Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kirishima hadn’t meant to click it.

It autoplayed — sandwiched between a reel of fight highlights and a clip of Todoroki dodging questions about Endeavour with that same unreadable expression he always wore. He was slumped on the couch, one leg kicked over the armrest, half a protein bar in his hand and the other half forgotten in his mouth. It was raining outside — that kind of slow, grey drizzle that turns Tokyo into a sigh — and the static lull of hero news in the background was just white noise. Until it wasn’t.

Until his voice cut through the screen like a grenade going off.

“I’m asking because there’s been speculation — is it true, Bakugou? Are you gay?”

And Bakugou — god, Bakugou — looked up from where he stood outside the agency, rainwater dripping off his collarbones, eyes sharp and flat and tired in a way that made something in Kirishima’s chest twitch.

He blinked once. Jaw locked.

And then — no hesitation, no defence, no shame.

“Yeah. So fucking what?”

The reporter froze. The video clipped off two seconds later.

That was it. That was it.

But for Kirishima, the world stuttered. Like the gears of reality had misaligned. Like someone had stuck a crowbar in the centre of his chest and wrenched — hard.

His first instinct was to laugh, short and stunned and not real. The kind of breath that had nowhere to go.

He hit replay.

Bakugou’s voice. Again.

“Yeah. So fucking what?”

Replay. Again.

“Yeah.”

His thumb hovered over the screen, cold and trembling. The protein bar dropped to the floor without him noticing. His chest felt too tight. Too loud. Like someone had lit a firework behind his ribs and he was trying to count seconds before the bang.

Bakugou’s gay.

The words didn’t sound real, even inside his own head. Like they belonged to someone else. Like they couldn’t possibly refer to the same Bakugou who punched villains into walls, who snarled at cameras, who called him dumbass with a heat in his eyes that Kirishima had never had the nerve to name.

Gay.

That single syllable reverberated in him, echoing through every conversation they’d ever had, every sparring match, every moment of tension that had once been easy to dismiss as just them. Just adrenaline. Just friendship with sharp corners.

He played it again.

And again.

His jaw slack, his eyes wide, heart beating like a war drum in his chest — loud and frantic and irregular, like it was trying to climb up his throat. Like it had caught onto something too big to ignore.

He fumbled with the remote, fingers numb, the room suddenly too quiet and too loud at once. The air felt thin. He tried to sit upright and couldn’t — his limbs weren’t listening. He was falling in place, barely holding onto the moment by the edges.

Does this mean I could’ve—

The thought crashed into him like a truck, like a villain’s punch to the sternum.

Could’ve what?

Could’ve tried? Could’ve asked? Could’ve stopped pretending all those almost-moments didn’t mean anything?

He didn't know. That was the worst part — he didn't know.

All he had was that stupid clip, thirty seconds long, and a voice that lived so deep in his bones it echoed there like a prayer. That voice, dry and steady and tired in that Bakugou kind of way — the kind that said I don’t owe you shit, but I’m giving you this anyway.

Kirishima pressed his palm to his chest and realised he was shaking.

This changes everything.

Or maybe — maybe it didn’t change a damn thing at all. Maybe it just made the truth heavier. Clearer. The undercurrent of something he’d buried so deep it had started to fossilise.

He closed his eyes. Bakugou’s voice looped again in his mind — clipped, raw, unapologetic. And suddenly he could feel it all. Every moment he’d spent not looking too hard, not letting himself hope. The training sessions with too much tension. The way Bakugou sometimes stared at him like he was trying to memorise him and then looked away like he was furious about it. The weird in-between spaces that had never been named.

Had he been blind? Or just afraid?

He didn’t know.

All he knew was that something had cracked open inside him, and now everything he’d managed to keep buried for years was rushing to the surface like floodwater. Sudden. Unstoppable.

He curled forward, elbows to knees, the room still, rain ticking against the windows. The sound of the world felt distant now, like it had receded behind a veil. All he could hear was his own pulse, frantic in his ears.

“Yeah. So fucking what?”

Kirishima pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, like that might stop the ache building behind them. It didn’t help.

This was it. The moment everything shifted.

And he had no idea what the hell to do with it.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

Kirishima didn’t sleep that night.

Not really.

He lay there in the dark long after the rain had stopped, the city damp and quiet beyond his window. His flat was silent — too silent — the kind of quiet that didn’t soothe but instead pressed in on you, heavy and accusing. Like it knew something had shifted in you. Like the walls themselves were holding their breath.

The clip sat in his phone like a live wire. He didn’t watch it again. He couldn’t. It was already tattooed behind his eyelids, Bakugou’s voice etched in that crisp, thoughtless drawl. “Yeah. So fucking what?” Like it was nothing. Like it didn’t send Kirishima spiraling back through time like he'd fallen through a trapdoor.

Because suddenly everything was different.

Or — no. No, not different. Recoloured.

Like someone had taken his memories and developed them in new light. Same negatives, new contrast. Things he’d brushed off now shone like clues he’d been too blind to read.

It started small. It always did.

A glance, he thought. That’s what he remembered first. Not a grand moment, no dramatic pause, just a glance — the kind that held a second too long. They’d been seventeen. Summer. Hot, the kind of heat that stuck to your skin. He was in the dorm kitchen, slicing watermelon, shirt off, sweat sticking his fringe to his forehead, and Bakugou had come in, grumbling about the fan being broken.

Kirishima had looked up, grinning, easy. “Want some?”

And Bakugou had paused in the doorway, eyes scanning him, expression unreadable. Not annoyed. Not scowling. Just — there. Watching him like he was taking him in for the first time. Like he was trying to memorise something.

Then the moment snapped. “No, I don’t want your fucking fruit, I’m not a toddler.”

And Kirishima had laughed it off. Hadn’t let himself look at that look. Hadn’t even tried to name it.

But now — god — now he saw it so clearly it hurt.

And it didn’t stop there.

The memories started flooding in like water breaking through a cracked dam, rushing over him faster than he could catch them. Every near-miss, every moment he’d shrugged off, every time his chest had done something stupid in Bakugou’s presence and he’d smothered it with jokes or training or noise.

That time during their third year — when Kirishima had sprained his wrist after a particularly brutal spar with Ojiro. Bakugou had cornered him in the changing rooms after, face thunderous, jaw tight.

“You’re shit at blocking with your off-hand,” he’d snapped. “You leave your side wide open.”

“I was trying not to break your ribs, man,” Kirishima had laughed, cradling his hand like it didn’t throb. “You’re the one who told me to stop holding back.”

Bakugou had stared at him for a moment — jaw ticking, shoulders tense — before muttering something almost too low to catch.

“You shouldn’t get hurt like that. You idiot.”

There was a quality to his voice then that Kirishima hadn’t been brave enough to name. Something rough, protective. Vulnerable.

And Kirishima had just — smiled through it. Joked. Batted the moment away like a moth circling a flame, too scared to look at it for what it was.

Even further back, he thought. God, even first year. He remembered a moment from the sports festival — the down time between matches, nerves vibrating in his bones, everyone in their little corners of focus. Bakugou had come to stand beside him, wordless, arms folded. He hadn’t said anything for a long time. Just stood there.

Eventually, he’d muttered, “Don’t lose.”

And Kirishima had made some dumb pun about hardening under pressure. Something stupid. Something safe.

But the thing that haunted him now was the way Bakugou’s mouth had twitched. Barely. The smallest flicker at the corner of his lips, like the ghost of a smile he didn’t know how to give.

And Kirishima had missed it. Or ignored it. Because it didn’t fit into the version of reality he allowed himself to believe in.

Because he was a coward.

Because somewhere deep down, he’d felt all of it — the weight in the silences, the warmth beneath the barbs, the way Bakugou said his name like it meant something — and he’d turned away from it every time. He’d told himself it was friendship. Just them. Just Bakugou being Bakugou.

Because if he’d let himself believe there could be more, and been wrong — it would’ve shattered him.

And now — now he didn’t know if it was too late.

The weight of that uncertainty sat like a stone in his stomach. Heavy. Cold. Cruel.

Had Bakugou been trying all this time?

Had he reached out, in his own sharp, clumsy, Bakugou way, over and over, while Kirishima was too busy laughing off the edges of things? Too busy shielding himself from the ache of hope?

It wasn’t just the glances or the words. It was everything between those things. The way Bakugou always waited for him after patrol, even when they weren’t on the same route. The way he knew Kirishima’s coffee order better than Kirishima did. The way he’d once punched a villain straight through a brick wall after the guy had made some snide comment about Kirishima’s hair — no quirk, no explosion, just raw fury.

At the time, Kirishima had called him overprotective. Had laughed, clapped him on the shoulder, said “You’re such a drama queen, man.”

And Bakugou had gone stiff. Said nothing. Walked away.

Kirishima had hurt him, hadn’t he? Over and over. Not by being cruel — but by being careful. By refusing to see what might’ve been right in front of him.

And God, he didn’t know what was worse — the idea that Bakugou had never felt anything for him, and this was all projection — or the idea that he had, and Kirishima had looked away every time.

He rolled onto his side, pressing his face into the pillow, chest heaving like he’d just sprinted a mile. The room was suffocating. He felt hot and cold all at once. Drenched in regret.

He wished he could go back. Not to change things — not even that. Just to see it. To relive those moments without the fog of fear. To hold them properly.

Had Bakugou lingered in doorways on purpose?

Had those compliments — sharp, rare, like diamonds in sand — been more than just begrudging praise?

You’re not weak, he’d said once, voice low, jaw clenched. You’re the only one who ever fucking tries to understand me.

And Kirishima had grinned, cheeks burning, and called him a softie.

He thought he’d been protecting himself by keeping things platonic. By never asking too much. But maybe all he’d done was leave Bakugou shouting into a void, hoping someone would answer.

And now he didn’t know if he’d missed his only chance.

He buried his face deeper in the mattress, a sound catching in his throat. Something raw. Wordless.

His phone buzzed somewhere in the sheets. Probably a group chat. Probably Mina or Sero sending a meme or talking about the weather. But the thought of the screen — of Bakugou’s voice sitting inside it — made him flinch.

He was drowning in memories now. They piled up, overlapped, bled into one another. Each one a knife he’d left unturned, now carving their truths into him all at once.

Missed signals. That was what he had.

Not answers. Not closure.

Just possibilities. Just silence. Just a hundred half-moments suspended in amber.

And the echo of Bakugou’s voice, still ringing in his bones like a fire alarm.

“Yeah. So fucking what?”

Kirishima curled in on himself.

And for the first time in years — maybe ever — he let himself mourn what he’d been too scared to see.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

Kirishima couldn’t sleep.

It had been two nights since he’d seen the clip — thirty-two seconds that had carved a canyon down the middle of his chest — and something about the silence of the early hours made it worse. Made the weight of it impossible to ignore. The city outside his window buzzed faintly, traffic humming far below, and the red digits on his alarm clock blinked uselessly against the dark. 1:27 a.m. The room felt too still, like the quiet before a quake, and his thoughts filled it until it echoed.

He was drowning in a single question — Had he wasted it? All of it?

The years. The friendship. The feelings he’d shoved so far down they’d started to rot from the pressure.

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling like it might offer some kind of divine answer, but all it did was remind him of how long he’d spent pretending not to see what was right in front of him. Pretending not to feel. And now, with that one offhanded, brutal Bakugou answer echoing in his brain — Yeah, so fucking what? — everything was unravelling.

He was such a fucking coward.

He’d convinced himself it was noble, not saying anything. Selfless. That keeping quiet was the right thing, the strong thing, because Bakugou was his best friend and best friends didn’t cross lines like that. He’d smiled through the ache, made jokes when Bakugou’s shoulder brushed his a little too long, clapped him on the back during training even when his chest was already fluttering from a single glance. And when Bakugou would call him an idiot, or a dumbass, or shitty hair, Kirishima would grin, red in the ears, and pretend that wasn’t the closest thing to affection he ever thought he’d get.

But now he saw it — what if it was never impossible? What if it was fear, not fact, that kept him in the dark?

The guilt settled like lead behind his ribs, heavy and poisonous.

He thought of all the times Bakugou had looked at him — really looked at him — and he’d looked away. Too afraid to wonder. Too convinced it was one-sided to risk making it something. And what did that make him? Loyal? Or just spineless?

He winced, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes, hard enough to see stars.

It wasn’t just regret — it was remorse. Deep and gnawing. The kind that made him want to crawl out of his own skin, claw at his chest until the shame spilled out.

Bakugou had been brave enough to say it on live television. Eyes direct, jaw squared, unapologetic. And Kirishima had flinched even in private. He couldn’t even admit it to himself, not fully. Not until now. And maybe that was the cruelest part of all — Bakugou had always been braver than him. Not just in fights. Not just on the battlefield. But in being honest. In being real.

And Kirishima? He’d hidden. Behind jokes, behind loyalty, behind a thousand excuses.

“He’d never like me like that.”

“He’s not — like that.”

“If I said something, it’d ruin everything.”

“It’s not worth it.”

But it was worth it. It always had been. And now he couldn’t help wondering if the quiet between them—the cracks in their friendship he hadn’t had the words to name—had come from Bakugou waiting. From him watching Kirishima walk past every hint like it meant nothing. Maybe he had ruined it without even realising it.

The thought made his chest cave in.

Because if Bakugou had been waiting, and Kirishima hadn’t seen it—had refused to see it—what kind of friend did that make him?

His stomach turned.

He thought back to every moment they’d stood side by side in battle, shoulder to shoulder in chaos. To the way Bakugou always gave him a warning glance before charging in, always trusted him to have his back. And he had, hadn’t he? He’d always been there. Bled for him, protected him, followed him.

But this? This was the one thing he hadn’t protected. The truth. The heart of it. The thing that mattered the most.

He’d been too scared of making it real.

And more than that — he’d never asked Bakugou. Not once. Not really. Not when Bakugou had pushed people away. Not when he snapped at journalists. Not when he was hurting. He’d let Bakugou carry the weight alone and said I’m here in actions but never in words. Never where it counted.

That was the part that gutted him.

Because in hindsight, there were moments. Tiny ones, sharp and glinting, littered through the years like broken glass. He’d been too afraid to pick them up then. But now they cut.

Bakugou came out alone.

The thought lodged like a shard in his throat.

Because maybe he hadn’t needed Kirishima to hold his hand or wave a flag or shout it from the rooftops. But he could’ve said I see you. Could’ve been more than a silent, smiling presence beside him. Could’ve been loud in the ways Bakugou wasn’t. Proud in the ways Bakugou didn’t know how to be. Could’ve been better.

But he hadn’t. And now that silence stretched out behind them like a graveyard of missed chances.

Kirishima curled in on himself, one arm flung over his eyes, muscles tight and aching. He could feel the heat of tears pushing behind his eyelids, a sting that burned worse for not falling. He didn’t deserve to cry. Not over this. Not when he’d done nothing to stop it. Nothing to change it.

He thought of Bakugou’s face on the screen. Tired, raw, unfiltered. Yeah, so fucking what?

And the worst part was — he wasn’t even surprised. Somewhere, deep down, he’d known. Or maybe hoped, in the quiet parts of himself he kept buried. But he’d never been brave enough to look too closely. Never wanted to risk the answer.

But now the answer was out there. Sharp and undeniable. And it was too late.

Or maybe not. Maybe.

But that’s what terrified him the most.

Because now the guilt came with a new voice. Louder than all the others. Not fear. Not shame. Hope. Wild, cruel, stupid hope that maybe—maybe—he hadn’t missed his chance entirely. And if he hadn’t — if there was still time—

Then he’d have to face the one thing he’d spent years running from.

Bakugou.

And the truth.

And himself.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

It started in ways so small, so insidious, that Kirishima barely noticed the shift himself. Not at first. A glance held too long before he looked away. A smile that came late, brittle at the edges. The easy rhythm of their friendship — the kind built on years of banter, bruised knuckles, and wordless understanding — started stuttering like a faulty heartbeat.

Where once he’d find comfort in Bakugou’s presence — solid, predictable in his volatility, ironically safe — now it made something cold settle behind his ribs. Not fear, exactly. But something brittle and aching. Like walking barefoot over glass, smiling through the pain so no one noticed the blood.

He began dodging hangouts under the guise of patrol rotations and paperwork. "Sorry, man, got roped into cleanup again," he’d text, even when he was sitting in his flat with clean hands and too much silence. The real reason choked him — that being around Bakugou now was like standing at the edge of a precipice he’d pretended didn’t exist for years. And suddenly the wind had changed, revealing the drop.

Every time Bakugou looked at him now — really looked — it felt like a question Kirishima didn’t have the guts to answer.

He tried to act normal, really he did. Overcompensated, even. Made dumb jokes during morning briefings, laughed too loudly when someone else made a decent pun, trained harder than he needed to so his sweat could excuse the tremble in his hands. But everything came out wrong. Too much or not enough. His smiles felt artificial, like polished armour hiding a splintered core.

It didn’t take long for Bakugou to notice. Because of course he did. He noticed everything. Kirishima could dodge bullets, but he could never dodge him.

“You’re fucking twitchy,” Bakugou snapped one afternoon, tossing a towel over his shoulder as they left the gym. “You’ve been weird for weeks. What the hell’s wrong with you, Shitty Hair?”

And Kirishima, who was still catching his breath from sparring, pretended it was just the workout. That his racing pulse wasn’t from proximity, from the memory of the press conference that still haunted his nights like a ghost. He laughed too fast, too light. “Weird? Nah, man, just tired. Didn’t sleep great.”

Bakugou narrowed his eyes, unconvinced. The sort of look that could burn through steel if you stared too long. But he didn’t press — not yet. Just scoffed under his breath and muttered something about him going soft.

The truth was, Kirishima couldn’t look at him the same way anymore. He couldn’t not see it now — that clipped confession Bakugou had thrown into the world like a grenade, as if daring anyone to challenge it. Yeah, so fucking what?

So fucking what, indeed.

And Kirishima’s heart — traitorous, stupid thing — whispered a thousand what-ifs behind his ribs. What if I’d said something sooner? What if I’d been brave when it counted? What if I hadn’t buried it so deep I convinced myself it didn’t matter?

And now Bakugou knew who he was — openly, shamelessly — and Kirishima — he was still hiding. Behind humour. Behind busyness. Behind the fear of taking something precious and breaking it with his own clumsy hands.

He missed him. Missed them — whatever they’d been, in that golden sliver of time where it had felt easy. When he could lean against Bakugou’s shoulder after a mission without wondering if he was pressing too close. When he could laugh at one of his rare compliments and not analyse it for meaning. When he didn’t flinch from the thought of what he really wanted.

Now, every brush of skin felt too loud. Every casual insult, every shoulder bump in the corridor — it all prickled with weight. Every second was spent overcorrecting. He laughed too much. Talked too fast. Said "dude" like a punctuation mark, trying to pad the spaces where silence might spill the truth.

It wasn’t sustainable. He knew that. He could feel it all slowly collapsing under its own weight — and worst of all, he could feel Bakugou’s patience beginning to fray. His glares growing sharper. The air between them thick with the unsaid. Like a match waiting for the strike.

Kirishima thought he was doing the noble thing. Protecting what they had. Keeping things from getting complicated. But all he was really doing — was hiding. And he hated that. Hated himself for it. For not being as brave as he always swore he would be.

Because the truth — sharp and unbearable — was this: he didn’t know how to be Bakugou’s best friend and be in love with him at the same time.

And every moment he kept pretending he could — he was losing him anyway.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

It didn’t come out all at once.

Not even close.

It unravelled over tea gone cold and a heavy dusk sky bruising the city in mauves and muted greys, the kind of light that made even the brightest things look tired. Kirishima sat hunched at Mina’s kitchen table like someone waiting for a verdict, fingers clenched around a chipped mug he hadn’t actually taken a sip from in over twenty minutes. He couldn’t look at her. Not properly. Just focused on the curl of steam still rising faintly from her cup, the faint, pleasant scent of chamomile and honey and the safe, human quiet of her flat — a stark contrast to the noise in his chest.

He hadn’t meant to come here. Not really. But he’d texted something vague — are you at home? — and she’d replied like she always did, without question “yh, door’s unlocked”

And now here he was. Sitting in his best friend’s kitchen, every muscle in his back tense, like he was bracing for an earthquake that hadn’t hit yet.

The words were stuck. Buried under years of denial and the fear that if he said them out loud, they’d become too real to take back. But Mina — she didn’t press. She never did. She just let him sit in it, steep in the silence until it either broke him open or softened him enough to speak.

It broke him open.

“I think," he started, then stopped. Tried again. “I think I’ve been in love with Bakugou.”

His voice cracked on it. Just a hairline fracture. But he felt it all the way down.

Mina didn’t flinch. Just sipped her tea, nodding like she’d been waiting for him to catch up.

He laughed — sort of. A breathless, broken little thing. “Hell, maybe I always have been. Since U.A., even. I mean, isn’t that so fucking stupid?”

She tilted her head. “No.”

“But it is,” he said, voice rising a notch. “He’s — he’s Bakugou. He’s angry all the time and pushes people away and swears like it’s a second language and somehow still manages to save the day anyway. And I — I’m not,"

He faltered. The thing lodged in his throat wasn’t rage. It was shame.

“I’m not what someone like him ends up with,” he whispered.

And that, he realised, was the truth he’d been dodging all along. Not just that he was in love with Bakugou — but that he didn’t believe he deserved to be.

Mina put her cup down. Carefully. Softly. The kind of deliberate quiet you use when someone is already crumbling.

“Eiji,” she said, and it wasn’t scolding. It was warm. Real. “You’re everything someone like him ends up with.”

He couldn’t look at her. The words stung too much. Cut too close to the softest part of him.

“I just — I kept thinking I’d ruin everything if I said anything. That maybe if I just kept it buried, it’d go away. And now I’ve made it worse because I can’t even act normal around him anymore. He’s starting to notice, and I think he’s pissed, and I don’t know what to do.”

There it was. Panic, raw and exposed. The real kind. Not the kind you scream through in battle. The kind you carry quietly, like a bruise under your ribs, pressing in every time you breathe.

Mina reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. Her skin was warm. Grounding.

“You do know what to do,” she said. “You’ve always known.”

He shook his head. “I’ll lose him.”

“You’re already losing him by pretending,” she said, not cruel, just firm. Like someone placing a mirror in front of him and refusing to let him look away.

And it hit him then — that she was right. That every awkward silence, every dodged hangout, every half-hearted laugh was a small death. A slow undoing of something precious. That by trying to protect their friendship, he was killing it anyway.

“I’m scared,” he admitted, quietly. And it felt like bleeding.

“I know,” she said. “But you’re brave. Braver than anyone I know.”

He wanted to believe her. God, he wanted to. But the fear had its claws in deep. What if Bakugou laughed? What if he got angry? What if he didn’t — and that was worse? What if there had been a moment once — a flicker of something — but it had passed, and Kirishima had missed it forever?

And still — and still. There was something aching in him now, something that had started to shift the night he saw that news clip. A voice, small but insistent: What if you haven’t missed it? What if he’s just waiting for you to be brave enough?

He looked at Mina then, really looked, and saw the weight of years between them. She knew him — the stupid jokes and the aching silences. The way he wore loyalty like armour. The way he smiled to hide the cracks. And now, she saw through all of it. Not with pity. With love.

“You need to talk to him, Eiji,” she said again. And this time, it wasn’t a suggestion.

It was a truth.

And he nodded. Just once. Not because he was ready. But because he had to start being.

Because if he didn’t say something soon, he was going to lose the one person he couldn’t imagine living without — and that kind of regret? That was the sort that never let you heal.

Later, when he walked home alone through the city’s quiet backstreets, the sky thick with stars behind the light pollution, he looked up and whispered it — not to anyone in particular.

“I’m in love with him.”

Just to hear the words outside his chest. Just to know they were real.

They sounded like a promise. Like the beginning of something. Or maybe the end.

He didn’t know yet.

But for the first time in weeks, the silence didn’t feel quite so heavy.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

It had started simple, like most well-intentioned disasters did — a half-formed plan, a casual dinner, the threadbare hope that this time he’d be brave enough to say it.

Kirishima stood outside the restaurant, shifting from foot to foot beneath the streetlamp’s pale flicker, heart battering against his ribs like it wanted out. He could feel it in his hands, too — the tremble in his knuckles, the low buzz in his fingertips that told him he wasn’t ready, even though he’d told himself he was. Mina’s voice still echoed in the back of his head — “You need to talk to him, Eiji.” Like she’d handed him a key and expected him to unlock a door bolted shut since U.A.

But then Bakugou arrived.

And fuck.

He looked — well, unfair. There was no other word for it. Unfair in the way that made Kirishima’s breath snag like a rip in fabric. He wore black, of course — all sharp lines and heavy boots, casual but devastating. Collared shirt slightly rumpled like he’d just tugged it off a hanger without looking. Hands in his pockets. Hair like a flame defying gravity. That face, set in its usual scowl, but softer tonight somehow — or maybe it was just the streetlight, washing everything in a quiet gold.

He looked like he belonged in a different world. And Kirishima had no idea how to speak to him in this one.

They sat across from one another in a small booth, low lighting, the table between them far too narrow for how much space Kirishima needed just to breathe. He’d picked this place thinking it was relaxed, unassuming, but now the walls felt close, the candlelight oppressive, and Bakugou looked across at him with those sharp, intelligent eyes like he knew. Like he was already halfway to the truth and just waiting for Kirishima to admit it.

He tried to focus on anything else. The menu. The condensation running down the side of his glass. The sound of Bakugou’s voice — low and rough-edged, saying something about a recent patrol that had ended in some absolute dumbass detonating their own getaway vehicle.

Kirishima nodded at all the right places. Laughed once, too loud. Bit his tongue when he almost said, “You looked hot on the news the other night.”

He didn’t say it. Didn’t say anything he meant.

Because there was no casual way to confess you’d been in love with your best friend for years. There was no way to ease into the truth when it had been a boulder sitting on your chest for a decade. He could barely look at Bakugou without his throat closing.

And it was so stupid, because this was supposed to be the moment. He’d planned it, hadn’t he? Let it play on loop in his mind all week — the calm, casual way he’d say it, the small smile he’d wear like armour. “Hey, Katsuki. I’ve been thinking, and I reckon I might’ve been in love with you this whole time.”

But here he was, chewing through the inside of his cheek, nodding as Bakugou swore at the waiter under his breath for getting the order wrong.

The food came and went. Kirishima barely touched his.

He couldn’t stop looking at Bakugou’s hands — scarred, strong, calloused — resting carelessly on the table’s edge. He remembered them wrapped in tape back in U.A., remembered holding onto one of them when he’d been bleeding too much to stand. He remembered that time Bakugou had caught him after a fall, fingers fisting in the collar of his gym shirt, grip so tight Kirishima had bruised from it and hadn’t minded at all.

Bakugou glanced up at him mid-sentence, narrowed his eyes. “You’re weird tonight.”

And Kirishima laughed — another deflection, another cowardly slip of the tongue. “Just tired.”

It was easier to lie. Easier than spilling the thing that had hollowed him out for years. The thing that could ruin everything if spoken aloud.

He offered to pay. Bakugou refused, tossed some bills on the table like it meant nothing. They walked out into the cool night, street quiet, stars veiled in city haze. For a second — just one second — Kirishima slowed, heart cracking open with the weight of all he hadn’t said. His arm brushed Bakugou’s. Their shoulders met.

He could say it now, he thought.

He could take that breath and step off the edge of the cliff.

Bakugou turned to him, brow furrowed. “What?”

Kirishima opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Just the sound of cars somewhere in the distance. The rumble of the train overhead. The universe, indifferent.

He swallowed.

“Thanks for dinner.”

Bakugou blinked at him, confusion flickering behind the frown. “…Right.”

And that was it.

They parted ways outside the station, Kirishima watching Bakugou walk off with that familiar, angry stride — like he was marching into battle. Like he didn’t know Kirishima had almost handed him his heart.

He stood there long after the other had gone, hand still half-raised in a wave that never quite happened, staring down the tracks like they might carry the version of himself that could’ve done it.

Could’ve said, “I love you.”

But he hadn’t.

And now the silence stretched out like a canyon between them, and he didn’t know how to cross it.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

The mission had been short and ugly — two petty villains with overcharged quirks and something to prove, cornered down a rain-slick alleyway and lashing out like wounded animals. Kirishima had taken a hit to the ribs. Nothing serious. Enough to make him wince whenever he turned too sharply or breathed too deep. Enough to distract him from the conversation he could feel coming like a storm rolling in under his skin.

He’d known it was only a matter of time.

Bakugou had been watching him — not subtly, either. Watching him in that narrowed-eyes, hawk-on-a-thermal way he had, like he could smell bullshit a mile off and didn’t have the patience to play along anymore. Kirishima had caught it during the debrief, in the way Bakugou’s jaw tightened whenever he looked at him. Had felt it in the silence stretching between them in the locker room, punctuated only by the squeak of wet boots and the hiss of hot water from the next row over. It sat there — thick and unsaid — like oil on water, something that refused to mix, refused to disappear.

And Kirishima couldn’t blame him.

He’d been off. He knew he’d been off. Jumping at shadows, dodging eye contact, defaulting to his too-loud laugh like it was armour. Pulling back, just enough for Bakugou to notice. Just enough to make it worse.

He was about to slip out — uniform shoved carelessly into his bag, hair still damp, hoodie already zipped up to his chin — when the door to the changing room slammed shut behind him with too much force to be nothing.

Bakugou.

Kirishima didn’t have to turn around to know it. Didn’t have to hear the low, clipped voice behind him to feel the burn start behind his ribs.

“Are you avoiding me, or what?”

The question landed sharp, sudden. Like a blade to the back. It wasn’t loud — Bakugou didn’t need to yell to make a threat — but it carried that low charge, that tension beneath the words that made Kirishima’s stomach tighten.

He turned. Slowly.

Bakugou stood there, still in his hero gear, arms folded across his chest, steam curling from the ends of his damp hair. His expression wasn’t explosive. It was worse than that — quiet, unreadable. A storm just beginning to gather.

Kirishima swallowed and tried not to flinch. “I’m not avoiding you,” he said, too quickly, too thinly. “Just tired. Long week.”

Bakugou stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “Bullshit.”

Kirishima let out a breath that didn’t sound like a laugh but wasn’t anything else either. He looked down at the tile, at his own fists where they’d curled too tightly at his sides. He couldn’t look at him — couldn’t face that scowl, or the quiet disappointment buried beneath it.

“I’m not lying,” he tried again, though it sounded worse this time. Like he knew it wasn’t true.

Bakugou stepped forward, just one pace, but it was enough to make Kirishima straighten up instinctively. Years of instinct — sparring, training, knowing that Bakugou always took space when he was angry, always moved closer instead of away. But this wasn’t a spar. This wasn’t the kind of anger that could be burned off through a fight.

“You’ve been weird for weeks,” Bakugou said, eyes pinned to him like a pressure point. “You barely look at me anymore. You’re pulling away. I’m not a fucking idiot, Eijirou.”

The name felt heavier than it usually did — like it wasn’t just a name, but a challenge. A dare to deny it again.

And Kirishima felt something in him flicker. Falter.

Because he was pulling away. Every time he looked at Bakugou and remembered that dinner, remembered the way the words had stayed caged behind his teeth — every time he thought about what it meant to love someone like this and not say it — he wanted to hide. From himself. From Bakugou. From the horrible, silent possibility that he’d already ruined something by not being honest fast enough.

But he couldn’t tell him. Not now. Not like this — not cornered in a hallway, smelling faintly of antiseptic and wet cement, with his heart shoved halfway up his throat and his thoughts scrambled beyond recognition.

So he did the only thing he knew how to do when everything hurt too much to hold.

He lied.

“Just tired,” he said again. Softer. “That’s all.”

Bakugou stared at him for a long moment. Too long.

And for the first time in years — years, through blood and battle and every damn near-death they’d faced side by side — Kirishima felt distance. Real, painful distance.

It cracked between them like a hairline fracture in stone — invisible, until the weight bore down and split it open.

Bakugou’s lips pressed into a flat line. His shoulders were rigid, tension rippling through his stance like he was holding something back. Then — with a breath that sounded more like a scoff than a sigh — he turned on his heel and shoved the door open again.

“Fine,” he muttered, disappearing into the corridor.

Kirishima stood there alone, the door swinging gently on its hinges behind him. The silence that followed was deafening.

And he hated it. Hated himself for it.

Because Bakugou was right.

He was avoiding him. Not out of spite, or fear of rejection, or even confusion — not anymore. But because the feeling in his chest had grown too big, too wide, too fragile to touch. And saying the truth aloud — saying I’m in love with you — felt like shattering something that had been sacred between them. Something he wasn’t sure he’d survive losing.

But if he kept this up — he might lose it anyway.

And that possibility clung to him all the way home — through the quiet streets and the long train ride and the aching silence of his flat. It settled into his bones like rain in old cracks. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Bakugou’s face. That flicker of hurt he hadn’t meant to cause.

He lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling, fists curled against his stomach like he could keep the ache in.

But it stayed. Of course it did.

Because love like his didn’t vanish.

It just rotted, quietly, in the dark.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

It came back to him like a bruise pressed too hard — that specific night at U.A., tucked away in some forgotten corner of his memory until it surfaced with the same unrelenting clarity as a wound that had never fully closed.

The corridors of the dorms had been quiet that evening, hushed by curfews and exhaustion. Their classmates were scattered — some already in bed, others clinging to the last dregs of freedom before another training day. It had been raining outside, the kind of rain that made the windows shudder and the world feel smaller, as though it were being drawn inward. And Kirishima — Kirishima had been bleeding.

Not dramatically. Not in any way that would raise alarms or earn sympathy. But enough. Enough to sting, enough to remind him of his limits — the kind of injury that slices beneath the adrenaline and makes a home in your pride.

The villain they’d faced during that unsanctioned field exercise — not even a proper mission, more of a tactical drill that had spiralled — had caught him off-guard. A burst of energy to the ribs, a blow to the jaw that rattled his skull. He remembered the taste of metal. Not just blood — shame. The bitter tang of I should’ve done better. He’d limped his way back to the dorms instead of going to Recovery Girl. Too stubborn. Too tired. Too afraid of the look.

And of course, Bakugou had been the one who found him.

He remembered it now with impossible clarity — the way Bakugou had paused in the hallway, towel slung around his neck, hair still damp from the communal showers, eyes narrowed. One glance at Kirishima’s busted lip and the barely-disguised hunch of his body and it was like Bakugou’s whole frame sharpened, stilled. Not a word spoken at first. Just silence, thick and charged.

Then, “What the fuck happened to you?”

Not harsh — not really. Just rough-edged concern, cloaked in fury because that was how Bakugou handled worry. Like if he shouted at the problem hard enough, it’d reverse itself.

Kirishima had laughed. Shrugged. Played it down like always.

But Bakugou had closed the space between them, grabbed him by the elbow — gently, surprisingly gently — and steered him into his dorm like it was second nature. Like Kirishima belonged there. Like Bakugou had already decided he was his to worry about and no protest would change it.

The room was sparse, neat in that meticulously chaotic way that mirrored its occupant — books stacked not alphabetically but by size, weights shoved under the desk, a half-eaten protein bar on the nightstand. Kirishima hadn’t had time to protest before Bakugou shoved him onto the edge of the bed, flicked the desk lamp on, and yanked a first aid kit from the drawer with practised ease.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Bakugou muttered, kneeling between his knees like it wasn’t the most intimate position in the world. He cracked open an antiseptic wipe with his teeth and tapped Kirishima’s chin. “Hold still.”

He’d done as told, because he always did when Bakugou took that tone. But now — now, years later, looking back through a different lens, Kirishima could feel the heat curl in his chest like smoke.

Because the way Bakugou had touched him — careful fingers dragging along his jaw, the pads of his thumbs working over bruised skin, the scowl on his face deepening with every wince Kirishima couldn’t hide — it hadn’t been indifferent. It hadn’t been casual. There’d been tension in his shoulders, restraint in his grip. His eyes had flicked up more than once, watching Kirishima’s expression too closely, too earnestly.

He remembered Bakugou’s hands trembling slightly when they unzipped the hoodie he’d been wearing, pushing it down to reveal the purpling impact along his ribs. The air had gone still then. No jokes. No insults. Just silence, heavy and raw, as Bakugou pressed a cool pack against the bruise and whispered, “Fucking hurts, huh?”

It had. But Kirishima had shaken his head anyway.

“No worse than your training.”

That had made Bakugou huff something that might’ve been a laugh. Or maybe just breath. Maybe he was holding something in even then.

But what stuck the most — what burned now, all this time later — was what came after. When it was done. When the bandages were taped and the salve rubbed into skin, when Bakugou had sat back on his heels and stared at him for a long moment.

“You don’t gotta prove anything,” he’d said. Quiet. Almost too quiet. “Not to me.”

And Kirishima — idiot, coward, teenage boy terrified of making the wrong assumption — had just smiled. Grinned, even, the way he always did when things felt too big. He’d clapped Bakugou on the shoulder and said, “Yeah, I know, man.”

Man.

He could still taste the bitterness of that word. Could still see the way it had landed, like a punch Bakugou hadn’t braced for. Like something flickered behind his eyes — something fragile, something burning — and then got buried.

“Yeah,” Bakugou had muttered. “Whatever.”

That was it. That was the whole moment. It had seemed small at the time. Just another page in their friendship.

But now?

Now it played on repeat in Kirishima’s mind like a reel of film stuck on a single frame. The weight of it felt unbearable. All this time he’d been chasing signs, hunting for answers, but this one had been handed to him years ago, and he’d tossed it aside with a stupid smile and a label that was never enough.

He wondered what would’ve happened if he’d reached back. If he’d taken Bakugou’s hand — metaphorical or not — and met him halfway.

But he hadn’t. He was seventeen and stupid and scared of breaking the only real thing he’d ever had.

Now, older, rawer, and bleeding in ways that didn’t show up on skin, Kirishima sat on the edge of his own bed in his agency apartment and let the memory play again. He pressed his palm to his ribs — the same spot, like it still ached. Like his body remembered Bakugou’s touch more than he did.

And he wondered — with bone-deep yearning — if that night had been the first time Bakugou tried to tell him something.

Or the last.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

The venue was stupidly extravagant — crystal chandeliers like frozen explosions, golden pillars so polished they reflected the swells of fake laughter and overpriced champagne, and a carpet too red, too thick beneath Kirishima’s boots, like it was pretending to be warm when it was anything but. The kind of place built to impress on the surface and exhaust beneath it. Hero society’s finest stood gathered like a gallery of masks, every smile carved into place, every suit a little too tailored, every laugh just slightly delayed like everyone was waiting to see if they were allowed to feel something first.

Kirishima had been to a few of these things before — some charity event here, a sponsorship gala there — but none of them had made his lungs feel this tight. None had made the whole room seem like it might swallow him whole if he so much as blinked the wrong way. Tonight was different. Tonight he was here. And Kirishima knew — he knew — he wouldn’t survive it unchanged.

Bakugou looked — as he always did — beautiful. Sharp in black, the jacket hanging off his frame like it had been dared to, the collar loose enough to show the slope of his throat, sleeves pushed up to his elbows like he’d threatened the tailor until they gave in. His hair was as unruly as ever, barely tamed, and his expression? That scowl — that arrogant, don’t fucking talk to me look that Kirishima had known since they were sixteen — somehow carried more weight now. Like he was tired of pretending, or maybe just tired of everything. Maybe that was why he kept shifting like his skin didn’t fit, like the room offended him on a molecular level. He wasn’t built for small talk and ego stroking. He never had been.

Kirishima should’ve been used to this — watching Bakugou from across a crowded room. It had always been a kind of second nature, hadn’t it? The subtle orbit they kept around each other even when the world demanded their attention elsewhere. But tonight — something in him wouldn’t quiet. Wouldn’t still. Not after everything. Not after that night, that memory — the one of blood and tenderness and Bakugou’s hands bandaging him without complaint, without flinching, without the usual bark. That memory had shaken something loose in him, had reframed everything. Like he'd been looking at an oil painting under the wrong light for years, and someone had just drawn the curtain back.

Now, every glance, every twitch of Bakugou’s jaw, every narrowed eye as someone brushed against him too close — they all meant more. Or maybe they always had, and Kirishima had been too afraid to look.

He lingered near the bar, not drinking, just existing, his drink untouched in his palm, the condensation dampening his fingertips like sweat. His eyes kept drifting — unwilling, stupid things — back to where Bakugou stood surrounded by a ring of over-eager fans and flirtatious hangers-on. They laughed too loudly. Leaned in too close. One of them — some agency hero with hair slicked back and a jacket that screamed notice me — reached out, fingers brushing Bakugou’s wrist like it was nothing. Like it was asked for, even.

And Kirishima’s heart did something awful. It didn't break, exactly. It clenched. It recoiled. It reminded him, not gently, that he'd waited too long, said too little, hidden too much. That someone else could touch Bakugou and maybe it wouldn’t matter to him. Maybe it wouldn't make him flinch. Maybe he’d let them.

But he did flinch. Just slightly. Subtle, but there. Bakugou recoiled like he’d been grazed by static. Scowled. Said something Kirishima couldn’t hear but felt in the set of his shoulders—a don’t. And the guy laughed awkwardly, stepped back, palms up in surrender.

And just like that, Kirishima felt it again. That thing. That gut-sick, chest-tight hope. The one that made everything worse because it tasted so close to something good. He hated it. He hated how much he wanted to believe it meant something. That Bakugou brushing people off wasn’t just about being prickly or anti-social or rude. That it meant something.

But hope was dangerous, wasn’t it? It curled around your ribs like wire and dared you to breathe. And Kirishima couldn’t breathe properly in this room.

So he did what he’d always done. He smiled when someone passed, offered polite nods, ducked into conversations that didn’t matter and barely listened, all the while tracking Bakugou like a gravitational pull he didn’t know how to escape. Until — suddenly — he wasn’t there anymore.

Bakugou. Gone.

Kirishima’s stomach dropped. Not from fear, exactly. Just — an instinct. Like when you wake up and know the weather changed before you hear the rain. He scanned the room once, twice. Nowhere. Not at the bar. Not by the sponsors. Not at the side exit where the more awkward pro-heroes gathered to avoid cameras.

He slipped away from the crowd without fanfare, the sounds of clinking glasses and faux celebration fading behind him. Through the glass doors and down the hallway, past the marble statues of dead heroes who never got to rest, towards the quiet. Towards the cold.

He knew where he’d be. He always knew.

But before he reached the balcony — before that next moment — Kirishima paused in the hallway, just for a second. He pressed his palm flat to his chest, right over his ribs. Right where everything inside him was pulling too tight, where everything hurt like a bruise that would never quite heal. And he closed his eyes.

Because hope wasn’t kind. Not really. And neither was timing.

But he still walked toward him anyway.

The door was half-ajar, pushed open just enough to let the sound bleed through — the soft throb of a string quartet playing something delicate and impersonal behind thick glass, the dull hum of conversations too far away to matter. The cold hit Kirishima first. Not bitter, but sharp enough to sting. He stepped out onto the balcony like he was trespassing. Like the quiet wasn’t meant for him.

There were fairy lights strung above, twinkling like a poor imitation of stars, too calculated to be comforting. The city stretched out below, all glittering edges and mechanical glow, a sprawl of glass and steel that didn’t sleep, didn’t care. And leaning against the railing, half in shadow and fully elsewhere, was Bakugou.

He wasn’t doing anything heroic. Just smoking. A thin trail of smoke curled from between his fingers, disappearing into the breeze like it didn’t want to linger. His shoulders were tense, but not with anger. No, this wasn’t battlefield Bakugou. This was something else entirely. Something quieter. Something far lonelier than Kirishima had prepared for.

For a moment, he didn’t move. Just stood there, watching the rise and fall of Bakugou’s back as he breathed. The way his head tilted slightly, like the skyline offended him. The way his mouth pulled into something that wasn’t quite a scowl but wasn’t peace, either. Kirishima wondered how often he looked like this — unguarded, unreachable — when no one was watching.

And then, without looking back, Bakugou spoke.

“I fucking hate this fake shit.”

His voice was low, rough from disuse or disinterest, or maybe just from being Bakugou Katsuki — a man who sandpapered his own soul down to the nerve just to feel something real.

Kirishima let out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold. Stepped forward. “Yeah,” he said, because it was the only thing he could say without lying.

Bakugou didn’t turn. Didn’t acknowledge him beyond that shared silence. But he didn’t walk away either.

So Kirishima moved closer. Stood beside him, not too near, not too far. Just enough that their shoulders didn’t touch but their shadows did.

“I don’t get it,” Bakugou muttered, quieter now. “This performative bullshit. The cameras. The fucking handshake lines. It’s all fake. All noise.”

Kirishima watched the side of his face — the way his jaw clenched, the flicker of flame at the end of the cigarette as he took another drag, the faint shimmer of city light reflecting in his lashes. He looked older tonight. Not tired exactly, but lived-in. Like he’d walked through something no one else could name.

And Kirishima wanted — god, wanted — to say something that mattered. Something true. Something poetic like you don’t have to do it alone. Or you’re not as far away from me as you think. Or the thing that had been sitting in his throat like a swallowed blade for weeks now.

But all that came out was: “Yeah. It gets to me too.”

Bakugou scoffed softly. Not cruel. Just tired. “Doesn’t seem to.”

“I fake it better than you.”

It was meant to be a joke. Something light to thread the moment together, but it came out heavier than intended — brittle, like it might crack in the cold.

Bakugou didn’t laugh. Just glanced at him sideways, exhaled smoke like a secret.

“Yeah, well. Maybe that’s the problem.”

And wasn’t it just?

Kirishima looked down at his hands. Strong hands. Hero hands. The kind that saved people, lifted rubble, held the broken pieces of other lives together without blinking. But they were useless here. Clumsy. Stupid. There were no villains to punch, no civilians to protect. Just this gap between them. This unbearable, unsayable space.

He risked a glance — really looked at him.

And it hit him again, like it always did when he let his guard down. The sheer pull of him. Not just how he looked — sharp lines and molten heat, all tension and defiance — but who he was. The way he carried himself like a bomb that had already gone off. The way he felt like the only honest thing in a room full of mirrors.

And Kirishima wanted to tell him. God, he almost did.

The words rose up, uninvited and hungry I think I’ve always loved you.

But love was big, and Bakugou was sharp, and the moment was so quiet.

Too quiet.

He couldn’t risk it.

Not here. Not now. Not with the smoke still curling from Bakugou’s fingers and the whole world humming behind the glass. Not when he didn’t know what would happen next.

So instead, he said nothing.

They stood there for a long time, just the two of them, staring out at the endless city like it might give them answers if they waited long enough.

Bakugou finished his cigarette. Flicked the butt off the balcony with a casual flick of his fingers. It disappeared into the dark.

He didn’t speak again.

And Kirishima — didn’t either.

Because maybe the silence was safer. Maybe the quiet meant something. Maybe it didn’t.

But in that moment, beneath the stars that weren’t really stars, with the wind tugging at the edges of their suits and the distance between them crackling like a live wire, Kirishima almost said it.

Almost.

But didn’t.

And that, somehow, felt louder than anything else.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

He hadn’t meant to check his phone. Not really. Not during the lull between missions, not when the sky was just beginning to bruise at the edges with the weight of twilight, and not when he’d just managed to stop thinking about the balcony and the almost that had dragged behind him like a second shadow ever since.

But the alert had been red. The kind that made your gut drop before you even read the words.

Hero Ground Zero Involved in Large-Scale Ambush — Condition Unknown.

At first, he didn’t feel anything. Just — nothing. Like his brain had short-circuited around the implications, like it was buffering for context it refused to receive.

Then the second alert came. Then the third. And by the time the fourth came through — a blurry photo of a stretcher, the unmistakable flash of blond hair, the caption “No comment yet from agency” — he was already running.

There were two types of fear in the world.

The first was clean — the sharp kind that hit you in battle, the adrenaline-soaked high of knowing what needed to be done and doing it. The fear that made you faster, louder, better.

The second was this.

Heavy. Muffled. Like trying to scream underwater.

He barely remembered the train ride. Didn’t recall the lift up to the hospital’s emergency wing. Just fragments — a nurse with kind eyes, the metallic tang of antiseptic in the air, a clipboard being passed over someone’s shoulder, murmured names and statuses that made no sense.

“Kirishima Eijirou,” he said, voice like gravel. “I — I’m on his emergency contact list. Katsuki Bakugou, Ground Zero.”

It wasn’t even a lie. They’d filled in those forms years ago, back when the agency made them. Back when it hadn’t meant anything. Back when they were just kids pretending to be men, writing down names they thought would never matter.

“Room 1024,” the nurse said eventually, after a pause that nearly killed him. “He’s stable. Not awake yet. You can wait if you want.”

He wanted. He needed.

The hallway felt miles long. Every step was a reckoning. Every breath, a negotiation.

And when he finally reached the door — sterile white, stupidly mundane — he didn’t open it right away.

He stood there, forehead pressed to the wood, fists clenched like he could keep himself from fracturing completely if he just held tight enough.

He hadn’t cried. Not yet. But he was close. That ugly, stinging kind of close, where everything ached just from the act of holding it in.

Because what if—

No.

No, he couldn’t think it.

But it haunted him anyway, curling round the back of his thoughts like smoke, What if he hadn’t made it? What if he’d died before I ever—

He pushed the door open.

And there he was.

Bakugou.

Pale. Bandaged. Still.

The bed swallowed him whole, like he was smaller somehow without the anger to fill him out. His arm was in a sling, one side of his face scraped raw beneath the gauze. Machines beeped quietly beside him, steady, indifferent. The room smelled like bleach and faint blood and something sharp Kirishima couldn’t name.

He moved on autopilot. Sat down in the chair by the bed, the one meant for family, and stared.

Time stretched. Bent. Collapsed.

He didn’t know how long he sat there. Hours, maybe. Long enough that the sun disappeared completely, replaced by city lights and hospital fluorescents that made everything look too real.

And still Bakugou didn’t stir.

Kirishima watched his chest rise and fall. Watched the bruise forming along his collarbone, just visible beneath the loose neckline of his gown. Watched the way his fingers twitched now and then, like he was dreaming of fighting, even now.

And slowly, without realising it, Kirishima’s hands began to shake.

Not out of fear. Not anymore.

Out of everything.

He should’ve said it. On the balcony. That was his chance. That was the moment. He’d felt it vibrating in the air between them like a wire pulled taut — the silence, the tension, the yearning. But he’d swallowed it down like a coward, convinced there would be more time. Convinced that not saying it was safer.

Safer.

He laughed under his breath, bitter and breathless.

“What good’s being safe now?” he whispered, voice barely audible.

Because it could’ve ended like this.

A villain’s lucky shot. A miscalculation. A building collapsing two seconds too soon. That’s all it would’ve taken.

And Kirishima would’ve spent the rest of his life with that weight in his chest — the unspoken words, the wasted chances, the memory of a balcony and a cigarette and a silence that he mistook for peace.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

The tears came then, hot and unwanted.

Because it wasn’t fair.

Not that Bakugou had gotten hurt — that was inevitable, part of the job, baked into the bones of what they did.

But that Kirishima had waited. That he’d been given time, that he’d been handed it, gift-wrapped in neon signs and near-confessions — and he’d hesitated anyway.

And for what?

Pride?

Fear?

Loyalty to a friendship that had already evolved into something else without him realising?

He sniffed. Wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Looked up again.

Bakugou hadn’t moved.

But he was breathing.

He was alive.

And something shifted in Kirishima’s chest — a cracking open, a decision made.

No more silence.

No more almosts.

“I thought I lost you.”

The words tasted strange in his mouth. Like something raw.

They didn’t hang in the air like a confession, not quite. Just a breath of truth. Quiet. Ugly-beautiful. Honest in a way Kirishima hadn’t allowed himself to be, not really, not for years. Not until now, when Bakugou couldn’t interrupt or shove him or scoff the moment into ash.

Kirishima rubbed a hand over his face, palms scraping against stubble he hadn’t remembered to shave. He was tired — bone-deep, soul-deep tired — and it had nothing to do with lack of sleep. It was the weight. The years of it. The pretending. The hoping.

“I’m such an idiot,” he muttered to the floor, voice cracking in the middle. “You’ve been right here this whole time.”

Bakugou didn’t stir.

He wouldn’t remember this. Wouldn’t know Kirishima had been here at all unless someone told him. Maybe that was a mercy. Maybe not.

But Kirishima stayed. For hours.

He stayed as the sky outside the window bled from navy to steel grey. Stayed as the IV drip clicked gently into motion. Stayed as the weight in his chest refused to lift.

He watched Bakugou breathe.

And for the first time in a long, long while, he let himself feel everything.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

Kirishima hadn’t planned on falling asleep. He’d meant to sit by Bakugou’s bedside until his legs gave out, until someone told him visiting hours were over, until his heart stopped rattling around his ribcage like a live wire. But sometime in the silence — somewhere between the dull beeping of the monitors and the sound of Bakugou breathing — he must’ve drifted.

It was the voice that pulled him back. Rough, quiet, not fully awake.

“Oi.”

Kirishima blinked blearily, head lolling up from the edge of the hospital bed. His neck ached. So did his spine. But none of it mattered.

Bakugou was awake.

And looking at him.

His eyes weren’t sharp yet — soft with leftover morphine, brows stitched together more out of confusion than anger. But he was there. Not dead. Not gone. And for a second, Kirishima couldn’t breathe, because the sheer relief of it felt like drowning in warm water, too deep to scream.

“You’re here,” Bakugou said, and it wasn’t a question.

Kirishima’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Yeah, I never left.

Yeah, I thought I lost you.

Yeah, I’ve been in love with you for years and I didn’t know how to look you in the face after that news clip and now you’re lying in this hospital bed and I can’t pretend anymore.

But instead, he just nodded.

Bakugou shifted slightly, wincing. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Kirishima said, throat raw.

There was a long pause after that. One of those heavy ones that felt like it could change things, if you let it. The kind of silence you tiptoe around because you’re not sure what it’s holding yet.

“Why do you look at me like that?”

Kirishima froze.

The air in the room shifted.

He tried to laugh, but it came out flat. “Like what?”

Bakugou’s eyes narrowed, even in the low light. His voice, though quiet, was steady. Intent. “Don’t fuck with me.”

Kirishima looked down at his hands. Calloused. Trembling slightly. Still crusted with dried blood at the knuckles. “You just got out of surgery, man. Maybe — maybe you’re imagining stuff.”

“Don’t deflect.”

His voice cut through him, sharp in a way that wasn’t angry — just true. Like a blade against stone. Like he was tired of running in circles. Tired of pretending not to notice.

“You’re always fucking looking at me like," Bakugou exhaled, frustrated. “Like I’m about to disappear. Like I’m something you lost and found again. Like you’ve been waiting for something. And I don’t get it. What the hell is it, Eijirou?”

His name. Not a nickname. Not “shitty hair” or “idiot” or “dumbass.” His actual name, worn and familiar and suddenly so intimate it felt like a hand around his throat.

Kirishima couldn’t speak. His chest was a burning house. His thoughts were ash. He hadn’t prepared for this moment — had been circling it for weeks, years, in endless spirals of maybes and almosts, but now that it was here, he was choking on it.

Bakugou didn’t let up. “You’ve been weird around me for months. You barely show up to hangouts anymore. You flinch when I touch you. You keep looking at me like you’ve got something to say and you never say it. And I’m fucking tired of guessing. So what is it? What’s going on in that rockhead of yours?”

Kirishima felt something snap, low and painful, in the pit of his stomach.

It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even fear.

It was need.

Need to run. Need to stay. Need to finally do something before he drowned in the weight of almost.

But he still couldn’t say it. Not yet. The words stuck like glass behind his teeth.

So instead, he stood.

Not to leave. Just to move, like his skin had become too tight to sit still inside. He paced to the window, pressed his hand flat against the glass. Watched his own reflection blur in the city lights outside, all dim orange and cold concrete.

Bakugou didn’t speak again, but Kirishima could feel him watching. Always watching. Always too perceptive for his own good.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. His voice sounded wrong. Like someone else’s. “I don’t know what you mean.”

It was a lie.

And Bakugou knew it.

But instead of shouting, instead of tearing into him the way he might’ve years ago, he just said,

“Yeah. You do.”

And that silence came back. The one that pressed in from all sides. But this time it wasn’t empty. It was waiting.

And Kirishima — god help him — just stood there, hand on the glass, chest heaving, and didn’t say a word.

The city beyond the glass shimmered in greyish hues — neon bleeding into fog, distant traffic a muffled thrum. But it all felt muted, flattened, like the volume of the world had been turned down just so he could hear the beating of his own terrified heart.

Bakugou was still watching him. Waiting. Always fucking waiting.

And Kirishima — Kirishima had never hated himself more than in that moment. Because he’d been brave for everything else. Every battle. Every villain. Every bloody mission where he’d hardened his body like stone and hurled himself between danger and the people he loved. But this — this — was the thing that had always made him hesitate.

The truth.

Not explosions. Not war.

Just feeling.

The silence between them dragged like barbed wire.

His pulse thundered against his ribs, rising in pitch, a scream without sound. His lungs burned from breathing wrong, like the air was full of glass. Every muscle in his body shook from holding it in—from biting it back, again and again, because he was so used to believing it didn’t matter, that it couldn’t, that it shouldn’t.

But Bakugou wouldn’t stop staring.

Wouldn’t let him run.

Wouldn’t let him lie.

And something inside Kirishima finally, finally snapped.

He turned around slowly, each step back towards the bed weighted like his limbs were full of cement. His throat hurt. His eyes burned. And when he spoke, the words came out jagged and broken, like tearing cloth with bare hands.

“Because I’m in love with you, you absolute asshole.”

His voice cracked mid-sentence, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter anymore — how it sounded, how stupid it was, how ugly the words felt on his tongue after years of swallowing them whole.

Bakugou’s eyes widened, not dramatically, just barely — but Kirishima saw it. Saw the shift. The flicker.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop now.

“I’ve been in love with you since U.A., and I — fuck — I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t even let myself feel it properly, not for years. I thought I was just — confused or being dramatic or making shit up in my head like some kind of hopeless idiot,” His voice broke again. “But it was real. It was always fucking real.”

He raked a hand through his hair, fingers trembling.

“I thought I didn’t have a chance. You were you. You were fire and fury and impossible to touch, and I — I figured you’d never look at me like that. Not in a million years. And I didn’t want to ruin it. I couldn’t. Not when being your friend meant everything to me. Everything, Katsuki.”

Bakugou still hadn’t said a word.

Kirishima’s breath hitched as he sat down hard in the chair again, head in his hands, voice barely holding shape.

“I tried to be okay with it. I tried. I told myself that it was enough, just to be next to you. To hear your voice. To know you trusted me, even if it wasn’t — fuck — even if it wasn’t the way I wanted. I thought if I kept quiet, I could live with it. But I can’t.”

His hands dropped.

His eyes met Bakugou’s.

“I can’t.”

The room spun slightly, whether from exhaustion or adrenaline or sheer bloody emotion he couldn’t say. His heart felt like it had burst out of his chest and splintered across the floor.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” he whispered, and this time his voice wasn’t strong. It wasn’t brave. It was small, scared, honest. “When they said you were hurt, I — god, Katsuki, I couldn’t breathe. I thought, what if I never get the chance to tell him? What if I just let it rot, inside me, until it turned me into someone I don’t even recognise?”

He scrubbed at his eyes, not quite crying but dangerously close, blinking against the burning.

“I didn’t want to die with that secret. I didn’t want you to. And I didn’t want to keep pretending. Because every time I look at you, it hurts. Because I love you, and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do about it anymore.”

He let the words hang in the air.

Ashes.

There was nothing else left to say.

Kirishima sat in the aftermath, breathing like he’d just clawed his way out of rubble, shoulders trembling from the sheer violence of it — because love, when held back too long, becomes a kind of disaster. And he’d finally let it happen. Finally let it fall.

And now there was only silence.

Silence, and Bakugou.

And the sound of a heart still beating, despite everything.

The room didn’t explode.

Didn’t shake, didn’t erupt in flames or fury or some sarcastic, venom-laced insult like Kirishima half-expected — half prayed for, in some backwards way, because anything would’ve been easier than this.

Bakugou didn’t yell.

He didn’t throw anything, or sneer, or roll his eyes and bark something cruel and distant to cut through the moment and put everything back into the safe, familiar box where Kirishima could pretend again. Where they could just move on, laugh it off, go back to the way things were before feelings spilled out of his mouth like blood from a wound.

Instead,

He just stared.

Kirishima had never been more afraid.

It was the kind of silence that didn’t feel empty. No, it felt full. Heavy. Charged with something dense and unspeakable, like standing in a thunderstorm right before the lightning strikes. Not a pause, not a delay — but a suspension. As if the whole world had taken one breath and held it between its teeth.

Bakugou’s gaze didn’t falter. Didn’t shift.

Just stayed.

His face unreadable. Not blank — Kirishima knew him better than that. No, it was deliberate. Controlled. A quiet mask stretched over something much, much louder underneath. His eyes — god, his eyes — were devastating. They held him in place like a pin to a map, and Kirishima wasn’t sure if he’d ever move again.

He felt his own heartbeat rattle in his ears, fast and wrong and traitorous. His mouth was still open slightly, like some part of him wanted to keep talking, keep explaining, as if maybe he could bargain his way out of this vulnerability by just saying more. But no words came. Just breath. Just silence.

Had he fucked everything up?

Had he read it wrong — completely, irreparably wrong — and now there was no way back? Had he just torn open something Bakugou didn’t want to see?

He looked down.

The silence was unbearable.

It stretched thin and taut between them, and Kirishima felt himself folding in on it, like gravity had changed and he was being pulled into the centre of some silent, emotional singularity. A collapse. A stillborn universe of everything unsaid.

He wanted to run.

He wanted to stay forever.

He wanted to take it back, even though he didn’t. Even though it was the truest thing he’d ever said. But the fear — the fear was so loud it nearly drowned out the relief.

Because he had said it.

He’d said it.

He’d finally said it.

But what now?

He risked a glance up.

Bakugou was still staring.

Still no words.

And in that unbearable stillness, Kirishima began to notice things. The tiny shifts. The way Bakugou’s fingers twitched just slightly on the edge of the blanket. The way his throat moved when he swallowed, like it hurt. The tension in his shoulders—not defensive, but braced. Holding something back. Containing.

There was no anger there.

No rejection.

Just — intensity. Raw and terrible and unflinching.

And then, Kirishima saw it — the faintest movement. A soft inhale, barely audible, as if Bakugou was trying to breathe through something stuck in his lungs. His brows didn’t draw together like they usually did when he was annoyed. His mouth didn’t twist into its usual scowl. He was — still. Utterly and entirely still.

And it wrecked Kirishima.

Because it meant it mattered.

Because it meant he’d heard him.

All of it.

Every word.

And for a second — just a second — Kirishima let himself believe that maybe the silence wasn’t rejection. Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was the quiet that comes when something sacred is dropped into your hands and you don’t know how to hold it yet.

He blinked hard.

His chest hurt.

It felt like he was standing barefoot in the middle of a frozen lake, cracks spidering out beneath him, but no water yet—just the sickening anticipation of the fall. And Bakugou was the one standing across from him, unmoving, watching as Kirishima dangled over the edge of something final and terrifying.

Seconds passed.

A full minute.

Longer.

Kirishima wasn’t sure.

Time didn’t feel real anymore. Only sensation. Only the ache of his hands clenched too tightly in his lap. The prickle behind his eyes. The heat flushing his skin, the cold sweat clinging to the back of his neck. The way his whole body felt suspended between fight and flight, like his instincts hadn’t decided which one to go with yet.

And still — Bakugou didn’t look away.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t run.

And in that silence, something inside Kirishima shifted. Not soothed, not settled — but acknowledged. Seen. Not alone. Not ignored. Not dismissed like he’d feared. It was like standing in front of a storm and realising it wasn’t going to kill you. Not yet. Maybe not at all.

He breathed.

Finally.

And that breath — shaky, shallow, desperate — felt like the first he’d taken in days.

He could survive this.

Even if nothing changed. Even if Bakugou never said a word. Even if this moment ended with them both turning away and pretending it never happened — Kirishima could survive this.

Because he had spoken the truth.

Because Bakugou hadn’t walked out.

Because silence, for once, wasn’t a punishment — it was a response. Unspoken. Immense.

“Took you long enough.”

It was said flatly. No dramatic pause, no sentimentality. Just four syllables dropped like a weight at his feet.

Kirishima blinked.

It didn’t make sense at first. His brain was still back in the silence, still bracing for rejection or — worse — pity. He hadn’t prepared for this. For a sentence that cracked open the moment and revealed something underneath it that felt — not just safe, but known.

Bakugou’s voice was rough. Not like usual — there was no fire behind it, no teeth. Just something raw. A different kind of burn. The kind that lingered long after the heat had passed.

And he wasn’t looking away.

In fact, he looked steadier than he had all night. Like some tension had finally dropped from his shoulders. Like Kirishima’s words hadn’t torn something apart — but confirmed something already buried under years of noise and bravado and unsaid things that neither of them had dared to touch.

Bakugou ran a hand through his hair. It wasn’t performative. It wasn’t annoyed. He looked — tired. Not just physically — emotionally. Like he’d been carrying something for too long, and now that the moment had arrived, it was almost anticlimactic.

Finally. Fucking finally.

Kirishima’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.

He didn’t know what he expected — anger maybe, cruel joke even. A scoff and a “you’re too late.” Maybe even a polite no, wrapped in Bakugou’s usual sharp-edged armour.

But not this.

Not “Took you long enough.”

Bakugou leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, looking at the floor now. His voice, when it came again, was quieter. Not soft. Just — precise. Intentional. Like every word was a screw being tightened, piece by piece.

“I said I was gay.”

Kirishima nodded slowly, like a man trying to remember how to move his body.

“I know,” he whispered. “I saw,"

Bakugou cut him off. Not rudely. Just — deliberately.

“Did you think it was for anyone else?”

The question landed like a punch.

Kirishima reeled, not physically, but somewhere deeper — like something in his chest had been turned upside down. Because no, of course not. Of course he hadn’t thought that. But also — yes. He’d assumed it. Feared it. Because the alternative had been too much to hold. Too impossible.

He met Bakugou’s eyes again.

They were bloodshot and exhausted and entirely too beautiful in the low hospital light. And in them, Kirishima saw something he hadn’t dared to imagine before now — patience.

Not tolerance.

Not acceptance.

Patience.

Like Bakugou had been waiting. Not just for this moment — but for him. Through every hesitation, every awkward silence, every deflection and derailment and clumsy avoidance. Through all of it.

“I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.”

The words weren’t smug. There was no bite, no victory in them. Just truth.

Plain and devastating.

Kirishima swallowed hard. His hands were trembling in his lap, and he didn’t know if it was from relief or shame or joy or all three crushing together in his ribs like a vice.

He’d waited.

Through the years.

Through the doubt.

Through Kirishima pulling away, backing off, pushing things down and locking them up and telling himself it was better not to know.

Bakugou — Katsuki — had waited.

And that knowledge shattered something in him.

Not in a painful way. Not violently. It was more like — the slow collapse of a dam. A structure built out of fear and self-protection and quiet longing, finally giving way to the tide of what had always been underneath.

Love.

God, it had always been love.

And the fact that Bakugou — who hated waiting, who hated uncertainty, who had spent his whole life fighting for control — had waited for him — it undid Kirishima more than any grand declaration ever could.

He leaned forward, elbows brushing his knees, heart thudding like thunder in his throat. He couldn’t speak. Not yet. He just stared, breath shallow, as if the wrong word would shatter this new, delicate universe that had bloomed between them.

Bakugou didn’t move to close the space.

Didn’t rush it.

He just let it be.

And in that stillness, Kirishima realised something that would stay with him for the rest of his life, sometimes, love isn’t loud. Sometimes it doesn’t come with fireworks or tears or perfect lines delivered at just the right moment.

Sometimes, love is patient.

Sometimes, it waits.

And sometimes — it says, “Took you long enough,” not to shame you, but to say I was here the whole time.

Kirishima didn’t move.

Couldn’t, really. His body had gone still in that charged, dangerous way — like a building caught mid-collapse, or a wave right before it breaks. Everything inside him was trembling with some unbearable tension, and yet outwardly, he sat completely still, almost reverent, like if he so much as blinked, he might shatter the moment entirely.

Across from him, Bakugou didn’t speak again.

Didn’t need to.

The room felt smaller somehow. Or maybe it was just quieter — like the sound had been drained from the air after that final confession, like even the universe was holding its breath. The hospital walls around them blurred at the edges, colours dulled and unimportant. Time slowed in that way it only ever does when you’re teetering on the edge of something you’ve wanted for so long you almost stopped believing in it.

Bakugou’s eyes flicked down, not in shame, but in thought. And his hand — god, that hand — moved.

It was slow. Not unsure, exactly, but — careful. Hesitant, in the way one might reach for something breakable. He didn’t make it sudden or dramatic. There was no grand gesture, no sweeping motion that declared intent. Just a lift of the arm, elbow bending with the weight of years—of silence, of waiting, of maybe.

Kirishima forgot to breathe.

The hand hovered there for a moment, between them, caught in the final inches like the last note of a song. Calloused fingers, trembling ever so slightly, cast long shadows across the space between their knees.

The tips of Bakugou’s fingers brushed the side of Kirishima’s face — clumsily at first, like he wasn’t sure if he had the right, as though even now, even after everything, he was afraid of being misread. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t cinematic. It was real. A little too fast, then a pause, then a gentling. A recalibration. His palm came to rest against the curve of Kirishima’s cheek, warm and coarse and so human, and Kirishima’s eyes fluttered shut like it was instinct.

Not relief.

Not surrender.

Recognition.

That touch was something he’d dreamt of without daring to admit it. It felt like coming home after a long winter. Like standing beneath hot water after too many nights cold and alone. It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t fire. It was something slower, deeper. Safe.

And Kirishima leaned into it.

He didn’t mean to. His body moved before his mind caught up. The tension unspooled in him all at once, like every cell had just exhaled, and he let himself fall into the touch like a man falling into faith. His forehead dipped slightly, gently pressing into Bakugou’s palm, and a breath caught in his throat that he didn’t even realise he’d been holding.

The roughness of the touch didn’t startle him.

Of course it was rough. Of course Bakugou’s hands were weathered with years of combat and callouses and bloody knuckles. But there was something in the way he held him now that made it softer than anything Kirishima had ever known.

He didn’t speak. Neither of them did.

There was no need.

Because in that one small gesture — that first touch — Bakugou told him everything he never could in words.

I’m here.

I waited.

I wanted this too.

And Kirishima — Eijirou, all cracked heart and too-soft centre — felt something inside him begin to break apart and stitch itself back together in the same breath. A kind of healing that wasn’t loud or fast or sudden, but earned. Like the slow mending of old wounds. Like light blooming in the places he’d kept hidden even from himself.

He wanted to cry.

Not from sadness, but from overwhelm. From the sheer weight of feeling, too big for one body to hold.

This was a moment. A quiet, devastating moment that had been years in the making. That hand on his face — that hand — held all the weight of the time they’d lost. The near-misses. The almosts. The aching, aching hope that had lived in Kirishima’s chest for so long, it had begun to feel like a part of his anatomy.

He let the silence stretch. Let the feeling settle. Let himself feel it, wholly and unflinchingly.

Bakugou’s thumb moved once — just a brief, unsure stroke across his cheekbone. Almost like he didn’t know what to do with the affection, but couldn’t help it anyway.

It was the gentlest thing he’d ever done.

And Kirishima, whose heart had always been too big, too soft, too willing — melted.

Because in that moment, he wasn’t Red Riot.

He wasn’t the indestructible hero, the bright light, the dependable friend.

He was just Eijirou.

And Bakugou — Katsuki — was touching him like he’d known that all along.

No one moved to kiss the other. There was no urgency to pull closer, no breaking of the moment in favour of something faster. They simply stayed like that — face to palm, breath to breath — as if the world had narrowed down to this single point of contact.

As if this — this — was sacred.

And maybe it was.

Maybe love didn’t always arrive with fanfare. Maybe sometimes, it came quietly. In a single touch that said, I see you. In the stillness after chaos. In the heart that dared to lean into something gentle, after years of holding back.

Kirishima leaned in.

And the world, finally, leaned back.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

Kirishima woke slowly, the way one might return to their body after drifting somewhere too far and too still. There was a moment — that brief, disoriented hush between dreams and memory — where everything felt too gentle to be real. No alarms. No sirens. No aching limbs or pulsing adrenaline. Just the sound of soft, measured breathing beside him, and the faint weight of a blanket someone had pulled up in the night.

It was warm.

Not the kind of warmth that came from heaters or sunbeams or even a particularly heavy duvet — but something quieter. Something fuller. A warmth that lived in the shape of a hand that had, at some point, ended up curled loosely against his arm. In the stillness, it almost felt like he could hear the echo of that touch — the memory of skin against skin, rough fingertips brushing his cheek like a secret spoken too late and far too gently for the Bakugou he used to know.

No. Not the one he used to know. The one he’d assumed he knew. The one he'd built in his head — all fire and fury and harsh truths. But the real one, the one that had reached for him last night with hesitation thick in his breath, with trembling restraint, and looked at him like he was something precious — that was the Bakugou lying beside him now. Close. Real. Undeniable.

Kirishima stayed still, afraid that even a breath too deep might fracture the moment. His heart thudded softly — not the crashing kind that made him want to punch through walls or scream into the sky. No, this was quieter. Slower. He felt it in the pit of his stomach, in the way his throat threatened to close up with emotion he didn’t quite know how to name. It wasn’t joy, not exactly. Not just that. It was something heavier, older, like all the years of pining and pretending had finally pooled into something vast and still and safe.

He turned his head slightly, barely daring to move, just enough to see Bakugou’s face — slack with sleep, hair a mess, mouth parted in the soft, vulnerable way it only ever was when he was unconscious or bleeding. His brow, usually drawn tight with tension, had smoothed out completely. Like the war inside him had gone quiet for a while. Like he trusted Kirishima enough to sleep beside him with his guard down.

He trusts me, Kirishima thought, and then, more startlingly He chose me.

It hit him all at once — that Bakugou, of all people, had waited. Had hoped. Had seen right through him and still wanted him. Had reached out with that rare, terrifying tenderness and said more with a single touch than Kirishima had thought he'd ever hear. He'd waited. Even after all the awkward silences and stammered denials and years of blind obliviousness.

Kirishima’s chest ached. He wanted to cry and laugh and apologise all at once. Instead, he let himself just — be. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he let himself rest.

The couch beneath them was too small, their limbs a tangle of half-thought positioning, and Kirishima was fairly sure his back was going to regret it in a few hours — but none of it mattered. Not when Bakugou had stayed. Not when his hand had found Kirishima’s in his sleep and held it like it meant something.

He thought back to all the moments they’d shared, all the accidental brushings of hands, the quiet walks home after missions, the way Bakugou would wait just outside his door on the rough days without ever saying why. All the signs he'd missed, dismissed, chalked up to some warped version of loyalty or friendship or heroics. And he felt a strange kind of mourning for the time they’d lost — but not regret. Not anymore. Because they were here now. Together. However new or raw or uncertain this was, it was real.

Eventually, the sun began to climb higher, casting golden slants of light across the floorboards. Dust danced lazily in the air. Bakugou shifted beside him, made a faint, gravelly sound in his throat — somewhere between a sigh and a curse — but didn’t wake. His fingers twitched once, then settled again against Kirishima’s wrist.

Kirishima smiled. Quiet, private, so full of aching relief it almost hurt.

He’d spent so long trying to be manly, trying to be good enough, to earn something he thought was always out of reach — Bakugou’s respect, his friendship, maybe his heart — and now here he was, lying on a half-shitty couch in an apartment that still smelled faintly of smoke and sweat and old takeout, and feeling more wanted than he ever had in his entire life.

Not for being invincible. Not for being brave. Just for being himself.

That alone was enough to undo him.

He tucked his chin slightly, watching Bakugou’s fingers where they curled, almost protective, like his body hadn’t got the memo that they’d finally said it out loud. That the silence between them had been broken. That there were no more ifs or maybes hanging like threats between every breath. There was only this. This quiet morning. This miracle of presence. This impossible, impossible peace.

He’d thought love would feel like fireworks — loud and explosive and heart-stopping. But this? This was a slow burn in the ribs, a steady warmth in his bones, a calm he hadn’t known he was allowed to feel.

And God, he never wanted it to end.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

Kirishima didn’t know when the silence had become a language all its own. Maybe it always had been — the stretch of it between them never empty, never meaningless. It pulsed with unspoken things, a quiet gravity tethering him to the moment, to the rise and fall of Bakugou’s chest next to his, the press of his shoulder against Kirishima’s, solid and steady. The night was ink-black beyond the window, the only light a faint sliver of moon that had spilled across the coffee table and cast faint silver over their discarded hoodies, the two half-drunk mugs of tea gone cold beside them.

It wasn’t even their flat. Just a borrowed safehouse, a resting point after a long, drawn-out mission — and yet, for all its plain, undecorated walls and military-issue furnishings, it felt more like home than anywhere else Kirishima had ever been. Not because of the place. Because of this. Because of him.

He didn’t know how long they’d been lying there like that, on the threadbare rug with a blanket tossed over their legs and the whole world muted beyond the windows. Time had slowed, turned pliable, like taffy drawn between two warm hands — and there was something soft, almost reverent, in the way Bakugou hadn’t moved away.

It should’ve been awkward. Heavy. But it wasn’t. There was something raw in the air, yes — a hum beneath the quiet — but it didn’t ache like it used to. It didn’t choke him like the unsaid things had done for years. He could breathe now.

Still, his voice came soft when he finally spoke.

“I thought I was protecting what we had,” he said, gaze fixed on the ceiling as if the cracks in the plaster might offer a script to follow. “By not saying anything. By pretending it wasn’t — anything. Just a crush. Just bad timing. Just me being dumb.”

Bakugou didn’t laugh. Didn’t scoff. Just shifted slightly, the side of his thigh brushing against Kirishima’s under the blanket. “Yeah,” he muttered, low. “I know what that’s like.”

Kirishima turned his head to look at him — only to find Bakugou already staring back, eyes unreadable in the dim light. And for a second, Kirishima felt like a first year again. Caught in that same push and pull. But there was something else now, something more settled in Bakugou’s expression — not softness, exactly, but the absence of armour.

“I kept telling myself it wasn’t real,” Kirishima whispered. “Or that it was — but not for you. Like, how could it be? You were always so — you.”

“And you were always so you,” Bakugou shot back, matter-of-fact. “Too good. Too fucking brave. Made me think if I opened my mouth and said any of it, I’d ruin the one thing I actually gave a shit about.”

Kirishima’s breath caught. He blinked, then blinked again, like maybe his brain needed a moment to catch up with the moment. He didn’t even realise he was gripping the edge of the blanket until his knuckles whitened.

“You," he started, voice uneven. “You thought you’d ruin it?”

Bakugou let out a quiet, mirthless sound — not quite a laugh. “Yeah, dumbass. You think I just came out on national fucking TV for the hell of it?” His gaze flickered back to the ceiling. “I was trying to give you a fucking hint.”

Kirishima let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a choke. It was too much — too gentle, too staggering, too close to everything he’d ever wanted but never let himself believe he could have. The room felt full of ghosts — of versions of himself that had walked away too fast, said the wrong thing, looked at Bakugou too long then convinced himself it meant nothing.

“I spent years thinking you couldn’t love someone like me,” he said, quiet and honest, the words as raw as skinned knees.

Bakugou turned then, fully — rolled onto his side, arm folded beneath his head, expression serious in the low light.

“Yeah?” he said. “Well, you’re a fucking idiot.”

Kirishima laughed, but it cracked halfway through.

“I didn’t wanna fuck up what we had either,” Bakugou added, quieter this time. “You’re the only person who ever stuck around. Even when I didn’t deserve it. Even when I was — fucking impossible. You made me feel like I wasn’t all bad. Like I was worth something.”

Kirishima looked at him, throat thick.

“You are,” he said. “You always were.”

The silence returned, but it was different now — warmer. Like the room was breathing with them. Kirishima stared at Bakugou’s face, the lines softened by shadow, the faint twitch of his brow like he was still trying to keep himself guarded out of habit.

And then — slow, deliberate — Kirishima reached out. Not much. Just fingers brushing the edge of Bakugou’s wrist where it rested between them.

Bakugou didn’t pull away.

“We were both scared, huh?” Kirishima said, the corners of his mouth curling faintly — not quite a smile, more a ghost of one.

Bakugou made a sound like agreement, but didn’t speak. Just shifted closer, barely, until their foreheads nearly touched. Kirishima could feel the warmth of his breath. The steady beat of his pulse.

It didn’t feel fragile anymore, this thing between them. It felt forged. Weathered. Something they’d bled for, in different ways.

Kirishima let his eyes flutter shut.

He could still remember every moment he hadn’t said it. Every almost. Every time he’d let the chance slip between his fingers like grains of sand. But it didn’t matter now. Not really.

Because he was here. Bakugou was here. And they were still them — scarred, stubborn, complicated. But together.

“I’m not gonna fuck this up,” Kirishima murmured, like a vow.

“You fuck it up,” Bakugou said, “and I’ll kill you.”

Kirishima laughed again, properly this time, chest aching in the best way. He pressed his forehead against Bakugou’s and let his eyes stay closed, let the warmth hold him.

They didn’t speak again for a while. Didn’t need to.

The truth had finally been said. The rest could wait.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

Years ago, Bakugou had been sitting on the rooftop alone at first, one leg bent, forearm resting loosely on his knee, his other hand cradling a still-warm can of Boss coffee he hadn’t yet opened. It had been dusk, that violet hour where the sky bruises and the world forgets how to be loud. The U.A. dorms were quieter than usual — the kind of quiet that seeped in around the edges of conversation and left a strange ringing in your ears, like the echo of something unsaid.

It was stupid, really. He wasn’t even a rooftop kind of guy. That was more of a Todoroki thing. Or, he supposed, a Kirishima thing — the way he always seemed to seek out height, light, open air, like the world could never be too wide for him. Like the sky had more to offer than the earth ever could.

Bakugou didn’t remember climbing up there with the intention of doing anything reckless. Didn’t remember thinking this is the moment. But maybe it had been building up for weeks. Months. Years.

It had been spring, he remembered that much. Late enough that the evenings were still chilly, but the wind didn’t bite anymore — it just moved through your clothes like breath, like a reminder you were still alive. There were birds, faintly. Street sounds, distant. And then there was him — stomping up the metal stairs in those dumb sandals, hair even messier than usual, hoodie unzipped like he’d raced the elevator and won.

Bakugou hadn’t turned around at first. Just took another swig of his drink and let him talk.

“Oi, there you are! You missed dinner — Todoroki made soba and it was actually good, which is rare as hell, no offence to the guy. I saved you a plate though.”

Kirishima plopped down beside him without asking. That was just how he always was. Comfortable. Loud. Bright. Like his whole presence demanded nothing but still gave everything.

Bakugou grunted. “Not hungry.”

Kirishima gave him a look, all fond annoyance. “You say that, and then you’re gonna steal half of mine later. Again.”

There had been this stretch of quiet after that, just long enough to make Bakugou feel like he was falling into something he didn’t know how to stop. Not a bad kind of falling — more like the sickeningly slow rollercoaster drop where your chest lifted before your body caught up. And Kirishima had leaned back then, arms behind his head, staring at the dusky sky like it was trying to say something.

“You ever wonder what we’ll be like after all this?” he’d asked, voice soft with that rare edge of thoughtfulness he rarely let show. “Like, when we’re pro heroes, and we’ve actually made it. You think we’ll still be friends?”

Bakugou remembered that. Will we still be friends?

He’d wanted to say I fucking hope not. Not because he didn’t want him in his life — but because friends was too small a word. Too brittle. Like trying to fit the sea into a coffee cup.

He hadn’t answered right away.

He’d just looked at him. Really looked at him — at the soft curve of his mouth, the scar at the edge of his brow that only showed when the sun hit him sideways. The wind had picked up a bit then, blowing Kiri’s fringe across his face, and he’d brushed it away absently, like he didn’t know he was turning Bakugou’s ribcage into something hollow and rattling.

Bakugou had opened his mouth.

He had. He’d opened it, the words lined up just behind his teeth — I like you, dumbass. I think I’ve been half in love with you since you dragged my ass out of that damn pit. And I don’t want to just be your friend when this is over — I want to be your everything. All of it, queued and waiting.

But then Kirishima turned his head and smiled — wide and warm and thoughtless — and said something like, “Oh man, imagine if you ended up with someone all domestic. Like, someone who makes soup and crochets. You’d lose your mind.” And then he laughed. Proper, belly-shaking, eyes-crinkling laughed, like it was all just a big joke, the idea of Bakugou being with anyone at all.

And in that moment, it shattered. Not the feeling. The nerve.

Bakugou’s mouth closed. The words stayed stuck, strangled and sour. His throat burned with the weight of them.

Because what was he supposed to say then? What was he meant to do — confess, risk everything, and hear “Wait, you were serious?” in return?

Kirishima had kept laughing, oblivious. His head tilted back against the roof, sharp canines catching what was left of the light. And Bakugou — who could detonate buildings without blinking, who’d stared death in the face more times than he could count — looked at him and thought: I can’t do it. I can’t lose this.

So he didn’t say it. Didn’t say You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like I wasn’t just some weapon with legs. Didn’t say Every time you walk into a room, I forget how to breathe. Didn’t say I think about you more than I should, more than is normal, and I don’t want it to stop.

He said nothing.

He let the silence cover it. Let the moment slide, like oil over water, and took another sip of his drink instead.

Later, when Kirishima got up and smacked him on the shoulder — “Come on, grump, let’s go eat. You’ll be less murdery with food in you.” — Bakugou followed. Quiet. Rage banked low and tight in his chest.

Not at him. Never at him.

At himself.

Because he’d had the moment. He had it. And he’d let it pass like a coward.

That night, he didn’t sleep much. Just lay awake with the sound of Kirishima’s laugh echoing behind his ribs and the weight of his own silence pressing heavy against his lungs.

And when Kirishima had turned over in the bunk opposite and murmured something half-asleep and sweet and slurred, like he always did — Bakugou had looked at him across the darkness and thought: One day, maybe.

One day, if you stop being so damn scared.

But he didn’t tell him then.

Didn’t tell him the next day.

Didn’t tell him for years.

Because that laugh — that stupid, beautiful, warm laugh — had made him believe he’d already lost before he even tried.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

It didn’t happen all at once — nothing ever really did with them. There was no cinematic kiss beneath fireworks, no triumphant swell of music or neatly tied bow that marked the beginning of them. It was subtler than that. Stranger, softer. Like learning how to breathe differently after years of doing it wrong. Like setting a broken bone that had healed crooked, and finally watching it grow straight.

They didn’t tell anyone, at first. Not because they were ashamed — not of each other, never of that — but because it felt like something that needed to be protected. Nurtured. Like a flame in a windstorm, trembling and young, stubborn in its desire to burn despite the world. It felt new, even though it had been building for years. Kirishima could almost laugh at the irony of it — how something so quietly powerful had been sitting between them all this time, waiting to be seen. Touched. Tried.

Trying was messier than he expected. Not in the loud, catastrophic way he used to brace himself for, but in the quiet moments. In the unfamiliar vulnerability of knowing what the other person meant now, what they carried. There was a different weight to things, even the simple ones. Bakugou brushing past him in the hallway didn’t feel incidental anymore — it felt deliberate. The brief touch of fingers across a kitchen counter made Kirishima’s chest ache in ways he couldn’t fully explain. Like the part of his heart he used to armour had been left open, and everything touched it now.

There were mornings, now. Not always shared, not always synchronous, but held in rhythm. On the rare days their schedules aligned, Kirishima would wake to the sound of the kettle on, the low shuffle of slippered feet across their cold kitchen tiles. Bakugou didn’t talk much in the mornings — he never had — but he started handing Kirishima his tea without being asked, always just how he liked it. One sugar, no milk. Strong enough to punch a hole through his stomach lining. Kirishima would pretend not to watch him across the small flat, leaning against the sink in sleep-mussed sweats and frowning at the weather outside, like he could intimidate the rain into stopping.

It was that, really. That. Not the grand declarations. Not some explosion of affection. It was the toothbrush Bakugou left beside his without saying a word. It was the way their boots began to migrate beside each other at the door, tangled like the lives they were trying to share. It was the way Bakugou would grumble and shove the blanket back over Kirishima in the middle of the night, despite pretending not to be awake. It was him quietly adjusting the thermostat so Kiri wouldn’t be cold when he came home.

It was silent things, all of them loud.

Some days, Kirishima couldn’t believe any of it was real. That the boy who once scorched his world with every word now curled around him like he was something fragile. That Bakugou — Bakugou — let him in, inch by inch, wordlessly. He didn’t always know what to do with that kind of gentleness. It scared him more than any villain ever had. It made him feel exposed in a way that bared more than skin. Like Bakugou could see things no one else ever had, things Kirishima had hidden behind too many smiles and jokes and unbreakable skin.

Still, they tried.

They tried through the awkward bits. The missteps. The fumbling hands and sharp edges, the roughness that didn’t quite soften even now. Bakugou wasn’t used to having someone in his space, not like this, and Kirishima sometimes felt like he was dancing in a room full of landmines. But he never stopped dancing. He learnt when to step forward and when to pull back. When to let silence sit between them like a held breath, and when to crack it open with something stupid. He figured out that Bakugou showed affection through action, not words — through meals cooked too salty, and backs turned at night but never too far. Through muttered insults that had the rhythm of fondness if you listened closely enough.

There were quiet fights, too. Small tensions. A misread tone, a silence that stretched too long, a brush of insecurity that pulled them in different directions. But then there’d be the click of a front door unlocking at midnight, the sound of keys on the counter and two feet scuffing into the kitchen, and Bakugou would toss a protein bar at him without meeting his eye. Kirishima would catch it. Say thanks. And that would be that. Not a truce, exactly — but a rhythm. Theirs.

He found himself watching Bakugou differently now. Not from afar, not with the longing he’d carried like a quiet ache for years — but up close, in full colour, with all the shades that had previously gone unnoticed. The way Bakugou pinched the bridge of his nose when he was tired. The way he stood in doorways when he was unsure, arms crossed like a shield. The way his eyes softened, barely, when he looked at Kirishima in moments he didn’t think were being watched.

He was watching, though. All the time. And more than that — he was seeing him. Bakugou, in all his jagged complexity. In all the contradictions that somehow made sense. Angry and tender. Guarded and generous. Someone who’d carved out space in his life for Kirishima with the slow deliberation of someone who didn’t let just anyone stay.

And Kirishima was trying, too.

Trying not to let his own doubts creep in. Trying to believe he deserved this, whatever this was. He wasn’t always sure what he brought to the table — just that he’d carry it all if Bakugou let him. He didn’t need the world to understand what they were. He just needed Bakugou to keep choosing him, in the quiet ways. In the steady ones. And Kirishima, for his part, would keep showing up. With tea, and open arms, and the kind of love that didn’t demand attention—but was always there. Always waiting.

They weren’t perfect. But they were real.

And that, for once, felt like enough.

Some mornings, it felt too fragile to look at head-on. Like if he acknowledged it for too long, it might dissolve under the weight of his own disbelief — like steam from a mug left too long in the cold. And God, he wanted to believe in it. He wanted to live inside this quiet thing they’d built — not loud or dramatic, but slow-burning and real, like the warmth of a duvet left in the sun, like the taste of sugar at the end of something bitter.

He wanted to believe that Bakugou chose him. That he was being chosen, still being chosen, even now.

But some nights, that voice came creeping back. That old, familiar rasp of insecurity, of not-enoughness, of every childhood echo that had carved itself into the shape of his spine. That voice didn’t yell, didn’t demand — it simply whispered.

"You’re just the easiest option. You’re the safe one. The fallback. The placeholder until he realises what he really wants."

Kirishima hated it. Hated how easily his mind could turn against him — how quickly it could twist tenderness into something temporary.

Because Bakugou was Bakugou. All sharp edges and fierce truths, but he could be soft in ways no one else got to see. The way he wordlessly handed over the last gyoza even though he always wanted it. The way his thigh pressed lightly against Kirishima’s under the kotatsu, never quite pulling away. The way his toothbrush — red, of course, fucking course — now lived permanently in Kirishima’s cup. He hadn’t even said anything about it. Just placed it there one night and acted like it had always belonged.

But still — still.

Kirishima would brush his teeth beside it in the morning and feel like an imposter. Like the cup might reject the extra weight. Like the shelf might crack. Like Bakugou would come to his senses and take it back.

It wasn’t jealousy, exactly. He didn’t look at other people and see threats. He just — looked at himself and didn’t always see enough. Not enough charm. Not enough wit. Not enough reason.

It came out in moments. Slipped through the cracks when he least expected it. Like when Bakugou was laughing — really laughing — at something Denki had said on the group call, and Kirishima was hit with a jolt of something awful. A thought he hated as soon as it arrived: He lights up like that for them, too.

Or when they were out for ramen, and the waitress had blinked too long at Bakugou’s jawline, and Kirishima’s chest had tightened — not out of jealousy, but because Bakugou hadn’t noticed. Or maybe he had, and just didn’t care. Why would he? People stared at him all the time. He was used to it. He was deserving of it.

And Kirishima — well.

He sometimes still caught himself brushing his hair back from his face too quickly, like he didn’t want Bakugou to see the old acne scars. Or folding his arms too tightly across his chest, like maybe if he compressed himself, he could be easier to love.

The worst of it wasn’t the feeling itself — it was the guilt that followed. Because Bakugou had chosen him. Had looked him dead in the eye, in that god-awful hospital room with the beeping machines and the too-white lights, and said “I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.” Had reached out first, hand trembling ever so slightly, and cupped Kirishima’s cheek like he was worth holding.

So what the hell was Kirishima doing, doubting?

Why couldn’t he just be content?

Why did he keep looking over his shoulder for a ghost that didn’t exist — the ghost of not being good enough?

He didn’t bring it up. Not out loud. He wasn’t sure how. How do you tell someone like Bakugou — blunt, brilliant Bakugou — that you’re scared they’ll wake up and realise they could do better?

How do you admit you still sometimes see yourself as the side character in your own story?

He tried to drown it out with affection. With breakfast made too early in the morning, with shared protein shakes and matching wrist wraps. With dumb little notes left in Bakugou’s gym bag like, “Don’t forget you’re a legend, even if you’re a grump,” scribbled in his messy print.

And Bakugou — well. He didn’t say much, but he kept those notes. Kirishima had seen them folded in the drawer by his bed, alongside his phone charger and a battered copy of that ridiculous All Might biography he still hadn’t finished reading. He kept them.

But still, Kirishima’s mind worked in spirals. In what-ifs. In quiet, spiralling doubts that didn’t scream — just lingered.

He’d lie beside Bakugou some nights, heart drumming slow and soft, eyes on the ceiling, and wonder if maybe the silence meant Bakugou was reconsidering. Recalculating. Rewriting the maths of their togetherness.

And then, like clockwork, Bakugou would shift. Reach across. Slide a hand low around Kirishima’s waist, pull him closer, bury his face into the crook of his neck like it was instinct. And Kirishima would melt. Every time. Without fail.

But even that — even that — some part of him worried it wouldn’t last.

That it couldn’t.

Because love like this — messy, hard-won, unsaid more often than it was spoken — felt like something he wasn’t supposed to keep. Something borrowed. Something lucky. Something fragile.

And Kirishima had never been fragile. But God, he’d never wanted to be this careful with anything before. Never wanted to keep something so badly. Never wanted to belong like this.

He didn’t say any of that out loud.

Not yet.

But it was there — quiet and low and aching — like a song he didn’t know the words to but couldn’t stop humming.

And in that unspoken space between them, he prayed — don’t get tired of me. Please don’t get tired of me.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

There was something brutal about how easily the doubts crept in.

Kirishima didn’t notice them at first. They were small things — a silence stretched too long, a text left unanswered for an hour longer than usual, the way Bakugou sometimes stared through the window while they had coffee in the morning. It didn’t mean anything, he told himself. It couldn’t. They were comfortable now, weren’t they? Familiar, even in the newness of what they were trying to be. But that was the trick of comfort — it gave your thoughts space to wander. And when they wandered, Kirishima’s always seemed to circle back to one question — Why me?

Not in a dramatic, spiralling way, not really — just in that quiet, gnawing ache of a boy who had spent most of his life feeling not-quite-good-enough. Not strong enough, not sharp enough, not quick or brilliant or dazzling enough to be the kind of person someone like Katsuki Bakugou would actually want.

They’d been trying. He knew that. They were trying. Katsuki would reach for him sometimes now without thinking — a hand to the small of his back as they passed each other in the kitchen, a knee bump beneath the kotatsu when he was pretending not to fall asleep during movie nights. Kirishima had started brushing his teeth with Katsuki’s brush once, not realising until halfway through, and instead of yelling, Bakugou had just said, “S’fine. I use yours all the time.”

Small things. Domestic things. Real things.

But Kirishima couldn’t stop the sinking feeling that someday, all of it would crack open. That Katsuki would wake up, look over, and realise he could have more. Someone bolder, smarter, someone who didn’t hesitate the way Kirishima still did, sometimes. Someone who didn’t come with jagged doubts and patchy bits of self-worth he still hadn’t figured out how to fix. Someone who hadn’t spent years pretending his feelings didn’t exist because he was terrified of ruining the one good thing he’d built.

He didn’t mean to say anything. He never did. The worst things always seemed to slip out when he was tired, when the shield of his smile wore thin.

They were sat on the floor of Katsuki’s flat — legs sprawled out, an empty bento box between them, Bakugou still chewing the last bite while Kirishima leaned back on his hands, eyes on the ceiling fan as it whirred in lazy circles.

And it just came out, soft and thoughtless.

“You could have anyone.”

Not accusatory. Not jealous. Just a quiet truth that had been rattling around in his chest too long, begging to be let out.

There was a pause. Not long — barely a breath — but long enough for Kirishima to wish he could drag the words back into his mouth, swallow them whole and burn them to ash in his gut.

Bakugou didn’t answer straightaway. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stood up, and padded into the kitchen to toss the containers in the bin. Kirishima sat very still. He could hear the sink running. The hum of the fridge. His own heartbeat, thudding against his ribs like it wanted out.

He was preparing himself. For the sigh. For the pull-back. For the don’t be stupid, Kirishima. For the moment Katsuki realised he’d made a mistake, and Kirishima would be noble about it — he would. He’d smile and laugh and pretend it was fine, and then maybe break down in the quiet of his flat when no one could see him fall apart.

But when Bakugou came back, he didn’t look distant.

He looked furious.

Not the explosive, snarling kind of fury Kirishima had grown up with — this was different. This was quieter, darker, more precise. Like a scalpel instead of a grenade.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Kirishima blinked. Swallowed. “It’s not a big deal. Just — sometimes I wonder. That’s all.”

Bakugou stared at him, mouth pressed into a tight line, hands flexing at his sides like he was trying very hard not to break something.

“You wonder if I’d rather be with someone else?”

“No, not," Kirishima sat up straighter, heart climbing into his throat. “Not that you want to. Just that you could. Like — easily.”

The silence that followed was awful. Heavy in a way Kirishima couldn’t outrun. He picked at the seam of his joggers, eyes fixed on the fraying thread, trying to shrink himself back into something safe.

Bakugou moved before he could brace for it. He dropped back to the floor in front of him, crossed his legs, and leaned forward, arms braced over his knees. His voice, when it came, was low. Not gentle — Katsuki didn’t do gentle — but steady. Grounded.

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”

Kirishima laughed, weakly. “That’s fair.”

Bakugou didn’t smile. He was staring at him like he was something valuable, something infuriatingly precious and absolutely maddening. And then he said it, sharp and loud and unequivocal.

“I don’t want anyone else, you rockhead.”

The words slammed into Kirishima’s chest like a wall. Not a whisper. Not a maybe. Not a breadcrumb. A full-blown declaration — jagged, bright, and unmistakably Bakugou.

“You’re it for me. You’ve always been it. Don’t make me say it again.”

Kirishima’s throat closed up. He looked at Katsuki properly then — eyes wide, chest aching. And there was no doubt in Bakugou’s face, no room for argument. Just certainty, raw and brutal, like everything he did.

“I mean it,” Katsuki said, quieter now. “From the fucking start, it’s been you. You think I’d put up with your dumb jokes and your bad taste in films and your snoring if it wasn’t you?”

Kirishima opened his mouth, closed it again. Something behind his ribs cracked open, molten and impossible to name.

He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t trust himself to speak without breaking in half. So he leaned forward instead, pressed his forehead to Katsuki’s shoulder, and let himself breathe.

And Bakugou — Katsuki — let him.

Didn’t pull away. Didn’t mock. Just sat there, one hand coming up to curl behind his neck, steady and warm and achingly real.

They stayed like that for a long time. No music. No talking. Just the low buzz of the ceiling fan and the press of a palm against his nape, anchoring him.

And for the first time in weeks, the doubt didn’t win.

Not because it was gone, but because Katsuki Bakugou had looked him in the eye and told him — with a mouth like fire and a voice like a blade — you’re it.

And Kirishima believed him. Maybe not all at once. Maybe not forever, not yet. But enough to breathe easier. Enough to stay.

Enough to try again tomorrow.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

It wasn’t nerves, not really. Nerves would’ve implied uncertainty, a frayed edge of not knowing what might happen next — and Kirishima knew. He’d known for weeks now, ever since the hospital, ever since Bakugou touched his face like it was something sacred and not something breakable. Ever since Bakugou, with a voice rough from smoke and fighting and a million unspoken things, had said, “You’re it for me.” And meant it.

No, it wasn’t nerves. It was gravity. The kind that pinned stars in place.

The gala was another one — a glitter-drenched, name-tag-wearing, photo-snapping affair that should’ve made his skin crawl. It always had. He'd never liked the way cameras sought them out like prey, like objects. He’d never liked the stiffness of his suit or the way he was expected to smile with teeth when all he really wanted was to disappear to the side of the room and joke with Bakugou about who’d trip on the stairs this year. He never liked pretending.

But this time — he wasn't pretending.

He stood beside Bakugou in the hallway just before they entered the ballroom, the dull thrum of expensive music and too-bright lights echoing through the corridor. His hands were clean but sweating. Not from fear. Just the build-up. The impossible anticipation. It felt like standing at the edge of something vast — a ledge overlooking the next version of himself.

Bakugou hadn’t said anything, not since they got out of the car. He never did in moments like these. But Kirishima could feel him. That singular, volcanic presence. Hair tamed back in a way that made him look more dangerous, not less. A scowl already simmering beneath his sharp cheekbones. Shoulders squared like he was walking into battle and not a room of paparazzi and politicians.

Kirishima looked at him. Really looked.

He had spent years doing that — sneaking glances during training, watching Bakugou argue in press briefings with that maddening, untouchable intensity. And every time he’d looked, he’d convinced himself it didn’t mean anything. That it was just admiration. That it was normal to ache like this.

But now he looked and saw his person. His not-so-secret anymore. His everything.

“Ready?” he asked, quieter than usual.

Bakugou didn’t answer. Just extended a hand, palm up, fingers loose — not a demand, not a performance. Just there. Like a fact. Like something that had always existed.

Kirishima stared at it for a beat. That hand had saved lives. Had broken the earth. Had bled and burned and held his jaw that night in the dark. That hand had once shoved him against a wall during training and called him a dumbass for flinching. That hand had held his own, two weeks ago, across a sofa cushion when neither of them could sleep.

He took it.

It was simple. No grand declarations, no fireworks. Just fingers laced between his, palms pressed tight, the faint heat of skin against skin.

Together, they walked through the threshold.

The flash of cameras was immediate — a wave of sound and brightness and gasped reactions that echoed like gunfire. It was instinct to flinch, to smile too wide, to do what they always did in these rooms: play the role.

But he didn’t let go.

Bakugou, of course, didn’t either. He walked with the same swagger, the same fuck-you aura he wore like armour. But there was something quieter in his grip. A tether. A truth. And when one of the reporters — a woman in a blue sequin dress with too much eyeliner — stepped forward, mouth already open to ask something bold and awful and unforgivable, Bakugou beat her to it.

He didn’t even slow down.

“Yeah,” he barked, voice hoarse with meaning, “so fucking what?”

It didn’t land like a punch. It landed like a thunderclap.

And for the first time in all the years Kirishima had known him — from the moment they’d squared off in the dorm kitchen over burnt rice, to the nights Bakugou patched him up without saying a word — for the first time, Kirishima saw something new in the way people looked at him. Not just fear. Not just awe.

Respect.

Bakugou didn’t flinch. He never did. But this was different. He didn’t drag Kirishima behind him. He didn’t shield him. He walked beside him, hand in hand, the picture of someone who wasn’t going to apologise.

Not now. Not ever.

And Kirishima — God, Kirishima felt like something inside him cracked wide open and bloomed.

He smiled.

Not a sheepish one. Not the kind of smile he’d used to give during interviews, when he was trying too hard to seem approachable, when he was still terrified someone might guess. No — this was brighter. Real. Like a sun rising in his chest and spilling out his face, all warmth and wonder and finally. He didn’t just look happy — he was happy. He was blazing.

And it was because of him.

They made it through the crowd like a slow march through heat. People stared, some gawked, and the occasional shutter clicked from phones that hadn’t been silenced. But Kirishima didn’t feel small. He didn’t feel exposed.

He felt seen.

Somewhere behind them, someone muttered something — half-jeer, half-pity — but it didn’t stick. It couldn’t. Not with Bakugou’s hand still anchoring his own like a promise. Not with the heat of that ridiculous, impossible love still roaring through his ribs.

This wasn’t a secret anymore. This wasn’t waiting. This wasn’t silence.

This was them.

Public. Tangible. Real.

And as the two of them moved deeper into the gala, the lights catching in Bakugou’s hair, Kirishima couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out of him — soft, breathless, amazed. He squeezed Bakugou’s hand, just once. Just to make sure.

Bakugou squeezed back.

Yeah, he thought, dazed with it. So fucking what.

He was grinning like the sun. And for the first time in his life, he didn’t want to hide it.

˚₊‧꒰ა 🍒 ໒꒱ ‧₊

It was quiet.

A rare thing, in their world — quiet. Not just the absence of noise, but the sort of quiet that felt earned. Deserved. The kind that settled in your bones and reminded you that, despite everything, you were still here.

The rooftop was technically off-limits. Of course it was. But rules like that had always felt laughable to them now, relics of a time when they were students and still thought life came with a blueprint. Still believed that someone, somewhere, would hand them a guide on how to do all this right — how to save people without breaking apart, how to love without getting hurt.

Kirishima sat on the ledge anyway, legs dangling over the side, hair wind-tousled and stubbornly spiky even in the breeze. The city sprawled beneath him — a quilt of streetlamps and high-rises, the faint, unbroken hum of late-night traffic rolling in like distant waves. The stars overhead were dim, barely visible against the light pollution, but they were there. And tonight, that was enough.

Bakugou was beside him. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel. His presence wasn’t something you measured in inches, anyway. It filled the air like ozone before a storm — sharp, magnetic, familiar. He wasn’t looking at the sky. He had his chin tilted down, eyes half-lidded in thought, arms braced behind him, fingers drumming against the concrete in a rhythm only he understood.

Kirishima turned to look at him and just — stayed there.

There was no rush. No need to break the silence. It was the kind of moment that didn’t ask for words — not yet — and Kirishima had learned, slowly, painfully, how to wait for things that mattered. He wasn’t good at it, but he was learning. Bakugou had taught him that. Not by saying it, but by being it — the slow burn of someone who didn’t hand himself over easily, who loved like wildfire but only after testing every inch of the ground first to see if it could take the heat.

The city pulsed below. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed and died.

He felt Bakugou glance at him.

That was all it took.

“I love you, you know,” Kirishima said softly, voice catching halfway through like his throat didn’t quite know how to let the words out smooth. He stared straight ahead as he said it, like looking at Bakugou might ruin the courage he’d only just summoned.

There was a pause. Not uncomfortable. Just heavy. Dense, like the air before rain.

“I fucking know,” Bakugou said eventually, voice low, a little rough with exhaustion. He let the words hang there, his tone not flippant but sure. Then, quieter, “Say it again.”

Kirishima did.

“I love you.”

This time it came easier. No falter, no breath hitch. Just the truth, warm and undressed and spoken into a space that could hold it. He didn’t say it to win anything, or because Bakugou asked. He said it because it was sitting behind his teeth all night, vibrating under his skin like static, and it needed out. It had nowhere else to go.

Bakugou shifted closer. Just enough that their thighs brushed, denim against denim. Just enough that Kirishima felt the heat of him, the press of something grounding.

“I know,” Bakugou said again, and this time it landed differently. Not like a brush-off — not even remotely. More like an anchor. Like he’d been carrying those words inside him for years and had only just heard them aloud, but had known they were his all along.

They fell into silence again, and Kirishima let it stretch.

He’d spent so long craving noise — the sound of fights, of explosions, of validation — that it was disarming how safe quiet felt now. How loved he felt in it. He didn’t need a spotlight anymore. He didn’t need to prove himself, not to Bakugou, not to the world. Not when he could sit here, shoulder to shoulder with the person who’d once scared the shit out of him and now knew him down to the marrow.

It struck him, then — not like a bolt of lightning, but a slow bloom. How far they’d come.

This wasn’t the same boy who’d once shouted across a classroom to tell him to piss off. This wasn’t the same boy who used to scowl through every shared patrol, biting back anything that sounded too much like care. This was Bakugou, yes — still sharp, still fire-forged — but now he looked at him like the war was over. Like Kirishima was the victory.

The wind tugged at his hair. He closed his eyes for a moment and just felt it all.

The rooftop. The stars. The heartbeat beside his.

“You scared?” Bakugou asked suddenly, voice almost too low to hear.

Kirishima turned.

“Of what?”

“Of this. Of — people. Seeing. Knowing.” His voice was clipped, as always, like it cost him something to say even that much. But there was something underneath it — not fear, exactly. Just awareness. Tenderness, maybe.

Kirishima thought about it.

He thought about their friends. About the press. About what it meant to be heroes who dared to be human in a world that still measured them in column inches and body counts. He thought about how many ways this could go wrong — the scrutiny, the headlines, the cost of being vulnerable in public.

And then he thought about Bakugou — the shape of his mouth when he called him a dumbass, the feel of his fingers laced through his, the weight of those rare, deliberate moments where he let himself be soft. He thought about what it meant to be loved by someone like him — not despite the sharp edges, but because of them. And how, for all the noise in his head, that love had been the only constant.

He turned back to the sky. The stars were faint. Still there.

“No,” he said eventually. “Not anymore.”

Bakugou didn’t say anything to that. He just leaned in a little, shoulder pressed into his like punctuation. Final. Solid.

They stayed like that for a long time. The city breathed beneath them. Somewhere, a breeze shifted direction and carried the smell of fried food from three blocks away. A plane blinked across the sky like a false star.

And for once — for the first time, maybe — Kirishima didn’t feel like he had to move. He didn’t feel like he had to earn anything.

He just was.

A boy in love. A man who’d made it through hell and come out with something more than scars.

He tilted his head, glanced at Bakugou.

“You know I love you, right?” he said again, gentler now, like the words were less a confession and more a habit — a thing you said not because you doubted, but because you wanted to keep saying it until the stars burned out.

Bakugou huffed a laugh.

“Yeah, I know,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck like it embarrassed him. Then, stubborn as ever, “Say it again anyway.”

Kirishima did.

And again.

And again, until the rooftop faded into a cocoon of quiet, and the city blurred beneath them, and the only thing that mattered was this — the quiet certainty of being known. Of being loved. Of choosing and being chosen in return.