Work Text:
Overall art skill was not how he got in, Izuku came to the conclusion when he’d compared portfolios with others. Where others excelled in colors and charcoals, Izuku had unsurprising difficulties. He excelled in the academic portions, the history of it all. He had memorized major events, archived in his mind art censorship studies and the reality that they were all fortunate to get to draw what their heart wanted.
Bakugou was all that and more. Per usual. He was good at charcoal, good at making what he wanted appear with the stroke of a pen, a liner, even oil paints. He was picturesque, admirable despite his ill-gotten attitude--attitude Izuku himself was rather allergic to.
So was half the school.
Izuku let out a sigh as he studied the canvas set in front of him, eyes studying the profile before turning back to look at Bakugou. The worst thing their teacher could’ve done was pair them up, worser still, assign Izuku the job of capturing his appearance. Capturing a face he’d never seen all too serene, look into the eyes of his long time tormentor--to an extent anyway.
The sun flitted in through the window, orange cascading down and flooding the room. Izuku could pick out duster particles as they moved in the still air, the room making him feel sleepy. Calm. His fingers, dirtied up with charcoal, smoothed at the lines he was forming. He was told he made them too sharp, or too small, or too dark, too light. There was always a problem with his methodology, and Izuku hadn’t begun to consider why.
What he did spare a thought to was Bakugou, green eyes scanning him where he was. Bakugou sat ahead of him, arm resting against the window. His chin lay against his palm, red eyes staring out of the window. At what, Izuku didn’t bother to ask, especially when talking seemed to be something they couldn’t do.
He studied how the shadows fell over Bakugou’s face instead, the sharp definition of his jaw, firm, set lips. His eyes were always narrowed into a glare, little creases between his brow and nose had set in permanently. His nose wasn’t pointed, not by much, defined but round. There was a slight sink to the underside of Bakugou’s eyes, right below his waterline. His lashes weren’t long, not like Kirishima’s, but long enough that whenever he drowsily blinked, they fanned against his cheekbone.
That was another thing too, His cheeks, not rounded the way Izuku’s were. It’d always been that way, even when they were teenagers. One moment, Bakugou looked as young as he was, but by the end of his high school career he’d grown into himself. Broad shoulders, strong arms, Izuku could see the remnants of paint underneath his fingernails, caked. His right index finger had a permanent dent in it.
Izuku took Bakugou in in his entirety, fingers curling around the piece of charcoal in his hands, fingerpads smoothing at the corroded surface, feeling as crumbs fell from it and spilled onto the floor. He raised his hand, dragging the charcoal over the surface of his paper. The shadows of his jaw, the contours of his lips and how the bottom one seemed a bit more pronounced--could have just been a result of Bakugou’s perpetual pout, however.
From the way his shirt clung to his pectorals, cardigan hung loosely off defined shoulders. Shorts, his leg crossed over the other, combat boots that seemed too old for combat anymore, one of the shoelaces was missing an aglet. Smaller details, the designs on Bakugou’s clothing, color differentiation. The way shadows affected those colors, made them darker in some areas, made Bakugou seem lighter in comparison.
He’d been quiet for a long time already. Izuku consumed by and focused on his work.
A fantastic artist wasn’t one that could just draw, but one that could create something beautiful from their source material. A drawing alone was good, but the passion that could be derived from it, pulled from the seams and splayed out for everyone to see. Izuku’s dreams were of that, not of art galleries but of emotion and evoking it. Simple, trivial things he bothered to tell no one.
Rough, calloused fingertips smudged the black charcoal here and there, his other hand reaching over and picking up one of the white sticks he had sitting at the base of his stand. He brought it up around the eyes, the hair he’d been working on the outline of. Hair that Izuku wondered about. It was pointed, frizzy, like Bakugou sat in a toaster every morning. It’d always been like that, puffed up, coarse unlike Izuku’s. So many things unlike him, minute characteristics.
Things Izuku realized he hadn’t just noticed, but rather, had known for years now.
He followed the curvature of one of the lines with his nail, smoothing over another with his finger. Hands stained, blackened, all for the sake of creating. The sun was still setting, albeit by this point it looked darker. Bakugou had closed his eyes at some point, not that Izuku noticed until he accidentally knocked one of the spare pieces of charcoal away with fumbling hands.
The noise broke his spell of concentration, rousing Bakugou’s attention with a firm, set glare in Izuku’s direction. Izuku blinked, eyes shifting back to look at his canvas--and for a moment he couldn’t believe he was the one who had drawn it. Shading was a skill he was particularly good at, but even he noted the intense attention to detail. Every line purposeful, for the sake of forming an image and holding it. Not something he’d made before, especially considering how weak he was when it came to life drawing and profiles.
He paled a bit, taking a step back and rummaging around the nearby desks for one of the towels he’d set out earlier.
“Oi, Deku?”
That sounded annoyed, made him jerk his head immediately in Bakugou’s direction. Izuku shouldn’t have felt a sudden rush to hide what he’d just drawn, but he did, it was probably instinct.
“Are you fucking done?” Was the question, and it gave Izuku enough time to collect his thoughts, letting out a huff.
“A-Ah! Yeah--mhhm, yup, c-completely done. So d-done you could go now a-and I’ll see y-you next class,” Izuku replied, faux joy as he scrambled to toss the broken pieces of charcoal and clean up the general area around him.
Bakugou kept his glare set on his face, eyes questioning, “The hell is wrong with you.”
“Oh? Me, nothing, I’m p-peachy,” Izuku’s attention went back to the sketch, his own eyes narrowing, more for himself than for anyone else.
He knew better than to touch charcoal when it was done--and yet? He wanted to put his hands on it. Well, that was a dilemma--a dilemma for another day.
Bakugou had gotten up at some point, letting out a yawn and stretching as he moved toward the door. Izuku kept his gaze locked, using his foot to slowly tilt the canvas toward himself the closer he got to the door--just because the less Bakugou saw of it the better. Not because it looked horrendous, but because he even got the flyaways of Bakugou’s hair and that wasn’t a conversation he was keen on having today.
Bakugou must have noticed his jerky behavior, pinched expression on his features as he regarded Izuku. But he wasn’t the type to ask questions, especially when it came to someone he didn’t get along with. So after scrutinizing him for a few seconds, he opened the door to the classroom and walked out, giving Izuku a chance to breathe.
Izuku pressed the back of his hand to his chest, letting out a much needed breath, shoulders slumping before turning to examine the canvas again. His eyebrows creased a bit, more tired than anything else.
This was one little nugget he thought he’d left behind him years ago, and the last thing Izuku wanted was for it to resurface. Not now, especially not now.