Archive of Our Own

Kirishima: 

            if i pick you up in 20 would you be mean about it or normal
            it’s the bmw. be nice. :D

He didn’t need to be told which BMW. Eijirou had been talking about it for months, ever since his accountant talked him into trading in the Jeep for something that wouldn’t rattle every time the RPM touched four digits. Katsuki had helped him pick the spec, too—deep matte metallic grey with a smoked-out grille and optional 23s, ceramic tint on the front, cream Merino interior on a black dash. Understated in a way only rich people understood. It was the kind of build you drove slowly, deliberately, because the engine was already confident in its silence. And Eijirou—despite all his apologies and cracked-knuckle laughter—had somehow pulled off the kind of truck you didn’t just take places. You arrived in it.

Katsuki grabbed his keys and locked the apartment behind him even though he wasn’t the one driving. The rice cooker light was still blinking orange on the counter, but he didn’t go back to turn it off. He’d needed to leave the apartment anyway. It had felt too still, too clean, like the air itself was holding its breath. There was a shape to the silence lately that clung to him in ways he didn’t know how to name. So when Eijirou texted, when the words lit up his screen like a hand outstretched in the dark, Katsuki didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t about the truck.

It would always be about Kirishima.

The car was already idling in front of his building when he stepped outside, headlights cut to low beam, the engine purring with the kind of discretion that came standard on six-figure vehicles. Katsuki didn’t wave. Just opened the door and slid into the passenger seat without a word.

Inside, it was warm, probably too warm, like Eijirou hadn’t figured out the climate controls yet or was too nervous to adjust them while waiting. The air smelled like something clean and dry—leather polish, cologne, the faint ozone signature of a freshly detailed car that had never known the chaos of a backseat spill or a cheap air freshener wedged in the vent. Eijirou’s hair was still a little damp, curling slightly at the ends like he’d rushed the shower and barely hit it with the dryer. He looked like someone trying not to look too excited.

“You parked far from the curb,” Katsuki said, voice low, not really intending it as a dig, but it still landed like one.

Eijirou’s mouth twitched into a lopsided grin, one hand still locked on the wheel, the other adjusting the drive mode selector like it was a new kind of weapon he wasn’t quite ready to wield.

“I’m keeping the rims alive for at least twenty-four hours,” he said, not looking at him directly, eyes still on the dash. “You have no idea how scary this thing is in daylight. I swear I needed a priest just to reverse out of the dealership.”

Katsuki glanced down at the console. Everything gleamed like it had never been touched. “This the M60i?”

Eijirou nodded, finally shifting into gear. “Yeah. Twin turbo V8. I’ve never driven anything that feels like it wants to be left alone this much.”

The truck glided forward with the kind of silky quiet that made Katsuki want to roll down the window just to hear something . Tires whispered over the pavement as they eased into the lane, not even a hint of resistance. The steering wheel barely moved under Eijirou’s hands. Everything about the vehicle seemed designed to comfort and cocoon. It was so clean, so perfectly engineered, it irritated him.

“You could’ve taken your first drive solo,” Katsuki said, watching the streetlights streak across the windshield like distant comets. “Could’ve gotten your awkward parking out of your system without an audience.”

Eijirou kept his eyes forward, but the grin returned. This time it reached his voice.

“I didn’t wanna drive it alone. Not the first time.”

Katsuki didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. The truck purred through a turn, soft and wide like it was allergic to sharp angles, and Katsuki leaned his arm against the window frame, settling deeper into the seat as if he didn’t already know what Eijirou meant by that.

Five minutes into the drive, and the roads were still familiar. They hadn’t even left Tokyo yet, still riding the edge of the inner loop, waiting for the buildings to thin out and the air to change texture. It would be another twenty, maybe thirty minutes before they passed Ichikawa. Another hour until they hit Chiba proper.

Eijirou had set the destination without asking. A small seafood spot nestled in the kind of quiet neighborhood that didn’t stay open past midnight, the kind of place where the chef still remembered him from his middle school soccer days and offered a discount for heroes just because he liked seeing their names on the wall.

The silence between them wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t empty either. It had a weight to it, a pulse. Not tension, exactly. More like expectation.

Katsuki shifted his foot and broke it first.

“You’re braking too early.”

“I’m easing in,” Eijirou said, voice even. “You can’t just slam on the brakes when you’re driving a machine that costs more than a year of rent.”

“It’s still a car. You don’t have to worship it.”

“Easy for you to say. You practically keep a toothbrush in your glovebox for your Porsche.”

Katsuki scoffed. “Don’t act like you weren’t the one who cried when your Jeep got that scratch from a bike rack in Shibuya.”

“I was sixteen,” Eijirou replied, glancing over just long enough to raise an eyebrow. “And that Jeep had a name. His name was Beastie. I raised him from a salvage auction with my bare hands.”

Katsuki barked a laugh before he could stop it. “Christ.”

“You’re one to talk,” Eijirou said, emboldened now, the way he always got when Katsuki let the guard down half a millimeter. “You make fun of me for being sentimental, but I swear to god, you nearly blew my fuckin’ teeth out the time I made a joke about scratching the 97X.”

“That wasn’t a joke.”

“You twitched. ”

“You said you were gonna take it through a car wash. A brush wash. ”

Eijirou tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. “Oh, right. I forgot about your war on microabrasions.”

“You said it deserved to get keyed.”

“I said it needed a story to tell,” Eijirou corrected, grinning fully now, “and I stand by it,” he pouted, impossibly fucking troublesome. The road out of the city unfolded like a ribbon pulled slow, unfurling across the dashboard’s glossy navigation screen with a kind of quiet insistence that suggested no rush, no need for speed, no obligation to arrive. Outside the window, the sky had fallen fully into its evening shape—slate gray tinged faintly gold at the edges, the last burn of sunset swallowed behind the distant curve of high-rise apartments and train tracks humming with outbound lines. Tokyo was still there, behind them, still lit and vast and full of noise they could no longer hear, but it was softening now, receding like background static under a blanket. It was just the truck, the road, and the kind of silence that made room for other things.

Katsuki hadn’t said much since Eijirou picked him up, which wasn’t unusual. He wasn’t the type to make conversation for its own sake, especially not when the cab was warm and the ride smooth and there were no major threats to react to. But something about the silence tonight felt less like his usual scowl-draped stoicism and more like a kind of wary retreat—as if he were nursing some internal bruise he hadn’t decided whether to ice or ignore. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t even obvious. But Eijirou could feel it in the way Katsuki shifted his weight, the way he kept one hand braced along the edge of the door with fingers curled like he needed to hold onto something. Not because he was uncomfortable, but because—maybe—he didn’t trust the quiet not to speak first.

Eijirou adjusted the climate controls for the third time, trying to find the sweet spot between “too much heat” and “why is Katsuki still wearing his damn hoodie.” He didn’t say anything, didn’t comment on how Katsuki hadn’t taken it off even though the cabin was easily three degrees warmer than outside. He knew better than to prod when Katsuki was like this—when he showed up with that familiar crease between his brows and let himself be driven away without complaining about the route.

The BMW—immaculate, new, a little too perfect in places—purred beneath them like it hadn’t yet decided whether it liked the road or merely tolerated it. It was the kind of vehicle that didn’t feel real until you were moving in it, the kind you had to earn, the kind Katsuki would call indulgent just to hide how badly he wanted one of his own. Eijirou knew that too. He hadn’t said anything when Katsuki ran his hand over the dashboard earlier, not testing anything in particular, just… feeling. He’d pretended not to see it.

“You know,” Eijirou said eventually, after the fifth stretch of road without a single oncoming car, “you could’ve driven. If you’re gonna judge every turn I make.”

Katsuki didn’t look over. His mouth curled slightly, but the rest of him stayed still, all slouched limbs and quiet appraisal.

“I’m not judging,” he said after a moment, voice low, eyes still on the shadowplay flickering across the windshield as the streetlamps passed overhead in slow, methodical intervals. “Just wondering how long you’re gonna grip the wheel like it’s gonna dissolve if you let it breathe.”

Eijirou huffed, adjusting his grip just slightly, though not by much. “I’m still getting used to it. The Jeep was basically held together with zip ties and blind faith. This thing feels like it’ll file a complaint if I hit a pothole too hard.”

“It probably will.”

“It probably has a lawyer.”

Katsuki cracked a smile then, not wide, not obvious, but there in the corner of his mouth like a splinter of light against the curve of his lip. Eijirou saw it out of the corner of his eye and let the moment sit there between them, unremarked upon, but known.

They drove a little farther without speaking. The GPS had gone quiet, and there was no music playing—Eijirou had forgotten to hook up his phone, and Katsuki hadn’t offered. It was fine, though. They didn’t need sound. They never really had.

Eventually, Eijirou glanced over again, stealing a sideways look before flicking the blinker with one finger, watching the soft tick of the indicator light reflect off a nearby guardrail. “You make fun of me for being gentle,” he said, letting the words roll out like a slow wave, “but you nearly blew my teeth out that time I made a joke about scratching the 97X.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, but the movement was lazy, not defensive. “That wasn’t a joke. You said you were gonna take it through a brush wash.”

“I said I might need to reverse park.”

“You said it deserved to get keyed so it’d finally have a story to tell.”

“It did deserve a little character,” Eijirou said, and now he was smiling again, that bright, loose grin that showed just the edge of a canine. “It was too polished. Too smug. You can’t keep a car that clean and expect it to have friends.”

“It’s a car , not a personality test.”

“You drive it like it’s both.”

Katsuki scoffed, leaning his head against the cool pane of the window as the road curved slightly around the shoulder of a low hill, revealing the distant glow of a highway sign he didn’t bother reading. “Hanta was right,” Eijirou said, like he’d been waiting to land the blow. “You’re obsessed.”

“I’m not obsessed.”

“You keep a microfiber cloth in your cup holder.”

“It’s called basic maintenance.”

“You have seat settings labeled for seasons.”

“I’m not about to let a summer adjustment mess up my lumbar.”

Eijirou’s grin widened. “You’ve got two more babies on the way, don’t you?”

Katsuki didn’t answer, but the set of his jaw gave him away.

“Oh my god. You knocked that thing up?”

“What the fuck, Eij.”

Eijirou laughed like he was truly scandalized. “You’ve been cheating on the Porsche with your dealer this whole time, huh? I can see the headlines now. Top Hero Fathers Luxury Offspring, In Denial About Emotional Attachment to Leather Interiors. ”

“I will leave you on this road.”

“You’ll never do it,” Eijirou said smugly, tapping the wheel like he was drumming on a table. “You need me to hold your coffee when you detail your side mirrors.”

Katsuki sighed heavily, but it was more for show than anything else. He closed his eyes for a second, letting the motion of the car settle over him like a weighted blanket. The hum of the tires, the barely-there whisper of wind skimming the side mirrors, the distant echo of another car’s headlights sweeping past in the opposite lane—all of it slowed his pulse, stretched the silence wide again.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before, like he wasn’t sure he meant to say it out loud.

“I didn’t wanna be alone tonight.”

Eijirou didn’t say anything immediately. Just kept driving. Kept his eyes on the road and let the moment unfurl between them like the next breath.

“Good,” he said eventually, voice soft and steady, like the answer had been waiting there the whole time. “Me neither.”

By the time the road started sloping toward the coast, the land around them had shifted in texture, subtle at first, but unmistakable once you knew what to look for. The buildings grew lower, wider apart, their facades more weather-worn, less curated, with shuttered stores and vending machines buzzing beneath yellowed awnings. They passed old neighborhoods dotted with cedar trees and rust-stained railings, the kind of places that smelled like damp tile in the summer and fish sauce year-round. Tokyo had long since vanished behind them, replaced by a quieter kind of living. There were no towers here. Just hills that caught the wind differently, salt in the air even with the windows up.

This was Chiba as Eijirou remembered it—darker, quieter, but not dead. Not even sleepy. Just unbothered. The kind of place where the silence didn’t press in on you, didn’t ask anything of you. It just was.

Katsuki hadn’t said much for the last few miles, which Eijirou didn’t mind. He seemed comfortable now, or at least more himself, legs stretched out with one ankle hooked lazily over the opposite knee, fingers tracing invisible patterns on the door panel like he was thinking about something but not in any rush to say it. The glow of the dashboard caught faintly in his hair, casting the blond in soft, muted gold, like a secret the truck had decided to keep.

Eijirou cleared his throat, not to break the silence, but to make room for it to shift.

“You remember this place?” he asked, nodding toward a worn-down sign as they passed it—paint faded, letters half chipped away, the curve of the kanji still familiar if you squinted.

Katsuki didn’t lift his head, but his mouth twitched.

“Smells like seaweed,” he muttered. “Couldn’t forget it if I tried.”

Eijirou smiled faintly, watching the road ease into a gentle curve. “It’s not even the coast yet.”

“It already smells like fish.”

“Don’t act like that’s not why you liked it here.”

Katsuki grunted, shifting in his seat just slightly, his shoulders rolling against the curve of the headrest. “Didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

Wakasuzu wasn’t much to look at from the outside. It never had been. Tucked into a modest corner near the edge of town, the restaurant had been half-washed by decades of sea air and coated in the kind of salt-and-grease film that never fully came off, no matter how many times someone hosed down the sidewalk. But inside—inside it was warm, loud, and fish-forward in a way that would make most mainland joints cry. Whole snapper steamed in bamboo baskets, grilled buri collars lacquered in soy and sugar, bones fried until they shattered like crackers between your teeth.

Katsuki had fallen in love with it the first time they came here during spring break in second year. They’d been holed up in Chiba for a week while Class 1A cycled through coastal patrol training, and someone—probably Denki—had complained too loudly about cafeteria food, which prompted Eijirou to sheepishly suggest his favorite local spot. He hadn’t expected anyone to care. He definitely hadn’t expected Katsuki to look up from his rice bowl and mutter something like “I’ll go if they’ve got amberjack.”

They did.

Katsuki had gone three nights in a row.

Eijirou, whose palate leaned shamelessly toward grilled meat and high-heat fat, who thought a meal wasn’t a meal unless something bled a little, had bent like driftwood to make it work. He’d taught himself to gut sardines and eat them whole just to keep up. He’d learned to love pickled mackerel and salt-cured roe and those bitter anchovy snacks they gave you with beer. Not because he’d discovered some latent appreciation for seafood. But because Katsuki would light up in his own quiet way when the table filled with plates and steam and that heavy, briny air, eyes narrowed in pleasure, posture loose, hands decisive with his chopsticks in a way that made Eijirou’s heart do things it had no business doing.

“I used to hate some of the fish you like,” Eijirou said aloud, almost to himself.

Katsuki snorted. “You still do.”

“Not hate. I just… adjusted.”

“You adjusted because you thought it’d impress me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, bro.I didn’t adjust because of you,” Eijirou said, keeping his eyes on the road ahead, though his mouth was already curving into the kind of expression that made the words feel like a lie even as he said them. “I adjusted because I respect regional cuisine. And because the fried buri here is objectively life-changing.”

Katsuki exhaled in that disbelieving way he did when he couldn’t be bothered to argue, but also didn’t intend to let him have the last word. “You gagged the first time they brought out the grilled saury with the guts still in.”

“I was surprised , not disgusted. It’s sad, man! That little guy had a family.”

“You asked if it was a mistake.”

“I was trying to be polite. I didn’t want to assume it was intentional.”

“They literally had a sign outside that said today’s seasonal catch: whole fish, no substitutions. ”

“It was ambiguous,” Eijirou said, but his grin had broken through by then, full and slightly crooked, eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that made him look younger than he had in years. “Besides, I liked it. Eventually.”

“You like meat, ” Katsuki countered, without any real heat. “You used to cry over yakitori menus like they were goddamn poetry.”

“That’s still true.”

“You ordered wagyu and basic salmon rolls at a conveyor belt sushi place. ”

“They had a grill option!”

“They served it on a bed of cold rice.”

“It was avant-garde,” Eijirou said, biting back laughter, his voice too round with affection to land as anything other than nostalgic. “Anyway, I’m allowed to evolve. I’m complicated.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Sure. But I’m also loyal.” That shut him up for a second—not in surprise, but in that way he got when something landed heavier than he wanted it to. He turned toward the window again, but Eijirou caught the flicker in his reflection on the glass: the way his mouth pressed flat, the brief shift of his fingers where they draped near the door handle, the almost-smile that never fully arrived but stayed there like the ghost of one.

The road dipped then, easing into a slow coastal bend that curved along a stretch of faded seaside homes—weather-worn two-stories with tiled roofs and stubborn satellite dishes, clotheslines strung between windows, bicycles rusting quietly against cinderblock fences. The moon wasn’t out yet, but the sky had opened just enough to let the distant glint of the ocean appear, faint and trembling beneath the sodium streetlamps.

Eijirou felt his shoulders soften without meaning to. The familiarity of it—the gentle slope, the brackish smell of air that had traveled from somewhere far and sea-heavy, the way the town held itself like it didn’t need to prove anything—made something deep in his chest ache with that particular kind of recognition you only feel when coming home.

“It’s still the same,” he murmured, mostly to himself.

Katsuki didn’t answer, but Eijirou saw his gaze track the houses. Saw the way his eyes lingered on a corner vending machine lit half-dead, on a rusted sign that hadn’t changed since they were eighteen, on a crooked row of plastic crates outside a bait shop with hand-painted lettering no one had ever bothered to fix. And maybe it was the quiet, maybe it was the motion of the truck settling into lower gears as they coasted through the narrowing streets, but something softened in Katsuki too—something that had been locked behind his molars since they left the city.

“I remember this place,” he said eventually, voice low, like he didn’t want to interrupt the stillness of the town itself. “We came here when Denki got food poisoning and you wouldn’t shut up about your hometown being underrated.”

“Which it is.”

“You said the air here could heal a broken stomach.”

“It did,” Eijirou said, proud and defensive all at once. “He only threw up twice after we got here.”

Katsuki snorted. “You’re lucky I liked the food.”

Eijirou glanced at him, careful and quiet. “Did you?”

Katsuki rolled his head against the seat, just enough to meet his gaze. “I went three nights in a row.”

“Yeah,” Eijirou said, soft again, more breath than voice. “You did.”

They were quiet for another long stretch after that, the road empty except for their headlights, which flared briefly across the sides of closed shops and shuttered windows, catching the glint of wind chimes and plastic fish flags hung for decoration, faded to pastel by the sun.

When the GPS finally dinged, Katsuki didn’t flinch. He just glanced at the screen, then out the windshield, where the modest wood-and-stucco exterior of Wakasuzu came into view—its sign barely lit, the front step cracked slightly at the corner, the familiar swish of noren curtains rustling in the sea breeze like they hadn’t been replaced since 20XX.

Eijirou pulled into the gravel lot out front, which crunched softly under the tires. He didn’t park right away—just let the truck idle, headlights dimmed, the engine humming like a low conversation between them.

Katsuki looked at the sign and exhaled.

“It smells like they’re grilling collar already.”

“Yeah,” Eijirou said, easing the gear into park. “You want me to pretend I didn’t already call ahead and ask them to hold some?”

Katsuki didn’t reply, but the smile that finally curled across his face was honest, and the look he gave Eijirou—not quite direct, not quite hidden—lingered long enough to feel like a thank-you, even if he never said it.

The noren curtain at the entrance of Wakasuzu fluttered faintly as Eijirou pushed it aside with the back of his hand, the faded navy fabric brushing across his shoulder like it recognized him. The sign above it hadn’t changed in over a decade—the hand-painted kanji still stubbornly crooked, the wood frame slightly warped from years of sea air and the kind of heat that didn’t come from fire but from presence, from time, from the slow warping weight of being loved by the people who passed beneath it again and again. The restaurant itself was small in a way that felt intentional, like it had curled inward to protect something private, something warm. Inside, the air was heavy with the scent of grilled fish skin and burnt soy and the faint tang of vinegar over rice, the kind of smell that stayed in your clothes, behind your ears, along the lines of your collarbone. It was, in Katsuki’s quiet opinion, the only smell he didn’t mind carrying home.

The woman at the counter didn’t look up right away. She was seated cross-legged on a zabuton behind the register, wearing a faded apron and round-lensed glasses that had slipped down the bridge of her nose, flipping through what looked like a dog-eared manga volume with a half-empty cup of mugicha beside her. But the moment Eijirou’s boot thudded too loudly against the entry mat—always a little crooked, even after all these years—she looked up with that familiar sharp-eyed squint, the kind that always made Katsuki feel like he’d been caught doing something.

“Oh,” she said, voice dry as old rice. “Red’s back.”

Eijirou grinned and bowed immediately, deeply, nearly knocking the edge of the curtain on the way down. His voice was cheerful, too fast. “Good evening, ma’am. It’s been a while. Sorry for the late visit.”

The woman hummed, unimpressed, then tilted her head to look past him. “And you—blondie—still brooding like your food’s got secrets.”

Katsuki blinked, just once. “Still hungry.”

This, apparently, was the right answer, because she stood without another word, waved them toward their usual spot near the window—two zabuton on either side of a low, square table with lacquered corners dulled from years of use—and barked something toward the kitchen about putting on extra rice. Her voice echoed slightly against the wooden beams of the ceiling. A man’s voice replied—her husband, Katsuki assumed, still back there all these years later, probably hunched over the bin of fresh buri like it had insulted his daughter.

Katsuki dropped to the cushion with the kind of ease that came from repetition, from familiarity, from a history he didn’t talk about but clearly hadn’t erased. He pulled his legs in, hooked one ankle under the other, and pulled the chopsticks from their paper sheath with the same quiet ceremony he used to crack his knuckles or set a fuse—methodical, mechanical, muscle memory.

Eijirou sat across from him, back straight, legs slightly wider apart, and he poured them both tea without needing to ask. The cold mugicha, already sweating in its glazed ceramic pitcher, caught the light from the ceiling lamp and looked almost amber in the glass cups they passed between them.

They didn’t open the menus. They didn’t need to.

Five minutes passed, maybe less, and then the couple reappeared—her with a tray, him with another, both of them balancing an absurd number of dishes with the casual grace of people who had done this for so long they could probably serve a full kaiseki meal blindfolded. The food came without preamble: grilled buri collar lacquered so deeply with soy glaze it gleamed like wet wood, pickled sardines sliced thin with shreds of ginger and scallion curling on top like threads of gold, steamed scallops served still in their shells with pats of yuzu miso melting over the flesh, a giant bowl of miso soup crowded with clams and flecks of green onion, and a separate plate for Eijirou—salmon grilled to a perfect edge, rice perfectly mounded, rolled tamagoyaki just a little too sweet, pickled daikon arranged like petals at the corner of the tray.

Eijirou looked up, touched. “You remembered.”

The old woman snorted and rolled her eyes as she adjusted a dish. “Of course we remembered. You come in like a storm, loud and apologizing at the same time. And he—” she jabbed a finger at Katsuki “—eats like a man with something to prove.”

Katsuki didn’t rise to it, only nodded once in acknowledgment. “It’s good.”

“You haven’t tasted it yet.”

“It’s always good.”

Her mouth twitched, like she was hiding a smile. She didn’t say anything else, just turned back toward the kitchen, but not before muttering over her shoulder, “Dumb couple,” in the exact kind of voice that meant affection.

Eijirou choked a little on his tea—not dramatically, not enough to draw attention from the rest of the room, but enough that the breath he let out afterward was slightly more ragged than before, and his eyes flicked up toward the old woman’s retreating back like he might apologize or laugh or both. He wiped the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie and glanced over the table to see if Katsuki was going to respond—make a face, correct the record, scowl in that way he did when people got too familiar with assumptions that felt too close to the truth.

But Katsuki didn’t say anything.

Didn’t look up. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as twitch at the word couple, though Eijirou knew him well enough to catch the microscopic shift in the angle of his jaw, the way his fingers briefly stilled against the edge of the lacquered tray before moving again, slow and deliberate, as if he’d decided the best response was none at all.

They didn’t correct her, it wasn’t the first time, after all. Not here. Not in Chiba. Not in places like this—small places, warm places, where the people who served you remembered the sound of your laugh more than your last name and where reputations didn’t matter as much as rituals. They came here together, always together, never apart. They bickered like an old married pair. They shared food. They poured tea for each other without asking. And to people like the owners of Wakasuzu, that said more than any name ever could.

The meal didn’t speed up after that. If anything, it slowed.

Not out of discomfort, not out of awkwardness, but in that natural way things slow when there’s no reason to rush—when everything around you seems to exhale at once and give you permission to sit a little longer, to taste each bite a little more carefully. The light in the restaurant had taken on that late-evening softness that seemed to seep into the bones of the walls, the warm yellow overhead casting halos against the gleam of soy sauce and miso and fish oil slicking the plates. Steam rose gently from the rice bowls, curling like breath. The clatter of chopsticks, occasional as it was, became the loudest sound in the room.

Katsuki ate with the same quiet intensity he always did when the food was good—head slightly bowed, shoulders relaxed but focused, his entire body leaning into the act of eating like it required as much precision as a fight. Every movement was measured: the exact pressure used to separate the tender collar meat from the bone, the careful way he turned the shellfish over before scooping out the center, the way he sipped the miso soup from the rim of the bowl with a kind of reverence that bordered on ritual. He didn’t speak while chewing, never had, and he didn’t look up until he was done with each portion, each plate, one after the other. When he finally did glance up—eyes flicking across the table, pupils a little slow to adjust to the amber lighting—there was a softness in his gaze that didn’t usually show. Something almost dreamy, or maybe just unguarded. The kind of look he got when he was full and warm and surrounded by things he didn’t have to defend himself from.

And Eijirou, who had never quite managed to adopt the same love for seafood, sat across from him with a tray far more modest, more predictable—salmon cooked with a sweetness that edged toward familiarity, tamagoyaki layered with the same proportions his mother used to make, rice fluffed but unseasoned, pickled vegetables curled into polite spirals at the corners of the plate. He didn’t eat quickly. He wasn’t one to rush, either. But he took his time differently. Pausing more often. Watching.

He picked at the sardines, which were thankfully filleted and garnished with ginger that helped mask the more aggressive brininess. He managed a scallop with effort, made a face, and then drank half his tea like it would wash away the memory. Katsuki caught the expression, raised an eyebrow, and huffed through his nose—not quite a laugh, not quite a scold, just the sound of amusement given shape.

“You still eat like you’re waiting for someone to congratulate you,” Eijirou said after a while, resting his elbow on the table and letting his fingers curl around the rim of his teacup, warmth bleeding into his knuckles.

He didn’t mean it as a jab. It was an observation, soft and fond, spoken like someone who’d watched Katsuki devour a thousand meals and still found something new to admire in the way he chewed.

Katsuki didn’t respond immediately. He was still finishing the last delicate slice of buri, working around the fin bones with such precision it looked almost like a kind of art. When he swallowed, he lifted his head and looked across the table without shifting the rest of his posture.

“You still pick your food like it’s gonna bite you back,” he replied, voice low but steady, like he wasn’t quite ready to let Eijirou get away with sounding that affectionate.

“I just like knowing what I’m eating,” Eijirou said, lifting a piece of salmon and tapping it lightly against his rice before taking a bite.

“You’re Japanese,” Katsuki said. “It’s fish. You’ve got no excuse.”

“I grew up inland.” He pouted

“You grew up in fucking Chiba. That’s not inland, that’s ocean-adjacent. ”

“My momma hated seafood.”

“You hate seafood.”

“I learned to eat it. Salmon’s good, Unagi’s great, uni’s only good with wagyu–” Bakugou rolled his eyes, but he trudged on, “cod and suzuki are tolerable, it’s just–” 

Katsuki tilted his head slightly, regarding him with something unreadable behind his eyes. “You learned to eat this because you knew I liked it” The words landed lightly. No accusation. No smirk. No cruelty. Just fact. Plain, unadorned. A truth spoken like it didn’t require defense.

And Eijirou didn’t flinch. He didn’t laugh it off or rush to deny it. He just went still for half a second, the kind of stillness that comes from being seen a little too clearly. Not in surprise—he’d long since given up on pretending Katsuki couldn’t read him—but in the kind of quiet acceptance that meant he didn’t think he’d ever hear it named aloud.

He set his chopsticks down, not in performance but because they’d reached the bottom of the tray, and picked up his tea again, sipping slowly before setting it back with a soft clink.

“Yeah,” he said, finally, voice low but certain. “I did.” He didn’t follow it with a joke. Didn’t make it lighter than it was. Just let the truth sit there, between them, small and round and undeniable. Like the bone at the center of a piece of fish. The part you didn’t eat, but had to work around, carefully, respectfully. Katsuki didn’t smile. But he didn’t look away, either. His expression stayed quiet, still, something soft flickering at the corner of his mouth like an emotion he hadn’t decided whether to suppress or allow.

His hand shifted slightly—barely an inch—and his thumb dragged once around the rim of his empty tea cup, the motion slow, grounding, like he needed to feel something solid beneath his skin.

The door slid open behind them with a soft wooden creak, and the warmth of Wakasuzu spilled out onto the sidewalk for one long breath before the noren dropped closed again, its fabric swaying faintly in the night air like it was waving goodbye. The scent of grilled buri and miso clung to their clothes, stitched into their collars and the cuffs of their sleeves, mingling now with the sharper edge of ocean breeze that rolled down the narrow street from the coast. The wind here was gentler than Tokyo’s, less insistent. It didn’t shove—it whispered. Soft against their skin. Familiar in the way that made Katsuki want to close his eyes and breathe with his mouth open.

They walked without speaking at first, the gravel crunching underfoot, the town soft around them, all dim porch lights and shuttered storefronts and vending machines humming quietly at the edges of old fences. It wasn’t late—not by Tokyo standards—but here, the night had already laid itself out like a blanket. Lights were off behind sliding doors. A bicycle leaned tired against a pole, its front basket filled with unopened mail. Somewhere behind them, the last train rattled low on its tracks, a distant sound like a memory you didn’t quite believe had happened.

Eijirou’s shoulder brushed against his once, then again, not quite by accident. His gait had shifted—he still walked straight, still carried his frame with all the boyish ease of someone who’d never quite learned how to shrink himself—but the edge had dulled. The tension had melted out of him somewhere between the second ginjo and the third. He hadn’t intended to drink that much, probably, but the fish was warm and the room had been safe, and the old man behind the counter had started bringing things out without asking.

His cheeks were flushed now, the tip of his nose a little pink too, and his laughter had turned unfiltered, loose around the edges. Not loud. Just… soft. Softer than Katsuki had seen in a while.

“I swear,” Eijirou was saying, a little out of breath, not from exertion but from joy, from fullness, “if they’d brought out one more dish I would’ve just laid down on the tatami and died happy.”

Katsuki huffed, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, watching Eijirou’s profile out of the corner of his eye like it might change if he looked at it too long. “You didn’t even eat the clams.”

“I tried ,” Eijirou said, tilting his head back like the stars might understand his plight. “I gave it my best shot. You saw. I chewed for you!”

“You winced.”

“I chewed through the wince.”

Katsuki snorted, half a laugh, low in his throat. “You had three drinks and a tamagoyaki.”

“Three ginjos. They’re like, concentrated. Like fish stock. But alcohol.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. He could feel it too, the slow curling warmth under his sternum, not quite dizzy, not quite flushed, but present . A heat he wasn’t used to letting himself feel this way—loose, harmless, sweet. It had pooled there the moment Eijirou started smiling at his plate, the moment the old woman had told them off like they were children playing house, and it hadn’t left since.

“You’re buzzed,” he said, not unkindly.

Eijirou hummed. “Not that bad.”

“You’re swaying.”

“I’m emoting.”

Katsuki shot him a look, and Eijirou grinned with all his teeth, steps lighter than they had any right to be for someone who’d just eaten enough to feed three second-years and washed it down with fermented rice.

They made it back to the truck without incident—Eijirou humming some off-key melody Katsuki didn’t recognize, shoes scuffing softly along the uneven sidewalk, the keys jangling faintly in his jacket pocket. He reached for the driver’s side door without thinking, keys already in hand, fingers fumbling slightly against the handle.

And then Katsuki’s hand was there—broad, calloused, and firm against his chest, not shoving, not harsh, just there , a steadying pressure that made Eijirou stop short like a dog hearing a whistle too low for human ears.

Katsuki didn’t speak right away. Just held him still with that one palm, the heat of it bleeding through Eijirou’s shirt and directly into his ribs. He looked down at him—not up or over, down , because Eijirou had slouched, just a little, and Katsuki had straightened, just enough.

“You’re not driving,” Katsuki said, voice soft but final.

Eijirou blinked, momentarily stunned, more by the proximity than the words. “I’m fine. I didn’t even finish the last one.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Oi, you drank, too! Plus, I’ve driven after drinking much more than this—”

“I know ,” Katsuki said, and his hand didn’t move. “That’s why I’m driving.”

Eijirou was still for a second longer, the keys dangling useless between his fingers, then laughed, breathless and quiet, not mocking. Just… fond.

“I keep forgetting this is your thing ,” he said. “You and your fancy cars and your seat settings and your precision grip on the wheel like it owes you rent.”

Katsuki took the keys from his hand without ceremony, holding them between two fingers like he’d done this a thousand times. “It’s not about the car.”

Eijirou looked at him for a beat. Longer than necessary. “I know.” He stepped aside without resistance. And Katsuki slid behind the wheel like he belonged there—like he belonged in this car, too, not just his own. Like his hands knew the shape of this cabin, this console, the curve of these mirrors. The lights flicked on automatically when the door closed, bathing the interior in soft white, and Eijirou climbed into the passenger side with a quiet sigh, settling into the warmth like it hadn’t just been pulled from him. The engine purred to life under Katsuki’s hands like a cat with its favorite human.

By the time the gravel of the Wakasuzu parking lot crunched softly beneath the tires and the front bumper nosed its way into the curve of the road like a dog finding a familiar scent, the sky had fallen fully into itself. The kind of deep indigo that only happened far from the fluorescence of the city. It was late—later than Katsuki had realized until he saw the hour flicker on the dash in that pale digital font, quiet and accusatory. Nearly midnight. They’d been at the restaurant for hours. Sitting. Not lingering out of politeness or indecision, but simply… being. Letting the food stretch across time like an excuse to stay in the warmth, letting the tea refill itself until the pot ran dry, letting the moment breathe until neither of them could remember how long they’d been talking. Or maybe they hadn’t been talking much at all. Maybe it was just that the space between their words had stopped asking to be filled.

The streets around them had emptied long ago, even the usual late-night bikes and rusted kei trucks vanished into garages and side alleys. The only things left awake were vending machines, buzzing faintly with fluorescent halos, and the ocean itself—quiet now, but alive, always, humming somewhere beneath the hills like the earth was breathing through its ribs.

Katsuki kept his eyes on the road. Not because it demanded it, but because it gave his hands something to do. He’d taken the wheel without argument, without invitation, pressing a firm palm to Eijirou’s chest and nudging him toward the passenger seat with all the authority of someone used to taking control—not in a way that asked for thanks, but in the way that said I know how to hold this. Let me. It had been instinct, not dominance. A reflex he hadn’t questioned.

Eijirou hadn’t resisted. Not really. He’d made a noise—soft, amused, and vaguely scandalized—but his limbs had been loose and pliant, his grin heavy-lidded and sweet from the warmth of three ginjos and a belly full of grilled salmon and too much rice. His body had leaned just slightly into the pressure of Katsuki’s hand before sloping sideways and sliding into the passenger seat like he belonged there, like he trusted Katsuki with this version of him: soft and sleepy and undone at the seams.

Now, with the town drifting past their windows in shadowed blues and pale yellows, he was curled lazily in the seat, half-turned toward Katsuki like the night had melted all his tension. One leg bent under him, the other stretched out, his face tipped toward the sky through the window, where the moonlight traced the line of his jaw in something too gentle to be called silver. The corner of his mouth was still curved slightly, like he’d thought of something funny and hadn’t decided whether or not to say it.

Katsuki didn’t look. Not directly. But he watched him in pieces—his reflection in the window, the ghost of a smile caught in the rearview mirror, the subtle rise and fall of his chest against the seatbelt strap. The road wound up along the cliffs now, hugging the coast, the turns slow and forgiving, bordered by guardrails crusted with salt and graffiti too worn to read. He could’ve taken the faster way back to the city. He hadn’t.

“I’m so full it’s unreal,” Eijirou murmured eventually, his voice thick with post-dinner contentment, the syllables spilling out warm and slow like honey sliding down the side of a glass. “I think I’m gonna have to change my profession. Retire from hero work. Open a fish cart. Live off the land.”

Katsuki exhaled once, sharply through his nose. “You said that an hour ago.”

“Yeah,” Eijirou said, dragging the word out like he was still chewing it. “But now it’s worse. Now it’s spiritual. My ancestors are speaking to me through the buri collar. They want me to sit the hell down and stop pretending I can move.”

Katsuki adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, the leather soft and broken-in beneath his fingers. “Shouldn’t’ve had that last scallop.”

Eijirou groaned dramatically, turning his head toward him, the sound rising from somewhere in his chest like a wave hitting sand. “I knew you were judging me. You always judge the scallop moment.”

“You made a face.”

“It was a brave face. A face of fortitude. Manliness. ”

“You gagged.”

“It was a dignified gag.”

Katsuki didn’t respond, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward, just slightly. Eijirou, ever the opportunist, saw it and let his eyes sparkle with something too close to mischief.

“And anyway,” he said, voice dropping into something more teasing, low and curling, “you were watching me the whole time. So how would you even know what the scallop tasted like?”

Katsuki’s heart stuttered once, painfully, like a skipped step on uneven pavement. His fingers tightened on the wheel just enough to make the leather creak.

“You were making a scene,” he muttered, which wasn’t an answer, and they both knew it.

Eijirou smiled wider, slower now, not gloating but glowing, like he’d stumbled onto something delicate and didn’t mind being right.

“You always say that when you get caught staring,” he said, softer this time, no edge to it. “Not that I mind. You look good when you’re trying not to get caught.”

Katsuki didn’t answer. Couldn’t, maybe. His throat had gone tight again, heat blooming up behind his ears in a way that made the collar of his hoodie feel too close. But he didn’t look away. He couldn’t. The moonlit coast opened up in front of them, vast and slow, and the truck moved through it like it belonged there, like it had found the perfect pace—unrushed, unbothered, like the road knew there was nothing worth hurrying toward that wasn’t already inside this cab.

Eijirou stretched then, arms up over his head, hoodie riding up slightly to reveal the thin band of skin between his shirt and his waistband, and Katsuki had to look back at the road before he swerved into the guardrail.

“You ever come out here alone?” he asked, his voice hoarse at the edges.

“Only go if I’m visiting my mom or the girls,” Eijirou let his arms drop back into his lap, folding himself back down, content and heavy-limbed again. “But yeah, once or twice,” he said. “When I was still figuring stuff out. When things felt too loud, and I needed somewhere that didn’t expect me to be anything.” He paused. Then, quieter: “It’s not the same alone.”

Katsuki swallowed. “Nah?”

Eijirou shook his head, cheek pressed against the headrest. “The town… it doesn’t open up the same way. Not unless you’re sharing it.” And maybe that was it. Maybe that was the sentence that would sit with him forever. The kind you carry home in your pocket, in the lining of your jacket, in the stretch of your spine when you lie awake and wonder what it meant that he said it to you. Not to someone. Not to the night. To you.

Katsuki didn’t say anything. Didn’t trust himself to. He just let the silence settle again. Let the moonlight spill across Eijirou’s face like blessing. Let the road stretch out ahead, soft and smooth, and let his heart fall a little harder, a little deeper, into something he wasn’t sure he could climb out of if he tried.

The road climbed gradually as they left the flatter parts of the coast behind, the hills rising up on either side like gentle giants, and for a while there was nothing but the curve of the asphalt and the low thrum of the engine, which purred under Katsuki’s hands like it recognized him. This wasn’t his car—wasn’t one of his beloved babies with their calibrated suspensions and stripped-back elegance—but still, he felt at home behind the wheel. The BMW was new, absurdly so, and the drive was silky smooth, as if the road were made of velvet and the tires had memorized the shape of every bend before they arrived.

It wasn’t just the performance of the thing that made it feel right—it was Eijirou’s trust, handed over so casually, like he hadn’t even thought twice about it. Like Katsuki belonged here, in the seat, in the night, beside him.

“You’re good at this,” Eijirou murmured at one point, his voice quiet enough to blend with the breeze sneaking through the window crack.

Katsuki didn’t ask what he meant.

Maybe he didn’t have to.

“I like when you drive,” Eijirou continued, like the words were just passing through him on their way to someplace else. “You’ve always looked like you know where we’re going.”

Katsuki didn’t answer that, either, but something ached in his chest at the sound of it—something small and sharp and unbearably tender. He pressed his foot a little firmer to the gas, as if that would help him outrun the way Eijirou’s voice made him feel, which was stupid and soft and terrifyingly close to real.

They passed an overlook then—a small rest stop perched at the edge of the cliff, a single vending machine casting pale blue light over the pavement, humming faintly against the sea’s rhythm. Katsuki considered pulling over, just for a moment, just to stay in it a little longer.

But the moment passed.

And so did they.

Then, without warning, the console screen flickered.

A soft digital beep sounded once, then again. The center panel dimmed for a heartbeat, then came back online with a cheerful chime that felt entirely out of place in the hush of the car.

Katsuki glanced down.

The GPS had vanished. Replaced by a cluster of alerts.

Eijirou blinked awake. “What’s that?”

Katsuki didn’t answer immediately. Another chime. Then a line of text in glowing white characters:

ドアが開いています。パーキングブレーキを確認してください。
A door is ajar. Please check the parking brake.

Katsuki’s jaw tensed. “The door’s not open.”

“I closed it,” Eijirou said, frowning as he sat up straighter, the sleepy glaze fading from his expression. “I definitely closed it.”

“I watched you close it.”

The dash blinked again. Another warning. Then the climate control shut off with a quiet click, the air vents slowing to silence.

“What the hell,” Eijirou muttered, rubbing his temple. “It’s brand new. I haven’t even taken the shipping stickers off the foot pedals.”

Katsuki pulled the car gently to the side of the road, easing it into park with a sharp, practiced motion. The lights on the dash continued to pulse merrily, as if nothing were wrong at all. Just another feature. Just another ghost in the machine.

“It’s probably the smart system,” Eijirou said, already reaching for his phone. “They said something about glitches in the firmware. Like—sometimes it needs to be reset if the weather changes too fast or you use the auto-parking too many times in one day.”

Katsuki stared at him. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I didn’t invent it,” Eijirou shot back, holding up a hand. “I just bought it.”

“You paid money for this.”

“I paid a lot of money for this,” Eijirou said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re not helping.” The wagon gave one last polite, shit-eating ding.

Then the dashboard screen went black.

Not ominously. Not dramatically.

Just… completely off. Katsuki blinked once. “Oh.”

“Okay,” Eijirou said, drawing the word out until it was a full sentence. “Okay. I think it’s gone to sleep.”

“You think your car went to sleep.”

“I read the manual, Katsuki. Five fucking times! We can’t all be a control freak like you!”

Katsuki rubbed a hand down his face, questioning every fucking second that brought him there. “You’re calling assistance.”

“I am calling assistance,” Eijirou said, already thumbing through the contact list with the resigned air of someone who knew he’d have to explain this to three different people in polite Japanese and still end up turning the car off and back on again like it was a Bluetooth speaker.

And Katsuki just leaned back in the seat, exhaled long and slow, and looked up at the sky through the windshield. The stars were still there, the sea still breathing.

The silence inside the truck had stretched so far it no longer felt like a pause in conversation. It felt like something else entirely. A shelter, maybe. Or a truce. The kind of quiet that came not from lack of things to say, but from the ache of knowing how full the air already was. The dashboard had gone dark a while ago. The roadside team, efficient and polite, had texted to say they were delayed, that someone would be out “shortly,” which in late-night coastal hours translated to maybe by dawn.

Eijirou had curled up again, legs folded under him, the collar of his sweatshirt tucked over his mouth. He looked like something halfway between sleep and awareness, and for a moment Katsuki had considered staying like that—just sitting, letting the condensation bead slowly on the windows, letting the salt from the sea soak into the seams of the seats, letting the air between them carry everything that still felt too big to say.

But then Eijirou shifted, gently unfolding himself, stretching with a soft grunt before glancing over with eyes clearer than they had any right to be at this hour.

“I want to walk a little,” he said, voice scratchy and low, like it had been steeped in steam and silence both. “Stretch my legs. It’s weird sitting still this long after driving that far.”

Katsuki didn’t argue. He never did, not when it came to things like this—when Eijirou wanted to move, when he needed to walk something off, to let his body speak before his mouth caught up. Katsuki only nodded, slow and wordless, and then opened his door, the quiet click of it punctuating the stillness like the softest kind of permission.

The air outside was cooler than expected, though not cold. The humidity had dropped with the sun, leaving behind a chill that wasn’t sharp, just clean, the kind that filled your lungs without asking for anything in return. The trees near the overlook reached high above the road, dark outlines against the sky, and the beach itself wasn’t far—a soft slope down into shadows, where the sand was dark with mist and the waves whispered, not loudly, but just enough to remind you they were listening.

They walked in silence for a while, shoes scuffing lightly against the narrow trail that led down from the rest stop into a cluster of pine and cedar, the branches above them rustling faintly with sea breeze. The air smelled like salt and sap and something older—something damp and vegetal and specific to the places the sun forgot during the day. The moon, a little higher now, threaded its light through the canopy in uneven ribbons, striping the forest floor with silver.

Eijirou walked ahead by a few paces, his hands stuffed into the front pocket of his hoodie, his shoulders hunched slightly forward—not in discomfort, but in ease. He moved like someone who knew where he was going, or maybe like someone who didn’t care where he ended up, as long as the company was right. Katsuki followed behind, letting the space stretch just far enough to watch the way Eijirou’s frame shifted with each step, the way his hair caught in the breeze and curled against the back of his neck.

The sand met them slowly, their steps growing softer as the trail opened into the edge of the beach, which stretched out in a long, crescent curve, empty but for the hush of the surf and the flicker of moonlight on the tide. They didn’t go all the way to the water. Just far enough to feel the salt on their skin again. Far enough that the truck behind them felt like another version of the night, sealed off and waiting.

Eijirou stopped near a drift of dune grass, tilting his face up toward the stars, the ocean to his left, the wind pulling gently at the hem of his shirt. He didn’t speak right away, but Katsuki didn’t expect him to. He just stood beside him, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off his body, not close enough to touch.

After a moment, Eijirou spoke, his voice quieter now, more like a thought than a statement.

“I used to come out here as a kid,” he said. “Before I even started thinking about UA. Before I even thought I had a shot. I’d bike out with friends sometimes, but mostly I came alone. I’d sit on that little slope back there, the one near the cedars, and just watch the water.”

Katsuki didn’t interrupt.

“I don’t think I was looking for anything, back then,” Eijirou went on, his breath catching faintly, like he was sifting through something fragile. “I think I just wanted to feel small in a way that didn’t hurt. You know? Like… when everything else felt too close, too loud, this place let me be quiet without having to explain it.”

Katsuki nodded once, slow. “Yeah,” he said, voice low and rough. “I get that.”

They stood there for another stretch of minutes, maybe more. It was hard to tell, now. Time didn’t move normally when the sea was this close. When the stars didn’t blink, and the only light came from the kind of moon that made you feel like the world might be holding its breath.

“You know,” Eijirou said, turning slightly, just enough that Katsuki could see the outline of his face in profile, the shine of his eyes in the dark, “you always make things feel like that too.”

Katsuki blinked. “Like what?”

Eijirou’s gaze didn’t waver. “Like I don’t have to talk if I don’t want to. Like I can just be .”

Something tightened in Katsuki’s chest. Not painful. Not even unexpected. Just… sharp. Like the edge of something real.

“You never had to prove anything to me,” he said, his voice hoarse from disuse.

“I know,” Eijirou replied. “But I wanted to.”

And Katsuki didn’t know what to do with that. With how quiet it was. With how full his throat felt. With the way Eijirou was looking at him now, not like he was expecting anything, but like he was offering it anyway.

The waves pressed in a little louder. The trees behind them swayed. And in the distance, the soft buzz of the vending machine was still faintly audible, like the night itself was humming beneath the surface of things.

The air was colder when they returned to the truck, not in the sharp way that chased you indoors but in the kind that lingered, low and creeping, curling up from the pavement and nestling beneath your clothes like it had always been there, just waiting for you to slow down enough to notice. The night had thickened while they’d been walking, the dark becoming something deeper, more complete, as if the coastline had decided to close itself for the evening and forgotten to leave a lamp on.

Neither of them spoke as they reached the vehicle. They didn’t need to. The forest behind them whispered softly with the hush of night-wind in pine, the ocean below let out the occasional soft exhale, and above them, the stars glittered with that particular, inhuman indifference that made you feel small in a way that wasn’t unkind. The kind of small that let you belong to something bigger, if only for a little while.

Katsuki opened the door first, his fingers steady on the handle, though his knuckles stung faintly from the cold. The interior was shadowed now, dim and quiet, the display still blank, the temperature inside noticeably lower than it had been before. The heat they’d carried with them earlier had long since seeped out through the vents and seams, leaving the cabin cool and still and faintly perfumed with salt and warm fabric and a trace of lingering shoyu.

Eijirou followed behind, slipping into the passenger side without complaint, without that usual grunt of effort or stretch of long limbs. He moved like someone retreating into a space he already knew, body folding inward slightly as he curled into the seat, one knee tucked up, his arms crossing over his chest in a motion that looked less like defensiveness and more like instinct—like the air had brushed a little too close to his skin and his body had answered before he’d told it to.

The door clicked shut beside him with the softness of a held breath.

Katsuki didn’t turn the key. He didn’t try the screen. He just leaned back into the driver’s seat, the leather cool against his spine, and stared forward for a while, letting the silence settle again, this time heavier, more deliberate. The windows had started to fog faintly from their breath, the glass dulling around the edges, making the world outside seem softer than it was. Smaller. Contained.

He didn’t notice the exact moment when he reached out. Didn’t make a conscious decision to do it. One moment his hand was resting lightly on his thigh, fingers twitching with leftover tension, and the next it was lifting, slowly, carefully, moving across the small space between them to land on the curve of Eijirou’s arm, just above the elbow, where the muscle was soft and warm beneath the thin fabric of his hoodie. It wasn’t firm. It wasn’t possessive. Just a steady, quiet presence. Just touch.

And Eijirou—Eijirou moved like he’d been waiting for it. Not leaning in all at once, not collapsing, but tilting, gradually, like gravity had shifted in the truck and Katsuki had suddenly become the thing he was falling toward. His body sloped against him in pieces: first his shoulder, then his upper arm, then the side of his thigh brushing along Katsuki’s, warm and solid even through denim. And finally, finally, his head dropped to rest just beneath Katsuki’s jaw, his cheek settling into the crook where shoulder met collarbone like it had done this before.

He didn’t say anything.

Katsuki didn’t either.

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a joke. There was no teasing, no blush, no half-laugh to break the tension because there was no tension left. There was only this. The truck. The night. The cool leather beneath them and the heat pooling slowly between them like it had always belonged here.

Katsuki adjusted slightly, just enough to tilt his head to the side, to allow room for Eijirou’s hair to press against his neck without getting in the way. He could feel the faint damp warmth of it—salt-washed and tousled from the walk—and the rhythm of Eijirou’s breathing, slower now, more even. Grounded.

His hand slid from Eijirou’s arm down to his wrist, fingers brushing against skin, and then lower, until he found the back of his hand and folded their palms together—not in a laced, romantic way, but in the way you might anchor yourself to something you trusted more than the road, more than your own voice. Their hands didn’t move. Didn’t tighten. Just stayed.

Eijirou exhaled again, not loudly, not dramatically. Just a slow, steady release of air against Katsuki’s throat, like he’d been holding something in and finally decided to let it go.

So he held him, didn’t think about what it meant. Not in that moment. He didn’t wonder if Eijirou was thinking of someone else, or if he would laugh about this tomorrow, or if this was a mistake he would regret. He didn’t think about how much he wanted this, how much he had always wanted something like this—soft, unspectacular, given freely. He just breathed, slow and deliberate, and let his body learn the shape of this quiet. The weight of someone leaning on you because they could, because they trusted you to hold them without making it weird or loud or temporary.

Eijirou didn’t fall asleep, not completely, but he drifted. The kind of half-sleep that only came when your body knew it was safe, like he could let his guard down and Bakugou, too. His breathing deepened, his fingers twitched once, then stilled, and the side of his face slid slightly lower on Katsuki’s shoulder, finding a better fit.

Katsuki reached up with his free hand and gently, so gently it felt like a secret, brushed a stray curl of red hair back behind Eijirou’s ear and lost all sense of time. The sky outside the windshield had gone from deep navy to something approaching charcoal, though the stars were still out, faded just slightly at the edges, as if the horizon hadn’t quite made up its mind about morning yet. The windshield was fogged with a film of condensation from their breath, blurring the world into soft shapes and silver halos, and the rest of the truck—its plush leather seats, the pale blue gleam of the dash, the lifeless console—felt sealed in a kind of warmth that had nothing to do with electricity.

Eijirou hadn’t moved much. His body was still curled into Katsuki’s side, one leg bent slightly toward the center console, the rest of him folded into the curve of Katsuki’s frame like it was a posture he’d been born for. His head rested low on Katsuki’s chest now, cheek to collarbone, and his hair was damp with sea mist and sweat, leaving little curls along Katsuki’s jaw that clung with gentle insistence.

Katsuki hadn’t moved either.

He wasn’t sure he could.

His hand still rested loosely around Eijirou’s wrist, thumb brushing the soft skin there in unconscious intervals, as if reminding himself this was real. That it wasn’t a dream, or a memory softened by time. Just warmth. Contact. Breath. The rarest thing he knew: presence without expectation.

He wasn’t good at this kind of thing. Never had been. Hell, maybe never will be.

Intimacy, for him, was a language made of smaller things. Quiet gestures. Acts of control disguised as care. Watching someone’s six. Letting someone else fall asleep first. Replacing the air filters in Eijirou’s apartment building without telling him. Letting him take the aux cord in the car.

But this—this felt like something else entirely.

He didn’t know what made him say it. Maybe it was the hour. Or the quiet. Or the way Eijirou’s body felt heavy but safe against his own, like gravity had finally found its proper setting.

“You’re better in the car,” he murmured, voice low, unsure if he even wanted it heard.

Eijirou stirred slightly, but didn’t lift his head. “Mm?”

Katsuki cleared his throat, barely. “I mean. I like you. Like this. In the car.”

Eijirou shifted then, slow and languid, and blinked up at him, cheek still pressed to his chest, his expression drowsy but undeniably amused. His voice, when he spoke, was dry in the best way. “You know that sounds like you’ve been crushing on my truck , right?”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, but his face heated, and he turned just enough for the light from the vending machine outside to catch the slope of his cheekbone. “I didn’t mean—shut up.”

Eijirou didn’t press. Just tilted his head a bit further, resting his chin on Katsuki’s shoulder now, his smile lazy and open, like the teasing was just a form of affection. “Alright,” he said, voice like sunlight filtering through a bedroom curtain. “I’ll shut up. But only if you explain what exactly it is you like about me in the car. Since we’re apparently confessing via vehicle metaphors.”

Katsuki was quiet for a long beat, jaw working slightly, like he was chewing on something that didn’t quite want to come out. When he did speak, his voice was quieter. Slower. Like every word had weight he couldn’t afford to waste.

“I don’t like when people get too close to things they don’t understand,” he said. “And I don’t like not knowing where something’s going. Or what it’s gonna do when I hit the brakes.”

Eijirou’s brows lifted, just slightly. But he didn’t interrupt.

Katsuki stared straight ahead, watching the fog on the windshield bead and drip, trailing rivulets that caught the light and bent it into quiet halos.

“When I drive, I’m the one in control. Not just of the car. Of everything. The road, the speed, the decisions. I get to feel like my body and the world are finally working together instead of against each other.”

He inhaled. Exhaled.

“And when you’re here… it feels like that, too.” Eijirou was still now. Entirely still.

Katsuki’s throat worked once. “You don’t pull me out of it. You just… settle into it. Like you know how the space works. 'S nice, but,” Another pause.

Then, gently, “It makes me feel less like I’m gonna crash.”

Eijirou’s face had changed by then. Not to something teasing. Not even to something surprised. Just… something softer. Something listening.

And when he finally leaned in, Katsuki let him.

There was no build-up. No fluttering heartbeat or cinematic swell. Just breath shared in the space between them. Just the slide of Eijirou’s palm along the side of Katsuki’s neck, warm and sure, fingertips brushing the line of his jaw like they’d always meant to be there.

The kiss that followed wasn’t sharp or rushed. It didn’t land with heat. It wasn’t needful.

It was careful.

It was asking.

Eijirou kissed him like he knew Katsuki would flinch if he moved too fast. Kissed him like he had time. Like this wasn’t the beginning of anything new but a continuation of something that had always been there, waiting for the right moment to show its face.

Katsuki let himself lean into it, the hand on Eijirou’s wrist shifting to his waist, fingers curling slowly into the hem of his sweatshirt. He didn’t close his eyes right away. He wanted to see. To feel. To know that it was Eijirou’s mouth against his own, warm and slow and intentional.

They stayed close when it ended. Not far. Just enough for their noses to brush, for Katsuki to see the faint, crooked smile playing at Eijirou’s lips.

“We’re gonna have to talk about that at some point,” Eijirou said, quiet and pleased and faintly breathless.

“Yeah,” Katsuki muttered, blinking hard, eyes fixed somewhere near the slope of Eijirou’s jaw. “Eventually.” But not yet. He followed the flow of inertia, and lips met lips again. It didn’t land like a jolt, didn’t arrive in a breathless lurch or sudden motion. It moved into the space between them like it had been waiting there all night, nestled into the silence, into the soft fogged windows and the gentle creak of the truck under their weight. Katsuki felt it coming like a shift in the air pressure—like the moment just before a storm, when everything gets quiet and full and thick with something unnameable.

Eijirou’s fingers had barely stopped moving since the first one. He hadn’t pulled away completely, not really—just hovered close, like his body couldn’t decide which parts of Katsuki to stop touching. His thumb brushed again along the underside of Katsuki’s jaw, slow and easy, as if memorizing the shape of his stubborn silence. His other hand had found its way down to Katsuki’s waist, resting there with the kind of pressure that was less about control and more about contact. Less about holding , more about being held.

And Katsuki—who’d spent the better part of his life convinced that this kind of closeness would make him combust—sat there in the passenger seat of his best friend’s truck, breathing through his nose in deliberate, measured drags, trying not to let it show how his body had already started giving itself away.

Then Eijirou kissed him again.

This time slower. More deliberate. Less like a question and more like a promise. His mouth was warm and sure, the kiss unfurling like smoke curling from a flame, and Katsuki, helpless to do anything but follow it, leaned in. Not because he wanted to be kissed. Because he wanted to feel it. All of it. The softness. The surety. The slow ache of heat gathering low in his stomach.

The third kiss came before he could catch his breath.

And then a fourth.

And then another, more lingering one, that had Eijirou tilting his head slightly to one side and pulling Katsuki in by the collar, his fingers curling into the soft cotton of his shirt like he meant to bring him closer, closer still, until Katsuki wasn’t sure where his mouth ended and Eijirou’s began.

At some point—Katsuki didn’t remember when—Eijirou moved further into the driver’s seat, one knee slipping between Katsuki’s thighs, the other braced near the center console, awkwardly wedged, but stable. His weight pressed into him in slow increments, not crushing, just insistent. Katsuki’s hands had gone somewhere—one had curled around Eijirou’s waist, fingers flexing against the warm curve of his back beneath his hoodie, the other resting over his ribs, where he could feel the rise and fall of every breath, every soft exhale between kisses.

It was… a lot.

But it didn’t feel like too much.

It felt inevitable.

The air inside the truck had grown heavy, warm with breath and the press of their bodies and the fog rising against every window. The scent of Eijirou—salt and skin and the faintest trace of the citrus shampoo he’d used in the inn’s shower—wrapped around him like memory, like home.

And still, he kept kissing him. Like he’d only just started. Like he was rediscovering something every time their mouths brushed. A different angle. A deeper tilt. A new way to sigh into the space between their teeth.

“You’re doing it again,” Katsuki mumbled eventually, though the words were half-swallowed in another kiss.

“Doing what?” Eijirou asked, his voice thick and low, his lips ghosting across Katsuki’s cheek, trailing toward the hinge of his jaw with devastating softness.

“Kissing me like it’s your job.”

Eijirou grinned. “Could be. Maybe I'll retire.”

“Not funny.”

“You’re not stopping me.”

Katsuki’s breath hitched when Eijirou’s nose brushed under his ear, his mouth trailing lazy, open-mouthed kisses down the side of his throat. His body responded before his mouth did—hips shifting subtly, jaw going tight, hands tightening in Eijirou’s hoodie before relaxing again. “You gonna sit in my lap next, or just straddle the console like an idiot?”

Eijirou gave a low, pleased hum, nipping lightly at his neck. “Thinking about it.”

“You’d better not knock anything loose,” Katsuki muttered, though there was no real bite in it. “This is your expensive-ass wagon.”

Eijirou laughed, low and close, the sound vibrating against Katsuki’s skin. “Good thing about this shitty car,” he murmured between kisses, “is it’s big enough for both of us.”

Katsuki gave a shaky exhale that turned into a laugh despite himself. “Better than the Porsche?”

Eijirou paused, smiling against his throat. “Be honest.”

Katsuki tugged him closer by the waistband, their foreheads bumping gently. “Don’t push it.”

They kissed again. Slower. Deeper. Hands roaming now, not with urgency but with purpose—over ribs, over hips, over the soft fabric of clothes that had started to cling with sweat. Not to take anything off. Not yet. Just to touch. Just to feel.

And in the quiet between kisses, the rhythm of the truck around them—the creak of the leather, the hush of breath, the low groan of the gearshift when Eijirou shifted too far sideways—made it feel like the whole cabin was breathing with them. 

It was hard to say when the kissing had tipped over from soft and sweet into something slower, heavier, more indulgent—like syrup left too long in the sun. There wasn’t a clear shift. No turning point. Just breath building on breath. Touch building on touch. Mouths parting a little wider. Hands curling a little tighter into fabric, into waistbands, into the corners of warm skin hidden under too many layers.

Eijirou kissed like he’d been waiting years for this. Like something had finally slipped loose in him and he was going to taste every version of it while he had the chance. Every corner of Katsuki’s mouth. Every inhale. Every flicker of hesitation. He kissed him like the truck had stopped existing. Like the rest of the world had melted away and there was only this: the warm dark hush of the cabin, the slow fog spreading across every surface, and the delicious, heady weight of Katsuki going soft and hot beneath his hands.

Katsuki, for his part, kissed back like he couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to.

He was flushed to the collar. Hair tousled from Eijirou’s fingers. Eyes half-lidded, mouth pink and kiss-bitten, every exhale breaking against Eijirou’s teeth as if he was still trying to be quiet about it. Still trying to keep something in. But his body had betrayed him a dozen times already—hips tilting forward, hands roaming with a kind of slow desperation, tongue chasing Eijirou’s deeper with every kiss, like he was afraid if he stopped it would all fall apart.

At some point, Eijirou had climbed fully into his lap—not neatly, not even successfully, but with enough stubbornness that the truck groaned beneath them. One knee jammed near the cupholder, the other crooked against the inside of the door, his thigh pressing tight against Katsuki’s hip. The console had become an afterthought. The seats had become a cradle. The breath between them had turned into a shared rhythm, thick with heat and something hungrier than either of them could name.

Katsuki’s hand was under his hoodie again, now splayed flat against the small of Eijirou’s back, his fingers warm and possessive and trembling just slightly, like he didn’t quite know where to hold and where to let go. His other hand gripped the edge of the seat behind Eijirou’s shoulder like he needed the leverage just to breathe.

“You’re gonna ruin your truck,” Katsuki muttered, voice wrecked, barely a whisper against Eijirou’s jaw.

Eijirou grinned, dragging his mouth down to kiss the hinge of his neck. “You’re worth it.”

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”

“You say that every time.”

Katsuki made a strangled noise. He arched forward. Eijirou kissed him again, long and messy, laughing into his mouth.

The windows had fully fogged now. Not just a light mist, but a thick, humid glaze, the kind that clung to the glass in opaque clouds. The kind that would've absolutely drawn comments if the truck wasn’t so thoroughly tinted. The air smelled like sweat and cotton and salt, like the press of summer and the inside of a hoodie worn too long. Like the kind of morning that would’ve been criminal to waste on pretending they were just friends.

Katsuki was just pulling him closer again, breath caught in his throat, when it happened.

Three sharp, unmistakable raps against the driver’s side glass.

Knock.
Knock.
Knock.

Eijirou jerked so hard he nearly elbowed the steering wheel. Katsuki’s head thumped lightly against the headrest as his entire body froze, going ramrod straight in the seat like he’d just been caught hiding a stolen national treasure under his hoodie.

“Oh my fucking god,” Eijirou hissed, hands flying everywhere at once—trying to sit up, trying to fix his shirt, trying to locate his dignity, which had apparently melted into the seat somewhere during the third round of kissing. Katsuki didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared, wide-eyed, at the still-fogged windshield like if he looked hard enough, he could become invisible. Or ascend into another plane of existence entirely. “Fuck. Fuck me,” Eijirou muttered, dragging himself off Katsuki’s lap with all the grace of a dying giraffe, narrowly avoiding jamming his foot into the glove compartment. “What time is it? What day is it? Do we even have pants on?”

“ Yes, dumbass,” Katsuki growled, finally coming back online, though his voice was hoarse and his ears were a very specific shade of crimson that made it hard to take him seriously.

Outside the window, partially obscured by the fog, a man stood politely, holding a diagnostics tablet and blinking with an expression of such bland professionalism it was almost comical. He wore a navy ANA jacket and the faint look of someone who had absolutely seen something and was doing his best to pretend he hadn’t.

Katsuki cracked the window one agonizing inch. “Good morning,” the man said with an only-slightly-strained smile. “We received your alert regarding a malfunctioning onboard display and climate control outage. Is everything… safe?” he asked, eyes wide with recognition. 

Bakugou couldn’t say anything. He was still half-hard. His shirt was twisted at the hem. His lip was swollen. And the inside of the truck looked like it had been used for anything but responsible driving. Eijirou, after a beat of internal screaming, leaned across and gave a strained, mortified smile that tried very hard to resemble confidence. “Hi. Yes. Sorry. We—uh. The truck stalled. And then the system shut off. So we didn’t wanna mess with it. We just… waited.”

The man blinked once. “Understood.” Then, without further ceremony, he stepped around the front of the vehicle and opened the service port.

Silence fell.

Inside the car, the only sound was Eijirou quietly trying to die in real time. Katsuki still hadn’t moved. He was hunched slightly forward now, hands braced on his knees, staring at the gearshift with the thousand-yard stare of a man who had made a series of choices and would rather be buried alive than revisit any of them. The windows stayed fogged.

The air stayed warm.

And the heat between them—that strange, aching joy, that trembling fullness—stayed, too. Eijirou slumped slowly into the driver’s seat, staring at the ceiling like he was asking the gods for a redo.

After a minute, his voice broke the silence, dry and barely held together. “Next time we make out in a vehicle,” he said, “we’re taking the Porsche.” Katsuki didn’t look at him. But his ears twitched pink again. And, of course, he didn’t say no. Hell, he was looking forward to it, hoping to whatever was out there for more drives just like tonight. For the rest of his life.