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“Don’t blacklist me,” Fatgum says, awkwardly sidling into the infirmary. He’s joined by Amajiki, the third-year looking so stressed that Shouta’s tempted to have him hop into one of the cots and get his blood pressure taken.
“You both look alright,” Recovery Girl says, eyeing them from over the thick lenses of her glasses. Shouta kind of admires how she manages to expertly walk the fine line between neutral observation and intense judgement.
Fatgum makes a face. “No, we’re both fine! We were out on patrol and, well…” He steps to the side.
Ah.
Shouta doesn’t like children.
He doesn’t tell people this, mostly because they tend to say “you’re a teacher” in a tone that is equal parts confused and concerned. He doesn’t mind teenagers , because they’re older and cynical and generally mature enough to leave him alone unless one of them is actively dying, in which case he’s got a bigger problem than a person whose brain isn’t fully developed enough for them to know that getting drunk on sake the night before an English test generally isn’t the brightest idea.
Children is the keyword, though. There’s a reason why Shouta teaches high school and not kindergarten.
Kirishima Eijirou, drowning in the fabric of his hero costume and looking very much five years old, clearly did not get the memo.
Recovery Girl, in a stunning display of branding, recovers first and invites Kirishima to hop up onto one of the cots. He drags Amajiki with him, steps wary, and the older boy gently drapes a wing around his shoulders.
“I’m assuming he didn’t show up to patrol like this,” Shouta drawls, looking up at Fatgum.
Fatgum laughs at this, clapping him on the shoulder. “Ha! No, he was rescuing a kid who got scared and lost control of her quirk. We talked to her mom after the fight was over and she said it’s harmless.”
“Aside from the de-aging,” Shouta checks.
Fatgum’s cheeks colour under his glare. “He should be back to normal in a few days.”
Kirishima is sitting on one of the cots, kicking his legs while Recovery Girl performs a general check-up. He’s fascinated by Amajiki’s quirk, gently trailing his hands through the older boy’s feathers.
All things considered, he’s a relatively well-behaved child. Shouta’s hoping he stays that way even when his new favourite toy, the chimerical high school student, has to go back to class.
“She was telling you the truth,” Recovery Girl says, calmly putting away her instruments. “He looks healthy. Do you feel alright, Kirishima?”
Kirishima nods earnestly. “Yes, thank you!” His lips purse, then, and he rubs at his arms. “Where’s my mama?”
Shouta blanks. You’re ten years in the future doesn’t sound like the right way to go and the school hasn’t even contacted Kirishima’s parents yet. Recovery Girl is similarly silent, lips twisting as she searches for a tactful way to lay out the situation.
It is Amajiki, surprisingly, who saves them all. “How old are you?” He asks softly.
“Five and a half!” Kirishima says, holding out a chubby hand, fingers splayed.
“I’m eighteen,” Amajiki says.
Kirishima digests that for a moment. “Do you have a job?”
Amajiki looks amused. “I’m a hero.”
“Cool!”
“Can I tell you a secret?” Amajiki asks. Only the twitching of his leg betrays how nervous he is. He’s good under pressure, Shouta notes.
Kirishima’s eyes go big and wide. It’s the slightest bit adorable. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise!”
“Alright,” Amajiki says, nodding. “You got chosen for a special field trip.”
And Kirishima’s jaw drops.
“You get to go to school with other heroes for a little bit,” Amajiki continues. “You’ll learn about fighting and quirks and get stronger with the rest of us!”
“That’s so cool! ” Kirishima squeals. He’s lit up like a Christmas tree. “Can we go now? Do I get a costume? Are we gonna fight?”
Amajiki looks back at Shouta, the question clear on his face.
Shouta sighs. This is officially his problem. “Yes,” he says. “Come with me, I’ll take you to meet everyone else.”
Unsurprisingly, Class 1-A is obsessed with Kirishima. Shouta awkwardly loiters by the door as the group of battle-hardened heroes-in-training coo over Kirishima’s small fists and enthusiastic smile.
Kaminari and Midoriya spark bits of yellow and green lightning from their fingertips so Kirishima can marvel over them, the lights reflected in his eyes. When Ashido kneels down to hug him, he politely asks if he can touch her horns and, given the go-ahead, delicately pets them until she giggles, telling him it tickles. Yaoyorozu’s made Kirishima a little shark plushie that he hugs protectively, squished close to his chest. She looks like she’s close to crying.
Shouta almost gets hit by the door when it opens. He catches it just in time and steps out of the way, half-heartedly opening it for Todoroki and Bakugou, back from their internship, still clad in their hero gear.
“Ashido texted me,” Bakugou says, looking accusingly at Shouta as if, somehow, this entire thing is his fault. “Where is he?”
Shouta sighs and gestures towards the living room. “Go see for yourself.”
Bakugou shoulders past him like he’s prepping for battle, Todoroki following listlessly. Shouta doesn’t want to go in after them, but he’s not sure how much he trusts Bakugou with a fragile little kid, even if that little kid happens to be his de-aged best friend.
Kirishima’s head shoots up at the entrance of new people. Shouta clocks the exact moment that he sees Bakugou—his eyes go wide and starry and, on a kid with eyes as big as Kirishima, the effect is devastating.
“Wow,” Kirishima gasps, awe coating every inch of his tone. “You’re a hero!”
Todoroki looks vaguely offended. So do Kaminari, Midoriya, and Yaoyorozou, whose party tricks have been suddenly rendered null just by Bakugou walking into the room.
Bakugou hasn’t said anything yet. He’s staring down at Kirishima, eyes blank, and Shouta remembers in rapid-fire frame rate exactly how Bakugou reacted to a class full of loud children during his remedial studies.
Judging by the way Todoroki is inching away, he’s experiencing a similar realization.
And then Bakugou exhales quietly, and drops to one knee, hunching so that he’s even closer to Kirishima’s height, and holds out his hand. “Give me your hand,” he says gruffly.
Midoriya flinches, likely stopping himself from pulling Kirishima back. Hagakure’s filming the whole thing. Shouta’s blood pressure is so high that his Apple Watch is probably sending automated alerts to Recovery Girl’s email as they speak.
Kirishima, blessedly naive, just puts his small hand in the centre of Bakugou’s.
“Can you show me your quirk?” Bakugou asks. “Just your hand, make it as strong as possible.”
Kirishima nods and, sticking his tongue out a little as he concentrates, manages to turn the soft skin of his hand into a hard, rocky plane. He looks up at Bakugou with big eyes, practically begging for encouragement, which is a little tough to watch, considering the kind of person Bakugou is—
“That’s perfect,” Bakugou says. “I’m gonna show you something, alright? Don’t move your hand.”
“Okay!”
And then Bakugou’s palm is glowing, and he’s detonating a tiny little explosion into the vulnerable palm of Kirishima’s hand.
“Bakugou—”
“Are you crazy —”
“Kirishima, move back!”
After a brief, panicked second, the class realizes that Kirishima isn’t crying in pain, and there’s a distinct lack of eau de burnt flesh perfuming the air, which means they quiet down and peer close enough to see what Shouta, from his vantage point, can see quite clearly.
Kirishima, equal parts shocked and delighted, is staring down at his undamaged palm, and Bakugou, grinning wildly at him.
“I didn’t feel that!” Kirishima exclaims, beaming up at Bakugou. “It tickled, that’s it!”
“You must be pretty strong, then,” Bakugou says. “I’m a hero and you’re easily as strong as me, aren’t you? What do you think that makes you?”
“Oh my god,” Ashido murmurs, clapping her hand over her mouth. Kaminari rolls his eyes like he’s trying to make fun of her, but his eyes are glassy.
They’re all quiet as they watch Kirishima mouth the words, Bakugou waiting patiently.
“A hero,” he says quietly, like he can’t believe it’s real. “I’m like… a hero?”
“Not like,” Bakugou says, a small smile stealing across his face. “You are one.”
Kirishima’s ensuing grin is so brilliantly happy that Shouta has to look away.
“Have you eaten anything?” Bakugou asks. “You hungry?”
Kirishima shakes his head. “I’m alright!”
Shouta’s about to intervene—the last meal Kirishima ate was probably breakfast, and they’re well into the afternoon—but Bakugou raises his eyebrows. “I just came back from patrol, so I’m starving. Do you think you could eat with me, so I’m not alone?”
Kirishima bites his lip. “Okay, sure.”
Bakugou grins, wide and satisfied. “Good. Stay here, I’m just gonna shower and then we’ll cook together, okay?”
Kirishima nods, giving him a thumbs up, and Bakugou unceremoniously heads towards the showers, leaving behind one starstruck child, one exhausted adult, and a roomful of confused hero students.
“Where’s Bakugou?” Kirishima asks, for the seventh time in fifteen minutes.
They’ve been trying to distract him with a kid’s cartoon on Ashido’s phone that she swears all her baby nephews love, but he keeps looking over at the elevator with an adorable, if not slightly heartbreaking, pout on his face. If Bakugou chooses today of all days to break Kirishima’s heart, Denki’s going to hunt him down and salt the earth with his ashes.
Except it probably won’t come to that, because Bakugou’s never acted that sweet with anyone, ever.
Denki sighs. “Did anyone see that coming?” He asks. “Am I the only one confused, or did you guys all have Bakugou being good with kids on your bingo cards for this year?”
“He is not good with kids,” Midoriya says, a haunted look on his face. “Last week a child in our neighbourhood asked for his autograph and Kacchan told him that he wouldn’t go far in life if he kept on asking for handouts.”
They all fall silent, trying to process that.
“Bakugou!” Kirishima cheers.
“Aw, buddy, listen, you gotta give him a little longer to get… ready…” Ashido trails off, staring at the opening elevator.
Showers after patrol are a sacred time. Most students clock in anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour, scrubbing off the blood and grime and, mostly, just destressing, and Bakugou’s no different—usually.
Today, he’s scrubbed clean, wearing sweats and messy, towel-dried hair, in under twenty minutes.
Kirishima scrambles off the couch and Denki realizes, with a brief, stabbing envy, that no one in his life will ever be excited to see him as five-year-old Kirishima is excited to see Bakugou.
“Are you gonna cook?” Kirishima asks. “Can I help?”
“Oh my god,” Hagakure says, sounding choked up. “He wants to help.”
“It's cringe to have baby fever at seventeen,” Denki reminds her.
“Look at him,” Hagakure hisses.
Denki looks and, yeah, okay, he can see it. Bakugou’s plopped Kirishima up on his shoulders and he’s speaking to him gently, steady hands curled around Kirishima’s legs.
“What’s the rule with washing rice?” Bakugou asks.
“Three times or until clear!” Kirishima reports back.
“He knows the rule for washing rice,” Hagakure says, sounding close to tears. “I want to dress him in Winnie the Pooh character onesies for Halloween.”
“You’re so fucking creepy,” Denki says. “He was your literal gym buddy like, three hours ago.”
“And now he’s making sure Bakugou washes his rice properly,” Hagakure says, pointing accusingly at the nauseatingly adorable scene playing out in front of them. “Look how serious he is! Look how determined he is to have good rice!”
Indeed, Kirishima has a focused pout on his little face, supervising the swish of Bakugou’s hand.
“I think it’s good,” he announces after Bakugou has rinsed and poured three times.
“I think you’re right,” Bakugou says, and Kirishima beams.
“Winnie the Pooh characters,” Hagakure whispers. “Picture him holding a little pot of honey. We can make Bakugou Eeyore.”
“It’s not even close to October,” Denki says, bewildered. And then, “Eeyore?”
When Kirishima’s bedtime rolls around (8:00 p.m. on the dot), the class makes the unanimous decision to have a sleepover in the common room.
By 7:30, the common room floor is covered in sleeping bags and pillows. Kirishima asks Tokoyami if Dark Shadow gets their own sleeping bag and Tokoyami noncommittally shows him the fluffy purple blanket that Dark Shadow enjoys curling up in. Kirishima is appropriately delighted by it.
The problem arises when he’s all snuggled up in a bright red sleeping bag, in soft flannel pajamas that almost fit—courtesy of Todoroki’s inability to do laundry. It’s been a while since Denki was five, but he sure as hell remembers his parents reading to him before bed every night.
“Do we have anything to read him?” He asks.
Everyone looks at each other.
“I don’t have anything that’s not R-rated,” Jirou says, wincing.
“Me either,” Shinsou says, and her jaw drops.
“What?”
“It’s okay when they do it, it’s a problem when I do it,” Shinsou mumbles.
“I don’t have anything beneath a college reading level,” Yaomomo volunteers.
Midoriya raises his hand.
“We’re not reading him your fucking comics,” Bakugou says.
“You have the same—”
“We’re not reading him mine either.”
“That’s fine, I’m just saying you can’t exactly insult me, when you have the exact—”
“He doesn’t need a story,” Todoroki says flatly. “Look, he’s already asleep.”
As one, they all turn to look at Kirishima and—Todoroki’s right. He’s curled up in a little ball, holding on tight to his little shark plushie.
“Do we all just… sleep, now?” Sero asks, looking around. “I mean—no disrespect, Bakugou, but the rest of us tend to sleep a little later than eight.”
“Do I look like your mother?” Bakugou snaps. “Fuck do I care what time you sleep at? Just don’t wake him up.”
And the thing is, they could just as easily go up to their individual rooms and finish up with work or dick around on their phones until one in the morning—but it’s Kirishima they’re talking about here, the guy who stays up with them when they can’t sleep and bakes brownie pizzas after tough tests.
“I will be instating early quiet hours tonight,” Iida says wryly, flicking off the lights. “You’re all free to stay awake, but do be quiet.”
Denki immediately drags Sero and Ojiro into the quietest game of Mario Kart he’s ever played, the three of them whisper-cursing at each other with every blue shell.
Midoriya ropes a few people into a game of cards—he has one of those special-edition Bronze Age All Might packs that Bakugou is seething jealous of. Bakugou thinks he isn’t obvious about it, but he also refuses to be dealt in, which pretty much solidifies the theory.
A few people, Bakugou included, default to reading. Yaomomo has an actual book, Jirou and Shinsou are apparently reading matching filth on their battered Androids, and Bakugou’s scrolling through what, when Denki squints, appears to be a Vice article on the socio-economic state of the world. Nerd.
It’s funny though, for all their talk of staying up late, Denki doesn’t think more than a handful of people are still awake past ten.
Mezo wakes up to a murmured conversation. He’s briefly disoriented by the dark room and hard surface beneath his back before he remembers yesterday in full—the entire class crashing in the common room for a twenty-person sleepover with one de-aged Kirishima Eijirou.
He’s about to check his phone when the conversation that woke him up actually processes—and he freezes.
“You’re okay,” Bakugou is saying, over and over. “I’ve got you, you’re okay. Hey—listen, shh, I have a story, alright? You fell asleep before I could tell you it, you wanna hear it?”
Almost inaudible comes Kirishima’s watery, “Yeah.”
“Once, there was a hero student, called Ground Zero,” Bakugou says. “He was a hero-in-training, and he fought very, very hard. One day, he was attacked by villains, and they took him away to their secret lair.” Bakugou pauses and his next words are just a touch softer. “He thought he was all alone. He thought that he was going to have to fight all by himself. He made his way out of the lair and out onto the roof—and this was okay, because Ground Zero could fly, but he was outnumbered by the villains, and he thought this was going to be the end.”
“This is a bad story,” Kirishima says grumpily.
“Where’s your patience?” Bakugou asks. “I said Ground Zero thought this was going to be the end.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“Kirishima, I swear to god—”
“Sorry! Sorry.”
But the kid’s laughing a little, and Bakugou doesn’t sound the slightest bit irritated when he starts speaking again.
“The heroes showed up—All Might, the greatest hero ever—”
“That’s Crimson Riot—”
“The greatest hero ever showed up, and all by himself, he turned the tide of the fight. Except the villains were led by All Might’s archnemesis and he was almost as strong as All Might and so—Ground Zero realized that All Might couldn’t save him.”
“So he was still alone?”
“No,” Bakugou says, almost fondly. “No, he wasn’t alone. Because what Ground Zero didn’t realize was that, while he was training to be a hero, his best friend had already become one. His name was Red Riot, and he was stupidly strong, and more hardworking than anyone, and more than anything he was determined. He threw himself into the middle of the sky and held out his hand and—and Ground Zero flew all the way up to meet him. And they made it out of the fight together.”
“Red Riot? I’ve never heard of him.”
“No? Here, I’ll show you.” Bakugou pulls out his phone and swipes through—dimming the screen brightness before he turns it to face Kirishima. “That’s him, receiving the MVP award from the agency he interned at. Here’s one of him at his debut, he’s fighting the Blade Villain. Here’s one of him training—that’s his signature move, Unbreakable. Nothing can beat him when he’s using Unbreakable.”
From this vantage point, Mezo can see very clearly that Bakugou has an entire folder in his phone for content of Red Riot.
“Tell me more about him!” Kirishima demands, tears gone. “He’s your best friend? Why haven’t I seen him?”
“He’s on a trip right now,” Bakugou says easily. “But sure, he’s the strongest hero I’ve ever met. His quirk is—is unlike anything. Once, when he was an intern, his agency infiltrated the yakuza. He was with Fatgum, a hero who can absorb the energy of an attack and use it against his enemy. They were fighting a villain named Rappa, who could just—attack, and attack, and attack, without getting tired. He beat Red Riot easily, and then he almost killed Fatgum.”
“You keep telling bad stories.”
“No, you just keep interrupting before the good parts. You wanna know why Red Riot is my favourite hero? Because he never stays down, not ever. You knock him down and he just gets back up again, stronger than ever. Even after Rappa hurt him—pretty badly, he managed to get up, and fight the villain long enough for Fatgum to regain his strength and end the fight.”
Kirishima absorbs that silently. After a moment, he says, “I wanna see him fight.”
“Hell yeah,” Bakugou says, scrolling through his phone. “Here’s one of Unbreakable in action. See how my explosions don’t even make a dent? The jackass is actually laughing at me.”
“Wow,” Kirishima murmurs. “He’s so strong.”
“The strongest,” Bakugou confirms. He keeps going—Mezo isn’t sure how Bakugou even has storage with the amount of stuff he has in his Red Riot folder. He has sketched out prototypes of Kirishima’s hero costume, which he explains in great detail. He shows Kirishima videos of Red Riot training, draws attention to the most impressive parts of his quirk.
“Here’s one of my favourites,” Bakugou says. “He wasn’t even on patrol in this one—we were out together, actually, and there was a fire in a restaurant—and he just ran in, zero hesitation, and helped get everyone out.”
In the video, Red Riot is running out of the restaurant, outlined brilliantly in the orange light of the fire. His clothes are in tatters, but Unbreakable protects him, and the people tucked between the tree trunks of his arms.
Mezo can’t see Kirishima’s face, but he imagines the expression on it isn’t dissimilar to the one he wore when he saw Bakugou for the first time.
In the morning, Bakugou very casually comes to loiter beside Mezo as he waits for his tea to finish steeping. “Thanks for not making a big deal out of last night,” he says.
Mezo startles, but only because Bakugou has the stance of someone ready to shank him in an alleyway over drugs. “It’s no problem,” he says, bobbing his teabag in and out, for lack of anything to do. “Not a big deal, anyway.”
“I know it looks…weird, or whatever,” Bakugou says, eyes trained on Kirishima playing Go Fish with Tokoyami and Dark Shadow at the coffee table. “But—we don’t know how this works, if he’ll remember anything, bring it with him—I just keep thinking, y’know? How much more he’d believe in himself if he had someone like me a little earlier on. To remind him how strong he was.”
“That’s—that’s really good of you, Bakugou,” Mezo says. He has to fight not to react when Bakugou looks up at him, looking almost frustrated. “I think… well, I think it has to help him, either way.”
“Either way?”
“Well,” Mezo says, “either he remembers everything and he believes in himself a little more, or—or he doesn’t remember anything, and he still has you for a best friend. Seems to me that either way he’s pretty set, don’t you think?”
Bakugou blinks. And then he coughs, in a decisively manly, I’m a male, I’m a man, I’m a he, I don’t get into that “mentally ill” stuff way, and says, “Yeah, thanks.” And then he walks away to sit approximately one foot away from Kirishima and pretend that he’s not watching the kid like a hawk.
Why Bakugou is acting like Shigaraki’s going to swoop in through the window and steal Kirishima away from his riveting game of Go-Fish is beyond Mezo, but it’s none of his business and his tea is looking a little oversteeped, so he ignores it in favour of his bigger, unfortunately, bitter problems.
Unsurprisingly, Kirishima quickly becomes obsessed with everything Red Riot related. Yaomomo makes him a little Red Riot action figure and he carries it with him everywhere. Mina has a steadily growing folder on her phone that’s just filled with pictures of Kirishima taking Mini-Red-Riot with him on walks around the school grounds and even meals in the cafeteria—the figure fiercely guarding Kirishima’s grilled fish and vegetables.
Kaminari knits him a red and black beanie and it’s just a little too big, enough to slope down across Kirishima’s forehead. This does not stop him from wearing it at all hours of the day.
The thing that surprises Mina is that, well, she saw this going the other way. After Kirishima’s first time meeting Ground Zero, she’d assumed that the beanie would be green and orange, that it would be Ground Zero guarding Kirishima’s lunches, and that the toy would have blonde hair and tiny little gauntlets.
But Bakugou hasn’t let that happen. Not because he thinks he doesn’t deserve the worship, but simply because he thinks Red Riot deserves it more.
It’s—and Mina truly cannot believe that she’s using this word in reference to Bakugou Katsuki—sweet.
Unfortunately, not everyone is so supportive.
Mina, Kaminari, Sero, Bakugou, and Kirishima are all eating lunch together when Monoma walks past, doubles back, and reaches out to grab Mini-Red-Riot. Kirishima’s too slow to snatch it back but Bakugou isn’t, and his fingers close around Monoma’s wrist like the slick teeth of a hungry dog.
“That’s not yours,” he says.
“You couldn’t have given him a cooler hero?” Monoma sneers. “Poor kid’s going to be so embarrassed when he realizes who he’s been carrying around with him all day.”
“Red Riot’s the best,” Kirishima spits out, face red. The poor kid is shaking, but he’s glaring up at Monoma fiercely. “You don’t know—anything.”
Bakugou grins, wide and proud. “You heard him,” he says. “Red Riot’s the best, and you don’t know shit.” His fingers tighten, harsh enough that Monoma can’t quite bite back his light groan of pain.
Mina should probably step in because Monoma’s wrist looks purple between the gaps of Bakugou’s fingers—but she’s not good enough for that. If Yaomomo or Iida want to say anything, they can.
Bakugou leans over the table, one hand on Kirishima’s shoulder, the other crushing the blood out of Monoma’s arm. His eyes are very dark, and very angry. “You know me,” he says quietly. “You know I’ll snap your wrist right in front of him, and when he’s back to normal he’ll think it’s funny because he fucking hates you.”
Monoma glares at him—and he might have let the toy drop, or he might have stayed there until Bakugou really did break his wrist, but in the end, it doesn’t matter, because Kirishima reaches out and yanks the toy out from Monoma’s tight hold.
In the same beat, Bakugou lets go of Monoma’s wrist, the same colour as a winery in September—and promptly ignores him as he stumbles away, clutching his wrist.
“You killed that, holy shit,” he exclaims, holding out his fist until Kirishima gives it a tentative fistbump. “No, what the hell, you can do better than that. Are you kidding? You did so good, kid.”
Kirishima’s smiling now, and he gives Bakugou a strong, bold fistbump. The tips of his knuckles look a little sharper than normal and Bakugou has to shake out his hand.
“I—I refused to go down,” Kirishima says, very clearly repeating words that have been said to him many, many times over the course of the past few days. “Just like Red Riot.”
Bakugou looks elated. “Just like him, yeah!”
The thing is, Mina’s well aware this is about Kirishima.
But she’s his day-fucking-one. She was there when he was a bright little kid, and she was there all through middle school, watching him fight with himself every single day, trying to believe that he was worth it. It’s everything to her, seeing Kirishima with his bright, fuck-off red hair, and his bold smile, and the way he seamlessly inserts himself into every conversation and opportunity and experience.
Still—to see the Kirishima that only she remembers, the small and sweet and slightly fragile one—to see him stand up to Monoma and fist bump Bakugou with a big smile on his face—it heals a part of her she hadn’t even realized needed healing.
“Is Red Riot your new favourite hero?” She asks. “Even better than Crimson Riot?”
Kirishima frowns, evidently thinking it over. Bakugou throws her a half-hearted glare, but his lips are ticked up at the corners, so Mina knows she hasn’t managed to undo all of his hard work with one question.
“Second favourite,” he decides. “Tied with, um, Ground Zero.”
Bakugou’s cheeks go pink, but he doesn’t say anything.
Mina’s not above a little bit of needling. “And what about you, Bakugou? Who’s your favourite?”
“Fuck off,” he grumbles, tearing a chunk of fish between his chopsticks.
“You told me it was Red Riot,” Kirishima says.
Kaminari raises his eyebrows. “Oh, really, now.”
“That’s—oh, shut up,” Bakugou snaps. He pauses and ruffles Kirishima’s hair. “Not you.”
“You really said that?” Sero asks, plopping his chin in his hand like they’re all girls at a slumber party. “You said he was your favourite?”
“He’s your favourite, right?” Kirishima asks.
And, of course, that’s what pushes Bakugou to actually answer like a normal human being because, god forbid, Kirishima believes, for even a second, that Bakugou’s world revolves around anything other than Red Riot, the Sturdy Hero.
“‘Course he’s my favourite,” he says gruffly, very clearly avoiding eye contact with all of them.
“‘Cause you said he’s the strongest,” Kirishima says, bouncing a little in his seat. “Out of everyone.”
“That is something I said, yes,” Bakugou says, focusing very hard on the cafeteria wall. Mina follows his gaze and, wonder upon wonder, it seems like a piece of paint has chipped off, exposing the white plaster beneath. Wild.
“And he’s your best friend. And he never backs down, not ever. And he—you said he’s really nice, always helping people, and it makes you wanna be better too—”
Bakugou’s ears are a bright, stinking red, but he’d die before he tells Kirishima to shut up, so the kid just keeps on going, spilling all of the nauseating things Bakugou’s been telling him about himself.
Sero and Kaminari look delighted, gobbling up every single word Kirishima gives them. Red Riot is brave and ca-pa-ble and smart and always knows what to do and how to help and, and, and—
“And,” Kirishima finishes, blithely unaware of the enormity of what he’s about to say, “he saves Ground Zero’s life every day.”
As one, Sero, Kaminari, and Mina swing their heads up to look at Bakugou, who, at that moment, bears striking resemblance to a man who wishes his parents had paid the three thousand yen for proper birth control.
“That’s right, right?” Kirishima asks, looking up at Bakugou.
Mina’s already grinning, waiting for the response. Bakugou’s already proven that no matter how embarrassed he is, Kirishima’s good opinion of himself will always, always come first.
“Yeah,” Bakugou says, somehow managing to not sound like he’s pulling out his own teeth. “Yeah, that’s right.”
Eijirou wakes up from the weirdest fucking dream. He’s naked in Katsuki’s bed, which isn’t all that weird, but he has a killer headache and his limbs are a bit sore, and—there’s a little figurine in his hand.
It’s a Red Riot figurine, complete with the jagged sash across his front and a delicately crafted mask, and even the sharp white point of his teeth. Yaomomo outdid herself with it.
There’s the slip of a beanie that Kaminari knit behind him, stuck between the mattress and the headboard. It’s soft and done in his colours.
It all comes back like low tide, lapping at the shore.
The thing is—it’s more than a little embarrassing, that he’s spent the last few days waddling around carrying around a little doll of himself and waxing poetic over his own quirk and abilities and—and personality, really, what the hell.
Eijirou could be cruel, and go downstairs and pick a fight with Katsuki, for embarrassing him—but then it would all be for nothing. Katsuki, red-eared at the cafeteria table, saying that Eijirou saves his life every fucking day, would be for nothing.
Because it’s not easy for him, Eijirou knows. The way he’d been—the sweet side of him, it’s not the kind of thing that ever makes itself apparent in public, where other people can gawk and wonder and make assumptions about.
Katsuki loves him so, so well, but he’s never done it so loudly. So openly.
And all of a sudden, Eijirou can’t get downstairs fast enough.
He grabs a set of Katsuki’s clothes—and, honestly, the muscle tank might actually be his, they live in each other’s closets at this point—and sprints downstairs, feet thundering down the stairs. There’s a brief scuffle with the stairwell door—but he manages to open it, and skids out into the common room.
“Kirishima!” Kaminari exclaims, jumping up from the couch. “We missed you, man! How do you feel?”
“Great,” Eijirou says, distracted. “Where’s Bakugou?”
“How much do you remember?” Ashido asks, running in from the kitchen. “Because—listen, look, there’re some things you should maybe know—”
“All of it,” Eijirou says, not looking at either of them, because, “seriously, where is Bakugou?”
“So you remember all that stuff he said, about Red Riot—”
“Relax, Ashido.” Her jaw snaps shut at Katsuki’s irritated drawl. “He already knows I’m in love with him.”
Eijirou whirls around. “Where were you? I’ve been looking—”
“For a whole thirty seconds, I know,” Katsuki says. “Went upstairs to go wake you up for dinner and I literally watched you sprint out of my room and down the stairs. In the opposite direction of me.”
His mouth is twitching like he wants to laugh and—and Eijirou just wants to watch him laugh forever, really.
“Oh,” he says, lamely. “You could have called me.”
“Nah,” Katsuki says. “This works just fine.”
This being the two of them, awkwardly situated between the common room and the kitchen, in front of the captive audience of Ashido and Kaminari who—Eijirou checks—have rapidly slunk into the privacy of the kitchen.
“I—” Eijirou swallows. “You know this is—ridiculous, right? Not everyone needs to have your ego, it’s actually—it would be really bad. For more of you to be walking around. Which I don’t think you thought about before you—”
“Before I what?” Katsuki asks, stepping closer. “You think I did something bad? Is that it?”
He’s too fucking confident. Eijirou thought he would be—at least a little embarrassed, after everything he’d put forward. After everything, their classmates know about how Katsuki feels, about the sheer depth of it—
“You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about anymore,” he realizes aloud. “Oh, shit, this is really bad.”
“It’s a fuckin’ mess,” Katsuki agrees, close enough to bump their noses together. “Wasn’t even trying to put all my cards on the table but that’s how it ended up.”
Wasn’t even trying.
It’s the ease with which he says it. Like spilling over with his admiration of Eijirou and everything he does was just—collateral damage. Like it wasn’t a concentrated effort to be so fucking loud over how much he loves Eijirou, it was just—just a natural consequence of being around him, and taking care of him, and loving him.
Eijirou blinks. Looks up. Blinks again.
“Wait, Ei—fuck, I’m sorry,” Katsuki looks frantic. He tries to wipe away Eijirou’s tears with his thumbs, calluses rough against his skin. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t know—”
“No, stop,” Eijirou says, shaking his head. “It’s—it’s good, it’s just—”
The thing is that Eijirou loves the hell out of Katsuki. It’s just that simple.
There are a lot of things about their lives that are complicated but that—that’s one thing that’s clean-cut and easy, like folding pillowcases, straight out of the laundry. Warm, even corners—that’s how Eijirou loves Katsuki.
“You make it so easy,” he says. Katsuki’s thumbs brush the corners of his lips. “You have no idea how much you—it was so hard, making my hair all—y’know, and training by myself, and teaching myself that I was strong enough, and good enough, and I thought coming here would make it easier and it did, but not by much, and you just—” He sways forward, presses a quick, adoring kiss to Katsuki’s slack mouth. “You make it so much easier on me, Katsuki.”
Katsuki eyes go soft. He takes Eijirou’s face in his hands, and he holds it like it’s worth its weight in gold. “That’s good,” he says, bringing him close. “That’s real fuckin’ good, Eijirou, ‘cause I meant everything I said.”
“Aw, even the part where I save your life every single day?” Eijirou tries to tease him, but Katsuki just looks at him solemnly.
“You are the standard that I live by,” he says. The sureness in his voice is earth-shattering. “I measure everything I do by what you would do in that same situation and—and if I think you would have done the same thing, it means I was enough. You have… no idea how much I trust your judgement, Eijirou.” He kisses Eijirou—it seems like—just to kiss him. Twice, then a third time, before he pulls away. “I was serious when I said that you save my life. You make sure that I can trust my decisions. You make everything loud go quiet.” And Katsuki smiles, inviting Eijirou in on the joke. “Guess what I’m trying to say is, you make it easier for me, too.”
Eijrou presses his forehead against Katsuki’s. “I meant what I said, before,” he says, laughing when Katsuki’s face creases in confusion. “I know I was five, but I mean it. Crimson Riot’s number one but—but you’re tied for second.”
Here is how Eijirou knows Katsuki is in love with him.
He’s seen Katsuki win Sports Festivals, and snag the top mark in class, and crow about being the number one pick for an internship—but he’s never seen him smile more proudly than he does when Eijirou tells him that he’s tied for second place.