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Bakugou proposes on graduation day.
They’re not, strictly speaking, even dating.
It doesn’t come with a speech, or anything. Not even a Bakugou version of it with the appropriate amount of yelling and going all red in the face and then threatening Shouto’s overall well-being. They’re just—
One second they’re about to go out there and take their seats, and the next Bakugou is grabbing Shouto by the sleeve, pulling him back against his chest, and saying, with frankly worrying softness, “Marry me, halfie.”
Shouto is still for a breath, two, three, until the tension in Bakugou’s whole body is so visible it could be energy made physical radiating off him, about to flatten everything in its wake. Then, he clears his throat, and says, as evenly as he can manage, “But I don’t even call you Katsuki.”
(Which, somehow, is more of a pressing concern and valid argument to him than we don’t kiss or we’re not dating or you won’t even look at me in the eye when we have to shower together.)
“What’s that gotta do with anything?” Bakugou asks. Not angry. Not really. Just—Bakugou. “I don’t say your name either.”
Shouto blinks. “Shouldn’t you?” he asks. “If we—if we get married, won’t you have to say something like I take you, Shouto, to have and to hold and, um, in sickness and in health and for worse or for better and—and even when I wake you up at three in the morning for cold soba?”
It’s that last bit that finally makes Bakugou go visibly red.
“You can wake me up whenever you want if we’re living together,” he says, and something about the way he says together like it’s this big promise he intends to keep for the rest of his life (and even beyond it if there truly is anything beyond) makes Shouto painfully aware of how close they are. How impossibly easy it would be to—
Well.
To practice, maybe? For—for the big day? For Bakugou kissing him in front of all their closest friends and extended families and—and telling the world look, this one’s mine.
They’re eighteen. It’s stupid. Nobody gets married at eighteen. Nobody with anything better to do, at least. Eighteen is for taking a gap year and reading Camus upside down in bed and thinking wow, he’s got a point and then seeing you can come three times in a row without it hurting because when else will you ever be this young and this unburdened and this free?
They’re not, though. Unburdened. Or free. They are young, but—that doesn’t mean much when you go through everything they did to get here, does it? Hero starts sounding a lot like child soldier when you see how in over their heads all the Good, Responsible Adults are.
And now they’re about to graduate.
They're about to graduate, and they definitely didn’t get here in one piece, in one way or another, and Bakugou Katsuki is looking at Shouto like he wants, like he resolutely refuses, now that the obvious excuse to press too close is about to fade away, to let him go.
“Do you even like me?” Shouto asks, because like feels weird and foreign and too simple for someone like him. Too good and unmerited. Other people get like. People who were born in normal families where daddy read them bedtime stories and mommy tucked them in. People who have hobbies besides picking at their skin until it bleeds just to even the scale when life gets a little too good to be true (to be his). People who graduate high school and stress over college entrance exams and their parents’ expectations and, like, capitalism.
Bakugou scoffs. It’s endearingly predictable. What he does next is very much not, though.
“You’re so stupid,” he says, and Shouto’s pretty sure no one in the history of humanity has managed to make a blatant insult sound this fond before. “I fucking love you, you idiot.”
Oh, Shouto thinks.
Blankly, and then like a burst of color.
Like that feeling during a summer day when the sun is warm and you’re young (and your brother is dead and your mother is sick and your siblings are scared to look at you) and life is kind enough to give you time to breathe, so you lie there and bask in it, in the sun and the sound of birds chirping. In the vague, traitorous hope that there might come a day when it's always like this. Kind and soft and warm instead of filled with anger and pain and hurt.
Shouto clears his throat. He wants to cry, a little bit. “Thank you,” he says. “I—I mean that’s, uh, very, um. Well. Stupid of you. But thank you.”
Bakugou pulls back just enough to flick him in the forehead. “Funny,” he says. “Real funny.”
Shouto’s mouth purses. “I wasn’t trying to be,” he says. “I just—.” He huffs. “I think you deserve better. Deserve—deserve someone who won’t wake you up in the middle of the night from panic attacks or—or refuse to be touched for days at a time because sometimes it just feels wrong and it makes me want to throw up no matter who touches me and—and that’s not fair to you. I’m not your responsibility.”
“I want you to be,” Bakugou says. “That’s the damn point. I want you.”
Shouto’s hands clench into fists at his sides. He’s not angry at Bakugou. Or at anyone. He’s just—angry. In general. At the world. At his old man. At himself, maybe. A little bit. At the general concept of fatalism. “You’ll change your mind,” he says. “You’ll—you’ll wake up one day and realize I’m too difficult.”
Bakugou’s laughter is bitter. “Have you met me?” he asks. “I’m fucking difficult. I’m stubborn and I hate talking about shit and I can be a real asshole. You’re a fairytale princess in comparison.”
It’s really not the part he should focus on, but—
“Are you suggesting cartoon birds braid my hair in the morning?” Shouto asks, tucking the stray strands of his actual braid behind his ear. Another thing his old man had gotten upset about. Not that he opens his mouth to say anything, these days. Too worried about Shouto slamming the door in his face for good. But he huffs. He huffs and he scowls and he complains about Shouto clogging the shower drain whenever he visits home.
(Not that he visits much.)
“Probably,” Bakugou says, vaguely amused, and then he’s carefully picking up the end of Shouto’s braid with two fingers, and just—looking. Looking at Shouto. Looking at him like there’s not much else of interest on heaven or earth.
Shouto feels the intensity of it like a physical touch. “Shouldn’t—shouldn’t we date first?” he asks. Tries. He’s pretty sure commitment issues can go the other way, and this counts too. Fear of abandonment, or something.
“Dating’s for losers,” Bakugou scoffs. But he doesn’t look steady. Not really. He looks like what he is. Like what they both are. Eighteen and terrified. Eighteen and unaware what to do without walking hand in hand with death. Eighteen and perfectly aware that they’ve willingly signed themselves up for a lifetime of danger pressed like a sharp knife to the throat because what else is there?
Shouto smiles. They haven’t kissed yet. Ever. Not even once. Not even tipsy with clandestine alcohol during class hangouts. He wants to. Right now and in general. He wants everything, with Bakugou. And he isn't really nearly as terrified about it as he should be. “Yeah?” he asks. “And marriage is strictly for cool people?”
Bakugou cups Shouto’s cheek, thumbs at the softness, right at the seam of scar tissue. Isn’t that symbolic? Touching the place where Shouto could fray the easiest with aching tenderness. “Damn right,” he says, and then he’s leaning in, in, in. Too close. Too much. Except—
Not. Not really. Not enough. Not ever enough.
“I think you should kiss me,” Shouto blurts. Wonders if he’s allowed want. Not to want. Just, like—the concept of it. To want is specific. Shouto doesn’t know a lot about the specificity of things you can’t sharpen into weapons and neatly categorize. But he looks at Bakugou and thinks you, you, you.
“You gonna marry me then?” Bakugou asks, too smug. Too attractive. Too aware of it, probably. Of what he does to Shouto.
And Shouto—
Shouto swallows, and says, “Okay. Yeah—yeah, okay. I’ll marry you for a kiss.”
“Even trade,” Bakugou says, and Shouto wants desperately to taste the fondness in his voice, and then—
Bakugou’s mouth is soft. He tastes sweet. They are, apparently, going to get married and live together. Shouto gets to wake him up for cold soba. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. Bakugou is going to—is going to have and hold Shouto. And—maybe they could get a cat?
“I love you,” Shouto says.
Bakugou smiles so softly it makes Shouto’s chest ache. “I know,” he says. “Or—well. I really, really hoped. And I’m usually good at hoping too hard.”
“Yeah,” Shouto says. “You are.”
And maybe—
Maybe life works out, sometimes. Maybe you know. Maybe you figure it out. Maybe you say yes when a boy asks you to marry him at your high school graduation.
(But—
It’s not about that, is it? About paperwork and ceremony and the public show of it all. It’s about intent. About wanting. And for the first time in his life, Shouto thinks he knows beyond any doubt what it is he wants.)