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Seiji Shishikura isn’t so naive as to believe anyone could be a hero if they simply worked hard enough.
All Might’s retirement (it was not quite a fall, but it still broke their ground nonetheless, shook people’s footing and shattered their hearts) left a gaping hole in society that no other hero could ever fill, but it could not afford to remain empty. The loss of the symbol of peace, their previously undefeated hope, had been a change no one was prepared for, and when the unthinkable happened they were forced into an abrupt alteration of their lifestyles no one who lived during All Might’s glory would ever become accustomed to. It was the new heroes’ jobs to support them through it, and with him gone, there was a demanding increase of the need of quality over quantity regarding their profession.
Stain’s ideals had already disturbed the world’s view of the people whom they were supposed to look up to, to lean on, to trust, but there was little of that left after U.A.’s continuous villain infiltrations. The kidnapping of Katsuki Bakugou had only been the last straw that broke the already fragile faith people had on their so called heroes who failed to do the one thing they were supposed to: secure their safety.
As the most respected Hero Academy in the world, the crushing weight of people’s expectations were put upon the shoulders of the U.A.’s students. Their growth, their process, their journey to become the heroes the people needed — it was all monitored, all constantly observed and closely critiqued. The sports festival was the gate that opened it all for the public to see. Through it, they could get their eyes on their future heroes that could carry the legacy All Might would soon after leave behind.
Denki Kaminari was not one of them.
Shishikura knows everything about Kaminari.
He knows that Kaminari is fearful. The bravado he showed against Ibara Shiozaki, the cocky smirk, the confident words…the were all betrayed by the bead of sweat running down his cheek, by the tenseness of his pose, the twitch of his fingers. He shows the front of a laid-back person who gave no care for the world and only lived for the moment, but his real colors stand out the most when the stress proves too much for a simple facade to withstand and he succumbs to his panic.
He’s nervous and anxious, wearing his heart on his sleeve for all to see, and it is a fatal flaw in the heat of battle where containing one’s emotions could tip the scales in one’s favour. Control of a situation started with utter discipline of oneself, and that was the area Kaminari lacked in the most, the areas all heroes should prioritize mastering. He’s emotional and he is foolish, often wears bright grins to match the carefree spark of his eyes, still so very unripe and immature, and his loud laughter rivalled the roar of the cheering crowd. Close-knit with his classmates, he could be found beside anyone willing to lend a listening ear and even those who aren’t, and though easily discouraged, he bounces back on his feet and tries again.
Regardless of his poor performance (it was easy to tell he shined the most under someone else’s command; while his reaction time and reflexes were nothing to scoff at, his strategic thinking was alarmingly nonexistent with a quirk like his), however, the audience took a shine to him. Kaminari’s power was undeniably formidable, but his battles in the sports festival made it obvious how unpolished he was. With more training to cover his weak points, he wouldn’t put up such pathetic fights, and Shishikura finds it to be a stunning waste. A prestigious school like U.A., producing “heroes” like this…
Kaminari could not be called a hero, even now. It was people like him that stained their respectable name, who had the best sources at hand but did not use them accordingly to improve. A grand quirk meant nothing so long as the wearer did not know how to use it properly, after all, and Kaminari failed to do so.
Truly a shame, but Shishikura had no pity for people like him.
Shishikura meets Kaminari and he’s everything he had already known, but the boy still managed to crumble it all down and tear it apart into an unmeasurable mess he’s not sure how to categorize and even less sure of how to handle. He finds himself lost in a labyrinth whose endless walls composed of what he thought he knew and what he had just discovered, and he’s not used to this loss of balance he had carefully constructed. Kaminari is…different, now, than how he was behind his television's screen, his battles broadcasted live and immortalized in the research videos that often kept him up at night, analysing their competition until his eyes dried and the sun rose behind his curtained windows. The new battle equipment the blond wore could only modify his appearance so much, but it was the newfound confidence it brought him that caused the most change, more than Shishikura had anticipated.
“You only read bits and pieces about us,” Kaminari had fumed, though not on his behalf, and that itself had been a surprise on its own, “but go on acting like a know-it-all.”
Shishikura had miscalculated his growth and the price of underestimating him was his own loss. Passing the exam had never been his priority, not the way weeding out the rabble out of his bunch of cretin heroes-wannabes, but the humiliation he had suffered at the U.A.’s students hands cut deeper and harsher than any lost battle would ever have.
As he lied in the rubble of the battle that ensued when his victims returned to their normal physiques, Bakugou and Kirishima walked away without a second glance, but Kaminari had lingered to look back: first at the chaos he partook in creating, then at the groaning bodies he had defeated, then, finally, down where Shishikura struggled to keep his eyes open.
Shishikura flickered in the brink of consciousness and unconsciousness, eyelids heavier than the rest of his unresponsive limbs, but the managed to catch sight of the boy looking back down at his hands, and his lips were curling up hesitantly in an uncertain smile.
It wavered with emotions he couldn’t discern, switching from surprise to disbelief to flaring determination, and Shishikura’s traitorous thoughts settled a peace within him that soothes his wounded dignity, if only for that moment, to allow him to rest.
He thought, as the boy rejoined his friends, that Kaminari really had grown considerably. Losing to him perhaps wasn’t so unnatural.
Shishikura, Camie often teases, has the bad habit of overthinking his failures. Pride is a dangerous thing to have and an impossible wound to heal, and he copes by reexamining every detail of his performance to swear to himself a repetition would never happen again. The reminder of his mistakes were written in the thin burn scars branded around his torso and right forearm and just below his jaw, hidden by his fringe, courtesy of Kaminari’s electricity. He thinks —a little angrily, a little offendedly, a little approvingly— that Kaminari has learned how to control his quirk enough to not injure his opponent too badly. It’s inevitable that he compares the present him to the boy behind his TV screen, months, months ago, discharging fully the moment his fight against the thorn-haired girl begun, clumsy in his own skin, unsure of his own power. Were he the same panic-struck kid from that time, Shishikura wouldn’t have gotten away with such light injuries. Kaminari’s quirk, after all, was highly dangerous for someone so unexperienced. Of course, were he also the same panic-struck kid from that time, Shishikura surely would not have lost to him, but he did, and now he’s forced to acknowledge this new him.
Shishikura starts to think that, maybe, there’s a little more to Kaminari than what he had initially thought. He’s not so self-centred as to believe that people are shallow enough to have only one face to their persona; humans are full of contradictions and exceptions of each other and themselves, but he never applied this line of thought to those whom he considered lesser.
What’s more surprising isn't the fact that Kaminari continues to surprise him, but that the more he learns, the more intrigued he feels. He needs to rewrite all he knew about him, and it’s becoming a problem how eager he is about it.
He learns that Kaminari believes in second chances and new beginnings. The next time they meet is by mere chance (Shishikura had never believed in things like luck, but in that moment he entertained the thought that if such a thing existed, it was certainly against him), and though Kaminari’s reaction upon seeing him again had been less than stellar, his discontent clear in his wild hand gestures and loud exclamations (Shishikura doesn’t take kindly to being called Meat Guy, but he supposes simpletons like Kaminari wouldn’t remember a name), a look at the shopping list in his previous-enemy’s hand gave him pause.
It’s how they end up running Shishikura’s errands together, with no little amount of protest on his behalf, but Kaminari had refused to take a no for an answer to his offer to help. You don’t know your way ‘round these parts, he had said, a grin on his lips, I’d feel kinda bad if I left ya alone like this. Could run into some trouble, y’know?
Shishikura knows the boy was mocking him, but he didn’t sense any ill will about it. He knew, of course, that Kaminari’s friendliness was something to admire, so it wouldn't be unlikely if he simply wanted to guide him around. It doesn’t make Shishikura any less wary, but there’s something disarming about the boy’s tilted head, shrugged shoulders, hands dug into his pockets with a lazy smile.
With a scoff, he had accepted, if only to save him the time and effort. He knows the difference between meeting in the battlefield as opponents and meeting in the streets as civilians out of duty, even if the humiliation still burned deep in his throat and stained his words with scorn.
He learns that Kaminari likes a lot of mustard in his burger, and the way the pungent condiment slimes down his fingers as he takes an overeager bite out of his was disgusting.
Shishikura looks down at his meal, a simple share and fries (half-eaten, and not by him; Kaminari likes to think he’s being sneaky stealing them, but Shishikura doesn’t care enough to call him out on it), and wonders when the blond’s offhand remark of I like burgers turned into dragging them both into the nearest local restaurant to seek a respite after running up and down the city to get a hold of everything Shishikura had been asked to buy.
He keeps a close eye on his diet and is quite meticulous with it. His quirk, after all, demanded a healthy body, but he finds it incredibly difficult to say no to Kaminari (he still tries).
He takes a tentative sip of his sugary drink and thinks breaking routine wouldn’t be so bad if it’s only once.
It’s past midnight when Shishikura’s phone rings, and through the initial wariness and irritation of getting an unexpected call at such an indecent time, he squints at the caller ID, confusion and displeasure spreading as he sees Kaminari’s name flashing on the screen with a peace sign emoji next to it.
He’s temporarily dumbfounded (he never asked for the guy’s number, or had the intention to do so), and he stares, shrouded in the darkness of his room, before answering cautiously.
“Denki Kaminari,” he starts, voice croaky from his sudden awakening. He clears his throat. “How is it that I have your phone number registered when I never inserted it?”
He hears shuffling bed sheets followed by a pause.
“Senpai?” he has the gall to ask, puzzled. “Dude, is that you?”
“It is,” Shishikura responds dryly. He glances at the digital clock he keeps on his desk, and the bright red numbers appear to mock him for entertaining such a call during his time of rest.
“Oh! Shit, man, I didn’t mean to call ya!” Kaminari’s voice is much too loud, much too lively for a time everyone must be asleep.
“You didn’t mean to call me,” Shishikura repeats slowly, “at 1:32am on a weekday?”
“It’s only Thursday!” the blond defends himself, completely missing the point. “Pretty much the weekend already!”
“How do I have your number, Kaminari?” Patience runs thin with each ticking second and the temptation to simply hang up and return to his sleep was very much appealing, but curiosity is a treacherous thing, so he doesn’t.
The boy laughs, a little sheepish. “Uh, remember lunch the other day? I might’ve taken a quick look at your phone to get your number. Might’ve also eaten some of your fries.”
Shishikura closes his eyes and takes a moment to breathe slowly through his nose, silently chastising himself. It seems he had once again lowered his guard against this person, even out of battle, and it had brought unpleasant results the same way their first encounter did. He had not noticed his phone missing during their ordeal, or had even been aware of Kaminari standing close enough to take and return it, and he feels anger and dismay all at once.
“Could you not have simply asked for it?”
“Would you have given it to me if I did?” Kaminari readily retorts. Touché.
“It matters not whether i rejected you or not,” he huffs, and he’s vexed at himself for being this irate in the first place, though it is not anger born out of Kaminari’s actions themselves, but the motivation behind them and his own inability to decipher them. Why would anyone go this far for him? It frustrates him that he doesn’t understand his line of thinking. “Only barbarians take someone else’s cellphone to get their number without their knowledge or permission.”
“Ugh, you’re totally right,” Kaminari groans, the sound of rustling bedsheets accompanying it. “Sorry. It was a kinda shitty thing to do, huh?”
It really was, Shishikura thinks, but he finds that he doesn’t…mind so much if it’s Kaminari. It was certainly a situation he should feel more outraged about, but he only feels mild exasperation now that Kaminari had apologized. He blames his lenience on his tiredness, even if he’s fully awake now.
“Don’t do it again,” he settles crossly and hears Kaminari let out a long sigh.
“Roger,” he mumbles. “Man, didn’t think I’d get a scolding from you this late.”
“You were the one to call unsolicitedly,” Shishikura points out, indignant. “And you still have not told me why.”
“I said it was an accident, didn’t i?” Kaminari says, which answered absolutely nothing. Before Shishikura could say so, the boy continued. “Meant to call Kirishima, actually — you both have pretty similar numbers, didja know? Must’ve gotten confused.”
“Then,” another glance at the clock reminds him he must wake up in a couple of hours for school, and this late night call was ruining his carefully planned schedule. “I shall be going. Goodnight.”
“W-wait!” Kaminari’s voice raises, and Shishikura briefly remembers the panic-struck boy from the sports festival. It makes apprehension burst somewhere within his chest, some kind of annoyance of which he can’t find the source of — perhaps it is because Kaminari is constantly proving him right and wrong, always in unexpected ways, and he had mistakingly thought Kaminari had been growing out of his more frantic tendencies. It is probably disappointment that he feels.
He waits.
“Um,” Kaminari must not have expected him to listen, judging by his sudden loss of words. Tripping over his own tongue, he stutters, “so, uh. What were ya doin’? Before I called, I mean.”
“I was sleeping, as it is norm for people to do during this time of the night, ” Shishikura doesn’t know what the point of his idle conversation was, or where it was heading, but he has long learned that being around Kaminari makes him do foolish things. So much for having a routine.
“Sleeping, huh?” Kaminari laughs quietly, audibly more relaxed now. The strange feeling of disappointment (though that was not quite right, was it? He doesn’t care enough to explore) dwindles, and Shishikura vaguely wonders if the boy is laying down and staring at the ceiling against the wall, or hanging his head over the side of the bed. The thought is a little amusing. “Should’ve known ya were the type of guy to go to bed early.”
“I knew you were not,” he humours him. “You certainly don’t hold the air of the responsible type.”
“Rude!” Despite his choice of words, Kaminari laughs a little louder against the speaker. The sound is oddly relaxing. “I’ll have ya know I’m plenty smart when I wanna be!”
He almost rolls his eyes. Almost, for he catches the childish urge just in time to suppress it, and once again curses the blond’s ability to make him behave in such an uncharacteristic manner.
“Intelligence does not correlate with responsibility.”
“Of course you’d say that, Mr. Know-it-all,” Kaminari teases. “Bet’cha even have some kinda strict routine ya follow down to the t every day.”
Shishikura takes offence, and that much is evident in his tone of voice. It only makes Kaminari laugh harder.
“Having an organized structure has endless benefits, Kaminari. It aids you in categorising your activities and keeps track of your duties and help avoiding the most minimal wastes of time.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kaminari snickers. “What about free time? You do got space for that in that tight schedule of yours, don’cha?”
“We are heroes in training,” he scoffs. “Any extra time we happen to have should be used to improve ourselves."
Kaminari clicks his tongue in clear disapproval.
“You need to go out more often,” he decides. “Make some free time! You an’ me, next Saturday, back at the place we bumped into the other day.”
“What is it that you’re planning?” Shishikura is understandably suspicious, but he doesn’t fight it. Once again, he blames it on the time and wonders when he became so indulgent.
“Only planning to show ya a good time!” he exclaims. Shishikura can imagine him winking and it makes him want to rub his temples. “Breakin’ out of boring routine will do ya good!”
“We will see,” is what he says, not giving a set answer, but Kaminari seems to know it’s as good as a yes.
“Alright!” he cheers. “I’ll call you then, ‘kay? Goodnight!”
The call ends abruptly without giving Shishikura any time to respond, and he stays still for the next couple of seconds, replaying their conversation and feeling like his room is much too quiet now with Kaminari gone. He shrugs the strange feeling of emptiness off and readjusts his position in bed, pulling the covers over his shoulder after leaving his cellphone next to his pillow.
It’s not until he’s about to fall asleep that he remembers that in order to make a call of an already existing contact all you had to do was tap their name in your phone directory, not type out their entire number. There was no way Kaminari had called him on accident that way.
Still…it wasn’t such an unpleasant experience, regardless of his true intentions. When Shishikura closes his eyes for the last time that night, he can still hear Kaminari’s laughter next to him, and it lulls him into a peaceful sleep.
Shishikura isn’t so sure how it happened (he can only place the blame on Kaminari’s friendly stubbornness and the reluctant respect he has for the blond after defeating him during the exam), but they end up meeting every other weekend whenever both their schedules allowed it. For all of Kaminari’s talk of leisure, he doesn’t have as much free time as he says he does, or at least not enough for them to see each other often due to living in separate cities.
“I’m tryna cut down on skipping classes,” Kaminari had told him once, voice surprisingly solemn despite the smile he wore. The dimming sunlight had made his eyes glow golden in the sunset, and in them Shishikura had seen that ferocity he wore in the exam when protecting his friends. Suddenly, it was a little hard to breathe. “Used to do that a lot in the beginning, but lots of stuff has happened since then, ya know? Kinda realized I gotta step up my game and do my best with everyone.”
Calling regularly, however, had become common. At one point Shishikura starts ending his nightly training a little earlier, sitting by his desk with his school books open in front of him and his cellphone besides them.
(No matter how hard he tries, his eyes keep drifting away from the lecture to check for any calls.)
His routine morphs to fit Kaminari in it and it’s not nearly as bad of a change as he had feared. Kaminari isn’t as overwhelming as he had initially thought; though his presence was often accompanied by pulling all nighters talking about nothing and everything at once, he wasn’t imposing. Bakugou and Kirishima had their own fierce auras that demanded all eyes on them, and back in the battlefield so did Kaminari for a moment, but through the phone, or sitting right beside him, he wasn’t as intense as he was simply bright, and Shishikura finds himself innately gravitating towards him.
Kaminari has the bad habit of texting everyone every day, starting with a good morning before school began and ending with a goodnight before bed. It became less frequent since they moved into the dorms, the blond had admitted over the phone, since he and his classmates saw each other all the time.
“So,” Kaminari had chirped mischievously, “I’ve got no choice but to send them to you now, huh?”
True to his word (his threat, really), Kaminari started texting him daily and, coupled with the calls, Shishikura found his time was increasingly belonging more and more to him. Even if Kaminari respected his agenda and knew when not to call, there were occasions he still texted during the time they both had class, interrupting Shishikura's lesson with the demanding vibration of his phone against his leg. It’s not surprising; he had the bad habit of getting caught up in his excitement, his first reaction often being texting Shishikura to share whatever had happened with emojis to spare.
Naturally, due to these circumstances, it’s only expected that Shishikura, slave to routines, would be thrown off-balance by Kaminari’s abrupt absence. Without any prior notice, he stops calling, stops texting, and the time Shishikura had spent on him was suddenly turned into stealing glances at his phone and waiting for calls that never came. A day turns into two and two days turn into a week, and if there’s anything he cannot stand it is broken promises, however unspoken they were, and loose ends, so he calls.
A ring, two. Shishikura can’t help but wonder what happened. It wasn’t like Kaminari to drop things so curtly.
Thee, four. He wonders, most of all, when he had fallen to the point of caring this much. What was it to him if Kaminari called him or not? It wasn’t like they were friends. He wasn’t so sure what to call their relationship, but even if Shishikura had grown to accept his begrudging respect turned into an unwilling kind of tolerance that allowed this peculiar companionship between the two to occur, he wouldn’t go as far as to declare the U.A. student as something as familiar as his "buddy". The mere word (a term that Kaminari would use, undoubtedly) makes him want to grimace.
Five, six. They’re simply unlikely acquaintances, perhaps no different than penpals who wrote to each other out of obligation. Except talking to Kaminari was anything but; talking to Kaminari was like breathing fresh air when all that’s ever filled your lungs was asphyxiating smoke, with an enthusiasm that didn’t overwhelm as much as it embraced. With him around, Shishikura felt exhaustion and a surge of energy all at once, and he's never quite known anyone like him. He hates that he's so thrown off-balance by him, but most of all hates that he still wants him back.
“What's up?”
Broken out of his reveries, Shishikura pauses. He wasn’t sure if he expected Kaminari to pick up, but his voice sends him back to the memory of their last call, his last goodnight that had lulled him to sleep, of his cheery laugher against his ear, and for a second he's not sure what to say.
“Kaminari,” he greets.
“Oh!” The voice in the other line brightens. “Senpai! You’ve never called me before!”
“You usually do,” he doesn’t mean to sound nearly as accusatory as he does, but Kaminari had broken into his life without any room for objections and left an irreparable dent in it with his departure. Surely, he cannot be blamed for feeling put out. “But not as of late.”
Kaminari whines. “Dude, our teachers are slave-drivers! I’m, like, drowning in work. I swear I can only think in math formulas from now on. Been pullin’ a ton of all-nighters with the guys, so I think I’m comin’ down with something. Can you get sick from doing so much homework?”
“I see.” It made sense: Kaminari’s abrupt absence, his previous confession of wanting to do his best in school. It doesn’t excuse the fact he completely disappeared without notice, but it explained the why. “That’s the reason you haven’t called.”
Kaminari doesn’t respond immediately, and Shishikura doesn’t catch on to his faux pas until he does.
“Aww,” the blond coos. “Did’ja miss me, Senpai?”
Miss him? His disappearance was simply an inconvenience. It wasn’t anything as personal as that.
“It appears that you’re well enough to ruminate outrageous conclusions,” he replies curtly. “You mustn’t be as sick as you preach.”
“I am sick! For real!” Kaminari wails and starts coughing for emphasis. How typically childish of him. (Shishikura doesn’t know why the familiarity of it makes him feel warm. He tugs at his collar.)
“Heedful studying is the key to good grades,” he says. “Cramming continuously will only deteriorate your health, which will negatively affect your performance. No matter how much you study, it won’t mean a thing if you’re not in top form.”
Kaminari breathes out a quiet laugh, and there’s something soft about it.
“I did kinda miss your old man lectures,” he admits in a murmur. The rustling bedsheets are a reminiscence of their first phone call, so long ago now, and Shishikura can hear Kaminari flopping down on his bed with a tired sigh. “Sorry I poofed. Really wanted to do well, but I feel like i’m not getting anything done. Sucks that no matter how much I study I can’t remember any of it.”
Kaminari’s perseverance isn't so surprising anymore, and neither are his methods. He was making a conscious effort to better himself and use all of U.A.’s resources for his personal and academic growth, and that’s something Shishikura can sincerely respect.
“Perhaps your methods aren’t compatible with your learning process,” he ventures.
“Dude, I’ve tried every trick in the book,” Kaminari laments. “Not even Yaomomo can help me out on this one.”
“But you have not tried every trick in my book,” is Shishikura’s clipped response, and the unvoiced proposal shocks Kaminari into a silence he recovers from quickly.
“Are you offering to tutor me, Mr. Know-it-all?” he asks playfully.
Shishikura plays along blithely. “I do enjoy a challenge.”
“I’ll make it worth your time,” Kaminari snickers.
“Usual place next week?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “Call me tomorrow to arrange the meeting.”
“I’ll call.” The trace of Kaminari’s laugher remains in the slight quiver of his voice, and Shishikura’s heart races. “See ya then.”
Shortly before bed, he receives a text with a simple “goodnight”, and it feels like everything has fallen back into place.
Kaminari’s flipping the page of his book, his other hand swirling his pen as his lips purse. The clock on the wall indicates hours gone by, but Shishikura pays no attention to it. He finds his focus completely set on the crease of Kaminari’s forehead, and once again realizes how earnest he is about passing this exam.
The Kaminari here and now was genuine in his efforts. Now Shishikura acknowledges his passion to his affiliation, and he finally lets go of his doubts and earlier grudge. The taste of his defeat is still bitter in his tongue, and he doesn’t believe he could ever forget the absolute humiliation that had crawled up his back and perched on his shoulders in a weight he’ll never be able to shrug off, but despite that, the process of acceptance begins with seeing Kaminari doing his best in his journey to become a hero. He had started rockily, and the sports festival made it obvious how much work he still had ahead of him, but he makes up for his early blunders in the determination he displays now.
In time, he could grow to be a great hero.
He must have said so out loud, because Kaminari’s looking at him, eyes wide, mouth agape, and his pen slips from his fingers.
How unsightly. (His own neck feels too hot. He tries not to tug at his collar.)
“What did you just say?” is Kaminari’s baffled question.
U.A. is an excellent institution. There’s no shame in voicing his respect, so why does he suddenly feel hesitant? Something about the shine in Kaminari’s eyes makes his breath catch on his throat.
“You think I’d make a great hero?” the blond asks in a strange mix of excitement and bashfulness. Kaminari touches his neck nervously and his blush is quick to rise from his chest, patching peach skin in a lovely red, staining his cheeks with his embarrassment.
They can’t meet each other’s eyes and Shishikura wonders why this feels as intimate as it does.
“No one’s ever told me that directly before,” Kaminari tells him, quiet, as if it were a secret. “‘Sides from my family, of course. I didn’t use to be so serious about this whole hero thing. I mean, I really wanted to be a pro, but I wasn’t particularly motivated. Until recently, I couldn’t even control my electric flows properly. Standing beside people like Bakugou and Midoriya — it’s kinda like a slap in the face, y’know? Watchin’ them made me feel kinda ashamed of myself, in a way.”
His eyes lower down to the table, but they don’t focus on the book.
“When Bakugou was taken…” A pause follows and his lips purse, but he continues. “I could’ve helped. If I hadn’t failed my exam, I wouldn’t have been locked up while everyone else was out in the woods fighting for their lives.”
He looks back up and grins, but there’s something somber about it. It’s to be expected that this might be a hard topic to talk about for he and Bakugou were friends, after all. It was bound to leave a mark on anyone.
“I wanna start doing things right,” he says. “Thanks for helping me get there.”
Something in Shishikura’s chest flutters, and he thinks: Oh.
“There’s nothing to gain by dwelling on the past,” Shishikura says with finality. There was definitely more to the kidnapping Kaminari wasn’t sharing, but he did not seem eager to divulge, so Shishikura doesn’t ask for details. “You can make up for your faults by learning from your mistakes and continuing to grow from them. You are in the right track, Kaminari.”
Kaminari’s grin wavers, but he nods once and doesn’t say a thing. Shishikura watches him go back to his studying and he finally makes sense of the fondness gnawing at his chest.
The more he learns about Kaminari, the more he starts learning about himself.
Sometimes they're trivial things, like noticing he prefers the warmth of Kaminari’s hands instead of his gloves when the winter winds are harsher, and that no heater could compare to the way the blond’s smile brought the sun down with him, and that he likes checking his phone during break to check for any missed texts sent in class.
Sometimes they're heavier things, such as how he learns he doesn’t like the way Kaminari bears guilt that is not his to have.
His fingers brush away Shishikura’s hair, tucking it behind his ear, gentle with hesitance, afraid of what there is to find. His own heart beats a little faster, a little louder, a little more desperately when Kaminari finds the scar of their battle that he keeps hidden and the boy’s breath hits his neck. It’s only then that he realizes how terrified Kaminari truly was about hurting people with his quirk, the reason why after their fight he had looked so surprised and disbelieving and relieved and Shishikura finds it foolish, foolish, foolish — heroes can’t always save people without sacrificing something first, without hurting others in the way.
“You’re such a hardass, but you’re really pretty,” Kaminari sighs, nuzzled against his jaw. Shishikura almost jerks away in surprise, much too startled to react to such a shameless confession, but, unfortunately for him, his skin is the one to reply in a quickly rising blush, and he’s mortified. He’s not a modest person in the slightest, but the fact that it’s Kaminari who says it, standing so close to him, makes his throat constrict and blocks his voice. “I’m not complaining, though. That ostentatiousness of yours is part of why I like you.”
Kaminari’s lips press softly against his jaw, on the scar his electricity gave him, and Shishikura doesn’t like that it feels like an apology, because theirs was a fair fight that had no place for regrets, so he steps forward, closer, and lowers his head to steal a proper kiss.
There’s a certain kind of satisfaction in feeling Kaminari jump at the change of control, his lips tingling with the brief electric discharge he tends to release when surprised (and Shishikura isn’t so sure when or how he learned this about him, but at the moment he doesn’t care for details, only cups Kaminari’s cheeks between his hands and presses harder).
Kaminari’s much too carefree with a heart much too heavy to bear, but that’s alright. It’s part of why Shishikura likes him.
(He learns, soon after, that Kaminari likes to play with Shishikura's hero costume when they're kissing. His fingers trace down his collar, spread over his chest and leave goosebumps in the wake of his touch, heartbeat racing and skipping at the curl of their tongues. Arms circle around his wast mischievously, finding the straps of his apron and intertwining his fingers in them. Shishikura retaliates by pulling at Kaminari’s choker and feels the boy's breathless laughter against his lips, and he thinks he wouldn't mind if this became routine.)
He knows, now, that was people they’re ever-growing and ever-changing and constantly rediscovering themselves. He doesn’t know everything about Denki, but there was nothing wrong with that. He’s content discovering new things every day.