Archive of Our Own

Migraines.

Fucking migraines.

Fuck migraines, and fuck whatever shitty-ass god decided to create them.

And while he was at it, fuck all the stupid-ass pigeons who happened to fly past his window, and especially fuck whoever the hell was playing Animal Crossing at full volume downstairs in the student lounge. Even from behind his closed door, he could hear the sound of his classmates shuffling around the lounge, laughing and throwing the doors open to let in the balmy mid-Spring breeze. It was rare that so many of them would be willing to stay in the dorms on a Sunday; most of them would have already been at Harajuku or Akihabara for hours by now. Even he'd had plans, pre-migraine, to take the train to Mount Fuji and hike the Yoshida trail to the peak just to get away from the looming shadow of exams. But of course they just had to pick today of all days to dick around together downstairs, slamming books on tables and walking around with their heavy-ass footsteps.

A door closed with a particularly loud crack, causing Bakugou's teeth to rattle in his throbbing skull. Even though his limbs lay leaden on the sweaty bedsheets, the haze of pain too strong for him to lift them, a few small pops of orange sparks crackled out of his palms in frustration. He had no proof that it was Kaminari who had slammed the door, but goddamnit, he was going to kick his ass anyway once his head stopped pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

After a few minutes, or maybe six hours given the limp, tangled nature of migraine timekeeping, there was a quiet knock on the other side of the door. Bakugou buried his left temple further into his damp pillow.

“Nobody’s home. Fuck off.”

Kirishima let himself in anyway, because obviously the knocking was a complete formality at this point. Kirishima had stopped waiting for Bakugou to open the door for him only a few months after they'd met for the first time. And after a year, Bakugou finally just caved and lied about losing his key so the school would give him a replacement. Kirishima took full advantage of having a copy of Bakugou's key and immediately began letting himself into the room whenever the desire struck him. Bakugou couldn’t even count how many times he’d walked in after training to find him flopped onto the bed, studying for school or snoring into his pillow.

He justified giving Kirishima the key out of convenience, at first. Why bother forcing yourself to go back to your room every time you forgot something when you could just get someone else to do it for you? Besides, he didn’t really mind occasionally coming home to another living being. Kirishima was comfortable enough in the space that he didn’t expect Bakugou to play host and amuse him every second he was in the room, and Bakugou certainly preferred the two of them keeping to themselves. It was like having a cat that Bakugou didn’t have to worry about keeping alive. A cat that constantly fell asleep on his shoulder and purred whenever he messed with his hair, and sometimes, didn’t know how to take a hint.

“Go away,” Bakugou mumbled.

Kirishima didn’t even have to ask what was wrong. All he did was let out a sigh, and Bakugou felt the mattress beneath his legs depress with an additional weight. Kirishima’s hand stroked away the strands of sweaty hair matted to his forehead, and Bakugou couldn’t help but cringe away at the touch. Even his goddamn hair follicles hurt.

“Did you wake up with it?”

In a perfect world, Bakugou would have gladly replied no shit, dumbass, but his tongue tasted like a corpse and his breath was 100% formaldehyde. And even he wasn’t enough of a dick to subject his boyfriend to that by opening his mouth and letting the fumes out when Kirishima was just trying to be nice. Instead, he pointed at the empty tub sitting beside his bed, scrubbed clean but still smelling slightly of stomach acid.

“You threw up?”

Bakugou nodded.

“How many times?”

He held up three fingers. At least it was less than usual. Small victories.

“Where does it hurt? Left side again?”

Another nod.

“God, dude. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Bakugou barely opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t resist cracking open one eye to look up at Kirishima hovering above him. Even a migraine couldn’t force him to be a little bitch and not make eye contact with someone he was speaking to. He should have known it was a bad idea; instead of making eye contact with Kirishima, all he saw was a kaleidoscope of shifting red fractals. Stupid fucking visual hallucination bullshit. His pupil rolled drunkenly in its socket, and a fresh wave of nausea swept over him as he screwed his eyes shut in an attempt to nullify the damage he’d just inflicted on his abused stomach.

“Not your fault,” he continued. “Just fucking annoying.”

“How long did you train last night?”

No response. Kirishima sighed.

“You’re not supposed to train for more than three hours without taking a break. You know nitroglycerin give people headaches if they smell it for too long-”

“What are you, the school nurse? Don’t tell me shit I already know.”

“Well if you took her advice then I wouldn’t have to! I don’t like seeing you like this just as much as you don’t like feeling like this. I was waiting for you downstairs and got worried when I didn’t hear from you.”

Bakugou’s stomach churned for an entirely different reason.

“Meant to text you earlier. Sorry.”

This wasn’t even close to the first time he’d blown off plans with Kirishima because of a migraine, but it didn’t stop the same sick feeling of guilt from twisting through his gut until he gagged on it. Not just because it made him look irresponsible, but because the thought of Kirishima sitting with their classmates, alone and waiting quietly for him to turn up, made him feel like shit. Especially now, when the end of their final year was speeding towards them even faster than the cherry trees could blossom on the hillside outside Bakugou’s window. The class was running out of months together, and all the group study sessions and class meals and movie nights were tinged with a perpetual, unspoken countdown timer looming over their heads. Once the school year ended for the summer and their careers all started up in earnest, Bakugou’s opportunities to fuck off into nature and escape the crush of humanity in the city center would wink out of existence, never mind the impossibility of coordinating schedules so that he and Kirishima would ever be in the same place at the same time. They were running out of months together, and what little time they had was expected to be taken up with studying and internships. Dickhead moves like ghosting someone you’d promised to spend the day with just to take a glorified nap should only be reserved for people who deserved it. And Kirishima was the last person who deserved that.

Kirishima continued to stroke Bakugou’s hair as lightly as his ridiculously dense hands would allow. His skin was so warm that Bakugou could feel it against his scalp like a wave of heat forming a red handprint on his head.

“I can’t expect you to look at your phone screen while you’re like this,” Kirishima said. “Don’t worry about it. I promise I’m not mad.”

Ordinarily Bakugou would scoff at how careful Kirishima was trying to be with him, but irritation required far too much energy than he was currently able to put in. Luckily Kirishima had known him long enough to expect only the bare minimum of normal human functioning when he was like this. Not that it hadn’t taken him a while to get it. He could easily remember the first time he’d had to blow Kirishima off for a migraine; it was only a few months after they’d met, and Kirishima had tried to help by pulling open the curtains and try to physically drag Bakugou out of his bed to go to the pool. Bakugou understood the thought process behind Kirishima’s actions, but that sure as shit didn’t stop him from blasting him in the face right before almost passing out onto the floor.

The learning curve for migraine management was steep, and Kirishima had passed with flying colors. Thank God, because there’s no way Bakugou would have even allowed him to hang out in his room a second time otherwise. God help any fucker who tried to pity him over anything. Kirishima should consider himself lucky that he was even allowed to see Bakugou like this. But at this point, even he didn’t have the energy to get frustrated with Kirishima’s usual boisterous self when his whole body felt like it was inside a cement mixer.

Finally, blessedly, Kirishima removed his hand from Bakugou’s forehead and got up from the bed. He heard the gentle sound of him shuffling around the room, echoing and muffled as though he were listening from underwater. There was a sudden loud, plastic crinkle, and Bakugou buried his head into the welcoming darkness beneath his pillow. He tried not to listen to Kirishima’s heavy footsteps along the floor, because anything as strenuous as listening, thinking, or the sensation of touch was enough to make bile pool in the back of his throat. The best way for him to live through these migraines was to turn off as many human senses as he possibly could. Sucked for him that he didn’t have Kaminari’s fucking inexplicable superpower of falling into a near-coma at a moment’s notice. Between pulling all-nighters for exams and sneaking out at night to visit Shinsou in the Gen Ed dorms -- which Bakugou only knew about because Kaminari would come back in the early morning, covered in hickies and drunk with happiness, and refuse to shut the fuck up about it for days afterwards -- there had been several occasions where Professor Mic had been forced to crouch down next to Kaminari’s desk in the middle of class and scream in his ear to even get him to stir. It’d gotten to the point where Todoroki, sitting in the back row of the class and bored of taking notes, would shoot a rubber band into the back of Kaminari’s head whenever it started to sag towards his desk.

Yeah. Wouldn’t it be fucking nice to just close your eyes and shut out the entire goddamn world for hours at a time. Not that Bakugou would know. Even like this, when every fold of his brain was rubbed raw and screaming, he couldn’t ever get it to stop. He hated it, the way it kept him up at night, the constant nagging thoughts kicking at the back of his head, so loud and insistent that they felt like they came from another person. Some psychiatrist would probably spout some bullshit about that behavior having something to do with his mom, or his lack of self-esteem...please. Bakugou had plenty of self-esteem. It was a side effect at being good at shit. But it made sense, then, that no one in his life was better at pissing him off than his own mind was.

Finally, Kirishima’s persistent lumbering around the room stopped. Bakugou didn’t move his head, but he lifted the corner of his pillow just high enough to peer into the outside world.

“Do you want me to stay?” Kirishima asked. “I can just grab my books and study at the desk or something until you feel better. I’ll be quiet so you can sleep.”

“Don’t bother,” Bakugou muttered. “It’d be a waste of your time.”

“No, it wouldn’t. I wanted to spend the day with you anyway.”

Bakugou pressed his face into the mattress. The cold cotton fabric and the pressure of the springs against his throbbing face distracted him from the pain just enough to speak clearly. “Whatever. Fucking do what you want. Makes no difference to me.”

There was a moment of silence from above him. Then he heard the hiss of his blackout curtains as Kirishima pulled them closed, plunging the room into near-darkness. A scrape as the fan sitting on the bookcase on the opposite side of his room was brought over to the desk beside his bed and plugged into the wall socket. Finally, Kirishima placed his phone on the wide headboard, speaker angled towards Bakugou’s head. The sound of a trickling stream mixed with rustling forest leaves was just barely audible over the white noise of the fan. The combination was soporific, just loud enough to drown out most of the sharp, abrasive noises coming from everyone downstairs. Bakugou felt the tense muscles in his neck and shoulders begin to unknit from each other, despite knowing that doing so made him look like some kind of wild dog tamed by music. It only sucked that he was forced to listen to forest sound effects on his phone when he should have been on a hike hearing the real thing by now.

“Surprised you didn’t set all this up the night before,” Kirishima said, kneeling next to his bed. Bakugou could feel his warm breath waft across his bare shoulder. “Since this is what you always do when you get migraines. And since, you know, you’re already the expert who knew that training for that long was a bad idea.”

Just because Kirishima was getting the satisfaction of making him feel better didn’t mean that he’d get the added pleasure of Bakugou admitting that he’d fucked up. Even in this state, he knew a trap when he saw one. He opted to wriggle his hand out from under the blankets and pressed his raised middle finger against Kirishima’s cheek rather than give him an affirmative answer. But rather than scoffing and swatting his hand away like he normally did, Kirishima instead chose to turn his head and press his lips to the back of his hand. The gesture was warm, intimate, and made Bakugou rip his hand away as though he’d been burned. That was...not a choice Bakugou had been mentally prepared for. Was he having a stroke? Hallucinating? What even the fuck was that just now?

“You’ll tell me when you’re feeling better, yeah?” Kirishima asked.

Oh, so we’re just not going to say anything about whatever the fuck that just was?

“Fine,” Bakugou mumbled.

Fine? Fine? On what fucking planet was that fine?

There was a creak as Kirishima got to his feet, then the quietest of clicks as the door latched behind him. Bakugou creaked one eye open before burying his face back beneath his pillow. Sure, as if he was going to be able to sleep now that his aching brain was having to deal with the additional physical load of replaying that interaction over and over again, like a record that kept skipping back to the beginning of the chorus.

He would not give a shit if it was anyone else. Mostly because anyone else would have gotten a single blow to the face and know better than to ever pull something like that again. But it was different this time. It was always different with Kirishima. it wasn’t even the fact that he knew he couldn’t actually hurt him, not when he’d had so much practice hardening his skin against Bakugou’s explosions for the last three years. It was that people, people in general, family, classmates, random-ass strangers on the street, didn’t touch him. Not in a way that dropped their defenses. Most of the people he knew were too smart to get in his face unless they were angling for a fight. It was just this person, this singular fucking person, who acted as though he had nothing to fear from him. He’d hung out in Bakugou’s room and slept in his bed and gotten close, far too close to him on countless occasions, and no matter how many times he’d been scalded or yelled at, always returned as though nothing bad had ever happened. Either Kirishima was just stupid, or he could tell that Bakugou was holding back whenever he tried to get him to back off. And if Kirishima knew that, then he already knew more than Bakugou would have ever wanted him to figure out. It really would all be so much easier if Kirishima was just an idiot. And Bakugou really preferred, really wished, that him being stupid was the answer.

Just admit that you liked it and save yourself all this bitching.

“Shut up,” Bakugou mumbled, so quietly that he couldn’t hardly even make out the words. But still, the persistent thoughts slammed into his head, pounding furiously against his already-tender skull.

It hadn’t always been like this. In their first year it’d been easy to maintain a connection that was nothing more than friendship, albeit one that was far more physical than Bakugou had had in the past. But it wasn’t like he could be blamed for getting bored of pushing Kirishima off and learning to just live with his touchy-feely behavior. Yeah, maybe it caused some rumours to spread in the first few months, but why would he give a shit about what a bunch of extras thought of him? His relationship with Kirishima was arguably better than not having anyone at all. And despite the occasional weirdness of having a friend who’d jokingly hold his hand in public, or slap his naked back in the locker room while they both changed after training, or yank him down by the neck to plant a kiss on his cheek just to laugh at Bakugou’s shell-shocked expression, it somehow still worked as what he would consider to be a friendship.

But as the first year dragged on, it grew harder to ignore the hissing thoughts constantly nagging at the back of Bakugou’s head. The kind of thoughts that reminded him, as the last three years dragged on and on: you could have moved when Kirishima fell asleep on your lap, if it was really as annoying as you said. You didn’t move though, did you? and you told Kirishima that the only reason you kissed him was because you were drunk. When’s the last time you’ve drunk anything besides water, again?

As the years dragged on and on and on, somehow getting slower and faster all at once.

Fuck, since when have his clothes been folded up in this drawer?

Does Kirishima even remember where his own room is anymore?

You can only come up with so many excuses for letting him spend the night before he realizes you’re just doing it because you want him to stay.

Of course you want him to stay. Friends don’t do half the shit that you two have done with each other.

You want him to stay, right?

Why do you keep trying to push him away like this, then?

How long are you going to let this go on before the two of you graduate and go to different hero agencies in a few months? Before the person who never left, no matter how many times you gave him the opportunity, isn’t left with any other choice? How long before you finally make an effort to convince him that you don’t want him to leave? Just tell him you want him to stay.

Tell him you want him to stay.

Stay.

Stay.
Instead, Bakugou imagined taking all of his screaming thoughts, crumpling them into a tight ball in his fists, and chucking it through his window to disappear into the landscape below. And he slept the sleep of the dead. He slept until the sun kissed the manicured canopy of trees, and the shaft of sunlight leaking through the seam of his curtains bled from yellow to pink. Kirishima’s phone cycled through the album of ambient noises until it finally shut off after fading out on the rhythmic crash and hiss of ocean waves along a sandy coastline. And when the sound of videogames and laughter faded into the soft clink of dinner dishes being hand-washed and the murmur of conversation over the faint rattle of a boiling teapot’s metal lid, Bakugou opened his eyes to a dim room and a painless head.

He blinked blearily into complete darkness. A damp tea towel slid off his face, leaving a trail of cool water trickling down his bare shoulder. The world around him still spun and shifted out of the corner of his eyes, but the pain radiating from his temple was gone. He rolled his head to the side, and apart from his joints popping like dry twigs on a fire, everything seemed to be back to the way it was.

Bakugou rubbed crumbs of sleep out of his eyes as his vision slowly readjusted to the world. The sun was halfway set at this point, casting the bit of his room not obscured in shadow in a haze of periwinkle. And as the rest of his room slowly came back into focus-- the neon green of his digital clock, the individual spines of books along his shelf-- he noticed a blue glow that hadn’t been there before.

“How long have you been here?”

Kirishima looked up from his laptop, pulled out an earbud and grinned. “Since this afternoon. You feeling better?”

Feeling better was probably an understatement. The first few hours after a migraine might as well be an orgasmic afterglow compared to the pain and disorientation that had eaten up the entire day beforehand. Bakugou blinked a few times, relishing how clear the world looked now that the fractals of his kaleidoscopic vision had faded away. His muscles might feel as though they’d entered a liquid state, but internally? Shit couldn’t possibly feel better.

Bakugou snorted at Kirishima’s hunched form on the floor. “There’s no way you wasted the entire fucking day sitting there.”

“I didn’t. Day isn’t over until the sun goes down. We’ve still got time.” Kirishima gestured through the slit in the curtains. “It’s only been around five hours, anyway. I’ve just been studying.”

“You could’ve studied with everyone else.”

Kirishima waved an airy hand. “I went downstairs for a little bit a few hours ago, but I wanted to stay up here with you. Figured you might need someone to tell you what year it was just in case your brain broke and you lost your memories or something.” he winked, chuckling when Bakugou scowled at him through a rumpled clump of sleep-matted blonde hair.

“Wish I had forgotten,” Bakugou mumbled, swinging his wobbly legs over the side of his bed. “Today was complete shit. Might as well go back to sleep and pretend it didn’t happen-”

“Wait, watch out!”

Bakugou froze, his bare feet hovering an inch from the floor.

“What the hell is it?” he asked. For an answer, Kirishima reached up and flicked on the overhead light. Bakugou screwed his eyes shut against the glare, then slowly cracked them open again to take in the sight on the floor in front of him.

“Kirishima,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“What the fuck have you done?”

“Oh! I wanted to make up for us not getting to go on the hike today!” Kirishima tossed his laptop onto the carpet and reached forward on his knees to shove the blanket closer to Bakugou. “It’s probably not as good, but you know, it’s spring, everyone’s doing hanami right now...a picnic seemed like a good idea.”

Yeah, a good idea was one word for it. Bakugou’s carpet was barely visible beneath the pile of food spread out in front of him, boxes and plastic bags ripped open to reveal the contents inside. Nearly everything was pink, wrapped up in seasonal spring packaging, but the black plates and cups had all been stolen from the kitchen downstairs. The whole thing was sat on a tarp, the same sort of neon blue woven plastic that Bakugou had brought on so many hikes that it felt like a cognitive dissonance to see it indoors.

He slid down to the floor, sitting cross-legged against his bed. “How’d you get this in here without waking me up?”

Kirishima skirted the edge of the tarp and sat down next to Bakugou, close enough that their shoulders crashed together. “Easy! All thanks to my years of stealth training, obviously.”

Bakugou snorted and looked up at Kirishima, which he should have known would be a massive mistake. Kirishima’s face was so close that he had to go cross-eyed keeping it in view. And from this distance, it was shocking how many little details there were that Bakugou had never noticed before. Not like they’d never been this close before, in the mindless early-morning hours they wrote off as “letting off steam” and refused to talk about the following day. But in the unforgiving light, there was no way for Bakugou to ignore the composite of intricate details that made up the person he’d been obsessing over for three years. Bakugou’s stomach clenched as he followed the shadow of freckles along Kirishima’s cheek, bast the two pointed front teeth which always managed to get caught on his lower lip, up to the white pinch of scarred skin over his eye, his eyelashes thick and black as his natural hair, the way the irises turned from orange to burgundy in the center, glowing like hot coals…

What the fuck was wrong with him? When the fuck had someone’s goddamn eyeballs ever made him feel like that? Bakugou shouldered Kirishima out of the way and reached for the nearest plate of food.

“Fuck off.”

Kirishima barked out a laugh and reached over Bakugou’s arm. He scowled; there was no way Kirishima kept bumping his hand like that by accident. “Okay, I’ll admit it. It took me like three hours to set all this up without making too much noise.” Kirishima chuckled around a mouthful of food. “You should have seen me; I was moving so slowly that I almost got frustrated with myself. You would have totally lost your shit.”

Bakugou snorted. “Wouldn’t be anything new. I always lose my shit at you.” He pulled the plastic off an onigiri and bit off half of it in one gulp. It was salted sakura, of course. One of his least favorite flavors in the world, but the feeling of food finally sitting comfortably in his stomach for the first time in 24 hours was enough for him to lean back against the bed and moan.

“That good? I forgot you probably hadn’t eaten yet today.”

Kirishima drew his knees up to his chin, wrapping them in his arms and resting his cheek on them. He twirled the drawstring of his hoodie idly around one finger and smiled softly at Bakugou with a bemused expression on his face. There is was again, the stupid fucking clench in his gut that made him feel like the room was too small, that the oxygen was draining out of it like someone had pulled the plug on a bathtub. It was time to go. Not far enough away the Kirishima couldn’t follow, but just far enough to breathe.

“Come on.” Bakugou clambered to his feet and inched his way around the food on the floor, pulling aside the curtains and letting dim light flood into the room.

“You want to go outside? Isn’t it going to be a bit loud for you-”

“I’m fucking fine. I’ve been staring at this same room for hours, it’s starting to piss me off.”

Bakugou grabbed the glass door leading out to the balcony by its wooden handle and glanced up into his reflection in the glass. He looked like he’d been hit by a train. Bruise-like crescents hung like fat moons from the corners of his eyes, and his hair stood completely straight up on one side, sculpted into shape from being crushed into the pillow for over half a day. Behind him, Kirishima brushed a lock of engine-red hair out of his eyes as he stood close by over Bakugou’s shoulder. So close that he could feel the heat radiating off Kirishima’s body like a furnace. He smiled at Bakugou’s reflection, and Bakugou quickly averted his eyes and yanked the door open hard enough to rattle the glass in its frame.

A pair of songbirds fluttered away at the sudden sound of the rolling door, sending the nearest tree branch shaking and shedding blossoms onto the dark grass below. The few cherry trees on the hillside leading up to the school were always slow to bloom, but once the first buds started to open, it would only take a few days before the entire canopy was a riot of pink flowers sifting sunlight through their translucent petals. In the dim purple mist of twilight, the buds popped like daubs of lilac paint along the dark wood of the trees. A few of the tallest branches grew so high that the two boys could easily reach through the railing of the balcony and brush the leaves with their fingertips.

Kirishima collapsed onto the floor of the balcony, kicking his feet up onto the railing and leaning back against the wall. Bakugou glanced down the line of balconies, but didn’t see any open windows. A moment of silence was enough to tell him that nobody was out on their balconies on the floor above them either. Directly above them, a string of multicolored fairy lights dangled from Todoroki’s balcony, casting an alien glow over the trees beneath them. The lights had been hung up by Deku and Round Face months ago for the idiot’s birthday, and the idiot never bothered to take them down off of his own railing. Bakugou had had half a mind to go up there and rip them down himself until Kirishima mentioned that he liked how much brighter it made the view along the hillside. So the lights stayed, and Bakugou learned to live with them. They were just one of the many concessions he’d made over the course of living in a dorm for the first time in his life. And that wasn’t even counting the fact that at this point, privacy was just a faint distant memory now that Kirishima insisted on being with him every hour of the day. It was a dumbass move, really. There were so many better things Kirishima could be doing with his time than wasting it hanging around with him. Obviously there was a chance that he enjoyed the hookups (although part of Bakugou doubted that,) but what was the point otherwise?

Admit it, you like that he stuck around. What are you even going to do with yourself without him?

Bakugou burrowed his chin into his arms and grumbled.

The two of them ate in silence, watching the sun slowly sink into inky blackness along the horizon. Bakugou’s brain was operating at such a limited capacity that he had no clue what or how much he’d eaten. All he saw was the leftover carnage surrounding them, and Kirishima sinking slowly down the wall, his hood pulled up around his ears and his sleeves tugged over his hands to ward off the chill of oncoming night. One arm thrown over his stomach as he gazed blearily out at the scenery, surrounded by two carcasses worth of chicken bones.

“Too much meat?” Bakugou smirked.

Kirishima chuckled. “Never.”

Wind whistled across the balconies, scattering wilted cherry blossoms across the concrete. The combined odor of cherry blossoms and the strong dregs of green tea left in their cups was beginning to make Bakugou’s head spin on its axis. He wasn’t anywhere close to getting another migraine, but was far removed from any sort of clear thinking. He shivered as the breeze rushed up his loose tank top, but didn’t bother to go in and change. No point when he’d already been wearing the same thing the entire day. And at least the cold was keeping him vaguely attentive to his surroundings.

“You know,” Kirishima said softly. His eyes drifted without focus across the trees. “I thought this morning that you’d changed your mind about wanting to go out with me today. Figured you just didn’t feel like telling me.”

Bakugou stared at him, all half-formed thoughts and hazy brain functioning forgotten. He might as well have gotten slapped by one of Kaminari’s electrified hands with how alert he was now. “When the fuck have I ever blown you off like that before?”

Kirishima shrugged. “Never. I don’t know why I thought it; I think it was just my brain messing with me. It’s getting close to the end of the school year, you know. I figured maybe you had better plans.”

Bakugou couldn’t think of anything to do besides blink at him in disbelief like a brain-dead fish. In the silence, Kirishima let out a nervous chuckle. “You know, school’s ending for us soon. You keep mentioning that there’s not much time left before we all start our agency jobs, and I guess I started getting all messed up thinking that you’d rather spend the rest of the year alone. Which is totally fine, do whatever you want. But just, you know...if I’ve been hanging around too much, or start to annoy you, then you can just tell me. I don’t want us to leave on a bad note.”

Kirishima turned to him, seeming to not even notice the gears churning clunkily in Bakugou’s brain.

“I know you’re not into the touchy-feely ‘talking about feelings’ stuff. So I thought all this might make you feel better, but also...might be a better way to talk without actually having to say anything out loud.”

The empty dishes clattered as Bakugou shoved them to the side. Kirishima’s brows knit in confusion as Bakugou crawled over to him, sitting so close that their knees knocked into each other.

“Then you better translate what you’re trying to tell me here.”

Kirishima huffed out a puff of warm breath, pointedly not making eye contact with him. “I don’t like that you push yourself too hard like you did yesterday. And that you make yourself sick, but never ask for help even when you need it. And I don’t like having to constantly freak out over thinking that we aren’t going to see each other after school lets out. I miss being able to just dick around and waste the day without thinking that everything we do is going to be the last time we ever do it. I don’t want to be stressed out around you. I want to just be here.”

Kirishima swallowed heavily, ending his monologue with a half-hearted shrug. The movement was more pathetic than anything Bakugou had ever seen from him before. Some of the others had told him that this is what he’d been like after the camp, when the two of them had been separated for the first time. Bakugou had thought they were all full of shit. No way that someone like Kirishima could be knocked down so many pegs just by losing one person. Especially a person like Bakugou, who’d given him every single opportunity to get out of this while he still had time. Kirishima was never supposed to have a heart massive and stupid enough to have enough room for him. And even after their relationship turned from aquaintances to friends to whatever the fuck they were now, it was always supposed to end with Kirishima finally getting tired of him; it was how Bakugou always imagined it would end. Because shit like this was always supposed to end, wasn’t it? He’d made his peace with that long ago, as the rules of his world kept shifting and swirling around him faster than he could comprehend, like fractals of color that would disappear before his eyes could even focus on what he was seeing. And yet somehow, the only rock-solid constant in his life had been this singular dipshit, the one sniffling moodily on his balcony after wasting an entire precious day on doing things for him that he didn’t deserve. All his hard work had backfired in the end though; Kirishima had committed the worst crime he could have possibly done to Bakugou. Somehow, the idiot had gotten Bakugou to care about him.

“I’m so fucking stupid,” Bakugou said.

“What?” Kirishima whipped his head around to glare at him. “What are you talking about? Don’t speak to yourself like that.”

“Shut up.”

Bakugou pulled Kirishima’s arms away from his pouting face. Kirishima blinked slowly, those stupid pointed teeth catching on those stupid lips.

“Shut up.”

Bakugou swung his leg over Kirishima’s, settling into his lap in a way that was so familiar and yet so fucking terrifying all at once. And above the sound of blood rushing in his flushed ears, Bakugou could hear that shrill voice in his head, screaming for him to get a grip. He closed his eyes in frustration.

“Seriously, shut the fuck up.”

He opened his eyes to the timpani of Kirishima’s heartbeat beneath his fingers. He smiled warmly up at Bakugou, but his hands betrayed him; tucked into his sleeves beneath his chin, as though he was afraid of touching Bakugou without permission. Bakugou moved his hands away from Kirishima’s chest, holding the loose ends of his sleeves in clenched fists.

“You’re right. There’s no more time left. And I’m not going to be the dumbass who’s wasting it anymore. I’ll give you time. I’ll give you all the time in the fucking world. Got it?”

More wind hissed across the balcony, ruffling their hair and drying out their lips, parted while they both waited for the other to speak. Kirishima’s breath smelled like green tea and salt, and Bakugou wanted to lean down and taste it.

Finally, Kirishima grinned. He caught Bakugou’s hand in his own, winding their fingers together and pressing his smiling lips into Bakugou’s calloused palm. “I missed you a lot today.”

Bakugou huffed, blowing a chunk of blonde hair out of his eyes and looking away as heat washed across his face. “Yeah, yeah. I would have missed you too if you’d ever bothered to leave.”

“Good luck ever getting rid of me.”

Bakugou glanced down at Kirishima, who had the audacity to shrug and grin into Bakugou’s hand against his cheek. He had nobody to blame but himself for Bakugou letting a single spark pop against his skin. Kirishima jerked away and laughed loud enough for the noise to echo across the hillside. It was almost enough to make Bakugou smile. He chose to kiss him instead.

The trailing end of Kirishima’s laughter was muffled under Bakugou’s mouth, in an instant transforming from a noise the entire building could hear to one that was for Bakugou’s ears only. Kirishima gasped almost imperceptibly, his mouth opening under Bakugou’s as though on instinct. The earthy taste of tea combined with the tang of salted cherry blossoms dripped across their tongues, and the two of them leisurely reached back in time, tasting the last hour on each other’s lips. Bakugou’s teeth replaced Kirishima’s in nibbling on his bottom lip, running his tongue along the hot skin until it was kiss-bitten and swollen. Kirishima chuckled into his mouth, and Bakugou’s heart momentarily skittered out of rhythm. He was starting to get a cramp in his neck from hunching over like this, and even with the secure weight of Kirishima’s arms wrapped around his waist, there was still too much skin he wasn’t in contact with, too much empty space for the real world to creep in between them.

Bakugou leaned sideways, pulling his and Kirishima’s weight to the ground. Empty dishes clattered beneath their bodies, Kirishima’s foot sending a half-empty teacup skittering off to the corner of the balcony, spilling its contents in a wide circle on the ground. Bakugou stretched out languidly along the cold concrete of the balcony. Kirishima was forced to settle the rest of his weight on top of him, pressed from chest to knees into one unit of warm skin and slamming heartbeats as he perched over Bakugou on his elbows. Bakugou reached around Kirishima’s shoulders and grabbed handfuls of his hoodie, pulling it up to expose the heated skin beneath. Kirishima gasped when Bakugou pressed his hands to the small of his naked back, stretching and snapping a thread of saliva between their lips. Bakugou hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Kirishima’s ugly grey sweats and hoisted him even higher up his body, sending Kirishima tipping forward over Bakugou’s head.
“Wait, wait a second!” Kirishima put his hands on Bakugou’s heaving chest, pulling away from him. Bakugou blinked up at him from the ground.

“What the hell’s wrong?”

“Dude, we’re...you really want to do this out here? We can go back to the bed if it’s more-”

“Fuck the bed. I spent the last 24 hours in it; nobody’s getting me back in it unless I’m already dead.”

Kirishima’s short eyebrows crinkled with worry. “But we’re in public. Someone could come out here and see you with me. You know you’ll never hear the end of it if Kaminari or Mina catch us.”

“So? They won’t see anything that they haven't already suspected.” Bakugou tightened his grip on Kirishima’s hips. “I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m too fucking tired for that anymore. Let them look, if they want to make it their business so badly.”

After a second of punchdrunk blinking, Kirishima just laughed and pressed his forehead to Bakugou’s. “It only took you three years to be okay with PDA? Where was this attitude when first-year me was this close to yanking you out in the middle of class to go make out in the bathrooms?”

Bakugou rolled his eyes. “Not saying I’m okay with it. But if any assholes decide to have a problem with us being together, then I’ll gladly shove it down their throats whenever I fucking feel like it.”

Kirishima snickered and wiggled his eyebrows. “That’s not the only thing you’d shove-”

His words were cut off by Bakugou’s mouth before he could complete his thought. Kirishima melted into the feeling of Bakugou’s tongue tracing the perimeter of his mouth, catching the peaks of his lips between his own and pulling them into his own mouth. Their legs tangled together even more tightly, and Kirishima pressed a knee between Bakugou’s thighs to steady his weight against the ground. Bakugou grunted and arched reflexively against the pressure, and Kirishima smirked at his half-lidded expression, slipping a hand under Bakugou’s head to lift him off the pavement and up to his waiting mouth. But even as Kirishima dragged his lips from Bakugou’s slack mouth to his jaw, nipping down to his fluttering pulse and pressing a wet kiss to the side of his neck, Bakugou willed his breathing to slow, his heart to stop shooting blood up into his brain and down between his legs. Because time was moving at once too fast and too slow, like a migraine that never went away. Bakugou was fucking sick of it. He just wanted time to stop.

“Are you usually this horny after a migraine?” Kirishima mumbled against his sweating, blush-blotched collarbone before biting down.

Bakugou swore and threaded a hand into Kirishima’s hair. “What, am I supposed to wish that I was still puking into that fucking bucket?”

Bakugou could feel Kirishima’s grimace against his skin. “Don’t remind me that you spent the morning vomiting.”

Bakugou smirked and tugged on Kirishima’s hair just to hear him whine at the sensation. “As if that’d ever stop you from jamming your fucking tongue down my throat.”

Kirishima looked up from where he hovered over Bakugou’s chest, giving him a sharky grin. “Guess you got me there,” he said. The feeling of his hands sliding under Bakugou’s tank top was the only warning he got before Kirishima yanked the fabric out of the way, exposing Bakugou’s chest to the cold air. He grit his teeth as waves of goosebumps spread across his bare skin, but the cold air was almost immediately replaced by Kirishima’s scorching breath fanning across his chest as he pressed his lips to the crease between Bakugou’s pecs. A curtain of red hair partially obscured his view, but he could still see Kirishima’s cherry-red eyes sparkling devilishly as he slid a nipple between his lips. Bakugou had to slap a hand over his mouth before a truly humiliating noise ripped its way out of his mouth. He glared down at Kirishima, who seemed completely absorbed in his ministrations on Bakugou’s chest.

“You fucker-”

Kirishima just smiled and sucked until a perfectly round bruise formed around the pink skin.

“Something to remember me by for the next time you have to change in the locker rooms with everyone else after training. You know, since you’re suddenly so confident about everyone else knowing what we’ve been up to.”

Bakugou yanked Kirishima off his chest by a fistful of his hair. He came up with a gasp and stared dazedly at Bakugou, absentmindedly rolling his hips against Bakugou’s leg hitched up between his own. Bakugou couldn’t resist pulling Kirishima’s limp head from side to side, relishing the way he seemed to lean into the sharp scrape of nails against his scalp. Kirishima’s wobbling arms buckled, coming to rest on either side of Bakugou’s head on the pavement.

“You got a lot of fucking nerve, don’t you.” Bakugou’s other hand came up to hold Kirishima’s chin, pressing his fingertips against the seam of his lips. Kirishima gave him a dopey smile and poked his tongue between two rows of serrated teeth, running it over the tip of Bakugou’s thumb.

“Only because I know you’ll always let me get away with it,” he mumbled.

Bakugou scoffed and pulled his hands away from Kirishima’s face. In an instant he was crawling forward, the eager face hovering above Bakugou framed by a ring of hanging red hair. From this angle, the fairy lights dangling from Todoroki’s balcony threw threads of pink light through Kirishima’s red hair, backlighting him like some love interest in a sappy indie film. The magenta glow glimmered against his spit-slick lips and the happy twinkle in his eyes. Bakugou put a hand to his cheek, pulling him close enough to avoid becoming any more dumbstruck by his stupidly gooey expression than he already was.

“Just stop being an idiot and kiss me.”

“I can definitely do one of those things.”

In the distance, crickets chirped in the hidden shadows of the trees, and faint black clouds were beginning to roll over the hillside. It would start smelling like rain in a few hours. But if either boy noticed the rapid oncoming of night, they made no moves to comment on it. Doing so would require them to acknowledge something apart from the shared, radiating heat between their mouths and hands and legs.

“I forgot how much you liked this,” Bakugou mumbled against Kirishima’s jawline. His hands wound tight into the sweat-matted hair at the base of Kirishima’s neck, yanking his head to the side and latching onto his neck. Kirishima choked on air, and his hips pressed even more insistently against Bakugou’s leg. Twin spots of dampness were beginning to grow at the corner of his mouth and the front of his sweats. “Do you get off when you brush your hair, too?”

Kirishima let out an airy laugh, cut short by a moan when Bakugou sucked a bruise into the base of his ear. “Not since I found you to do- ah!...do it for me.” His hands scrabbled to find purchase on Bakugou’s shoulders, wrapping the loose straps of the tank top around his clenched fists.

Bakugou grinned against Kirishima’s warm skin. He could feel his jackrabbiting pulse beneath his lips as clearly as his own heartbeat pumping against the interior of his ribs. Kirishima’s panting breath was scalding against his cold ear. Slowly, Bakugou reached down between their bodies, smirking when Kirishima’s spine arched like a willow tree in a windstorm as he felt Bakugou’s confident fingers between his legs. The familiar weight and heat of Kirishima’s cock in his hand should have become commonplace to Bakugou, after all the times that they’d clumsily fumbled with each other’s bodies in the dark for the last three years. He knew exactly what would make Kirishima last only a few pathetic minutes versus what could keep this process going until the sun started to rise again the next day. But the sound of Kirishima’s whines in his ear, the heat of his body against his own and the frantic scrabbling of his fingers along Bakugou’s sides sent a shudder down his legs. Fuck going into this with a gameplan. At this point all logical thought had completely flown out the window. All Bakugou knew was that he needed to get his mouth on Kirishima, his lips, his chest, anywhere was just as good as another. Eager teeth scraped down Kirishima’s shoulder, nipping at the skin as Bakugou squeezed his hand between Kirishima’s legs.

“Wait! Wait, hold on.” Kirishima put an arm between his neck and Bakugou’s insistent mouth. Drool was beginning to bubble in the center of his lower lip, and Bakugou watched it glisten in the dim light, having half a mind to lick it off. “We’re not gonna actually-”

“Not unless you want to get up and walk around with a hard-on to go inside and get lube. I’m still gonna get you off, though.” Bakugou pulled Kirishima’s arm away, eager to resume his previous activities.

Kirishima glanced around at the cluttered balcony, momentarily distracted from the soporific sensation of Bakugou’s lips trailing down his skin. Discounting the mess of dishes, there was only about a foot of free space around them. They were walled in by the balcony railing on one side, and the sliding glass door on the other.

“We’re kinda limited on options out here, though.”

Bakugou shrugged, twirling a tangle of Kirishima’s hair idly in his fingers. “I can either jerk you off, or you can just come on my leg. Seems you’re already halfway there, anyway. Your choice.”

“Not like you’re much better.” Kirishima pressed his thigh up into Bakugou, laughing when his legs reflexively kicked out along the concrete. His focus on Kirishima had momentarily distracted him from the persistent need thrumming through his own body, but now that his attention had been brought back to it, Bakugou was ready to come, like, fucking yesterday.

Kirishima scoffed and wound his fingers around the ones clutched in his hair, cooing at Bakugou in a way he knew would irritate the shit out of him. “Aww, doesn’t this remind you of our first time? How romantic.”

Bakugou put a hand over Kirishima’s face and shoved it away. Kirishima laughed against his palm. “You must have gotten a concussion. It didn’t happen like this.”

“Yeah it did!” Kirishima pulled Bakugou’s hand away, looking almost offended. “I could give you a blow-by-blow account of how it went down. No way I’d ever be able to forget it.”

Bakugou scoffed and cut his eyes to the side, but it did nothing to deter Kirishima from speaking. Not that Bakugou wanted to stop him.

“It was like, three in the morning our first semester, and we’d just finished studying for an exam. You fell asleep with a book in your lap, and I fell asleep on you. And when the book slid onto the floor, the two of us just woke up and looked at each other like this, the way we are right now.”

The warm press of Kirishima’s hand against his cheek caused Bakugou to look up in spite of himself. The moment he did, he wished he hadn’t. Kirishima glowed in a pink haze above him, all red hair and eyes and flushed skin. Bakugou felt his face go slack, mouth and eyes opening softly as though hypnotized. It was like an out-of-body experience, watching himself succumb to the inexplicable pull that Kirishima had on him.

Leaning forward, Kirishima pressed his lips to Bakugou’s mouth with slow consideration. His hair trailed along Bakugou’s cheeks, tickling softly, but not enough to distract him from the feeling of Kirishima’s tongue coaxing his mouth open, for all the world feeling as though his soul was being sucked out of his body. His legs tingled, and he was painfully aware of just how obvious his interest must be to Kirishima, pressed against his thigh like this. They parted, both looking just as punchdrunk as they felt inside. Kirishima swallowed dryly before smiling.

“And then you kissed me, just like that. Kissed me first, just to remind you. Ring any bells?”

Bakugou gave him a non committal half-shrug, turning his head to look out along the horizon and desperately willing his dick to calm the fuck down. “I was half-asleep, dumbass. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Kirishima smiled and trailed his fingers along the outside of Bakugou’s side, past the waistband of his black joggers and down to his wobbling knees. “I dunno, you were making some pretty loud noises for someone who was half-asleep. I remember around the 45-minute mark, there was something to do with you coming in your pants and moaning so loud that Iida had to bang on his ceiling with a broom-”

Bakugou threw his arms over his burning face, shoving Kirishima’s gleeful face out of his view.

“No, no, stop, we’re beyond fucking done with this conversation.”

Kirishima couldn’t stop giggling as he pressed kisses to Bakugou’s hands and shoulders, coaxing him out from behind his hands.

“It’s fine,” he whispered. “I knew you were going to be loud. I thought it was hot. But to be fair, at the time it did definitely sound like you’d just been stabbed or something-”

Some hidden creature in the nearest cherry tree ran for cover when Bakugou growled in frustration, rolling Kirishima over and pinning him beneath his hands.

Kirishima smiled up at him, clearly not even remotely upset at being weighed down by Bakugou’s body.

“God, you’re the fucking worst. Why do I put up with you?”

Kirishima squinted, considering. “Probably because you haven’t found anyone who can suck dick as good as I can yet.”

“Who the hell says I’ve been looking?”

Kirishima’s grin grew even wider as he reached up and pushed Bakugou’s hair away from his forehead.

“You know, you were snoring in your sleep earlier today.”

Bakugou barked out a harsh laugh. “Bastard. I don’t snore.”

“You absolutely do.”

“Why bother sleeping with me, then? Your own bed isn't good enough for you?”

“Course it’s not. It doesn’t have you in it.”

Pinpricks of light fluttered at the corners of Bakugou’s eyes as a flustered blush creeped down his neck. Before Kirishima could register what was happening, Bakugou was sitting up, pulling him up by the font of his shirt. He settled against the wall, glaring at Kirishima squirming in his lap. “Stop saying shit like that. I’m gonna kick your sappy ass after this.”

Kirishima stilled, peering down at him. “You’re going to wait to kick my ass rather than just do it now? You must be mellowing in your old age.”

The slap of Bakugou’s hand making contact with the outside of Kirishima’s thigh reverberated across the hillside. The crickets singing in the trees nearest them stopped, as though they were too scandalized by the boys to continue singing. Kirishima grunted through his gritted teeth, blush blooming across his cheeks like watercolor.

Bakugou grabbed the drawstrings of Kirishima’s hoodie, yanking him down to eye level. “Why don’t you stop being a dick and just come already?”

Kirishima gasped when Bakugou latched onto his earlobe, tugging gently with his teeth. His hips canted forward, and Bakugou had to take a deep breath to stop himself from moaning at the feeling of Kirishima’s hips sliding against his own.

“Come on,” he breathed. “You’ve been waiting long enough, haven’t you?”

Kirishima buried his hands in Bakugou’s hair, rocking against him almost absentmindedly. “Maybe I just wanted to take my time.”

Bakugou laughed and pressed his lips to meet Kirishima’s, who returned the kiss hungrily. The rhythm they adopted was slow and heady, languid as waves crashing along a shoreline. Bakugou gripped Kirishima’s hips hard enough to bruise as pressure coiled white-hot in his stomach. There was no way he was going to last long, not with Kirishima moving on top of him like that, the constant ebb and flow of pressure between his legs. Bakugou nearly split his lower lip between his teeth in his effort to keep quiet, whispers of coppery blood beading up along his mouth that Kirishima happily lapped away. His eyes were blown out into a completely inky-black eclipse of the iris, with nothing but a ring of blazing red around the expanded pupil. He could see Kirishima’s freckles so easily from here, the papercut-like scars that had formed across his face from years of intense Quirk training, the twinge between his eyebrows as a particularly hard thrust of Bakugou’s made his toes curl against the floor of the balcony.

It was almost impossible for Bakugou to keep his eyes closed as Kirishima kissed him, the need too great to resist the temptation to crack open an eyelid and soak in every minutiae of his face through cloudy eyes. The moans and breathy cries Kirishima made against Bakugou’s mouth were nothing short of obscene, small and aborted in a half-hearted attempt to not make it too obvious what they were doing, should anyone hear them. Bakugou soaked up the noises, basking in them as his blood turned scalding in his veins and little snaps of light flickered in his shaking palms. Maybe on a different day, the thought of coming without even taking off his goddamn clothes would have humiliated him. But out here, in their thin bubble of steaming skin and boiling breath warding off the twilight chill, that emotion felt so distant that he could hardly remember what the sensation of embarrassment even felt like. There was nobody here but him, Kirishima, and the nighttime creatures sleeping and eating and fucking their way through their short life cycles. In the dim twin glows of the fat yellow moon rising slowly over the budding cherry trees and the lights swinging gently from the balcony above them, he could only feel. The weight of Kirishima’s so-solid body on top of him, the red hair sliding across his forehead and eyelids, strands of it catching and tangling between their smiling mouths. The blunt sensation of Kirishima’s nails scraping along his scalp as he threaded locks of blonde hair through his fingers, the bass drumming of their overexerted hearts, and that boiling coil tightening up inside his own body. In his last few seconds of coherence, Bakugou couldn’t help but wonder in disbelief how he’d ever been so fucking concerned over something like this never happening again. Of course that sickening feeling of time running out had been bullshit; there was no way, after graduation and beyond, that he’d ever let Kirishima leave, and not know for certain that he’d always come back.

The familiar sensation of Kirishima’s hands hardening on his neck was all the forewarning that Bakugou needed. A few more rolls of his hips, and he came with a loud whimper, folding his body into the curvature of Bakugou’s chest and holding him to the point of pain as he rode out the aftershocks. The overwhelming tightness and warmth of Kirishima’s body against his own sent Bakugou’s hips rising up off the floor, tension building to a breaking point as he ground against Kirishima to completion, muffling both the sparks shooting from his hands and the moan spilling from his mouth in the thick fabric of Kirishima’s hoodie.

Bakugou breathed into Kirishima’s neck as he came back down to earth, feeling the strain leak slowly from his muscles as he sagged against the cold wall. Kirishima locked his arms around Bakugou’s waist, holding himself upright.

“Glad you’re feeling better,” he mumbled, a tinge of laughter in his voice.

“Whatever.” Bakugou burrowed his face even further into Kirishima’s hoodie, listening to the thrum of blood rushing in his ears. He grimaced. “God, you smell gross.”

Kirishima snorted with laughter. “You’re not much better yourself.”

In the absence of their body heat staving off the cold, Bakugou started to shiver as sweat dried along his bare arms. A whistle of spring wind flowed around them, carrying the soft scent of cherry blossoms, and the earthy tang of rain falling somewhere off in the distance. Kirishima’s hands gently ran up and down Bakugou’s arms, rubbing warmth back into his skin.

“Do you want to go back inside and-”

He froze, staring into the middle distance. Before Bakugou could ask him what his problem was, the faint sound of applause echoed from the ground floor.

“Woohoo! Bravo!”

“Encore! Let’s go for round two!”

For one silent moment, Bakugou and Kirishima stared at each other. Then Kirishima launched himself off Bakugou’s lap and over to the balcony railing. Bakugou followed close behind, struggling not to gag at the horrific feeling of cum sliding down his thighs.

Below the canopy of tree branches, where the yellow light of the ground floor flooded the dew-damp grass, Kaminari and Mina stood staring up at them, waving. Bakugou’s heart dropped into his stomach.

“How long have you fuckers been down there?” he shouted.

“Just long enough to catch the best part,” Mina called back. “We thought two animals were fighting in the woods or something. Which wasn’t too far off.”

Bakugou turned resolutely to Kirishima. “I’m gonna fucking kill them.”

“No, you’re not.” Kirishima grabbed his arm before he could storm back into the room. “What are you guys doing out so late?” he called down to the two of them.

“Oh, you know. Figured we’d go for a brisk walk.” Kaminari couldn’t have sounded less convincing if he’d tried. “It’s a nice night for...all sorts of physical activities, clearly.”

“You’re a shit liar, sparky.” Bakugou leaned over the railing to get a better look at the two of them. “Where’re you fucking off to, then? She wouldn’t be with you if you were sneaking out to dick around with your creepy boy toy.”

Kaminari gasped in offense and opened his mouth to retort, but Mina elbowed him in the ribs. They glanced at each other. After a moment’s hesitation, Kaminari pulled out a small plastic bag and a stack of rolling papers from behind his back.

Kirishima sighed like a beleaguered mother. “Denki…”

“We’re not going to be high for the exam tomorrow, I promise! Cut me some slack, I’ve been studying for eight hours straight today. Don’t I get a break?”

Kirishima looked at him in confusion. “When were you studying? All I saw this afternoon was you and Midoriya playing Animal Crossing.”

Bakugou whipped his head around to glare at Kaminari, who was startled enough to shrink back, even from four stories away. “I knew you were the one making all that fucking noise!”

Mina grabbed Kaminari’s shoulder and pulled him into the safety of the trees. The two of them took off at a run, snickering as Mina waved over her shoulder.

“‘Kay bye!” she called. “Good job on the sex!”

Kirishima stood frozen in the silence that followed their departure, then sunk his head into his hands.

“Sorry. I feel like I kinda spoke that into existence.”

Bakugou snorted. “What’re you sorry for? I told you I didn’t give a shit, didn’t I?”

“Well yeah, but I-”

“Then what the fuck else is there to discuss?” Bakugou reached forward, tugging a strand of Kirishima’s hair gently. Kirishima leaned reflexively into the touch, and hazily watched Bakugou pick his way through the scattered dishes and slide the glass door open. He turned, waiting for Kirishima.

“You coming?”

Kirishima blinked, looking around before smiling unsurely at him. “Dude. You know we’re not going to get around to showering if we go in there together.”
Bakugou smirked. “We’ll get to it eventually. What’s the rush?”

Crickets filled the silence as a slow smile spread across Kirishima’s face. Without any warning, he leapt forward and pulled Bakugou’s face to him. He kissed him messily, giggling when Bakugou gave a muffled shout against his lips. By the time they broke apart, Kirishima’s pupils were starting to blow out in excitement again as pointed teeth nibbled on his puffy bottom lip. And even though tiredness throbbed in his muscles, Bakugou couldn’t help the involuntary shiver of interest that radiated down his spine.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Kirishima said softly, nodding at Bakugou. “We’ve still got time.”