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Eijiro wakes up slowly, like floating to the surface of a pool.
The air is thick and hot, and tinged with something deeply familiar. It both buoys and bogs him down. He paws at the scratchy quilt until he can take a full breath. He wrinkles his nose, rolls over, and in a bit of a morning stretch, blindly pokes a hand out for tissues.
Gently swiping the grit from his eyes, Eijiro blinks up at his ceiling through the dark.
Not a morning stretch, then. Not a popcorn ceiling, either. Not his ceiling.
Eijiro rolls back over and buries his nose into his forest-green quilt. He takes a deep breath of his mom’s favorite detergent. Like this, eyes shut and buried by warmth, Eijiro can be back home whenever he wants.
When he’s a few breaths short of suffocation, Eijiro eases his head out and wiggles over to the edge of the mattress. It dips easily under him—not a squeak. Not his bed.
Formaldehyde—that’s the smell. New furniture. Waxed floors. It brings back memories of tailing his parents through rooms and rooms of it, late into the night. Drawing fingers over polished wood. Burnt out and dozing on an embroidered chair.
Skin hardened against the edge of the nightstand, Eijiro drags his phone off and, for a moment, stares blearily at its hazy glow.
He swipes and pulls up recent chats, thumb hovering, eyebrows pinching. His mom is fifth from the top. Eijiro taps her profile picture, even knowing his eyes will sting when he sees her grin. He’s already soaked her shirt with tears this morning; still he can feel her palm against his back, soothing.
What’s the name of the laundry detergent you use, he sends before he’s properly understood what the 1:48 at the top of his screen means.
Check. Double-check. He stares and waits, and waits, and waits.
Something bangs against Eijiro’s door.
All the furniture presses in, the walls stretch out. The dark dilates, swirling in Eijiro’s lungs with each breath.
A hum sinks into his limbs. Eijiro is tranquil and frantic with it all at once.
Bang. Bang. “Kirishima.”
The tar eats him up—inside out. He touches one foot to the floor, then the other. The quilt slips to the ground.
Eijiro inches the door open. Not a squeak.
“Bakugō.”
Bakugō is swallowed up by his pajamas. His fists are clenched around nothing, face pinched into an expression just left of his signature scowl.
Eijiro waits. Bakugō only stares. His gaze is scattered. It flits from ceiling to hallway to Eijiro’s room. Circles back to Eijiro. Rewinds.
“I’m feeling tea,” Eijiro says, and stuffs his hand in his pockets. Imagines he’s pocketing anger. “Do you wanna…?”
Bakugō jerks his head. They slip into the hall and Eijiro doesn’t bother to close his door—doesn’t think he wants to.
They wander down the steps. Bakugō’s hand slides along the railing, carving into the air a tinny and resonating hiss. The word stop curls around Eijiro’s tongue, but he stuffs it back down his throat. He doesn’t want to twist this feeling, or drive Bakugō back to staring at four walls, even if the noise drags back broken pipes and screams of terror.
The common room is awash with the silver of moon. Soft murmurs pour into the night’s quiet.
Eijiro and Bakugō exchange glances. When Bakugō tilts his head just so, the light catches his eye and kindles flecks of vibrant orange.
“There’s still some hot water left over,” Yaoyorozu says.
Her hair falls over a shoulder and a steaming cup sits between her hands. Eijiro gives her his best grin. The corners of her eyes crinkle. Beside her, shoulder to shoulder, Tsuyu silently regards them.
Eijiro waves. Tsuyu waves back.
A chill bleeds through his feet as Eijiro steps over the kitchen tiles. He flips open cabinets until he finds the mugs, then pulls down a matching pair. Pale blue. Little daisies tip the ears.
They clink pleasantly against the countertop. Eijiro picks them up just to put them down again.
Wisps of conversation drift over as Eijiro pours, the kettle warm and heavy in his hand. He waits till the drawer-slamming stops before turning to Bakugō, who’s glaring at the second drawer down the third cupboard.
Eijiro shuffles and peeks over Bakugō’s shoulder. About a dozen boxes of tea are stacked atop each other. He reads Earl Grey, Moroccan Mint, Chamomile, Sencha, and Maté before Bakugō slams a hand down atop Chamomile, crumpling the lid. He rips it off, grabs two bags, and dumps them in the mugs.
“Good choice,” Eijiro offers.
Bakugō knees the drawer shut. He grumbles, “No one needs this many choices at ass o’clock.”
“Then I,” Eijiro says, pulling down sugar, honey, and a sweetener, “regret to inform you…”
Eijiro is ready for the slap that meets the side of his head. He bites down on a laugh and squeezes a dollop of honey into his own mug.
Bakugō snatches it from his hand. A string of honey trails from the mug’s rim to the countertop and back up to the bottle. Eijiro smells sugar and burning and thinks—for the fifth time, give or take a few disasters—that they should hang a sign around Bakugō’s neck. Prone To Explosive Rage. Do Not Look Directly At.
Thankfully, honey does not burst and cover the entire kitchen. Bakugō only squints at the ingredients for eight seconds (Eijiro counts) then huffs and yanks open a drawer. Silverware thunders. Eijiro holds his breath, half expecting their classmates to come tumbling down the stairs.
Tsuyu giggles. Bakugō, heedless, holds up a teaspoon and carefully trickles honey onto it, stirs exactly thrice, then tosses. It clatters in the sink.
This time, Eijiro gets the drawer before Bakugō can wake up the entire building.
They successfully balance the tea all the way to the common room, soundlessly steering toward the empty set, but before they can sit, Yaoyorozu throws up a hand and beckons them over. Eijiro meets Bakugō’s gaze.
Bakugō is stoic. Eijiro nips the side of his tongue. He smiles and gestures no, and Yaoyoruzu nods, exchanging hushed words with Tsuyu. Eijiro’s fought back to back with him; he knows discomfort on his best bro when he sees it.
He remembers the roughness of Bakugō’s palm, fingers to the back of his hand, thumb hooked to thumb. He wants to put his hand in Bakugō’s, wrap around it and never let go, never lose him again. But he knows Bakugō would bat it away. Knows how much it takes to gain Bakugō’s respect. Doesn’t want to lose that, either.
“Come on,” Eijiro whispers. He settles for pinching Bakugō’s shirt against his knuckles.
The cushions are soft under him; the tea traces a line of warmth through his chest and down to his belly. Eijiro sighs and imagines the blackness seeping out of every pore. He’s lighter and heavier for it.
To his right, Bakugō breathes with an open mouth, like there’s something wordless that’s looking for a way out.
They sip their tea, and Eijiro waits for him.
Slowly, the conversation on the other set of sofas dips, then winds down. Eijiro’s eyelids sink. Warmth swirls in his center and slides down his arms, his legs.
“I was stupid,” Bakugō says.
Eijiro blinks hard. He sets down his tea. “What do you mean?”
Bakugō’s eyebrows slant up, then down. He clenches the mug in his hands, thumb pressed over the daisy. “There’s,” the words crawl out of his mouth, wired and crackling, “a lot of things… a lot of things I shouldn’t have done.”
“You did what you had to.” Eijiro believes this. He wouldn’t undo any of it; Bakugō’s here. That’s all that matters.
“I didn’t,” Bakugō whispers. “I did what I wanted to. I didn’t think—about. I thought, ‘They’re not gonna kill me. I’m too important to them.’ I didn’t think.”
Eijiro was just upstairs missing his mom, and his house, and Bakugō is down here mulling over how much of everything he has to carry. “It’s not your fault,” Eijiro says. “It’s not. They chose to take you, they chose to—”
“I know. But had it been someone else… I don’t think, I don’t think…”
The warmth in Eijiro’s stomach sours. He’s wide awake, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever fall back asleep.
It’s dead quiet. The moonlight is less silver and more steel. Bakugō is still holding onto that mug like it’ll fall apart without him.
Eijiro wishes he could pry the words from his brain and rearrange them into a shape that makes sense. He wishes the rescue was enough. That all their problems were as far away as they looked from the swell of that leap.
He wants to be able to say, ‘Who knows, maybe it was always gonna turn out this way,’ or ‘Anyone would’ve done the same,’ or ‘Nothing lasts forever’ and have them both believe it.
Viscerally aware of the downward slide Bakugō’s headspace is taking, the gaping chasm that stretches farther between them the longer he comes up with nothing, Eijiro scrambles for a ledge, a foothold, anything at all, and latches onto Bakugō’s hand instead.
Bakugō pins him with a look that Eijiro can admit he’s not man enough to decipher. All ten of his fingers tingling, Eijiro pretends his insides aren’t dropping endlessly and dips a fingertip into his tea. Lukewarm, now. He watches the droplet chase down the grooves in his skin, and he waits. For a great splat, a muffled crunch, for the both of them to plunge headlong into the chasm, for Bakugō to slip out from under him and never, ever reach out again.
“Gross,” Bakugō says, eyes tracking the tea dripping down Eijiro’s ring finger. His voice is rough, and curled with a smile. “Did you even wash your hands.”
Eijiro huffs. He takes the mug off the table to drink, and, hazy with relief, spills a lick off the edge. It splatters along his pants and onto the floor.
“Shit.”
Bakugō laughs. His shoulders shake, and his tea goes sloshing over the edge too.
“Shit,” Eijiro says again, but he can feel Bakugō’s laughter all the way in his fingers. He grins, squeezes a little tighter.
Bakugō makes a brave attempt at a sip and earns a stain all down his front. Tea dribbles down his chin and glints off his teeth.
They’re choking with laughter. Eijiro folds over, then comes back up for air and folds over again. Like one of those drinky birds. He’s suffocating and he’s never felt lighter. Vaguely, behind a wave of swirling thoughts and half-sentences, he wonders if there was something in the tea.
Well, that doesn’t matter now. It’s spots on the couch and stains on their clothes.
He squints. Tears blur his eyes, but between eyelashes he can just make out the twitching form of Bakugō, hand around his belly and howling silently. Only his strangled gasps punch through the air, and the occasional snort.
Eijiro suddenly remembers Tsuyu and Yaoyoruzu. He spins around to see them dozing against each other.
“Shh-hh,” he tries between breaths.
Bakugō shoves him. “You shhh!” More sloshing.
Eijiro smears tea across his face, just short of wheezing. “You just… spilled my—!”
Bakugō yanks the mug from Eijiro’s shaking hand and dumps the rest in his lap.
Eijiro is shocked still. Bakugō gets this look on his face, like he can’t believe this is what he’s doing at two in the morning on a Tuesday. Then they both dissolve back into hysterical laughter.
Eijiro laughs and laughs until there’s a deep ache in his stomach. “Don’t do it again,” he giggles.
“What, this?” Bakugō hooks two fingers in the handle of his own mug, cackling, and tilts it above Eijiro’s head threateningly.
His chest is tight. Something is fighting the oxygen in his lungs for space. Something thick, sludgy. Familiar. “No,” he says. “The, the other thing. At camp.”
Bakugō’s fingers slip, and a little tea trickles onto Eijiro’s scalp, down his forehead, and off his nose. Eijiro giggles.
His clothes have cooled against his skin, though there’s no breeze.
It’s nonsensical, but the silence feels sentient. Making space for them, opening up a shape in the middle that Eijiro can’t twist himself in enough ways to fit.
“You can’t just say that.”
“Hm?”
The mug clunks back onto the table. It’s a mess, what they’ve made together.
“You can’t say that. We’re going to deal with this. It’s an occupational hazard. Hell, it’s in the job description.”
“Yeah,” Eijiro breathes, “but we don’t have the job yet. I thought it would be a few years still.” Eijiro shivers. Then, he realizes that neither of them has let go of the other. “I, I’m pretty sure heroes get training for this kind of stuff. Getting captured. How to act, what to do or something. I guess it’s silly of me, huh? To expect things to wait until we’re ready? People die every day. They don’t get training for that.”
Bakugō pulls his hand away. Eijiro feels it like hitting the ground. “We signed up for this, though. We’re strong enough. That’s the difference.”
It’s easy to feel invincible, with you at my back, Eijiro doesn’t say. It’s easy to forget.
It’s not much of a choice. Eijiro has never not wanted to help. Sometimes, his body holds him back. A deep rooted part of him that always wants to live, even if it’s with being a coward. Forever small and afraid in the face of unfathomable violence. It creeps through like ivy, until he’s tied up and held down and turned into a witness.
“You’re wrong,” Eijiro tells him. “I… We do this because other people don’t get training. We do it to stop this all from happening. It’s not okay now just, just because it’s us, and because we made a decision to put ourselves on the front line. I… I… won’t let it happen again. That’s why I’m here.”
Bakugō’s scowl comes to form slowly; it sharpens his eyes and hardens the cut of his jaw. “Good luck with that,” he says. “This is the way things are. Strong people do what they want. You only stand a chance if you’re stronger.”
He doesn’t have to spell it out for Eijiro: Bakugō is going to be Number One. When you’re the strongest person on the planet, you don’t have to lose anyone or anything ever again. Eijiro wipes his hands against his drenched pants and decides not to dwell on all the holes in this vision.
Like All Might.
All Might. All Might. All Might.
All Might, reduced to the thin frame of a worn man. It’s no wonder. The truth carefully hidden away in timed increments—how long have they been watching an actor on a sparkling stage? With this many cameras rolling, who wants to stumble and fall before the curtains do? It’s no wonder. No one can be so strong for so long. Every morning, every night. All Might wasn’t smiling that day amid the rubble. Some day, at some point, something had to give. Something always has to give.
Eijiro breathes out, and it comes with a little more sound than he meant—in a thoughtless moment, stuck on an exhale, Eijiro lets it slip: “Do you think it’s stupid? Or naïve? Impossible? I don’t know what I’d do if it was.”
Tea drips off the table and sinks into the carpet. They’re gonna have to clean this up.
Bakugō snatches Eijiro’s hand and crushes it in a fierce grip. Then he says, vehemently, “Shut up. We’re gonna win,” and Eijiro can do nothing but believe him. Not because it’s Bakugō, the boy who was pulled away right in front of them, the boy whose fire won’t be dampened by anything short of the end of everything, but because it’s the only thing they have against this world.
Eijiro grips back just as hard, and says, “Okay.”