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7.00 am on the dot
Kirishima doesn’t even need to check the time when Bakugo’s door opens. Bakugo is never late, and it’s something he’s always appreciated about the blonde.
It doesn’t give Kirishima time to delve into His Thoughts, doesn’t give them time to convince him that his friends aren’t coming… that they aren’t really your friends, it’s all just been a joke, and they’ve chosen today to finally leave you behind.
“Shitty hair, morning or whatever.”
“Morning Bakugo,” he grins wide and almost sees Bakugo’s eyes drop to it. If he’s imagining it, just as he’s imagining the soft tilt at the corners of Bakugo’s lips, he lets himself believe it. “Omurice today?”
Bakugo scoffs and the next second Kirishima has a long, pale middle finger shoved in his face. “You’ll eat what you fucking get.” He turns away to the elevators, and Kirishima follows him gleefully, throwing an arm over broad shoulders.
His chest tightens as Bakugo goes rigid underneath him, but Kirishima brushes it off as he has for the past week... Bakugo has always been a tense person, he doesn’t allow people to touch him easily, so maybe Kirishima had always imagined it when Bakugo would relax into him… maybe this is nothing new.
Or maybe he’s finally sick of you
- - -
He’s staring, he knows, but he can’t stop. Here he is; the Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight, their Bakugo Katsuki, his Explosion Boy… with tomato sauce smeared across his face.
Kirishima can’t look away.
It should make him look like a messy kid but, to Kirishima, he looks like a panel from one of those romance mangas that Bakugo reads, something that only Kirishima is privy to.
Cute
It’s a kick under the table from Sero, and a snicker from Denki, that gets him moving. One thought stuck in his head above all else.
“Hey man, you’ve got something-” Kirishima can feel everyone’s eyes on them as Bakugo flinches away, so aggressively his mind supplies, from the hand he’s reached out to him. Thumb frozen in mid-air, poised to wipe the red off his cheek if only Bakugo would move back in… but he doesn’t.
Instead, he grunts out an excuse and stands from the table. All but runs to the elevators.
Running from you
Kirishima feels bile burn his throat. Bakugo has let him do it before… Why not now? What’s so different this time?
He’s in a daze as he continues eating, thoughts swirling, and doesn’t notice when Denki and Sero excuse themselves, only looks up when Mina’s pink hand lays over his. Her eyes, dark pools that reflect his stunned face back at him, are filled with concern… It feels like a knife edging its way into his chest.
“Hey, ‘Shima… what’s been going on lately?” Mina pauses like she doesn’t want to continue, “you know, between you and Blasty?”
Kirishima feels his mouth open, but nothing comes out. He doesn’t have an explanation for her, he doesn’t know… But then the realisation hits; it’s not just His Thoughts convincing him there’s something wrong, and it smacks into him like a freight train.
Everyone has noticed, everyone just saw… It’s not just in his head; Bakugo really can’t stand his touch anymore… He really doesn’t want to be around him anymore… Bakugo has finally seen the truth that Kirishima has been trying to hide all along, and it sets his chest on fire as his breaths come in shorter and quicker.
He’s gasping as the knife in his chest sinks deeper and deeper.
You’re
Not
Good
Enough
- - -
It’s Mina’s cold hands on his cheeks that brings him back, her thumbs that wipe away fallen tears, her voice wavering with concern that tells him to “calm down, Eijirou, I’m sure there’s just been a misunderstanding.”
But he’s shaking his head; she’s just lying to him, of all people she has to know the truth. She’s known him longer than anyone else here… She’s known him with dark hair in his darkest of times, she knows he’s as fake as this shitty red hair.
Reality is coming to him in flashes; a sad smile on Mina’s face, she’s mocking you, Mina’s hand in his hair, she should rip it out, the other on the back of his neck pulling him into her shoulder. She holds him there with strong arms but a soft voice to tell him “you’re right.”
He knows he is. He’s not imagining things anymore.
“Eijirou listen to me! You’re right that I knew you back then but I know you better now,” her grip tightens on him, bracing to keep him in place if he tries to bolt. She wants him to stay, wants him to hear. “You’re wrong about everything else. Of all people, you chose Bakugo to be your best friend and he chose you back. Whatever is going on he owes you an explanation and you need to go get it.”
“No, I don’t want to hear him say it.” His voice is weak to his ears and he hates it, his breaths are shuddering and he doesn’t remember when he raised his hands to cling onto Mina’s shirt but his fingers are locked in tight.
How could he possibly see Bakugo after this? It’s going to be the end.
“Look at me, Kiri.” He does so after a pause, and he’s shocked at what he sees. Tears have made tracks down Mina’s face and he sees her throat bob as she chokes back on a sob of her own. He didn’t want to burden anyone with his grief. It should've been his to bear alone.
He gasps an “I’m sorry, Mina,” but she shakes her head. She won’t accept it.
“You told me on the first day of UA that you won’t regret anything anymore,” her eyes are fierce, even with tears dripping from them. “When you crack, that’s ok, but you just need to harden again… Don’t let this break you, Kiri, be Unbreakable.”
It’s as if she slapped him. Everything silences, head finally quiet, what was a leaking dam finding a plug, and when he pulls away she lets him go.
“I’ve gotta go ask him…” and Mina nods with him, a grim smile on her face.
“It’s the manly thing to do.” She eggs him on, and it’s enough to put a watery grin back on his face.
- - -
It takes him three tries before he knocks on Bakugo’s door. It’s a gentler knock than he would normally deliver, hoping Bakugo won’t hear it and he won’t have to face him just yet.
Bakugo’s voice soaks through the door, though, “it’s unlocked.”
He’s lying on his bed, reading, as Kirishima enters, and even with a lingering smell of burnt sugar, it feels like any other day. He could almost pretend everything this morning hadn’t happened, but it’s as he watches Bakugo tense the closer he walks to the bed that he knows he shouldn’t. That he can’t.
“Did I do something?” Kirishima asks quietly, softer than he’d like. He knows Bakugo hates it when people are meek and mild, he doesn’t respect those people, and Kirishima wants to believe he still holds Bakugo’s respect. So he clears his throat, straightens his back. “I’m sorry for whatever it was, but you need to tell me. It’s not right to keep it from me.”
It’s not like you, he leaves off. It’s hurting me
Bakugo is quiet as he breathes deeply. Hesitating, Kirishima would think if he were anyone else. “Nothin’ wrong.”
It’s a lie, and Kirishima knows it. It’s disrespectful. It’s “so not manly, dude.” Bakugo’s brow dips into a low frown, Kirishima knows he doesn’t like to be called out. “You’re lying and I don’t understand.”
“Drop it.” He orders.
A step closer. “I can’t, bro.”
The manga flies across the room as Bakugo stands to push him. “Don’t fuckin’ call me that. Don’t want to be your shitty ‘bro’.” His breath catches as Kirishima grips his wrist. “Let go, Kirishima.” It’s growled, dangerous, and Bakugo’s palm sparks in his grip… but Kirishima is the Sturdy Hero. He can handle whatever Bakugo can throw at him.
“Not until we sort this out,” he collects his courage, “you can explode me all you want as long as you stop running.”
The sound Bakugo makes is feral, “I don’t fucking run.” He’s wrenching his shoulder, trying to free his arm, so Kirishima hardens his hand. If he lets go, he’s afraid it’ll be more than just Bakugo’s arm he loses.
“Then talk to me like a man.”
It’s neither of Bakugo’s palms that explode, but words from his mouth. “I have to do this!” Kirishima doesn’t understand, but Bakugo doesn’t give him a chance to ask. “I can see the way you look at me, Kirishima! The idiots aren’t subtle, I hear them tease you !”
“What are you saying…”
“I know you like me!” That knife is back and it twists so suddenly Bakugo’s hand drops away. So does his eye contact.
“No… No, you weren’t meant to know.” There’s no point in denying it.
Bakugo almost looks guilty. “Well I do…”
Kirishima can’t think, can barely breathe, can only think you’re losing him, don’t lose him, not like this.
“Please… Nothing has to change,” he’s close to begging, knows Bakugo will hate that.
“I want things to,” Bakugo says to the ground, lip curled, “and that’s an issue.”
He’s said it without saying it; Bakugo can’t be friends with someone that likes him, knowing that every friendly touch means something different to Kirishima.
He’d never be able to stop drinking in every secret smile Bakugo gives him, daydreaming about what it could mean if things were different. He’d be lying if he said he could… and it’s not manly to lie…
“I can’t give you all of me, Eijirou,” Bakugo whispers. Kirishima is in too much of a panic to recognise his name falling from his lips. “I have to be the number 1 hero… that’s all I’ve ever wanted until you.”
“I don’t need it all,” he cuts himself off as Bakugo turns away from him.
Running again
He’s not looking at him and Kirishima can’t get a word past his lips. It feels over, it feels done.
Would it matter? If he told him that his friendship is all he’d ever ask of him? That it’s worth more to him than anything else? Means more to him than his dreams?
Bakugo takes in a shaky breath, hands clenching and unfurling to rub sweat onto his pants. He says something, but it’s too quiet. Kirishima can’t hear. He steps forward, a question on his lips, but Bakugo speaks first.
“You make me want to give you everything.”
The words finally hit him. This has all sounded too much like a confession. A feeling like hope blooming too quickly within him.
DON’T LET HIM GO
Kirishima knows he sounds desperate when he asks, “why can’t you do both?”
You’re Bakugo Katsuki; you can do everything
“I’m not good enough for someone like you!”
Kirishima can’t speak.
Then, it’s like something breaks, maybe his mentality, because Kirishima starts laughing. Bakugo? Not good enough? The words don’t align. They’re not meant for someone like him.
Bakugo’s hands are fisted in his collar in seconds, face so close Kirishima has to go cross-eyed to see the flickers of rage burning in his eyes. “Fuck you!” He spits, and Kirishima laughs more, distantly thinking Bakugo is gearing up to hit him, but he’s so close to him.
Close enough that if he tilts his head their foreheads will press together… so he does it.
He feels Bakugo freeze, rage seeping out and something that looks like fear replacing it. Kirishima closes his eyes, Bakugo doesn’t like it when people see him scared.
“That’s not true,” laughter dying to leave just a grin in its place, “you’re everything to me.”
One second passes, then another, and Kirishima is about to open his eyes when he feels Bakugo surge forward. Their noses clash together for a painful moment before they both tilt their heads, and then it’s just lips against lips, and Kirishima feels like he’s floating.
It’s a confidence that surges from within that he brings a hand into Bakugo’s hair, tan fingers slipping through blonde, and feels Bakugo sag against him.
It feels like a lifetime before they break apart, and Kirishima can’t help but goad him, “stop running, Katsuki.”
He’s pulled in close enough that Bakugo can bite down on his bottom lip. A punishment.
“I don’t fucking run.”
Kirishima nudges their noses together, crimson staring into scarlett. “I like you… so much.”
“I know.”
“Tell me, Katsuki.”
Bakugo huffs and leans in again so their lips just brush. “... I like you, idiot.”