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Katsuki had Shoto-proofed his car beforehand, even if he wasn’t admitting it in so many words, and was muttering under his breath as he fished around the compartments for tissues and wet Kleenex—don’t look at me like that, halfie, I saw you stuff your pockets with those fucking disgusting humbugs reception was giving out—before even allowing Shoto to touch the handle of the passenger door.
To say he was irritated was an overstatement, but Shoto was a little sleepy from the white wine he’d been drinking, and the front of his dress shirt was stained red and syrupy, the ruined fabric sticking to his stomach.
He peeled off his blazer, threw it over Katsuki’s in the backseat before sitting up front. Just before, Shoto had watched, helplessly, as Katsuki sprayed the interior of the car with so much Air Spencer that his eyes immediately watered when he got inside. By the time Katsuki fussed around some more, strapped himself in and put the car in gear to drive off, the sky was streaking in a twilight blur—not quite night yet, but it would be fully dark when they got back to Musutafu.
The car was so small that Shoto’s elbow brushed Katsuki’s shoulder when he put his arms up behind his head.
“Stop that.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Shoto said, but he lowered his hands back down to his lap.
“You were touching me,” Katsuki complained.
There were two voices in Shoto’s head: one sounded suspiciously like Midoriya’s, and it was saying you gotta give him time to process what just happened, you know how he is, an act-first-think-later kind of guy—and the other, sweet and playful like Uraraka’s, or maybe even Yaoyorozu’s, was goading him on.
Give him no peace, he’s the one who ruined your dress shirt. Hey, he smells kinda nice…what is that, Chinese black tea? Anyway, you should fuck with his head. If I were you, I’d lean over and finish what he started.
Shoto ignored them both and opted to lean his cheek against a closed fist, watching the world outside his window for a little while.
Beside him, he could feel the shame and agitation radiating off of Katsuki in waves, hear the vexed grinding of his jawbone to dust as he drove, rigid in his seat.
“You’re lucky this suit isn’t rented,” Shoto said.
“Shut up.”
“I got it from Turnbull & Asser, and you ruined it, so now I have to take it to Linen Services,” Shoto continued. “And once they see the tag, those assholes are going to charge me—”
“Todoroki, stop talking,” Katsuki hissed through his teeth.
“Oh, so I’m back to just Todoroki and halfie now.”
Shoto leaned across the centre console and Katsuki visibly stiffened, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. The smart thing to do would be to pull away and press himself back up against the window, in case Katsuki did something stupid like swerve the car—but he smelled really nice (definitely Chinese black tea, said the Uraraka-Yaoyorozu voices), and the top button of his dress shirt was undone, smart grey tie hanging loose.
“Back off, halfie, unless you have no intention on making it home in one piece,” Katsuki warned. “I’m not above driving right off this cliff if it means I’m going to be too dead to be embarrassed.”
Good job. You raked him pretty good over the coals, Midoriya’s voice scolded in his head. Hope you’re happy now.
Shoto was happy. There was no other place he would rather be at right now, not when Katsuki was beside him, close enough that Shoto could see the nervous bob of his throat as they passed under the chrome-yellow streetlights. There was a familiar song on the radio, low and tinny, and Katsuki’s silver-ringed fingers started tapping to its rhythm on the steering wheel.
The GPS on the infotainment system said that there was 175km more to go.
Shoto sighed and slumped back into his seat. The wine sloshed around in his skull. They had two more hours to figure this out.
When they were about to break out of the Under-21 rankings, a party had been thrown. Shoto’s classmates suddenly seemed to have gotten exceptionally good at organising things like that.
They were holed up in Kaminari and Sero’s penthouse—tacky disco balls, red plastic cups sudsy with cheap beer foam—and Shoto had drank so much and so quickly that everything seemed to pass right through his fingers, and he began startling at even the most innocent, harmless things: Ashido laughing too loudly, the rustling of a new bag of chips being torn open; someone’s phone ringing, Iida’s arm shooting out to ruffle his hair; Katsuki walking past him and stopping to talk directly into his ear.
Shoto really had a bit too much to drink. He stopped by the bathroom to splash his face with cold water, then went downstairs to the kitchen. He fumbled around blindly, unsteady on his feet, trying to remember where the rest of the plastic cups were kept when he was met with Katsuki’s grinning face.
“Still a fuckin’ lightweight, huh?” he’d snickered, crowding Shoto against a countertop and reaching around him, producing a red cup.
“Bakugo,” Shoto slurred, his tongue heavy like lead in his mouth. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure no one throws up.” Katsuki ran the cup under the refrigerator’s water dispenser. “God, you stink. I don’t know why you idiots always insist on getting shit-faced over the smallest accomplishments.”
Shoto didn’t remember much else after that, but Katsuki’s face had somehow loomed in his vision like a beacon. There had been the sound of a cabinet opening, the rustle of plastic, and displeased grumbling before Shoto felt the cold smack of a cup of water colliding into his teeth.
Shoto tried to hide his grin behind the cup, watching Katsuki wrestle away from wine-drunk Yaoyorozu and Ashido. Outside the kitchen, all was laughter and ping pong balls skidding off the table and onto the marble floor. Through a haze of funny colours the disco balls were throwing off everywhere, Shoto could see Midoriya playing beer pong with Uraraka, Iida and Sero; Kaminari and Jirou standing in one corner, arguing over what Shoto had overheard was about which Lord of the Rings movie was the best, and Katsuki started snapping his fingers in his face.
“Oi, halfie. You in there? You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Shoto flushed. Katsuki smelled faintly sweet, like someone had spilled apple cider on him, and he was right up in Shoto’s face, mouth moving but Shoto was too drunk to make out whatever else he was saying. Gun to the back of his head, he remained very still, crumpling the now-empty plastic cup to his chest. Behind Katsuki, Yaoyorozu gave Shoto a thumbs up, then left the kitchen.
“Christ, you’re really not hearing a word I’m saying.” Katsuki threw his head back and laughed. The disco balls swung wine-blue lights over his face, doing something godly against the clean-cut line of his jaw, laugh fading into a smile that somehow lit up the whole kitchen summer-bright—and inebriated with the way he was being looked at, Shoto thought to himself: wow. Okay. Huh. Am I screwed?
Katsuki was halfway out of the kitchen when Shoto remembered his manners. “Bakugo.” He held up the crumpled plastic cup. “Thanks.”
Katsuki mock saluted him then stalked off, and something had curled low in Shoto’s gut. It was the same feeling he had now, when he turned his head and realised Katsuki was already staring back at him. The car idled in its spot, the traffic light flashing red above them, then green. When Katsuki failed to take his foot off the brake, someone behind them honked rudely.
“What?” Katsuki asked, even though he’d been the one caught staring first. He stepped on the accelerator and looked back at the road.
“Nothing,” Shoto said. He felt the nothing—stretching open to fill the rest of the car, along with the centimetre-wide space separating their lips earlier, because neither of them knew what to say.
Katsuki merged onto the highway before speaking again. “I just—need a minute,” he said stiffly. “Obviously we’ll talk about it, but that was the single most embarrassing moment of my life, so I need you to shut up and give me a moment.”
Shoto wanted to say something dumb, like how he hadn’t even been talking, but Katsuki was unusually straight-backed in the driver’s seat, like he was the poster boy for driving etiquette.
Shoto didn’t reply and slumped further into the leather upholstery, picking at his ruined dress shirt.
On the last day of obon, Katsuki came to find Shoto, and it was always like this.
He’d shrugged into his yukata, put on his sandals and wandered the gallery of booths with Midoriya and Iida, before excusing himself and heading down to the riverbank alone. It was always like this, always a little sickening—to see his friends heading to the pier with their candle-lit lanterns, glowing prettily within the bamboo to join the rest of the crowd; to see them say their prayers and start the flotilla, bobbing like driftwood to a place none of them could reach yet, knowing he had no place with them because of the taboo of his family.
Shoto hid himself under the hanging leaves of the willow tree he was leaning against, when he heard the crunch of gravel behind him.
“Todoroki.” It was Katsuki, looking slightly annoyed. He had two lanterns in his hands. His face was half-obscured from the vines swinging around, fluttering like snowflakes. The light from the sun, melting low in the distance, was drenching him in pools of golden-pink, as pretty as a Flemish angel. “Your nerds sent me to look for you.”
Shoto accepted the lantern that was thrust into his chest. “What’s this for?”
Katsuki ignored the question for a moment, producing a lighter from the folds of his segaiha-patterned yukata to light his lantern, then Shoto’s.
Finally, he said: “I’ve never told you this before, because I didn’t think it mattered at the time. I still don’t think it matters, but you should probably hear it anyway. During the war, when they told us over the comms that you stopped your brother, I didn’t celebrate. I’m pretty sure apart from your family—” Katsuki started walking down to the river’s edge, feathered with riparian plants “—I was the only one who didn’t.”
Shoto followed him, their lanterns trembling in the faint breeze. Over by the pier, more and more people started setting their lanterns down on the water, the surface wrinkled and distorted with blue-gold lights and ripples. Midoriya and Uraraka, in their matching yukata, made it to the front and let their lanterns go, their faces flushed and radiant.
Katsuki had squatted down by the edge of the riverbank, looking up at Shoto and adding, “Today’s all about remembering your loved ones. That includes your brother, yeah? He’s still family.”
Shoto had only ever attended the festival a couple of times as a kid, once in his first year of high school before everyone found out about Touya, then never again. It would fill his mouth with acid, whenever August rolled around and someone mentioned obon. It had been something so deep-rooted and horrifyingly fresh in his mind, knowing he’d been praying to God knows who all those other times, that after the war, even talking about obon would send him off with a migraine.
But Touya died a couple of months ago, so here Shoto was, whispering a prayer into his lantern—a real one this time—before letting it go. Katsuki nodded at him approvingly, then did the same. He dusted himself off when he stood back up.
“Who was yours for?” Shoto asked him.
Katsuki glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, without moving his head. “I don’t have grandparents anymore.”
And it was always like this, with Katsuki grabbing his wrist to haul him back into the crowd, shoving him into Midoriya; and the part of his skin where Katsuki had touched would tingle all the way down to his toes, and Shoto would exhale nervously, slap his hands against his thighs and crane his neck around to look for—the disastrous blonde of the back of Katsuki’s head, already disappearing into the crowd to get back to his own group of friends.
It was always like this, and he was familiar with it, because Shoto had already seen this before with his own eyes—the wanting and waiting, always waiting, from Midoriya of all people, before he finally confessed and got together with Uraraka.
And this became permanently etched into his mind, when all of them met up later at an izakaya after changing out of their yukata: the ridiculous, out-of-place chandelier creaking over their dining table, empty bottles of sake knocked over; picking at half-finished platters of sashimi and sushi, with Katsuki grinning savagely at Shoto from where he sat wedged between Kirishima and Ashido, a bottle of cider halfway to his mouth.
Katsuki started arm-wrestling with a couple of their friends on his side of the table. Shoto felt like he’d had one too many bottles of sake, and let Midoriya pat him on the back when he pitched towards the dirty tabletop.
After a while, Katsuki got up to leave with Kirishima and Sero, looking right at Shoto when a waiter came over with their part of the tab—raised an eyebrow at him and mouthed you good?, and Shoto, brain aquaplaning, tonguing the inside of his cheek, had lazily raised his right hand with closed fingers to his chin, then brought it down again. I’m good. Katsuki’s reaction was priceless, and Shoto wished someone had had the foresight to snap a picture of it.
The way his eyes shocked wide open, jaw slackening in surprise, or maybe delight. The laughter that followed made the welkin ring. Shoto had never known the feeling that accompanied this, and long after Katsuki left, long after everyone else did, leaving him, Midoriya and Uraraka sitting in the semi-darkness, where they were already looking at him like they knew what he was about to say—he said it anyway, a tiny, choked-out confession into his shirt sleeve: I might be in love with Bakugo Katsuki.
Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight
[02:05]
never knew u knew sign
u never fucking fail to surprise me lmao
oh also
[the people’s princess.jpg]
enjoy ur dignity while you still can
When he woke up the next morning, Shoto opened the attachment and couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped from him. It must have been taken with Katsuki’s phone, judging from the angle. It was an extremely unflattering picture of Shoto back at the izakaya, where he’d closed his eyes and decided ten seconds of shut-eye was alright.
The ordering and arranging of his memories had been a serious, albeit fun, affair. Everything that happened after the izakaya seemed to melt sleepily into each other. Before all this, Shoto had always seen Katsuki as a caricature of a pro hero, all strong, lean muscles and brains, a flash of white teeth as he blasted through the air. They’d been so busy those first few months after graduation that Shoto rarely saw Katsuki outside of the occasional team-ups and get-togethers, until this.
This, this, this. It’d been so long since Shoto last saw Katsuki like this: wearing his street clothes, shaking out his hair to get them off his eyes. Laughing at the expression on Shoto’s face when he found out Katsuki smoked cigarettes—I assure you, halfie, I breathe in so much smoke from my explosions that the occasional cigarette will not be what kills me—and feeling his head swim as Katsuki started rapidly signing to him.
Shoto mimed a talking hand next to his face, then brought his fingers together at the side of his mouth: shut up. Katsuki laughed and laughed and laughed, then flipped him off.
They were in Katsuki’s apartment going over the logistics of Midoriya’s suit, and everyone was in various states of languor. Uraraka’s legs were draped over the armrests of her chair, one foot kicking lazily at its side, looking at something on Yaoyorozu’s tablet. There were a couple of blueprints spread out over the dining table and Katsuki was talking through them.
The grey cat, stupidly named Great Explosion Murder God Paws, started twirling himself around Shoto’s left arm.
Katsuki had been less than amused. “Fuckin’ traitor.”
“He’s a good cat,” Shoto said, lifting his left hand for the cat to rub his face against. “Aren’t you, kitty?”
“Stop that,” Katsuki said loudly, jabbing a finger in Shoto’s direction. “He only responds to Great, Explosion, or Murder, or God, or Paws. Don’t confuse him.”
Later, Katsuki asked Shoto to step out onto his tiny Parisian balcony with him, and he slid the glass doors shut behind them. The mood inside the apartment had drummed down to something quieter, their friends sprawling across the L-shaped couch and floor in the low susurrant of the living room. Great Explosion Murder God Paws was lying on his side, one eye rolling in its socket as he ignored Ashido and Asui’s attempts to play with him.
There was an unlit cigarette caught in the knuckles of Katsuki’s scarred fingers, and he was looking at Shoto expectantly.
“You know, for someone with a very firmly middle-class upbringing, you act very entitled,” Shoto said, but he lit the cigarette anyway. The first cloud of smoke disappeared into the night air, shimmering over the seraphic glow of the city.
Shoto looked at Katsuki. His right arm dangled over the railing, flicking cigarette ash, and he had his cheek propped up on his left fist. With the wash of the amber light rocking above them, he looked like he belonged to something impossible from a bygone era: smoking and drinking on sinking ships, ocean water lathering white as frost around the priest as he recited the Rosary the night the Titanic went down (Hail Mary, full of grace); being the first person to kick up clouds of space dust on the moon; dropping things from the Tower of Pisa to test gravity theories.
Shoto hadn’t gotten near a drop of alcohol all night. Oh, I really am fucked.
“The suit—” Katsuki lifted the cigarette to his mouth “—if we want this, all of us are going to have to contribute money.”
“Yeah,” Shoto said. “Anything for him.”
“Remember how he cried like a baby the day you debuted?” Katsuki laughed. “He’s so fuckin’ weird.”
“He cried harder the day you debuted,” Shoto pointed out.
The ash on Katsuki’s cigarette was about an inch long now.
Getting together like this to discuss the suit always felt like sneaking around Midoriya’s back, which Shoto supposed was right, but it somehow felt more nefarious whenever he was alone with Katsuki, sharing cigarette smoke and watching his nicotine-grey fingertips tap along the railing. Katsuki must have felt the same too, because his mouth twisted into an annoyed scowl. Even though Shoto knew what was coming, he didn’t stop the hand that was shoved into his face, pushing away.
“Oh, fuck off, Todoroki, I didn’t ask you to come out here to talk about sappy bullshit.”
When they went back inside and Katsuki announced that everyone had to leave, Shoto looked mournfully at Uraraka. She stared back at him, dismayed. Oh, you’re being serious, huh. Well. My condolences, or good luck, whichever one you prefer.
On the E1, Katsuki pulled into a drivethrough.
“Are you hungry?” he asked Shoto.
He was tempted to put his feet up on the dashboard just to annoy Katsuki, but the car really was too small for him to do anything like that and his muscles were starting to cramp, so he said: “I wanna eat in.”
A cracked signboard they passed by said TAKEAWAY ONLY.
“Well, tough shit,” Katsuki said, putting on his turn signal.
“They’ve got an empty parking lot,” Shoto told him, pointing. “I need to stretch my legs, or I swear to God I’ll get muscle fatigue and lose control of my Quirk. On your nice leather seats.”
Katsuki sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger, braking once they’d turned into the entrance of the drivethrough. Shoto was too far gone to care about testing his patience. “My God, you’re so spoiled.”
Katsuki leaned out the window to order at the speakers, and Shoto turned away to hide the stain on his dress shirt, when the worker behind the counter took his time handing Katsuki their meals, trying to peer into the dark interior.
Under a single flickering fluorescent, Shoto stepped gratefully out of the car. The beorht moon illuminated the cracks in the asphalt with all the restlessness of summer nights, and Katsuki followed him out, holding their takeout in his hands. Except for his hair, which fell in elflocks over his forehead because he kept screwing his fingers into them in frustration before they drove off, he looked immaculate, trousers still knife-pressed.
“We’ll eat out here.” Katsuki handed him one of the bags.
“Why?” Shoto asked.
Katsuki glowered at him. “Uh, because I don’t want your greasy fucking fingers all over my seats?”
“Okay, that’s—”
That was fair. Katsuki clambered onto the hood of his car, and Shoto ignored the laser-sharp glare that was sent his way when he did the same, scuffing the back of his shoe against a tyre.
Shoto bit into his foot-long sandwich without really tasting it, contemplating the life choices he made that led him here. It looked like trying to talk to Katsuki now would be the same as stupidly attempting to squeeze water from a rock, so he stayed silent, then got up to throw his trash.
At the sad little corner stand attached to the drivethrough, Shoto purchased a gossip magazine, where Dynamight was the feature for the month.
Katsuki was already back in the driver’s seat when Shoto walked back. He glanced at the magazine that Shoto was leafing through, after he got into the passenger side.
“Todoroki, what,” he choked out, inserting the key into the ignition. “Why’d you even buy that?”
The radio came on, halfway through a rhythm-blues song.
Katsuki didn’t start the car, and Shoto didn’t ask him to, because he’d gotten to the page where Dynamight’s interview was printed.
Shoto cleared his throat, then read aloud the question that drove half the country crazy: “‘So, Dynamight, with Friday and Josei Seven ranking you number two on their hottest rookies list, and being number six on Friday’s most eligible male bachelors list—well, all that’s to say, would you like to share how your dating life’s been going?’”
Katsuki was already glaring at him. “Don’t you dare.”
I’m swimming, I’m swimming, Shoto’s thoughts trilled along with the radio, I’m swimming.
The inside of the conference hall in downtown Tokyo was laughing and speaking too loudly. Shoto bit the inside of his cheek and accepted a glass of white wine a waiter offered to him. He and a couple of his classmates had been invited all the way out here for some sort of charity gala, and they’d just finished sitting through the last of the speeches and now everyone was heading towards the open bar in the back.
Kirishima and Kaminari were already wine-drunk, doing a poor imitation of the box step near the snack bar, where it looked like one of the older heroes was trying to spike the punch bowl with whiskey.
Shoto stopped by the furthest end of the bar; his glass was already empty. He patted his pockets for the bus ticket that he’d bought with Uraraka and Yaoyorozu a couple of days before, just to make sure—and Katsuki was already there, looking at him.
“Todoroki. Can I get you another drink?”
Shoto wanted to bash his head against the windshield at how long it took him to figure out the motivations behind Katsuki’s interactions with him. On a very surface-level glance, there’d been basically zero indication that Katsuki possibly liked him back at all, and even when they were on opposite ends of a large dining table or room and Shoto would be met head-on, towards the end of the night, with: Katsuki’s finger pointing at him, followed by the same downward arc of his hand starting from his chin that Shoto had done that first time—you good?—Shoto’s brain would start making up excuses for it, because Bakugo Katsuki was exactly who he thought he was.
Because Bakugo Katsuki was exactly who he thought he was—top five most promising rookies right on debut, surprisingly popular with older generations, especially the women—and Shoto was just a blip on his radar, something Katsuki needed to scale to get to where Midoriya was.
In Shoto’s defence, between undergoing media training before graduating and being exposed to loads more people once he left UA, he could see very small traces of what Katsuki was really doing; he just decided to meet all of these divergences with willful blindness—because entertaining the thought of Katsuki liking him back would make his face prickle and heart burn, and he’d spend the rest of his night thinking about the smile Katsuki had given him when he was piss-drunk in the penthouse kitchen, hovering in front of his face like a vision.
Shoto knew what this meant, but he wasn’t sure if Katsuki did, and he definitely wasn’t comfortable enough to act on them. So he just stayed quiet and watchful, letting this thing in his gut corrode like gangrene until it reached fever pitch, for the familiar hot flash in his chest when Katsuki would inevitably look in his direction and lift his hand to ask—you good?
Shoto was on his third glass of wine when he realised Katsuki was rebuffing reporters and other heroes from speaking to them. He was aware he was swaying in his seat, pop-eyed and bored out of his mind because there was still fifteen minutes to go before he could leave for the bus.
Katsuki looked at him, and lifted a hand.
(You good?
I’m good.)
Katsuki squinted at him, then leaned forward to shout into his ear: “Why’d you learn sign, anyway?”
He wasn’t wearing his hearing aids—Shoto assumed it was because he hadn’t wanted to subject himself to sitting through those long-winded speeches—so Shoto pointed at his cheek then his mouth, stuck out his index and middle fingers on both hands and moved them in a circular motion, another circular motion using both index fingers, pointed at himself, and ending with hitting his fists together. Deaf people when I’m on the job.
“Huh.”
Katsuki kept staring at him, and Shoto squirmed under the attention.
“Know what this means?”
Katsuki pointed at himself, made grabby hands towards his chest, touched the side of his mouth then his cheek, then pointed at Shoto, who understood everything except the second-last sign.
“...You want me to do something for you,” was his best guess. Katsuki snickered into his drink. Shoto mimicked the unknown gesture he saw. “I don’t know what that is. What is it? Is it something vulgar? Knowing you, it’s probably something vulgar.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes. “Come on. I’m not a complete barbarian.”
Shoto put his empty glass away and balled his hands into fists over his thighs. Katsuki was—too close. He smelled like something earthy and woody, now that the crowd was starting to thin out and Shoto felt his head clearing a little. It’s always like this, huh?
Katsuki had one arm braced against the edge of his bar stool, leaning into Shoto’s space, completely unaware of how Shoto’s heart had started rabbiting below his ribcage.
Shoto shifted on his bar stool. Then: “Bakugo. Stop that.”
“Fuck you,” Katsuki said. “I’m not even doing anything.”
Shoto was still trying to figure out what that sign was, and judging from the look on Katsuki’s sneering face, he could make an educated guess. He should probably worry about it, but Katsuki really did smell nice and it was the only thing the three glasses of wine was making Shoto focus on.
They were very, very close, and Shoto momentarily blocked out the fact that they were in public with journalists and cameras everywhere, Kirishima and Kaminari loitering somewhere around with their nose for gossip like a pair of hounds, and—Katsuki was still very close.
“I,” Shoto stammered intelligently, desperate to fill the silence between them with something so he wouldn’t do anything idiotic. He wanted to speak the word he feared so badly.
Instead, he stupidly said: “I’m…uh. Smoke break.” Shoto didn’t smoke. “I’m gonna go.”
He tore away from Katsuki and battered through the nearest exit doors to the hallway, which was thankfully empty.
When Katsuki followed him out a minute later, Shoto still hadn’t gotten his racing heart to calm down. Even as Katsuki stopped in front of him, the stem of a champagne glass still pinched between his fingers, refilled with the bright red-pink of non-alcoholic Shirley Temple, Shoto kept his eyes fixed on a large gilt-framed photo behind him. It was nothing special, just a commemorative picture of All Might accepting his last award, but Shoto kept studying it like it held the key to deciphering Linear A texts.
“Shoto,” Katsuki breathed out, bringing Shoto’s attention back to him and oh, that was very new. Even on the rare occasions where they were sent somewhere together, Katsuki never used Shoto’s Hero name, only ever referring to him as one of the nicknames Katsuki assigned to him in high school that he didn’t want to retire.
“You need to loosen up. I’m not going to bite you.”
Katsuki used his free hand to tug on Shoto’s tie, and the world crumbled away before them. Katsuki wasn’t going to bite him, because he was going to do something worse. Katsuki was going to—
“I’m going to kiss you.” This was the closest their faces had ever gotten, and it was also possibly the first time ever Katsuki had ever said something in a stiff, monotonous tone. “Please don’t stop me.”
“Bakugo.” Shoto felt the disbelieving grin stretch across his face. “What.”
He felt himself tilting forward, because Katsuki still had a hand curled around his tie. It was vaguely reminiscent of how he’d tried to pick fights with Shoto right up until graduation, and he had to fight the instinctive urge to throw his fists up in defence; so he closed his eyes—
And the next thing he was aware of was something wet and cold seeping into the front of his shirt, because someone had banged the doors open so violently it jolted the hallway, startling Katsuki so badly that the glass shocked out of his fingers. It shattered into tiny diamond pieces on the carpet.
Katsuki’s eyes were wide as he stared at the liquid leaking across Shoto’s shirt, dark like blood. For a second, it looked like he was going to say something, but then he turned and bolted down the hallway, after the group of people who caused this mess in the first place. Shoto thought he was going to shout at them, but he watched dumbly as Katsuki manoeuvred between their bodies and disappeared round the corner.
In the bathroom, Shoto wet yet another tissue with one hand and answered his phone with the other. The bin next to the sinks had a jumble of stained-pink wadded up tissues, because Shoto had spent the past five minutes trying to get the stain out of his shirt, but he knew it was no good. He had sobered up greatly, and stared at his reflection in the mirror, wondering what he did in his past life to deserve this as he spoke into the receiver.
“Yeah?”
“Todoroki,” Uraraka said. It sounded like she was already outside. There was no chatter, only a burst of muted white noise underneath her voice. “Where are you? We gotta start walking to the terminal soon.”
Shoto made one last half-hearted attempt at scrubbing at his shirt, before giving up and tossing the tissue into the bin. “I’m in the bathroom.”
“Okay, well, we need to go soon, so—”
“No,” Shoto said quickly. “I mean, um. You guys go without me. I’m—hitching a ride with him. Bakugo.”
Silence.
“Todoroki.”
“What.”
“Are you being serious? Bakugo doesn’t like giving people rides. How did you manage to convince him to give you one?”
It would definitely be easier to lie and say he batted his eyelashes and Katsuki immediately folded, but Shoto was getting irritated and Katsuki’s fingers touching his throat still seared. “I didn’t.”
“Oh, right. Sure. You know what? I don’t even wanna know.” Uraraka laughed nervously. “Okay, Yaoyorozu and I really have to get going. You guys flirt so weird. Good luck, I guess.”
Shoto slipped out of his blazer and held it protectively in front of the embarrassing stain and went to the parking lot.
Miraculously, Katsuki was still there, squatting behind his car and smoking. He didn’t look up when Shoto approached him. He pulled out his bus ticket and waved it in front of Katsuki’s face, who tsked and swatted his hand away.
“Bakugo. You made me miss my bus.”
“Liar. You’ve still got ten minutes until it leaves. Better start running.”
Katsuki stood up and stomped on his cigarette, then thinking better of it, sighed and picked it back up before tossing it into a bin. His shoulders were hunched forward, hands stuffed into his pockets as he turned to face Shoto, who lifted his blazer. Something in Katsuki’s jaw ticked and he looked away just as quickly.
“The stain’s not coming out, and I can’t go on the bus looking like this,” Shoto said. Katsuki turned back to look at him. “Give me a ride back to Musutafu.”
“Are you crazy?”
Katsuki killed the car’s headlights. The car rumbled in its spot; the air-conditioning was going at full blast and so was the radio, but the gear was still in park and the hand brake wasn’t lifted.
“I’ll pay for your dry cleaning.” Katsuki was tapping two fingers against the dark outline of his throat nervously, to the rhythm of the radio.
The alcohol had all but shocked out of Shoto’s system with how weird this evening had gone, but it still felt like he was somewhere high up, a place more celestial than sitting beside Katsuki in an empty parking lot. Luckily, I float at insane heights. The weak streetlamps of the parking lot knifed into the car in lazy, feeble strokes, and Katsuki leaned into the glow of one to look at Shoto.
“I like you,” Shoto said, before he could really think about it. “A lot.”
“God, I fucking hate you.” Katsuki rucked an agitated hand through his hair, but—he was smiling. “You always have to beat me to the finish line at everything, huh? I wanted to say that first. Gimme a break.”
“We can continue what you started in the hallway.” Shoto swallowed. “If you want. I want to.”
He was met with the unimpressed and unamused look on Katsuki’s face. “I swear, if you’re just taking the piss out of me—”
“I’m really not.” Shoto felt a little offended by this, but before he could say anything else, Katsuki sighed and put his face into his hands, leaning back against his window.
“You. You want to kiss me. Even though we haven’t even gone on any dates and I spilled my drink all over you,” Katsuki mumbled through his fingers.
The car was too small to hold all the emotions Shoto had hoarded for the past hour of silent driving. He writhed in his seat. He hadn’t thought about kissing Katsuki at all despite the magnitude of what he felt, because it never seemed like something that would ever happen—except until now, where it felt like everything was starting to fit together; like something holy was unravelling itself bit by bit and he was on the verge of a great discovery, and he was going to sit up in bed gasping, like he’d been dreaming.
It certainly felt like he was; Katsuki had a hand on his shoulder and was drawing him in.
“Shoto. Come here.”
Shoto leaned into him after saying, “You should probably hold my face,” and Katsuki’s hand left his shoulder to press into his cheek, a perfect circle of warmth, interrupted in intervals by the cold metal of his rings, and—holy shit. This is the second time today he’s doing something I told him to. Oh, man, he smells really nice—but Shoto didn’t have time to think about anything else because Katsuki’s mouth closed over his.
Katsuki kissed like he was trying to take from Shoto, drawing out little noises from him with each jab of his sharp chin. Everything outside the car dissolved into nothing.
Katsuki tugged—Shoto went, scrambling out of the passenger seat and into his lap, feeling like a horny teenager sneaking around past curfew. The driver’s side was just as tiny as everything else, and they jolted when Shoto’s butt came down on the horn.
It was downright nirvanic, to look down and see Katsuki’s mouth open in a half-laugh, eyes shiny like pearls. He was holding Shoto around the waist, one hand twisted into his back collar. He didn’t seem to care that the stain on Shoto’s shirt was pressing into his.
“You good?” Katsuki asked, and Shoto allowed this all-encompassing want to sweep over him like a flood, to bask in this watery, glowing new feeling that he put a word to the first time Katsuki asked him that.
“Yeah.” Shoto bent down again, and started unbuttoning his shirt. “I’m good.”