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The sun has already begun to dim beneath the horizon in faded fluorescents by the time they arrive at the festival.
It’s one of those sunsets that happen everyday: the dull simmer of the sun meshing with the tangerine orange and golden silks that filter in between woven threads of blush pink and cornflower blue. A commonplace beauty and still, Eijirou pauses from next to Bakugou and pulls his phone out for a picture.
Snap!
“You serious, Shitty Hair?” Bakugou grouses. “You take sunset pictures every goddamn day.”
“But they’re pretty,” Eijirou argues back, tilting his camera up to get one overhead. Snap!
His best friend scoffs, treading on ahead. His sandals clack against the dirt path, getting quieter the further he walks. “Hurry up, or I’m gonna leave without you.”
Eijirou rolls his eyes playfully, aiming his camera to capture the sky framed by trees. Bakugou would never leave him behind, no matter what he says. Though…
He still flicks his gaze to the other boy, just to make sure.
Bakugou’s back is facing towards him, and his black festival jacket flutters in the wind. The fire pattern on the edge seems to dance like a live flame, flickering and curling in the breeze. His blond hair is ruffled by the gentle licks of the breeze, and—
The camera in Eijirou’s hand raises unconsciously and his fingers brush over the shutter before he can stop himself.
Snap!
He peers at the photo: Bakugou Katsuki in the far-off distance, jacket fluttering like a cape, and his hair haloed in gold against the tapestry of the sunset.
Eijirou swallows.
As everything in relation to Bakugou Katsuki goes: perfect.
“Oi! Hurry up, Shitty Hair!”
Eijirou takes one last look at the photo (making a mental reminder to set it to his home screen—a very brave and bold move by someone too cowardly to even say a word about his feelings), before he shoves his phone into the pocket of his pants.
“Coming!”
“Wow.”
The summer festival is in full swing, beaming with noise and light. Children dash to and fro with small fire poppers, vendors shout deals out to the clamor of the crowd, families sit around small tables with boxes of food, and teenagers mill around in pairs and groups, dressed in yukatas and chattering loudly.
“Where did you wanna go first?” Eijirou pokes Bakugou’s arm curiously.
The other shrugs idly. “Anywhere is fine by me.”
As per usual, his best friend doesn’t leave Eijirou much to work with, so he grabs Bakugou by the sleeve of his festival jacket and drags him towards the okonomiyaki booth. “Alright! Let’s get something to eat!”
Bakugou makes a disgruntled noise underneath his breath, but lets Eijirou tug him along anyway. Eijirou places their orders and pulls out his wallet to pay for the orders, when Bakugou slaps his hand down, the corner of his mouth twitched upwards in a determined scowl.
Really, only Bakugou could look so determined when scowling, Eijirou thinks offhandedly.
“I’m paying,” he says, without any room for argument.
Eijirou doesn’t bother putting up a fight; he knows when to pick his battles with Bakugou. He tucks his wallet away as Bakugou slides a thousand yen to the cashier, who cheerfully hands them their order in return, and they slip out of line to find a place to sit and eat.
“I can pay you back—” Eijirou starts, but Bakugou bumps his hip.
“Don’t worry about it, my treat.”
“But it’s not manly to be in—”
“Eijirou.”
He pauses, looking over at Bakugou, and his heart lurches upwards into his throat and right onto the tip of his tongue.
Bakugou’s got that sort of expression on his face, the one where he looks like he’s feeling everything at once and then almost nothing at all. His cheeks are flushed, perhaps out of uncharacteristic embarrassment or just from the din of the summer lanterns — Eijirou can’t tell, and his lips are curved slightly — a rare smile? Or maybe Eijirou’s deluding himself and it’s one of his typical smirks that sends his heart to run a marathon. His eyes are a dark, burnished red: the color of the sunset in the aftermath of endless smoke, flickering like melted candle wax and unreadable as ever.
Eijirou swallows his heart down and wonders if he’s allowed to call his best friend beautiful.
“Pay me back by winning me a goldfish,” Bakugou says, before he turns on his heel. His festival jacket flutters in the wind, whispering fire in the shadowed darkness, and Eijirou is curious to see if he’ll burn when he touches it.
“I—okay,” he answers to no one at all.
——
Eijirou does end up winning Bakugou a goldfish. It had taken an idiotic amount of money and some major luck, but they walk out with a squirming goldfish in hand and Bakugou stares at the thing like it’ll jump out of the bag if he takes his eyes away.
“It’s not going anywhere,” Eijirou teases, prodding the plastic bag.
Bakugou snatches it away. “Keep poking it like that and it will.”
“Uh huh—hey, look at the test of strength! Let’s go!” Eijirou slides his hand into Bakugou’s and pulls him through the crowd of people, and his best friend shouts in surprise.
“Oi, don’t do that, what the fuck?!”
Eijirou tilts his head back and grins, flashing his sharp teeth. “C’mon bro, you wouldn’t go anywhere if I didn’t do that.”
“Yeah, yeah, what-the-fuck-ever. The real question is why are your hands so goddamn cold?” Bakugou still hasn’t let go of his hands. Eijirou doesn’t want to pull away first (hey, Bakugou’s hands are nice and warm, like he’s a personal space heater. Sue him). “They feel like ice-cubes.”
Eijirou shrugs, gesturing to his festival wear, which basically consists of no shirt, a white cloth belt, black cargo pants, and sandals. “I didn’t find a shirt that went with my outfit.”
His best friend rolls his eyes, but his attention still lingers across the cut of Eijirou’s abs and the lazy lines of his muscles, stretching in his arms. His hand breaks away from their entwined hands to graze over his bare chest, and Eijirou shivers for more than one reason.
“Dumbass,” Bakugou mutters, “You’re a fucking idiot.”
Before Eijirou can protest his non-idiocy, Bakugou’s shrugging out of his festival jacket and draping it over his shoulders.
It automatically feels like the temperature’s been raised by twenty degrees, because Eijirou feels his skin burn from the cloth of the jacket. Maybe he was right: if he touched the flames across the hem, it would lick across his skin and set him ablaze.
“Bro, you—”
Bakugou clicks his tongue. “It’s not enough, but it’ll do. Don’t catch a cold on me tomorrow, Shitty Hair.”
Eijirou smiles fondly and fingers the fiery hem of the festival jacket. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Ding!
Eijirou beams as the weight slams into the bell at the top, and he turns to Bakugou, ignoring the flabbergasted expression of the game manager. “So? How about it?”
Bakugou rolls his eyes. “Tch. You just got lucky, asshole.”
He knows Bakugou doesn’t mean it: despite his disdain, there’s no heat to back his words and besides, they’ve sparred enough that he knows Eijirou’s holding back. Not to mention that they’re heroes in training — that these strength games are mere child’s play.
Still though, it’s fun to bite on the low-hanging bait every once in a while.
“Really?” Eijirou arches an eyebrow and he turns back to the game manager, another couple hundred yen in his hand. “Can I get another go at the strength test?”
“Uh…” The man peers back at the scale and the slightly cracked hammer in Eijirou’s hands. “Are you sure, sir? I don’t think it was a fluke—”
“Absolutely.” Eijirou tilts his head back at Bakugou, grinning mischievously at the beginnings of a smirk on his lips. “Just to make sure.”
The game manager frowns, concerned as Eijirou takes a step back, retesting the hammer in his hands as Bakugou leans back, arms crossed and his ruby eyes glittering. “Wait, sir, maybe—”
WHAM!
The hammer quite literally shatters in two as Eijirou slams it down on the weight and the bell lets out an ear-piercing shriek. Ignoring the aghast expression on the game manager’s face, he turns back around to Bakugou, smiling broadly.
“So? Whatcha think, Baku-bro?”
His best friend lets out a quiet tch, before acquiescing, “I guess you’re pretty strong, Shitty Hair. Now get your damn prize and let’s get outta here already.”
The manager’s pushing a moderately sized dragon plush into his arms, but Eijirou’s barely paying attention as he skips after Bakugou, who had begun striding away from the booth. “Coming!”
And in the red torchlit glow of the summer festival, he catches a faint glimpse of a smile — a real smile — on Bakugou’s face.
It’s not until Eijirou trips over air and almost twists his ankle in his geta that Bakugou drags them off to a grassy knoll. It’s not too crowded; the majority of the families are at the festival stalls, and the remnants sitting on the grass are couples, their heads tipped to one another in soft whispers and echoes of laughter.
He kinda gets why it’s mostly a couples’ playground: the river before them swirls in slow ripples, and the moon is high overhead, glimmering off the surface in pale gold. There’s a gentle breeze about them, curling through Eijirou’s wilting hair, and he shivers, pulling Bakugou’s festival jacket tighter around his bare chest.
“Cold?” Bakugou hums. He’s got the bare semblance of a grin on his lips, his canines peeking at the corners of his lips. “‘S what you get for going shirtless, moron.”
“Alright, alright, I get it,” Eijirou says, inwardly grinning at the way Bakugou’s brows are pinched with concern. Always got his heart on his sleeve, that one. “Sit up, man, lemme cuddle you.”
“Keep your nasty fuckin’ hands off of me,” Bakugou tells him snidely. He straightens his posture, leans a couple centimeters to the left. His shoulder jostles Eijirou’s ever so slightly, and Eijirou takes it as an invitation.
He droops his head onto Bakugou’s shoulder, and loosens a breath when Bakugou lays his head against him.
A comfortable silence sinks in between them, like rock to river, and Eijirou doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare breathe. Instead, he keeps his eyes on the kids running with kites by the riverbed, friends sitting crosslegged and laughing between paper plates of takoyaki, couples leaning against each other, their mouths far too close to each other’s cheeks.
He’s dimly aware of how they look, him and Bakugou: leaning against each other, their fingers not-quite-touching under the starlit sky. He can feel Bakugou’s index finger like a ghost. If he closes the distance—maybe five centimeters, he thinks hazily—
“Oi, stand up,” Bakugou scowls at Eijirou, prodding his cheek with his index finger. “We’re goin’ home.”
“Mm...but I’m so tired,” Eijirou whines. His head lolls from side to side as Bakugou pokes either side of his face. “We could just sleep here?” he offers hopefully.
His best friend snorts derisively. “Hell no, over my dead body. Let’s go, Eijirou.”
Eijirou jiggles his foot, flexes his wrist, before shooting an impish grin at Bakugou. There’s no guarantee that his half-thought out plan would work, but…
“Well, I can’t exactly move—”
“Bullshit.”
“So you can just carry me?” And to add the extra effect, Eijirou lowers his gaze, peers underneath his lashes, and blinks innocently. It’s been a while since he’s had to pull out the puppy dog eyes, but Eijirou can taste the edge of something, can feel the tension rumbling hot and cold in his blood. If he doesn’t make his move now, he might never come so close again. “Bakugou, please?”
They hold eye contact for a split second, garnet clashing on crimson, and finally, Bakugou averts his gaze first.
“Fine. C’mere.”
Eijirou beams, stepping closer to his best friend, fully intending to hop on his back. But then Bakugou slides a hand around his waist and hoists him into his arms, and wow.
Eijirou had been expecting a piggyback ride, but bridal carry?
The amount of adrenaline that tears into his heart is unreal.
“Bakugou—”
“Zip it. Not another word.”
Eijirou shuts his mouth. Bakugou starts walking. His best friend’s eyes don’t go anywhere near him, but are planted on the road ahead, and Eijirou takes that time to half snuggle his face into Bakugou’s chest and stare at the outline of his face.
He’s always known that Bakugou is beautiful, but the moonlight that washes over his features makes him look damn near ethereal. Had his jawline always been so sharp? Had his eyes always been the same color of firework sparklers?
Gods aren’t real, but sculptors would carve their liking into marble, would spend their whole life chiseling away at the curl of their hair and the slant of their eyes. Eijirou’s no artist, but he kind of gets it: if he believed, wholeheartedly, in gods, he too, would dedicate the rest of his life affixing their likeness into stone.
Eijirou doesn’t believe in gods, but he sees Bakugou Katsuki in all light, in any light, and he understands what devotion means.
Maybe if he asks, Bakugou will let him trace the lines of his face. There’s faint laugh lines indented under his eyes, a wrinkle between his brows from his usual scowl, and Eijirou wants to learn all of it, if only Bakugou would let him.
But the thing is, they’ve always just been friends. Nothing more than that. Nothing less. They’ve always just been friends, and Eijirou’s never really been in love with a friend like this, but he can feel the ache in his ribs, like he knows the beat of his own heart, like he knows how it feels to get hit with a Howitzer. Over and over, like clockwork, and he kind of realizes then, he might be too far gone already.
“Oi, quit thinking so loud, Shitty Hair.”
Eijirou blinks and stares up at Bakugou more. He’s still not looking at him, but he’s clearly addressing him in that roughened, low rasp—
“You hear me or what? Stop thinking already,” Bakugou snaps. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“Sorry, I was—”
“Don’t be sorry, just fucking stop. I can hear your brain, Shitty Hair.” Bakugou sighs, but he doesn’t sound completely exasperated. “Dammit, fuck. What I mean is that you can fucking tell me what’s bothering you, instead of…” His eyebrows scrunch together. “Keeping it to yourself or whatever.”
Talk to me, won’t you?
“Ahh...erm…” Great, how was Eijirou supposed to confess his undying love without getting dropped on his ass or looking like an utter idiot? “I was just thinking that uh…”
“Yeah?” The fact that Bakugou’s looking at him, really looking at him, does not help any matters whatsoever, and all of Eijirou’s senses are heightened. God, this was so, so bad.
He licks his lips dumbly and oh god, oh shit, did Bakugou’s eyes actually follow that?! Or was the moonlight playing tricks on him?! And holy shit, was Bakugou leaning closer?!
Eijirou is about to have a goddamn aneurysm.
“I—er…” Eijirou’s brain scrambles for something, anything. “Oh, it looks like we’re at the dorms!”
Bakugou drops him on his ass. Eijirou yelps as his butt hits the concrete and Bakugou swears underneath his breath.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “Looks like we are. Let’s go, Hair-For-Brains.”
Bakugou strides into the gate and Eijirou swears, scrambling up from the ground to follow him.
Bakugou clicks the lights on as he leads the way into his bedroom and though Eijirou’s been here before, he’s still starstruck by the sheer amount of All Might merchandise that lines the shelves and decorates the walls. He flops onto Bakugou’s bed, sprawling over the neatly made All Might sheets and peering back at his best friend, who has his back completely to Eijirou.
Bakugou has yet to say any words since he dropped Eijirou on his ass in front of the school gates and Eijirou wants to patch things up with him, but…
What would he even want to hear?
Eijirou’s first attempt: “Your All Might merchandise stash is impressive, dude.”
A responding grunt. Alright, fine. Eijirou can push harder, no sweat.
“How long have you been collecting this stuff?”
The noticeable tension in Bakugou’s shoulders slacken when he shrugs. “Since I was a kid. I wanted to outmatch Deku,” he spits the name like it’s a crime, “and I did. Loser still hasn’t been able to get the 2318 limited edition collectible, even with his sugar daddy of a boyfriend.”
“Aww, that’s so cute,” Eijirou grins broadly. “I can see tiny Bakugou running into the stores when they first open and coming out with dozens of collectible boxes.”
Bakugou snorts derisively, but it sounds slightly fonder as he turns to face Eijirou. “I’m gonna head to the bathroom and get ready for bed. You finished already right?”
“Yeah.” Eijirou stretches out on the bed with a hefty sigh. “I’ll just stay here.”
“Don’t fall asleep. When I come back, you’re going back to your room.”
“Mhm.”
Eijirou has no idea when he fell asleep. He vaguely recalls watching videos on his phone as he waits for Bakugou to come back, but between then and now, he had drifted off to sleep, with the lights in the room still on.
Now, he’s still on top of Bakugou’s bed, but the lights are off and he’s pushed off against the wall. There’s a figure lying still on his other side, back to him, and it takes less than a minute for Eijirou to realize—oh.
Bakugou is right next to him. He’s sharing a bed with Bakugou. Bakugou is right next to him, less than a few inches away. He can feel the warmth of Bakugou’s body, even though they’re not directly touching.
He’s sharing a bed with Bakugou. Holy shit.
“Oi, can you not think so loud? I can’t fucking sleep,” Bakugou suddenly snaps. His voice is gruff and exhausted, and Eijirou feels a tinge of guilt.
“Sorry bro. I just woke up and uh…” I thought you were asleep, goes unspoken. Instead, Eijirou finishes lamely with, “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
The sheets rustle as Bakugou twists his body to face Eijirou. He can barely see Bakugou’s face in the dark, but there’s a soft illumination from the moon through the balcony window that casts across Bakugou’s hair and down his jawline. He looks sharper, like every single detail on his face has been heightened by the glow of the moon, and Eijirou can see where the sun had kissed him with faded star-freckles.
Eijirou’s heart throbs so painfully. Bakugou looks so effortlessly ethereally beautiful, a gift from the night sky and the heavens above, and he fights the urge to chew on his lip. It’s not fair.
“You looked like you needed sleep,” is all his best friend says. “Plus, you’d make such a fucking racket if I tried to wake you up, so…”
Bakugou leaves the last sentence hanging, but the unspoken ending lingers in the air. Eijirou swallows.
So I let you stay.
“Bakugou—”
Do you want me to stay?
“Quit stressing about it, Shitty Hair. It’s late, go back to sleep.” Bakugou turns over his side and yanks the covers up to his chin. It’s obvious—he doesn’t want to say any more and Eijirou doesn’t want to push him.
So instead, he rolls onto his side to face the wall and tries to fall asleep to the sound of their intermingled breathing (which is a little more difficult when all he can hear is the roar of his heartbeat in his ears).
The first thing Eijirou’s aware of is the sunlight, dappling across his cheeks. It’s not that late in the day yet — the rays feel gentle on his face, as if they’ve just woken up with him too. It’s almost enough to make him roll over and shut his eyes to sleep again — after all, it’s the weekend and he’s got nothing better to do than sleep in — but the minute he rolls to his other side, he comes face to face with—ah.
The second thing Eijirou should’ve been distinctly aware of, but hadn’t been until this moment: Bakugou Katsuki.
And then everything comes flooding back and Eijirou’s flooded with the scent of Bakugou’s cologne, the unfamiliar, yet soft touch of Bakugou’s sheets, Bakugou’s extra weight on the other side of the bed, and—oh.
The feeling of an arm cast across his waist, heavy and comforting and grounding and very, distinctly not his. Oh.
He doesn’t move though, doesn’t try to push Bakugou’s arm off, and there isn’t a reason why, or a an explanation he can provide, but he just—
Bakugou snuffles in his sleep, twitches, and Eijirou thinks he might wake, or perhaps move his arm, but no, no. He only snuggles closer, tightens his arm around his waist, and they are closer, sheets tangled at their feet, and their shared heat is a twin flame of both their bodies.
Oh.
Part of Eijirou can’t bear to move an inch. Some part, this little, desperate part of him, wants this so badly he can’t breathe, and he wants to savor it for all he can. He wants to press his face into Bakugou’s hair, pull Bakugou flush to his chest, and hold him, be with him, just to exist with him until whenever.
Part of Eijirou cries to move. Move before this turns into a whole trainwreck that Eijirou can’t punch his way out of, that turns into shambles, and he can’t bring himself to fix it anymore. Move before Bakugou wakes up and pushes him away with his arms and the glare in his eyes that reads ‘why didn’t you move first’ and he cannot bear that glare.
Stay. Leave.
Closer. Move away.
He is stuck, undecided, and his head spins with the sheer amount of thoughts and the sunlight glaring into his eyes—
“Oi, stop thinking so hard.”
Eijirou wonders if he’s imagining Bakugou’s voice then, but when he looks over to his side, there’s a crimson eye cracked open, and he swears Bakugou’s grip on his waist tightens.
“You’re waking me up with the amount of dumb thoughts radiating from your rocky-ass brain.” Bakugou uses his spare hand to tap his forehead gently. “Go back to bed, Shitty Hair.”
And then, then. Eijirou’s entire demise summed into one sentence: Bakugou sloppily presses a feather of a kiss against his neck, twists back into his unwitting embrace, and returns to his slumber.
(Eijirou doesn’t fall back asleep for the rest of the morning. Bakugou’s lips still burn against his neck, flared like a firework sparkler, and every breath he exhales in his sleep skates across his skin like a ghost.
It’s just a kiss, he thinks, as if it would take away the gravity of it all. He only just asked Eijirou to stay the night before. Maybe if it was someone else, anyone else, it wouldn’t mean anything. It would be a sort of game they could play, like they’re two players on a tennis court and they keep smashing the ball into each other’s court.
But it’s not just anyone. It’s Bakugou. And here’s the thing Eijirou knows about his best friend: he never does things in halves. Only wholly, only with intent.
So Eijirou rolls over, watches the sunlight glint off of Bakugou’s fluttered lashes like spun gold, and he thinks about maybe, just maybe, asking Bakugou to kiss him for real.)