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Hey there everyone!
Jess here. Step by step, I've been wrapping up and archiving my work for the BNHA fandom, and I knew posting a little update like this one would be a part of that.
Let me make it quick: I won't be finishing press play. After three years of intense KRBK brainrot, my writing brain has decided to turn its attention elsewhere and I sadly wasn't fast enough in finishing this story to spare it this fate. I promised myself long ago that I won't write out of obligation, even if letting go hurts with a story I put so much love and careful detail into... I am happy, however, that I got most of the story out there for y'all to read and that it isn't too bad a cliffhanger I'm leaving you with. I hope you understand, dear reader, and that you'll remember this fic fondly regardless!
(And who knows? Perhaps someday, I can come back and complete it. No promises, though!)
For now, I have two little goodies for you:
(1) I commissioned more art for this story by holundera! It was originally meant for the next chapter, but it refers to a scene that already happened, so I decided to upload it there instead. Check out the end of Chapter 3: chorus to see Bakugou's sketch of Kirishima playing piano for Shy Guy!
(2) For those curious to know how it would have ended, here are my notes for the last two chapters, chorus II and outro:
- Kirishima finds the aforementioned sketch Bakugou drew of him stuck to his fridge a few hours after he left and calls him in tears, swearing he will find the nicest frame for it.
- Bakugou & Kirishima spend weeks texting back and forth, enjoying the aftermath of their collab going online and their respective fanbases losing their minds. Kirishima convinces Bakugou to make a public-facing Instagram so he can tag him in his stories and continues composing songs for Bakugou's channel, while Bakugou popularizes Kirishima's cat shelter via charity streams and such on YouTube.
- Still, their time apart is hard. Bakugou's 30th birthday is coming up and it's unlikely Kirishima will get the time off to come visit, so they make plans to spend parts of it together online before Bakugou sets off on his annual mountain hike for Golden Week.
- Little does Bakugou know that Mina helped Kirishima get in contact with Kaminari and the rest of the artist gang. Together with Tetsutetsu to take care of the cat shelter and Midoriya as their man on the ground in the studio, they plan to remodel it for the cats while Bakugou is away, with Kirishima driving Bastard and Dynamite to Kyoto and welcoming him (and the cats!) home.
- Yes, Bakugou jumps into Kirishima's arms when he sees him and tries very hard to hide the happy tears with lots of yelling. Kirishima gets to ask his 1000 questions about Bakugou’s work and nerds out over every painting he recognizes.
- Yes, they go on a really sweet date by the end of which Kirishima gives Bakugou his personal present: An old school MP3 player full of songs he recorded for him (including an acoustic rendition of I'm Alive by Disturbed because of course our man hasn't forgotten 😌). Kirishima is really shy about his singing voice,* but seeing Bakugou's reaction makes it all worth it <3
- The epilogue finds them in Kirishima's house in Tokyo a handful of years later, now co-owned by him and Bakugou and expanded with a brand-new art restoration studio for Bakugou. Letting go of Yagi’s studio and giving his share to Deku helped him finally process his grief and survivor’s guilt over the car accident; as sole owner to Twin Stars, Deku uses the extra space to train apprentices (which Bakugou helps him with, from time to time). Kirishima shows up on Bakugou's channel all the time and vice versa, with their fans eventually clueing into the fact they got sneakily married somewhere down the road.
(* An extra nerdy fun fact about this fic: I picked Disturbed because I imagine Kirishima's singing voice to be similar to David Draiman's, which meant I was listening to Disturbed's rendition of The Sound of Silence a crazy amount while writing this story. The more you know!)
…Or something like that! The end product always ends up different than what was planned and as you can see, I had quite a lot of fluffy ground to cover for the last chunk of the story, hehe. Love me some supportive Bakusquad, finally reunited as they belong <3
In any case: Thanks for reading and have a wonderful 2024, everyone!