Chapter Text
Bakugo flopped back onto the bed, cool sheets meeting his warm, slightly damp skin.
“C’mon, you’ve taken the bed every other time,” Kirishima groaned as he stepped out of the bathroom.
“You’re free to use the other one,” Bakugo gestured lazily over to the messy bed right next to him, blankets rumpled and bodily fluids still drying in the AC pumping through.
The room still smelled like sex.
The fumes of their recreation was slowly being diluted by the mist from the bathroom that carried the citrus-y scent of bodywash. Kirishima’s hair dripped onto the carpet, towel still around his waist. He stuck out a tongue.
“I’m busy all day tomorrow,” he huffed as he began to pull out the bed from the couch. “You could give up the bed once.”
“You’re the one railing me in the ass all night,” Bakugo shrugged as he scrolled through his phone. His thumb paused over an article covering Red Riot’s recent battle.
Kirishima huffed as he sat heavily down on the pullout bed. “You’re the one who texted me to meet you here.”
“And you came over.”
The red head looked up at Bakugo, frowning. “Hey, I’ve been pent up lately. It’s been a while since we’ve done it last.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Bakugo waved his hand dismissively. Kirishima’s phone buzzed loudly and he checked it curiously.
“Guh, damn. I can’t stay. I forgot I had a train to catch.”
Bakugo finally sat up, narrowing his eyes. “To where?” He spat out.
“Sendai. They’re backed up ‘cuz villain activity’s gone up.” He stood up and tugged on his shirt, reaching for his jacket. “I thought I told you guys the other day. I’ll be back in like, a week! See ya, Bakugo!”
The blonde grunted in response, gaze returning to the articles on his phone, but the headlines and characters suddenly made no sense no matter how many times he read them in the span of time it took Kirishima to shove his feet into his shoes and shut the hotel door.
As soon as Bakugo heard Kirishima’s steps fade away, he threw his phone onto the now-abandoned pullout.
“Fuck!”
The device bounced off the cheap mattress and clattered onto the carpeted floor with an unsatisfying thud. Bakugo’s entire body screamed at him to blow up, to make a noise, to destroy the entire building just so he could get those crimson eyes to glance at him once more.
Instead, his fingers found his scalp, pulling at the hair as he grit his teeth until his jaw shook from the strain. He squeezed his eyes, knowing that if he opened them he’d just see the empty hotel room slowly being drained of Kirishima’s presence with every second that passed since the door clicked shut.
“Fuck,” Bakugo whispered as his eyes slowly opened.
The hotel room grew colder and colder as the heat of their earlier interaction withered away with the blasting AC.
If he wrapped himself in the blankets of the other bed, would he still be able to feel Kirishima’s warmth trapped in the folds of the fabric? Was the sweat he shed even there anymore, or had it already disappeared like him? Could thrashing around in the soiled sheets make Bakugo feel cleaner with the knowledge that Kirishima chose to fuck him, or would it just linger like a cold film on his skin that reminded him that in those very sheets just minutes before, he was nothing but a warm body?
Bakugo buried any thought of even looking in the general direction of the dirtied bed.
It’s fine, he thought to himself as he wrapped himself in the blankets of his own bed, hoping that his warmth would spread quickly into the still-cold fabric so he wouldn’t stop the miniscule shivers running down his spine. It’s been going on for a year now. Kirishima could always find another person to fuck, but he chooses me. Even today, he initiated the whole thing.
Yeah.
Being friends with benefits is better than just friends.
…Right?
He drew his knees up to his chest.
His ass still ached.
Even after the tender touches, the gentle aftercare, the slow easing, the soreness never really went away.
It stayed.
But he liked the burn. He enjoyed how he stretched around Kirishima every time he entered him, he liked how he always felt so full whenever the red head would bottom out, he loved the way he could feel Kirishima inside of him as they became one body.
He just wished that Kirishima missed the feeling as much as Bakugo did.
It’s sex. It’s just physical. Nothing’s exchanged between us except for spit and cum and sweat.
We’re still best friends.
Bakugo’s arms wrapped around himself and his fingers traced the tender marks that Kirishima left on him. They rarely went above his collarbone– even if they did, they’d stay securely hidden beneath the layers that his hero costume had on.
We’re still… exes.
***
“I think we should break up,” Bakugo said, leaning against Kirishima’s bed as he sat on the floor. Kirishima paused, in the process of folding his blanket as he packed his dorm up.
“Yeah,” he said, setting the blanket down in the box, pushing it down to squeeze out the air. “We’re gonna get really busy, huh?”
Bakugo peered over at him, surprised at his mild reaction. “You agree?”
“I mean,” Kirishima rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been the best dating you since the war, Katsuki, but… we’ve been so busy ever since the second semester of our second year hit. I can count the number of dates we went on this year on one hand. I’d… also rather break up before we end it really messily later.”
“We’re still gonna be best friends, though,” Bakugo spat out, sitting up straight and glaring at him. “Don’t think that just because we broke up means our years as friends went to waste.”
Kirishima waved his hands in defense frantically. “No way, man! We’re still gonna be together as Pros! Just, y’know… not together.”
“Good to know you think the same,” Bakugo huffed out. Something twitched in the corner of his mind.
Disappointment?
At what?
That Kirishima took it so… easily?
Idiot. It would’ve been messier if he broke down. Then I’d feel bad.
Whatever. It’s a high school relationship. I valued our friendship way more, anyway.
“So… Do you still want me to call you by your first name, then?” Kirishima asked. “Since we’re not dating anymore.”
“Do whatever you want,” Bakugo leaned back again and closed his eyes.
He didn’t actually expect Kirishima to want to call Bakugo… Bakugo again.
Sure. Katsuki was fine. Intimate, if anything. But even the rest of his friends just called him Bakugo.
Only Kirishima had the privilege of calling Bakugo anything but.
But now even as Kirishima moaned, as he let out a string of incomprehensible words as he finished, he called Bakugo just that.
Bakugo.
Well, sure, Bakugo called Kirishima “Kirishima.”
But he sometimes caught himself before he said ‘Eijiro’ or ‘Ei’ or anything of the sort. Hell, even ‘Kiri’ was off the table because nicknames were a relationship thing, not a friendship thing.
Nicknames were intimate.
Personal.
They showed that they cared.
Bakugo certainly didn’t — at least with whatever was going on between the two.
But in this empty, empty hotel room he felt as if his wax heart were melting just at the thought of that sunny smile.
It was like that bruise lying under his skin whenever Kirishima hit him hard enough during training, an ache that stretched into every nerve as blood pounded through his brain and he wished that that blood would just spill out of him because it was the same color as those eyes.
Bakugo felt his eyelids lift and he realized with a start that he had fallen asleep. He got up, sheets rustling, when he realized that there was a tightness on his face that he recognized as dried tears. He patted the pillow where his head had fallen and felt the light dampness of it. He shivered at the vulnerability that stained the fabric, suddenly grateful for the empty hotel room because no one had seen him in such a messy state.
If he had seen me, would he have woken me up?
Would he have brushed my tears away?
Or maybe he’d just kiss them off and watch me until I stopped.
Nah. He probably would have just hugged me and let his body do the talking. He’s always been like that.
No, that’s what he did when we were at UA. He’d start using his words more.
Or maybe he’s still like that.
Right?
Bakugo paused in his thoughts, suddenly aware of the fact that he was running through endless possibilities without any way to ever find out which one was true.
The alarm on his phone suddenly rang out, buzzing on the ground where he had thrown it the night before.
5:30. Gotta get going.
***
Bakugo pretended that his lower back didn’t ache in tandem with his movements as he raced through the city in a flurry of explosions blooming from his hands.
It wasn’t like it was the first time Kirishima had gone so rough that the effects of the night before lingered in the fibers of his muscles. The soreness had died down astronomically since their first time going at it together.
He just wished that his body would just get used to the treatment at this point. There was no use forcing him to remember whatever had happened hours earlier.
“Dynamight,” someone called over comms. One of his sidekicks– Frostbite, if he remembered right. “We got a villain, near the Midnight Soiree hotel!”
“Already there!” he barked, seeing the tall building to his right before propelling himself over.
As he arrived, he looked down and saw what looked like a large kaiju-like monster near the entrance of the hotel. Bakugo narrowed his eyes at the sight of what looked like a woman in the villain’s clawed grasp.
“Hey, Frostbite!” he snapped over the earpiece. “Didn’t think to tell me there was a fucking hostage?!”
“I was kinda in the middle of evacuating when I called you– didn’t realize that he had taken one!”
“Sharpen up!” Bakugo barked before diving down towards the villain, a palm opening towards him. “Stun Grenade!”
A bright flash erupted from his hand and the monster roared in pain. The woman screamed as he let go of her, and Bakugo launched himself towards her.
“I got the woman!” Frostbite yelled. Bakugo glanced over and saw the hero already racing towards the falling civilian in a rush of ice. “Get the villain!”
“I have eyes, you know! I can see that!” Spinning himself around, he blasted himself upwards before beginning to fall in a spiral motion. “Howitzer– Impact!”
The villain roared as Bakugo slammed into him in the whirl of blaze and nitroglycerin, falling over while simultaneously shrinking in size as his Quirk deactivated. Bakugo landed neatly on the ground beside the man, who lay on the ground groaning in pain.
“Tch. Barely even worth my time,” Bakugo snapped, looking down at the man scornfully. Police rushed over to the scene, handcuffing the villain and helping him to his feet.
With a sudden burst of energy, the man snapped his head up and lunged towards the woman, who was being checked over nearby by the ambulance.
“Damn it, damn it!” he screamed. “Fuck you, you bitch! What did I even do to you, huh?! We dated for years! Why’d you suddenly break up with me back then?! And now you’re off at hotels with other guys?!”
The woman jumped and scowled at the villain. “What, you think I wanted to break up in highschool?!” she yelled back. She stood up abruptly and marched over. “You know we were both gonna get busy! I’m about to go to nursing school in America, and you’re about to go overseas for business, anyway! Wasn’t it better to break things off cleanly then than later?”
“I was gonna propose,” he hissed. “Right after you graduated, damn it!”
“So what?” she scoffed. “You almost killed me today!” she clenched her jaw. “It’s been years, Hisato. Feelings from high school aren’t relevant anymore. Get over it! Stop caring!” she stormed away angrily, the man yelling incoherent rants and curses at her, all the way until his voice was muffled by the door of the police car as he was shoved inside.
“Thanks Dynamight,” a policewoman said gratefully. “That was straight out of a movie, I swear.”
Bakugo blinked before glancing at her and scoffing. “It was nothing,” he mumbled. “Frostbite, take care of the rest.”
“Roger,” the sidekick nodded before looking at his very still boss. “You good, Dynamight?”
He waved dismissively at him before launching himself back up in the air, feeling the wind rustle his hair.
It was a lot quieter up there. No sound except for his own Quirk firing to keep him afloat.
Stop caring.
He wanted to brush off the argument like nothing. Just a spat between ex-lovers– clearly, the villain was still hung over about his highschool ex as a grown fucking man. Bakugo wished he could call him an obsessive freak and move on with his day.
Except for the fact that he was almost in the same exact situation (not that he would turn into Gojira if he ever saw Kirishima at a hotel with another person.)
Damn it. I almost had him off my mind there. Bakugo grit his teeth as he landed on the rooftop of a building, running a frustrated hand through his hair. What a fucking joke. I’m in the same boat as that villain. I can’t say jack about him.
Just stop caring! The woman’s voice echoed in his mind. Even if it wasn’t aimed at Bakugo, the words still dug into his brain in a way that he didn’t like.
“Just stop caring,” he mumbled under his breath as he scanned the city below, eyes darting around for suspicious behavior. “Like anyone can.”