Work Text:
“Kirishima-kun!”
The redhead turns around to find Midoriya a few paces behind him, a tattered looking notebook and pen in hand. He grins in greeting, and the greenette sheepishly smiles back.
“Is that…” he falters, and then looks back up, green eyes glimmering in the festival lights and clutching his pen with such determination that Kirishima worries it will crack. “…Kacchan’s jacket?” he asks, vibrating with adamant curiosity.
Kirishima blinks at him.
The fabric flutters softly around his shoulders, embroidered flames warming his skin. He thinks back to a few hours ago, when it found its way onto the shoulders he’d left exposed to the winter chill. Tips of his ears and nose pink from the cold, the blonde had muttered, “Careless idiot”, as he walked by, patting the jacket softly onto his back, toasty palm warming Kirishima’s numbed skin.
He'd been wearing it ever since.
“Uh, yeah”, he smiles at Midoriya, who nods vigorously and starts scrawling frantically in his notebook.
“Thanks, Kirishima-kun! See you back at the dorms!” Midoriya chirps before he waves goodbye and starts sprinting away to his friends.
“See ya!” Kirishima responds, rubbing his neck in poorly disguised confusion.
The jacket billows around him, enveloping his torso in a sudden gust of wind.
The air around him smells like caramel.
***
“Let me have a taste!”
“No.”
“Come on, please!”
“No.”
“Bakugoooouuu!”
“Shitty Hair, I swear if you beg me one more time, I’m gonna shove this spoon down your throat.”
Kirishima pouts and does his best impression of a kicked puppy.
Bakugou, being the heartless asshole that he is, continues eating his food while maintaining disconcerting and unblinking eye contact with the redhead.
Kirishima is hungry.
He will try again another day.
***
“How do you not understand fractions?”
“I understand them just fine, Bakugou–-- if you just–--”
“If you did then you wouldn’t make this stupid mistake, you moron–--”
“But this is an equation! It’s different when it’s–--”
“NO IT ISN’T, BROOMHEAD, YOU NEED TO CHANGE THE SIGNS–--”
“THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE, BAKUGOU–”
“IT WILL IF YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME!”
Kirishima grinds his teeth. In the pause that follows, he feels several eyes on him. As his face starts to match his hair in embarrassment, he sinks down into the seat and tries to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible.
Bakugou stretches out in the booth and regards him with a challenging expression and raised eyebrows.
Kirishima sighs. “Explain it to me then.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do all this time–”
“SLOWLY”, he insists.
He insists, and Bakugou takes a long sip of his drink whilst fixing him with an unimpressed glare. Kirishima perseveres.
In the end, he has a slightly charred notebook and probably some bruises on his head, but he learns how to solve for x. Probably.
***
“What are these?” the redhead asks, pulling out a pair of long sticks from a box.
Bakugou rolls his eyes at him. “They’re for hiking.”
Kirishima tilts his head thoughtfully. “Oh! For, like, poking bears and stuff?”
Bakugou looks two seconds away from murder. Eventually, he grits his teeth, sighs, and makes a grab for them. “No, you moron, what– just– Give them to me.”
Kirishima holds on to the end of one stick, insistent. “Then what’re they for?”
“For support and shit! Now shut the fuck up”, the blonde grumbles, tugging the item out of Kirishima’s hand.
“Ah, I see!” the redhead nods, reaching for another box.
They continue unpacking Bakugou’s things in the dorm room in silence, Kirishima eventually assigned the role of breaking down the cardboard boxes so they can fit in the recycling bin.
Bakugou has a surprising number of books, Kirishima discovers. And one suspiciously bent looking cactus in a little terracotta pot. Poking at it with a slightly hardened finger, he discovers the little thorns feel like fuzz.
“I’ll take you…sometime” Bakugou mumbles when Kirishima is busy holding up a band poster so the blonde can figure out the alignment.
“Huh?”
“Hiking. I’ll take you”, the blonde repeats gruffly, swatting the redhead’s fingers away so he can fix a corner with tape.
For the entirety of their acquaintance, Kirishima has had to pester Bakugou into hanging out. It has worked, most of the time, much to Midoriya’s awe and dismay, but he isn’t used to the blonde offering anything by himself. He likes to think they’re friends, but…it’s hard to tell, with the blonde. It feels a little strange. It feels like a step. Towards something.
It takes a second to process.
“I’d love that”, Kirishima eventually responds, flashing a grin at his friend.
“And you don’t poke bears, dipshit”, Bakugou scowls back.
“Now, see, I didn’t know–”
“HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW THAT!”
A soft breeze blows through the window, making the burnt orange curtains flutter in its wake. As Kirishima hardens his face to guard against the explosion, it’s mostly just light and noise. There’s no heat to it.
***
The story of how Kirishima acquires and re-acquires his bracelet is a strange one.
When the blonde first found it in his bedside drawer, he blinked at it and then huffed. In response to Kirishima’s raised eyebrows, he just turned around and went to sleep.
Burdened with homework, the threat of lethal-adjacent explosions, and the background white noise of soft snoring, Kirishima continued to persevere at his desk.
Sometimes, when he opens his drawer and sifts through the interior chaos in search of the bracelet, he finds it under a pack of tissues or pillowed under crumpled up notes and tangled in a pair of old headphones.
At other times, he finds it jingling softly every time Bakugou moves.
He never sees him take it. But it always finds its way back to the drawer, and always manages to reattach itself to the wires of the old red headphones like it’s reuniting with an old friend.
Kirishima always wonders, but he never figures out how to ask.
He sees it poke from underneath the long sleeves of Bakugou’s white shirt on a class outing. It glints in the sunlight whenever the blonde raises his arms.
He finds it dangling like a keychain on Bakugou’s bag while they return from the provisional license exam, catching the streetlights in the night as the blonde sleeps on the bus.
He hears the soft metal clinks sometimes when Bakugou tosses the wok in the kitchen, making stir fry.
He sees the cheap gold paint glint when it catches the light as Bakugou sets a plate down in front of him unasked, and proceeds to eat his own share. He catches the gold of it matching the colour of pale blonde hair at sundown when Bakugou washes the dishes.
Bakugou never speaks of it, and when Kirishima pulls out his bedside drawer to rummage for hand cream before going to bed, the bracelet sits there innocently, blinking from behind tangled red wires.
Kirishima regards it thoughtfully, but he never asks.
***
Bakugou is vigorously chopping onions in the kitchen.
Kirishima ventures in, beckoned by the alluring fragrance of a medley of spices sitting on the counter, arranged neatly on a dish. “What’re you making?” he asks.
The blonde grunts in reply. “Biryani.”
“What’s that?” his eyes go round as he hops up on the counter.
The blonde looks up in pause, red eyes swimming with tears from the onions but cheeks stained by none. The glare he aims at Kirishima isn’t quite as effective, but Bakugou’s wet eyes glitter beautifully in the light.
Kirishima stares, and Bakugou gives in. “It’s a rice-based dish. With meat and stuff.”
“Meat?” Kirishima is enthused.
“Yep.”
“I’ve never had it…” His hand is caught in a death grip before he can reach the green cardamom he was aiming for. He’s rewarded with another glittering glare.
“Don’t touch anything!” Bakugou scolds before going back to chopping.
Kirishima’s wrist smells like onions.
“It’s a south Asian dish. Has many varieties…I’m making a specific version of it”, Bakugou continues unprompted. “Don’t touch the spices. They’re cooling off after I roasted them and I’m gonna grind them in a bit. If you take any of them, it’ll fuck up the ratio.”
“Ratio?” Kirishima tilts his head.
“Yeah, dumbass, ratio. Cooking is all science. Including maths”, he adds pointedly.
“You’re so awesome, Bakugou! You know so much!”
“Yeah, well, someone has to”, the blonde grumbles under his breath so quietly Kirishima almost doesn’t catch it.
The redhead hides his smile before Bakugou can see it. “So what version are you making? You said there are lots?”
“Yeah. The basic idea is the same, but there are several versions in different regions of south Asia. As well as other places, I guess. It’s all rice and meat, along with specific spices. Some places add vegetables, some change up the spices. Some use fish. The one I’m making has potatoes in it”, Bakugou continues, putting the thin slices of onions onto a frying pan.
It sizzles, and Kirishima watches quietly. The blonde is a whirlwind in the kitchen, every movement precise and controlled, everything set up like a well oiled machine. The now cooled spices are ground in a mortar and pestle while the onions caramelize, and soon enough Kirishima is salivating at the heavenly fragrance of the marinade.
“How long will it take?” he asks.
“A while. Wanna cook the rice while the meat marinates?” Bakugou asks casually, putting the marinated bowl of meat into the fridge.
And Kirishima is hungry.
It’s rare, so rare, that Bakugou ever lets anyone work with him in the kitchen. It’s so rare for him to offer a chance to participate, to collaborate with him in anything at all, really. Kirishima knows, Kirishima understands, that he is often an exception. The hunger, however, burns away in his heart, quiet as the night.
And so he parboils the rice, as instructed. He helps Bakugou layer the ingredients and he kneads the dough for the seal while the blonde drinks some iced tea. He watches his friend lift the iron pot onto the low flame, and he baits his hunger with promise.
“You usually don’t make stuff so complicated unless it’s a holiday. What’s the occasion?” Kirishima asks as they sit on some stools and wait.
The blonde takes a long sip of his drink and sets it on the counter. “I don’t like owing anyone anything”, he says, and the words hang in the air before Kirishima. They gather in little beads of condensation on the half-empty glass and roll downwards, growing heavier as they go.
Kirishima thinks back to a night of chaos. He remembers little, but through the fog of his memory stands crystal clear: Red Riot, unbreakable, one leg twisted in an odd angle, bone sticking out, holding up a slab of rock on his broken back. To the side, the unmoving and semi-conscious form of Dynamight, blonde hair dyed red with blood, struggling to breathe among all the dust and debris.
He sees it from outside himself – the purpling black bruise forming on his swollen leg, the fresh blood flowing through his hair onto his face, blurring what little he can see in the thin beams of weak light that had reached them from outside the broken building. He remembers holding on even when he couldn’t anymore; he remembers feeling the weight lifting, remembers being blinded by light and friendly silhouettes; and then, he remembers nothing.
Bakugou lifts his glass to gulp down the rest of his tea. The water ring it leaves behind trickles outwards.
Kirishima’s fingers are wet. He removes them from his cheeks.
The biryani smells divine. It tastes divine. Kirishima eats his fill. Everyone else gets shouted away.
“Did you make this for me?” he asks while drying the dishes as Bakugou washes them.
“Dumbass”, Bakugou says, and Kirishima hears the yes. He remembers the pale hair, caked with dust and grime and stained red. He swallows. “You know you don’t owe me anything, right Bakugou?”
Bakugou scrubs furiously at the giant biryani pot. He doesn’t say anything.
“Bakugou?” Kirishima insists.
The metal sponge scrapes against the metal of the pot, and the fire in Kirishima’s chest crackles. In the pause that follows, he hears it. The acknowledgement of something.
“We’re friends. Friends don’t keep score”, Kirishima murmurs.
Just for a moment, Bakugou turns. Kirishima sees his eyes glitter.
The scrubbing resumes. Kirishima’s hunger grows.
____________
They move in on a hot spring afternoon.
Boxes upon boxes line the floors, forming piles that teeter dangerously with a slight wind. Bakugou glares at the microwave like it has insulted his mother while Kirishima uses his mountain-climbing skills to find footholds among the boxes.
It’s tiny, their apartment.
Well, apartment might be stretching it. It’s one large room and a bathroom, with a tiny kitchen in the corner. Renting in Tokyo is a nightmare, and as two rookie heroes, they have hilariously little to spend on a place to live.
Still, Bakugou’s insistence on having a “place with a kitchen” is what landed them here, in this one-room monstrosity.
Kirishima would have protested, but after having to physically prevent the blonde from committing murder before his pro-hero career even began when a prospective landlord pointed at a solitary microwave and called it ‘the kitchen’, the redhead decided this was for the best.
After all, not everyone could be like Todoroki and live on cold soba.
Sharing a place with Bakugou always came with the added benefits of fresh, hot food, whenever the blonde found time for it.
All in all, at least they have a roof over their heads.
***
One of Kaminari’s favourite jokes is that Bakugou is an old man inside. It’s been a running gag in their little group ever since first year – people often tend to think that’s because of the explosive blond’s astoundingly early bedtime, but the squad knows he just likes his downtime before he sleeps.
The truth, however, lies in Bakugou’s favourite wooden spoon.
Kaminari’s dad always used to say that only adults have cooking utensils so dear that they’ll take them to the grave, and Bakugou’s strange attachment to this particular wooden spoon, charred ever-so-slightly around the edges, was legendary. All of Class 1-A remembers the time he threw a fit and upturned the whole kitchen looking for it, screaming blue murder, only to be mollified slightly when Sato was summoned by the ruckus and sheepishly apologized for borrowing it to make a chilli chocolate sauce earlier that evening.
Despite the blonde’s bluster and couldn’t-care-less attitude towards all things, Kirishima knows that he holds some things very close to his heart, and he would rather die than admit to having his own sentimental attachments like the rest of them. The redhead has seen the All Might keychain, old but well loved, attached to the zipper on the inside pocket of his school bag in order to protect it from the prying eyes of nosy classmates. He knows of the special edition holographic All Might card he carries around in his pocket at all times. He has heard from Mrs. Bakugou about how Bakugou has refused to throw away his very first pair of drumsticks – now stashed somewhere in a box under his bed at home. And then, of course, the wooden spoon. The spoon no one else must touch, tarnish, or ever dare to sully by using it to stir a pot of instant noodles. The spoon that was a gift from his father, that he has carefully preserved and insists makes the best dishes with its very touch. The very flammable spoon handled with the utmost care by explosive hands for over a decade.
It is odd how the spoon is found in one of Kirishima’s boxes.
It is stranger still, that when the redhead hands it to Bakugou he simply takes it without comment and puts it in the kitchen drawer with the rest of the utensils.
***
Two Twin XL beds are unpacked, each pushed up against opposite walls. Kirishima’s punching bag finds a home right at his bedside, much to the blonde’s amusement.
“We have a fully equipped gym at the agency, moron”, he laughs from where he sits on his mattress, meticulously arranging several different chargers into his bedside drawer.
The redhead pouts and protests, “It’s been with me since I first decided to try for U.A. I can’t let go of it now!”
Bakugou just snickers from his bed and shakes his head in a manner that Kirishima decides is semi-fond.
He turns back to wrestle with his maroon fitted sheets, and neglects to mention how the blonde would sometimes barge into his dorm room unannounced and bash the living hell out of the well-worn sandbag. He doesn’t talk about how that “PLUS FUCKING ULTRA” sticker near the top that the blonde had stuck on it on a whim once is the only one that survived their daily onslaughts, and he doesn’t talk about how he carefully peeled it off from the old sandbag and stuck it onto this one.
He hears the derisive snort from behind him when the sheet pops out of the bottom corner again, but he misses the smile that accompanies it.
***
It’s a small apartment with zero privacy, but they make it work.
An over-the-sink dish rack is installed to save space in the tiny kitchen. Bakugou lugs over an entire surgical table he found on sale to work as a makeshift counter. (“IT’S AN OPERATING TABLE!” Kirishima exclaims in confusion. “AND IT’S ALSO FOOD SAFE, DUMBASS, NOW HELP ME PLACE IT PROPERLY!”) A set of cheap but sturdy ceramic dishware finds its way into the cabinet.
Kirishima finds some pretty glasses in a thrift store and Bakugou complains about how colourful they are; but on an especially hot afternoon the redhead is offered chilled lemonade in the only one without a chink.
The chore chart designates the redhead as the household grocery shopper. He makes sure to follow the schedule and bring everything to stock the fridge and the little snack cabinet they have been meticulously building over the past few weeks.
“Just pay for the groceries next week!” Kirishima insists.
Bakugou sets up an app to track joint expenditures and Kirishima receives his share within 5 minutes of updating.
The blonde cooks, so Kirishima is on dishes duty.
He offers, sometimes. While he cannot make complicated dishes like Bakugou, it’s not like he’s a bad cook. He could whip up a quick stir fry with some pre-cut vegetables and the packaged noodles. It’ll be fast, and Bakugou wouldn’t have to cook with a shoulder injury so bad he can hardly move his arm.
“You got the damn groceries, Red, I gotta do my part”, comes a gruff reply through gritted teeth.
“Let me do it Bakugou!”
“Shut up and sit down, it won’t take long.”
“You’re hurt, man, just-”
“I said I’m fine-”
He has to forcibly grab the blonde and drag him to their little two-seater couch. His friend doesn’t relent. But Kirishima insists, as he always does.
“I want stir fry, so I’m making dinner tonight. Shut up and deal with it or go to sleep hungry”, he glares.
The staring match doesn’t last too long. The redhead can see the exhaustion on Bakugou’s face; his fingers are trembling slightly every time he moves them and he winces whenever he tries to lift his right arm.
Eventually, Kirishima’s patience wins out.
When he’s finally fed, shooed away from the dishes, and mindlessly surfing the channels on late-night TV, Bakugou’s head comes to rest heavy on Kirishima’s shoulder.
“Thanks…I’ll do the dishes tomorrow too”, he tells him.
Kirishima grits his teeth, but he doesn’t say anything. He’ll deal with it in the morning.
***
On some nights, Kirishima can’t sleep.
Their little one room apartment seems too large, the darkness a little too consuming.
A thin halo of light is cast around the curtains along the two windows from the streetlamp outside. So reassuring when he returns in the middle of the night, a beacon in the dark, illuminating the little plant with bright yellow flowers he keeps on the only corner of the window which gets direct sunlight. The light beckons his worn bones, promising a hot meal and the warmth of a friendly presence.
On nights like these, it seems to trap him inside these walls. Every time the curtains flutter, he sees new shadows form, new demons he cannot defeat, promising only exhaustion and despair.
He doesn’t turn on the light. Bakugou’s asleep ten feet away, and despite the sleeping pills the blonde is a light sleeper.
He sits, quiet, back against the wall, holding a pillow to his chest.
His muscle clock ticks away from somewhere above and the bathroom tap they can’t fix leaks water in a steady plop plop plop that echoes on the tile walls.
He puts his head on his pillow, and he thirsts for something.
His very bones ache, but he can’t find it in himself to uncurl. The wall is cool on his back, and the pillow is soft on his temple. His mind fogs with dark figures he cannot untangle and he concentrates on the faint scent of cotton candy that hangs in the air instead.
Sometime later, his mattress dips with the weight of warmth and an arm snakes around his waist. He doesn’t raise his head, he doesn’t open his eyes, it wouldn’t matter in the dark, but when the arm pulls gently he leans into a broad chest and listens to a familiar heartbeat.
He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but when he wakes in the morning to an empty apartment bathed in bright light, he spots a water bottle on his bedside table but he isn’t thirsty anymore.
***
Their shared closet has one long shelf that runs along the top. Neatly divided into halves, on it sits mostly their individual collections of pants, bedding, and two suitcases full of winter clothes.
Right in the middle, lives their shared jewellery box.
Collectively owned ever since Bakugou blew up his own during a particularly frenzied search for his favourite barbed wire necklace, calling it a jewellery “box” might be stretching it.
In reality it is a sturdy little cardboard box that Kirishima used to store his accessories in that has now been usurped by Bakugou and forcibly had its combined contents arranged into neat little piles according to type.
Bakugou doesn’t wear rings, but upon the discovery that they are almost exactly the same size except for their hands, went and bought a collection of what Kirishima likes to call “spite rings” that have all been slightly bent out of shape from the heat of errant explosions.
The jewellery box sits right in the middle of the shelf, marking the boundaries of their individual closet territories. Not that it would be especially difficult to differentiate their clothes, given Kirishima’s affinity for acquiring fabrics of colours so bright they could practically glow in the dark.
Nonetheless, when the redhead finds his friend walking out of the bathroom post-shower donning a weathered-looking red tshirt, he can’t help but stare.
Their black shirts tend to get mixed up in the laundry sometimes if they aren’t being careful, but as far as Kirishima is aware, Bakugou doesn’t own anything that once used to be such a bright shade of red.
After rummaging in the closet for a pair of sweatpants to pull over his boxers, the blonde in question languidly walks over to his side of the room, damp towel still slung over his shoulders.
Kirishima remembers vividly the sheer terror of being discovered by Bakugou while accidentally wearing the blonde’s favourite skull shirt back in the dorms, and he purses his lips at the unspoken infraction occurring in front of him at this moment. It’s not that he minds, but the blonde has been especially militant in making sure that their possessions are dutifully separated and individually accounted for throughout this shared living experience.
The jewellery box has been an exception forced of circumstance, although the redhead isn’t entirely sure why his roommate hasn’t yet acquired a new box specifically for himself.
In any case, he is pretty sure that in terms of importance, the ratty old black skull shirt still ranks higher than any edgy looking necklace Bakugou has ever purchased for himself.
Now, Kirishima, knowing that they wore the same size clothes, was a big proponent of the idea of sharing. And despite the vehement opposition from the blonde, he still occasionally liked to point out the advantages of having double the sartorial options. If pressed, he would very likely admit to eyeing a particular leather jacket for years that he has been denied access too, and those very nice skin-tight ripped jeans the blonde owns. Not that this would amount to anything, given that Bakugou guards his possessions more fiercely than a treasure-hoarding dragon, but given the opportunity, Kirishima is willing to bet good money on his tried and tested combination of puppy eyes and pouting.
For now, the redhead eyes his friend, and then eyes the basketful of freshly laundered clothes still sitting on the floor.
In an uncharacteristic declaration of laziness, Bakugou had claimed that he’d “just sort them tomorrow” before going in to take a shower. Whether his friend has been replaced with a clone of the more chill variety or this is simply an effect of him wanting to make the most of his first proper holiday since he’d gone pro, Kirishima doesn’t know.
He thinks about his disappearing bracelet, a phenomenon he noticed long ago and decided to never comment on, and decides to observe.
Watching a relaxed Bakugou is like seeing a tiger in the wild.
Not that Kirishima has ever gone on wildlife safaris, but he has been told that tigers are notoriously difficult to spot, being the solitary and fearsome beasts they are.
His best friend stretches out on their little second-hand loveseat, letting his legs dangle over an armrest, and turns on the TV. His bed is hastily done, creases still visible on the fabric. His wild blond hair is damp, and Kirishima watches in silence as he raises an arm to leisurely scratch at his belly as he blinks slowly at the screen.
It makes for a truly unreal scene, as the redhead realises that this is the first time he’s actually seeing his roommate truly relaxed.
In all the time he’s known him, he’s understood Bakugou to be a driven, ambitious person who scoffed at the mere idea of letting even a second go to waste. Bakugou taking time off in high school usually meant he was catching up on manga or cooking something elaborate or, more commonly, sleeping. It always fascinated him how the blonde even managed to utilize his leisure time with purpose.
Now however, sprawled on the couch bathed in the soft lights of sunset, listlessly scrolling through a myriad of options on his favourite streaming service, Kirishima sees it. It’s in how the blonde holds himself – or rather doesn’t hold himself, bonelessly draped on the furniture in a manner similar to the towel that still rests on his shoulders, brows relaxed, jaw loose, and smelling like soap. Like a cat in the sun, blinking slowly at the television as he finally decides on a lighthearted baking show to watch.
This Bakugou only exists in the liminal, the in-between of day and night, of a solid six months of back breaking work and the promise of a well-earned week’s paid holiday. He exists only within the walls of this one-room studio they’ve made into a home.
When he stretches his arms above his head like a cat at the brink of dusk and looks upside down at Kirishima, asking him what food he’d like to order, the redhead marvels at the softness of his face and the flow of his limbs, fingertips nearly touching the scruffy carpet that lines half the room separating the living area and the kitchen.
“I’m ordering pizza”, Kirishima decides, and pulls his own phone out.
“Meat?” Bakugou asks, voice soft and raspy from disuse.
“Meat”, Kirishima nods.
And when the pizza arrives, Bakugou doesn’t get off the couch and he doesn’t ask how much his half is.
When Kirishima walks up to him with the box, he just lifts his arm up and takes the offered slice, engrossed in his baking show.
His bedtime comes and goes, but Bakugou does not move. Sometime around 10pm Kirishima joins him on the couch, finding a way to snake in between the blonde’s uncompromisingly sprawled limbs, and they watch a movie together.
***
Sometime around the third year of their life as pros, they end up with two joint accounts.
“One is for savings, and one is for spending”, Bakugou explains on the bus on their way home from the bank. “Ya need to manage money properly if we’re ever getting that cat.”
Kirishima pouts, because of all the things he expected from getting Bakugou to ease up on his whole owing-people-thing, somehow agreeing to wait to get a pet was not one of them.
“Stop with that face, asshole, we ain’t ready yet”, Bakugou says as he cooks dinner, and Kirishima nods dejectedly.
It’s been tough, being manhandled into saving money by Bakugou while watching his friends move out into their own places, living their own lives. Kirishima doesn’t mind sharing a space with his best friend, but he also really, really wants a cat.
“What if we hold out on the new place? Get the cat first?” the redhead suggests for the seventh time that day.
“We hardly got space for ourselves, idiot, where the hell would a shitty cat live?” Bakugou growls incredulously, wielding a spatula at him like a sword.
“But!”
“No buts, the cat needs space too. Not everyone can be like you”, Bakugou says and very pointedly eyes their new sleeping arrangement.
Kirishima flushes, and focuses on chopping the carrots.
It happened after a particularly bad mission. An entire month of hell, and a lifetime’s worth of sleep problems. Or so Bakugou likes to claim.
After trying to squish together on one of their beds, they ended up swapping them out for a queen after the second time Kirishima fell off the edge.
Bakugou has nightmares, and Kirishima is prone to insomnia. It made sense.
When Kaminari came over three weeks ago and raised an eyebrow at the single bed, the blonde threatened to set his intestines on fire and that was that.
“Bro…are you two like, dating?” Kaminari asked in a hushed voice as Kirishima walked him to the bus stop.
“What? No!”
The electric blonde eyed him carefully before speaking. “I guess it makes sense.”
“It does?”
“I just mean…everyone has had a relationship with someone over the years. Aside from Shouto of course, but we don’t count Shouto”, he grins. “You two’ve been living in a studio for almost three years now, neither of you ever date anyone or even talk about people you like, and you’re just…you know.”
“Huh?” Kirishima’s eyebrows rise up into his loose hair.
“Come on, Ei, you two are just inseparable! I don’t mean anything bad by it, I’m happy for you man! I don’t think Blasty could love anyone as much as he loves you. It’s sweet”, Kaminari smiles, and his eyes are very fond.
Kirishima doesn’t say anything to Bakugou when he comes back home. When they go to sleep on the same bed that they share every night, both shirtless, backs touching, skin to skin, he wonders. But he doesn’t know how to ask.
***
“Bakugou?”
“Hmm?”
“Who gets the cat?”
“What do you mean?” the blonde looks up from where he’s been lazing around playing Animal Crossing on the bed.
“I mean…” Kirishima hesitates. “When we…you know. Who gets the cat?”
“We don’t even have a cat yet and you’re asking who gets it in the divorce?” he cackles.
It’s become a running joke among their little group. Bakugou and Kirishima are platonically married. When (if) they each go their own ways, they will fight for custody over their future cat. It began when the redhead mentioned to Kaminari that they were saving up to adopt a cat, and Sero jokingly asked if they were serious about expanding their family.
Kirishima ponders over Bakugou’s words, and decides to go for it. He’s been baiting his hunger long enough. If Bakugou offers something, he will consume it.
“Bakugou?”
“What now?”
“What are we?”
“Heroes.”
“No, I mean- what are we? To each other?”
Bakugou sits up. Puts his Switch away.
“Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Why.”
“It’s just- we’ve been planning all these things, and people make all these jokes-”
“I never said anything ‘cause I didn’t realise those idiots bothered you with their-”
“No, no. I just mean that we live together…”
“And?”
“And we have bank accounts together. We sleep together-”
“We do not sleep together.”
“You know what I mean! We’re getting a cat together, we’re planning on buying an apartment together and it’s just…” he sighs and bites his lip. “What are we, Bakugou?”
“We’re friends”, says the blonde simply. “We’re friends who live together and share bank accounts together and go shopping together and will parent a cat together.”
“Yes, but a lot of people who love each other also do these things!”
“We do love each other, dumbass.”
“Not- not like…”
“Like what? You wanna get married? Get a partner? Have kids and shit?”
“No. I just- I don’t know what I want.”
“Don’t look like that!”
“Look like what?”
“Like I killed a puppy in front of you-”
“I’m not-”
“Just…c’mere”, he says, and takes Kirishima’s hands in his.
His hands have always remained incredibly soft, despite the hard labour their endure. Kirishima often wonders whether it’s his genes. Or whether it’s the fact that he always wears gloves.
Kirishima lets Bakugou entwine their fingers, and he looks up to bright red eyes.
“If you don’t want to get a cat with me, if you want to move in with someone else, then you need to tell me that”, Bakugou says softly.
“I don’t though. I want all those things with you, and I want to keep living with you. I’d never- I couldn’t do any of this with anyone else!”
“Then don’t.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t do it with anyone else.”
“But.”
“But what?”
“People keep talking about relationships and I just keep thinking-”
“This is a relationship, dumbass. We just never talked about it, but it’s like a platonic relationship, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I love you. So very much. And you’re an idiot if you don’t understand that.”
“I do, I do. And I love you too.”
“Good. That’s that then.”
“No! Wait, I mean…do you not want to ever be in a relationship? Like, romantically?”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“How-”
“I don’t care about any other shitty extra the way I care about you. I wouldn’t be sitting here on our shared bed enduring your goddamn snoring in my ear every night if I didn’t love you a stupid amount. And I’m happy with what we have, if that’s what you want as well.”
Kirishima stares. Bakugou’s gaze remains firm.
He takes a breath to look around their little apartment, at the kitchen they stocked together, at the posters they decorated together, at the closet in which they are no longer sure what belongs to who. At the little shelf of trinkets they bought together – figurines of pro heroes before their generation, Kirishima’s little collection of toy cars that Bakugou encouraged over the years. The plant with the yellow flowers on the windowsill that Kirishima bought, which Bakugou now tends to every morning. The muscle clock Bakugou claims he hates, that he carefully fixed when its arms stopped moving with the seconds. At that one book of Roald Dahl’s short stories that they both claim to have originally bought and brought from their parents’ homes to this studio. For the life of him, Kirishima can’t remember who it originally belonged to. He looks back to Bakugou, down to where their hands are connected. He watches the bracelet on Bakugou’s wrist twinkle in the light from the window.
“We’re in a relationship”, he concludes to himself in a disbelieving voice.
“Congratulations on noticing, dumbass.”
“How come you knew?” Kirishima accuses his-friend? Partner? Lover? He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter.
“Because I share beds with everyone and cook for every extra I meet and look at adoptable cats with my acquaintances and plan to buy homes with my enemies, that’s how”, the blonde snarks.
“Don’t be mean!” Kirishima swats him on the shoulder.
“So you wanna get that cat or not?” Bakugou smirks.
***
A few years down the lane, there is a wedding.
Kirishima shares his first and only kiss with Bakugou in the ceremony.
They drive back to their shared one bedroom apartment, equipped with a full kitchen. Socks, their cat, meows at them in greeting.
Their little plant with the yellow flowers has acquired some friends – three cacti and a small herb garden, lined neatly along the giant east-facing window. A tall, large shelf stands proudly on display, their ever-growing collection of figurines arranged carefully. On the top shelf stands two special edition figures, modelled after them in 1:16 ratio. Red Riot and Dynamight, captured perfectly in action, standing back to back.
They go to sleep on their king sized bed, draped in fabric picked out by Bakugou and colours chosen by Kirishima. Socks curls up by the blonde’s head, right between their pillows. Twin bracelets glint on their bedside tables.