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Katsuki is going to kill Ashido.
Of course it was her idea to shove him into this closet—and Todoroki-fucking-Shouto in after him. The luck of the universe or whatever had nothing to do with it. Katsuki knows that Ashido somehow made it so that when Todoroki spun the bottle, it landed directly and solidly on him.
The only reason he’s even at this party is because it’s Shitty Hair’s birthday and Katsuki felt he owed it to him to at least show up. If he’d known this was where that decision was going to lead him, though, he’d probably tell Kirishima to fuck off instead.
The lock clicks ominously.
“Have fun!” Ashido singsongs. “We’ll let you out in seven minutes.”
Katsuki bangs on the door. “You’ll let us out now if you know what’s good for you, you alien bitch—“
Katsuki stops when Todoroki shifts his weight. The space is cramped enough that they’re pressed uncomfortably close, magnifying Todoroki’s small movement.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Icyhot?”
He is unfazed. “I didn’t do anything.”
Katsuki didn’t plan for the way they’re almost in an embrace once he turns around. He tries to back up, to make some space between them, but it doesn’t work. This closet is barely big enough for one person, let alone two. It’s too dark to make out much. As his eyes adjust, he notes the generic cleaning supplies surrounding them; he thinks that’s a mop, in the corner.
But he can only ignore the other person in here with him for so long, even if said person isn’t saying anything. Todoroki is only looking at him, neutrally. Katsuki can’t help but feel that he’s waiting for something.
“We don’t have to—“ Katsuki thinks he’d rather die than finish that sentence.
Todoroki tilts his head. “Getting cold feet?”
Katsuki narrows his eyes. “Fuck you, Halfie. Come here.”
And then they’re kissing.
Immediately, Katsuki knows he’s in trouble. He’s not one to do anything halfway, so when he grabbed Todoroki and pulled him towards him the plan was to kiss him senseless. He didn’t expect Todoroki to meet him there .
Their lips pressed together so forcefully their teeth clack against each other but before he can think too much about it, they’re kissing for real, desperately.
Todoroki’s hands are in Katsuki’s hair and Katsuki didn’t even notice him moving. Katsuki growls and shoves forward a bit—not very far, because again, tiny closet—and Todoroki grips his hair almost painfully.
Katsuki’s arms are still at his side as Todoroki kisses him—because he is kissing him, Katsuki realizes, not the other way around, somehow. If Todoroki is going to get handsy, Katsuki sure as shit isn’t getting left behind.
He snakes his hands around until they’re on Todoroki’s waist, and then they pull on Todoroki’s shirt until it’s pulled out from where it was tucked into his pants. Then, Katsuki slides his hands underneath to touch his smooth stomach.
Katsuki smothers a grin as Todoroki gasps into his mouth at the unexpected sensation. He takes the brief opening as an opportunity to lick along the side of Todoroki’s tongue and holy fuck it’s cold and amazing and then they’re truly, unequivocally making out.
Todoroki’s hand slides out from where he’s been making a mess of Katsuki’s hair and goes to Katsuki’s shirts and starts unbuttoning. Katsuki considers stopping him, but he’s been feeling him up this entire time, so it’d be kind of hypocritical. Besides, he can’t deny that he’s a little curious to see where he’s going with this.
When he agreed to play along with their stupid game, he had no idea this was where he’d end up. He bites down on Todoroki’s lip and Todoroki only responds by kissing deeper into his mouth, before biting back.
Todoroki undoes enough buttons to be able to shove Katsuki’s shirt out of the way to reveal his collarbone.
Todoroki breaks the kiss and Katsuki becomes uncomfortably aware of how hard he’s breathing. Todoroki is clearly out of breath, too, at least. Katsuki feels distinctly out of control.
He’s just looking at him, squinting a little. There’s a flush high on his cheeks, his shirt is shoved up where Katsuki’s hands are still on his stomach and his lips are red and shiny. He looks wrecked.
“What the hell are you looking at, Icyhot?”
“Do you ever shut up?” It’s matter of fact, no malice or humour to be found.
Katsuki opens his mouth to snark back, but stops when he feels a chilly hand on his collarbone. Todoroki is staring at his neck.
“What are you, a vampire? Your hand is fucking cold—“
Todoroki interrupts him by leaning forward and licking up the side of his neck.
Katsuki can’t hide his shiver. Todoroki’s tongue is hot on one side and cold on the other and his neck is very sensitive to both of those facts.
And then he bites. Hard.
Katsuki moans involuntarily as his toes curl at the sensation. Todoroki is still mouthing at his neck, sucking a mark into place. Katsuki knows he should tell him to stop—he’s not letting Todoroki fucking mark him—but he doesn’t.
Todoroki lifts his head to inspect the mark he’s left. Seemingly satisfied, he kisses Katsuki again, long and deep and lingering. Katsuki pushes into him painfully and gives as good as he gets. This time, he gets his hands in Todoroki’s silky hair. He meant to use it to yank him around like Todoroki had done to him earlier, but gets distracted by how soft it is and then the kiss is over.
They stare at each other for a moment, breathing in the same air.
Then Todoroki takes a small step backwards.
While they’re still very close, they’re not pressed against each other like they were a moment before. Katsuki feels chilled.
Katsuki squints at Todoroki, who’s busying himself with tucking his shirt back in and fixing it up from where Katsuki had made a mess of it. That finished, Katsuki can feel Todoroki’s quirk activate as the temperature in the room noticeably changes and the flush on Todoroki’s face disappears.
Katsuki frowns. Todoroki runs his hand through his hair, only mildly mussed up from Katsuki’s hand, and it goes back to its annoyingly normal state easily.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Katsuki finally spits out, in part to make Todoroki look at him instead of ignoring him.
It works, kind of. Todoroki stops fussing with his clothes and hair and considers Katsuki with a tilted head. Katsuki flushes as he realizes that while Todorki was fixing himself up, he still looks thoroughly kissed—his shirt is undone to his navel, his hair’s surely a mess, and he doesn’t even want to know what his face looks like. And the hickey that’s probably on his neck.
Todoroki is staring at said hickey. He lifts his hand and presses his thumb onto the mark.
“Sorry about that.”
“What do you mean sorry , you bastard—“
Ashido’s voice cuts him off. “Time’s up, boys! I hope you didn’t kill anyone!”
The door unlocks before Katsuki can do much more than widen his eyes.
It swings open to reveal Ashido, and further into the room, most of class 1-A. Todoroki, the asshole, just strolls out without so much as a smug smirk or anything. It’s like Katsuki was making out with himself in the closet, as if Todoroki just had his way with him and Katsuki did nothing.
Someone wolf whistles.
Todoroki has already sat back down next to Deku, of all people. Deku is staring open mouthed at Katsuki. He bares his teeth at him, but Deku is unfazed, only shifting his eyes from his neck—and the hickey—to his face. A slow grin crosses Deku’s face. Katsuki wants to punch something. Or some one. Preferably Todoroki.
Katsuki is done here. Whatever his reasons for agreeing to play in the first place aren’t important anymore.
As he storms out, he risks a glance at Todoroki. He’s not sure what he’s looking for—a smug smirk?—but the Ice Prince doesn’t deliver. He only meets Katsuki’s glare with a neutral expression, totally impassive. As if nothing happened.
Fuck this.
Katsuki stomps up to his room, fuming the whole way. If he shoves his hand down his pants the second he shuts the door, that’s nobody's business but his own.
****
The next few days sees Katsuki crankier than usual. He’s almost out of pencils because he keeps breaking them in class and he keeps getting in trouble for going too rough during training. It doesn’t help anything that he has to choose between wearing his tie for once and hiding the hickey on his neck, or pretending it isn’t there and putting up with the snickers any time one of his shitty classmates catches sight of it.
And then there’s Todoroki.
He keeps trying to ruffle Todoroki’s feathers—and failing miserably. It comes to a head when Katsuki is yelling at Todoroki and Todoroki is clearly listening, he’s watching Katsuki and taking in his words, but he’s unaffected, just keeps eating his lunch like there isn’t a rabid animal in front of him. It’s like shouting at a brick wall and Katsuki can’t seem to stop.
He finally starts to wind down. And then Todoroki goes, “What exactly did you want from me again?”
And then it’s another fifteen minutes before Kirishima drags him away.
“What is your problem, man? Todoroki’s not doing anything, just leave him alone,” Kirishima says as soon as they’re away from the boy in question. Katsuki crosses his arms, as if he didn’t already feel like a petulant child.
Yeah, Todoroki didn’t do anything. That’s the fucking problem. Katsuki scoffs and Kirishima sighs.
“Yeah, okay. But try and cool it, alright?” Only Kirishima would risk telling Katsuki to cool it. And maybe Kaminari, but that’s because Kaminari has more bravery than intelligence, so he doesn’t really count.
Katsuki only grumbles in response. He’ll ‘cool it’ once Todoroki responds to him like a normal person.
Katsuki follows Kirishima out of the cafeteria and back to class. On their way out, he spots Uraraka, who’s staring at him with a knowing smile on her face.
He bares his teeth at her. She only grins wider.
Fucking Todoroki.
****
“So, Todoroki, huh?”
“What the hell do you want, round face?” Katsuki says as he continues to stretch. He’s in the gym doing his cooldown after a workout. Uraraka is bouncing on her feet, having already showered and dressed again in her school uniform.
“You like him, right?”
That stops him. He squints up at her, wondering where the hell she got the nerve—
“You seemed like you had a good time when you two were in the closet last weekend. And since then you’ve been more annoyed with him than usual. You want him to pay attention to you, right?” She speaks in a rush, as if she knows she’s got a limited amount of time before Katsuki starts exploding things.
He feels the heat collecting in his palms, the boom waiting for him to ignite. He looks around—they’re alone, mostly. Kirishima is far enough away that he can’t hear what they’re saying, but he’s looking over curiously.
Katsuki doesn’t explode. He goes back to stretching his calves.
“I don’t like him and I don’t want him to pay attention to me. Fuck off, Round face.” Katsuki takes a deep breath, shifting into a different stretch. Anger management, and all that. Kirishima would be proud.
“What if I said I had a plan to get you back in the closet with him?”
“I’d tell you to leave me alone, Uraraka,” Katsuki bites out, pulling his arm a bit hard on the stretch. She doesn’t need to know that Katsuki has been thinking about what he’d do to Todoroki if he got the chance—that he has a plan, however useless, to crack his stupid, unending composure and make him emote at something. That it’s all he’s thought about since that stupid closet.
“Great. Just don’t hide in your room like you usually do when we all hang out this weekend, okay?” She bounces off without waiting for a response.
If it was anyone else, Katsuki would probably be bristling at being ordered around. But Uraraka’s never cared about that. She’s gone, anyways, before Katsuki gets it together enough to get annoyed.
He goes back to his stretching, almost done. He refuses to be curious about what she’s planning. He’s thinking about his workout, not about Todoroki.
Yeah.
****
The weekend comes and most of Class 1-A is in the common room. When Kirishima asked Katsuki if he wanted to hang out—which he always does, even when the answer is always no, like he wants to make sure Katsuki feels included—Katsuki had shrugged. Kirishima understood the yes when he saw it, and his eyebrows had shot up.
“Shut up,” Katsuki snapped before Kirishima could speak.
“I didn’t say anything,” Kirishima replied easily.
And so, that’s how Katsuki finds himself sitting in a circle on the floor with a seemingly random selection of class 1-A. Someone managed to get their hands on some cheap booze, but Katsuki doesn’t bother with it. He doesn’t like the way the alcohol dulls his senses, or the way it makes everyone around him act even more idiotic than usual. Todoroki doesn’t drink any, either, Katsuki notes.
When Uraraka suggests more seven minutes in heaven, Katsuki shoots her a look. What’s her plan? He knows that she’s more conniving than she looks.
He’s curious. That’s it. Nothing to do with his own plans, coming to him unbidden when he can’t sleep, in the shower, while he’s walking to class—how he’d make Todoroki lose his cool, if given a second chance.
Kaminari plops down next to him and slings an arm around his shoulder. Katsuki, tensing, lets off some warning blasts from his palms. Kaminari ignores them, having already made decent headway through the limited liquor supply.
“Kacchan, you’re playing with us? I wasn’t expecting the chance to make out with you tonight, but I can’t say I’m mad at it.”
Katsuki shoves him off. Todoroki is sitting on the other side of the circle, next to Yaoyorozu. They’re talking. Todoroki laughs at something she says. Katsuki boils.
“Bakugo, you go first!” Uraraka, next to him, hands him a bottle. He squints at her, but takes it.
He spins without argument. The bottle spins, deciding his fate, slower, slower—and jerks to a stop, pointed directly at Todoroki. Katsuki shoots Uraraka a glance just in time to see her touching the pads of her fingers to each other, the sign of her releasing her quirk. She meets Katsuki’s glare with a smirk.
“Into the closet with you two!” Ashido jumps to her feet.
The girls of Class 1-A are a force to be reckoned with. Before Katsuki can protest—would he protest?—he’s being shoved, once again, into the closet with Todoroki.
Todoroki blinks at him. “Hello, Bakugo.”
In the dark of the closet, it’s hard to see much. Todoroki is wearing casual clothes, just a plain black shirt and some jeans. Katsuki looks him up and down slowly, a smirk spreading across his face.
“Tell me to stop, Icyhot.”
Katsuki steps into Todoroki’s space and keeps going until Todoroki gives in and takes a step back. Then another, and then he’s got nowhere left to go because he’s against the door. The whole time Todoroki is staring at Katsuki with that infuriatingly neutral expression. But this close, Katsuki isn’t too certain of that neutrality. It looks, in the dim lighting, more like a challenge than anything.
Katsuki likes a challenge.
Todoroki tracks Katsuki’s movement with his eyes as Katsuki leans forward. Katsuki sees Todoroki’s eyes dart to his lips. Their faces are close, not quite touching. Katsuki kisses Todoroki’s jaw, once, then again, and moves down until he’s at Todoroki’s neck. Katsuki pauses, noting with interest how his breath causes an almost imperceptible shiver from Todoroki.
“You can fucking breathe, Halfie.”
Katsuki can feel the rush of air ruffle his hair as Todoroki lets out the breath he was holding. He smirks again, then bites down on Todoroki’s neck.
Not even that gets a noise, though Todoroki jerks at the contact. Katsuki mouths at the spot, ensuring it’ll leave a mark.
He leans back, satisfied at the dark bruise blooming on Todoroki’s pale neck. That’s when he notices that Todoroki is biting down on his own hand.
It clicks in Katsuki’s brain. His goal is to get a reaction out of Todoroki—and Todoroki’s goal is to show no reaction.
He grins. Todoroki slants his eyes and removes his hand from his mouth.
“What?”
“Now we match.” Katsuki pulls the neck of his shirt to clearly display the week old hickey Todoroki gave him. He’s been getting shit for it all week, but he never considered trying to cover it up. He wonders what Todoroki will do with his. It’s too high to be hidden by any regular shirt—Katsuki is an asshole like that. Maybe he’ll wear that grey turtleneck that he saves for cold winter days.
Not that Katsuki keeps track of his wardrobe. That would be weird.
Todoroki huffs—in laughter? impatience?—and pushes forward to press their lips together.
It’s been a week since they last kissed. Katsuki has felt every second drag by, waiting for this moment. Katsuki feels fire rip through him as he meets Todoroki’s intensity.
Todoroki bites him. Katsuki bites him back. Mouths open, tongues explore, and Katsuki is burning.
Todoroki shoves forward and Katsuki lets him—and then Todoroki flips them so their positions are reversed. Todoroki presses close to Katsuki and Katsuki becomes aware of Todoroki’s slight advantage in height as he kisses Katsuki into the door mercilessly.
Katsuki’s lost control of the situation, again. He doesn’t want it to end the way it did last time—where Todoroki was able to walk out like nothing happened, while Katsuki looked fucked sideways. He won’t let that happen—Todoroki will be the one walking out of here a mess.
Katsuki’s arms—resting solidly on Todoroki’s waist, holding him in place against him—grab Todoroki and hoist him into the air.
Todoroki startles enough to break the kiss. His legs automatically wrap around Katsuki’s waist in an effort to balance—he’s clinging to Katsuki’s shoulders.
Katsuki runs his tongue over his teeth and grins. Todoroki is looking at him with wide eyes.
The closet is small. Katsuki takes the two steps forward to shove Todoroki against the opposite wall, shoving a bucket out of the way with his foot. He needs to offset Todoroki’s weight, because he isn’t exactly light. But Todoroki lets out an honest to god squeak , so Katsuki figures he’s made the right choice.
Todoroki doesn’t let him enjoy the victory for long before he brings their mouths together again with a new desperation. The sensation of Todoroki’s hands in his hair has haunted him since last time—his memory didn’t do it justice. They kiss intensely, furiously, the same way they spar—both of them bringing it their all and refusing to back down. Part of Katsuki’s plan was to do what Todoroki did and stop with enough time to fix himself up, but that quickly goes out the window with Todoroki here, willing, under his hands and mouth. He’s going to take as much time as he can in this closet, because he doesn’t know if this will happen again.
“Time’s up!”
Katsuki breaks the kiss, feeling something akin to disappointment. Todoroki chases his mouth and Katsuki almost lets him before coming back to himself and shoving his head away.
Katsuki puts Todoroki down. He rubs his arms, noticing for the first time the chill.
“Holy…shit…” Ashido breathes out when she opens the door. Katsuki blinks at the sight in front of him.
The entire closet is caked in ice, beautiful splitting patterns clearly originating from where Katsuki pressed Todoroki against the wall. Katsuki shivers.
Todoroki is flushed, slouching against the wall where Katsuki let him down. His lips are bright red and slick, the hickey on his neck large, dark and clearly visible, and there’s a slight layer of ice quickly melting on his right side. He’s panting, and staring at Katsuki with heavy lidded eyes.
Katsuki marches out of the closet with his hands in his pockets, trying his hardest to look unaffected. All his classmates stare at him in silence as he walks past them and out of the room. He doesn’t look back, though part of him wants to see what Todoroki’s doing. Once he’s out of sight, he allows himself a grin.
Katsuki is going to count this one as a win.
***
That should have been the end of it.
Katsuki achieved his goal—Todoroki’s impassive mask cracked with the impressive show of ice. But rather than setting Katsuki free—of the dreams, the unwanted fantasies at all hours of the day, of todoroki-fucking-shouto— all it does it make it worse.
The thrumming under his skin is still there, this constant awareness of Todoroki wherever he is in the room. It’s like he’s in a fight, his senses heightened to follow the biggest threat—but Todoroki is usually just sitting there, with his stupid mild expression. It’s driving Katsuki crazy, being so on edge all the time. The fact that it’s Todoroki only makes it worse--sure, he’s gonna be worth keeping an eye on in a battle, but this ...Katsuki knows he can take the bastard. He can’t quite put it off on that. The eye he’s keeping on Todoroki isn’t assessing a threat.
Because with this hyperawareness comes….noticing. Katsuki has never paid this much attention to anyone before and he doesn't know what to do with the information he can't seem to stop collecting. If he were so inclined, he could fill one of Deku’s stupid notebooks with the way Todoroki’s hair looks in the sunlight, the soft smile that’s pulled out of him by children, the furrow in his brow when he’s concentrating in class.
He always gets soba when it's available in the cafeteria; he’s left handed; he never adjusts his tie but it’s always laying perfectly regardless. He avoids his reflection when he can, he never complains, about anything , and his laugh is always startled, as if it surprises him every single time.
Katsuki groans, pulling his pillow over his face. It’s almost midnight and despite the exhaustion in his body, he’s still awake. Thinking about Todoroki. Against his will, something spooling in his chest, getting tighter every time an image of Todoroki’s face flashes across his eyes.
A week and a half of this is really starting to wear Katsuki down. He hasn’t been sleeping, which is making him distracted and cranky, and people are starting to notice.
Which, whatever. They can say what they want to him, it’s not like any of them know what he’s thinking about. He can dodge Kirishima’s worried glances, and Uraraka’s frustratingly knowing grins.
But then… Today. The thing he keeps replaying in his mind instead of sleeping.
They were training, as usual. Katsuki had been sparring with Kirishima, giving him shit for not making Katsuki work for his victory. The amount he was sweating said differently; Kirishima’s gotten a lot better since they started training together and dodging his hardened fists was harder than Katsuki wanted to admit.
Usual stuff. Until there was a brilliant flash of light from where Katsuki, ever aware of the guy, knew Todoroki was training by himself. It was over almost before it began; with everyone’s quirks going off constantly, most of his classmates barely spared a glance to make sure everything was okay.
Katsuki looked on instinct—and froze. The light must have been something to do with Todoroki’s fire, because he’s standing there, panting, the left side of his shirt completely destroyed. He’s dripping in sweat and as Katsuki watches, he sees Todoroki activate his right side, causing steam when it cools the heat he just built up. Katsuki shivers without realizing, remembering how that felt on his own skin.
After years of yelling at Kirishima not to go easy on him, of course he would take the opportunity. Katsuki’s eyes go dark as he takes one of Kirishima’s deadly punches to the stomach.
“Sorry, sorry! I thought you would dodge!” Kirishima’s already shouting as Katsukis bends over in pain. He waves Kirishima away from him, struggling to catch his breath.
That was a few hours ago. He got some ribbing from Kaminari and Sero, who’d witnessed the scene, but they didn’t seem to know what exactly caused Katsuki’s moment of distraction.
Now it’s almost midnight and Katsuki needs to go to sleep .
He tries, one last time, counting to 100. He makes it to six before he’s getting out of bed and stomping out the door in his pajamas.
He keeps stomping all the way over to Todoroki’s door, which he bangs on.
Todoroki opens the door quickly. He doesn’t even have the gall to look surprised.
“ Fuck you , Icyhot, go on a date with me,” Katsuki snarls.
Todoroki blinks. “Okay.”
“The fuck do you mean, ‘Okay’?” Katsuki mimics Todoroki’s deadpan, low voice. “Give me literally anything, fucking hell—”
Todoroki tilts his head to the side, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Would you rather I said no?”
“No, I mean yes , I mean—argh!” Katsuki throws his hands up and moves to walk away. Todoroki stops him with a hand on his arm.
Katsuki turns around to face him again and before he knows it, Todoroki is kissing him. Compared to their last kisses, it’s chaste; Katsuki barely tastes the mint toothpaste on his breath.
It still sends Katsuki reeling. He realizes belatedly he’s grabbed Todoroki’s arm and is clenching it in his hand and quickly lets go.
“I think you were coming in, right?” Todoroki says, eyes glinting in amusement.
“Don’t tell me what to do, you bastard,” Katsuki says, then follows Todoroki into his room.
****
Ochako rolls over in bed to find her phone flashing. It must be what woke her up.
She notices the time first. It’s 2am. Then she sees the text, from the one and only Bakugou.
From: 💥💥💥
Thanks.
She smiles to herself and goes back to sleep, a job well done.