Archive of Our Own ^beta

At 4 years old, Katsuki’s quirk manifests. Little white sparks fly from his fingertips, warm and sharp and fuzzy.

It is this moment that solidifies the image of Bakugou Katsuki. A clay molded and scored by clumsy and unthinking fingers. Their fingerprints say “Amazing” and "Powerful” and “Awesome”. They don't view the dents they leave as mistakes, barely even notice the cracks he forms as he's heated up too quickly.

To little Katsuki, it all means the same thing. That he is meant for something great.

This is not to say he is made immediately in this moment. No, a good maker knows pottery takes effort and time to create. It is just that Katsuki is already built on 4 years of awe and praise and support. The heat of his sparks are just the kiln he needs to be fired in.

And maybe the indulgent smiles his teachers give when he proclaims he'll be the best hero help him settle more firmly into place.

At the edge of the group, for many years to come, Izuku will stare down at his own hands and wish for them to spark and settle him too.

Orange is Kirishima Eijirou’s first colour, barely 4 years old.

He remembers clearly the look his mothers had given him. Their skin suddenly tinged with a hue Eijirou had never known existed; a warmth in the black and white of his little world.

A warmth.. and also a coldness.

An understanding his parents and his family and even his teachers had long before he could catch up.

That orange — bright, attention-grabbing orange, the colour of his favourite new socks and pyjamas and toys, orange — was the colour of pride.

The colour of arrogance.

The colour of a soulmate with an ego and a self-image so all-consuming it had seeped into Eijirou's world, tinting it a new hue.

He thinks, later in life, that the worst part about it really was the pity. The “I'm sure they're different”s and the “Maybe they'll grow out of it”s. The assumption that he was doomed to a bitter love that would leave him aching for black and white, like their words alone hadn't already done that enough.

(Nobody told Eijirou that orange could also mean anything other than pride until he was old enough to look for himself.

That orange could be the colour of determination, too.

Instead he had wished for the longest time, whenever he spotted the bush full of colourful kinmokusei flowers in his uncle’s garden, for anything other than orange to be his first.)

Katsuki doesn't get any colours. Never opens his eyes to anything other than black and white.

When adults find out they give him looks, like a tragedy has struck, sudden, and cut all prospects of his future. Katsuki, quite frankly, couldn't give less of a shit.

Most kids his age have at least one. Their brains are unregulated and loud, and that is like a fire waiting to spread. Catching very quickly from one to the next. By the time Katsuki starts elementary school, it's like a game, who will come into school that day proclaiming loudly that they can see a new colour. Pink, green, purple.

It's stupid. That's what Katsuki thinks. He doesn't need a soulmate to tether him when he's destined for the top. Fate knows that just as much as he does.

Nobody at the top has a soulmate. All Might doesn't have a soulmate (not that he's ever heard of, at least, and Katsuki’s been living and breathing All Might since he was born). That's why Katsuki doesn't either.

Deku says All Might has a soulmate because “everyone has a soulmate”, but Deku also spends too much time on online forums with other nerds that fuel his delusions. Has done ever since he opened his eyes one day and saw red. Like it was something to be happy about.

But, he supposes, fate also knows that Deku will never have to worry about the top like him. He's got nothing to be held back from, no prospering future to aim for without a quirk. So fate gave him a soulmate, and didn't give Katsuki one for that very reason, it's obvious.

(Katsuki also knows that his parents aren't soulmates, though they have some colours to themselves. In the end, this just solidifies his idea that he was born without a need for one.)

For some reason, Deku never gets the hint like he does. He just keeps talking about being a hero, going through notebook after notebook, pages upon pages of notes and scribbles and drawings.

Eventually, it starts to piss him off. A piece of dirt under his nails. A simmering under his skin.

He can't even say why. Why looking at Deku, quirkless Deku, who always used to look up to him, still striving for something nobody will ever give him, pisses him off.

Everyone knows that a hero has something about him. A good quirk. Popularity. Everyone knows that. That's why, when his fingers spark, they look at him with the thought ‘he'll be a hero’. That's why, when Deku doesn't manifest a quirk, they also think ‘he never will’.

It's just fate. Katsuki has known for a long time that fate has its hands in that, at least. Soulmates and quirks and who gets to be great.

So why, if fate has scorned him, does Deku even still try?

Why, if fate has loved him, is Katsuki suddenly left to rot?

Left to the mercy of a villain, one that's slimy and filthy and honestly disgusting in how it tries to crawl under his skin. Terrifying in how he tries to breathe and all he's left with is the feeling of sludge seeping into his lungs. His fingers can't do anything but get lost in the muck, and the heroes are the same, uselessly standing there.

Just watching him die.

Oh but Deku, goddamn fucking Deku. He fights like he's got something to prove. Like he's suffocating with Katsuki, lungs heaving and tears streaming down his face as he says you looked like you needed saving, and for some fucking reason fate gives way. Like Katsuki has failed, here, in whatever she wanted from him. Like he wasn't born bathed in her light.

It's a rage that floods his veins when he opens his mouth to breathe and fresh oxygen fills his lungs instead of sludge. A bitterness, opening his eyes to the sunlight from the parted overhead clouds bathing All Might's broad shouldered back. Never before has he hated the sight of it.

A deep rooted anger he can't place has exploded in him, like it's been waiting. Slowly building. Rising. Something intrinsical to himself, molded into an old part of his clay he'll never be able to fix.

He should have been fine on his own. He is fine on his own. He's never needed someone like Deku to help him when he's fallen before, so why does he need him now? He doesn't care if fate is giving way beneath him. He doesn't even care for the words the heroes give him. Their “Well done”s and their empty smiles and their clean, unblemished hands, no piece of sludge in sight when Katsuki can still feel it seeping through his skin.

He'll be number one no matter the cost. He'll do it on his own, just like it always should have been. No soulmate. No Deku. No fate. Just Bakugou Katsuki against the world.

At 15, red takes over Eijirou’s world.

It happens quickly. Like the hardening that spreads along his skin. Quick and sudden and almost unconscious.

The sun is setting and Eijirou finds himself rubbing at the soreness in his eyes until the sky bleeds a new colour. It bathes his familiar walk home from middle school in a deep new hue.

Inexplicably, he knows it is red somehow. The word is hidden somewhere inside him, like a splinter waiting to be plucked from his head at just the right angle, just the right moment.

It's warm. That is all Eijirou knows of colour, at 15. Warmth.

Red is much stronger than orange, however. Deeper and darker like red is what came first, before every other colour. Like it was the clouds before the storm but no-one bothered to pay attention to their shape until the thunder struck.

Still, Eijirou can't keep down the grin on his face, looking into the sunset like this. Nor can he hold back the laughter that bubbles up when he opens his bedroom door later that day only to be bombarded by a colour he had never even intended to submerge his life in. But already: his books, his favourite patterned bedding, his rug, his Crimson Riot poster - he looks at his room and sees a world painted in red.

(He doesn't even notice the colour of his own eyes until he goes to brush his teeth that evening. The amazed grin he indulges at that one almost hurts.)

He tells his Ma that night as soon as she steps through their front door. She's barely in her slippers when he comes barrelling down the stairs, an excitement bubbling in his very core.

The concerned surprise that immediately etches itself onto her face makes that excitement crumple, however. She tries to smile for him quickly, tries to look excited at the news, but Eijirou already knows that she wishes for something else for her son. Something easier, like she and his Mum had. All blues and browns. Sadness and happiness. The most common colours in Japan.

Eijirou has seen colour for longer than he has not, though.

He wishes desperately, so desperately, for that to be good. Good and romantic and easy. But it's been ingrained in him from the moment he pulled one specific crayon out of the box and said, “Mama, why’s’it orange?”, and both his mothers had tried to console him rather than congratulate.

Red, he knows, logically, should not be good either. If orange is a sour, self-centred love- then red is the anger that boils underneath it. It is a hunger and it is a rage filled fire that burns everything in its path, war driven and steadfast.

It shouldn’t be good, but his heart wants to claim that for himself, the power of red, because he never had the chance to claim orange. Never had the chance to make it anything other than the world's.

But red will be his. It will always be his.

Wishing for strength doesn't make it come true, though.

Eijirou, you see, is weak, deep down. He wishes, he wishes so desperately to be anything else, but he knows it, and everyone knows it, and he knows that they think it, because how can he be a hero when he can't even move a goddamn step-

The villain is tall. And towering. It is power, unbridled and true, standing in the middle of the street like it has the right to step on anything it could want. “The springer hero agency,” it says, “Where is it?”

Just one step.

The girls it is looming over just cry, clinging onto each other for something. Something like safety or comfort or even just the warmth of a friend.

“You won't tell me?” it carries on, fingers digging into the hard mortar and bricks of the building like they're made of foam, brittle and soft.

Just do it.

Just-

Eijirou can't do anything at all but watch, a desperate terror latched to the inside of his skin. Clawing and inescapable. He doesn't think he's ever felt so scared in his life, fear and adrenaline thumping heavily under his skin.

What good is resolve, if it crumbles the moment it is faced with a wall?

Ashido wouldn't know. She runs in to stand before the wall with a brave face and the confidence that she could climb it if she had to; and when she points down the street the villain follows, its cloak billowing in the wind of its own heavy steps.

Once it turns the corner, Ashido finally falls to her knees and gives in to her tears, but Eijirou knows that she can at least be proud that it came after the fire was doused, not before it even had the chance to spark.

Eijirou, on the other hand, doesn't know how to spark. He's afraid all he will do is pitter out at the first light, at the first sign of even the scrawniest villain. He aches to cross the street, to ask Ashido - bubbly, confidant Ashido - how she even had the strength to stand, let alone hold her arms out so wide, but he can't. Instead, his feet stick to the concrete like he's been there all his life.

A hero? Him?

His walk home feels like miles. Miles of his thoughts and nothing else, stretched out so far before him that he can't even see the end line. Maybe he's just walking in circles, trying to find it within himself to just turn and cut straight across. Maybe he has been for a long time, and all today did was make him realise he's been passing the same landmark over and over and over.

Maybe he's been waiting for someone to tell him which way to go, which way to even look.

All his friends are looking to enter Droid Technical high school. His mothers just want him to be safe, happy, and comfortable. He looks to them and they tell him to follow the path, sending him round and round and round.

But Eijirou-

Eijirou wants-

“Are you okay, sweetie?” His Mum stands in the entryway to the kitchen, a worried frown to her face.

He doesn't remember coming through the front door. Doesn't even remember taking off his shoes.

“Ah.. yeah, sorry. I'm fine,” he says and turns to head up to his room. Her eyes follow him, but he can't bring himself to soothe her worries.

His room is dark, a warm orange tinge to the light seeping through the curtain. He goes to get changed out of his uniform out of habit, but finds his high school entry paper in his pocket. Written at the top under ‘Choice 1’ is ‘U.A. High’.

The tears that spring to his eyes are unavoidable, and he wipes them away with a bubbling anger, moving quickly to his desk to grab a pen and scribble out the letters.

U.A.? What a joke.

It's a bitter thought. But his tears are still coming and his lungs are starting to heave with something he's been holding back. Maybe it's just the anger of a teenage boy, but he sees his collection of Hero books on the corner of his desk, standing there like he should be proud of them, and can't help himself from picking up the closest one and throwing it as hard as he can to the other side of his room.

The bookcase it hits rattles unsteadily, and all the holograms and figurines and other books lining the top shelf fall to the floor with a crash.

The sudden silence that follows after settles something in him. Maybe that is strange, but it's like all Eijirou's thoughts crescendo with the crash, and the cathartic quiet that comes after is a cold compress for his wounds.

He almost doesn't notice the light that sputters to life. A hologram with its projection half cut off by the hardcover of a book. Crimson Riot comes into view, as strong and unwieldy as the day Eijirou first looked at him and saw a hero.

Back then, as a little boy, it had just been because he looked cool. Strong and stoic, the image of what a “man” was in his head. Able to face anything head on, no worries, no fears-

“Who do you think I am? Of course I get scared!” the hologram says, as sure of it as he is his own name. “Ain't nobody that faces death without fear, only idiots and fools!”

Eijirou can feel his hands clenching into fists, white indents forming in his palms.

Crimson Riot's words pierce straight through the hardening of Eijirou’s skin to the other side. Just like he did for a little kid who just wanted to be big and strong and cool. And now for a kid, older but not wiser, who just wants-

“People think chivalry is a man's role, but this ain't about gender! It's about living without regret. Having a strong spirit. Looking death and fear in the face and moving forward anyway.”

-who just wants to be a hero. Wants to be able to help all those other kids that feel a little lost like him, waiting and waiting for something to change. Wants, so, so desperately, to be something he himself can be proud of. To not look at the world with fear, but the bravery to face it. To look in the mirror and not be so ashamed of his inadequacy. To be proud to be Kirishima Eijirou.

The next day, he dyes his hair red – his colour – and decides to hand in his high school entrance choice with ‘U.A. High’ written boldly across the top.

It's just a flower. A single, unassuming flower. Katsuki has no idea what kind it even is.

(It's a Fuji Shishi, from the Primula Sieboldii family. Not that he looks it up, why the hell would he do that? His Dad is just into flowers and has some books on them, okay. Stop asking stupid questions.)

He just knows that it's fucking purple.

And that-

That is not how this was meant to go. Not how Katsuki’s life is meant to be. If he hadn't already thought fate against him before, he's sure of it now.

Katsuki never wanted to be tied down by a soulmate. By someone who saw some version of him he can't even control. Someone who knows nothing of Bakugou Katsuki except for a stupid colour and the meaning society gave it.

They have no concept of his dreams, his aspirations, his aims. Not even a concept of his favourite foods, his favourite books, his favourite heroes. They don't know shit about him, yet they know he exists. They know how he feels.

(And he knows they see his anger. His rage. Maybe his ego too.The burning under his skin waiting to spark. He just knows because it's all he's ever been, but they don't have any idea what made him. Don't know anything about the hands that have shaped him to be this way.)

Now Katsuki sees them too.

They're nothing but purple.

That – despite all his hatred of colours and their meanings – makes it worse. Because some things might have been easier. Red- for an anger like his. Pink- for a devotion. At least then, Katsuki would know they might have drive.

But purple. That to him is the antithesis of drive. It is being afraid. Hesitance. The feeling you get when the world deprives you of breath: and he never ever wants to feel that again. Never wants to be tied down by someone who can't even fathom what it means to aim for something at the top. Too scared to even look up.

He hates that.

He hates this flower, too, because of it. He rips the head off its stem and crushes it under his foot, a snarl on his lips.

At 15, purple is Katsuki’s first colour. He pretends to live in black and white for a long time after.

Katsuki’s parents, when they finally find out, seem pensive. Like they can't seem to decide what to make of it.

“Well… you know my first colour was purple, too,” his Dad mentions a few hours after.

“Yeah. And? It's not like anything came of that anyway,” Katsuki answers, not even looking his way, relegated to dishwashing duty for tonight.

There's silence.

“She's still a good friend,” his Dad says meagrely. Katsuki knows it's true. His parents had met years before his Dad had found his soulmate, and his Mum still doesn't think she's met hers. They both decided that was enough for them.

He understands that type of love more than any shit he's prescribed by the colour receptors in his head. The type you choose.

Not that he wants to choose it anyway.

“Doesn't mean I have to have anything to do with mine.”

There's a soft hum in response. “Doesn't mean you have to push it away either, Katsuki,” his Dad finishes. He picks up his newest book and moves to the living area to read it.

Grumbling, Katsuki places the next dish onto the drying rack a little too harshly. “Whatever.”

2nd place.

2nd place!!

Eijirou feels like jumping up and down, clutching the U.A. entrance exam results in his fingers like it's made of gold.

(And OK, maybe he didn't do so well on the written exam, but he got 2nd place on the physical. That's- that's-)

“That's amazing, Eijirou!” his Ma says, unbridled joy in her expression. Her hands hold his shoulders, soft and steady, looking over at the paper. His heart is thundering in his chest. His Mum looks at him over her cup of coffee from across the table. Her crows feet crinkle with her smile.

“Think of us when you make it big, eh?”

“Oh, I've got to tell everyone!” his Ma adds quickly, hands beginning to shake him slightly. “Think of their faces. Oh, this is such great news!”

Eijirou can't stop smiling, “Yeah. It is, isn’t it?”

1st place.

Finally, something seems to be going his way. There is a pride that comes with it, 1st place, but there is also a bitterness hiding under his nails. A splinter under his skin.

The splinter is named Midoriya Izuku.

With zero villain points to his name, that should have been the end of this- this delusion Deku keeps striving for. Should have been. But there is also a big six zero written in the box right next to it, under ‘Rescue’.

Katsuki doesn't understand why there was a secret set of points in the first place. If they were going to rank him on his skills, why not say what they all were from the beginning so he could aim to be the best at it.

Not that he needed a single rescue point to come in first anyway. Goes to show that being the strongest is still being the best.

“You're missing the point, Katsuki,” his Mum says when he voices that bit. For some reason, there is a hard, almost annoyed edge to her tone. Earlier, she had been so happy for him, had smiled so warmly at him, now–

“Shut up,” he replies, and crumples the paper up into a ball and throws it into the bin.

His Dad hasn't said a word.

Katsuki doesn't care, frankly. He's still aiming for the top.

The first time that Eijirou sees Bakugou Katsuki use his quirk, the other boy's hand explodes into a mess of oranges and reds so vibrant Eijirou isn't sure he's ever seen another colour compare. He wants to capture their strength and their vibrance onto canvas or picture or- or anything, really, just to carry it around and prove that somehow, the colours of Bakugou's explosion are just.. brighter than everything else.

And, well, there's a little bell ringing in his brain at that. A little sharp buzzing saying look, look.

He's read enough books and watched enough movies to know what that idealised, perfect reality is. What his inner romantic wants to be true.

That when he sees his soulmate, everything about their innate colours will be stronger. Hair and eyes and quirks, like they overflow with the very essence of being your colours.

Eijirou knows how idealistic that is. How some people say nothing even seems different about their soulmate's colours compared to anyone else.

His traitorous little brain asks how they even know they're soulmates if that's true. Asks if they just played match up and took some coincidental colour-personality matches to heart. Because he knows his Mum says his Ma's brown skin glows, and that her blue hair has a shimmer to it that she “can't describe”. His Ma just likes to play it off as quirks and good genetics.

His traitorous little brain also points out that he's just.. very excited (or maybe anxious) to be at U.A. at all. He keeps looking around at everyone and thinking; Will we be friends? Will we be heroes together? Will they understand in the way his middle school friends hadn’t?

(Ashido had smiled and given him a thumbs up once they were out on the practice field, so he figured it was fair to already put her in that “friend” list in his mind. The fact that she was here at all, as a person who inspired him to be better so often, felt like a safety net.)

His brain also points out that Bakugou literally just exploded. And do you know what explosions are? Bright. It's not like when he turns back to their little group he's glowing, or anything that sets him apart from the rest of them - well, other than his already cocky attitude. No. It was just his quirk.

So. You know. Eijirou's probably just being idealistic as usual.

Probably.

He can’t help the anxiety in his chest, looking out into the U.A. cafeteria and seeing the swathes of people, so many people, all trying to do the same as him and find a place to eat. Eijirou knows he must already look like a fish out of water, standing there clutching his lunch tray like a lifeline and debating where he should even start first.

“Kirishima! Over here!” Ashido’s voice calls out to him, a few rows over toward the left side of the hall. She’s at a table with a few other people from their class, it seems, though he doesn’t know their names just yet.

He takes a deep breath for a moment, and when he exhales he lets his worry leave him, plastering a big smile that Ashido returns enthusiastically as he goes to sit next to her at the table.

“Kirishima, yes?” one of the girls asks. She has sharp eyes and a carefully styled ponytail, and she holds herself with a poise Eijirou doesn’t think he could imitate if he tried his hardest. “My name is Yaoyorozu Momo, it’s nice to meet you.”

Before he can even reply with an ‘it’s nice to meet you too’, because he feels like he should match her politeness, the boy sitting on Ashido’s other side chirps in. He has a dark black bolt striking through his otherwise white hair, and a wild confident smile to match it. “Still so formal! We’re all the same age, y’know,” he laughs when she reddens slightly and turns to Eijirou. “I’m Kaminari,” he smiles and then points at the boy with a wide smile across the table. “That’s Sero. We’ve been friends since we were like, 8, or something.”

Sero snorts and says, “12. How the hell are you 4 years off?”

Kaminari whispers shut up under his breath and then moves to point at the girl sitting next to Sero. She has earphone jacks for ears and a punkish haircut that looks really cool, in Eijirou’s opinion. “That’s… er…”.

She raises her brows incredulously.. “I just told you my name like 5 minutes ago.”

Kaminari grimaces a little with a laugh, “I’ve a bad memory?”

“Jirou.”

“Right! That.” He looks back at Eijirou with a grin that’s infectious. Eijirou can’t help but smile back just as wide.

“Kirishima! Nice to meet you, dude!”

Jirou shakes her head and gestures between him and Ashido, “You two already know each other too?”

“We went to middle school together,” he agrees, and Ashido bumps his shoulder.

“I didn't know you were entering U.A. ‘till I saw your name on the entrance paper though!” there’s a teasing edge to her smile. Suddenly, she taps one of his hair spikes with her finger, “And your hair looks super wild now!”

He laughs, forgetting that he hadn’t seen Ashido at all since he had started styling his hair into spikes in the image of Crimson Riot.

“Dude, you mean that's not genetics?” Kaminari leans over, “How long does that even take?”

He inhales sharply, “Ages. But it’s totally worth it, man.”

Sero whistles, “Maybe I should try it.” He holds his hands up on the side of his head and raises his eyebrows, like an old movie star slicking back their hair.

“Naaaah,” Kaminari laughs, “You’d look like an idiot.”

“Would not.”

“Would too.”

Jirou can’t seem to keep the exasperation out of the corners of her expression. In comparison, Yaoyorozu seems unsure of what to do in the face of their bickering, face stuck somewhere between fear and concern. Ashido just laughs and turns to Eijirou again, “Is it a lighter shade, too? I can’t quite tell.” She asks, pointing at his hair and squinting like she’s playing spot the difference. Ah.

“Yeah! I started dyeing it, too.”

“Really?” Ashido’s eyes go wide. “What colour? What colour?” she starts, suddenly excited.

Eijirou had forgotten this about her. How the first time they met, the first words out of Ashido’s mouth had been ‘Do you have any colours?’, and how excited she was at the very prospect. How she asked it to everyone she could at the time, just for a glimpse at a world she couldn’t see, without any colours of her own.

“Red!” he replies eagerly, and Ashido pauses like she’s trying to remember.

“That’s a new one, right?”

“Yep! It’s been a few months now, though.”

“I’m so jealous! I still haven’t got any!” She closes her hands into fists and grits her teeth, like she’s hoping her annoyance will somehow find its way to her soulmate and tell them to feel their emotions a bit more.

Kaminari snickers, “You do know you’re bright pink, yeah?”

It's news to Eijirou, but he supposes he never had any friends who could see pink before, so all he knew of Ashido was a light gray. She turns her head to look at Kaminari like he’s an idiot, though. “Duh. You think I haven't had, like, a million people tell me?” she sighs again, “Be nice to see it, though.”

“I also don’t have any colours,” Yaoyorozu adds softly with a smile. “So don't worry, Ashido. It will come eventually.”

Ashido brightens at that. “Of course! They will for you too.”

Eijirou suddenly finds himself pondering what colours his soulmate sees, as the table gets distracted by the next new topic. He wonders whether they love it as much as he loves red. Whether they hate it or whether there's nothing even there in the first place.

He doesn't know which he'd prefer.

U.A., Eijirou finds, is an overall much different experience than middle school. Maybe it’s the collection of people that a hero course entices. Maybe it's looking out into the world with a determination that his past self had never quite managed to find. Maybe it’s just that something that once felt so untouchable now feels somewhere within his grasp if he reaches out far enough.

Other people seem less inclined to view it as new beginnings.

Bakugou seems like one of them.

Katsuki is starting to see it now. Where all this unbridled determination has spawned within Deku.

His name is All Might, and he stands behind Deku with a smile that should not be given to quirkless losers that overnight seem to grasp something beyond fate in their hands. A “borrowed power” or whatever the fuck he just tried to call it.

All Might tries to reach out for Katsuki and the rest of them too, but looking up to him is not helping anymore. So he shoves away that hand and swears on his own power that he’ll become a hero that surpasses even him, the man at the top that he used to admire more than anyone else in the world.

Even the damn extras have always known this. Have always kept their hands and eyes far away from him, like he’ll ruin them at the slightest glance. Have done for a long, long time.

Except.. nobody seems to have told these new extras the way of the world. That Bakugou Katsuki is unruly and at the edge of imploding, and that they should always keep sparks far, far away from him. Instead, they look at him without fear or hesitance or a deep-rooted envy. Instead, they look at him like a 15 year old boy with a rough tongue and nothing else.

It makes his hairs stand on end, waiting for the change. Inevitable as it should be, even though it doesn't seem to come. Even as the weeks go by. Even as they're attacked by each other and real villains alike (though Katsuki is adamant that those losers at the USJ weren't really a threat at all). All they seem to do is offer casual smiles. Jokes. Shoulder pats. Even the sharp words and annoyance are all surface borne and never deep enough to actually cut skin. Talking about Katsuki like he's nothing more than a cutesy little puppy nipping at everyone's heels.

Katsuki wants to crawl out of his skin because of it.

He needs something to change. Have them hate him or fear him or worship him or whatever, so long as they stop acting like he's something insignificant to laugh away.

He's going to use the sports festival to do it.

“Bakugou!”

Eijirou doesn't really know why he shouts it. Doesn’t know why he wants to try so hard to reach out a hand to Bakugou and have him take it, considering how he holes himself away from all the people around him.

Lessons. Hero practice. After school. Here, right now, hustling for teams for the cavalry battle.

For every step someone makes toward him, Bakugou takes about 5 right back.

Eijirou should probably stop trying, but the one thing he wants to be more than anything is someone who doesn't let go of their resolve. And right now, Eijirou's resolve is to have Bakugou look his way and not immediately turn back around.

So, maybe he does know why he shouts it. Why he calls Bakugou's name through the crowd. Maybe it’s a selfish reason. To at least know that he tried for someone else what he wished people had tried for him: to pry under all his hardened skin. Maybe it's that he knows right now is his best shot, what with how Bakugou is carefully evaluating all the faces in front of him. For skill. For strength. For reliability.

A cavalry battle is not friendship. It isn't even close, but Eijirou thinks it's enough for now when Bakugou evaluates him in turn and finds him useful. Smirks and taps his fist against Eijirou's already held out one, not turned away for once.

“Ready to win this thing?”

Eijirou is suddenly taken by how bright the red of his iris’ are.

“You bet it.”

It isn't friendship, but Bakugou didn't step back this time.

“Damnit!” Katsuki exclaims as he hits the hard rocks of the stadium floor with his fist.

“So close!” Racoon Eyes says, shaking out her hands. Little spots of acid hit the floor as she does. “Second's not too bad, though.”

“We should have been first,” Katsuki grumbles loudly, “If Soy Sauce Face had pulled us to that copycat loser quicker we would have had more time.”

Soy Sauce Face holds up his hands placatingly, but before he can get a chance to speak Shitty Hair calls out, “Nah, it was all our fumbling before then.”

Katsuki shifts his glare from the floor to Shitty Hair, who is stood above him with a grin. Despite this, the boy reaches down to place his hand on Katsuki's shoulder, pointed teeth growing wider.

The touch feels like burning.

“You can get the rest in the next round though, man.”

Katsuki scoffs bitterly and rolls his shoulder. Shitty Hair at least takes the hint and retracts his hand. “I will get those losers next round,” he pushes to his feet, “And you all, too.”

He doesn't hide the harshness to his tone, but Shitty Hair seems to smile more, somehow.

Racoon Eyes pops up next to him, “You're on! Don't go easy on us just because we were friendly for a round.”

Katsuki actually rolls his eyes at that.

‘Friendly’.

As if.

“That was almost civil,” Ashido says to Bakugou's retreating back.

“I know. It was weird as hell,” Sero replies, arms folded over his chest.

Eijirou can't keep the smile from his face.

The only issue that begins to arise after the sports festival – after Eijirou forcefully inserts himself into Bakugou's vision and then continues to do so as the days pass – is that that initial alarm bell he had, back on that first day on U.A. ground, continues to ring.

It's Bakugou's eyes.

His very very red eyes. Eijirou's favourite colour, red. A deep sort of red that Eijirou finds hard to describe. A special sort of red that feels like it's housing itself in all of Eijirou’s thoughts. Hiding away from the black and white of everything outside.

He does his very best not to think about it, but Bakugou looks his way more and more often now (even if it is all narrowed gazes and challenging looks, occasionally accompanied with a smile). And if he lets those thoughts travel too far, into the obsession of young, prepubescent Eijirou, who loved and loved and loved the idea of soulmates more than anything. Well, that bell gets louder and louder and-

“Oi! Shitty Hair! Are you even listening to me?” Bakugou exclaims from across the cafe table, holding his notebook aloft after hitting Eijirou over the head with it.

“Yep. Yes. Totally listening, man.”

“I'm using my own precious time to help you study, stop wasting it by letting your hair infect your brain.”

Eijirou puts his hands together emphatically, “Sorry!”

“You better be,” Bakugou adds, though he relaxes into his seat again and flips a page in his textbook. His eyes flicker up to Eijirou’s again when he speaks next.

(Alarm. Alarm. Alarm. Alarm.)

Eijirou tries his best not to think about what it could mean.

He thinks about it all the time.

Against all his wishes, Katsuki ends up surrounded by extras more and more as the days go by.

They are not friendly. It's just like middle school again, that's all. Where they follow him around in fearful awe and dare not to get too close, and he doesn't even begin to learn their names.

Except for the arms around his shoulders. And the chest taps. And the casual elbows.

Actually, there's a whole lot of touching involved that Katsuki doesn't have a single clue how to deal with.

Shitty Hair is the worst for it. Some of the others at least have a vague idea that they should stop pushing.

(Though one time Dunce Face did pull on his cheeks like an old lady and call him cute. Shitty Hair had to hold him back from removing the electric idiot's head from his shoulders for that one.)

Katsuki observes, and notes Shitty Hair does it with all the others too. Him, Dunce Face and Soy Sauce Face seem to have some sort of special handshake. Him and Racoon Eyes always sit as close together as they can at lunch, gossiping. Even him and Deku bump shoulders sometimes with easy smiles.

Katsuki doesn't know what he feels about that. So he distracts himself with the annoyance at how Shitty Hair pushes it onto him too.

A shoulder bumping into his, smile stretched wide.

A hand latched around his elbow.

A foot tapping against his leg.

A hand outstretched. Katsuki only holds it for a second to pull Shitty Hair up from the training ground floor and then lets go as soon as he physically can.

It's so much touching.

Katsuki always shakes him off whenever he can. Shitty Hair always lets go like he isn't bothered at all.

Katsuki doesn't know how to feel about any of it.

Okay, so maybe Katsuki has to look at his earlier statement about those USJ fuckers and reconsider.

Maybe they're a little bit of a threat now. With flames and blood and teeth.

Eijirou is so-

He's so angry.

It's a rage he's never felt before. One that bubbles under his skin and burns. Cooking all the other shades of his emotions together into a red haze.

Midoriya looks like he's going to cry, swaddled in casts and mouth pulled taught in regret.

He looks around the hospital room, and all of his classmates are doing the same. Pulling themselves inward. Hiding.

Eijirou is not going to hide away from his fears anymore. He decided that a while ago and goddamnit he's sticking to it.

Instead, he lets his anger roll through his body into his fists.

He holds out one toward Midoriya, “He isn't beyond our reach just yet! Come on, Midoriya!”

He grits his teeth.

The grey of Midoriya's eyes seem to waver with uncertainty. Eijirou hopes the determination – the anger – on his face will be enough to convince him.

He's going to get Bakugou back.

He just-

He has to.

Katsuki’s first instinct is to blow wherever the hell these fuckers have kidnapped him to into high heaven.

Unfortunately, they seem to have expected the thought and have shackled his hands in a heavy, heavy metal. Encased. Trapped.

He almost remembers the suffocating feeling of sludge in his lungs, for some reason.

He distracts himself with his anger instead. That's easy enough, to pull it out from under his ribs and cover himself in it. At least that way, he doesn't start thinking about-

(Suffocating.)

The villains are fucking weird. A hodgepodge of losers that look like they've been stitched together with nothing but the thinnest thread they can find.

Their building is weirder. A rundown bar covered in stains and scratches and inefficiently fixed furniture, all tinted with a strange shade of red he's never seen before.

Katsuki evaluates all the holes in their armour. All his escape routes.

He regrets calling them a threat.

Wait.

…

…

Red?

That, compared to his aim to engulf himself in his rage, actually does snap him out of his panic.

Red? Since when the hell can he see red.

It's such a stupid, stupid time to remember his soulmate. Such an utterly fucking awful place to remember the person he hates more than anyone else, and to be reminded that they're still a person who is growing and changing and making him see red apparently.

He had finally gotten so used to purple. Tolerated the way it stood out against black and white.

Now, he has to-

Stitch Boy is looking at him weirdly. Katsuki shuts all of this right back down under his skin, and goes back to accessing his neverending anger again.

Fuck if he's letting these losers see him panic about something as stupid as red.

(Or even worse, letting them see the comfort he denies about how that makes his soulmate similar to him, now. A rage, burning and burning and burning enough to reach all the way to Katsuki.

If there's one thing Katsuki understands, at least: it's how to burn.)

There's a hand, outstretched toward him.

Katsuki has felt it too often, nowadays. In casual, friendly touches that he wants to shake from his skin.

He wants to hold that hand now. He wants it to take him far away from this place. Surrounded by rubble and sludge and all of Katsuki's inadequacies.

He wants to-

He does.

He shoots up into the sky with the aim to hold Kirishima's hand and not let go this time.

Kirishima's smile at his tight grip burns.

There's a touch to his shoulder.

Katsuki flinches away from it.

Shitty Hair almost flinches back, but he can't get far with the swathes of people boxing them in.

Screaming and screaming and screaming.

“All Might!”

“Go on, All Might!”

“Please!”

“You can do it, All Might!”

“Win!”

It's so loud.

Katsuki feels their shouts ringing in his ears. He stares up at the big screen. At All Might (weakening). His favourite hero All Might (struggling). Number 1 Hero, All Might (winning).

(Losing)

He's small.

Skinny.

Katsuki hurts something strong.

If he had just-

If he could of-

If-

Fuck!

His breathing is a heavy thing. Pulsating through him hard and quick.

That hand reaches for his arm again. A soft voice lost between shouts and screams and his breathing.

Katsuki smacks it away with a snarl.

He doesn't deserve comfort.

He deserves something much much worse.

All Might's fist is raised high in the air. His skinny body struggling to hold it aloft.

Eijirou’s eyes fill with unbridled tears. He rubs them away, a relief palpable under his skin, along with all the sounds of shouting and screaming and crying around him.

He leans into Bakugou on his right without thinking about it.

The boy snaps away like he was burned.

Eijirou snaps back. He turns to apologise, to say any of the things he has been wanting to since Bakugou disappeared into that portal back at summer camp.

Instead, it is all lodged in his throat as he truly takes in Bakugou's face. Twisted and taught and pained.

It's nothing compared to the colour bleeding into his vision.

The colour is soft. Almost unnoticeable.

But it tints the strands of Bakugou's hair. A strange yellow hue Eijirou doesn't know how to pinpoint.

Yellow. The colour of guilt. Regret.

He thinks it might just be the colour overall, but he looks around and notes how yellow looks in everything else.

He looks back at Bakugou.

The yellow in his hair. The fresh tint to blend with the orange in his skin. The red in his eyes that Eijirou already loves-

He knows it. He knows.

Bakugou's face is hurting. It hurts Eijirou’s heart in turn to look at him making that expression.

Maybe it's a delusion. A thing conjured up by the desires of a young Eijirou that he can't seem to make go away.

He thinks Bakugou is his soulmate.

(Maybe he has done for some time now.)

His colours just seem to be brighter and simultaneously deeper than everything else. Like they're bubbling with all the emotions that make them. Like Eijirou could touch, and they would jump out to tell him all the things under Bakugou's skin.

(He can take a guess anyway, when he looks at how Bakugou breathes right now. How guilt racks him thoroughly.

Even if the colours are delusion, he can't ignore that part.

Bakugou is built upon pride. It's clear to people who have never even spoken to him.

His rage is even more forthcoming.

And now, new and fresh and sudden. Guilt.

Eijirou doesn't know why. But he can see it.

Orange. Red. Yellow.

All of Eijirou’s colours. Shaping all of Bakugou's dents and marks and feelings.)

Bakugou is his soulmate.

His soulmate is hurting.

“Bakugou,” Eijirou says, and reaches out his hand. He wants to do something, to say-

I see you?

I think that-

I-

He doesn't know.

He doesn't get the chance anyway.

Bakugou rips his arm away. Lips pulled into a snarl. But it isn’t anger that shapes his eyes, it's a muted panic.

“Fuck off.”

Eijirou is going to do the opposite. He's going to reach out his hand until Bakugou takes it again. Until he holds on tightly again.

They're soulmates after all.

(Yellow is Eijirou's least favourite colour by far.)

Katsuki, in all his never ending wisdom, fights Deku.

Honestly.. it's the most cathartic fight he's ever had. Not that he'd ever tell either Deku or All Might that.

Because there is a rage in him. This much is clear and has been clear from the moment he was born, surely. But recently it hurts. Maybe.. maybe recently as in for the past few years.

It hurts. He needs it.

He needs it, because it's all he's ever known.

He also wants to get rid of it, sometimes.

So, he fights Deku. Places it in someone else's hands for once.

Deku fights back.

It feels good. To finally hit each other with all the feelings that have been there for over a decade now. To finally leave physical marks – bruises, scratches, blemishes of red and purple – along with all those emotional ones.

He places his guilt into someone else's hands too.

It isn't Deku, though.

It's All Might.

That-

That one can't stop the tears from pooling at the edges of his eyes.

All Might places a hand to his head. A soft touch. A touch he isn't used to, from a hand he had once sworn he would never let close.

“It's alright, young Bakugou.”

It hurts.

It feels good.

It feels like.. like someone has finally put a cold compress over his burning wounds.

There are blisters all underneath, of course. But-

But maybe-

It's something.

Bakugou is staring.

It happens every now and then. Eijirou will feel something piercing through his skull, and will turn around to see Bakugou's narrowed gaze. He'll scrunch his nose and turn away, and Eijirou will wonder whether there's something pinned to his back somehow.

Today he doesn't even turn away.

They're studying in Bakugou's room (something that has somehow become pretty commonplace between the two), books strewn across the floor and the low table in the centre where they’re sitting.

Eijirou raises his eyebrow and spins his pen through his fingers anxiously, “You good?”

Bakugou scrunches his face even tighter, “Is your hair dyed?”

That.. was not what he was expecting.

He reaches up to touch a piece that is hanging in front of his face, unspiked. It's getting kind of long and overdue for a cut.

It- also needs dyeing soon. He supposes Bakugou can see the tips of his roots spreading out. A dark blotch against grey, for him.

He knows his face is a flushed red when he cringes, “Er.. yeah. It needs a touch up soon, it's not usually this bad.”

Bakugou doesn't move for a moment. Face like he's considering.

“You do it yourself?”

Eijirou awkwardly laughs, “Well, usually one of my mums does it for me. But with moving into the dorms and all… I just haven't had the chance. I know it's in an awkward stage, don't-”

“Why red?”

….

What?

“What?”

“Are your ears not working?” he exasperates and repeats when Eijirou doesn't respond, “Why Red?”

“Uh…” Eijirou is still stuck upon the fact that Bakugou can even see red to begin with. Because it means- it means- “I just, like the colour?”

Bakugou makes a face like that's the stupidest thing he's ever said.

Eijirou quickly speaks before he can overthink it, “You can see it? Red?”

“Unfortunately,” Bakugou grumbles bitterly and taps his pen against the table in irritation.

Eijirou's stomach rolls uncomfortably. He knew this. He knew this! Bakugou hates soulmates. He makes it abundantly clear, like most of his opinions and feelings.

He knew. It shouldn’t make his heart drop. It shouldn’t.

“I can..” Bakugou starts under his breath. It rips Eijirou out of his thoughts enough to notice how the other boy is uncomfortably cringing and decidedly not looking at Eijirou. He makes a questioning noise.

“I can help you. To dye it. If you can't just do it yourself,” Bakugou squeezes out, like trying to force air between his teeth.

“Oh,” he says, trying to keep his joy at the prospect under control, “If- if you want to?”

Bakugou's face is tinted red. Eijirou is kind of obsessed with the shade of it. “Whatever. At least then it won't look like shit.”

“Okay,” Eijirou replies, hiding his smile behind his hand.

“It suits you,” Bakugou says with red dye covering his gloves. He brushes through the roots of Eijirou's hair with more care than Bakugou has ever directed his way before.

Eijirou has never been happier to have red be his favourite colour.

The biggest issue Katsuki finds with the dorm system is that it is now infinitely harder to avoid all the extras that he is not friendly with, thanks.

All he wants is to head up toward his room after hero training with Kirishima. Get some peace and quiet. Instead Ashido pops her head up from the back of the sofa in the living area with a gleam in her eyes, “Kirishima! Hey, hey, Kiri!”

(Shitty Hair and Racoon Eyes. He has to remind himself. Not Kirishima and Ashido. No names. That's too close. Too much.

He finds himself forgetting a lot of the time nowadays.)

Said boy's face splits into a wide grin at the sight of her, “Yeah?”

Bakugou can't stop the clenching of his teeth.

Racoon Eyes waves him over, and for some goddamn reason Shitty Hair latches a hand around Katsuki's arm to drag him along too.

“Oi-” he starts.

“Come on, just for a bit?” Shitty Hair pleads. He lets go when Katsuki pulls his arm away from the too casual touch, but grins something fierce when Katsuki still follows along with a heavy grumble.

Once they get close enough, Racoon Eyes excitedly asks, “What colours can you see again?”

Katsuki notes with regret that almost the entire dorm building is scattered across the sofas and chairs, with a few across the floor too. The air is filled with chatter and casual ambience. Katsuki finds his heart beating way too quickly for the ease of it.

He catches Deku's eye, who immediately cringes a little and turns away. It fills Katsuki with even more regret for coming over.

“Er.. orange, red and yellow. Why?” Kirishima cautiously says.

Katsuki is struck by the fact that he didn’t know almost any of those. Red: he had assumed after the hair and all. It would be strange not to. But the others?

He doesn't like the fact he hadn't known when it seems Ashido had, as she nods and clicks her fingers at him, “Orange! That was it!”

She turns back to Jirou – who is sat next to her and Yaoyorozu with a fond expression – with a large smile, “See? All we need now is purple.”

“What's happening?” Kirishima adds again, awkwardly hovering at the back of the sofa with Katsuki.

“Ashido bet we can cover the whole colour spectrum with our class,” Kaminari chimes in from the floor. He's currently trying to get a balloon to statically stick to his skin. “I bet her we couldn't.”

“Which was the stupidest bet, by the way,” Jirou adds, knees pulled to her chest on the sofa and hands fiddling with her earphone jacks. “Just like, statistically. Hell, Kirishima literally just covered 3 on his own. Same as Midoriya.”

Kaminari sends her a glare.

“You didn't have orange yet then?” Kirishima chimes in on his left, as Kaminari and Jirou all start debating statistics around soulmates.

Katsuki kind of wants to jump out a window.

“Nope!” Ashido replies eagerly. She turns to Katsuki next, and it is menacing how her smile is suddenly the worst thing he's ever looked at. “What about you?”

Katsuki definitely wants to jump out a window.

“Ooo! I'm curious to know yours, Bakugou!” Hagakure adds, and it now feels like there are a million eyes piercing into his skin.

Instinctively he spits out, “No way. Fuck right off.”

Apparently the extras have forgotten to be afraid of him though, and he gets a small chorus of whiny ‘come on’s and ‘why not’s and a distinctive “Awwww” from Ashido.

He goes to turn away, but Kirishima's damn hand is back on his wrist again. He glares at him, and the boy sheepishly smiles before whispering under his breath, “She'll just keep pestering you about it now, man.”

When Katsuki still doesn’t seem thrilled at the idea (even though he knows that Kirishima is definitely correct) he adds, “I'll let you leave after too.”

“Let” is a strong strong word. Katsuki can “let” himself go wherever he goddamn pleases. But Kirishima looks so expectant about it. Fingers still wrapped around his arm and thumb smoothing up and down his skin.

Oh Katsuki hates the touch. Hates how he feels it all over, like a shiver that spreads up his spine.

He huffs and pulls his arm away to cross over his chest defensively, “Red and purple, you happy?”

“Ah!” Ashido shouts, and if Katsuki were any closer he just knows she would have tried to hug him. “Purple! I win!” she cackles, and Kaminari sends a betrayed look to Katsuki.

Kirishima is making a very strange face.

As a matter of fact so is Deku, who is aggressively squinting his eyes at Katsuki and looking confused.

“You got colours Kacchan? When?” said boy exclaims, holding out his hands like hes racking his memories of their years of hatred like Katsuki would have ever fucking told him a thing like that.

Like he ever told anyone a thing like that, really.

“None of your business, nerd,” he says, showing his teeth.

Deku shows his teeth right back, unwavering in his gaze. He supposes that's the biggest change between them, nowadays.

Katsuki almost gives in to a laugh because of it. Instead, he gives Deku one last glare and turns to head back to his room.

Kirishima doesn't stop him this time, like he said he wouldn't.

It seems wrong somehow.

Purple.

Eijirou should have known really, when he looks inward and sees it everywhere. That fear that plagues him all the time. From freaking out about wearing the right clothes to whether he'll even be an adequate hero. It persists like mold to his lungs, even when he tries to pretend it doesn't.

It persisted so hard Bakugou sees the spots of it too, now.

It sucks.

“Sooo, you know, I was thinking..” Ashido pulls out, comfortably relaxing in his room for film night. Kaminari and Sero were going to join, but they stayed up all night previously playing racing games with each other and crashed after the lessons finished. Bakugou has yet to join them for movies anyway, so it's just Eijirou and Ashido for once.

“Hm?” Eijirou adds. They're wrapped in their own blankets, laptop (courtesy of Kaminari, who still leant them it for tonight) sat between them.

“You and Bakugou are really close.”

The topic catches Eijirou off guard. He tilts his head toward Ashido with a carefully neutral face, “I guess so?”

“Yeah,” she states, eyebrows raised. When Eijirou doesn't respond, she shifts her head like he should already know what she's getting at. He doesn't.

She sighs, “Come on, I've got to know! Is it a thing?”

“A… thing?”

“A thing!”

Suddenly Eijirou is hit with the memory of Uraraka saying that Ashido was a little romance obsessed at the minute. His face begins to burn immediately, “What? No!”

Ashido's smile turns a little bit wicked, “Really?”

“Definitely not!” Eijirou harshly whispers, like he can't bring himself to even say it louder. Can't bring himself to lie so clearly, when he kind of knows-

“You like him though, yeah?” she scooches closer and whispers back, like it's secret sharing time.

“No!”

“Come ooon. I've known you ages, Kiri! It's definitely a thing.”

“No it isn't, it's just-” he loses his words at the end, open mouthed like a fish.

She latches onto it like a starving man in an oasis, “Just?”

Eijirou hunches in even more, “Just- you know!”

Shaking her head emphatically, she dramatises, “Nope. I don't. Guess you have to tell me.”

It is evil in her smile. Eijirou’s shoulders are all the way up to his ears, “I think maybe..”

“Mhm.”

“That maybe we're soulmates?” his voice almost cracks at the end, a high pitched uncertainty.

Ashido’s jaw practically drops as she shouts, “What?! You're kidding!”

“Shhh!” Eijirou whispers harshly.

Her volume doesn't lower, however. In fact, she squeals instead, loud and excited. “This is so exciting, Kiri! Oh my god! Have you-”

“Ashido-”

“Does he-”

“Ashido!”

“Certainly he-”

There's a bang from the connecting wall between him and Bakugou, whose voice raises above them both, “Shut the fuck up!”

Eijirou wants to crawl in a hole and die.

Ashido at least seems a little embarrassed now, huddling under her blankets. Her voice is a whisper again when she next speaks, “Sorry. Does he know?”

Eijirou sighs, “No. He hates soulmates, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ashido replies.

A long silence falls between them.

“You should give it a shot,” she nods, determination on her face, “I think your odds actually aren't that bad for him, like, accepting it.”

Eijirou is definitely not convinced.

“Think about it?” Ashido pleads.

“Maybe,” Eijirou compromises, entirely planning not to.

Katsuki knows his glare is harsh by the way that Kirishima lowers his lunch tray to sit in front of him. It's cautious and his face is perpetually stuck in a state of “waiting for the blow”.

The other three muskateers are still getting food, it seems.

“I'm sorry,” he says immediately, rolling into it, “Ashido gets way to excited on film night, and-”

“Don't care what happens on your date,” Katsuki spits, “Just shut up and let me sleep.” He purposely does not look at Kirishima as he eats.

“A- a- what?” Kirishima stammers, “Not a date! Definitely- definitely not a date.”

Katsuki eyes him unbelievingly. Kirishima is turning red. “It's film night, remember? I invited you ages ago and you said you didn't want to.”

“Aren't the other two idiots meant to be there?”

“Well yeah, they just weren't last night.”

“Right,” Katsuki can't seem to keep the annoyance out of his voice. He just keeps thinking about all the smiles and the touches and the little things the two seem to know about each other. Like colours and foods and clothes and all of it.

“I'm not..” Kirishima starts again, his voice a lot less tense and more fearful, “Ashido is a good friend, but I'm not really interested in her like that. Or- well..”

They catch eyes again. Katsuki is still pretty unconvinced. Seeming to notice, Kirishima takes a deep breath like he's preparing for a hit. Some of his quirk even seems to break along his fists. “I'm not really into girls like that, so.”

A layer of silence sits on the table.

Katsuki blinks a few times, trying to process that, “You're gay?”

Kirishima cringes. The hardening spreads along his skin. Katsuki thinks he hasn't even noticed.

“Yeah?” it's so unsure, how Kirishima looks at Katsuki. He realises quick, like a punch to the stomach, that he's expecting Katsuki to actually care. Like something as dumb as that would effect their friendship.

Not friendship. Not.

(It's not even remotely convincing anymore. They're friends. In fact, Kaminari even fucking called them best friends the other week, and god did he want that to be true. So what is he trying to lie about it for. He looks like an idiot. And Katsuki is not an idiot. That role is reserved for Dunce Faces and Dekus.)

“I don't care about something like that, dumbass,” he says, though he's way too soft with how. No good at the inbetween of harsh and soft. All in or all out.

Kirishima's mouth is parted. His skin smoothing out. He almost speaks but-

“I thought it was curry today,” Sero whines, sliding in next to Katsuki. Ashido and Kaminari are on his tail, whining about the same thing.

Ashido slides in next to Kirishima and sighs. They all continue their chatter. Said boy takes a breath, eyes shifting around the table before settling on Katsuki again. He smiles, uncertain, like a question – We're good? – and Katsuki rolls his eyes.

He sess how Kirishima and Ashido are pressed at the shoulder and supposes that's just friendly, for them. Not that he's ever known what ‘friendly' really is, anyway.

Something in him settles though. Strangely.

He taps his shoe against Kirishima's – Yeah. The boy startles a little before his smile settles too, into a standard Kirishima grin. His foot presses back against Katsuki – Good.

Eijirou actually does continue to think about what Ashido said, about telling Bakugou. He thought he vehemently wouldn't, but for some reason it seems like the world keeps pushing him that way.

Case in point:

“Kirishima?” Midoriya starts, walking along with him to the train station for their work experience. Uraraka and Tsu are in front, linked by the arms and chatting amicably.

“Yeah?” He asks curiously.

“Have you, er.. have you got any clues on who your soulmate is, yet?”

It's such a stark conversation topic. One he didnt think Midoriya particularly thought too much about, though he can't say they speak that often. Eijirou looks back at him with wide eyes, “What do you mean?”

Midoriya sputters, cheeks darkening, “I mean, er,” he cringes, hands wringing anxiously, “Your colours are red, orange, and yellow, right? I remember you saying that a few weeks ago.”

Eijirou slowly nods, frown etched into his face. Midoriya seems to go an even brighter red.

“I was just thinking maybe…” he averts his eyes and begins to mutter under his breath, “Oh god. This is so strange, I can't believe I even began to-”

“Midoriya-” Eijirou exclaims.

“YouandKacchanaresoulmatesright?” He finally gets out in one go, fists clenched.

For the record, Eijirou is proud of how he doesn't falter in his steps in surprise.

“Er..”

“I'm sorry!” Midoriya squeezes in, a million miles per second, “I was just assuming and I know I've kind of overstepped here! I was just putting colours together in my head and also you guys are so close and it's so strange to me sometimes because I've never known Kacchan to be close with anyone-”

He catches himself with a breath, luckily, because Eijirou is kind of too stunned to speak and stop him. Midoriya still turns back toward him with a small grimace, “Sorry.”

“No, it's- um-” Eijirou holds out his hands easily, palm up, “Yeah. I mean, I think so? Soulmates, I mean. Yeah.”

They're both as bad as each other. Eijirou laughs a little about it, slightly awkward, and Midoriya does the same.

Uraraka and Tsu are eyeing them strangely from their position at the front of the group.

“You haven't spoke with him then? Even though you think so?” Midoriya finally adds.

Eijirou laughs kind of abruptly, “No. No no no. I can't do that. Have you met him?”

Midoriya makes a face at that, “Well, yeah..”

There's a pause. Tsu suddenly chimes in, “But what if he already knows it?”

They both turn toward her. She shrugs, as if to say you were both being very obvious about the conversation. She continues, “You're both acting like he doesn't. What if he already knows, and hasn't brought it up to you for the same reason?”

Eijirou bites at his lip, “Maybe.. but the thing with Bakugou- he hates soulmates. If.. if he knew, I don't think we'd be friends anymore, honestly.”

It's a thought that plagues him, sometimes.

“You really are soulmates?” Ururaka says, suprised, clearly only having tuned into their talking at the end.

Eijirou awkwardly fiddles with his fingers, “I mean, I'm pretty sure? It's not set in stone or anything, I can just kind of…”

“You can tell,” Midoriya nods in understanding. Eijirou looks at him a little suprised, though the boy doesn't seem to give any other information on the matter.

“That's so sweet,” Uraraka adds, looking off into the distance.

“I think, if anyone were to try it, you'd have the best shots at him not freaking out,” Midoriya says. It feels the same as when Ashido said it, but he can't deny that the weight of Midoriya's understanding of Bakugou helps it feel a lot more achievable.

“You think?”

“Yeah. Like I said, Kacchan has never really.. had friends before? No, no. That's too mean of a way to put it. More like, um, he's never been friendly with people? You know what I mean,” Eijirou nods and Midoriya continues, “He's a lot different recently. There'll be loads of reasons for that, probably, but I think it's also kind of just due to his friendship with Ashido, Kaminari, Sero and especially you.”

“Oh.”

Midoriya shrugs like he hasn't just forever altered Eijirou's view of his friendship with Bakugou.

He thinks of pressing feet under a table.

“Oh. I guess so.”

They walk in silence as a group for a second, though Uraraka and Tsu have gone back to their own conversation.

“So?” Midoriya asks, almost a little too excited about it, like Ashido is with him in spirit.

“Okay, maybe.” Eijirou compromises, and kind of thinks he actually might.

In the weeks leading up to their work experience, Eijirou still debates it. Over and over and over.

It's only when he realises right in the middle of their raid, bloodied and bruised and afraid, that he's more scared of Bakugou's reaction than he is of any of these villains, that he knows he has to do it.

“Of course I get scared!” Crimson riot says in his memories, “Ain't nobody that faces death without fear, only idiots and fools!”

It's that point again, where the scariest leap is too hard to look at. Like writing “U.A. High” on his entrance choices.

He has to do it though, otherwise he'll never be able to live with himself. Forever tainted by the “what ifs” and the “maybe i could haves”.

He wants to be brave. It's scary, but he wants it so much.

He's going to do it.

Katsuki is not worried. He doesn't worry. Since when the fuck has he worried about anything other than being number one?

Ashido places a hand on his arm, aiming for soothing and ending somewhere in stifling. He doesn't move it away from him.

He's at their godforsaken film night. Huddled under blankets in Kaminari's room – which is it's own entire mess on its own, by the way. His arms are tightly pressed across his chest, and the somber silence in the group as they all vaguely stop paying attention to the movie is awful.

He needed something to think about other than how Kirishima is hours and hours and hours late from whatever he even does at his work experience (not that he told Katsuki about any of it).

Instead, he's simply surrounded by people worrying over the same thing.

Not that he's worried, of course.

It sucks. It's awful. He wishes he was just on his own instead.

Kaminari lays his head on his shoulder. Ashido's thumb is smoothing up and down his arm. Sero's foot is pressed against his leg under the blanket, arm slung around the back of Kaminari's pillow.

He doesn't move away from any of it.

It doesn't mean a thing.

The movie continues to play, static in his ears. Kaminari's phone pings. He quickly takes it into his hands, typing something fierce.

He pauses.

“Oh shit.”

All three of them turn to stare at him now.

“Er..,” his eyes catch Katsuki's, and he quickly turns for comfort in Ashido instead. It makes Katsuki's breathing sharpen, “Seems like all the work experience group are at the hospital. Kirishima too.”

“Oh shit,” Sero agrees.

“What,” Katsuki breathes out, almost reaching for Kaminari's phone like he needs to see it for himself.

The boy just pulls it away and places his other hand on his shoulder as he sits up, “Hey. Listen. It's fine, they're fine – I think – just apparently they did some big job under their agencies or something, I don't know.”

For some reason, there's that panic to Katsuki’s lungs again. Like they're covered in sludge and can't move properly. It makes his words come out bitter, “What do you mean you think?”

It's so strange how the three of them don't seem to be worried themselves, what with how they all move to look to him with caring eyes and hands. Either that, or Katsuki is genuinely that fucking pathetic that he can't even calm himself.

He tries to shake off all their touch to stand, for space. Kaminari and Sero let him, Ashido doesn't, hovering at the edge of the bed.

“Take a moment, Bakugou.”

“I don't need a moment,” he bites.

“You do,” she says, steadfoot in her words. Her jaw is tight and her fingers are shaking, like she's almost scared too.

His face scrunches. He tries to make his lungs actually work properly again.

“See, it's fine. Kirishima will be fine. Especially since he was working under such a big agency. They won't let anything happen. And he's strong too, you know it,” she laughs, “He has to be, in order to be your soulmate.”

…

“What?” Katsuki says, words slipping out of his mouth before he can even begin to process a single fucking thing about what Ashido just said.

…

Soulmate?

“Ashido!” Sero says, and his eyes are wide. Ashido’s are the same, and she turns her head to him quickly.

“I didn't mean to!” it's whispered back like Katsuki isn't stood right there. He wrenches his arm from her grip, no comfort left in her fingers. She panics, and goes to stand now also. “Listen, okay-”

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Soulmate. That's what she said. What she just called Kirishima. His-

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

“Forget it. Forget I said it. I didn’t mean it, I was just saying things, okay?” Her hands are reaching for him slowly like a cornered animal. He swats them away.

“Fuck off! Stop trying to touch me!” he snarls, lungs struggling now, sludge coating their edges. She rears back, and he takes the chance to go out the door and into the corridor. He practically slams the door behind him.

He isn't thinking about it. He isn't. He's going to his room to be alone like he wanted to be in the first place. Like he's always wanted to be.

Friends have never been needed.

Soulmates have never been needed.

That's what he always said. Always. When surrounded by stupid extras that never do anything but tie him down, he's known. Nobody to rely on but himself.

He's said it over and over, but he's forgotten that part of himself when everyone around him keeps trying to pull him in. With loving hands and casual smiles. No fear, no hatred, no envy that Katsuki is just better. Just- just-

He doesn't make it to the room. He sits on the stairs, back against the wall, and tries to breathe.

He wants someone's hand to hold again, like he had way back at All Might's last fight. He wants Kirishima to reach out to him, so that Katsuki can choose on his own to grab back and be pulled to safety.

It's awful. When did he become reliant on Kirishima?

Kirishima.

His soulmate.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

He wishes he could pretend he never heard it. Pretend it doesn’t make a lick of sense, but all Katsuki is thinking about is his hands in a bowl of red hair dye and bleach, brushing through Kirishima's hair.

Thinking about how Kirishima's eyes are such a strangely deeper sort of red than any other shade Katsuki sees in the world.

Thinking of how Katsuki first felt when he saw that purple Fuji Shishi over a year ago. His hatred for purple, and for a soulmate who even dared to be afraid. For Kirishima, who was afraid – who is afraid, clearly – and still fights forward to the top like Katsuki. Not tying him down. Striving for the same thing.

Thinking of how Kirishima once told him, after the event in the common area, that his first colour was orange, then red, and then yellow.

Orange, and then red, and then yellow.

Pride, and then anger, and then guilt.

Katsuki’s pride, and Katsuki’s anger, and then Katsuki’s goddamn guilt.

He hates it, he hates it, he hates it.

He doesn't even notice the presence next to him until their hands try to pry his own from his eyes. Ashido reaches for him again, even after the anger he hurled toward her, and this time he leans forward until she swallows him in her arms.

A hug.

Katsuki doesn't really remember the last time he was truly hugged. Hands smoothing down his back.

He doesn't cry, and Ashido's shirt is not wet when he tilts his head.

“I'm sorry,” is what Ashido whispers.

“Why did it have to be him?” is what Katsuki whispers back, “Why couldn't it have just been someone easy to forget about?”

He only realises after the panic has subsided that Kirishima must have already known this awful fact about the two of them.

Must have known, and must have purposely kept it from him.

But not from Ashido, that angry, bitter part of his brain spits like it always does when he needs it least.

Deku is trying to make you look weak, it says.

All Might is basically skin and bones because of you, it says.

Kirishima and Ashido are too close to just be friends, it also says.

He thinks this part of himself is the worst part, surely.

It's the part that convinces Kirishima to keep being soulmates to himself. Not that he particularly blames him, actually.

He wouldn't want Katsuki for soulmate either, at the end of the day (,it says).

Kirishima arrives the next day with the rest of his work bunch, bound in a collection of casts, bandages and dirty clothes. His hair is unstyled and left hanging, but even through the crowd, his eyes catch Katsuki's and he smiles. Such a bright, open smile.

Katsuki looks away and steps back, until he's walking toward his room again.

He continues walking, too, every time Kirishima turns his way.

It's easier.

Easier to do what he had always planned, shoving his soulmate to the dirt. Unneeded and unwanted.

(Even if it is pretending, now.)

Eijirou feels like a rug he hadn't known existed has been swept from under his feet.

All of his friends have this drained, fearful sort of look to their faces. And Bakugou-

Where does he even begin? With the avoidance and the isolation? Or with that look he gets on his face every time he turns from Eijirou?

That look, like the one he had back in Kamino ward. Like the one he had, when yellow had bled into Eijirou's iris’ and tinted his worldview. That look that had pulled at his own heart so painfully.

Yeah. Or that.

The world seems to choose for him.

It's Ashido who reaches out, the day after his arrival. She's wringing her hands in his doorway, and Kaminari and Sero are shuffling their feet behind her.

None of them say anything.

“Ashido?” Eijirou starts, and its like his words break a damn because she rushes into him full body and begins crying.

“I'm so so sorry! I didn't mean to! We were all just freaking out a little, and-”

“Woah, calm down,” he says, aiming for soothing as he wraps his arms around her shoulders. When he looks up to the other two, they both have their hands clapped in front of them and their heads bowed.

“We're sorry!”

“Yeah, we're honestly so sorry, dude.”

Okay. So now he's panicking a little.

“What? Why are you guys freaking out, what happened?”

Ashido cries a little more and buries her face in his shoulder. When she works up the courage to finally lift her head, her face is splotchy and her words are shaky, “I told Bakugou you were soulmates.”

Oh.

Eijirou understands now.

“I'm so sorry, Kiri! He was just freaking out after you hadn't come back from your raid, and I was just rambling to try and help. Instead I made it like a million times worse,” she's blabbering, eyes wet and nose beginning to run, which is honestly not something Eijirou has ever seen Ashido do.

He knows she means it, and that is enough to stop the panic he himself feels at the prospect of Bakugou already knowing the thing he's been dreading for weeks, “It's okay. It's okay.”

“It isn't, he totally freaked out! I'm so sorry,” she says and buries her head in his shoulder again.

He looks up again to see Kaminari and Sero still stood there, grimaces on their faces.

“Totally my bad too. I'm the one who made him panic in the first place, because I got a text from Jirou about you being in the hospital.”

“Yeah, and I don't think any of us are any good at really calming him down when he's freaking. Not like you are.”

Eijirou takes in their words, and holds out his arms to both of them. Kaminari immediately understands the invitation, and plants himself on Kirishima's other side. Sero smiles kind of sadly, and wraps his arms around all of them as much as possible.

“I forgive you guys. But you have to apologise to him too, you know,” Eijirou says after a while.

Sero nods emphatically, “Yeah. Of course, man. We already tried a little, but you know how he is when he's stuck in his head.”

“Yeah,” Eijirou replies, “Yeah, I do.”

Eijirou does know. He knows very well, by this point, how Bakugou's brain tends to work. And how, even though it might throw him straight to the deep end, Eijirou needs to catch Bakugou on his own, when he can't easily freak out to his room.

And the easiest place to avoid that is his room itself.

Eijirou wills himself some bravery, thinking again of Crimson Riot and the man he wants to be.

He knocks.

When Bakugou says “Go away,” through the door, he turns the handle and let's himself inside, quickly shutting it tight behind him.

Bakugou freezes where he's sat on his bed, back to the wall and a panic to his face. It quickly morphs into anger, like a shroud over the soft parts of his expression. “What part of go away didn't you get,” he snarls.

Eijirou takes a deep breath, posture rigid against the door behind him, trying to rid his anxious shakes. “I needed to see you.”

“Go. Away.”

“I'm sorry," he says, quick because he knows he needs to. Bakugou's anger cracks, just for a second before it smooths back over.

“I'm sorry that I didn't tell you that I thought we were soulmates,” he repeats. His hands are shaking, and he shifts to hide them behind his back, pressed against the door. Like the pressure of his weight will keep him held together.

Bakugou's eyes bare straight into his, lips almost curling, “Then why the hell didn't you.”

There is a sour bitterness to every syllable. Eijirou feels like he can taste himself when he says, “I was scared.”

“Of me,” Bakugou finishes quickly, jaw clenched. His knees are pulled to his chest, and Eijirou sees how he squeezes his fists tight from where they're resting atop his knees.

Eijirou can't bring himself to answer. Tongue tied behind his teeth. Yes, he wants to say. No, he wants to say right after, I was (am) scared you'd cast me away, knowing that I couldn't live up to what you wanted. A soulmate who you've only ever known to be afraid. 

(And angry too, though he is not as afraid of how Bakugou feels about that one.)

Nothing ever leaves his lips.

"Fuck off," it is a true anger that pulls at Bakugou's lips this time when he speaks. Eijirou doesn't know when he learnt to tell the difference, only that he feels he knows it intimately.

"I.." Eijirou starts, desperately trying to get it out of his throat. "I was.."

Bakugou's face scrunches. He turns like he doesn't want to look at Eijirou anymore.

The silence feels like it is wrapping around his throat.

"I still want to be friends," he says like a wish, and every word seems to shake. 

Bakugou scoffs, "Aren't you too fucking scared of me for that?"

"No," Eijirou responds, like a visceral feeling in his chest, "I'm not- I'm not afraid of you. I-"

"You just said you were," Bakugou bites at him, and even though there is more sharpness than ever to his words, the anger on his face is peeling away. Instead, the quiver at his lip is a pain that Eijirou feels in his ribs.

"Not like that!" 

"Then like what, Kirishima?!" 

And it is his name on Bakugou's lips that pierces that blockage in his throat, apparently. His name in that tone of voice, like it's a curse he can barely bring himself to say.

"I was just afraid you wouldn't want me anymore!" it bursts out of his mouth, chest heavy, and sits like a bomb between them. New sparks begin to join it everytime he opens his mouth. "I'm not afraid of you. I couldn't ever be afraid of you. I'm just a coward," he bites, "A coward that knows you hates soulmates, and is too scared to say that I can't bear to have you hate me too."

His fingers are leaving indents on his palm, he can feel it. Grounding him. Something to focus on other than the way Bakugou is looking at him. So- so-

"So I just- I just want to be friends still," he adds, voice soft.

Bakugou's leg is bouncing up and down from where he's sat on the bed. His lips are a tight, tight line.

"I can't just pretend it doesn't exist," he finally says.

Eijirou squeezes his eyes shut at the sound of it, a begrudging wetness building in his throat, "Why not?"

"You can't tell me it didn't change shit for you," Bakugou suddenly says, still sharp. Eijirou is glad he can't see his expression anymore, "To know that these- these fucked up colours are mine."

Eijirou shakes his head. He can't think of anything he cared about less, "It didn't."

When Bakugou doesn't continue, Eijirou can’t keep the frog in his throat at bay. When he opens his eyes to speak, there is a vague blurriness to his vision, "Is that why you don't want this? Because my colour was purple, and you can't- can't-"

He bits down on his lip and doesn't finish the question. 

Bakugou basically confirms it for him when he asks, "You really don't care about my colours?"

Eijirou laughs bitterly to distract from it, "No. Everyone else did. They were always so- so adamant that they were gonna ruin my life, or something." 

He delivers a punch to his own stomach when he looks up to Bakugou again to see the way that guilt colours his expression, "I didn't care. I just wanted there to be someone out there who liked me, or.. or even loved me after seeing all my crap, you know? Figured that meant I should try hard to like them in the same way I wanted to be."

He almost doesn't say the next bit, but there is a bubbling under his skin that tells him if he doesn't let all those awful words out he won't get another chance. And he still wants to be the kind of guy that takes a leap.

"I didn't really have to try very hard."

He tries to smile a little, but the way Bakugou almost flinches makes him curl back into the door again.

"How are you so-" Bakugou starts, and it startles Eijirou how similarly stuck he sounds. The anger is basically gone now, and every crinkle of his muscles tell Eijirou that there is still something he can't place. "How-"

Silence weighs down on them again.

Somehow, someway, Bakugou pats the spot next to him on the bed. 

Eijirou short circuits.

Bakugou glares at him, and when Eijirou still doesn't move, he snaps “Just come sit over here, will you? Fuck.”

Eijirou practically scrambles over toward Bakugou. He crosses his legs and makes sure to keep at least some distance between them, lest Bakugou truly start to freak out.

The other boy seems to take the chance to look out into the room across from them, now. Like he needed the space to say what he says next without looking at Eijirou, "It freaks me out."

Eijirou studies how he is picking at the material of his joggers, "What does?"

"Knowing that you can just.. see all this shit," Bakugou breathes it, almost soft, "I can't just pretend like you don't."

Eijirou shrugs, even though Bakugou is still not looking his way, "You don't think I feel the same?" he laughs a little to ease the pressure in his chest, "Fuck, man, I just said all that stuff about how afraid I was didn't I? It's the same thing."

Bakugou seems to still. He shifts his lips, like he's trying to get his tongue to work again. Eijirou waits.

"I'm sorry," is what Bakugou lands on, quiet. 

"For what?" he whispers back.

"For all the shitty things I used to think about you, and soulmates, and colours, and how I'd be better off without them," Bakugou seems to match the wet sound that Eijirou still feels in his throat. And when he turns to face Eijirou, finally, he can see how red tints the corners of his eyes. 

"It's okay."

"It isn't," Bakugou snaps, "It isn't, because I do need you." Eijirou feels winded with the way the words pound on his heart. "It's so fucking stupid but I can't- I don't want to do anything without you, anymore. And I used to want to do everything I could to make sure we would never meet, and now I try and imagine it and I hate it."

There is a pause, and then a hard determination to Bakugou's gaze when he stares at Eijirou, suddenly. Behind all the clouded eyes and bitten lips. A familiar fire.

"Back then, I hated the idea that there was forever gonna be someone weak on my tail."

The words instinctually make Eijirou recoil a little, and Bakugou snaps out his hand to hold tightly onto his wrist when he does. Grip tight like he needs this. Eijirou thinks its the first time Bakugou has reached out to touch him first.

He kind of loves the feeling.

"I was a dumb, dumb fucking kid, yeah? You get it? I don't care if you're scared, Kirishima. Because it's so goddamn obvious that you're strong enough not to drag me back. It's why I ever liked you in the first place," he states like it shouldn’t have had to be said, and Eijirou is an addict for the way that red colours his cheeks. 

"Oh," he eloquently says, and hurts his cheeks holding down his smile.

"You really don't care that it's me?" Bakugou asks again after a second, eyes wide and fingers almost bruising. Eijirou wiggles his wrist out of that grip (desperately ignoring the millisecond of heartbreak that flashes across Bakugou's expression) until he can twist around his hand like an offer. A palm to take.

Bakugou's hand fits inside his like fate made them with it in mind.

Oh.

Fate did, actually, didn't it?

"I don't want it to be anyone else. Ever," Eijirou says, and finds he knows it to be true down to his very core.

Bakugou's face is struggling to hold itself together, he knows it. Eijirou holds out his other arm wide.

Bakugou barely looks at it before he crumples into Eijirou, wrapping his arms around his torso and burying his face in his shoulder.

It's reminiscent of Ashido earlier, but the weight of Bakugou against him is so-

He adores it. He wraps his arms around the other boy and thinks he shouldn't ever let go.

"You're so-" Bakugou bites, and squeezes him tighter. Eijirou can't help but breathe out a laugh. They sit there for a moment, until Eijirou can't ignore the little voices in his head.

"So, friends still, then?"

Bakugou sits against his chest for a second, before slowly pulling back, "Seriously?"

Eijirou blinks, "Yeah?"

Bakugou narrows his eyes and asks "Did you not get what I meant?"

Eijirou feels like he's been thrown out for a loop all of a sudden, "Huh?"

"Are you-" Bakugou starts, and his face is burning bright red.

They stare at each other. Bakugou squeezes him tighter.

"I'm not saying it again," he says, “So just. Don't be weird. And if I'm somehow fucking wrong then also just. Don't freak out.”

His face is very very embarrassed. Eijirou is very very confused and continues to be as Bakugou slides his arms out from around Eijirou, leaving them sat face to face and touching at only the knees. (He's kind of grieving the touch).

He's confused, and then suddenly Bakugou places his hands on the sides of Eijirou’s head, thumbs at the corner of his eyes, and his head is suddenly way too busy with new thoughts to think about that.

Thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and holy shit, wait, is Bakugou is actually kissing him?

Okay.

Okay!

Holy shit.

This is no time to freak out, he's going to move!

Stop freaking out already!

Bakugou pulls away, and Eijirou genuinely almost screams at his own stupidity for not kissing him back.

Bakugou looks like he's eaten a lemon, and Eijirou clamps down hard on his wrists to stop him from truly pulling away, “Sorry! I'm sorry! I was just- just not expecting it, okay? Do it again? I'll- I'll-”

Bakugou doesn't even hold back the smile that spreads on his face. It's quick and sudden and Eijirou is absolutely in love.

“Jesus, okay. I said don't be weird about it.”

“Right. Definitely,” Eijirou responds, way to eager.

He doesn't care much when Bakugou leans back in and Eijirou actually gets to kiss him though.

It's-

It's-

Okay he doesn't think he can describe a thing, actually. It's perfect.

Bakugou pulls back a centimetre, "You get it now?"

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'," he says, and Eijirou can feel the smile in the breath against his lips, "Idiot."

He laughs, thumb rubbing against the skin of Bakugou's wrist, "I really like you, by the way."

The other boy knocks their heads together, "Shut up. You basically already said that before."

"I guess so."

When he leans back in, so does Bakugou.

Eijirou thinks he could probably die happy like this. 

Katsuki used to hate soulmates more than anything in the world, but he holds Kirishima's hand, and only feels stronger for it. 

It feels good. 

He holds it tighter, as if to say don't let go.