Chapter Text
"Guys we're out of cereal!" Kaminari's whine echoes through the common room, the source of it coming from the kitchen.
The occupants of the common room glance at their friend who is standing in front of a cabinet, glaring at the empty space like it killed his dog and made him watch. Most of the class is sprawled out in different parts of their shared space. The TV's volume is set too loud, and a confession scene of some poorly written rom-com fills the silence of the room. Sero glances in the kitchen's direction, a little curious as to why he can no longer hear Kaminari's protests. He recieves an answer rather quickly, considering how Kaminari is basically spasming in annoyance.
"Dude...it's literally almost 4pm. Who the hell eats cereal in the afternoon?" Everybody knows that this isn't a first for Kaminari to raid their cereal stash this late in the afternoon.
"Let's have this conversation again once you stop eating scrambled eggs at 10pm before bed every other day." Kaminari shoots Sero a devious smirk. Sero gasps.
"Not before we talk about why I saw you taking a plate of chocolate covered bacon into your room last night." Kaminari glares at Sero.
"How about you both shut up so I can watch in peace and quiet! " Mina yells, and sqeals with delight literally 3 seconds later, apparently being the only person interested in the abomination of a show currently playing. Kaminari pouts dramatically and drags his legs over to the couches, plopping down in the empty spot between Mina and Kirishima with the grace of an elephant. Kirishima side-eyes him.
"Well, who's turn is it to go get the groceries?" The redhead asks with a hint of sarcasm, sending their token Pikachu a raised eyebrow.
"That would be Kaminari and Bakugo if I am not mistaken." Their class president exclaims almost immediately after the question was posed, from one of the tables occupied by him, Midoriya, Tsu and Uraraka mulling over math homework. The answer was timed well enough, which Kirishima ended up being thankful for, because Kaminari doesn't understand context clues, and by the look on the blond's face the cogs in his head were still turning.
"Awwww maan.." Kaminari kicks up his legs. "But Bakugo is in a pissy mood today.."
"Bakugo is always in a pissy mood." Uraraka chimes in not looking up from her homework, eyebrows drawn in concentration.
While Iida reprimands Uraraka for using crude language, Kaminari begins hunting for potential victims. Everybody starts looking everywhere but the boy in question, who is trying his best to strike some sort of deal. Kaminari turns to Jirou bobbing her head to music flowing in her earphones, looking completely unbothered next to Yaoyorozu sipping on some tea in one hand, book in the other. He spots Koda outside the window but backtracks, because he seems to be grooming his rabbit very passionately. Kaminari makes eye contact with Dark Shadow for a split second, before the latter retreats back into his owner’s body. Tokoyami and Shoji are enjoying a game of Uno at another table, pretending that they can’t feel the eyes burning holes into their backs.
However, very conveniently for Kaminari, the sound of footsteps could soon be heard coming from the direction of the stairwell, and seconds later his next victim in the form of one Todoroki Shoto strolls into the common room. He walks past his classmates, oblivious to the look he's getting from Kaminari and the pitying ones from the rest of the people present. Todoroki walks into the kitchen and funnily enough, opens the same cabinet that Kaminari opened just a few minutes earlier. Everyone has their eyes on him now, even Jirou- (dammit she was listening all along!). The boy stares inside the cabinet which is normally packed to the brim with cereal boxes.
"Oh. It looks like we've run out of cereal." Kirishima sighs and glances at Kaminari. Kaminari has that 'I’m about to do something stupid' look on his face. Sero chooses to ignore the fact that Todoroki also happens to be an afternoon-bowl-of-cereal enjoyer.
"Hey Todoroki, I'll give you my serve of cold soba during lunch tomorrow if you go shopping with Bakugo instead of me!" Kaminari finishes his sentence looking like he just offered the best deal humanity has to offer. Todoroki takes one more look into the open cabinet. Kirishima chuckles breathlessly. It looks like Todoroki's hoping for cereal to just magically materialise inside of the cabinet.
"..." Kirishima can feel Kaminari vibrating next to him, highly anticipating Todoroki's response. It might not be obvious to everyone, but Todoroki is clearly (according to Kirishima at least) having a kick out of making Kaminari slowly die inside. Mina looks like she's 2 seconds from sending Kaminari into the stratosphere, but thanfully Todoroki answers before that. "Okay." While Kaminari is celebrating, Todoroki takes his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants and dials a number. He shuts his eyes momentarily, expecting a long wait, but abrupt yelling on the other side of the line makes him flinch a little. The boy sighs. Loudly. Deliberately though, Kirishima isn't sure.
"Bakugo, come downstairs. Let's go get groceries." What follows is more yelling and presumably a string of curses on the other end of the line, which is cut short by Todoroki hanging up abruptly. This is probably a recipe for disaster. Not that anyone gets paid to intervene, though.
Todoroki makes his way to the door and slips on a pair of flipflops. Nobody has the heart to tell him that him that the left flipflop he's wearing is one of Mina's favourite Hello Kitty pair, and the other is Kirishima's obnoxious croc inspired flipflop. At the same time, loud stomping could be heard from upstairs. Bakugo enters the common room frowning, hands in his pockets shooting glares at everyone, the murderous ones reserved for Todoroki standing patiently at the front door.
"You're fucking lucky that we've ran out of garlic and ginger Icyhot, or I would've blown your face off." Bakugo growls, slipping on a pair of trainers which better for him - were a pair. He shoulders past Todoroki, who didn't acknowledge the insult and opens the door, almost slamming it into the latter's face. Everybody sweatdrops and the door shuts. Slowly Bakugo's raspy voice fades away, and once again the common room is filled only with the sound of Mina's shitty show.
***
After they left, Katsuki reluctantly sent a quick text to Aizawa, letting him know that they would be out. His text was opened rather quickly and the only response he got from their teacher was 'Don't die' with no punctuation mark. Lovely. Katsuki knew that is was his turn to go grocery shopping, considering the amount of missing ingredients for fucking curry, which was going to be their damn dinner. Because of course nobody buys that shit and he's the only person in the entire damn class that thinks about these things. Now he's walking alongside the Icyhotbastard who hasn't said a single word since they left the dorm 10 minutes ago. He thanked God in his mind that the walk to the grocery store was only 20 minutes from the dorm, because the fucking silence was eating him raw. It's not that Katsuki doesn't like silence, quite the opposite actually. He loves the sound of silence. It's just that Icyhot always manages to make it awkward as fuck.
Just as Katsuki is about to settle for talking about the fucking wheather, his hand brushes against his pocket, empty of a wallet. Realization hits. Katsuki had left it on the damned shoe racke before leaving. He stutters in his step which didn't go unnoticed. Icyhot's eyes linger on Katsuki's pocket. Clearly, he has something to say, but he keeps his damn mouth shut. This is one of the things that Katsuki hates about Icyhot. The way he always has this look on his face before he speaks, and how you can tell that he wants to speak. But he doesn't speak, and it's fucking irritating because then you fell like you have to ask, but before you ask he always ends up-
"If you're worried about money, I have my father's credit card in my phone case at all times. I noticed that you didn't take any before leaving." Katsuki's anger is overtaken by a full body shiver and he almost stops walking, because how the fuck did he notice that. That's another thing. IcyHot being fucking cryptid and knowing too much at times. 'Observant' would be an understatement. Sometimes Katsuki wonders how many extras forgot that finding out about Aizawa being in a relationship with Present Mic was thanks to IcyHot. One time during class Aizawa had turned his back to the class to write something on the board, and Icyhot had noticed something. 'Something' being a long blond piece of hair clinging to Aizawa's pitch black jumpsuit. It's not like Icyhot confronted him during class, but Racoon eyes has ears everywhere, and it's not like she can keep a fucking secret anyways. Katsuki shakes off the shiver.
"I already knew that dumbass." He gets no response and they continue walking in silence. Katsuki decides to break it again, because it's starting to get even more unbearable. "I thought that it was fucking dunce face's turn to go." He says rather calmly, which sounded very uncharacteristic coming out of his own mouth. Icyhot doesn't say anything for a while, fucking obviously.
"We made a deal." He finally answers, offering no further context. Katsuki resists the urge to simultaniously rub the bridge of his nose, sigh and lie down flat on the ground. Having a conversation with this individual should be an extreme sport.
"Tch. Whatever." Katsuki scoffs, pretending like he understood whatever the bastard was implying.
"Let's get ice cream." Icyhot says 2 seconds later like they weren't just talking about something entirely different. Katsuki doesn't swallow the sigh this time.
"Do what you want." Katsuki answers, as they step into the grocery store. (He ended up getting ice cream too anyways).
They get their business done quickly enough. It could have been faster if Katsuki didn't spend an additional 5 minutes lecturing half'n half, because when Katsuki asked him to go and get a few cucumbers, the birdbrain came back carrying a handful of zucchinis. But now, Katsuki is satisfied with the amount of new ingredients sitting at the bottom of the grocery bags in his hands, his ice cream sitting somewhere in one of those. As they walk back, Icyhot is already devouring his, acting like this is the first time having ice cream in god knows how long. God would probably be Endeavor in this context.
"Excuse me youngsters, would you happen to have any spare change?" A middle aged looking man asks from behind, and Katsuki almost gets whiplash from turning around. Not like he was going to ever admit that he was caught off guard. Katsuki frowns slightly and looks the guy up and down. He doesn't look very homeless or in need, and this raises suspicion, but apparently for Icyhot it doesn't because he's already offering the guy his old man's fucking credit card. Do you ever look at someone and wonder, what the fuck is going on inside their head? Before Katsuki can say anything to the idiot beside him, the man takes Katsuki's distraction to his advantage and yanks the card out of Icyhot's hand and fucking bolts. The best thing is that he doesn't even look slightly taken aback, the fucktard just accepts his fate.
"HEY! GET BACK HERE ASSHOLE!" Katsuki yells furiously and charges after the thief.
"Bakugo-" Icyhot is saying something but Katsuki can't hear shit because he's already 20 meters ahead. As Icyhot is catching up to him, they run in circles, cut corners and and trip thought shady ass alleyways, hot on the fuckers heals. Eventually they run into a dead end and the man turns around, looking panicked for a second, but regains his composure quickly. Katsuki thinks he might have wanted to see the first expression a while longer.
“Hand over the fucking card." Katsuki rasps while panting heavily, hand outstretched and ready to blast the dude's face off any second. The ugly bastard hums.
"I don't think so little runt." The man smirks, disgustingly yellow teeth on display.
"Bakugo I don't-" And Icyhot finds the most fucking inconvenient time to speak, because of course the second that Katsuki's eyes shift to the idiot, he sees movement in his peripheral vision. If they weren't standing so close to each other, then maybe. Fucking maybe they could have dodged the lasers that simultaneously shot out from the man's palms at the speed of light, and hit both Katsuki and Icyhot dab smack on the fucking forehead. Katsuki wasn't expecting to feel weak in the knees, and additionsl heart palpitatons felt like a bucket of cold water.
"Fu-" He tries to speak, but the only sound that he can manage to make is a wheeze. His vision gets blurry fast, scarily fast but he still looks over to Icyhot laying stomach flat on the concrete, eyelids half open and flickering at a worrying pace. "Oi-" he tries again, but his knees finally give in and consciousness leaves him.
The world goes black.
***
Mina smacks her thumb into the power button on the TV remote, finally shutting of that goddamn joke of a show. Everyone thanks the lord. Mina groans and stretches her limbs.
"Hey where's Todoroki, wasn't he just here?" She asks and Yaoyorozu looks up from her book and blinks at the pinkette.
"He's been gone for a while now actually, he left with Bakugo to buy some essentials."
"Yeah, essentials for this damn cereal monster over here." Sero snorts and jabs his foot into Kaminari's rib, because the latter is laying on the floor below the couch, evidently bored out of his mind.
"Why are they taking so looong." Kaminari laments into the floor, barely coherently.
"They probably got into un combat knowing those two!" Aoyama sing-songs from behind the fridge's door, hands stacked with multiple packets of cheese (?) The boy nudges the door with his hip and prances back up to his room.
"The hell did he just say." Kaminari doesn't even try to make his question sound like a question. Midoriya chuckles, content with finishing his homework.
"Fight. He said they might have gotten into a fight, Kaminari." The room falls into a comfortable silence, but they can never have nice things because Uraraka has the bright idea to share her paranoia.
"But don't you think they've really been out for too long? It's been over two hours already..." They all look at her at the same time, with various degrees of anxiety on their faces.
"Now that you say it..." Mina's voice wobbles.
"Alright, we should call Aizawa-sensei-"
Iida is cut off by a loud bang. The front door shoots open so fast it should have flown off of its hinges, and in come their objects of worry. Todoroki enters first. Which is... weird because that means he was the one that kicked the door open. Bakugo follows, lacking the usual slouch in his steps, instead walking ramrod straight. They stand in the doorway for a moment, staring at everyone.
"Hey! Where the hell are the groceries." During that time Kaminari seemingly recharged, and shot up from the ground pointing a finger at Todoroki and Bakugo. The two shoot each other a glance.
"We... forgot the money." Bakugo says in the most monotone voice, with the most docile expression on his face and their brains fucking stall.
"Um...so what were you doing for 2 hours?" Jirou asks with a smirk tugging at her lips. Bakugo opens his mouth but Todoroki is faster.
"We were uuuh...rescuing a fucking cat stuck in a tree. Right. Yeah." Todoroki answers, eyes the shoe rack and grabs a wallet before pushing Bakugo out of the front door faster than they entered, slamming the door shut. During the silence that rings after, no one takes their eyes off the door, blinking in utter belwiderment.
"What the fuck was that?" Kaminari made it sound like a question this time.
***
20 minutes earlier
Shoto wakes up with a headache, but memories surprisingly still intact. He groans and cracks an eye open. Well, it turns out that his vision was blurry, because something has to be wrong. The figure lying down next to him starts to squirm on the ground around the same time as Shoto did. The figure is Bakugo, obviously. But something feels...off. It strikes Shoto as odd that he no longer feels the sensation of ice or fire swirling under his skin. His body seems heavier than usual, and his palms are awfully sweaty for some reason. He sits up and squints his eyes. When Shoto's vision becomes clear, the last thing he's expecting to see is himself. Himself, staring at him with utter bewilderment painted on his face.
"What in the actual fuck just happened." His own face screeches at him. Shoto decides that this is the right time to check the skin he is wearing right now. He carefully touches his face. Baby smooth face. His hair is no longer silky straight, it's spiky and soft. Shoto scrambles around, eyes darting around the pavement that he was collapsed on in search of his phone. He wasn't ready for the reflection he was about to see in the black screen of the device. There it is. Bakugo's face staring back at him with wide eyes, or now - Shoto's eyes.
"Wow." Shoto lets out a shaky breath and drops his phone onto his lap. He- Bakugo lets out the biggest and meanest growl he can muster and glares at Shoto. Shoto makes an attempt to rub this illusion outof his eye sockets, but before he can do that he feels a firm gripon both of his wrists.
"Don't touch m- your fucking eyes unless you want to go blind! Look at all the build-up on m- your hands. Use the hankerchief in my pocket to wipe it." Bakugo jerks his head the pocket of his hoodie. Shoto might have been lucky. Good thing Bakugo mentioned that earlier. Bakugo retreats back to his previous spot. "Fucking dumbass! I should be pissed at you more than I am at myself for getting distracted not once, but fucking twice!" Shoto barely registers the words coming out of h- Bakugo's mouth, because hearing more than one curse word in a single sentence come out of his own mouth feels weird. Really weird.
"In my defence, I was trying to tell you something important."
"Oh? and you just had to do it in the deciding moment of the fucking situation we were in?" Bakugo seethed through closed teeth. Shoto stares at his own eyes for a few seconds too long, but responds before Bakugo can melt his face off.
"I was trying to say that I don't need that credit card. I couldn't care less if it got stolen, all the better if the thief spends millions using it. Anything that makes my father angry makes me happy." Shoto finishes, content with clearing up the situation. He carefully studies Bakugo, who looks like he's two seconds away from bashing Shoto’s nose in, fist raised and everything, but stops himself in the last moment. Probably because Bakugo realized that he was about to bust his own nose. Shoto can't wait for the moment in which he forgets.
"Are you fucking kidding me!? And you couldn't have said that earlier!?" Shoto inhales.
"As I already said, I was trying." Bakugo is about to add another set of insults but decides that it isn’t going to get through. He deflates and slumps onto the wall behind him.
"Don't get fucking smart with me, and dammit stop staring at me with those gooey eyes using my face, it looks creepy as fuck." Shoto looks around, taking in their surroundings. They're in some sort of back alley, littered in empty alcohol bottles and multiple big, stinky green dumpsters overflowing with trash bags. And Shoto is pretty sure the wall that Bakugo is slumped on has piss on it, but he doesn't have any intention of telling him.
"I dropped my ice cream." Dejected, Shoto reminisces the taste of the vanilla cream he was just recently munching on before it kissed the floor. It wasn't really that sad or anything because he was almost finished. Not that Bakugo remembers though, which is why he mentions this.
"Is that seriously the only fucking thing you're worried about right now?" Shoto doesn't think that he's ever managed to make his voice sound so defeated. Perhaps he should try more new things. "We got mugged, we've lost the groceries, we've been hit by some fucking weird-ass god knows what quirk, we have no clue how long we've been rotting on this concrete for and lastly, you dropped your ice cream." Bakugo counted each problem while sticking out his fingers one by one.
"Sounds about right." Shoto sighs, stands up on shaky legs and attempts to make an exit from the unpleasantly smelling alley they were in. Bakugo eyes Shoto with a similar look to when Kaminari asked him if he thinks that Aizawa cries on workdays instead of weekends because he doesn’t want to let capitalism win.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Bakugo yanks Shoto’s arm back so hard they almost bump foreheads. Shoto blinks. He jerks his thumb in the direction he supposes they can leave from.
“Back to the dorms, of course.” Shoto gets a reaction he wasn't expecting. Bakugo just tuts and lets Shoto’s arm out of his grasp.
“Looking like this?” Bakugo draws out the last word, gesturing dramatically at both of them. Shoto looks down at himself, then back at Bakugo. He clearly understands what Bakugo is getting at, but decides that he's not had enought fun today yet. Shoto cocks his head to the side.
“Like what?” To Shoto’s amusement (although he doesn’t show it) this was the correct thing to say because Bakugo’s jaw opens just a little. “We look the same, it’s just that-”
“That’s not the point dickweed!” Shoto almost snorts. Almost. Bakugo takes a step back and crosses his arms. He stares intently at Shoto for a little too long. Just when Shoto starts to think that Bakugo is about to lay an egg or something, he finally opens his mouth. “Repeat after me.” Bakugo licks his lips and puts on an expression like he’s a theatre kid getting into character. “Fuck off shitnerd!”
It takes every muscle in his face to swallow the laugh bubbling dangerously in the back of his throat, but somehow Shoto manages to keep his expression blank. He complies.
“Fuck off shitnerd.” Shoto purposely makes his voice more nonchalant than usual, but unfortunately Bakugo is too immersed in his teaching to notice.
“Now what do you say when Deku tries to greet you?”
“Hello Midoriya-”
“NO SHITBAG! YOU’RE ME RIGHT NOW!” Bakugo bellows, expectant expression long gone. He starts pacing back and forth. Shoto uses this opportuntiny to grin.
“I don’t see the point of th-” Bakugo stops and his head snaps up.
“Listen shitstain, because my patience is running thin and I'm only going to say this once.” Bakugo pinches the bridge of his nose. “You will NOT speak of ANYTHING that has happened over the course of the past hour to ANYBODY. Not a single fucking extra, or Aizawa, or even your fucking diary, otherwise you’ll be digging up your organs from the local park precisely this time tomorrow, capische?” Shoto nods. He doesn’t feel like retorting that the diary Bakugo mentioned is most likely a projection. “Right now we’re going back to get money, then we’re going to buy the same shit again or whatever, and as soon as we get back, we act like we usually do.”
Shoto doesn’t notice when Bakugo stops yapping, because the entire time he was glancing between him and a ginger cat, hanging comically close to them from a rusty fire escape ladder, directly above Bakugo’s head. Shoto nods, which time in a row he’s not sure (he stopped counting), and tries to escape walk away. Bakugo lets him this time. Shoto turns a corner, smirking at the distant sounds of feline screeching mixed with angry yelling.
By the time they get back to the dorms, their classmates who were previously in the common room had already filtered out. They set the groceries down on the kitchen counter. Bakugo points to Shoto and makes a gesture of slitting his throat, before stomping off in the direction of the stairs. Shoto follows suit. Bakugo shoots him a final glare as he enters his room, while Shoto pretends that he doesn’t notice, taking the extra flight of stairs to his own room.
It’s a pity that Shoto didn’t notice the confused pair of eyes watching him as he shut the door behind him.