Chapter Text
Denki started his day like any other. He woke up way too early for a class that he’d known he would skip more often than not, but he’d skipped last week, so he had to go today. He kicked a pair of shorts that probably weren’t his out of the way as he stumbled to the bathroom, still groggy. His room was a mess, like always, but his suitemates didn’t mind as long as he kept his mess out of the common area. Unfortunately, Denki produced mess at a rate proportional to his total living space, which included the whole suite; his friends’ rules meant that his bedroom contained double the mess. Do the math, he told them. He brushed his teeth vengefully, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. There were bags under his eyes; he should sleep more. When he finished, he trudged back into the bedroom, angrily willing the sun to go back down and allow him a few more hours of rest. Unfortunately, the glowing red numbers on his clock confirmed his fears; it was time to leave. He poked the figure that was still snoring lightly on the other side of the bed.
“Wake up, Bakugou. You have to leave before anyone else is up.” The offending lump groaned softly, burying his face deeper into the pillow. It would’ve been cute, if Denki had been in a better mood. Unfortunately for his guest, he was not a morning person. He smacked the back of Bakugou’s head before bending down to pick up some clothes that were probably Bakugou’s and throwing them at him. “I’m leaving, but you need to go. You’re the one who’s always so worried about getting caught.”
Bakugou finally rolled over, shooting him a red-eyed look that could only be described as venomous. “Shut up, Dunce Face,” he growled, his voice even rougher than usual from sleep. “Go to your fucking class, I’ll be out in five.”
Denki plastered a sunny smile on his face, knowing it would piss Bakugou off. “See ya later, Kacchan!”
“Fuck off.”
Denki was still giggling under his breath as he locked the door to his suite behind him. Though he hated mornings, Denki could admit that there was a certain peacefulness that came with being out and about before the rest of the world. To be fair, 7:30 wasn’t that early in the grand scheme of things, but for a college student, it might as well have been the crack of dawn. As it were, the sun had not yet finished its ascent, and the sky was painted a soft pink that reminded Denki of cotton candy. Autumn was just beginning to set in, and the trees were already showing a hint of the reds and yellows that would set campus ablaze in just a few weeks. UA’s campus was the reason Denki had chosen the school, with its grassy green quads and imposing architecture. That, and the coffee. Denki’s class didn’t start until eight, but he made the Herculean effort to get out of bed thirty minutes earlier than necessary so that he had time to stop at EspressoHead. The tiny cafe was a favorite study spot among UA students for its cozy atmosphere and cheap coffee; Denki loved caffeine, but he was more interested in the handsome purple-haired barista who he knew worked the morning shift every Thursday. Which, coincidentally, was the day Denki always just happened to wake up early enough to get coffee. Crazy how that works.
Denki shoved the door open with his hip, discarding his scarf onto the rack in the entryway as he transitioned from the chilly autumn air to the inviting warmth of the coffee shop. “Hey stranger,” came the monotone greeting from the register. Shinsou Hitoshi’s voice carried an ever-present note of disinterest that had sent Denki down many spirals of self-doubt, but soon after getting to know him, he realized this was just part of Shinsou’s personality, much like the dark eye bags were a part of his face. The man hardly ever slept more than a few hours a night, and he never seemed to have the energy to muster up much more than an eyebrow raise in greeting. Still, this had become a routine for the two of them; Denki would drag himself into the shop every Thursday morning, and Shinsou would act surprised to see him. Denki loved this game.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Denki answered brightly, already feeling the sleepiness drain away. Shinsou had that effect on him, he had noticed.
“The usual?” drawled Shinsou.
“You know me so well,” Denki replied, beaming. He supposed it wasn’t that special that Shinsou knew his order: a triple-shot hazelnut latte, made with oat milk. Denki was here often, though mostly when Shinsou worked the evening shifts, and he was sure that Shinsou knew a lot of people’s orders. He was a good barista. But Denki was very good at not supposing anything, and the first sip of his drink always brought with it the comforting feeling of being known.
Seeing as it was 7:30am on a college campus, Denki was usually the only one in the shop, and today was no exception. This was, of course, purposeful on Denki’s part, as it meant he had Shinsou’s full attention. This too had become a routine. Shinsou would lean against the counter, sipping his own drink (a large red-eye, black; it’s all about the caffeine, he said), and chat idly with Denki about whatever was going on around campus that week. Though they were not necessarily friends, their circles overlapped, and conversation always flowed easily. Talking was something that Denki excelled at, and Shinsou seemed more than happy to sit back and let Denki take the lead, filling in the gaps with his own responses as needed. Denki had timed it out exactly; if he arrived at EspressoHead at 7:30 sharp, he could spend exactly seventeen minutes in the store before he needed to leave in order to make it to class on time. Denki’s cheeks were warm, flushed from the adrenaline rush that accompanied Shinsou laughing at one of his jokes, when he noticed that the clock behind the bar read 7:47. Denki was surprised at how disappointed he felt.
“Always a pleasure, Toshi, but I’ve gotta go. Dr. Yamada waits for no one.” Denki began to zip his coat back up, preparing himself to re-enter the morning chill.
“No one should be that loud before noon...or ever really,” Shinsou mused, shaking his head. Yamada’s husband was the owner of EspressoHead and Shinsou’s boss, meaning that he had crossed paths with the notoriously boisterous professor despite not being a communications major. Shinsou made his distaste for the man known, and while Denki always played along, it did tear at his self-esteem a bit; comments from a not-insignificant number of people on campus told him that he had more in common with Yamada than he would like to admit. Maybe Shinsou just didn’t like loud blondes. Well, Denki could always dye his hair.
“Pray for me, man,” Denki declared as he pulled open the door, volume intentionally dialed back.
“Hey, Kaminari, wait,” Shinsou called out, and Denki immediately paused. “My roommate’s band is playing at a house party tomorrow night, and he told me to bring as many people as possible.”
Denki’s heart sped up instantly. “Are you asking me out, Shinsou?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows as he tried to play it cool.
“Yeah,” Shinsou deadpanned, “to a basement in a janky-ass frat house filled with sweaty drunk college kids. How romantic of me.”
Denki was reasonably sure this was a joke, and he made the decision to treat it as such. “Sweep me off my feet, why don’t you,” he quipped back, hoping he pulled off nonchalant even though he felt decidedly…chalant. “For real though, that sounds fun. Text me the deets, and I’ll bring some friends.”
“Hey, I don’t know if I have your number.” Damn, Denki was smoother than he thought. Or maybe Shinsou was. No matter, because before he could remember to breathe, Shinsou had crossed the store and was holding out his phone with a new contact page open. Denki ordered his hands to stop shaking as he typed his number in; it must be the caffeine, he reasoned. Shinsou accepted his phone back with a wink, their hands brushing for a split second, and Denki almost choked. “I’ll text you when my shift ends,” Shinsou said, shooing Denki out the door, “go before you’re late.”
Denki uttered some cursed syllable that was trying to be both “cool” and “sounds good” at the same time and yet accomplished neither. He hoped Shinsou hadn’t noticed, but he heard a telltale chuckle as the door clicked shut. As he walked, he caught himself smiling at nothing. Every time he forced his cheeks back into their neutral state, they stretched right back out again like they had a will of their own. Shit, thought Denki.
Denki’s classes went how Denki’s classes always go. He showed up, took notes for the first ten minutes, got distracted by something outside the window, stopped taking notes, and only came back to reality when a professor’s cold call caught him unaware. Wash, rinse, repeat. Denki was the first to admit he wasn’t the best student; it’s not that he wasn’t intelligent--he was, in his own resourceful way. He just had trouble focusing on one thing at a time. His mind was always in a million places, occupied with a kaleidoscope of faces and memories and daydreams and ideas and things he was looking forward to. Things he was trying not to think about. Things, or really people, two in particular, one who smelled like coffee and one whose scent lingered on his pillow, that he definitely wasn’t thinking about when Dr. Yamada asked him how FDR used the radio to communicate with the American public during the Great Depression. Denki didn’t know. Wasn’t a communications major supposed to be easy?
Denki had an especially hard time focusing on Thursdays, because Thursdays were Sparky and the Plug days. Denki had started working at UA’s college radio station his freshman year, after one of his communications professors had suggested that it would be a good experience. A stomach bug was going around campus that Spring, and suddenly all the regular hosts were sick. That was how Denki and his co-worker and fellow freshman, Jirou Kyouka, had ended up on air at the last minute, and Sparky and the Plug was born. Now a staple of Thursday afternoons, the pair’s easy banter and surprisingly sophisticated taste in music had cemented them in the annals of UA pop culture. And for two hours every Thursday, Denki could talk as much as he wanted without anyone telling him to tone it down.
As soon as his last class was over, Denki practically ran to the studio. Jirou was already there, pulling out various CDs from the station's vast collection.
“Are we going old school today?” Denki asked as he set his stuff down next to his chair.
“Hey Denks,” Jirou responded, looking over her shoulder at him as she reached for a disc on a particularly high rack; Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Denki noticed. “No, I was just getting some inspo from the greats.” The station’s wall full of CD racks was mostly just for show; these days, they just played music from a computer program.
“Have you ever thought about how every great singer is Canadian?” Denki wondered aloud, spinning around in his chair lazily.
“Oh?” Jirou prompted, raising a single eyebrow. She had decided to humor him.
“Yeah, think about it: Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, Avril Lavigne, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber; all Canadian.”
“I’m not sure if Justin Bieber counts as one of the greats, Denki.”
“He does.”
“And what about, I don’t know, Elton John? Just off the top of my head. He’s British.”
“Oh,” Denki paused his spinning, “there might be a few exceptions.”
Jirou chuckled quietly, “yeah, maybe a few.”
That was how their dynamic worked; Jirou was the straight man to Denki’s scatterbrain, the grounding plug to his live wire. They hadn’t gotten along at first, but once Jirou had figured out that Denki wasn’t trying to hit on her and was just, in fact, like that, she had warmed up to him quickly. To her credit, Denki had been trying to hit on her, but he had given up the second he’d met her tall, rich, smart, gorgeous girlfriend. Damn Yaoyorozu Momo. Yaoyorozu Momo could probably beat him up.
Once everyone had taken their places, their producer gave them a silent countdown, and they were live. “Hey Jirou,” Denki started, seamlessly slipping into his radio voice, “do you know what day it is?”
“Thursday, Denki,” was her response, playing up the vocal fry that was part of her own character.
“No, you’re supposed to say ‘what day is it, Denki?’”
“What day is it, Denki?”
“It’s Thursday, which means it’s your-sday to listen to Sparky and the Plug, UA’s premier source of auditory entertainment.”
“I don’t know him,” Jirou groaned, leaning in close to her mic.
The show went smoothly, the two of them bouncing off each other effortlessly in the way they’d learned to do. Three years had given them more than enough time to perfect the kind of comedy that allowed them both to play to their strengths while simultaneously keeping the energy up throughout the entire two hours. As soon as they’d signed off and played the last track, Jirou pulled off her headphones and spun around in her chair to face Denki.
“So,” she began, and Denki knew immediately that he wasn’t going to like what she said next, “Shinsou.”
“Shinsouuuu?” Denki asked, drawing out the last vowel in an attempt to feign ignorance.
“Shinsou Hitoshi, and I know you know exactly who that is, so don’t play dumb Denki.”
“Jirou, babe, I never play. It’s 100% genuine.”
Jirou snorted, “Stop being funny.”
“Impossible.”
She rolled her eyes. “Momo told me he invited you to our party this weekend.”
“It’s your party?”
“Yeah, Momo is friends with Shinsou’s roommate, so she said she’d host a house party for his band to play at. I didn’t know you knew Shinsou.”
“I don’t really. He just makes me coffee sometimes.”
“Hm,” Jirou hummed, unconvinced. “He’s cute, isn’t he?”
“Is that rhetorical?”
“Just because I like women doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate an attractive man, Denki.”
“He’s cute, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“He asked about you.”
Denki immediately perked up at that. “What did he say?” he asked anxiously, trying to play it cool.
“Just asked what your deal was,” Jirou continued nonchalantly, as she began to pack her things.
“And what did you tell him?” Denki pressed on.
“What would you like me to tell him?”
“Nice things,” Denki mumbled.
There was a glint in Jirou’s eye as she looked up from her bag at him. “I see,” she said finally, as if that was all she needed to know. With that, she stood up and headed for the door, not bothering to wait for Denki.
“Wait, Jirou-” Denki called after her, but she was already gone, leaving him feeling unsettled in the way only she knew how. Damn Jirou Kyouka too, thought Denki.
He didn’t have much time to dwell on it though, because their conversation had delayed his departure from the station, which meant he was cutting into Bro Time.
Every Thursday after his show, he made the trek across campus to the soccer house for Bro Time. Bro Time was a sacred evening of relaxation and recreation with Denki’s best friend, Kirishima Eijiro, and his housemates, the rest of the UA men’s soccer team. A mix-up freshman year had left Denki randomly placed in the residence hall that housed the athletes. Though they’d had little in common at first, Denki and his random roommate Kirishima had bonded almost immediately over their shared single brain cell, and through Kirishima he had met and befriended the rest of the team’s first years: Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, Ojiro Mashirao, the team’s manager, Ashido Mina, and the goalie, Bakugou Katsuki. Now, in their senior year, they all lived together in a run-down house just off campus. And every Thursday, plus most weekends, Denki threw himself onto the beer-stained sofa and pretended he owned the place.
“Beer me, Kiribro!” Denki shouted from the couch, unwilling to move from where Ojiro had his head planted in Denki’s lap, humming contentedly as Denki gently ruffled his hair. Ojiro had the softest hair Denki had ever touched in his life, and playing with it was immensely satisfying; Ojiro was more than happy to feed Denki’s obsession. Kirishima tossed him a can from across the room, and he raised his free hand to catch it. They were watching House Hunters, just like they did every week. Inevitably, at least one fight would break out over the merits of recessed lighting; it was a staple of Bro Time.
Admittedly, none of them were paying much attention to the show. Instead, they were chatting excitedly about the upcoming party.
“Dude, I had class with Tokoyami last semester, and he was lowkey kinda scary,” Tetsutetsu was telling them, “he was like, all goth and shit.”
“Yeah, but he’s super nice though,” Mina cut in from where she sat on the other side of the couch, “I ran into him once at Midnight’s, and he was totally respectful. Tsu thought he was cute.”
“Okay, but Tsu has weird taste.”
“I thought Tsu was a lesbian,” Ojiro mused absentmindedly, still blissed out from Denki playing with his hair.
“She’s bi, I think,” Mina responded, flicking Ojiro in the leg that was draped over her lap.
“Oh...cool,” he drawled, clearly already tuned out of the conversation.
Tetsutetsu snorted, “Aren’t we all?”
“I’ve heard Tokoyami’s band play before,” called Kirishima from the kitchen, where he was microwaving multiple bags of popcorn at one time. “They were pretty good, actually. Kind of indie meets grunge? I don’t know, you’re the music expert, Denks.” The timer on the microwave beeped, and Kirishima pulled out the bags and dumped their contents into a giant bowl, humming happily to himself. The room was filled with a buttery aroma that reminded Denki of movie theaters and carnivals.
“Hey Kiri, where’s Bakugou?” Tetsutetsu asked once Kirishima had settled into his armchair, “he would’ve loved that Tudor they just looked at.”
“He’s studying for his chem midterm tomorrow,” Kirishima answered, “he said we shouldn’t wait for him. I told him to take a break, and he said, and I quote, ‘don’t fucking tell me what to do.’” Kirishima’s cheeks turned a soft shade of pink, the way they always did when he talked about Bakugou.
Denki’s comfortable buzz shattered, and his hand stilled in Ojiro’s hair, earning him an indignant grunt from the head in his lap. Mina was laughing and Tetsutetsu was shouting up the stairs, but all that Denki could think about was how Kirishima, his best friend Kirishima, had had a crush on Bakugou since sophomore year, a big fat crush that Denki explicitly knew about, that he had counselled Kirishima on more times than he could count. Kirishima had a crush on Bakugou, who Denki had been secretly hooking up with since last spring.
Suddenly, Denki’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Looking at the screen made his stomach drop even lower than it already had.
Kacchan;) [9:54pm]: Come upstairs. I need a break from studying.
Denki knew he was a bad person, but he wouldn’t contribute to crushing his best friend’s heart in his own home while he was sitting mere feet from him. Bakugou couldn’t just call for him whenever he wanted; he would just tell him no.
“Oh shit,” Denki blurted, and every word felt like it was ripping his throat out, “I just remembered that Sero needed me to get his book back from Bakugou.” His mind was racing as he continued, “I’m just gonna go grab it from him, I’ll be back in a bit.” No one thought anything of it.
As he climbed the stairs, all he could think about was how much he hated himself.