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Denki’s friends don’t know that he can hear them when he short-circuits.
At first, it made him a little nervous—what if they said something weird or stupid or mean when they thought he couldn’t hear? But eventually, he could relax. His friends never said anything cruel about him—other than the usual friendly teasing that he knew was a joke.
He does find himself in some awkward situations, sometimes. People do the strangest shit when they think no one is looking. It’s pretty funny. It can get boring sometimes, but this is freaking Class 2A. They don’t stay boring for long.
It’s the first day of their second year, and Denki’s already giddy with excitement. He hasn’t seen his friends for a few weeks now, and he’s missed them dearly. And there’s something even more exciting happening today, too.
Shinsou was joining Class 2A.
Denki can’t help but grin at the thought of it. He wakes up this morning and greets his friends with vigor—Bakugou’s already awake making pancakes in the kitchen, and Mina, Jirou, Sero, and Kirishima are already crammed around him, waiting with varying degrees of patience.
“The last one up, as usual,” Jirou calls as he enters the room. “Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”
He grins at her as he slides into a seat next to Sero. “Big day today, guys,” he says dramatically. “The most important day of our lives thus far.”
“Besides going through several near-death experiences last year,” Kirishima says wisely.
“Precisely. The first day of our second year.”
“Shut up and get your head on straight, dumbass,” Bakugou barks, dumping a couple of pancakes on Kirishima’s plate. “You just want to see your stupid emo boyfriend.”
“Not my boyfriend,” Denki says. “Yet.”
Sero snorts. “You’re gonna flirt your way to a date, Denki?” he asks, trying to steal a pancake from Kirishima’s plate to no avail. “Tell me you’re not just going to give him a pickup line and then run away when he flirts back.”
“I’m not gonna run away, I swear! That was a one time thing—”
“I thought it happened twice,” Kirishima mused, absentmindedly swatting Sero’s hand away. “Thank you, Katsuki!”
Denki groans and lets his head fall on the counter. “Okay, it happened twice, alright? He’s just really freaking hot, and my brain gets all jumbled—”
“We know, Denki,” Mina says soothingly, reaching around Sero to pat him on the shoulder sympathetically. “Don’t worry, even with your strange taste in men, you have excellent pickup lines.”
“Thank you, dear Mina,” he says, beaming. “He seemed to like a few of them, anyway—I’ve been texting him a lot over break.”
“Of course he would,” Jirou sighs. “You’re a match made in heaven.”
“I certainly hope so. I haven’t seen him yet, anyway—where is he?”
“He went for a run,” Bakugou grunts. “You need to brush your hair.”
“My hair is always incredible—”
“No, Denki, you need to brush your hair, dude,” Kirishima says, with a mouthful of pancakes. “It looks worse than the time I didn’t wash the gel out before going to bed—”
“Alright, alright, I’m going,” Denki sighs, pushing his stool away from the counter and hopping to the floor. “Save a pancake or two for me, please!”
“Absolutely not,” Bakugou growls as he runs out of the room.
* * *
A couple of hours after breakfast—Bakugou did save him some pancakes, after all—he walks into the classroom and immediately spots Shinsou sitting behind Midoriya. “Shinsou!”
Shinsou looks up as Denki rushes over, grinning. “Kaminari,” he greets.
“Hi!” he says. “First day in the hero course, eh? How are you doing?”
“Fine,” Shinsou says, looking him up and down. “I didn’t see you in the dorms.”
“Why, were you looking for me?” Denki asks, his smile widening. “I just moved in late last night.”
“Ah. I’ve been here for a few days.”
“Oh, I must’ve missed you. How was your break? Did you miss me?”
A half-smile came to Shinsou’s face, so faint that it was barely discernible. “Sure. Did you miss me?”
Denki flushes. “I—”
Thankfully, that’s when Midoriya decides would be a good idea to cut in. “Kaminari-kun,” he greets, turning around in his seat. “How was your break!”
Denki grins at him. “Good,” he says, desperately hoping his face isn’t as red as it feels. “It was a lot of fun, actually. My mom drove us to Tokyo for a few days—how was yours?”
“Good, thanks! It was mostly training,” Midoriya admits.
“Ah, Midoriya always makes the rest of us feel twenty years behind when it comes to hero training,” Denki sighs. “Shinsou, do you—”
“Sit down, everyone,” Aizawa says as he enters the classroom, looking, perhaps, even more bedraggled than he had two weeks ago. “I’ll say this once as a warning; this year will be even worse than last year.”
The class lets out a collective groan as Denki slides into his seat. Not even a lecture from Aizawa could dampen his spirits—his second year was already off to a great start.
Their first day, despite Aizawa’s warning, isn’t too bad. Perhaps the events from last year have dulled their senses a bit. They’re introduced to all their new teachers in the morning, and then Aizawa takes them all out into a familiar field, a view which incites another round of groans from their classmates.
“What’s this?” Shinsou asks Denki.
Denki opens his mouth to answer, but Aizawa cuts him off before he can. “Quirk Apprehension Test,” he says shortly. “To estimate the level of your physical skill—estimate, not assess.”
“Remember when Deku broke his fingers doing the ball throw?” Uraraka giggles.
“It was just one finger,” Midoriya mumbles back.
“Hey, Bakugou,” Sero stage-whispers. “Still gonna scream at the top of your lungs during every test?”
“Shut your mouth, Tape-Face!”
“Jesus,” Shinsou mumbles. “You all are intense.”
“Get used to it,” Denki tells him.
Shinsou does well—he does excellently in the distance run, beating out everyone but Iida. But still, he doesn’t do amazingly with his mental quirk. “Does everyone in this class have superhuman stamina and strength?” he asks Denki.
“Don’t complain to me when you’re buff as hell,” Denki complains, leaning against his shoulder. “No matter how much I work out, I’m still as light as a feather.”
Shinsou frowns. “You’re built for speed, though.”
“And you’re built. Don’t worry. You fit right in with us.”
The results are given, and yeah, Denki does horribly. Midoriya has shot up in the rankings now, and with Shinsou moving up to the 11th spot, Denki’s dropped two places. He sighs.
After their classes, they head back to the dorms, and their classmates collapse in various positions around the common room. Denki falls down on the nearest couch, and Shinsou sits down beside him, leaning back and draping an arm over his eyes. “Physical tests are stupid,” he huffs. “You’re never going to need to throw a baseball on the field.”
Denki snorts. “Yeah.”
“Still. I wish I’d done better.”
“Eh. Last year these tests hardly mattered in the end.”
“Really? Class 1C was obsessed with rankings.”
“I bet you were always number one.”
Shinsou lifts his arm to give him a small smirk. “Sometimes.”
* * *
The second day brings the heat up way more. Armed with updated hero costumes, they jump right into an exercise.
Aizawa takes them all out to the urban area and keeps them all by the entrance as he lays down the rules. “Teams of five,” he tells them. “You’ll face off with each of the three other teams once. Each of you will take a tag, which will be attached loosely to your belt. If your tag is taken, you’re out. Whichever team lasts the longest wins.”
“Like flag football,” Denki says to Sero.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sero says back. Denki rolls his eyes.
Denki’s grouped up with Mina, Aoyama, and Yaoyorozu. Shinsou gets with Sero, Jirou, and Hagakure, which he seems pretty pleased by. They speed through the first few exercises pretty quickly—Denki gets his ass kicked by Midoriya, but ends up being the last one standing the second time around, and his team wins the third. Shinsou’s capture scarf steals tag after tag before any of his opponents can even blink an eye.
And then finally, their two teams face off.
“Get ready,” Shinsou tells him.
Kaminari grins. “Right back at you, Shinsou.”
And then they take off, spreading all over the city. When Aizawa’s whistle blows, sending an ear splitting screech over the area, the exercise starts, and Kaminari runs off.
Surprisingly, he can’t seem to find anyone. Not even his own teammates.
“Shinsou?”
Denki approaches him slowly. “Are you okay?”
Shinsou takes a moment to respond, and when he does, his voice is strained. “‘M fine. Just fucked up my knee a bit, I think.”
Denki takes a step forward and reaches out to gently lay his hand on Shinsou’s leg, but he flinches backward. He looks a little bit guilty afterwards, though. “Sorry,” he pants. “It just hurts a bit.”
Denki winces sympathetically. “Do you want me to get—”
His throat closes. The words seem to hover on the top of his tongue, but he just can’t say them. It takes a moment for him to realize what’s happening—his eyes widen in confusion, but he can’t seem to move any of his limbs, either. A foggy sensation takes over his brain, and that’s when he figures it out.
Shinsou’s brainwashed him.
Ah, he thinks to himself. I fell for that pretty quickly, huh?
Shinsou gets to his feet, with absolutely no sign of an injury. “Sorry for tricking you,” he says, smirking. “But I knew you’d check in on me. You’re just too nice.”
Denki wants to stick his tongue out at him, but for obvious reasons, he can’t. He settles on staring at Shinsou very hard.
“Sorry,” Shinsou says again, taking several steps back. “Before I grab your tag, though— use up your quirk.”
The effect of his command takes control of Denki’s body almost immediately. The lightning rips itself out of him, and he lurches forward in an almost inhuman way, his limbs seizing. It’s not the gentle tugging sensation that normally comes with using his quirk—rather, as if the electricity is being torn out of his skin. He convulses with it, and he vaguely registers himself falling forward.
And yet all he feels is panic. He fights against the thick fog in his head, but Shinsou’s control seems to tighten, and the current of electricity continues agonizingly. His output has increased by leaps and bounds in the past year, but now he wishes it hadn’t, because it just won’t stop.
And then it’s gone, as quick as it started. Pain rockets up his arms—and the fog snaps out with it—but Denki just watches in horror as the sparks fly absolutely everywhere.
Miraculously, everyone is out of range. He thanks all his lucky stars for that—or maybe he just has to thank Shinsou.
He doesn’t have time to think it over. Shinsou’s control has disappeared, and he stands still for a split second, suspended like a lifeless puppet. And then his legs collapse under him and he crumples to the ground like a ragdoll.
Ouch.
His arms kind of feel a bit broken right now. And he’s most definitely short-circuited.
A shadow falls over him, stopping low to pick up his tag before straightening up again. A whistle screeches in the distance, signaling the end of the battle. “Sorry,” Shinsou says, looking amused. “My scarf is conductive, I didn’t want to get shocked.”
Huh. Denki hadn’t thought of that. He stores that away in his memory—he’ll have to keep that in mind. Next time, he’ll kick Shinsou’s ass.
“Don’t worry,” Shinsou says. “You’ll probably get some hero points for checking up on me. That’s how this course works, right? You good?”
All that Denki can do is grin at him. He wants to give him a thumbs-up, but there’s still quite a fuck ton of pain in his arms and they don’t seem to want to cooperate at this moment.
Shinsou laughs, and it’s a nice, low sound. “You’re cute.” He holds out his hand to help him up.
Shinsou called him cute. Holy shit, he’s totally going to be screaming about this to his friends later—but for now, he just focuses on Shinsou’s hand, still extended out in front of him. Damn, he’d really like to feel Shinsou’s hand, but that’s obviously not an option right now. He manages a wince from his pain, but that’s all.
Shinsou’s easy grin falls from his face. “Fuck,” he says. “Are you—are you alright? My quirk—I’ve never used it on you before.” His eyes dart all over Denki’s body, and he reaches out, not quite touching. “Shit—”
He wants to tell Shinsou that it’s alright. This happens all the time, after all, doesn’t it? But it occurs to him that Shinsou wouldn’t know about his quirk overuse—who knows if he’d seen his match with Shiozaki, and Denki hadn’t short-circuited at their joint training.
He feels horribly guilty as Shinsou scrambles for something to do—this is his first training class in the hero course. His panic is evident upon his face—his eyes bordering on wild, his brow creased. “Fuck,” he mutters, reaching for his wrist.
Fuck. Pain courses up his arm, and a whine makes it past his lips. It’s terribly embarrassing, but Shinsou’s head jerks up and he withdraws his hand quickly.
“Shit,” he murmurs. “I’m getting Recovery Girl.”
And then he’s off and running, and Denki’s left alone. It doesn’t take much time for Shinsou to come back, flanked by Recovery Girl, Aizawa, and surprisingly, the rest of the Bakusquad. Shinsou still looks panicked, but Recovery Girl doesn’t appear at all shocked. She crouches down next to him, planting a kiss on his cheek, before patting his head and telling him to feel better.
“How come you just left him there?” Sero asks Shinsou, later.
They’re sitting around waiting for the next exercise to be completed, and they’ve propped Denki up in a chair. He can’t see the screens from here, but he can hear the telltale roar of Iida’s engines and the faint crackle of Todoroki’s fire.
“He was hurt,” Shinsou said, sharply. “And I panicked, alright? He snapped out of my control, so he was obviously in a ton of pain.”
“How did he end up under your control, anyway?” Jirou asks. She’s just out of Denki’s line of sight, but he can just imagine her half-amused, half-exasperated expression.
“He was checking on me. I pretended to be hurt.”
Jirou huffs. “Of course he would fall for that. His nature always overpowers his brain.”
“His nature? He literally can’t do anything but give us a thumbs-up and a smile. Are you serious?”
“He’s alright, dude,” Kirishima says, in that calm, placating manner of his. “His output has increased a ton in the past year—he used to barely be able to go through a single exercise without it backfiring. And now he’s able to go through all the exercises, and it’s improved even more over our break—it’s just that he was forced to expend it all in one go, now.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t worry about it, man,” Sero speaks up. “Your quirk is so cool, dude—you should hear Kami gush about you. It’s just training, you’re supposed to use your quirk. And he definitely won’t hold it against you.”
Bakugou’s lip curls. “He does this all the time. There’s no need to have a damn freak out.”
“All the time?” Shinsou repeats, incredulous. “But he’s—”
“Braindead? Not entirely lucid?” Mina suggests. “You didn’t see him at the Sports Festival?”
“I thought that he just ran out of charge, not whatever this is.”
“We were pretty freaked out too, when we first met him,” Sero says. “But you get used to it. He’ll be back to his peppy self in an hour or two.”
“Fucking—hours? But does he remember any of this stuff, when he’s like this? This isn’t some sort of—”
“Dude, don’t worry about him,” Jirou says. “I promise you. He’s fine.”
“I did that to him,” Shinsou said. “I told him—I told him to use it up. He could’ve—I could’ve seriously hurt him.”
“Oi, Eyebags,” Bakugou snarls. “Take a breath. No one needs to listen to your guilt-ridden rambles.” As he says this, he crouches down by Denki’s chair and reaches for his arm. “Here.”
Denki doesn’t know what Bakugou’s up to at first. Bakugou finds his wrist, flipping it over, and then he digs two fingers into the area right below his thumb.
The room falls silent as Bakugou keeps his eye on his watch, counting. It’s just a minute when he nods, holding Denki’s wrist out. “Feel.”
Shinsou finds his pulse point easily—it must almost be muscle memory after all his training—but his hands still shake a little. “It’s fast.”
“It’s fast because of his quirk,” Bakugou says. “For his heart, it’s like a natural cardiac pacemaker.”
Mina clicks her tongue. “Bakugou, you’re talking too smart for us again.”
“Shut up, Raccoon Eyes,” he snarls. “His quirk makes his heart beat fast, okay?”
Denki watches Bakugou carefully. He hadn’t realized that Bakugou knew so much about his quirk.
“Point is, he’s fucking fine.” Bakugou releases Denki’s wrist and leans back in his chair. “This is the hero course, Eyebags. He just broke a couple of bones. This is the hero course—you better get used to it.”
“That doesn’t sound fine to me,” Shinsou snaps. “He’s—”
“Completely calm,” Bakugou finishes. “Count. His pulse is fast, yeah, but it’s normal for him. He’s completely calm, not in any pain.”
“How can he be calm when he is practically paralyzed?”
“It’s how his body works, dumbass. When he short-circuits, his electrical signals are temporarily cut off.”
“Like a seizure.”
“A seizure his brain is built to handle,” Bakugou says. “I trust facts, not some dumb fucking assumptions. Dunce Face is completely calm right now. He’s with us. He knows he’s safe. He is safe.”
“He’s in a hospital bed—”
“For his external injuries,” Sero says, firmly. “For now, Denki’s okay.”
“And he’s just supposed to live with this for the rest of his life?”
Bakugou huffs. “Not for the rest of his life.”
“We got Hatsume Mei to experiment on a device for him!” Kirishima pipes up. “He doesn’t know about it yet, though—”
“What kind of device?”
“Something that regulates his outputs, and stores excess energy when he doesn’t need it,” Mina says. “When Denki’s not outputting energy, he can store it, and when he needs it, he can use the stored energy!”
Denki kind of wants to cry.
He had no idea that his friends noticed all of this. They cared. They weren’t just laughing every time he short-circuited. They were paying attention.
God, he loves them all so much.
“So…” Shinsou says slowly. “You came up with all of this?”
“Well, it was Midoriya’s idea,” Jirou says, grinning. “We were gonna give it to him for his birthday, but Hatsume wasn’t able to finish it in time, so we took him out for burgers instead.”
Oh yeah, Denki’s definitely going to start crying.
Unfortunately, his tear ducts still seem to work, even if he can’t really move right now.
Shinsou notices first, of course. “Kaminari!” he says sharply, and then the rest of them are looking at him, and they’re all so concerned that he can’t really help but cry a bit more. They fuss over him until the feeling returns to his limbs, and then he’s able to move at last.
It takes a while for him to get used to having his movement back again, but they wait patiently for him before they start peppering him with questions. “Whoa there, Kami,” Sero says gently, a hand on his shoulder. “You’re good?”
“Sorry,” he chokes, fumbling with a pack of tissues that Mina shoves into his hands. His fingers aren’t quite cooperating right now, so Shinsou takes the pack out of his hands and hands him a tissue. He wipes at his eyes. “It’s just…you guys, I didn’t know you cared so much.”
“Of course we do, dude,” Kirishima says, his eyes wide. “You’re our friend.”
That sets off another round of tears. “Kirishima,” he whines, falling forward into Kirishima’s arms. “You’re gonna kill me.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Jirou sighs, but she pats his head. “So you heard all of that, then?”
“Yeah,” he admits. “You’re so much nicer to me when I’m in my dumb mode.”
“Don’t call it a dumb mode,” Shinsou mumbles. “That was fucking terrifying.”
Denki smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, dude.”
“So when were you going to tell us that you could hear us the whole time?” Bakugou says angrily. “Could you hear me—”
“When you called Kirishima ‘adorable’ when he was out of the room?” Denki asks. “Yeah, I could.”
Kirishima coos. “Aw, Katsuki.”
“Shut up—!”
Jirou crosses her arms. “What about the time—”
“When you sang Taylor Swift songs to Momo in the common room? Yep.”
“Or when I was talking about Todoroki after the Sports Festival in Recovery Girl’s office?” Sero asks.
“Yep,” Denki says. “And all the times after that. You are gay, Hanta.”
They all groan. “You are terrible, Denki,” Mina whines.
“You all love me. And you know it!”
“And that’s how you know he’s absolutely fine,” Jirou informs Shinsou.
“Yeah, Shinsou, I swear, I’m one-hundred percent alright.” He flashes Shinsou a thumbs-up.
Shinsou just looks at him, but the corner of his mouth curls up slightly. “Okay,” is all he says.
* * *
“That was really fucking scary,” Shinsou tells him later.
Denki grimaces. “I’m really sorry.”
They’re sitting across from each other on the floor of Shinsou’s room late at night. It’s a few hours after they’re supposed to be in bed, but both of them are still rather shaken, and neither of them can even think of sleeping.
“Stop fucking apologizing,” Shinsou stresses. “I—I did that to you. Seeing you fall like that, and you just lying there, completely frozen—I did that to you.”
“No, no, my quirk did that. Not you.”
“I told you to use it up!”
“And you had no idea what would’ve happened! Look, I’m completely fine.” Denki wriggles his fingers, attempting a reassuring smile. “See?”
“It was really fucking scary,” Shinsou repeats. “I just—I just watched you. Completely frozen.”
“I’m alright. We’re alright. You did really well today, Shinsou. You were really calm and collected the whole time, you had really good strategies, and you utilized your quirk really well.”
“But—”
“I’m alright. It’s not your fault that my quirk sucks sometimes—plus, Hatsume’s working on that cool device that my friends asked her to make! If it works, then no one’s gonna be able to stop me, right?”
Shinsou gives him another one of his half-smiles. “Right.”
“I’m perfectly okay, Shinsou. I promise.”
“Okay. Alright.”
“Bit of a tough first day, eh?”
“Yeah,” Shinsou admits. “But everyone just tells me that I’ll get used to it.’
“Of course you will—I have faith in you, Shinsou. Now let’s do something else—let’s watch a movie! We’ve been training all day, we deserve some relaxation, right?”
Shinsou huffs out a laugh and reaches for his computer. “Fine,” he says, and they climb up onto his bed. “Which movie?”
Denki leans into Shinsou’s side as he pulls up his Netflix tab with a sigh. They end up scrolling through their choices for several minutes before landing some random rom-com—Denki’s pick, but Shinsou agrees easily. Denki laughs a little too hard at the cheesy jokes and terribly flirting, and Shinsou laughs at him in turn.
At some point, Shinsou’s hand settles on his wrist—right as his pulse point—and Denki’s face burns at the touch. He tries not to think about it too much. Shinsou’s palms are rough, and a little cold, but it’s soothing. They stay that way, pressed into each other’s sides with Shinsou’s hand wrapped around Denki’s wrist, for a while.
When the movie ends, they sit for a moment as they watch the credits roll, in complete silence. Shinsou’s gentle grip on his wrist gets the slightest bit tighter.
Eventually, Denki turns his head a tad to look at Shinsou’s face. It’s impassive, but relaxed—much improved from the stark-white horror that was on his face from earlier today. Denki lets himself relax.
“So,” he whispers to Shinsou, in the dark. “You called me cute.”
Shinsou glances at him, then sighs. “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that,” he says. “But I did know that you could hear me, at the time.”
“So you do think I’m cute, then?”
Shinsou snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “You are pretty cute, Kaminari Denki. But promise me that you’ll never scare me like that again.”
Denki beams at him, pressing himself into Shinsou’s side. “I promise.”