Work Text:
T-2
Shouto, despite making the best possible choice with his given options, may have made a mistake.
“And then—and then we add the cinnamon,” says Izuku, holding the tablet with the recipe website in one hand and several jars of spices in the other. “And the cloves and coriander. While it’s at a gentle boil.” Shouto looks down at the saucepan, where the cream is bubbling furiously. He turns down the heat.
“How much?” Shouto asks, taking the little glass bottles. Izuku scratches his head.
“To taste? But it says that it recommends half a teaspoon of cinnamon, quarter of cloves, and eighth of coriander. Wow, how are you supposed to figure out how much is an eighth of something? That’s super small.”
Shouto hunts through the cutlery drawer and, with the wisdom of a teenager that had spent his childhood with a very busy schedule and pre-prepared meals, picks a spoon at random. “This one?” he asks, holding up a spoon he assumes is used to prepare tea. Izuku, who perhaps hadn’t been allowed in his mother’s kitchen as much as Shouto had hoped, nods enthusiastically.
“Yeah! Well, you can’t have too much flavour with this sort of thing. Kacchan probably likes spicy things anyway.” Shouto glances around to ensure nobody has wandered in to hear who he’s making truffles for, and accidentally freezes the spoon in his hand. “We did the cinnamon challenge as kids and he ate the whole spoonful without choking! And then I tried and totally messed up. But, I mean, Kacchan did push the spoon down my throat. I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital!” Izuku chirps, happily and loudly as his excitement grows. Shouto blinks.
“Why on earth were you friends with him?” He measures out his cinnamon and tries not to think about anyone choking to death on it. Izuku waves his tablet around.
“Oh, you know,” he says, and Shouto doesn’t. His grin turns sly. “Why are you making chocolates for Kacchan at five in the morning and two days before Valentine’s day?” He accidentally upends several spoonfuls of ground cloves into the pot.
“Please keep your voice down,” he says, and scoops out as much of the cloves as he can. “Katsuki is - he has a way about him. He knows exactly who he wants to be.” Shouto can’t help the smile that creeps onto his face. “And he’s unapologetic about it. Direct. You never have to guess at what he’s thinking because he’ll tell you, whether you want him to or not.” He looks up to find Izuku staring at him with wet eyes, lower lip trembling. “Please don’t cry,” he says quickly, and hands Izuku the cloves to distract him.
Izuku sniffs and swipes the back of his hand across his eyes. “I’m just really happy that Kacchan has someone like you for him.” Shouto’s face burns.
“He may not even want these,” he reminds Izuku. “Not from me. Not after I knocked him unconscious during training last week.”
“That’s exactly why he’ll want them,” Izuku beams as, between them, the cream begins to boil over.
—
T-1
Katsuki is pissed.
He’s spent the last two hours stuck in the kitchen: he’s been heating cream over the stove, mixing in the melting chocolate, and pacing in front of the fridge in case any of the 2-A extras wander in and try to eat his creation while it’s cooling - or worse, they might ask what he’s doing making chocolates on February thirteenth.
He can’t have that.
Instead of leaving his truffles to fend for themselves in a dorm of meddling and hungry heroes-in-training, he’s taken to pretending to watch television while keeping an eye on anyone foolish enough to make a beeline for the fridge. In the hour he spends waiting and watching he picks a fight with Midoriya, reluctantly listens to Tokoyami attempt to discuss the documentary he’s watching, and makes Asui jump so badly that she camouflages herself against the kitchen counter. Someone eventually summons Eijirou, who wanders in with a packet of crisps and hops over the back of the sofa to join him.
“Hey,” Eijirou says, elbow-deep in the crisp packet and focused on the television.
“What,” Katsuki says.
“You’re kinda scaring everyone, bro,” Eijirou says, and offers him a crisp. He declines. He’s reached his salt intake for the day and if he eats now, he’ll be up all night feeling it in his stomach.
“Sounds like a them problem,” Katsuki says, and resumes pretending to watch the film—wait, no, it’s a documentary, and it’s about polar bears. Or seals. He’s not sure who he’s supposed to be rooting for, but someone just got eaten. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Eijirou pull a horrified face.
“That’s dark, man,” he says, and eats another crisp. For the good of their friendship, Katsuki keeps his mouth shut. “So, what’s in the fridge?”
“Nothing,” Katsuki grumbles. “Why would there be anything in the fridge?” Eijirou pops several crisps into his mouth.
“Well, there’s probably everyone’s food in it. But mostly because you called Midoriya by his actual name when you insulted him, and also it’s about an hour until Valentine’s day,” he says through a mouthful of crumbs, and adds another crisp to the mix.
“Yeah, well,” Katsuki says, and then closes his mouth. Opens it again, because he’s not a coward. “I’m not spending all my time making this stuff for some background character to come in and eat it all before I can wrap it up.” Eijirou freezes, a handful of crisps halfway to his mouth.
“Huh,” he says as though he hadn’t just laid out all the perfectly logical deductive steps to end up at that conclusion. “So, wh–”
“Nope,” Katsuki says, and stands to rescue his chocolate before he has to further endure the mortifying experience of being known.
—
Launch day
Walk silently past Todoroki’s door, drop the adorable bundle of chocolates, keep going. That’s all Katsuki has to do. It’s easy. It can’t be harder than the ordeal of wrapping and presenting them.
It had taken Katsuki exactly twenty-nine minutes to wrap his chocolates, and he knows this because he wakes up at exactly 06:00 and the sun rose twenty-nine minutes later, at which time he’d finally decided on the exact position of everything in his miniature hamper: handmade chocolates on a little tray in the centre, chocolate-dipped strawberries with alternating-coloured sprinkles surrounding them, a cellophane bag around the whole thing to prevent any extra from stealing pieces as they go by, and ribbon to hold it all together.
He hadn’t expected the cellophane to be so loud, which is a disappointing oversight considering his proposed stealth mission to the drop-off point. He rests the weight of the bag on his palm while pinching at the ruffled, pineapple-shaped top in an attempt to keep it taut enough to be silent as he scurries—
As he moves quickly and with purpose through the dorms. He’s only got one floor to go—from the fourth to the fifth—and he has no intention of human interaction. If he’s wearing one of Eijirou’s hoodies so he can claim mistaken identity in the event of an unfortunate sighting on his covert operation, well, that’s none of anyone’s business but his. Eijirou is liberal with his hoodies. It could be anyone under there.
Still, he shields the chocolate bundle with his body as he enters the fifth floor, just in case.
He reaches Todoroki’s door, and stalls. Just put the bundle down, he tells himself. He didn’t even write a card. Put the gift down, turn around, and walk away. He’s spent hours on the damn things so he may as well give them to Todoroki now. Just drop it and run. It’ll be fine.
He’s still standing there when Todoroki opens his door. “Oh, good morning, Bakugou,” Todoroki yawns as Katsuki’s fight or flight response kicks in and he catapults himself to the far end of the corridor. “You’re up early.” Katsuki does his very best to pretend he’s not skittering around like a hen running from a fox.
“I’m always up early,” he grouches, because he might be here to woo Todoroki but he doesn’t have to be nice to him. “What are you doing awake?” He adds, because he knows that he was up late training with Eijirou (and he knows this because he had wanted Eijirou to train with him this morning, but he said he’d be too tired thanks to training-partner-pilfering Todoroki).
“This,” Todoroki says, holding up a little paper bag that’s wrapped in ribbon. Katsuki’s heart beats in his throat, and as he tightens his grip around his own handmade chocolates, his hands feel clammy.
“Huh,” he says, and eyes up the bag. It’s adorable. He doesn’t know how to feel about that. “Well,” he continues, and stops trying to block Todoroki’s view of his gift bag. “Guess I’m not the only one of us stupid enough to bother with this. So that’s good. Can’t imagine you in a kitchen though.” He might be sweating and that’s fine, that’s all completely fine. Sweating is good. Sweating makes explosions happen.
“I was less tense during the sports festival than I was making these,” Todoroki says, and the unexpected joke startles a laugh out of Katsuki before he can stop it. Todoroki doesn’t laugh. Katsuki thinks it might not have been a joke. “Izuku helped.”
“Oh no,” Katsuki says, and now he’s started laughing, he can’t stop. He’ll blame it on the adrenaline spike. “I’ve seen him try to bake. You don’t want him in the kitchen, he’ll overthink at the milk until it curdles.”
“There was a lot of milk doing things it shouldn’t be,” Todoroki says, and Katsuki manages to hold back his laughter this time because he’s once again unsure whether the joke was intentional. “I assume yours gave you less trouble?” Todoroki says, with his stupid wide eyes and stupid little head tilt.
“What, why?” Katsuki says, suspicious and on red alert at the prospect of being spied on while baking.
“You’re a good cook,” Todoroki says. “I assume that translates over to baking.” Katsuki feels his cheeks redden for no conceivable reason, and he swipes his free hand over his face as though he can scrub it away.
“Yeah, well,” he says, and points at Todoroki’s chocolates in an effort to redirect the conversation. “You tried even though you suck at it, so those must be for someone pretty special.”
“They are,” he says, and holds them out to Katsuki.
“What, you want me to check your work or something? Please,” he scoffs. Todoroki tilts his head, and a small blush begins over the bridge of his nose.
“I made them for you.”
Katsuki looks at Todoroki, looks down at the paper-wrapped bundle being held out to him, and looks back up to Todoroki.
“Is this a joke,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. Todoroki keeps holding out the package and—it’s cute, with a little black paper bag and orange ribbon. Huh, he thinks.
“No,” Todoroki says simply.
“Oh,” says Katsuki, and takes the package. “Thank you.” He doesn’t know how to process this. “They’re for me?”
“Yes,” he says, patiently. “Happy Valentine’s day, Bakugou. This is my confession.” Katsuki’s brain screeches to a halt, replaying the last several seconds over and over.
Happy Valentine’s day, Bakugou. This is my confession.
“Your confession.”
“Yes,” Todoroki says, and rolls his eyes. “I’m going back to bed.” Katsuki reaches out, but he’s run out of hands.
“Wait!” Katsuki says, watching this moment slip away from him, and thrusts his own cellophane-wrapped bundle at Todoroki. “I. For you. I made these,” he adds, unnecessarily. It’s actually quite a large consolation when Todoroki stares at the package wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open.
“For me,” Todoroki says.
“We’ve just had this conversation,” Katsuki says, pushing the chocolates into his chest.
“Not this way around,” Todoroki says and, well, he’s not wrong. “You don’t have to give these to me out of pity.”
“Do I look like someone who does things out of pity?”
Todoroki wraps his arms around his chocolates, looks up, and slowly meets Katsuki’s eyes as though he’s scared of what he might find there. For a brief moment in time, he looks nervous.
“No,” Todoroki says, softly. “You don’t.”
“Well. That settles that,” Katsuki says. They stare at each other in silence for five long seconds.
“Katsuki,” Todoroki says, and he opens his mouth to tell him to cut it out, but actually—he kind of likes the way his name sounds in Todoroki’s mouth. Shouto’s mouth.
Oh no, he’s thinking about Shouto’s mouth.
“Yeah?” Katsuki says dumbly. He drags his gaze away from Shouto’s mouth—how long has it been there—to look him in the eye, and he’s alarmed to find that Shouto’s brow is furrowed in what had better not be concern. For all Katsuki’s strengths, he’s never been good at communicating. Words don’t come out right, for him, and it’s not on purpose: his brain feels like one big tangle and everything tends to spill out together and in the wrong order. He hates that this is the one thing he can’t seem to get under control, but he’s going to try. “Come out with me. Today. We can train together, or whatever,” he says in a rush, desperate to get the words out and to make Shouto understand.
“Okay,” Shouto says. Katsuki waits for the rest of the sentence.
“Okay?” He prompts.
“We’ll go out today,” Shouto says. “Kirishima recommended a cafe that you might like, so we could go for brunch.” Katsuki feels giddy, and he doesn’t know whether it’s the rush of definitely-not-nerves that come with delivering Valentine’s chocolates, or just the result of spending time around Shouto.
“Why’s Eijirou giving you my cafe recommendations?” Katsuki says, feeling as though he’s missed half a conversation.
“I can’t possibly imagine.” Shouto looks pointedly at their gift bags full of homemade chocolate. Rather than deal with the indignity of being sassed by Shouto Todoroki, Katsuki leans in for a kiss.
—
T+1
“How was the chocolate, by the way?” Shouto asks from where he lounges across Katsuki’s lap.
Katsuki, who had choked down the entire batch on principle despite having flashbacks to the cinnamon challenge, says honestly, “It was everything I expected. I don’t think you could have done a better job.”