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It was fucking hot outside. The summer heat was oppressive, sinking through the A/C that was constantly trying to sputter out of what should be new and effectively-operating Height’s Alliance ventilation system. Class 1-A had resorted to some truly desperate measures in order to cool off. Iida had been adamant that they all had to remain fully clothed in public places (to which most of the boys objected ruefully, as well as a few of the girls), so spiteful and sweaty members of the class like Kaminari had began to shred good shirts into crop-tops just to have a little less fabric against their skin. Tsyu had barely come out of her room, insisting that she was creating a swamp-like habitat as best she could. Tokoyami had even busted out shorts , which was basically unheard of. Basically, the entire class was suffering.
Out of all of them though, Bakugou was having the most trouble with the added heat.
He picked up extra fans from the store, ordered a stack of special sweat-wicking shirts that came with a matching headband, and even tried one desperate day an oral antiperspirant. The latter, however, landed him in Recovery’s Girl office with stomach pain. Something about the DNA of your quirk relying on your sweat didn’t exactly mesh with a supplement designed to directly contradict perspiring. Bakugou had been flustered out of his mind when he shamefully walked to her office- it had been an internal battle just to finally try out the medicine his doctor gave him months prior to the heatwave. The act of giving up his strongest aspect (at least in his opinion) just to have a little more physical comfort was tearing him up inside.
Which led him to today. Sweating absolute fucking buckets. He opened the balcony in his room, placing a fan directly in the door to maximize wind-flow. He was wearing a thin black tank-top and basketball shorts he had rolled up to his midcalf, a bandana covered his forehead. Everything about him felt like it was drying out and moist at the same time. He laid down two towels under him as he laid on the floor in front of the fan, just trying to regulate his temperature. Bakugou had even gone so far as to leave his door open- something he had never done before that day. But he knew that the air would flow faster and cooler if there was more of a “tunnel” for it to go through, so he faced the potential embarrassment of being caught in his current predicament.
“Hey, man!”
Of course. Of course this is the time Kirishima shows up. The redhead saunters into his room, shirtless and clad in only a pair of obnoxiously red shorts.
“Woah, you okay? You look… wet.” Bakugou grunted in response from his position on the ground, wiping a hand down his objectively damp face.
“I fucking hate summer.” He bit back, readjusting his headband and trying not to think about how exposed he was in that moment. His shirt had been riding up his stomach, something he wasn’t about to fix because it was actually making him a couple fractions of a degree cooler.
Kirishima flopped down on the ground next to Bakugou, leaning back onto his hands and stretching his hairy legs out. Bakugou vaguely in the back of his mind registered that the hair was black, not red like he thought it would be. Hm. The soft air from the choppy fan made them shift back and forth along his legs, mimicking a wheat field.
“Aw man, don’t say that! Summer’s awesome. There’s ice cream, and waterparks and sandals-”
“And fucking heavy-ass heatwaves that turn me into a human sprinker. Get your hand off the towel,” he motioned with his chin instead of physically moving Kirishima’s hand off. “Half of the stuff in this room is covered in nitroglycerin, be careful.”
Kirishima just grinned back, chuckling. “I’m not worried about it! I could smell it from my room, though, that’s what made me think of coming over!” Bakugou swallowed, feeling a flush sink its way across his ears. This stupid fucking heatwave.
“I can shut my door if it’s-” he started, quiet.
“No, man! You’re good, it just smells like a carnival. Or maybe a candy shop!” Kirishima chirped back, grinning even wider.
“Pfft,” Bakugou responded, rolling over onto his stomach and closing his eyes. “Smells like shit to me. Like sickeningly sweet shit.”
A lull of silence rolled into the room, accompanied only by the hum of the fan, a slight clicking attached to indicate the uneven legs of the machine. A byproduct, most likely, of the fact that it was bought on a sketchy website by a desperate teenage boy in the wee hours of the night on a laptop affected by nitroglycerin damage.
Still, the silence was welcome. The buzzing of cicadas outside reminded Bakugou of skinned knees and push-pops, swimming holes and bug spray.
Slowly, Bakugou could feel Kirishima’s energy shift in the room as the redhead patiently repositioned himself alongside Bakugou on the floor. His feet by Bakugou’s head, still positioned to the floor in a last-ditch effort to shed a couple more degrees of heat. Usually Bakugou would make a comment about Kirishima’s feet being so close to him, especially since everyone and their mother was dealing with overt bouts of B.O. right now, but he restrained the urge to snark.
Instead, he rolled back over as soon as Kirishima was settled, finding his gaze landing on the ceiling fan that was the only original source of cooling in the room.
Around, and around, and around.
The light brown wood fan spun around.
And around.
And around.
Kirishima rolled onto his side, slightly. He breathed out, and Bakugou could feel the warmth enter into the room. Maybe it was his imagination. Or maybe Kirishima was being weird and exhaling onto his shin- weirder things had happened. Bakugou still had flashbacks to the time he had licked his forehead just to see if he could get away with it. Ugh. It was like being mauled by an overly friendly tiger, slobbery and unpredictable.
Bakugou’s chest moved slowly up, and then back down again.
Up.
And down.
Up.
And down.
Kirishima reached out, and gently grabbed Bakugou’s ankle.
Up.
And down.
“What’s up?” Bakugou asked, breath slightly catching. The humidity was stifling.
Kirishima brushed his thumb against the ball of Bakugou’s ankle. His leg hair tickled.
“Oh, I dunno.” His voice was so soft. Scratchy, yet soft. Like a thrifted knitted sweater. Bakugou’s eyes drifted to the black knitwear in his open closet. “You’ve got any plans for the rest of the day?” His thumb drifted back and forth, around in a circle. His hand shifted, holding loosely onto the entirety of Bakugou’s ankle. His hands were full of calluses, yet he held onto him like he was something fragile. Like something that could break, like a bird that might fly away at any moment. His long fingers folded gracefully, these same weapons that have shattered noses now used for gentle exploration.
“Not really,” Bakugou’s voice crackled, heat and dryness combining with taught vocal chords. “Why?”
Kirishima’s hand shifted its approach from the subtle circular motion around his ankle to a more daring upward sweep of Bakugou’s leg. Not too far, and not too fast, but smooth, calculated. His palm slid over his shin, rustling what seemed to be every single one of Bakugou’s leg hairs. And neck hair, apparently. What was previously drenched in oppressive sweat at the base of his neck was now standing on end, seemingly at the will of Kirishima Eijirou.
“No reason,” he responded, noncommittally. Distracted. Lazily. Infuriatingly. Bakugou was trying to remember the reason he hadn’t told him to fuck off yet. Tried to remember what Kirishima did that made Bakugou allow him to touch his bare leg. Shirtless. In 100 degree heat.
Bakugou shifted, sitting up and resting back on his elbows, looking to Kirishima. And god, that wasn’t a smart decision.
The redhead’s eyes were closed, his smile comfortable and sleepy, a kitten in a ray of sunshine. His position couldn’t possibly be comfortable- halfway on his side, arm awkwardly extended in order to continue to graze along Bakugou’s leg. His abs, usually apparent when standing, were happy to relax into a soft, small stomach that slightly spilled over his shorts. Which were obnoxiously red, as well as obnoxiously ever-so-slightly too short. His hair was spilling out onto the floor, somehow not sweaty but falling in a red halo around his head.
Bakugou’s chest squeezed, heat pooling in his gut. A bead of sweat dropped from his eyebrow down to the tip of his nose, and then down.
Down.
Onto Kirishima’s leg. Which Bakugou didn’t even realize he was leaning over. Leaning into. Shit.
Kirishima’s eyes fluttered open. Shittier. His eyes soaked in the sunlight that snuck in past Bakugou’s window blinds and glowed like cast amber, his dark eyelashes blinking rapidly in response to the light.
“Did you just drip sweat onto me?”
Shittiest.
“Yes.” He swallowed around a red-hot coal in his throat. “Is that a problem?” Perfect strategy, airtight.
“Pfft-” except for that. Giggles spilled out of Kirishima’s perfect shitty mouth and into the airways of the room, musical and light and perfect. “Did you really-” more laughter, faster still, “just sweat on me and then threaten me ? Oh my god, dude, you’re really too much!” His stomach moved with laughter, his hand still on Bakugou’s leg. Still. The harder he laughed, the tighter he squeezed Bakugou’s calf. The tighter Bakugou’s chest felt.
“Shut up,” and he fucked up. Because he pushed his foot into Kirishima’s bicep. The foot Kirishima was currently holding. And now both of their eyes have darted immediately to the hand that’s still. On. His. Leg.
And then.
To each other’s eyes.
“Heh,” Kirishima chuckled, a little breathless. The grip loosened, and threatened to disappear entirely. Bakugou didn’t know what was worse, the fact that his hand was still on his leg or the possibility that his hand would no longer be on his leg. He decided, in that split second, that the possibility of either without proper confirmation was the worst of all.
“Do you wanna go to the convenience store?” He asked, pushing his foot harder into Kirishima’s bicep. Subconsciously signalling that Kirishima didn’t fuck up by initiating contact. He had tried so hard to act normal around it, to try and get comfortable with these small displays of affection that seemed internally ingrained in Kirishima’s very being. Everywhere he looked, Kirishima was touching someone, something. An arm around Kaminari’s shoulders, a playful punch to Sero’s chest- Bakugou had even seen him kiss multiple people on the head, all genders. The thought that his touch was so transferable, so natural, was completely foreign.
And yet.
Incredibly enticing. Like an exotic fruit that you’ve never even heard of, but can’t stop trying to taste again and again. Over the years, Bakugou’s not only tried to get more comfortable with touch, but he actually has naturally gotten more comfortable. Not without strife. The first time Kirishima threw an arm around his shoulders, he had shrugged him off with something truly biting while sparks flew off of his ears. Kirishima just laughed, but from that moment on Bakugou knew he had to actually work on whatever it was he was feeling in that moment.
Kirishima had never given up on it. He always persisted in trying to share his love language with Bakugou, always tried one more thing in order to figure out what kind of touch Bakugou could tolerate more than the others. It was usually non-skin touch, like a grab of the shirt or pants, that Bakugou could always deal with. He’d been dealing with that since he was a kid. Kirishima had gotten so good at grabbing different articles of Bakugou’s clothing that he was actually able to stop him in his tracks just by tugging on his waistband with a couple of fingers. Of course, there was that one time when he grabbed him by the seat of his pants on instinct, which actually had just ended up with Bakugou’s face turning such a bright shade of red he yelled that he needed to see Recovery Girl about a fever. Kirishima hadn’t tried that move again, even though they both knew it would be just as effective to get the blond’s attention.
Kirishima looked back at Bakugou, eyes still shimmering in the afternoon light. It would cool down as the sun continued to set, eventually becoming somewhat bearable on their walk back into school grounds. “We could get those popsicles you like,” Bakugou offered, breaking their eye contact to look at a very interesting spot on his wall. “The cherry ones.” He didn’t know why his voice was still so quiet, he wasn’t even confident that Kirishima could totally hear him.
Kirishima smiled, toothily, like a kid in a candy store. “Dude! YES!” He leapt up from his position, breaking the calm silence in the room with such a bright tone that Bakugou didn’t even mind the change of energy. “We can go right now!” The redhead offered a hand down to Bakugou, hair falling into his face, curtaining his long eyelashes and adorable tooth gap.
Bakugou took his hand, because he’d always take his hand. He would say since Kamino, he’d always take his hand, but truth be told- it was way earlier than that. This boy, with the sun in his heart and courage in his smile, would always be the one Bakugou trusted. Would always be the hand he would take.
He leaned into the touch, pulling himself off of the ground and locking eyes with Kirishima.
“You’re gonna need to put on a shirt first, Red. And probably some shoes, too. Have you never read the sign outside of the store?” Kirishima laughed, like bells ringing, and slung an arm over Bakugou’s shoulder.
“Ah, c’mon, don’t you think I’d get a discount if I showed up like this?” Bakugou reached to his desk to grab his wallet, and slid his feet into his slides, all while Kirishima still hung off of him, always connected.
“Mm,” And Bakugou allowed himself, in the context of a joke-filled moment, to take in the beautiful boy, shirtless and wonderful. “Nah, probably not.” Kirishima threw his head back, laughing, and tugged Bakugou closer to the door.
“Let’s go! I wanna see if my door shut by itself, cause if so, you’re buying.”
Bakugou rolled his eyes, and followed Kirishima’s lead out the door. Into the summer air, into the in-between of whatever they were to each other, into the promise of a cold dessert on the hottest day of the year.