Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shouto stares at the thin silver rectangle that his father is holding and lets dread wash over him. Endeavor had an ugly bulky protective case over his phone. Somewhat of a necessity for combative hero work, but Shouto’s currently sports only a thin clear gel case. In recent months, it’s been filled with a small assortment of things- a squashed purple flower that Uraraka had jokingly set in his hair once, a movie ticket stub from some strange documentary Iida had dragged him to, a ripped-off corner of a homework assignment where Izuku had doodled a caricature of a pouting Shouto, and a bright red cat sticker nervously gifted to him by Eri. Shouto glances between his father and the gel case, which he is pretty sure is about two seconds away from melting in his father’s grip. Bright yellowish flames are gathering on his father’s shoulders and by the look in his eyes, Shouto knows exactly what must be displayed on the screen.

The messages that Endeavor was undoubtedly reading through had been at the forefront of Shouto’s mind since he had sent them. Midoriya has a way of getting past his walls and Shouto isn’t sure he’s ever been quite so honest in his life as he is with his green-haired friend. Closed off is a natural state for Shouto. Having spent his childhood isolated even from his own siblings, the familiarity and intimacy of friendship still feel foreign to him, but the relief of having other people, mostly Midoriya, care about and listen to him is addicting.

At the moment, however, knowing that his most recent confession was now known by not only his best friend but also his father, all he can think was that he wishes he’d never told his friend anything. As much relief and comfort as it had offered at the moment, Shouto can’t think of anything he’d rather do than go back in time to several hours ago and take back the words he’d typed and shove them back in the insecure hidden corners of his mind where they could fester and confuse him and, most importantly, stay hidden far away from his father.

Endeavor finally notices Shouto frozen on the threshold to the kitchen and Shouto can feel frost gathering on his right cheek and across the bridge of his nose as he stumbles back a step. He’s hardly afraid to stand up to his father most of the time. His defiance has become a regular enough occurrence that there is some degree of understanding, some standard of expectations as to how it will be punished. Shouto normally knows what lines he can toe without getting himself more injured than he can deal with. He knows what buttons of his father’s are relatively safe to push and which ones are too dangerous to involve in his rebellious antics.

This is uncharted territory though. Shouto knows his father isn’t exactly understanding when it comes to queer relationships. He’s heard his muttering disapproval of Miruko’s last girlfriend and seen the sneer on his face when Present Mic had offhandedly mentioned a husband at a meeting prior to the start of his classes at UA. Shouto knows his father expects him to marry a woman, someone with a suitably compatible quirk, to pass on some bullshit legacy by creating acceptably powerful children. And despite all of these signs, it’s never been explicitly discussed. Shouto doesn’t know what kind of line this is that he’s crossed by telling Midoriya that he’s gay.

He doesn’t know if this is something his father will chalk up to petty rebellion sufficiently dealt with by beating the shit out of him in the training room and sending him to bed bruised and bloody and exhausted without dinner to be forgotten about in the morning or if it’s the kind that warrants more severe punishment.

He does know that his other admittance to Midoriya, that he had been visiting his mother, that things had been going well and their relationship was healing and he was planning on coming out to her, was not something Endeavor would brush off. That one wasn’t even a line he had crossed, it was a whole wall that he had scrambled over and Endeavor was never supposed to know about that. Bringing up Rei at all was a line Shouto had learned to be wary of at the best of times. Visiting her was absolutely forbidden. It had taken weeks of careful snooping through bills in the mail for Shouto to even figure out where she was and every visit had been carefully planned to ensure that his father would never know.

And then he’d left the admission of it right there on his message app, his phone not even password protected because he’s an idiot.

Shouto swallows hard as his father sets his phone down hard on the counter. A tell-tale squelching noise of slightly melted rubber squishing against the countertop tells Shouto that he was in fact going to have to buy a new case. Assuming he still had a phone after this. Hopefully, the little paper scraps and flowers are okay at least.

Endeavor stalks toward him without saying a word and Shouto braces himself without knowing what to expect. Endeavors hand closes around Shouto’s bicep in a harsh grip and he continues walking, dragging Shouto along with him. Shouto grunts as the uncomfortable hold on his arm forces him to stumble backward after his father’s movements. Shouto doesn’t speak. He knows that speaking right now would have Endeavor’s palm across his face hard enough to send him crashing to the ground before he could finish a full sentence.

Endeavor hasn’t said anything yet either. Just drags Shouto down the hall, banging Shouto’s shoulder and snagging his ankle on the corner as they turn unexpectedly. Shouto’s surprised at the direction they take as they pass by the training room. The anxiety thrumming under his skin picks up at the deviation from his expectations and he can’t resist letting out a small yelp when Endeavor throws Shouto through his bedroom door. Shouto lands on his ass on the floor, unable to catch his balance due to the grip on his arm and being dragged backward this entire time.

He glares at Endeavor until the man snarls at him and slams the door closed. Shouto hears the lock click and finally lets the tension drain from his shoulders. He’s shaking as he picks himself up off the floor. He tugs his hands through his hair, breathing deliberately slow but still shaky. This is fine. Being locked in his room is nothing. Sure the confinement grates at him, but it’s bearable. Calm even.

It’s still early in the evening, not even time for supper, but Shouto feels exhausted. They have the next several days off from school due for the end of the term and Shouto is certain that the next days will be hell, but for the moment he’s just glad that he doesn’t have class in the morning as he turns off the lights, curls on his futon, and lets sleep take him.

Shouto wakes early the next morning. Even the exhaustion of the previous night isn’t enough to override the habits forged by early morning classes, unfortunately. He reaches out to his side pawing at the floor searching blindly for his phone until his hand finds the unplugged end of his phone charger and he remembers the squelch of melted rubber on the counter and the fire in Endeavor’s eyes as he had read through Shouto’s private conversations.

Shouto groans against an arm still tucked under his head and finally opens his eyes. Despite it being morning, Shouto’s room is still dark due to the lack of windows and he picks his way carefully to his door only to find that it’s still locked. He turns on the lights idly and then sits back down on the futon, staring at the door handle as though it’s a puzzle to work through.

Is this his punishment? Just being grounded to his room isn’t exactly his father’s regular method of discipline. Besides, it’s not as though Endeavor can keep him in here forever. Shouto’s room connects to a small bathroom, but he’ll have to eat at some point and despite the break from school, it’s only two extra days plus the weekend; four days in total. It seems an insufficient amount of time to be punished this way especially considering how used to isolation Shouto is.

Shouto’s room is achingly bare. He doesn’t like leaving the things he cares about in his father’s house. His room is normally left untouched, but shortly after moving into the dorms at U.A., he had realized the slight thrum of anxiety anytime he thought of things left at home, scared he would come back to find his favorite sweater burnt or the book he was reading torn apart. So now, all the things he cares about are in his room at U.A. and his room at home is almost entirely empty. Besides his futon, there’s a small shelf of Endeavor-approved books that Shouto has never been able to really get into, a well-stocked first aid kit by the bathroom door, a laundry basket, and a low table sporting a small jar of pens and pencils, a box of tissues, and a sweet melon scented candle. Everything else that had once adorn the room, admittedly still very little, had been moved into the dorms by now.

Shouto thinks longingly of his school bag that hadn’t made it to his room after school. He needs something to get his mind off of his impending punishment and he has homework that he really should be doing anyway. Eventually, he retreats to the bathroom to shower, comb his hair, and brush his teeth. He pouts in the mirror and pokes at the scar on his face thinking longingly of the light blue jelly-like lotion that Bakugou had shoved at him one morning in the dorms grunting about ‘skin as dry as hand-fucker’. After some inquiry, Shouto had learned from Midoriya that “hand-fucker” was Bakugou’s self-assigned name for Shigaraki. Fitting. And not someone Shouto aspired to have anything, even dry skin, in common with.

The lotion, of course, is still tucked into the front pocket of his school bag. He tries the door handle again, but it’s still locked. He ends up spending several hours more lounging around his room, napping for a while, using his quirk to light the scented candle, at one point he even pulls one of the books off of the shelf, examines it for several seconds, and then replaces it without reading a single page.

It’s early afternoon by the time Shouto finally hears the lock turn on his door. He stands up quickly, bracing himself for his father to enter his room, and he stands… and waits, and he hears footsteps retreating. He knows the footsteps belong to his father. Fuyumi is lighter and her steps are always bouncing the slightest bit. Natsuo has the same stomping-like tread as their father, but his strides are shorter and he’s also never really been one to interfere even back when he lived at the house. So Shouto knows it’s Endeavor who has unlocked his door, but that doesn’t make it any easier to understand why his father is just walking away now. Endeavor doesn’t walk away like this.

Shouto waits, but the footsteps don’t return. He paces the room, tugs at his hair, and finally squares his shoulders and wipes any trace of emotion from his face, and walks out. He doesn’t see Endeavor from his vantage point at the end of the hallway, so he continues as quietly as possible, to the kitchen.

Shouto plans on finding something to eat and then retreating to his room or the garden, but Endeavor enters the kitchen just as Shouto is grabbing a bowl out of the cupboard and Shouto huffs in annoyance as his father calmly grabs the bowl out of his hands and replaces it in the cupboard.

“If you wanted to eat, you should have gotten up earlier,” Endeavor scolds him, “and don’t leave your things lying around, Shouto,” he shoves Shouto’s phone across the countertop.

Shouto furrows his brow in confusion at the reprimand. None of that is his fault, but he thinks better of pointing out to Endeavor, clearly still angry, that he had been up plenty early but had been locked in his room until only minutes ago and that he hadn’t had the chance to grab his phone the night before when Endeavor was slowly melting the case in his hands and then dragging Shouto down the hall like a rag doll.

“Do you understand, Shouto?” his father urges.

“Sure,” Shouto responds, refusing to look at Endeavor, carefully picking the phone up from the counter and subtly checking over the items tucked into the back of the case. They all seem to be okay.

Endeavor, as usual, scowls at the tone of insolence. “Training room. Now,” he demands.

Shouto sighs, nodding before retreating to his room to change and tuck the phone into a back corner of the bathroom cupboard just in case and changing into exercise clothing.

Chapter Text

The weekend is thankfully only two days longer than usual and although the four days feel eternal for Shouto, they do eventually come to an end. Shouto feels sore to his very bones. Training, or more accurately, having Endeavor beat him to a pulp in the training room every day, had been miserable and Shouto’s hardly seen anything outside of the walls of the training room and his bedroom since he arrived home. It had felt like a bearable punishment, better than the dread of the unknown that first day, but still brutal.

On Tuesday evening when he packs to return to U.A., Shouto applies a small amount of the foundation that Fuyumi had once given him to the more obvious bruises and scrapes on his face and neck. Part of him wants to leave them uncovered, let everyone see them and when they ask what happened, tell them ‘Endeavor beat the shit out of me over the weekend after reading through my personal messages and learning that I’m queer.’ Most of him feels absolutely mortified at the thought of anyone knowing the truth though and he’s sure Endeavor would never let him leave the house looking like that anyway. So he dabs the creamy makeup over his injuries with his fingers until the shadowed and swollen spots of his face are nearly invisible. He packs the makeup into his bag as well. He’ll be needing it for a while until all this heals up.

Maybe he can get injured in training enough to go to Recovery Girl. Her quirk heals injuries that she doesn’t know about too, and it wouldn’t be the first time Shouto has intentionally sprained a wrist during training to have an excuse to rid himself of injuries from home.

When he walks through the doors of the dorms, Shouto feels the tense line of his shoulders and spine slump in relief. The dorms are warm and the sounds of calm conversation wash over him along with the smells of Bakugou’s cooking from the kitchen.

“Todoroki-kun! How was your break?” Midoriya’s voice calls from the floor by the couches where he has one of his analysis notebooks spread in front of him.

It feels like it’s been much longer than four days since someone spoke kindly to Shouto and he was actually allowed to respond. He smiles softly at his friend, “it was long,” he says truthfully.

His friend squints at him as though appraising him for physical damage and Shouto is glad for the foundation. He sighs, shifting the bag on his shoulder, “I’m fine, just glad to be back here,” he assures his friend. Midoriya’s face brightens with a wide genuine smile and Shouto excuses himself to go put his bag in his room.

Shouto empties his bag, puts things away lazily before changing into a pair of loose sweat pants and a soft pale yellow sweater. He looks at the pile of homework assigned over the break, of which he’s gotten nothing done. As great as it is to be back in the dorms and away from his father, Shouto feels entirely devoid of energy as an effect of finally being able to relax.

Shouto is just about to call it a night, tell himself he’ll go to bed early, wake up early, and do what he can of the work in the morning (he knows it’s a lie), when he hears shouting from the downstairs common area. The particular style of shouting, the cheers that follow it, the thumping footsteps immediately on the stairs, are familiar. They mean only one thing; that Bakugou has made food for the whole dorm rather than simply cooking for himself and leaving the rest of the admittedly mostly hopeless students to fend for themselves.

Shouto isn’t too tired or dumb enough to pass up Bakugou’s cooking. He may be a bit of a picky eater, but Bakugou, to everyone but Mirodiya’s surprise, is amazing in the kitchen. Shouto thinks he could live on only Bakugou’s cooking for the rest of his life and die happy, so he tugs on a pair of warm socks and then heads back out of his room towards the kitchen where the tell-tale scent of spices and warm food is coming from.

The food is delicious and hot and comforting in just the right way to make Shouto feel like he’s slowly melting into a pathetic little puddle of emotions while the break catches up with him.

He hadn’t been planning on coming out to his father anytime soon… maybe not anytime at all if he’s being honest. There had been a few imagined scenarios- his father trying to push him into a relationship with some girl and Shouto saying it nonchalantly in the middle of an already miserable dinner with the equally uninterested girl and her equally controlling and terrible parents. Or his father saying something homophobic in an interview and Shouto coming out publicly on the spot, sparking an immediate drop in Endeavor’s approval ratings… that sort of thing. But when he really thought about it, the plan was always to wait until he was old enough to cut ties with his father permanently before he would ever know. Play it safe.

And now… none of those were options anymore. It was just the truth of his father standing in the kitchen, angry and silent, slowly melting the gel phone case, locking him in his room for the night, and then acting as if it had never happened other than being a little more violent in training than usual. The longer Shouto considers it the less certain he even is if his father had read those messages. Realistically, he could have been looking through anything. It’s easy to make him mad, maybe he had found offense in something entirely different. Maybe it wasn’t even about anything on his phone, maybe he was just pissed off about something else entirely and taking it out on Shouto.

He’s not sure what he wants to be the truth. On the one hand, he feels emotionally flayed believing that Endeavor knows that and nervous because the reaction feels somehow disproportionate to what he had expected. It feels like such an important thing to Shouto that having his father just brush it off, pretend it hadn’t happened, feels wrong even if it’s objectively better than it could have been.

Shouto doesn’t realize he’s zoned out of the conversation around the table until Midoriya is waving his scared hand between Shouto’s face and the plate of food that he’s been staring through for an indeterminate amount of time. Shouto sees that almost everyone else is done eating, slowly migrating to the couches of the living area. Midoriya’s voice is quiet and concerned when he speaks.

“I know you said you were okay, but uh, you seem like you’ve definitely got something on your mind. Not that you have to tell me if you don’t want to, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that we kinda talked right before the break and then you didn’t really answer any of my messages and I was just a little worried about you and--”

“I’m okay Mirodiya. I’ll fill you in later.” Shouto knows he’s being a little curt, but he feels exhausted and he’s not even sure how to say the things he’s thinking right now. He gives his friend a soft smile to reassure him before gathering up his plate.

“Thank you for the food Bakugou,” he says as he clears his place, earning a grunt from the blonde in response.

Once he is alone in his room, Shouto unlocks his phone. Although Endeavor had effectively ‘given’ Shouto back his phone after just that first night, Shouto had left it turned off and hidden in the bathroom cabinet for the rest of his stay at home, so it’s only now that he finally opens the messages from Midoriya, ignoring most of the other notifications.

There are only four messages in total from his friend. One for each day of the break, but each of them, in true Midoriya fashion, has multiple paragraphs. Shouto skims them, not having the energy to read that much text. The basic gist of it seems to be support, then subtly disguised worry, then apologies for being annoying, then more worry. Shouto feels kinda bad about not checking his phone earlier. He makes a mental note to apologize to his friend when he tells him about the break.

He scrolls up to reread the conversation where he had come out to his friend. The coming out that he’d been able to control that had gone perfectly fine and been comfortable and honest and… and it’s gone. Shouto knows it was the last conversation they had had over text before the break, but he scrolls up a bit further in case he’s mistaken. It’s not there. It’s gone.

He lays on his back on his futon and stares at the conversation in confusion. If Midoriya hadn’t mentioned their conversation at dinner, Shouto might have questioned his own memory, but no. It had definitely happened. Which means… Endeavor did read that conversation and then he deleted it. Right?

His fingers hover over the digital keyboard.

: can you send me screenshots of the conversation we had before the break?

: Of course Todoroki-kun. Any reason in particular? I mean, they’re the same messages on your phone haha. Oh, unless you deleted them so that there wasn’t any chance of your dad reading through them. That was probably smart of you.

: image attached
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Shouto reads over the conversation, just as he remembers it, and the screen blurs a bit when his eyes are suddenly teary.

It’s like something clicks in him as he rereads the conversation again and again. This happened. All of it. He came out to Izuku and it was really nice actually to be able to tell someone something that personal and have them respond so kindly and then he went home for the break and then Endeavor read through those private messages and he had been so angry over them, over one of the nicest conversations Shouto thinks he’s ever had, that he’d melted his damn phone case and dragged Shouto away and deleted the messages and pretended it had never happened and beaten him bloody under the guise of training the next day.

And it feels awful. Knowing that all of that happened and now he just has to live with it.

Chapter Text

Shouto spends a long time just rereading the conversation, committing it to memory, and feeling sad, before it starts to morph into anger. He wants the texts in his text messages not in screenshots from a friend where the text bubbles are the wrong colors and on the wrong sides. And he wants his phone case to not be slightly lopsided from being slightly melted and cooling back out of shape. He wants his father to at least say something about it, even if it’s awful, he just wants to hear it.

He doesn’t even care all that much about the bruises right now, and maybe his indifference there is a problem of its own, but it’s all the little tiny things that shouldn’t matter as much as they do that feel like they’re piling up and crushing him. It’s not actually very late, but Shouto still feels apprehensive when he finally responds to Mirodiya’s messages.

: are you busy right now?

The little dots of Izuku typing appear and disappear a few times and Shouto is about to resign himself to the horrible feeling of too much when there’s a knock on his door. Shouto has just decided to ignore them and pretend that he’s not there when Midoriya’s concerned voice comes from the other side.

“Todoroki-kun? Are you in there? I can go if you want. I just felt like it might be better for us to talk in person. You seemed really out of it earlier and--”

Shouto tugs open the door and from the way Midoriya’s eyes widen in surprise, he knows he must look a mess. He’s been running his hands through his hair, a nervous habit, leaving it messy and disheveled. He knows he was crying at some point and his eyes are probably red and puffy. He still feels on the verge of a breakdown.

He steps to the side to wordlessly invite his friend in and when he sinks down to sit on the floor, Midoriya follows to sit beside him. Shouto can see the questions Midoriya wants to ask building up and he knows that the longer he says nothing, the worse Midoriya’s imagined scenarios are getting

Finally, he swallows hard, and licks his lips staring down at the black screen of his phone in his hands, “I didn’t delete those messages, I just wanted to make sure they were real.”

Izuku cocks his head to the side, clearly confused.

“My father read the messages and then he must have deleted them because they weren’t on my phone when I looked again.”

“Oh, Todoroki-kun… Shouto, are you okay?”

As easy as it had been to brush off that question earlier, Shouto’s shoulders slump now. He’s not really okay, but the sadness is slowly melting, seeping from sadness and hurt into frustration.

Shouto scrubs his hands down his face with a slight huff. He still doesn’t know how to say what he’s feeling but Midoriya seems to have forgotten he’d even asked a question as his eyes zero in on Shouto’s cheek and Shouto belatedly realizes the smear of foundation now coating his hand.

Midoriya’s face reflects Shouto’s own emotional path from hurt and uncertain to angry and absolutely certain in a matter of seconds as realization crosses his features.

“Your father?” he asks darkly.

Shouto grinds his teeth slightly, “yeah,” he considers explaining that it was all ‘training’, that it hadn’t just been him hitting Shouto over finding out he was queer, but really? It was, wasn’t it? Training had always been at least partially an excuse for him to hurt Shouto and Shouto is in no mood to remove blame from his father right now.

It’s like everything he’s repressed over the years is bubbling up inside him. Shouto’s frustrated and mad and insulted by his father’s lack of acknowledgement.

Izuku looks like he’s not sure what to say, so it’s Shouto who finally breaks the silence between them.

“Fucked up, right?”

It’s probably a little bit out of character language for Shouto, but he’s especially pissed right now and unconcerned with sugarcoating anything to ease his friend’s concern.

Midoriya’s eyebrows raise, he seems uncertain, but there’s a fierceness in his eyes that tells Shouto that his friend agrees with him and when he speaks, the same fierceness is present in his voice.

“Yeah, that’s really messed up Shouto, I’m sorry,” there’s still a bit of that ever-present anxiety in his eyes, “what do you want to do?”

Of course, that would be Midoriya’s question. Always one to take action, never passive, so unlike Shouto’s default, he finds it refreshing.

What does he want then? He wants his father to at least acknowledge it. If he’s going to be horrible about it, fine. Shouto is used to that. He’s not used to this strange pretending it never happened, being forced to dance around the issue. He wants his father to react to it, not erase it.

“I want to come out publicly.”

That’s clearly not what Midoriya was expecting. Honestly, it’s not what Shouto expected to come out of his mouth either, but the more he thinks about it, the better the idea seems. He may be just a student, but he’s not exactly unknown. Him coming out will be at least cheap-tabloid-worthy. His father will be forced to publicly acknowledge it, probably even act decently about it if he doesn’t want his approval ratings to drop. Long-term, it will even give Shouto some degree of protection against his father trying to set up some arranged quirk-marriage for him in the future.

Shouto doesn’t even realize the slightly manic grin that has spread across his face until he catches sight of Midoriya’s concerned expression looking even more concerned than he had before.

“Todoroki-kin, not that I don’t support you, but uh, wasn’t I the first one you came out to? Like a week ago? Are you sure about this? Maybe it would be good to consider this a bit more before you make any rash decisions-“

“Thank you Midoriya, it’s been really helpful to talk through all this. You’re a good friend”

His friend flushes red. Shouto has found over the course of their friendship that bringing attention to their friendship, calling Midoriya his friend like that, is effective in instantly distracting him from any topic or at the very least, flustering him enough that he struggles to form coherent sentences. Shouto smiles when it works and he abruptly bids him goodnight, gently ushers him to the door, and closes it behind him, feeling tired enough to sleep, but excited enough to stay awake at least until the outline of a plan has begun to form in his mind.

That night his dreams are full of strange disconnected scenes. In one of them, a certain explosive blonde classmate breaks the horrible vase in the entry hall of the Todoroki family home and then, instead of apologizing, smiles wide with his teeth at Endeavor. Shouto smiles as one scene morphs into the next, each one more disastrous and perfect than the last.

Chapter Text

Shouto waits until after classes the next day before he corners Bakugou to propose his plan. The anger at his father and the rush of deciding to engage in this sort of rebellion is still fueling him, keeping him from feeling any embarrassment or hesitation.

The other boy is sitting on the floor in the common area, homework spread across the low table and a satisfied expression on his face that convinces Shouto that he’s done with his work, or nearly so, for the night and that now is the best time to approach him.

“Bakugou. Could I talk to you for a moment?”

The blonde quirks an eyebrow at Shouto.

“Preferably somewhere a little bit more private,” Shouto specifies when the silence begins to stretch. Bakugou lets out an annoyed huff and scoops his papers into a neat pile before rising from the floor to indulge Shouto’s request. Bakugou doesn’t say a word, just follows Shouto to the hallway away from prying eyes and ears, and then stares him down with an intense expectant glare.

“Date me,” Shouto says without preamble. His plan is to start off with a preposterous request and then explain his actual, much more reasonable request of ‘pretend to date me to piss off my dad’. He’d read somewhere that people were more likely to agree to a request if you ask a bigger request first to make the actual favor seem smaller in comparison.

Surprisingly, Bakugou doesn’t immediately begin shouting or aiming explosions towards Shouto. Instead, he blinks hard several times, furrows his brow, and glances side to side as if to check if anyone else had overheard. The clear confusion and surprise cause him to drop the guarded expression and the resulting look is surprisingly endearing. Lips slightly parted, eyebrows pinching toward each other, a slight pinkness appearing at the tops of his cheeks.

Just when discomfort at the lack of response is beginning to irritate Shouto, Bakugou seems to regain control of his mouth.

“What the fuck icy-hot?”

Finally, a rejection that Shouto can work with. Although, it’s not technically an explicit rejection and it sounds much softer than Shouto expected from such an outlandish seeming proposal.

“Pretend to anyway,” Shouto says succinctly. As if that clears up anything.

Bakugou’s face twists back into a more familiar expression, and maybe that explanation actually served to explain more than Shouto expected that it actually would because the next words out of Bakugou’s mouth, after a harsh laugh, are “are you that desperate to piss off your old man or just trying to make the damn nerd jealous?”

Shouto blinks at him slowly.

“I’m not interested in Midoriya like that,” he finally replies

Bakugou’s face flushes dark and he makes an impatient sound through his teeth. Shouto finally deigns to explain himself to Bakugou.

“My father recently learned that I am gay and reacted rather poorly to the information. I want you to pretend to date me in order to force him to publicly acknowledge and accept my sexuality.”

Bakugou doesn’t look as convinced as Shouto would like.

“You’re the logical choice — you’re already publicly out about your sexuality, I find you tolerable most of the time, Endeavor will hate you I’m sure, and besides. You owe me.”

They haven’t really discussed it at any length, this “debt” between them. Really, Shouto had been fully prepared to forget about it forever and never bring it up again, but he’s desperate for Bakugou to agree to this and still fueled by the anger at his father and the thrill of his plan and the words slip out before he can fully examine them. Bakugou doesn’t gloss over the statement so easily. His previously fierce glare turns wide and surprised, mouth opening and then snapping shut with a click of teeth as his eyes turn to the floor in what appears to be a mixture of anger but also, Shouto notes in guilty victory, a sliver of resignation.

Aiding in the rescue of someone after they’d been kidnapped and held captive by some of the most dangerous villains in the country was hardly the sort of thing that a good hero would hold over someone’s head as a debt, but Bakugou had been the first to insist that the debt existed. He had been the one to grumble that Shouto hadn’t any reason to come after him and, with a harsh jab to the chest, inform Shouto that he would repay the debt if it fucking killed him. So, maybe it’s not the most heroic to dangle that over the blonde, leveraging his own pride against him to manipulate him into helping with Shouto’s convoluted plan to piss off the #1 Hero, but desperate times and all that, right?

Shouto feels the guilt churn in his stomach, overpowering his desperation, at Bakugou’s resigned expression, the way his face goes from disregard and anger to uncharacteristically compliant and tinged with hurt. He wants to take the words back, shove them back down his throat and never even think of this sort of coercion in the first place, but Bakugou speaks before he can begin stumbling over apologies and backtracking. When the blonde does speak, however, it’s not anything that Shouto expects to hear.

“I won’t pretend to care about you. We can pretend to date. We can pretend we’re fucking. We can make out in front of the flaming trashcan and let the tabloids get a few pictures of us leaving the cinema or at some dumb cafe, and lie to our friends, whatever. But I don’t fake feelings.”

Shouto tilts his head to the side, thinking it over. On the one hand, he had intended for the fake dating to look like a typical relationship with some sort of feelings and affection involved, but on second thought, he’s pretty sure that the only thing that would make his father upset than a regular relationship with the blonde is a purely sexual relationship with the blonde. He’s sure that to most, Bakugou’s apparent lack of emotions won’t seem too out of place. Neither Bakugou nor himself are exactly known for being highly emotional or expressive (with the exception of Bakugou’s anger), and honestly, this just might work.

“Okay,” Shouto agrees, “no feelings. Got it.”

Chapter Text

For a second, Katsuki wonders if he’s dreaming. Todoroki, objectively speaking, is attractive enough; the girls don’t call him the class pretty-boy for nothing. And Katsuki’s subconscious is indecipherable at the best of times, it wouldn’t be extreme for it to come up with some sort of ridiculous scenario where icy-hot, characteristic deadpan expression and all, asks him out. Then, of course, the bastard has to open his stupid mouth again, assuring Katsuki that he is in fact awake with his stupid explanation that he’s not actually asking Katsuki out, just asking, no telling, him to partake in an elaborate and public deception in order to piss off the #1 Hero in Japan. As if Katsuki has nothing better to do.

Even as Todoroki explains the situation, the slight flush doesn’t disappear from Katsuki’s cheeks. For some reason that he refuses to examine, there had been a sharp wave of disappointment when icy-hot had clarified the situation and he’s pissed at himself for standing there like a fucking idiot just gaping and turning pink when Todoroki made his initial request of “date me”. For a moment, after Todoroki clarifies exactly what he’s asking, Katsuki considers punching him in his stupid pretty asymmetrical face (he also considers going along with it, even though it feels pathetic and desperate in a way Katsuki doesn't entirely understand).

Then the asshole lays down his trump card, the stupid debt that Bakugou had been so certain he owed back in first year. He’s since realized that he doesn’t owe those fuckers shit for what they did, that he deserves to be saved as much as anyone and that the circumstances of his kidnapping were in no way his own fault and neither were the actions of those idiots who came after him. A small part of him begrudgingly respects them more and admits that they had acted heroically, but he no longer thinks of it as something that he has to repay.

None of the other assholes have really called in the debt that Katsuki had sworn to them afterward. The nerd had been quick to turn deadly serious when Katsuki had confronted him and had informed him that he would never expect any sort of repayment before he’d lit up like the fucking sun to tell Katsuki that all that any of them had wanted when they went after him was for him to be okay and so really he’d already repaid them all by being alright and back with them.

Momo had been similarly sincere in her insistence that he owed her nothing. She had been flustered by him even acknowledging her part in getting him out of there even though, as he understands it, she had been the most integral player in the whole thing, even more than the pros. She had been the one to create the tracking device that allowed them to find him. No matter how strong of professional heroes he’d had working to get him back, there’s no telling how long it would have taken for them to find him if it hadn’t been for her quick thinking. The handful of days that he’d been with the League was bad enough, the thought of how long it could have taken without her help is one Katsuki has never liked to consider for too long.

Iida had been forthcoming in his explanation that his own feelings regarding their involvement had been hesitant at best. He had gone along to ensure that the others didn’t get too involved or hinder the work of the actual pros more than anything else. Privately Katsuki had been relieved to see that at least Iida hadn’t entirely lost his mind and gone rogue when he’d been taken. Regardless of his gratitude, his classmates' actions had been concerningly reckless and lacking any sense of self-preservation. It was good to see that they hadn’t all entirely lost their minds.

Kaminari had told him to go fuck himself and then laughed so hard at the look of disbelief on Katsuki’s face that he’d accidentally shocked himself.

Kirishima had seemed to understand Katuski’s feelings the best. Although he too insisted that nothing was owed, he accepted the money to cover the (insanely expensive) night vision goggles he’d bought without too much complaint and when Katsuki had told him that he was still indebted to him for the rescue, not just the goggles, he’d smiled softly and shaken his head, finally acquiescing that Katsuki could help him study for their upcoming English test. As if that would be an even exchange even if Katsuki hadn’t already been planning on helping him. He was the only one that had even come close to calling in the favor and it wasn’t as though he was fooling anyone into believing that he hadn’t done it only to alleviate Katsuki’s conscience.

Todoroki had initially insisted that he owed nothing, but out of all of them, he was definitely the worst at expressing himself. He’d seemed uncomfortable when Katsuki had insisted but hadn’t argued further. Katsuki had suspected that he’d only gone along because the fucker followed the damn nerd around like a little lost puppy all of first-year and of course the damn nerd with his stupid fucking hero complex and weird obsession with Katsuki had gone after him. Katsuki hadn’t been particularly worried about the half and half bastard calling in the favor, but apparently, he should have been. Fuck him.

He sees the way Todoroki looks a little like he’s just swallowed a bug as soon as he says it, but Katsuki isn’t about to let him take it back.

For one, although pretending to date the fucker sounds miserable, Katsuki can’t deny the slight thrill that shoots through him at the mental image of Endeavor scowling through an interview in a too-small armchair, clearly seething, while being forced to fake acceptance of his son’s relationship. There’s also that offended vindictive part of him that wants the half and half bastard to feel shitty over calling in a debt for this. He could’ve just asked.

So Katsuki agrees, tells the fucker that he’s not going to fake the feelings shit, but he’ll play along with the rest of the bullshit, and then stomps off. He feels heavy, weighed down by something that he doesn’t have a name for. It’s not over the increased responsibility, Katsuki can handle a little side project. He’s not concerned about the morals, he’s known since eavesdropping at the sports festival in first year that Endeavor didn’t deserve any sympathy over his son’s apparent disdain and rebellion. It’s not even the fact that he’s repaying a debt that he doesn't really owe. Katsuki’s said more regrettable things in his life than ‘I owe you', and he’s learned to live with the consequences of his own mistakes. So he’s not entirely sure why this feels so fucking wrong.

He stomps all the way back to the common room away from Todoroki and his stupid guilty face. He probably should have stuck around to figure out the details, schedule a fake date or some shit, but he doesn’t particularly want to face any more of that conversation at the moment, so he does something that Bakugou fucking Katsuki never does, and runs from his problem.

Kiri grins like a shark with all his teeth when Katsuki reenters the common area to retrieve his homework. He sidles up next to him and bumps his shoulder against Katsuki’s and when Katsuki doesn’t say anything, Kiri draws out a long, sing-song “soooo,” and raises his eyebrows suggestively.

“What did Todo-bro want?”

Katsuki almost bites out a retort with some degree of honesty about the half and half bastard being an asshole or wanting to piss off his dad before he remembers that he agreed to lie to his friends too.

“He asked me out,” Katsuki growls.

Kiri’s eyes go wide and excited, “and?! What did you say?”

Katsuki grinds his teeth. “I fucking said yes.”

He’s trying not to sound disdainful, really he is. He’s hoping it just comes off as annoyance at having people pester him about his personal life.

Kiri apparently gets the memo, because he grins softer this time, moving to give Katsuki a bit more personal space, “all right, man, I won’t bug you about it too much. I’m just happy for you!”

Katsuki scowls to hide the blush that creeps up his neck at his friend's sincerity. He’s just glad it was Shitty Hair and not Dunce Face who he was with when Todoroki had interrupted his studying. He’s definitely not looking forward to the rest of the idiot squad’s reactions.

Chapter Text

Bakugou had expected that Todoroki would approach him with a date and a time for some stupid fancy dinner. Something public and miserable and rich. Something to get his father’s attention and the attention of a few cameras. Instead, the first attention he catches is that of the idiot squad.

Todoroki walks into the dining room in the middle of the group’s weekly English study session two days after his original proposal in an oversized pale yellow sweater and plops himself down right next to Katsuki. Like, right next to him. Katsuki had thought Dunce was already invading his personal space before Halfy had gone and squeezed himself right in between them, his warm left side pressing tightly against Katsuki’s right without so much as a word.

“Hah?!”

Todoroki looks at him like he has no clue why this would be a problem.

Katsuki focuses on not snapping the pen in his hand in half and furiously hoping that the flush he feels creeping up his neck isn’t too visible. Halfy blinks at him slowly, like a particularly unperturbed cat, then he leans into Katsuki’s side, slumping against his shoulder with a sigh, letting his eyes slip closed. Then, after an extended couple of seconds of silence, as if he’s just realized the disturbance he’s caused, Todoroki peeks one eye open taking in the incredulous stares of the group with mild curiosity. As if they’re the ones who just fucking--

“Don’t mind me, I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Katsuki tilts his head back and clenches his teeth while staring at the ceiling for a long couple of seconds. He tilts his head back down and his chin brushes against Todoroki’s hair from where his head is resting on Katsuki’s shoulder. Katsuki looks back at Todoroki just as the bastard closes his eyes again. A clear message that he’s going to be no fucking help. The eyes around the table go from staring at Icyhot to staring at Katsuki.

If Icyhot cuddling up to Katsuki’s side without so much as an explanation was strange, Katsuki’s reaction, or lack of so far, was even more out of character. The only one who doesn’t look some combination of confused, bordering on hysteria, and scared is Kirishima whose eyes are practically shining with encouragement and mild amusement.

With a determined huff, Katsuki yanks his arm free from where Halfy has pinned it to his side with his body weight. Todoroki makes a noise of disagreement until Katsuki loops the arm over his shoulders tugging the smaller boy tighter against him.

It’s slightly inconvenient to have the bastard on Katsuki’s naturally dominant side, but he picks up his pen from the table in his left hand to finish working over the homework. It’s not any lengthy writing this week, just revisions that he can do easily enough with his left hand.

“Racoon eyes, your sentence order needs work on line 12,” he informs her squinting at her paper and desperately hoping that no one will have the balls to actually ask--

“Are you and Todoroki fucking?” Kaminari slurs around the end of the phone charger cable tucked under his tongue.

Katsuki clenches his fists and is preparing to blast Dunce Face’s face.

Todoroki adjusts his head slightly on Katsuki’s shoulder, “yup, we are,” he states without the slightest hint of embarrassment. The fucker doesn’t even open his eyes for the statement.

Shitty Hair finally loses whatever restraint he had been demonstrating and lets out a low chuckle while Dunce and Racoon Eyes whoop excitedly. Even Sero, suspiciously mellow despite Katsuki not being able to smell any smoke on him, lets out a loud laugh.

Katsuki finally gives up on hoping that his blush isn’t evident. His face is fucking burning. It’s not really humiliation, there’s an aspect of embarrassment that Katsuki can never quite rid himself of any time that something he cares about is revealed, but it’s not like he’s actually embarrassed to be dating someone as attractive and strong and smart as Todoroki. Of course, that thought only makes the heat in his face worsen because what the fuck. They’re not even dating. And Katsuki doesn’t actually care about him and he already told Halfy that he wouldn’t play at it. They’re just pretending to fuck and there is absolutely no reason for him to be blushing like some fucking nerd with a crush.

Katsuki hides his red face in his hands, wishing he wasn’t so immune to his own nitro and could just pass out from inhalation.

As the laughter and celebration from the group begin to taper off, it’s replaced with genuine sounding congratulations. Katsuki finally raises his head once his cheeks have begun to cool, but the soft looks of the group make him want to hide again. He looks down at Halfy to avoid the eyes of his friends and sees that Halfy has finally deigned to open his eyes again, there’s a very slight curve to his lips and he shifts against Katsuki’s shoulder to look up at him. A crease appears between his mismatched brows, but the tiny smile remains in place.

“I hope I didn’t embarrass you,” he says quietly.

Katsuki knows it’s a lie, but he shakes his head anyway and lets his hand rub nervous circles against Todoroki’s shoulder.

Finishing the English homework after that takes longer than it should. Everyone is clearly distracted and a couple of times Soy Sauce and Racoon Eyes try to beg off saying that they can finish the rest in the morning before class. Idiots. As if that will actually happen. Katsuki forces them to finish the page despite their complaints and both of them actually seem more compliant than usual. A few times Katuski makes to get up to drag them back to their seats and watches them cast sympathetic glances towards Icyhot being jostled against Katsuki’s side before sitting back down of their own accord. Katsuki resists the temptation to laugh. Figures that the bastard would somehow be the favorite after having shown up once and saying a grand total of something like ten words.

When the homework is done and Sero has reheated the leftovers from dinner that night and crushed a handful of dry ramen over his mapo tofu in a decision that Katsuki can only assume is influenced by cannabis, Mina invites them to her room for “movie night”. Movie night, in their group, is nearly a nightly occurrence and everyone has an open invitation, so Katuski knows that she’s only mentioning it in hopes that Halfy will join them. He scowls. It’s already nearly 9:00 seeing as they had been too busy ogling his boyfriend (fake boyfriend) to focus on their work.

“No fucking way,” Katsuki answers for the two of them.

Mina’s face falls slightly and Katsuki stands, hauling Halfy up with him causing the other boy to squeak as he opens his eyes and blinks against the bright lights.

“We’ll come tomorrow, it’s too late to start a movie tonight.”

She brightens back up, Sparky wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, “other things to do, we get it.”

Dunce and Flat Face agree to join movie night while Shitty Hair tells them that he promised to call his moms tonight and will probably be on the phone for a while.

Katsuki narrows his eyes at the three planning on watching the movie, “If I smell anything I will text Sensei, don’t fucking test me.”

Sero huffs a quiet laugh, “aw c'mon man, don’t be a snitch.”

Katsuki is at least 70% sure that soy sauce is already high.

“Save it for the weekend then, it’s two fucking days.”

Sero shrugs, which isn’t a fucking answer, but whatever. Katsuki is tired.

He drags Halfy to the elevators while the others finish tucking homework back into bags. Katsuki wouldn’t be surprised if they were waiting for them to be out of earshot so that they could gossip about his new relationship, so he doesn't bother to wait before hitting the close-door button.

He finally drops his arm from around Todoroki during the ride up when he realizes he’s still pressing him to his side. Todoroki looks up at him with that slightly confused look he wears sometimes, only ever when his friends confuse him never over things like English grammar. He opens his mouth twice, shuts it both times as if not sure what he wants to ask.

“Were you talking about weed?” he finally settles on.

Katsuki laughs, “you gonna tell Aizawa if I say yes?”

Todoroki huffs as if mildly upset and for a second Katsuki worries that he will actually tell Aizawa.

“Will they have more tomorrow when we go to movie night?”

Oh, that’s what he’s asking.

“You can smoke on the weekend. We’re not smoking on a school night.”

When the elevator stops on the fourth floor, where Katsuki’s room is, he steps off and experiences a bizarre moment of confusion as to why Todoroki isn’t following him.

Because his room is on the fifth floor dumbass, he reminds himself.

“Thanks for letting me nap on your shoulder,” Todoroki says, which is a bizarre thing to say in any circumstance but is somehow nice to hear. Katsuki is just glad that the elevator doors are sliding shut before he has the chance to respond with something stupid.

It’s only been three fucking days of this shit and he’s already going soft.

“Fuck this,” Katsuki mutters under his breath as he makes his way to his dorm room.

Chapter Text

Shouto’s not entirely sure why he decided that it was a good idea to go nap on Bakugou’s shoulder during one of his group study sessions. He hadn’t really overthought it when he made his decision. He’d been feeling touch starved and lonely and Midoriya, the most tactile of his friends, had been on a run and Shouto had spent only a few seconds lamenting it before remembering that he had a fake boyfriend now and then next thing he had known, he was squeezing in next to Bakugou and telling the group that they were fucking. Shouto had felt the way Bakugou’s arm tightened around his shoulders at Shouto’s declaration. It probably would have been best for them to have some sort of conversation before announcing it to all of Katsuki’s friends (and, by extension of Mina, probably most of UA), but it was too late now and they’d seemed to buy it anyway.

He’d been somewhat entertained by the reactions of the group and had thought it would feel like a bigger deal than it had. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the revelation of his fake relationship and simultaneously his sexuality, however, Shouto had almost immediately begun dozing off against Bakugou. By the time they had vacated the table, tucking homework into bags and saying their goodnights, Shouto had been so relaxed he’d been leaning on Bakugou’s arm all the way to the elevator and for part of the ride up before the blonde had finally moved a step away.

By the time Shouto finally lays down in bed, he hardly feels tired. Bakugou’s shoulder had been nice. He smells nice. Shouto shakes his head, he has other things to think about.

So now most of their peers either are or soon will be informed of their “relationship”, but it’s not like their friends are the main target of their deception. Now that Shouto is actually considering it, his plan isn’t half as much of a disaster as he’d thought it might turn out to be. Whatever dreams he’d had of Bakugou breaking that awful vase in their living room probably won’t be fulfilled, but beyond vindictive momentary satisfaction, it will probably be good that Shouto has never brought friends, much less more than friends home to meet his family. The questions that would undoubtedly arise if his father were more familiar with the company he kept would be a potential problem.

Of course, even if that sort of direct interaction in Endeavor’s home is improbable, Shouto still has to force him to acknowledge the relationship. The next step is either publicity or some sort of event that his father will also be attending where he can bring Bakugou as a plus one. The former has less potential for massive disaster, but Shouto isn’t entirely sure whether he’s actively seeking out or avoiding massive disaster. In-person situations also run the risk of Endeavor reacting badly publicly right off the bat. Shouto’s sure that the resulting drop in Endeavor’s rankings and the backlash it would spark would be satisfying, but it’s not really what Shouto wants. He wants, desperately, to see Endeavor uncomfortable, seething, caught off guard in some stupid interview being forced to acknowledge Shouto’s queerness. He wants Endeavor to walk on eggshells around him, worried about Shouto publicly addressing more than his sexuality. Worried of Shouto irreversibly damaging his reputation, leaving him ruined.

It’s vindictive and probably mean and maybe petty, but Shouto hardly cares at the moment. Every part of what he’s doing feels wrong in some way. Fuyumi would be in tears if she knew how much he wanted to just destroy Endeavor’s image and his hero career. Her happy-family pipe dreams crushed. Izuku had clearly been concerned when he’d given him even a glimpse into his plan. Shouto thinks of Bakugou’s wide-eyes, surprised, offended when Shouto had called in the un-owed favor. Something uncomfortable twists in his stomach, but Shouto shakes it off.

Fuyumi doesn’t really understand and doesn't know the full extent of what Shouto’s endured at their father’s hands. She still thinks there's a possibility of redemption for Endeavor, Shouto knows he’ll never change. Izuku doesn’t get it either, Shouto’s told him most of the worst of Endeavor, but he’s never had to live with the man, he doesn’t understand the careful balance Shouto has to keep. Defiant enough that his father doesn’t push him as far as he could if Shouto would let him-- far enough that he becomes another altar next to Touya’s, but compliant enough that Endeavor doesn’t punish him beyond what can be excused as training. A delicate game of living in the spotlight but never letting certain things be known. He’s finally pulling out the stops though; if Endeavor doesn’t want certain things to become known, then he’s going to have to start cleaning up his act.

Eventually, Shouto settles on a rough plan. Enough hints that it won’t be a total surprise when he introduces Bakugou to his father as his boyfriend, but he wants it to happen in person. He scrolls through his email, sifting through invitations to various functions and fundraisers until he finds one forwarded from his father. He looks through the details; it’s a fundraiser supporting research and treatment of Quirk Incompatibility Syndrome. Shouto resists the urge to roll his eyes. When Touya had been alive, it was a weakness. Now that he’s dead, it’s a chance for Endeavor to use sympathy points to gain a boost in the ratings. Shouto clicks the link at the bottom of the email to RSVP and checks the box indicating that he is bringing a +1.

All that’s left now is a couple of Instagram posts, maybe a few tabloid-worthy sightings of them on a few dates, nothing explicit, just enough to generate gossip. Once the RSVP form is filled out and submitted, Shouto thumbs over to his messaging app and selects Bakugou’s contact. Their messages so far are blank. He has most of the class's information, but only a small group of them regularly text him. He and Bakugou have few close friends in common and even less reason to message each other individually outside of the various group chats until now.

: Saturday date night?

He waits 20 minutes, but Bakugou doesn’t respond. He’s probably asleep. Shouto figures they can work out the details tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Katsuki sees the message from Todoroki first thing in the morning. It’s the only text he’s ever gotten directly from Icyhot and for some reason that pisses him off. Sure, whatever, date night on Saturday. He doesn’t have plans other than homework that he can finish at some other point in the weekend. He still grinds his teeth at the message, turns on read receipts so that the bastard will see the petty little “read: 05:41” under the message, then throws his phone down on his bed and leaves it there when he goes on his run.

Once he’s gotten back from his run and showered and dressed, Katsuki finally looks back at his phone. There’s nothing more from Todoroki, but Katsuki’s aware that he’s hardly an early riser when he doesn’t have to be. There had been a time, right after the dorm system had been instituted when Icyhot was regularly up at the same time as Katsuki, but only a few months into the system, Katsuki had heard the bastard repeating, wide-eyed, sounding curious and awed “sleeping in?” to a laughing Kaminari who had proceeded to have to explain the concept. Katsuki hadn’t seen Icyhot out of his dorm any earlier than necessary to make it to class on time since then and never before 10 on the weekends.

At some point, Katsuki had found it a little sad and a little funny. He’d made a point to leave leftovers for Todoroki to have when he made breakfast for the other extras, cause who was he to deny him a late breakfast when the idiot had only just discovered sleeping in.

It’s only about 7:30 meaning most of the other extras will begin getting up soon for classes at 8:30. Todoroki will probably stumble out of his room still half asleep around 8:10. Bastard.

Katsuki doesn’t wait around the dorms for Icyhot to get up. He heads to homeroom early and sits down at his desk to work through some of the problems for tonight’s homework from Ectoplasm. If he glances at his phone a few more times than is really necessary for checking the time with the bright digital clock at the front of the room, that’s no one’s business. When the rest of his classmates finally begin trailing into the classroom shortly before the start of class, Katsuki watches from his peripheral for half-and-half’s distinctive hair. Unfortunately, the bastard barely makes it in before the bell and Katsuki doesn’t even have the chance to glare at him properly.

Katsuki spends the rest of the day watching Todoroki from the corners of his eyes and sneaking glances at him. He just wants to know if the bastard had seen his passive-aggressive non-response to his message. He also kinda needs to inform the idiot that yes, Saturday works fine for his schedule other than he’ll be staying in the dorms over the weekend so they’ll have to be back by curfew.

Katsuki spends most of his weekends in the dorms. It’s not that home is necessarily bad, it’s just a distraction and he hardly ever gets homework done at home because it seems like there’s always an endless pile of chores for him to do as soon as he steps foot through the front door. He’s not the only one who stays. Icyhot does whenever he can manage it. Katuski knows that he often ignores texts and calls and his father’s requests that he come home for the weekend due to the number of times Endeavor himself has shown up on the steps of the dorms demanding that someone go get his son. Uraraka does it whenever her parents are going to be working through the weekend and Mina only goes home every third weekend because home is too far from UA for the travel to be practical every week.

He wonders if Icyhot will spend this weekend or not. Either last weekend was long enough that he’ll be cut some slack this week or his dad will continue being a homophobic ass and drag him home just to… actually Katsuki’s not exactly sure how Endeavor treats his son at home. He knows there’s plenty of animosity between them and Icyhot has hinted at some pretty concerning things, not even counting the things Katsuki had overheard him telling Deku, but he doesn’t really know the specifics. Maybe that’s something they should talk through before Katsuki gets more involved than he already is. He knows he can be pretty antagonistic and as much as he wants to piss off Endeavor, he’d rather not get Icyhot hurt over it.

By the time they’ve finally finished their classes, Katsuki is getting pretty pissed off over the complete inattention Icyhot has given him. Bastard announces to the whole idiot squad that they’re together and then acts like his “boyfriend” doesn’t exist the entire next day. Shitty hair has already sent him one concerned look and Dunce actually had the nerve to ask if everything was alright between them. They’ve known for one fucking day and already can tell something is off.

When the school day is finally finished, Icyhot lingers in the classroom as others pack up and Katuski thinks he’s finally going to get a response from the idiot. Then the shitty nerd finishes putting his pens away and tugs his backpack over his shoulders and the fucking idiot starts trailing after him out of the classroom. Absolutely the fuck not.

Katsuki flings his own bag over one shoulder and follows them out into the hall.

“Oi, Halfy! Forgetting something?” he yells after them.

Todoroki turns around with his mismatched eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Maybe he hadn’t been deliberately avoiding Katsuki. Maybe he’s really just that fucking clueless. Either way, the nerd is staring at Katsuki like he’s grown a second head and Todoroki just looks vaguely confused. Katsuki marches up, grabs Todoroki’s hand, and starts pulling the bastard down the hall.

“Whoa wait, where are you going? Kacchan? Wait, are you guys actually dating? I heard something from Mina, but then Todoroki-kun didn’t say anything about it so I thought it was just a rumor. Unless this is…”

The nerd’s mumbling finally becomes quiet and indecipherable and Katuski’s glad because he wouldn’t put it past the observant shit to figure them out if he hasn’t already. The nerd seems to figure out that he’s not invited to the conversation after trailing after them for a couple of seconds. His head snaps up from where he’d tucked his chin into his chest in his regular mumbling fashion, and he rubs a hand against the back of his neck, blushing slightly.

“A-Anyway, I’ll see you later Shouto-kun! Bye Kacchan!”

He finally turns on his heel and heads back down the hallway in the direction he’d been going before Katsuki had snagged Icyhot away. Icyhot hasn’t said anything so far and Katuski finally glances at his face to find him still looking confused. More confused than before actually, though the difference is subtle on his inexpressive face.

“You never responded to my message,” Todoroki finally breaks the silence as they walk across the grounds toward the dorms.

Katsuki groans internally. He’d been waiting for the bastard to say something about it, but he sounds so unaffected that Katsuki suddenly feels argumentative. “I turned on read receipts,” he counters. The idiot’s brows draw fractionally closer together. “The fucking thing that says ‘read 5:41’?”

“I saw that you read it. You didn’t respond though.”

“Fucking fine. Saturday is fine. Date night is fine. Whatever.”

Katsuki can feel how the bastard relaxes next to him when he says that. Katsuki is still dragging him by the hand, although really the bastard’s legs are longer than his and he has no trouble keeping up so Katsuki isn’t really dragging him and Icyhot is gripping his hand just as much as Katsuki is his. Semantics. Katsuki feels the way he relaxes his posture and his steps become less anxious.

Under other circumstances, it would probably be hilarious that the idiot is so concerned about being rejected for a fake date with someone he’s not even remotely interested in. Unfortunately, Katsuki is the someone going on a fake date with the horribly attractive uninterested bastard. So it’s somewhat lost its comedy.

Chapter Text

Shouto has never really been much of a pacer before. In Endeavor’s home, silence had always been a necessary precaution and despite the fact that Shouto is light on his feet, (he frequently startles his classmates now that they live in the dorms by “sneaking up on them”, though it’s never intentional), pacing had never seemed like a good idea at home. Midoriya’s pacing had fascinated him for a while. His friend is Shouto’s opposite in a lot of ways, but one of the most noticeable is the way his nervousness presents itself. While Shouto’s nerves tend to shut him down, making him silent and still, eyes trained on the floor, chewing his lips bloody the only outward sign of his distress, Midoriya is the opposite. He mumbles seemingly in every mood, but nerves and excitement take it from subtle to a constant incomprehensible buzz.

Sometimes his mumbling will give way to sporadic JSL. Shouto had asked about it at some point, Midoriya isn’t fluent but he knows enough to organize his thoughts with his hands. The pacing is another habit that had fascinated Shouto after they moved into the dorms. Everything Midoriya does gets faster when he’s nervous. He mumbles faster and louder, words blending together until he’s nearly impossible to keep up with, hands itching for a pencil, taking invisible notes in the air or forming out whatever words he knows in sign language, knees bouncing up and down when he’s seated, pacing with a slight jump to his step otherwise. Shouto had tried it a time or two, not the mumbling, that didn’t seem calming in the least to him and he’s not even sure where he would start. Being loud only increases his nervousness anyway. He doesn’t know enough for signing to help in any way, although sometimes he thinks it might be nice to be able to talk to someone without having to open his mouth. But the pacing had been interesting and seemed like an okay solution. Shouto’s pacing is much more boring than his green haired friend. Midoriya is always so caught up in what he’s thinking that he nearly walks into walls and other students, he gets a little skip in his step when he’s excited and when he turns to change direction it’s often more of a twirl than anything else. Shouto’s is probably about as bland as pacing gets he thinks. It’s deliberate, silent steps. He counts his paces too. Eight steps one way starting with his left foot, turn, eight steps the other way starting with his right, pause at the wall, turn, eight steps starting left. He mostly uses it to get away from his thoughts. It makes it hard to focus on anything other than the calming rhythm of motion when he paces.

Right now, it’s not working as well as he had hoped. He’s done 12 sets of eight steps either direction, six pauses at the north facing wall of his dorm room, but his thoughts keep surfacing, rising and settling at the front of his brain like little soda bubbles in a fizzy drink. He’s admittedly nervous about the date. He’s determined to see this plan through, knows the payoff will be worth it, but it’s still nerve wracking. He can hear Midoriya’s voice in his mind gently chiding “are you sure about this? You only just came out to me a week ago,”. Even though he knows his father is hardly a good representative sample, his mind is conjuring up a million scenarios where this ends in rejection and unacceptance. Where his reputation is irredeemably damaged and no agency wants to take him on and…

There’s also guilt worming it’s way through the tangle of thoughts. Even though Bakugou is publicly out- a fabulous display of shouted interaction when he’d been asked in an interview about a girlfriend, the interviewer had raised their eyebrows suggestively, digging for tabloid gossip, “any special lady at UA?” To which he had responded, his answer half censored out with little bleeps over the English curse words “hah? Of *bleep* course not. I have more important *bleep* to worry about than some *bleep* romance. And if I were interested in any of those *bleep* extras, it wouldn’t be a *bleep* lady.” That had been right at the end of the interview which was probably good, because despite his nonchalant demeanor, Bakugou had been bright red for the rest of the interview.

Shouto had seen the aftermath, his group of close friends offering him firm pats on the back and reassurances after the interview had been aired ranging from Kirishima’s sincere “I’m proud of you bro! That was super manly of you!” to Ashido and Kaminari’s immediate pestering, trying to ascertain the identity of the crush they were absolutely convinced he had.

But even though he is publicly out, the blonde has so far avoided any actual gossip about his relationships. There had been probably one or two occasions where speculation that he was dating Kirishima had circulated, but that’s just how Kirishima is. His weekends regularly include what he refers to as “friend dates” where he’ll drag someone from the class out to a cafe lunch or a new film at the cinema or to go rollerskating. Kirishima rarely puts any effort into not being recognized in public, so it’s not infrequent that someone will steal a photo and then rumors will float around that he’s dating whoever he’d been with for a week. Somehow it seems like no one has caught on that this is just him hanging out with friends; that Kirishima is just like that and his arm slung around your shoulder or dragging you along by the hand or one-on-one outings are just his brand of closeness. Instead, the public seems convinced that he’s, as Kaminari teases, “a total player”. Luckily, it’s Kirishima, and Shouto’s pretty sure that no one in their class could actually mind the assumption that they were dating him. Personally, Shouto thinks that it might be slightly exhausting to try to keep up with his energy if they were actually dating, but even so, he’d probably consider it a compliment if people started rumors that they were dating.

Honestly, he’d probably consider it a compliment if people started rumors that he was dating any of the guys in their class, but Kirishima is definitely an uncontroversial option. Bakugou would probably be seen as a bit risky by some others. Shouto knows he’s more cautious and thinks through things more than he lets on, but he knows the public has some mixed opinions on him. He’s also glad that he can trust Bakugou not to worry too much about getting on Endeavor’s bad side. The guilt is still itching at him for dragging him into this, but he’s glad that Bakugou is at least less concerned about his reputation than a lot of their classmates. Although he resents it, Shouto can understand that it would likely be pretty upsetting to some of them to be making an enemy of the current number one hero.

The guilt is mostly overpowered by nerves, which Shouto’s not sure if he’s glad of or not. He feels slightly ill from the nervousness. And it’s not even just the coming out publicly that’s nerve wracking, or his father’s response, it’s also horribly trivial things piling up. Shouto’s not really sure what to wear for the more casual date on Saturday and he knows that his date will look impeccable because somehow Bakugou, despite appearing to have little care for it, is one of the best dressed members of their class and clearly knows what he’s doing. He’s nervous that Bakugou won’t like the place Shouto has decided that they’ll go to eat or that he won’t have a good time and Shouto will be terrible at conversation and it will just be full of awkward pauses. He’s not even sure why he’s so worried about all of this. The public is horrible at reading either of their moods, they’re not really the most expressive, so he doubts it will be a problem with them being found out. For some reason, he really wants them both to just have a good time anyway. As if it’s an actual date.

By the time Saturday rolls around, Shouto has tried on dozens of outfits, pestered Midoriya more times than he cares to admit on proper date etiquette, and spent nearly the entirety of everyday watching Bakugou out of the corners of his vision, making note of his habits and preferences. On Saturday, he passes Bakugou in the hall before their date and (he’s practiced this in front of the mirror, though he’ll never admit that to anyone besides Midoriya who had accidentally walked in on it once) he catches Bakugou’s eye, smiles softly, looks away, and says “I’ll see you in an hour,” in a way that’s half a question, to reassure himself that they’re still on, and half an expectation.

Bakugou, unexpectedly, goes wide-eyed, coughs once, and mutters a “yeah,” that lacks his regular explosiveness.

Shouto blinks slightly confused at the reaction, but is determined not to overthink it. Honestly, after Midoriya’s reaction, maybe he should’ve been more prepared. Izuku had laughed shyly when he’d witnessed it, but when Shouto had turned red and embarrassed, he’d been quick to reassure.

“Oh no, Shouto-kun it was so good! Kacchan puts on a hard act, but I’m sure you know how easy it is to fluster him with stuff like that, he’ll swoon!”

Of course that had only proceeded to embarrass Shouto more, and he’d felt the temperature of his room rise as he buried his face in his hands. Maybe Midoriya had been right though.

He heads back to his dorm to finish getting ready. The outfit he had finally settled on, with Izuku’s input, was a ribbed white turtleneck paired with a pale blue and white flannel, a pair of slightly torn jeans which Midoriya had “borrowed” from Kaminari for him, and his regular sneakers. It’s more comfortable than he had expected to be dressed for the date, but Izuku had insisted that he looked good and it wasn’t too casual. He’d know better than Shouto, so he decides to trust him on this.

Shouto gets dressed before sitting on the floor of the room by the mirror, unscrewing the cap of his foundation. He’d already managed an excuse to see Recovery Girl after he’d tripped over his own feet while clumsy under the influence of Shinsou’s quirk and, without the instinct to catch himself, had slammed his chin against the floor of the training gym. His bruises from his last trip home are gone, but Shouto wants to look nice for the date, so he uses the foundation anyway just to smooth out the edges of his scar a little. It’s not practical to cover it all, and besides he wouldn’t want it to be so obvious that he’d applied makeup to cover it, but blending it over the edges of the scar does help it look a little softer. Once he’s finished, he chews at his lip, and sits in front of the mirror for a little while longer, killing a bit of time so that he’s not waiting downstairs for too long. When it’s about ten minutes before they agreed to head out, Shouto tucks his wallet into his back pocket and heads down to the common area.

He paces in the common area for a few minutes, glancing at his phone every couple of seconds, though he’s sure there’s no need. Bakugou is notoriously punctual and Shouto can’t imagine him canceling on him at the last minute.

It feels like forever, but Shouto’s phone says it’s only been four minutes when Bakugou comes downstairs. He’s wearing black jeans, slightly shredded along his thighs, a simple grey sweater with a loose enough neckline that Shouto can see the sharp angle of his collarbones. There’s also small ruby studs in his ears, Shouto hadn’t realized they were pierced. He looks nice, effortlessly so, and Shouto suddenly feels self conscious of his own outfit. They aren’t really dressed in the same style, and he’d known they wouldn’t be. Midoriya had even commented on it when he was critiquing Shouto’s outfits, mentioned that Bakugou would likely wear simple darks and neutrals in simple fashionable styles, but hearing Midoriya’s analysis and seeing the actual effect of it are entirely different.

Shouto swallows, but luckily Bakugou doesn’t let the silence become awkward yet. He smirks at Shouto, teeth flashing, “like what you see?”

Shouto only manages a slight chuckle and a nod before Bakugou is sweeping forward determinedly, grabbing his hand, and dragging him out of the dorms and down the stairs towards the gates. For a minute, Shouto almost forgets that he is the one who asked Bakugou out, or told Bakugou to pretend to go out with him, and not the other way around. Bakugou clearly has no issue leading at the moment, and it’s not until they make it out of the gates that Shouto remembers that Bakugou doesn’t actually know where they’re going because Shouto had been the one to actually plan the date. Actually, he only even remembers then because Bakugou turns to him expectantly and demands to know where they’re going.

Shouto manages to tell him the name of the restaurant. Bakugou looks pleased at the restaurant name. Shouto has never had it before, but he’d spent a while searching online and digging through reviews and menus of various restaurants in the area before he’d settled on one that sounded like something that both he and Bakugou would enjoy. The fact that Bakugou recognizes the name and the slightly impressed quirk of his eyebrow makes some sort of pride bubble up in Shouto’s chest.

“That place isn’t cheap, Prettyboy,” Bakugou comments, once again beginning to drag Shouto forward by the hand.

Shouto knows the girls have called him Prettyboy in the past but he still almost trips on the sidewalk when Bakugou says it. Not that it’s any worse than ‘Half and Half Bastard’ or ‘Icyhot’. When he registers the rest of what Bakugou had said, he feels his lips twitch into a real smile for the first time overtaking his nerves.

“My dad’s treat,” he explains.

Bakugou smiles with his teeth like he’s just knocked over a vase in Shouto’s dreams and Shouto thinks this is going to be a good night.

Chapter Text

Supposedly Endeavor had given Natsuo a credit card at some point “for emergencies” and then had to cancel it only a few months later when he realized that it had been used to pay Natsuo’s tuition for two semesters in advance, the entirety of his current apartment lease, and what was supposedly an absurd amount of food.

Fuyumi had told Shouto about it in a slightly disapproving tone, but he could tell she didn’t really fault Natsuo. Shouto only regrets that he hadn’t been close enough to his siblings to see it unfold in real-time when it happened. Also maybe that Natsuo had ruined any chance of him ever receiving the same sort of “emergency” card. It doesn’t really matter though, Shouto had grabbed this one right out of his father’s wallet months ago.

It was risky, but if it took a couple of months to realize the amount Natsuo was spending, Shouto’s pretty sure he can get away with treating his friends to a nice restaurant every once in a while without the money being missed. Tonight, he’s planning to be indulgent. The place they’re going is nice, not high class enough that they’ll be out of place in jeans, but popular enough that he’d been confident in the reviews he found online and fairly certain that it would pass Bakugou’s highly critical culinary standards.

The fact that the other boy had recognized the name, and the approving look in his eye when he did, bolsters Shouto’s confidence enough that he curls his fingers back around Bakugou’s hand so that they’re actually holding hands rather than Bakugou just dragging him along.

Shouto’s emotions keep flickering between something comfortable and light and sharp contrasting moments where he remembers everything that hinges on this date. Really, it’s not like this one date is going to make or break the fake relationship, but every time that he considers the rumors starting, his father hearing about it, all the consequences to follow, he feels out of place and rigid like the first couple of months at UA before he knew how to react to the offers of friendship, the care people extended to him that he hadn’t experienced since Rei was hospitalized.

When they’re finally sitting across from each other in a booth at the restaurant, Shouto considers the slightly peeling laminate of the menu that he’s handed. Bakugou hardly glances at his before setting it down at the edge of the table and leaning over to read Shouto’s over the top as if his is in any way different. Bakugou has a little crease between his eyebrows as he reads the menu upside down in the dim light.

“You’ll like this,” Bakugou says, pointing to a selection on the menu.

Shouto’s not quite sure about it, it’s not a dish he’d been considering. He frowns slightly, wondering if it will be considered rude if he brushes off Bakugou’s suggestion. Bakugou seems to read his mind though.

“Have I ever let you down when it comes to food?”

Shouto considers it for a moment, “that’s different. This isn’t your own cooking.”

Bakugou grins, “just trust me on this.”

And because Bakugou is grinning in that way that Shouto is realizing he likes quite a bit, confident and brash with all his teeth on display, Shouto decides to go with it.

When a waiter comes by to take their orders, Bakugou orders for both of them. Shouto feels a little strange, it’s not terribly unpleasant to let Bakugou take charge of this, though he tells himself it’s only because Bakugou could be a professional chef and Shouto tends to stick to simple meals that it’s impossible to mess up. It’s only because it's food that he’s letting the other boy boss him around.

“So,” Bakugou says, long and drawn out, while twirling a single chopstick through his fingers and across his knuckles, “I heard you have some interesting theories about Aizawa-sense,”

Shouto pauses, glass of water still resting against his lower lip as his eyebrows draw together. It’s not an avenue of conversation he had been expecting. Something about his convoluted half-formed plan or uncomfortable personal questions about his father and home life were closer to what he had been bracing for, instead… this.

“Who told you that?” Shouto asks, already certain it was Midoriya, the only one Shouto really rants about these things to. With his friend's mumbling habit, Shouto has heard his share of crazy theories, wrongly worded speculation, and even embarrassing admittance to feel less self-conscious than he otherwise might rambling about conspiracy theories that his other classmates tended to shrug or laugh off.

Bakugou doesn’t answer his question though, just smirks and tilts his head like he’s waiting for Shouto to explain.

Shouto sighs. It feels weird, and slightly awkward to discuss this with someone that isn’t Izuku, but overall it’s still a better conversation topic than other available options. He lowers the glass to the table and steeples his hands under his chin.

“We’ll start with the basics. Aizawa and Mic-Sensei are married.”

Bakugou’s eyes go wide and delighted with surprise. He snorts on a sip of water, “that’s the basics?” he asks incredulously.

Shouto nods seriously. This theory isn’t even that outlandish and he has enough evidence for it that he’s pretty sure he’s finally managed to actually convince Izuku of it too.

Bakugou leans back in his seat, tilts his head up toward the ceiling in contemplation, then returns his piercing gaze to Shouto looking skeptical, “convince me,” he demands.

***

“Holy shit. I can’t believe I never realized Mic-sensei and Aizawa-sensei are married.”

Shouto laughs through bites of their shared dessert, feeling oddly proud of himself for turning the previous skepticism on Bakugou’s face into the current amazement and absolute conviction. They’ve been at the restaurant for over an hour and a half at this point and really should be headed out before too much longer, but neither of them seem to be in any hurry to leave despite the approaching curfew. Shouto keeps taking little sips of water between tiny bites dragging out the end of the night. When they finally run out of food and excuses to stay, Shouto pays and they head out arm in arm. They’ve got a bit of a walk back to campus, but it’s not terribly late yet. The twilight light is rapidly dwindling, but the weather is nice enough out that they aren’t the only ones making their way home on foot at a leisurely pace.

They haven’t made much progress on the walk back before Shouto hears a passerby’s excited whisper, making out just enough to know they’ve been recognized. When Shouto sees the brunette grab for her phone, he immediately realizes that she’s hoping to get a picture of the two of them; dressed with effort, leaving a restaurant, arms twisted together and hands clasped, it won’t be hard to guess that they’ve been on a date from the picture. Before she can angle her phone just right, Shouto twists his body so that Bakugou will be hidden behind him.

At his change in posture, the woman seems to realize that she’s been spotted. She meets his slight glare looking properly embarrassed. She and her friend chuckle nervously as they walk away. Shouto glares half-heartedly after them for a couple of seconds before Bakugou shoulder checks him and he is surprised out of his glaring. He turns, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but Bakugou doesn’t meet his gaze instead glaring at his shoes, shoving his hands in his pockets, and shouldering past Shouto.

Shouto is stunned for a second, watching Bakugou stalk away.

“Bakugou?” He calls out.

The only response he gets is a tired “fuck off,” before Bakugou turns out of sight.

Shouto doesn’t try to catch up to him even though he wants to. He’s very abruptly reminded that just because he had a nice time, Bakugou doesn’t actually want to date him and didn’t actually have a good time… Bakugou had seemed like he was having a good time, but as the euphoria of the evening fades, Shouto remembers that his ranting about conspiracy theories is annoying no matter how much Izuku is willing to sit and nod through it and that Bakugou doesn’t even like him as a friend and probably has a million better ways to be spending his time than out on some dumb fake date.

As he walks the last couple of blocks back to campus, Shouto repeats the truth in his head. Every time his thoughts stray to Bakugou smiling over dinner he reminds himself that it was a fake smile. Every time he remembers how convinced Bakugou seemed by his argument for Eraser and Mic-Sensei being married, he reminds himself that his interest and agreement was all fake. And when he starts thinking about their next date, he reminds himself that it will also be fake. Fake date. Fake conversation. Fake interest and fake menu suggestions and fake smiles and laughs. Just like he wanted. Just like he asked for.

Chapter Text

Katsuki storms into the dorms annoyed and not bothering to mask it. There’s no one in the common area to witness his frustration and he pretends that he prefers it that way but he wishes shitty hair or the nerd were around to raise an eyebrow when he slams a glass from the cupboard onto the counter just short of the force needed to send cracks branching up through the sides of the glass, rising to the rim like bubbles in soda. As it happens, no spiderwebs of cracks appear and Katsuki silently curses the instinct that keeps him from doing something as simple and regrettable but cathartic as breaking a glass in the kitchen. He takes several deep breaths that do nothing to alleviate his frustration that is rapidly turning inward and morphing into the infuriating self-doubt that he’s all too familiar with.

He knew he wasn’t exactly ‘boyfriend material or whatever, but he hadn’t thought the standard for ‘fake boyfriend to piss off my abusive dad’ was quite as high. Wasn’t part of the point of it that he was generally unlikeable? He supposes that the most prominent distasteful characteristic that he was chosen for was simply being a guy, but he hadn’t thought being an asshole was a deal breaker when the entire deal was to piss someone off.

He looks at the glass, still empty on the counter. “Fuck this,” he mutters to the empty kitchen, pushing the glass back into the cupboard and hunching his shoulders to discourage any interaction as he makes his way back to his room.

As with any admission of his own shortcomings, Katsuki feels the embarrassment and frustration churning against his ribs and prickling up through his neck and cheeks. Fucking really? Halfy had really been so embarrassed by one fake date with someone like him that he’d felt the need to hide him from some dumbass with a cell-phone camera?

He feels a little bit like someone just asked him out only for a dare; wrong-footed and humiliated in his own earnesty. Not that he’d been taking this seriously of course… fuck. He doesn’t do this shit. He doesn’t fake shit. This is completely outside what he’s used to and it's easy to forget that it’s all some ridiculous play pretend.

He forces himself to sit at his desk and stare blankly at some reading they’re supposed to be working through for English class. He doesn’t bother to put in more effort than the bare minimum of attempting to be productive. Not ripping at his own hair is taking enough of his willpower as it is and he bites against his tongue to avoid grinding his teeth together.

He doesn’t check his phone but it’s only been a handful of minutes by his estimation when he hears the squeak of the door to the stairwell opening. Even with his hearing aids turned up, he can’t hear past this floor.

He’s still debating between ignoring Todoroki and telling him to get lost when the knock comes at the door. It’s not the one he’s expecting though. Todoroki’s knock isn’t anything special, it’s blunt like most things about him and he always knocks exactly four times. The one at his door is three knocks, a bit too quick and Katsuki squints at the door in confusion.

“Problem child,” his teacher’s exhausted voice comes from the other side, “Todoroki told me that you ditched him on your way back today, I’m just checking you made it back alright.”

“He’s a fucking moron, no need to freak out teach,” Katsuki growls back.

“He said you seemed upset and he just wanted to make sure you made it back alright.”

Bakugou finally gets up from his chair persuaded by the old frustration of not being able to see someone who was talking to him.

“Well, as you can see, I’m fucking fine.”

Aizawa raises one eyebrow in a clear display of skepticism.

“Why’d you ditch Todoroki on your way back?” He challenges.

“Because—“ he means to say that Todoroki is an asshole and a loser and he didn’t want to walk with him, but he kinda feels bad saying that. Even if it’s true. “He was walking too slow,” he finishes lamely, glaring at his teacher in a silent dare to question it.

Aizawa doesn’t smile, like, ever. But Katsuki could’ve sworn his mouth twitched as if he was going to for a second.

“Okay kiddo. Whatever you say.”

Okay, now it’s personal. He’s not just hiding a smile, the smug bastard is definitely trying not to smirk. He turns as if he’s going to leave, but, unwilling to let him have the last word, Katsuki opens his stupid mouth, “hey teach,”

“Yes, Bakugou?”

Bakugou doesn’t bother to hide his smirk, “how long have you and Mic-sensei been married?”

Aizawa’s previously unimpressed, barely hidden smirk turns into a surprised frown and Katsuki barely stops himself from laughing before closing his door.

Luckily Caterpillar-sensei leaves without kicking up a fuss or knocking at his door again and Katsuki is pretty sure he hears the awful squeak of his teacher rubbing his eyes and sighing before the beep of the elevator buttons and the whoosh of the doors closing.

Katsuki lets out a sigh of his own as he sits back at his desk and picks up his phone. He clicks on his conversation with Icyhot from his messaging app, the pathetic singular message

IcyHot: Saturday date night?

He stares at the keyboard for a long moment before typing out a message.

Me: Hey asshole, wasn’t public attention kinda the point of this shit? One extra pulls out
their phone and suddenly you don’t want to be seen with me? Grow up.

He waits three whole minutes.

Me: You didn’t need to sic Aizawa on me, but you should’ve seen his face when I asked
how long he and Mic had been married.

Finally he turns his phone on do not disturb and sets it to charge on his nightstand.

***

Shouto’s not entirely sure what he did wrong, but he obviously fucked something up. Probably. Actually, thinking on it, Bakugou does tend to overreact a little. Maybe he didn’t fuck up too badly. Or he did.

He didn’t actually mean to block him out of the photo the girl had been taking, but it had happened reflexively. Obviously the point of their dating is to be seen and get some rumors started, but he’d forgotten for a minute that that was the goal here and that this wasn’t an actual date. Fake Fake Fake he reminds himself. Probably Bakugou had just been annoyed that he’d fucked that up and now they would probably have to go on more dates. Still, it hadn’t seemed like it was all that horrible and anyway, Bakugou had gotten a free meal out of it regardless. So maybe it had been an overreaction.

He talks himself in circles until he’s back at the dorms. He should probably check on Bakugou at least to make sure that he made it back alright. Not that he doubts the other’s capabilities to handle himself, he’s pretty sure that’s exactly how Bakugou would manage to interpret checking in on him as an insult. He stands at the doors to Heights Alliance for a minute, trying to determine if it’s worth it to offend him further or if he should just trust that the other boy is fine.

“Problem child,” his teacher’s gruff voice sounds from behind him and Shouto turns to see him approaching the dorms.

“It’s almost curfew,” Aizawa observes.

Shouto considers for a moment, but its an easy decision to pawn off the responsibility on his teacher, it’s what he gets paid for anyway.

“Bakugou and I went on a date earlier but I upset him and he came back without me, you should make sure he got back okay,” he says.

He turns and walks through the doors of the dorms before Aizawa can ask any further questions and then kicks off his shoes and practically sprints to the elevator in his socks, slamming the button. It’s only once he’s inside, alone and the elevator has begun its slow ascent that Shouto relaxes.

He wastes no time preparing for bed and then curls up in his futon ready to let sleep drain away whatever it could of the stress from today. Anything that lingered could be dealt with tomorrow. Shouto’s phone buzzes and before he can think better of it he’s already picked it up.

Bakugou: Hey asshole, wasn’t public attention kinda the point of this shit? One extra
pulls out their phone and suddenly you don’t want to be seen with me? Grow up.

He sighs. Yup. Not dealing with that tonight. At least he has confirmation of what he’d done wrong. He sets down his phone without replying.

His phone buzzes again and this time Shouto glares at it for a moment before picking it up anyway.

Bakugou: You didn’t need to sic Aizawa on me, but you should’ve seen his face when I
asked how long he and Mic had been married.

Shouto lets out a sigh of what he thinks must be relief. The second message feels like an olive branch. Coming from Bakugou, it’s downright friendly. He smiles softly at his phone and considers replying.

He can’t think of what to say exactly, an apology somewhere, but not to apologetic because Bakugou had already overreacted and…

A few taps later and he finds what he’s looking for.

Read receipts: On