What?” Sero says, choking a little on the water he had just grabbed from the bathroom.
“I’m not fucking repeating myself, you heard me.”
He sees Mina and Ei exchange a look that he doesn’t quite understand.
“Alright, Bakugou! Look at you, inviting her over like it’s no big deal. Pretty manly, don’t you think, Kirishima?” Kaminari says.
“Yeah, super manly,” Ei says without much enthusiasm. He’s curled himself around one of the stuffed animals Mina brought from her room. He was really excited for this movie a minute ago, but now it looks like he’s been deflated. Mina’s rubbing gentle circles on his back, and he seems to be eating it up.
Jirou, meanwhile, is swinging in the hammock, almost kicking Kaminari in the head each time. It’s weird.
Bakugou scootches closer to Ei and asks “are you okay?” under his breath.
“I’m fine, Katsuki” he replies with a tense smile. “Don’t worry about me.”
Bakugou squeezes Ei’s knee in silent acceptance.
A knock on the door brings an end to the weirdly tense silence they’ve been sitting in, and Sero, ever the host, gets up from where he’d been leaning against the bed to open it.
“Yaoyorozu, welcome to the party,” Sero says. “I hope you enjoy horror movies and very shrill screaming, because Mina picked the movie and Kaminari decided he’s feeling brave enough to watch it today.”
Momo laughs politely. “Hi everyone,” she greets, making her way across the room. “Hi Kyouka, do you mind if I join you?”
Ears’ face goes beat red, and Bakugou is reminded why he doesn’t feel the need to help that along. If either of them ever fucking looks at the other in the eye, they’ll figure it out.
“Um, are you sure? It’ll be pretty snug with the two of us in here,” Jirou replies, and Bakugou rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, Yaomomo, there’s plenty of room on the bed beside Blasty,” Kaminari interrupts, and Jirou’s swinging recommences with even more torque behind it. Good for her.
“We don’t mind, Yaoyorozu,” Ei adds with another of his tense smiles. Bakugou puts his hand back on his knee, silently trying to ask what’s wrong again, but Ei just pats it gently to get him to let go.
“Oh,” Momo looks back at the hammock, “alright, thank you.”
Sero gets the movie playing, and the next couple hours pass, only interrupted by Kaminari’s shrieks and Mina’s cackling at the jumpscares.
When the credits roll, Sero turns on the lights, and they all collectively stretch and groan as they move for the first time in hours.
“Ah, I thought the scary movie might have made the two of you get all cozy again,” Kaminari says out of the blue, wiggling his fingers
“Why would we do that, Kaminari?” Momo asks, with a lot more patience than Bakugou would have.
“Cuz you’re like a couple or whatever?”
Momo looks genuinely bewildered. Bakugou knew that’s what Kaminari thought, but he honestly didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to actually say anything. He feels Ei go stiff beside him.
“What?” Jirou asks. “You’re dating?” Bakugou watches her face crumple in poorly disguised disappointment.
“Kaminari!” Mina scolds.
“What? I thought that’s what we all thought!?” he defends.
“And we agreed not to bring it up until they were ready to tell us themselves!”
“Sorry, you all believe this?” Momo tries.
“I mean…” Sero starts, “we’ve seen how close the two of you have gotten lately, what with hanging out all the time around campus and going out together on the weekends.”
“You guys call each other by your first names,” Mina adds.
“He helped design your new suit,” Jirou says, looking like she’s accidentally cracked some sort of code, and things are falling into place faster than she can think.
“Yeah Katsuki, and all that stuff about her you said a couple days ago,” Ei says softly, just so he can hear. He believed it too? Bakugou feels himself reeling.
“It’s not a completely crazy conclusion to come to,” Sero finishes.
“Except it fucking is??” Bakugou yells.
“Wait, so you guys aren’t dating?” Sero asks.
“No!” Bakugou and Momo yell in unison.
Ei turns to look at the two of them full on, and Jirou lifts her head from her hands.
“You’re not?” Ei says, eyes wide.
“Hair for Brains, how could I be dating Momo when I’m already fucking dating you?” Bakugou shouts.
“Wait WHAT?” Kaminari yells.
“Yeah, hold on, the two of you are dating??” Mina screeches. “Then why the hell have I been consoling Kiri for the past week about getting over you when you’ve been dating this whole time?”
Ei’s eyes have gone past wide and are starting to resemble dinner plates instead. “We’re… dating?”
“Yeah, idiot!”
“Since when??”
Bakugou feels his cheeks go ruddy. How did he miss the fact that his own boyfriend didn’t even know they were dating? “Almost five months ago.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I am telling you the gospel fucking truth.”
“How did I miss that?” Ei groans, his head buried in his hands.
“I don’t know, idiot!”
“Why haven’t you tried to kiss me or anything then?” Ei looks up, and Bakugou can almost see the gears turning in his head as he tries to piece it all together.
“I have tried,” he grumbles, “you just kept turning away or fucking, I don’t know, playing it off. I thought you were being shy. It was getting annoying.”
Ei groans again, collapsing into his lap. Bakugou goes to run a hand through his hair but stops when he remembers they’re not alone.
“Um,” Kaminari starts.
“Nope, nothing more out of you,” Sero says, shooting a piece of tape out to shut Kaminari’s mouth. He seems to accept it without argument and sits quietly with his hands in his lap.
“Hold on though,” Mina says. “How come you and Bakugou have been hanging out so much lately then, Yaomomo?”
With the emotional rollercoaster Bakugou feels he’s been on, he figures Momo feels the same, so he’s surprised at how calmly she answers. “Like Kyouka said, he’s been helping me with my new hero costume. We’ve been designing it together and working together to test it. That’s what we do around campus. When you saw us leave together, I believe that was when we were going to the fashion shows our parents make us both go to, right, Katsuki?”
He nods his agreement, still trying to process his own boyfriend not knowing they were together for five fucking months.
“How come you guys call each other by your first names then? You have to admit that’s a little more informal than either of you are known for being.” Sero asks.
“We met each other’s parents” Bakugou shrugs, a lot more calm than he feels. “Easier to call her Momo than confuse everyone.”
“Exactly,” Momo affirms.
They all sit in silence for a while, processing the events of the past twenty minutes. When Ei doesn’t move his head from his lap, Bakugou says fuck it, and runs a hand through his hand regardless of the witnesses. If anyone says anything about it later, he can just blow them up. It’s worth it to feel his boyfriend relax into him for the first time all evening.
“So you’re not dating.” Jirou says after a while, sitting up. Momo nods. “And you never plan on dating.”
Bakugou scoffs. “Trust me, neither of us is the other’s type.”
“Oh,” Jirou breathes, relaxing back into Sero’s hammock. “That’s good. I think the two of you together could like, end humanity by accident.”
“What fucking makes you think it’d be an accident?” Bakugou snaps with a sharp grin, and the lingering tension dissipates into laughter.
“Wait, just to clarify, when did we start dating?” Ei asks when they’re alone in Bakugou’s room later.
Bakugou buries his face into his pillow and groans instead of answering, too embarrassed by the fact that he’s been in a one-sided relationship this entire time to respond.
“Come on, Katsuki tell me,” Ei says, using his considerable bulk to flip him onto his back so he can’t hide anymore. “Please?”
And the puppy dog eyes just aren’t fair, Bakugou thinks, burying his face in his hands. “It was the night you asked if I wanted to be partners with you, okay? That’s the night you became my fucking boyfriend.”
And Ei just smiles at him, so goddamn excited. Why is he willingly dating such a sap?
“Hey, since I know we’re dating now, does that mean I can kiss you?”
Oh right, that’s why.
“Fucking– come here, idiot.”
“Hey Momo?”
“Yeah?”
“What did Bakugou mean when he said he wasn’t your type?”
“Kyouka, would you please come here for a second?”
“Sure, why– mmmph. Oh, okay. Yep. That answers my question. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”