Chapter Text
Kaminari hadn’t been to a bar since last October.
That fact in itself wasn’t particularly noteworthy; plenty of people went through phases where they partied a lot or didn’t party at all. But coupled with the knowledge that it was now July and, at one point, he had been known to every bouncer on the Liberty Strip by (fake) name and (fake) date of birth, it felt like something to mark down in the journal his therapist flipped through during their biweekly meetings.
He’d stopped barhopping at the beginning of his last relationship, and he hadn’t felt up to it once the end happened in April. That night was his first proper night out save for the quiet dinners his friends could coerce him into. He’d oscillated between those dinners, classes, and his job at the same cafe Sero worked at in the months since his move into his friends’ apartment.
It was safe in the walls of Mina and Sero’s place. He didn’t have his own bed and hopped between either Mina’s or Sero’s depending on who was going to be home (and alone) any given night, but they made him feel wanted. Useful. There were always odd chores to take care of around the apartment; Mina killed everything she touched, so Kaminari took over keeping their plants alive. Mina and Sero were unequivocally terrible at keeping the apartment stocked with food, so once a week he went to the shops with Bakugou for sale-price produce to ensure they were eating something besides takeout and frozen dinners.
Someone was always home, so nightly meals together became part of their routine. Sometimes it was just Mina or Sero and Kaminari; other nights the entire squad packed into the shoebox-sized apartment, fighting for claim over one of the three forks they owned. His friends, who’d experienced the brunt of his attempt at isolation from their social circle, were reluctant to give him time alone again.
And Kaminari didn’t miss it, not really. His friends were his family; some of them had been around longer than others, but these were the people he knew he could rely on. He took comfort in having them because he knew all too well how it felt when he didn’t.
Mina pressed a glass into his hand, squeezed her way back into the booth and pressed her side flush against his. “Mojito for you, sweets.”
The glass was cold, wet where part of the drink had spilled over the rim. Kaminari placed the glass gingerly on a coaster and looked up at her, flashing a hesitant smile.
Her own smile—nervous, worried—flickered at the edges. She looked at their surroundings and back to him. “Too much?”
A friend of Midoriya’s was performing for open mic night. As Bakugou had described it when the invite had been extended, listening to a bunch of losers complain was the last thing Kaminari’s friends wanted to do. Still, the invitation was there all the same, Bakugou’s willingness to inform Kaminari of it more telling than anything he could have said. He’d brought the night out as an option to Kaminari, posed it in a way that made him feel less guilty and frivolous for going out than he had in past months. Less stupid for wanting to get out, to spend time with his friends. So Kaminari, on one of his more confident days, decided fuck it and agreed to a night out.
“Not at all,” he answered.
It wasn’t a total lie. Once the initial thrum of nerves wore off, he was okay to come out: it was unlikely he’d run into his ex anywhere near the strip, and he’d missed spending time with everyone outside of the apartment. He wanted to be with them—he missed dancing with Mina on Friday nights, Bakugou’s infamous pancake parties that followed the dancing, becoming best friends with a crowd of people for the space of a song for no reason other than the fact that they all loved it.
Spontaneity was something he was sorely lacking, and sitting at home indulging in comfort media wouldn’t invite any of that back into his life.
The bar was about as quiet as it would ever get. Friday nights were typically reserved for Dorothy’s down the block, where the pot for trivia was currently high enough Kaminari was tempted to swing in for a shot at the money. The only people here were the ones who wanted to come for open mic night: a bunch of hipsters and their ragtag group of friends, to be exact.
The condiment rack in the center of the table was shoved off to the side, replaced by a pitcher and three mugs. Foam sloshed onto the chipped top and soaked the stack of coasters sitting ignored by the frosted mugs; their three joiners slid into the open space of the corner booth, Sero sandwiching him on his free side.
The weight pressing in on him from either side was equal parts comforting and suffocating; he reached for his drink and took a sip. It was watered down by his standards, too little rum and too much soda; he tipped it back until the ice hit his teeth.
The conversation they’d been having prior to reaching the table continued seamlessly, Mina and Kaminari looped in with the expectation they would grasp at one of the threads to follow along.
“—fucking Crocs,” Bakugou was ranting. “You know I hate those things, you know my mother hates those things. Why would you wear them to their anniversary dinner?”
“They were a gift .” Like any whipped guy would, Kirshima filled a mug for Bakugou first before pouring beer into the other two. Sliding one around to Sero, he added, “From her. It’s polite to wear the things your future mother-in-law buys for you, right, guys?”
Kaminari perked up. “Oh, did you two get engaged?”
The look Bakugou gave him told Kaminari everything he needed to know. The question of when, exactly, Kirishima was going to propose was a hotly contested topic among their friends. Kirishima hadn’t gone the traditional route and wasn’t in college but Bakugou was; Kaminari’s current theory was that Kirishima would wait until after graduation.
Bakugou did not want to wait that long.
“Not yet,” Kirishima answered brightly. He leaned in close and ruffled Bakugou’s hair with tattooed fingers, inching closer when the blond tried to shrug him off. “But when I do, I’m gonna propose in my nicest Crocs. Isn’t that right, babe?”
The blush staining his cheeks gave him away, but Bakugou ground out, “Keep it up and you won’t get to propose at all.”
“You could always propose to him first.” Midoriya slid smoothly into the booth, hair missed and cheeks ruddy like he’d rushed to get to the bar. He pressed a quick kiss to Kirshima’s and Bakugou’s cheeks and grinned at the rest of them, smile brightening when his eyes landed on Kaminari.
“Oh! It’s good to see you, Kami.” He stretched across the table to give his hand a squeeze. His knuckles were rough and scarred, but the touch was warm. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have asked if you wanted a performance time. You still write, don’t you?”
Writing was a loose term for what Kaminari was doing these days. He mostly opened a word document and stared at the blank screen, willing words to come to mind, but he hadn’t actually written in months. It had gotten bad enough that at the end of spring semester he’d gone to his advisor to talk about switching to a different major; the only thing that had kept him from doing exactly that was his advisor’s adamance that all writers went through things like this.
Take the summer to rediscover your inspiration, Yamada Hizashi had said, you’re too talented to give up. And that’s exactly what he would have wanted, isn’t it? Reluctantly, Kaminari had agreed. He’d signed up for the summer’s creative writing workshop being put on by Yamada and had yet to come up with anything to start writing despite next week’s start date.
“Some,” he hedged. “I’m not really—poetry isn’t something I’ve ever been great at, so I don’t know that I would be any good at something like this.”
Sero nudged him with an elbow. “You’re great at anything you try, Denks, don’t sell yourself short.”
“You’re the only reason I passed freshman comp,” Mina added, resting her chin on his shoulder.
“Don’t look at me to chime in on this bullshit ego-fluffing.” Bakugou drained half his beer in one go and leaned heavily against Kirishima. His eyes were mirthful, bright; he was teasing. Happy, if Kaminari had to guess. “I’ll never forgive you for the fucking friend fiction phase you went through in high school.”
“That friend fiction phase was ninety-five percent of the reason you pulled your head out of your ass and asked Kiri out, thank you very much,” Kaminari sniffed. “You should be thanking me for that.”
“The only thing I’ll thank you for is that it preceded your erotic fanfiction phase.”
“Shh, Hitoshi’s going on!” Midoriya smacked at Bakugou and squeaked when he received a sharp bite to the back of the hand; he cradled it to his chest, reproachful.
Everyone fell silent and watched as Midoriya’s friend (Hitoshi, Kaminari’s brain supplied) took the stage. He pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned into the mic, mouth curling into a smile. His eyes danced out across the small crowd dispersed across the bar. They landed on their group, flicking from face to face. Kaminari was sure he imagined those eyes lingering on him for a beat longer than they had everyone else.
Why hadn’t anyone warned Kaminari that he was, uh, kind of hot?
“First degree,” he begins, “one of my fathers says don’t fall for the loud blond, but what he really means is he’s the best thing that ever happened to him. If I grew up never seeing a love that hurts, then how could I expect it? How could I expect you?”
Sero’s fingers found his beneath the table. He gripped tight, body pressing closer against Kaminari. Mina rested her cheek against his shoulder, wound both arms around one of his. In the immediate aftermath of Shindo Yo, this was how the three of them had slept: cramped together on a queen-sized mattress, cuddled tight so he couldn’t fall apart.
But months after the fact, he was okay. He was okay. It was just… he felt like he knew whatever story Midoriya’s friend was telling. He felt like he knew it because he did; he’d lived it.
“I still believe you when you say you love me. Second degree,” and he paused, took a breath.
Kaminari knew he was staring but couldn’t stop; already, he was desperate to hear how the story ended.
He wanted to hear someone talk about the things he didn’t want to.
Kirishima caught his eye and shot him a thumbs up, crooked teeth flashing in a smile. Kaminari nodded and returned the gesture.
Things were better now; he meant it when he said he was mostly over the things that happened during his last relationship. The isolation, the lying, the cheating. How Shindo could kiss him goodbye on a Friday afternoon with the promise of coming back the following day for a date, only to return Monday evening with an apology in the form of a gift. The promises he’d elicit from Kaminari, the lies he told, story upon story spinning into a narrative Kaminari had no control over.
The afternoon Mina had shown up unexpectedly at his city apartment, the one he stayed at during the week to avoid a commute, and shattered everything he thought he knew about their relationship.
Four words, easy to say and even easier to prove, still hard for Kaminari to believe.
He has a wife.
“—or if you loved the idea of having something to control. I still don’t know what the answer is. Third degree.”
How quickly everyone came together to pack up the few belongings Kaminari brought with him when he’d moved into the city apartment for convenience’s sake because Shindo wanted to know he had free access to him whenever he wanted. The way Bakugou had, in his righteous fury, shattered every picture frame of Kaminari and Shindo on their way out, seething red and spitting vitriol the whole time.
It had hurt, seeing the shattered remnants of the life Kaminari had been living.
He hadn’t told Bakugou that.
“I wouldn’t have to do this, he says,” Hitoshi continued, “if you just loved me right. What I did not know then was that the only person loving wrong was him.”
His voice was low, soothing despite the way the words it carried picked at the scabbed-over wounds Kaminari carried from his last relationship. The idea that someone, a complete stranger, could take those feelings and arrange them in an order as perfect as this?
It was exactly what Kaminari had always hoped to do with his writing.
Kaminari glanced away from Hitoshi for a second, just long enough to catch Sero’s eye. This is it, Kaminari wanted to tell him. This is exactly how I felt all those months.
But he knew, crowded by his closest friends, that he didn’t need to voice that aloud. They’d been there with him, witnessed firsthand the emotional devastation Shindo Yo wreaked on his life. They knew.
In a way, they’d always known.
“One of my fathers says don’t fall for the loud blond, but what he really means is he’s the worst thing that ever happened to you.”
The silence following the end of his piece was broken by a smattering of polite applause. Hitoshi stepped back from the mic and bowed slightly, a pleased flush to his cheeks.
“Wow.” Mina fanned at her face with a hand, eyes cast upwards to try to keep the tears pooling there from ruining her makeup. “That was a lot, right?”
“Yeah,” Kaminari agreed quietly, still staring at Hitoshi. He was announcing the next act, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck shyly. “It was.”
“I should go grab him.” As quickly as he’d come, Midoriya was off again. He bounced across the bar, radiant and happy as he always was. It looked good on him, that happiness.
Leaning around Sero to peer at Bakugou and Kirishima, Kaminari said, “He seems really… happy.” He gestured to the edge of the stage, where Midoriya could be seen greeting Hitoshi. He spoke with his hands the way he always had, near-flailing in his excitement. “Are they—”
“Absolutely not,” Bakugou grunted. “He’s still with that asshole who fucked off to the Air Force.”
“Rody,” Kirishima supplied helpfully.
“Whatever. I still hate him.”
“Less than you hate Todoroki?”
Bakugou shot Kirishima an incredulous look. “Who the fuck is Todoroki?”
“The hot one,” Sero said immediately, followed by Kirishima’s, “The one with the red-and-white hair. You said he was creepy the last time we hung out with them.”
“He is creepy,” Bakugou argued. “The last time we had dinner with them, he ordered cold soba and spoke in one-word sentences for two hours straight.”
Mina made a face. “What’s wrong with cold soba?”
“Oh God,” Kirishima sighed, “you’ve done it now.”
“It tastes like worms, ” Bakugou shouted. He stood and leaned across the table, fist pounding the center for emphasis. “You look at the noodles swimming in their cold, slimy broth and tell me—”
“Are we back on the cold soba?” Midoriya didn’t hesitate to hip check Bakugou so he could sit, shoving him further into the booth so there was room enough for Hitoshi. Bakugou dropped, half on Kirishima’s lap, and glared incredulously at Midoriya.
Impervious to Bakugou’s dirty looks, Midoriya snatched up Bakugou’s beer and took a long pull from it. “This is Shinsou.” He ducked away from the fist aimed at his head and polished off the drink as retribution. Pointing at each of them, he said, “That’s Mina, Kaminari, Sero, and—” a flick to Bakugou’s forehead, “—you know these two already.”
Shinsou was tall. Kaminari guessed he was even taller than Sero, whose height made him the human equivalent of a tape measure. He had a long torso and impossibly longer legs, ripped black skinny jeans emphasizing their length. The collar of his Sublime t-shirt was worn and tattered to the point that it slipped off his shoulder, exposing the strap of a black tank and a tattoo peeking beneath that.
The rings on his fingers clicked when he planted a hand on the table and perched at the edge of the booth, heedless of the lack of space.
He was… well.
Kaminari was a gay disaster, and he had a perfectly functional pair of eyes. Eyes that told him Shinsou was exactly the sort of guy who past Kaminari would have followed blindly to exchange sloppy favors in a dark alleyway, the sort of guy who probably took a different person home every night, who might ask and take and keep when all Kaminari wanted was to leave. But this was a new version of himself, one that didn’t go home with someone whose aura promised pain, who chose safety over danger, who hadn’t been on a date since—since—
When Shinsou’s gaze met his, Kaminari flushed and looked down, fiddling hopelessly with the bracelets on his wrist.
Bakugou refilled his mug and slammed the pitcher back down. “Why can’t any of you people keep your hair a normal color?”
Without missing a beat, Midoriya fired back, “Don’t be petty, Kacchan, we’ve all seen your toning shampoo.”
Kirishima spluttered into his beer.
“Seriously,” he continued, “at least my hair is blond. You’ve got Pinky over there, a walking head of broccoli, Shitty Hair—”
“You helped me color it last night!”
“—and now we’ve got this giant grape fuck. Are we trying to look like a bunch of queers?”
“Bakugou,” Sero said, mouth quivering like he was fighting the urge to laugh, “you walked in holding Ei’s hand. You really think the hair is going to clue people in to the fact that we’re a bunch of queers?”
“Not to mention we’re in a gay bar,” Kaminari chimed in.
“Conveniently located on the Liberty Strip. Which is,” Mina’s expression grew gravely serious, “pretty gay, if you didn’t know.”
When the five of them nodded, Bakugou rolled his eyes hard enough they nearly popped out of his head and muttered, “I hate every last one of you.”
“You really don’t.” Midoriya reached again for Bakugou’s beer and hissed when his hand was swatted away.
“ Anyways. ” Kirishima, braver than any soldier, ignored the daggers being shot his way. “Shinsou, my man, you’re an unbiased opinion. Tell me: Crocs are fancy shoes, right?”
There was a split second of deliberation, Shinsou’s eyes flicking between the murderous look on Bakugou’s face and the easy grin on Kirishima’s. Smile spreading slow across his face like molasses, he decided, “Definitely fancy shoes.”
“That’s it,” Bakugou snapped. “None of you fuckers are my friends. Let me out of this booth.”
Midoriya and Kirishima latched onto Bakugou from either side, squishing him into the center of a green-and-red sandwich. “No can do,” Midoriya said happily. “Last time we went out, you drunkenly told me I was going to be the best man at your wedding.”
“There is no wedding,” Bakugou seethed. “I’m not marrying some idiot with shitty taste.”
“Hey!” Kirishima protested. “My taste is better than yours; look at who you’re dating!”
As they devolved into the predictable route of their bickering, Kaminari caught Shinsou’s attention and smiled. Loud enough to be heard over the argument taking place, he said, “What you wrote was… It was really moving.”
“Thanks.” Shinsou’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he returned the smile, more genuine than Kaminari would have guessed for someone who looked like he did. “Do you write?”
“Not poetry,” Kaminari admitted. “And not—well, not as much as I used to, I guess.”
“Oh? What do you write, then?”
“Nothing,” Kaminari laughed. He took another careful sip from his drink and slid his gaze around the table. “I have plenty of thoughts, you know? But I don’t have anything worth writing about. Nothing I’d be comfortable sharing the way you did, especially.”
“If you feel it—if you think it—then it’s worthy,” Shinsou said. He fiddled with the edge of a beer-soaked coaster, eyes dropping from Kaminari to the table and back. “And anyways, you should do something at least once a day that puts you out of your comfort zone. You never know who needs to hear what you have to say.”
Kind of like how Kaminari had needed to hear the words Shinsou had shared onstage without realizing he’d needed that. He doubted Shinsou knew the effect his poem had had on Kaminari, but he wanted to tell him. He wanted to thank him—for sharing, for making Kaminari feel seen despite never having known him before that moment, for being brave enough to pour his heart out the way he had.
“Right, that’s—” Kaminari blushed and turned his face, coming nose to nose with Sero. He looked entirely too invested in the conversation taking place between Kaminari and Shinsou, eyes gleaming like he was in the middle of one of the Spanish soap operas he watched on his mom’s streaming account.
Mina jabbed Kaminari in the side. “ Right, huh? We’ve been telling you that for how many months, but when Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome says it, you agree?”
“He’s not—”
“What?” Sero smiled slyly. “You’re not going to tell our new friend here that he’s not those things, are you? That would hurt his feelings.”
Kaminari looked between the two of them and back at Shinsou, who was watching the three of them with something like perplexed amusement on his face.
“I’m not going to tell him that.” Kaminari sank back against the booth, face unusually hot. “Every person sitting in this booth is objectively attractive, it would be rude to say otherwise.”
“Sure, Jan,” Mina said glibly. She made a sucking sound with her straw as she finished the rest of her drink. Her expression said everything her mouth wasn’t; Kaminari couldn’t tell if he appreciated the heavy-handed wingmanning happening, or if he wanted it to stop.
Maybe both.
“So, what are the plans for the rest of the evening?” Kirishima asked.
Mina fished out a piece of ice from her drink with her fingers and popped it into her mouth . “We’ve got one of the karaoke rooms booked at PBS, but that’s not until one.”
Bakugou’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “One?”
“One,” Mina confirmed solemnly. “It was the only time they had available.”
“It’s a Friday night, man,” Sero added. “Not to mention we made these plans at the last minute.”
“Plans that were your idea, babe.” Kirishima clinked his glass against Bakugou’s and raised it to his mouth. He had a foam mustache when he pulled the rim away from his lips to speak again. “Because you wanted to do something nice!”
Kaminari stretched across the table and patted Bakugou’s hand consolingly. “Don’t worry, man, I know you weren’t doing this because you wanted to do something nice. You just really like poetry.”
The truth was that Bakugou had, in fact, tried his hand at doing something nice. Bakugou hated nights out with a passion and had said on more than one occasion that he would rather drag himself naked through broken glass than stay out past nine at night. He had a strict weekend bedtime and an even stricter weekday bedtime; Kaminari knew the concessions he was making despite it being the former.
He was thankful for Bakugou regardless of how loath he was to admit he actually gave a shit.
“You know I hate poetry,” Bakugou hissed, veins in his neck popping out. “I did this for you.”
Midoriya glanced at Shinsou, a wordless exchange taking place between the two of them over several seconds. When he turned back to look at the main group, he said, “We’re going to this… thing tonight, if anyone would be interested.”
Shinsou’s mouth quirked into a closed-mouth grin. “Gonna get a lot of interest with that description, Izuku.”
Midoriya jabbed an elbow into Shinsou’s ribs and rolled his eyes. Looking around and leaning forward, he whispered, “It’s an underground rave,” he whispered. “Super secret, invite-only.”
“That’s a bad idea if I’ve ever heard one,” Bakugou immediately responded. “The last time we went to one of those, we lost Sero for two days. He showed up at our tent on day three naked with a stick-and-poke tattoo of Clint Eastwood’s name on his ass.”
The tattoo had gotten infected before fading, leaving behind the letters clit wood. It was, in Sero’s opinion, still one of the best tattoos he’d ever gotten.
“That was one time,” Sero argued, “and we were at Electric Forest. What did you expect?”
“It shouldn’t get Electric Forest crazy,” Midoriya said quickly. “But—but I know Kaminari likes that sort of thing, right?”
Six pairs of eyes turned to look at Kaminari. He flushed beneath the onslaught of attention and took a bracing gulp of his watered-down drink, nearly choking on a half-melted ice cube in the process. “I do, yeah,” he answered nervously. “We have those reservations at one though, and I’d hate to miss karaoke night. Kirishima owes me a duet, remember?”
“What time is it?” Sero asked. He patted his pockets for his phone.
“Just past eight now,” Shinsou offered. He held up his own phone, the backlight on to display the time. “Show starts at, what? Ten?”
“Ten,” Midoriya confirmed. “We were planning on swinging by and grabbing the girls before heading that way, if anyone wanted to tag along.”
Kaminari certainly wanted; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was his own fear and nervousness, paralyzed by the weight of one certain set of eyes gazing at him steadily across the circular booth.
Interest in another person wasn’t something he’d dealt with since his last foray into dating. And, well, that had turned out… not great, exactly. This stranger—Shinshou Hitoshi, whoever he was, wherever he’d come from—had singlehandedly turned all of that on its head in the span of ten minutes. It had taken a few pretty words crooned into a microphone, a single smile, and boom, Kaminari was more interested in him than he’d been in anyone over the past three months. There had been opportunities, sure; he’d been asked out plenty, had downloaded his fair share of dating apps if only to dip his toes back into the water.
But the curiosity had never flared its head like this, interest sparking to life like electricity crackling through his chest.
This person wasn’t even asking him directly, though. This was a group invitation, one open to all of them. Midoriya was the one who’d posed it, even.So why, considering all that, was Kaminari so worked up over the prospect of spending even five minutes alone with this guy?
“If we aren’t,” and here Mina paused, waiting to be corrected, “it’s leather night at Carlos’. We could head there next?”
“Love leather night,” Kirishima sighed. He put the tips of his index and middle finger against his thumb and kissed them. “Love seeing Kats—”
Bakugou clapped a hand over Kirishima’s mouth. “Shut it or die.”
Sero grinned sheepishly at Midoriya and Shinsou, the latter of whom was sliding from the booth to stand. “Looks like we’re going to Carlos’ next. Maybe we’ll catch up with you guys?”
“Maybe,” Shinsou agreed. “But if Jirou finds out karaoke’s involved, she’s going to demand she gets to come.”
“She should! You guys both should,” Mina said. “It was really great meeting you, Shinsou.”
“Thanks,” he said. He reached up to tuck a stray purple lock behind his ear; the lobe was lined with piercings. “I hope you get back to writing, Kaminari.”
Kaminari kicked Sero in the shin beneath the table before he could open his mouth. “I hope so, too.”
They watched as Midoriya and Shinsou turned and wove around the tables to leave the bar, backs to their booth. Shinsou glanced back once over his shoulder and caught Kaminari’s gaze. The smile he flashed felt, somehow, like an inside joke—one between the two of them, one Kaminari didn’t know but desperately wanted in on.
Shinsou turned away.
You should do something at least once a day that puts you out of your comfort zone, Shinsou had just said, and what was Kaminari doing?
Thinking about something that would put him out of his comfort zone and planning to do the exact opposite of that.
Shinsou and Midoriya disappeared through the bar’s exit.
If he let them go—if he let Shinsou walk away now, he could continue to be safe and predictable as he’d been all this time. He could spend the evening bar-hopping with his friends, return home to their apartment where he’d crash in bed with one of them. He could spend the next week, the next month, wondering if the initial sparks he’d felt just now could have ever turned into something else.
For the first time in three months, he was tired of being safe and predictable.
“Hey Mina,” he said before he could second guess the potentially terrible decision he was in the process of making, “I think I changed my mind. Is it okay if I catch up with you guys later?”
Her brows shot into her bangs; on his other side, Sero let out a wolf whistle. “He’s back, ” he crowed. He slung an arm around Kaminari’s shoulders and smacked a kiss to his cheek. His breath smelled like the beer he’d been downing and the Altoids he kept ferreted in his pockets. He gave Kaminari a neck-crushing squeeze and held on for dear life. “You gonna go bite off a piece of that grape Laffy Taffy or what?”
Kaminari choked. “ Live music, ” he reminded him. “There will be no biting, Laffy Taffy or otherwise.”
It was Bakugou’s turn to stretch across the table, fingers wrapping loosely around his wrist. Mouth drawn into a worried line, he asked, “Your location’s still shared with us?”
Sero gave a sniffle and wiped at a pretend tear. “Aw, you do care!”
In all their years of friendship, Bakugou had never been the type to enjoy touch—platonic or otherwise. But Kaminari yanked him into a hug over the tabletop all the same, holding on hard for a few brief seconds before releasing him and smiling.
Fuck, he loved his friends.
“Always,” he answered. “Karaoke later, right?”
“Karaoke later. You owe Kiri a duet,” Mina reminded him. It was her turn for a hug next, and Kaminari settled into it. She and Sero felt like home to him in the same way siblings might. For a moment he was tempted to stay with them, cling to Mina and Sero the way he had for the past few months. But then Mina poked at his ribs and squirmed out of his way, waving her hands frantically. “Now go, before you lose him!”
So Kaminari went.