Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

and with every rule you break... 

The music of the city is muffled from where he is.  

Commotion fills the lot: the loud ringing of voices as people barked orders at one another; the constant whir of machinery lifting and carrying pallets of wrapped products, either into long trailer beds or back inside the warehouse’s multiple opened garages. 

He stands behind a large retailer warehouse, leaning against the side of an old commercial truck. The company’s name has long since been washed off the side of the trailer, the vehicle a nameless remnant of its past life. Bakugou Katsuki listens to the lively environment with a distracted mind, the natural thrum of the city’s busy afternoon commute muted underneath his active surroundings. As visually entertaining his environment is, more interesting things cloud his mind.  

Particularly involving his boyfriend and tonight.  

Tonight was an occurrence that was so rare, blue moon sightings were more frequent than it. Bakugou was leaving work four hours early, leaving him with the entire evening to his boyfriend.  

And, because perhaps God would be extra merciful for him today, he might have the opportunity to take the rest of the week off too, though this solely depended on the mood of his hag of a boss.  

But Bakugou was feeling lucky this afternoon. Besides, he damn well deserved a break after all the work he put into this job. Over seventy hours of non-stop work, for the last nine years of his life. That old hag better let me take the week off. He wants to see his boyfriend at a normal time for once.  

Opportunities like this were slim-to-none, Bakugou hardly ever seeing the college student when he stumbled into their little shared apartment at odd hours of the night, sometimes coming home at the same time the redhead was leaving for class. Bakugou’s unorthodox schedule of extremely late-night to early morning shifts often leading to numerous nights of arguments and frustrations, putting a constant strain on their relationship.  

But not tonight. Bakugou was going out of his way to make this evening special for the one person he cares about in this world, simply because he deserved it. 

A sap a certain someone would call him, but he begs to differ.  

He was fucking tired of coming home between the hours of twelve and five every morning. And so, Bakugou planned on getting off at four o’clock sharp—pm. What he had to do for today should last no longer than an hour and a half at most, so he could end his shift early and be done for the day.  

If he’s being honest, it shouldn’t last any longer than one hour. But people were faulty and selfish creatures, who weren’t considerate of anyone else’s time or feelings but their own. Where the hell are these fuckers?  

Through his desirous thoughts of this evening, Bakugou had kept a keen eye on his environment to know something was up. Workers swarmed the retailer warehouse like an exposed ant bed, their bright orange vests moving from trucks to machinery inside wide garages in a repeating pattern of loading and unloading.  

And that was all he saw—just a bunch of workers. He didn’t see the three men who he and his partner were scheduled to meet at noon anywhere in the vicinity, and it was beginning to piss him off. The sun was beaming down on him from where he was, sweat collecting under his arms and drenching lines down his back under his black hoodie. It was only the beginning of March, the spring season barely starting, but temperatures were already hiking into the eighties.  

I’m gonna kill these fuckers, Bakugou grumbles to himself as he raises his wrist to eye-level. It was almost three, pushing to the end of his shift, and these bastards still hadn’t arrived.  

Underneath the time, he notices a tiny text icon on his smartwatch’s screen. He digs into his pocket, pulling out his phone and unlocking the dark screen to an image that rivals the bright sun. The corners of his eyes crinkle at the sight, his irritation already starting to ooze from him.  

A beautiful man with luscious red hair takes over his entire screen, his toothy grin pulling Bakugou’s eyes to a stunning face and gorgeous eyes that remind the blonde of smooth red wine. A tiny scab line stretches from his right eye to just underneath his dyed brow. Bakugou loved that little scar; he loved kissing it in the morning, in the evening, and especially when a pout pulled at his brows. There was a sliver of dark red bedsheets behind the man and in the corner, right along the edge of the frame, he could make out the outline of his leg clad in a pair of black joggers. A tiny puppy stretched out on top of the redhead’s bare chest, his black and brown head and small white snout buried under his chin, fast asleep.  

Bakugou remembers watching his boyfriend steal his phone right from him and taking the picture—along with several more—before he was able to snatch it back. It had happened on a day much like the blonde was hoping for this evening; he had come home at a reasonable time and was able to spend it with his boyfriend and their newly bought puppy (Bakugou didn’t want him at first, but he quickly grew to love the little troublemaker). Bakugou had deleted almost half of the selfies the man took, but he fell in love with this one and saved it as his lock screen as a form of stress-relief and a remedy to soothe his temperamental nerves. It doesn’t beat getting a chance to see that award-winning smile in person, but that was Bakugou’s business—and only his business alone.  

He opens the text notification partly covering the redhead’s beaming smile. His fond expression deepens.  

From: Baby 
Still coming home early??  
Sent at 2:30 pm  

Fucker changed his name again, Bakugou thinks, counting the three heart emojis after the name in fond amusement. He raises his phone higher so the facial recognition could unlock the screen and just as he’s going to reply back,  he hears the gentle wham of the truck’s driver-side door opening and closing.  

Bakugou locks his phone and wipes the affectionate look off his face, but he's a second too late. “What’s got you smilin’, bro?”  

Bakugou faces the approaching man with a sharp scowl. “I’m not smiling. And what did I tell you about calling me that?”  

“Can I call you Kats instead?”  

The nickname resurfaces the image of his lock screen and colors the tips of his ears and the back of his neck red. “Call me that and I’m breaking your fucking long ass legs.”  

He wasn’t exaggerating about the other’s legs. The man walking around the front of the truck was nothing but height. Tall and lanky, his body consisting of tattooed arms and ridiculously lengthy legs trapped under a black t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. The sleeves came to an end above his biceps where both of his sleeve tattoos began, though Bakugou had seen him shirtless enough times to know the true ending of his tattoos were underneath his jaws. They covered his pale skin in lines of black and vibrant ink. On his left arm, Bakugou saw the cliché design of skulls and roses, some phrase written underneath the falling red petals that he couldn’t remember and never bothered to. What was hidden underneath the sleeve of his shirt was a portrait of a woman’s face surrounded by the same rose petals, starting on his shoulder and reaching behind it. The woman was of no one in particular; just some nameless black-haired beauty with a sultry gaze partially covered by a lock of wavy hair. On his right arm, a black snake traveled to just below his elbow, the obsidian scales a sharp contrast to the colorful and floral Japanese-styled background it was inked upon. Bakugou could see more spots of color underneath his jaws where the floral design continued.  

“Aww, but your boyfriend gets to call you that.”  

“Yeah, and it’s staying like that, Soy-sauce.”  

“I can’t call you by a nickname, but you get to call me Soy-sauce. That ain’t fair.” 

“Go cry about that shit somewhere else. I don’t give a fuck.”  

Soy-sauce, as he was affectionately called, huffs a chuckle over his lips while stretching, pulling the hem of his shirt a few centimeters from his waistband and revealing more tattoos across his skin. He takes his hand through his hair after stretching, running his fingers through the stylized cowlick he gelled his oil-black hair in. The sides of his head were shaved into a closely shaven fade. “They still haven’t come out yet?”  

Bakugou huffs, “No,”  and crosses his arms after shoving his phone back into his pocket. “I don’t know what’s taking these bitches so fucking long. I’m tired of waiting out here in this fucking sun.”  

“Well, you are the one wearing a hoodie in eighty-degree weather.”  

Soy-sauce doesn’t flinch under Bakugou’s heated glare. The man had a relatively young face, just shy of the age of twenty-five, but his voice was a deep baritone that people often mistook him for being someone ten years older. Bakugou snarls at him to fuck off and the other’s eyes sparkle with amusing mirth, laughter twinkling inside of his black irises.  

“I agree though,” he says as he walks over to the blonde and leans into a spot five inches apart from him, “They should be out here by now.”  

Bakugou grumbles, pushing himself almost an entire foot away from the man, “They need to hurry the fuck up. I don’t have all day.”  

“Is this about your special date tonight?” 

His thin black brows wiggle suggestively at him, and Bakugou threatens to reduce his height with his hands once again. “S’not a date anyways,” he says after, turning his head away. “Mind your fuckin’ business.”  

“How is Kirishima by the way?” he asks, doing the exact opposite of what the other told him to. “He’s still majoring in journalism?” 

“I just said mind your fuckin’ business, asshole,” Bakugou spits while he tugging up the black sleeves of his hoodie, hoping to expel the heat collecting above his skin (why the fuck did he think it was a good idea to wear a hoodie today?). He had his fair share of tattoos, though his skin wasn’t completely inked with them like the annoying man beside him; a full sleeve that came down to his knuckles, a chest-piece, and then the top of his back. His right sleeve was a face of ancient sculpture separated into three sections: the top half of was half the eyes and curly hair, inked in gold. The middle part was a blue skull, tiny crevices colored gold to add definition. And the last part was from the chin down to the middle of the neck and the rest of the curly hair. Deep blue lines dripped off the frayed ends of the sculpture’s neck and down his arms, which his pulled back hoodie sleeve revealed. They dripped onto a gold skull on the back of his hand, pouring through the black eye sockets and soaking between its teeth with a skill of realism that only an experienced tattoo artist could achieve. The last of the drips bled onto his right knuckles.  

His other two tattoos, hidden underneath the hoodie and the shirt he wore underneath, were of much simpler designs: a small Libra constellation over his heart, the date 10/16 written below in Roman numerals. Somewhere fifty miles closer to the city’s university, his zodiac’s constellation was across another’s heart, his birth date in Roman numerals above. Concluding his inked artworks, a ram’s skull inked in blue was tatted across his upper back, the horns stretching to the backs of his shoulders and dripping in golden blood.  

Soy-sauce says, “I just want to know what he’s been up to, that’s all.”  

Bakugou is about to ask him why is he so interested in knowing about his boyfriend right now but the man turns his head, his black eyes sharpening with alert.  

“They’re here."  

Finally, Bakugou scowls. 

Both men straighten their backs as the group approaches them. They don’t move out of the way of the workers, the workers parting for them instead as if they were a group of royals in a gathering of peasants.  

The sight makes Bakugou’s upper lip twitch.   

They clear the wide distance between them in equally measured strides, coming to a stop six feet apart. “Bakugou, Sero.”  

The man standing in the middle speaks first. He’s tall, but not freakishly tall like Soy-sauce. More around Bakugou’s height, if not a few centimeters taller. In terms of color, his hair was similar to Soy-sauce's, but whereas his shone in a deep and rich black, Bakugou could see traces of brown adding a richer sheen to the unruly strands. And unruly they were; it was like the man had never seen a brush or comb before in his life, choosing to neglect the hair tools in favor of this abhorrently wild mess of curls.  

The man extends his hands in greeting, but only one was taken. Bakugou openly glares at the man for two reasons: 1) he made them wait for forty minutes (in the fucking sun) past their scheduled time, and 2) for reasons that were personal to him—he didn’t like people. He never made it a priority to be cordial with business partners; they could turn on you when you least expect them to, and so you always had to be on your guard.  

And there was something in the man’s dark eyes that had every nerve inside his body buzzing with high alert.  

Sero says he’s paranoid; Bakugou’s been in this game long enough to know this was how their world worked, and it saved their asses countless times before.  

“I would like to apologize for having you two wait,” the man explains, his head nodding in a slight bow, “Something unexpected came up and I wanted to take care of it before it got worse.”   

“That something wasn’t our product, was it?” Bakugou asks him. The man—he heard Soy-Sauce say it, but it immediately vacated his brain—shakes his head. “Of course not.” 

“Good, because you fuckers are on thin ice with me already. Having me wait out here like some goddamn idiot,” Bakugou growls between scowling lips. The dark-haired man nods. Like he truly understood his annoyance. "Once again, I apologize. In the future, I’ll make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.” 

“It better not, or I’m terminating this fucking contract. Now let’s go, we’re already behind schedule.” 

The other two men behind their leader give each other raised looks. “I wasn’t aware a dog had that type of power,”  Bakugou hears one of them mutter to the other with an amused sneer, and he steps towards him, his eyes a blaze of sudden and intense flames. “You want to say that to my fucking face, bitch?”  

“Katsuki,”  Sero warns him.  

The man challenges his fiery look with an even tighter sneer, and Bakugou’s right hand twitches.  

“Now, now, men,” the dark-haired leader says, his hands clapping in time with his words in an attempt to dissolve the suddenly hostile environment. “Let’s not start a fight. We have some business to get to.”  

“Damn right we fuckin’ do,” Bakugou says with a heavy growl. He doesn’t back down, however. “You better tell these worthless extras who the fuck they’re messing with before I do.”  

“Yes, of course, Bakugou. Come on now, let’s get started.”  

That’s my fucking line, the blonde growls under his breath. He still has his eyes on the one that bad-mouthed him as they were led across the lot closer to the giant warehouse, entering the massive building through one of its many opened and busily-packed garages.  

Inside, the space was immense; metal shelves stocked full of plastic-wrapped products were lined up in long rows, going all the way to the very back of the building. Aisles of toilet paper, paper towels, detergent bottles, cleaning supplies, and other retail products were stacked one on top of each other, stretching to the ceiling in tall columns. They were categorized into different sections with workers walking in between the aisles, holding clipboards in their hands, and checking off things while other workers carried off pallets to be loaded into trucks. The atmosphere was just as lively as it was outside, bustling with nonstop activity of men and women in uniform working through their shifts.  

Bakugou and Sero were led out of the way of the retail workers through a door, taking them to a quieter and less busy section of the warehouse. There were still shelves full of bundled products here, but not as many workers were present. 

An extra storage space, Bakugou thinks while sticking the details within the large room to his mind in an imaginary map. He and his partner are taken down an aisle of paper towels and gallon bottles of bleach to a plastic table placed against the warehouse’s back wall. There aren’t any chairs around, forcing them to stand as Bakugou and Sero went to one side and the three men stood on the other. A metal desk lamp provided them with abundant light.  

“Our product,” Sero prompts once they’re all around the table.  

The dark-haired leader smiles. Bakugou forces his body to keep from shivering at the gesture.  

“The money first.”  

“Our product first,”  Bakugou demands. “You know how this goes. We ain’t paying shit until we see and check the quality.”  

“It’s good, I can assure you,” the leader says, an edge of a boast around his words, but the hard look in Bakugou’s eyes leaves no room for argument. He turns to one of his lackeys, nodding at the man, and Bakugou meets the other man’s dark gaze before he’s retreating from the table. He watches him until his back disappears around a corner.  

“I see you guys aren’t taking any chances,” the leader says after a while.  

It’s Sero who answers. “I hope you can understand. We’ve gotten ripped off in the past with pretty shit quality, so now we just play it safe.”  

“Tragic,” the man says with a slow nod, a look of understanding in his gaze. “I understand where you guys are coming from, but do take my word for it-”  

Bakugou cuts in, “People that normally say that shit are either lying or trying to kiss ass.”  

The man’s smile is on his face again, broad and devilish. “Believe me when I say this Bakugou, that my cocaine will be the best thing you ever get your hands on. Your boss will be glad to be in business with me after she sees it for herself.”  

Bakugou fights the urge to rip his disgusting smile off with a silver bullet, only because he knows the consequences are not worth the action. “You’re really hyping your shit up,” he says, a sneer curling across his lips. “For your sake, it better be good.”  

The edges of the leader’s lips almost reach his eyes. The man that left returns, carrying a bulging black duffel bag in his large hands. He drops it onto the table, the bag landing with a heavy thump,  and drags the metal zipper down its center in a vertical line, pulling open the black flaps. Bakugou can several light brown packages inside the bag and watches the man’s hand reach in and pull one out before handing it off to Sero, who’s arm is already reaching across the table to retrieve it.  

“Since you have so much faith in your quality,” he says, his tone casual as his other hand slips into his back pocket, the two men watching him closely, “you don’t mind if I give it a little test then?”  

“Of course not. You said you won’t pay for anything without checking the quality first.”  

The man opens his hand out in a small swing and slight bow. “Be my guest.” 

Sero’s smile is as honest as a fox. Pulling a small pocket knife out of his back pocket, he cuts a small hole into the brown plastic and puts the knife on the table, sticking his pinky inside the tiny entrance. A small scoop of white powder sticks to the minimal centimeter of skin and he lifts it to his nose, inhaling the minuscule amount. Some of the product snows onto the table, and the rest is spread over his gums.  

Everyone is awaiting his reaction under a tense silence, Bakugou especially. His face expresses neutrality, trained to be disciplined in situations like these, but there are internal tremors still present underneath his skin waiting on the taller man to open his eyes.  

When he does, forty seconds later, Sero’s smile is huge.  

“Well?” Bakugou impatiently prompts.  

“Fuck, yeah. He’s not lying, it’s good. Real good.”  

“I told you,” the leader says with a grin matching Sero’s. “Colombian coke, 95% pure. Nobody else has it.”  

Sero whistles at the high number; Bakugou curses. He was right about that. None of their previous dealers even came close to that number. That’s probably why the hag was so desperate to get a hold of this fucker.   

As Sero pockets his knife and hands the package of cocaine back, the man repeats in a placated, yet slightly urging voice, “Now, our money.”  

Bakugou stares at the man for ten long seconds, the other holding his gaze unblinkingly before he’s turning to Sero.  

“Get it,” he orders him, a quick nod with his chin jutting forward. The other walks away, leaving Bakugou with the three men.  

Silence stretches across the table. Bakugou feels uncharacteristically antsy. He’s done this exact type of thing so many times now that he’s lost count, but the uneasiness of waiting never truly goes away. He didn’t hate it, his wariness keeping him focused in case things went awry (rarely did they ever), but it was aggravating feeling his hair, prickled to their highest lengths, chafing uncomfortably underneath his clothes.  

What made this period of waiting worse was the man standing across from him, currently staring at him with that eerie fucking smile. Bakugou kept his eyes on all three of the men, but it was the leader who he paid the most attention to. His smile hid too many things and yet was so open, and Bakugou didn’t trust that. He didn’t trust the look in his dark brown eyes, like the man was hiding something from him. He didn’t second guess Sero’s judgment—they’ve been partners for more than ten years now as of today—but something about the man’s expression made him feel like they were getting gypped.  

Next time, Soy-sauce is the one staying behind while I get the money, Bakugou says, a reminder for the future.  

“Bakugou,” the leader was talking to him now. Bakugou scowls in a habitual response. “How’s Nemuri doing?”  

His shoulders turn rigid, his blood subtly chilling at how freely the man spoke his boss’s name. “Only her close friends can call her by her first name,” he says, a warning growl clipping the end of his tone, “She’s Lady Kayama to you.”  

“Are we not considered close friends?”  

“Fuck no.”   

There was no trace of hesitation in his voice, catching the leader off guard. “You are nothing but a business partner. This relationship is strictly  business.”  

Bakugou hears soft chuckles coming from the other two men beside the leader, but the man in the middle talks over them. “Ah, I see,” the bastard has the nerve to look dejected when he said that, like he was actually hurt by that statement, “I was under the impression we were friends. Well, that’s my fault—how is Lady Kayama, then?”  

Bakugou wants this man to shut up. More importantly, he wants Sero to hurry the fuck up with the money. “Don’t concern yourself with her."  

“You’re quite protective of her. She must mean something to you then.”  

Again, more chuckles from beside the man. "Yeah, that’s his bitch. And he’s her loyal dog.”   

The black barrel of a Glock-19 points towards the man’s mouth. Bakugou had drawn the handgun in one fluid motion, the action so smooth it was invisible. Years of handling the weapon since the age of 16 blessed him with that skill, as the other men were a whole five seconds late into drawing their weapons.  

There were now two guns pointed at his skull. “If I hear another word come out of your mouth,” he says, his gun aimed at the one who’s been mouthing off at him since they were outside, “I’m going to replace every single one of your fucking teeth with a silver bullet. You got that?”  

“Aww, is Lady Kayama’s dog gonna bite me?” the man sneers, venom lacing around the older woman’s name, and Bakugou throws the expression back, just as wicked. “Trust me bitch, you don’t want my teeth around you. When I bite, I don’t let go.”  

A sinister grin peels his lips over his stained teeth. The air is thick and drips with tension; all it took was one wrong move, one misplaced glance, one simple word, and bullets were going to fly.  

Sero had returned to the group with a similar black duffel bag in hand and gasped at the sight of drawn weapons. “Whoa, what the hell’s going on here?”  

“Hurry up and give these shitheads the money so we can get the fuck outta here.”  

Bakugou doesn’t lower his weapon as Sero drops the hefty bag onto the table, and neither do the other men. The leader watches the taller man zip open the bag with a calm expression, not at all fazed at the guns pointed around his head. Pulling the bag open, crisp green one-hundred-dollar bills are revealed, held together by blue tape and arranged neatly inside the bag.  

“Fifteen mil,” he says, pushing the bag of cash across the table.  

The leader tugs it the rest of the way towards him, his eyes sparkling at the wealth. He takes apart the blue tape and spends the next three minutes counting each crisp bill, much to the annoyance of Bakugou. At his irritated huff, the dark-haired man gives him a look that reeks of faux innocence and says, “I let you check the purity of my product. It’s only fair you let me count out the payment.”  

It ain’t that. You’re checking for counterfeit. You bitches think we’re ripping you off.   

He’s making a show of counting the bills, even with a gun trained close to his face. Bakugou grinds his molars into fine dust, agitation leaking inside him like gasoline to an approaching flame, a spark soon about to explode. He’s taking each bill, rubbing the cotton paper between his fingers as he counts them down to the last one hundred.  

Thankfully he only does it for one stack, dropping the loose green bills back into the bag and zipping it back up.  

He then gives him his eerily charming smile. “Alright boys, that concludes our business here. Lower your weapons and get the rest of their product so they can get home.”  

It’s only after they lower and put away their guns that Bakugou does the same, clicking the safety on and shoving the barrel in the back of his pants. Fucking finally, they can get back, this taking unnecessarily too long. This was overtime now. He and Sero leave the table after the men, Sero grabbing the duffel bag full of cocaine to take with them.  

They’re led out through an exit inside of the part of the warehouse they were and led through one of the loading docks where workers still carried products in and out of trucks. There’s an empty dock waiting for them by the time they come outside, their product getting wheeled in by large metal platform dollies. Sero leaves Bakugou a second time with the other men to get their truck, returning a few short minutes later and backing the trailer into the docking station.  

Once the trailer doors are opened, men and women get to work. Pallets of large detergent bottles wrapped in clear plastic are pushed into their truck and stacked together, the coke concealed inside.  They work diligently, the entire process taking no longer than thirty minutes. It’s down to the last pallet, and as soon as it's loaded inside Sero pulls the trailer doors closed and locks them together. Bakugou climbs into the passenger seat, the taller man taking the seat behind the wheel, and they leave the warehouse’s garage without a second look back.  

On the way back to their warehouse, Sero drove on lesser-populated streets, avoiding the public roads to lessen the chance of getting pulled over by the cops. The drive back is quiet, the music playing from the radio barely heard over the truck’s loud engine.  

Bakugou eyes were staring onto the roads ahead, but they were unfocused as he was in deep thought, Sero the same way. This was normal for them. They hardly ever talked after a transaction, using the quiet time they had to mull over words that were said during the encounter, go over body language, pick apart any clues that could lead to being taken advantage of.  

For Bakugou, he was still pissed off that they were forty minutes behind schedule. Not to mention getting insulted by two complete extras. Just who did those fuckers think they were, talking to me like that,  he asks to no one but his own mind, the space between his eyes furrowing into a tight scowl. He should have put a bullet in the guy that was calling him the hag’s bitch.

Right in his ass.  

“Hey, so, what was that all about?”  

Sero’s sudden question pulled him out of his ill-mannered thoughts. “What.”  

“Those guns. I leave for one second only to come back with everyone about to shoot each other. The hell happened while I was gone?”  

“Nothing,” Bakugou answers brusquely. “I’m pretty sure that was something, bro.”  

“Don’t fucking call me that.”   

“What’d you think happened to them earlier?” Sero switches the subject, ignoring the lethal snarl in the blonde’s throat. “Who fucking knows,” Bakugou answers as a sharp vibration spreads across his left thigh. “Probably switched our product with some shittier version and was trying to fix it before we got there.”  

“Imagine,”  Sero scoffs.  

Bakugou looks at his watch, frowning at the caller ID he sees on the small screen. He grabs his vibrating phone, quickly sliding the green button across the larger screen and pressing it to his ear.  

“What?”  

"Hi, baby!”   

Kirishima’s voice is cheery like the late afternoon sun and just as loud, shooting straight through Bakugou’s eardrum and into his brain. He’s pretty sure Sero heard him and he glances out of his peripherals, hoping that the truck’s engine was loud enough to cover his bright voice.  

A crooked smile on the man’s lips confirmed that yes, he definitely heard his voice and knew exactly who was on the phone. “Shitty-hair, I can’t talk right now.”  

“Why? Are you still at work?”   

“Yes, I’m still at work.”  

“So that’s why you didn’t text me back. Ugh.”   

Bakugou can see the pout pushing his bottom lip in that cute way when he gets upset at something. He almost smiles at it, but then he remembers who’s sitting next to him. “Listen, I’ll call you back after I’m done.”  

There are voices on the other side. Two of them from the sounds of it: another man and a woman. “Fine. I’m heading to class anyway. You better call me back.”   

“The fuck? I will, now bye.”  

“Bye. Love you.”   

Bakugou hangs up first and drops his phone next to his leg. It vibrates before it hits the seat cushion, the same caller ID on the screen.  

He answers the phone. “What the fuck?”  

“You didn’t say it back!”   

“Shitty-hair, I swear to God—”  

“You never hang up without saying it back. C’mon, Kats.”   

That’s because no is around me when I say it, hair-for-brains!   

Bakugou can feel Sero’s presence growing larger beside him, the man’s urge to tease him getting more and more potent. Kirishima is still on the other end, patiently waiting for his three words. I’m going to kill him, I swear.   

“Hello?"   

Fucking—!  “Ugh, ok, whatever. I love you, now don’t call me back.”  

“See? I don’t get what was so hard about saying it back. Talk to you later.”   

Bakugou hangs up again, dropping his phone in the same spot. It doesn’t ring anymore. Bakugou glares at the other man with a hard look, challenging him to say something.  

Sero only asks, “Your boyfriend?”  

“What the fuck do you think?”  

He doesn’t say anything else, but Bakugou catches the twitch in his lips, suppressing the urge to make a snide remark.  

The ride back to their warehouse is uneventful and blessedly quiet after that.  

They arrive at the warehouse, ten minutes late because Sero had pulled into a gas station to take a piss, and backed the truck into an opened loading dock, people already coming out of it. Once the trailer was secured, Bakugou and Sero hopped out of the vehicle, Bakugou immediately barking orders at the people standing around. “Hurry up and get this shit out of here. I want it ready to go by Friday morning.”  

A droning chorus of "Alright”  answers his retreating back on his way to his boss’s office. He doesn’t stay behind to assist, wordlessly leaving the leadership position in Sero’s hands. Bakugou walks through the rest of the warehouse with a slouched back and unhurried gait, passing by women and drug mules getting ready to work. He reaches a set of stairs and ascends the metal steps to the second floor of the large warehouse, the cemented floor taking him to a dark metal door in a hidden corner. He raps his knuckles across the cold surface once before pushing down on the brighter metal bar, swinging the door open on its creaky hinges.  

The office is simple. A computer desk, computer chair, and a few shelves make up the furniture in the tight space. A wide monitor sat on the edge of the desk, the wireless keyboard a few inches away from the screen. Papers of various documents were scattered around it. The room was more of a means of keeping track of numbers than anything else, so it wasn’t lavishly decorated like his boss’s main office back at her club.  

Speaking of her, Bakugou saw the woman typing away at the keyboard with her long and red lacquered nails. Her eyes, an icy blue that made even the toughest of men flinch, were glued onto the screen, protected from the blue light by a pair of black-framed glasses designed to protect against the constant exposure. Hair pours from her scalp in a waterfall of obsidian over her shoulders and down to the mid-regions of her back. The long strands glimmered like oil underneath the room's lights; a vibrant contrast to the vermillion designer dress that hugged her curves like a second skin. 

Her hands were a white blur above the black keys, her cerulean gaze matching that speed as they scanned line after line of whatever she typed on the screen.  

“Kayama.”  

No response. Bakugou’s lip twitched into an agitated curl.  

“Kayama,”  he tries again.  

His only response was a strand of hair falling in front of her clear lenses and her brushing it behind. She resumes typing immediately after.

“Oi, hag!”   

Blue eyes glance over the monitor after what felt like hours. Her fingers come to an abrupt stop only to resume once more; however, plump lips painted in a mauve nude purse together and twist in mild annoyance before they part to speak.  

“You know that isn’t what you call me, Katsuki.”  

“Well, you wasn’t answerin’ when I called your name the first forty fucking times.”  

“You see that I’m busy with something,” Kayama motions to the monitor with a glance. “Did you finish?”  

“Yes,” Bakugou says, his voice short, “we just got back. Soy-sauce and the other shitheads are getting it ready to be delivered on Friday.” 

“No problems with our dealer?”  

Yeah. His smile was fuckin’ weird.   

“Other than the fact that he was running late, no.”  

“Why?” 

“He never explained, only said that ‘something came up’  and he wanted to deal with it before it got worse.”  

Nails clicked across a keyboard for a few seconds of silence. “Good, then.”  

Blue eyes slid back to the monitor, much to the blonde’s annoyance. He wasn’t done yet. A rather curt scoff grabs Kayama’s attention a second time and the woman shoots a sharp glare through her clear lenses. “Is there something else you need?”  

“Yeah,” Bakugou says, not even bothering to hide the brusqueness in his voice. “I’m taking off early.” 

“Says who?” 

“Says me. Soy-Sauce will be the one in charge until I come back.”  

Kayama’s fingers leave the keyboard. She pushed her body away from the computer and settled in the center of her desk, folding smooth white arms over papers. Her eyes were hard and calculating as they landed onto Bakugou, but it didn’t give him any sort of fear or intimidation, only relief that now the old bitch was finally paying attention to him. “And when do you plan on coming back?”  

“I don’t fucking know,” he shrugs, “Next Monday, I guess.” 

“That’s seven days from now.”  

“I know.”  

“And you want to leave Hanta in charge for those seven days.”  

“He’s an idiot, but he knows how to run shit while I’m away. I trust him.”  

The older woman’s long hair shuffles loosely across her red shoulders as she shakes her head. “You’ll come back Saturday morning.”  

“Hell no! Monday.”  

“You’re not leaving the warehouse for a week, Katsuki. Saturday morning. You will be here.”  

“I think I more than deserve a week off from breaking my back working at this shitty warehouse.”  

“I think you should remember who gave you this job at this shitty warehouse and that without it, you’d be dead.”

Kayama has the audacity to smirk. His deep scowl strengthens the smirk on her brown lips.

“You will return Sunday morning then.” 

“Bull-fucking-shit—” 

“The next time I move the date up, I’m cutting your paycheck.”  

Bakugou’s mouth opens and falls like a fish above water, and then permanently seals with a vulgar twist of his lips. “I’m still cutting your paycheck, just for calling me a hag earlier.”  

“You bitch—” 

“And now you’re done another hundred. Keep it up, and I’m going to start paying you what I pay the mules.”  

You goddamn, ugly ass, motherfucking—  

“Whatever.”  

He turns away at Kayama’s tilting lips and started heading for the door. “Have a good rest of the evening, love.”  

“Fuck off.”  

Bakugou shuts the door behind him on her cackling. The old bitch pisses him off to no end, but she’s done more for him in the last nine years than his own mother did in his entire life. He should be grateful the older woman was letting him take a long break. Honestly, Bakugou was expecting more of a fuss from her. That old hag. She must’ve been in a good mood today.  

He didn’t think about the couple hundred dollars he lost from his paycheck. What were $200 dollars gone? Bakugou still made more than the mules and prostitutes under him.  

He passes by Sero and a group of men lounging on folding chairs outside of the warehouse’s opened entrance. They had finished unloading the truck and was taking a break out in the shade of the opened garage, enjoying the warm elements.  

“Leaving already?” one of the men asks as Bakugou walks by them.  

“Yeah,” Bakugou says, turning to then nod at Sero, “Soy-Sauce is in charge until I get back. Don’t call me for shit unless we’re getting raided or some asshole is tryna rob us. I’m fucking serious too.”  

He throws this at Sero who looks back at him with raised hands. “Alright man, sheesh. I’ll take care of things while you’re gone.”  

“You fuckin’ better, or I’m killing you when I get back.”  

“When are you coming back?” 

“Whenever the fuck I walk in.”  

He continues outside. Sero yells at his retreating back, “Have fun with your baby tonight!”  and Bakugou rounds on him so fast, his vision spins. He’s screaming expletives too vulgar for a child to hear, much to the joy of the other men and the absolute angered embarrassment of him. Because of course, of course, he had to see the contact on his phone. I’m changing it the minute I get back home and beating his fucking ass when I see him, Bakugou swears.  

In retaliation, he shouts back, “At least I have someone to come home to and I’m not beating my dick every night like a fucking loser!”  

Sero and the others laugh harder.  

Bakugou leaves them with his middle finger raised high, the bluebird sky a beautiful backdrop to his retreating gesture. Even still, his face glows. Yeah, someone’s waiting for me at home. I’m not like you single fuckheads.   

He walks across the lot under the beaming sun to his Audi r8 parked under the shade of a nearby building. The luxurious sports car waits patiently for him, a quiet beast gleaming in neon orange and shining black armor. Its glorious luster pierced through the building’s shadow, cutting across the eyes of anyone who dared to glance at it without permission. A gift from himself to himself at the young age of nineteen, right around the four-year mark of his career. The car was a representation of everything that made him Bakugou Katsuki: bold, flashy, and loud.   

Bakugou slips the fob from his front left pocket and unlocks the driver's side door, watching the orange door slide upwards. The interior, like the exterior, was customized in black and orange; the leather seats were designed bright orange with black accents, and the dashboard was entirely black, saved for the volume and channel knobs and buttons that were in soft silver. The steering wheel’s center was a brighter orange, almost bordering on yellow, with the leather handles dipped in deep obsidian. The four silver rings in the middle gleamed in ostentatious luxury.  

Bakugou presses the engine’s button, coaxing a deep purr out of his car as it comes to life. He presses a button on the right side of his steering wheel next, automatically closing his car’s door. The door comes down slowly, a barely audible click that’s muffled under the thrum of the engine. He drops his keys and phone into the black cup holders and pulls out his Glock from the back of his jeans, punching open the glove compartment to shove it inside and snapping the door shut.  

One hand on the orange gearshift, he yanks it down to the red R and backs out in a fast reverse. Bakugou is clicking his seatbelt on while throwing the car into drive and speeding out of the parking lot on screeching tires, already pushing fifty when he’s on the streets. 

His entire evening was now officially free. Bakugou didn’t have much to do as far as preparations when he got home, having already done everything well in advance. There was a dinner reservation he and Kirishima needed to get ready for by 7:30 at his favorite steakhouse, and then they had two tickets at nine for a romcom Kirishima had been begging his ear off to go see for the last three weeks.  

And all of this was only for today. Bakugou had some other ideas for them later this week.  

A yawn parts his jaws in a wide gape. Probably gonna take a nap first when I get home.   

True to his word, Bakugou calls his boyfriend back. He does so as he’s cruising on the highway back to their apartment, his cruising speed nearing 85.  

Kirishima picks up on the second ring. “You finally done?”   

“Mhm,” Bakugou hums, swerving in between two slower cars. “What about you? You still gotta another class, or are you finished?”  

“I wish, but I still have one more class.”  There are muffled noises in the background on top of the heavy shuffling of Kirishima’s shoes. Bakugou guesses he’s walking to that class right now. “It ends at around 5:15 though, and he usually likes to end it ten minutes early, so I’ll probably be out soon.”   

“He better.” 

“Yeah,”  Kirishima sighs into the phone, “Professor Aizawa is pretty cool.”   

“That’s the one that always falls asleep when you guys are taking exams, right?”  

“Yeah, but he’s somehow still able to catch you cheating. I don’t get it, he’s like a superhero for academic integrity or something.”   

“Maybe don’t be a fucking idiot and cheat then, dumbass.”  

“It was only that one time and he allowed it, just to prove a point! You know I would never cheat, man.”   

Bakugou passes a long diesel truck while scoffing under his breath. After a few seconds of silence, Kirishima asks him, “So, were you able to get the rest of the week off?”   

“Yeah,” Bakugou says, “had to fucking haggle with the bitch. She wants me back Sunday morning.”  

“That still isn’t that bad. You got the rest of this week off, at least.”  Bakugou can hear the smile in his next sentence, “And you were able to leave early today. That’s a huge win.”   

The redhead was right about that. As Bakugou dips out of the way of an incredibly slow-moving car (fucking old ass man behind the wheel), he asks him, “You ready for tonight?”  

“Oh my god, am I? Kats, you have no idea how close I am just to skipping this class and going home right now. If Aizawa wasn’t going over our ten-page paper today I would have already left.”   

“Yeah, you better stay your ass in class.” Because Bakugou was a responsible boyfriend (it definitely wasn’t because he didn’t want to help him out when he got stumped. Like he knew anything about fucking rhetoric).  

“Ugh, I know, but I miss you, babe! This is like, the one chance we’re gonna finally see each other without one of us leaving for work or school. I was trying to tell Denki and Mina that today at lunch and like, Mina understands, she always gets where I’m coming from, but Denki?”   

Kirishima’s exasperation was clear through his speakers.  “I love him so much, but it’s like talking to a goldfish sometimes. He’s like, ‘if this is such a big deal to you then why hasn’t he done this earlier?’ and I’m like, dude, we've tried, it's just that his job is not like a regular one. He just can’t request time off that easily.”   

“You’re giving a goldfish too much credit,” Bakugou comments. “They have a much higher IQ than that idiot you call a friend.”  

Kirishima was right, however. The number of times he’s tried requesting days off nicely, only to have that request denied, were too many to count on both hands. Even with his high position, he was kept from taking too long of a break, always being needed at the warehouse for something. 

Bakugou is blessed with Kirishima’s laugh, a full and hearty guffaw that swells deep inside the hollows inside his chest, sending rippling warmth coursing through his body. He loved hearing that beautiful sound and made it his mission to bring it out of him at least five times a day when he had the chance. God, he’s turned you into a giant sap, he hears Sero’s voice in the back of his mind.  

Maybe so.  

“Right after I said that,”  Kirishima  says, tuning him out of his thoughts, “he wanted to know what type of job demanded so many hours like that.”   

“What did you say?” 

“A retail job that pays over a hundred grand a year. He’s still begging me to tell him the name of the company and I’m like, ‘dude, I can’t’.”  

At this, Bakugou laughs. He still found it hilarious that Kirishima told his posse he worked at a demanding (emphasis on demanding) retail company. “He won’t even last a minute—no, a second doing what I do. I’d give him and Raccoon-eyes less than an hour before they gave up.”  

“Hey now, Denki I can understand, but Mina? That’s the toughest girl I know—not that she would ever do what you do. But still! Don’t go dissin ’ them, they’re my best friends and the only people I have on this campus—well, and T.”   

“You still hangin’ out with that vegan fuck-face? I thought I told you to stay away from him.”  

“Okay, one—he is not vegan, he’s vegetarian. And two—I thought I told you that there’s nothing for you to be jealous of. We’re only friends, and last time I checked, friends can hang out with other friends.”   

“Every time I see him around you, he’s always staring at your ass. You know how much I fucking hate that.”  

“Okay, now you’re just being paranoid for no reason—”  

“It ain’t paranoia!” 

“It is paranoia because Tetsu is trying to get with one of the cheerleaders, not me. So you can stop being jealous of him because there’s nothing even close to romantic between us.”  

There better not be,  Bakugou barely growls beneath his teeth. He hated that silver-haired bastard more than anything in the world and wished that his boyfriend would just fucking dump him behind for someone equally less annoying and invasive. But he won’t, because those two have been friends longer than he’s been with Kirishima, and no,  Bakugou wasn’t jealous because of that—he's just wary to the point of aggression.  

"Hey.”   

“What?” 

“This isn’t gonna be a repeat of last time, is it?”   

Last time.  

Bakugou’s fingers twitch into a tight grasp around the wheel. “No,” he says, both to the man on the other end and to the memories brimming to the surface in his mind, bringing up hostile words and heated moments, of Kirishima threatening to leave him— 

“Why the fuck would you ask that?”  

“Because I don’t want a repeat of last time.”   

“Well you’re not getting one. I already told you, I got today and the rest of this week off. I’m not doing that shit again, alright?”  

His words take on a harsh finality at the end that leaves a sudden bitter tension in the once relaxed atmosphere. Bakugou should have expected Kirishima’s doubting. After all,  he was the reason why the redhead was so hesitant about these things. Breaking promises left and right, lying to him, all of it was his fault.  

But I’m fucking trying here, Bakugou says to himself with a creased brow, trying to do what I can around this fucking job. So give me a fucking break.   

Kirishima hums an “okay,” and for a long time, there’s a deafening silence that makes Bakugou’s skin crawl. Thank god the silence was shattered twenty seconds later, Kirishima’s incessant need to talk being Bakugou’s saving grace from the guilt eating away at his stomach. “Let me tell you what happened to me and Mina in world history before Aizawa  comes in.”   

His story took the entire drive home to finish because Kirishima wasn’t the type to tell a story from point A to point B. He told his stories like they were novels, starting with the main character (so he and Mina), introducing the side characters and the setting, and taking thirty minutes just to reach the rising action.  

But Bakugou listened anyways because that was his boyfriend, and he’s put up with his inability to tell stories for three entire years. The story got rid of the stifling atmosphere, returning it back to its bubbly and light disposition. He chuckles at the appropriate times, agrees with the man when he made an argument about whether his choice was right or not, and got angry on his behalf when someone had crossed him for whatever reason, that someone being their history teacher.  

By the time he was driving past the sign of their apartment complex, Kirishima’s story was coming to an end. “So yeah, fuck her basically, because we didn’t even do anything wrong. We just walked into class—and I mean literally Kats, like as soon as it was time for class to start, we were walking in the door—and she yells at us to take a seat. Like we were literally just about to do that! You don’t have to yell at us, lady!”   

“I would’ve told that old hag to fuck off and die,” Bakugou says as his car cruises—at a much slower speed this time—to Building C. He drives up to his usual parking spot and sits the car in park, letting it run idle while he continues talking. “Like get off my fucking dick, I’m already in this goddamn shitty ass class.”  

That merry laughter fills his ears again. “I know you would’ve. You actually came to mind when that happened. I was like, ‘man, if Kats were here right now, he would have gone completely off.’”   

A short bark of laughter leaves Bakugou in a quiet puff of air. “Okay, I have to go now, he just walked in. I’ll see you later tonight.”  

“Alright,” Bakugou tells him as he shuts the engine off. He presses the button for his door again and it slides up, slow and majestic. Like a king preparing to make his entry. “See you when you get here.”  

“'Kay, bye. Say hi to our son for me when you get home.”   

Bakugou thinks Kirishima is going to hang up first, but like clockwork: “Love you.”   

There isn’t a reason for him to not say it back. Soy-Sauce isn’t around, nobody is close enough to hear him. A hint of a smile graces the edges of his lips.  

“Love you too. You better come home soon, or I’m beating your fucking ass.”  

Kirishima hangs up with mirth, leaving Bakugou to bask in the afterglow of the words. Taking out his gun from the glove compartment, Bakugou gets up out of his car and closes the door shut behind him, hiding his gun in the back of his pants. He heads for the apartment’s metal stairs, bypassing a mother and her son coming down along the way. The woman flashes him a smile, but it goes unnoticed. She rolls her eyes with an exaggerated breath.  

Fuck off, Bakugou tells her. 

He takes the stairs in long strides, breathing right on the outskirts of heavily when he reaches the third floor. Climbing three flights of stairs wasn’t an easy feat when you were tired. On especially heinous days, it felt like he was scaling Mount Everest. There was nothing worse than trying to walk up three flights of stairs after narrowly avoiding death.  

Bakugou turns down a narrow walkway. On one side of him, openings lead to small hallways where the homes of his neighbors reside. Sometimes he could hear children screaming and loud music behind some of the closed doors and thought of the many times he wanted to file for a noise complaint. On the other side, a metal railing protects him and gives him a view of the other apartment buildings and the rest of the city. Lights alongside buildings were coming on as the reddened sky continued to darken, twinkling close to the ground like fallen stars.  

Bakugou comes up to the last hallway along the path and turns into it, stopping at the door numbered 563.   

He pulls out his fob again, separating the faded brown apartment key from his car key and sticking the grooved metal into its designated lock. At the rustling noise and faint click, a chorus of barking starts up.  Bakugou turns the key all the way, unlocking the door with a louder click and pushing it open, his hand still attached to the key.  

He’s greeted with a noisy welcome from their "son"—an eleven-month-old Rottweiler-pitbull mix. His coat shines in a mix of black and brown like his Rottweiler lineage, with splashes of white around his muzzle, chest, and paws, giving him the appearance of wearing socks. Kirishima had wanted to name him after that, but Bakugou quickly stepped in and saved him from the fate of the cutesy name, choosing instead to name the Rottie-pit after the greatest character ever created in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—Killmonger.  

(That didn’t stop Kirishima from calling him Socks.) 

Killmonger was a black and brown ball of energy around his legs, his barks going from deep and powerful sounds to puppyish whines and yaps. He hops on his hind legs, pawing at Bakugou’s waist with large front paws as the other tries to get through the door. “Yeah, yeah, I’m home early, it’s a goddamn miracle. Back the fuck up and let me in, mutt.”  

Bakugou shoves himself through the short and narrow hallway trying to get past the puppy, dropping his wallet and keys into a small bowl on a table at his left. Killmonger’s tail is a hammer on and between his legs as he lets him somewhat take off his boots to leave by the table’s legs. “No! Don’t you fucking take them—get over here.”  

He stops the puppy from sniffing around his shoes, snapping his fingers to have him follow behind as he makes his way further into their home.  

Their place wasn’t much. Many people had this idea that drug-dealers lived in fancy penthouses and expensive mansions, and some did—his boss certainly fit that stereotype. But Bakugou, while he made enough to afford that type of luxury living, kept to the smaller options for right now, choosing a one-bedroom two-bathroom apartment that was closer to the school for him and Kirishima and their large puppy. The living room was the second largest room in their apartment, second to the master bedroom. Beige carpet began where the hallway’s wooden flooring ended and came to a stop at the tiled kitchen floor. The furniture was simple; a gray sectional couch fitted for apartment-living took up the most space, and in front of it was a wooden coffee table with a glass counter that held two remote controls for the TV. A couple of small dressers and shelves with minimal décor added to the homey feel of the room. 

Bakugou walks past the outskirts of the living room with Killmonger in-tow, passing their barely used dining room and going into the hallway. There’s a door leading to the guest bathroom on his right, another door across from it leading to a closet where the AC unit was stored, and at the end of the hallway was the bedroom door, wide open and the room inside dark.  

He cuts on the lights, turning the ceiling fan on as well. Bright yellow light fills the room, washing over a king-sized bed, several wide dressers, and a sizable dog bed pushed against the wall. Bakugou heads over to the nightstand on the left of the bed and pulls open the bottom drawer, dropping his gun inside and then pulling out the top drawer as he shuts the bottom one.  

Bakugou can hear Killmonger’s excited huffing next to him as he pulls out a silver and black retractable leash and a black harness. “C’mere,” Bakugou directs, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.  

Killmonger’s entire body wiggles towards him. “Sit.”  

He does, and Bakugou slips the harness on him. Killmonger shoots back up and runs to the door raring to go, Bakugou yelling at him to bring his ass back. “Your leash isn’t even on yet! Get back here.”  

He sees the dog’s body disappear around the corner of the entryway and his paws thumping on top of the carpet. C’mon!  Killmonger barks at him from somewhere in the house, earning a light scowl in response from the blonde. “God, you’re just like Shitty-hair. Always ready to fucking go.”  

Bakugou gets up and follows the dog out of his room, shutting the light and ceiling off behind him. Killmonger was on the couch when he entered the living room, his front paws standing on top of the cushions. Bakugou could hear how hard his tail was hitting the sides of his stomach. “Alright, alright, I’m fuckin’ coming,” Bakugou says with a roll of his eyes. Killmonger jumps off the back of the couch, completely ignoring his  “No!” and racing him to the front door, yapping and pawing at the white wood.  

“Stop scratching the door and get over here! Jesus, did Shitty-hair not take you out when he came home today? You’re bouncing all over the fuckin’ place,” Bakugou asks after yelling at him for jumping on the door again.  

Killmonger answers him with more excited yaps. “Come, here,” the blonde orders with a piercing snap after putting on a pair of old running shoes. The dog bounds towards him, bumping his large head into his knees and walking around him as Bakugou is nearly knocked over. “Fuck—keep still. Don’t you groan at me either.”  

Killmonger made a litany of sounds to express his emotions. His groans, often coming deep from within his chest, always came about when he was being held back to get leashed. Because he wasn’t able to move his body, he expressed excitement through deep and rumbling groans that could have been mistaken for growls if the person didn’t know any better.  

Once he was leashed, Bakugou grabbed his keys and headed out of the apartment, Killmonger racing out of the door first. Bakugou took him for a long walk, stretching from the apartment complex to the gas station at the end of the block and then heading for the neighboring cemetery. The three-and-a-half-mile walk was concluded at the park, where Killmonger got to see kids hanging out after school on the swings and playsets through the metal fence. Their high-pitched screams and shouts had his folded ears perked, and Bakugou had to gently tug on his leash to get him to keep moving.  

He gets to an area of the park where a group of teens played a game of basketball. Killmonger tugged on the leash to sniff at a bush, so Bakugou lets it extend and watches the pick-up game while his dog uses the bathroom.  

A child screams, drawing his light brows in a scowl. Bakugou spends nearly ten minutes watching one child miss five consecutive shots in a row before he hears licking and deep breathing at the end of the leash.  

Killmonger was licking a spot on the ground. Fuckin' piss fetishist. 

Bakugou pulls the leash once, and then again with a stern “Let’s go.”  The added command works effortlessly. They head back to the apartment and Bakugou releases him after he closes and locks the door, tugging off his shoes and leaving them next to the table. He carries the harness and retractable leash to the bedroom with the puppy trotting after him, breaking away to drink from his filtered water dish in the room while Bakugou dropped the dog equipment back into their previous location.  

He’s completely drained after the forty-minute walk. Pulling off his hoodie, Bakugou throws it somewhere on the bed and heads to the kitchen to grab something to eat before he inevitably crashes on the couch. There’s barely anything in the refrigerator; a sign that one of them needed to go grocery shopping soon.  

Fuck, Bakugou groans after closing the silver door in disgruntled disappointment. He moves to the pantry at the end of the kitchen and opens the door, scanning the shelves of cereal boxes, different spices, and snack foods before landing on a package of spicy ramen noodles at the bottom. It’ll have to do.   

He grabs a red pack and tosses it onto the counter on his way to heat up the stove and grabs a pot from one of the cabinets underneath. After filling it up with water, he sets it on the warming stovetop and steps into the living room to let it boil, passing up Killmonger that was chewing on something red at the end of the couch.  

Bakugou pays him no mind. He picks up the smaller remote on the coffee table and turns on the TV, then grabs the longer remote to flip through the channels for something to watch. His water’s erupting into fat bubbles inside of the pot when he finds something mildly interesting to eat and fall asleep to, and he leaves the puppy chewing on whatever was in his mouth while he goes and prepares his late lunch.  

He walks back into the living room with a steaming white bowl and chopsticks in his hands, and Killmonger abandons the red toy when the sharp aroma of artificial spices hit his nostrils. “Oh no, back the fuck up,” Bakugou says when the dog settles directly between his knees after he sits on the couch, “you’re not having any of this. I’m not cleaning up your diarrhea again.”  

Killmonger’s pink tongue flashes over his tri-colored lips. “No.”   

He’s looking at him with his infamous puppy-dog eyes that work like magic on his boyfriend, but it doesn’t do jack shit for him. Bakugou lets him stare while he slurps up hot and spicy noodles. He hears another one of Killmonger’s expressive sounds: a groan with a whine clipping the end of it. 

“Go back to chewin ’ on whatever the fuck you were playing with,”  Bakugou mumbles around a mouth full of hot noodles. The dog didn’t move, and he doesn’t expect him to. He rarely listened to orders when food was suddenly involved.  

Bakugou drinks the juices that remain of his ramen and drops the wooden chopsticks inside the empty bowl, pushing it to the center of the coffee table. “No,”  he stops the dog from trying to reach the white bowl, and after a minute of longingly staring at the ceramic glass, Killmonger returns to the red object he was chewing on.  

Bakugou watches his mouth surrounding the red thing, and then he looks at the TV.

Very quickly, his eyes snap back to the dog’s mouth. “What do you have in your mouth?”  

Killmonger was shaking his head when he asked him that question and stops long enough to let his eyes hone in on the object in question.  

It was a shoe—Kirishima's shoe.  

His fucking abysmal red croc.

The pit mix went back to shaking his head with the shoe inside his mouth. Bakugou watches him, a long internal debate settling behind his eyes, weighing the current pros and cons of the situation.

The pros (at the current moment): he will never have to see those shoes again. So, he thinks, I should let him destroy it, and then just throw away the other shoe and tell Shitty-hair that his favorite dog chewed up his favorite shoes.   

But (there always was one), that would be enabling the dog’s bad habit, and he and Kirishima were currently working on correcting that habit. Which led to another major, most important con: if he chewed on his shoes, then the dog might move on to his pairs, and he had a valuable pair of slides that if the puppy even thought about touching, he was getting shipped off to the nearest shelter (as if that would happen, Kirishima would kill him.) 

So, with a grumbled curse, Bakugou gets up and snatches the ugly shoe out of the dog’s mouth, sharply snapping “No,”  as he did it. The croc was wet with dog slobber and there were tiny holes perforated in the rubber material. A few of the buttons were missing too, probably lost somewhere in the house. “Shitty-hair’s gonna cry when he sees what you did with his shoe,” Bakugou warns the smiling pup.

Because he was petty, he placed the shoe on the kitchen bar table where Kirishima would see it once he came home.  

Bakugou grabs a thick red and black chewing rope with frayed ends from relentless games of tugs-of-war for the dog to chew on instead. Killmonger latches onto it immediately, getting a quick game in before Bakugou releases it and flops back onto the couch.  

He settles on his side, pulling his phone out from his back pocket to check for any notifications before sitting it on the arm of the couch. He thinks about getting up to get a blanket from the bedroom, but the cushions are already conforming comfortably around his body, and it wasn’t that cold in the living room for him to need a blanket. He was content on the couch, watching whatever show he had put on the TV.  

Watching wasn’t the right word—he was actively seeing it, but the picture wasn’t registering in his mind. His vision grew fuzzy at the corners, and each blink of his eyelids moved slower and slower, the drag falling heavier than the first. He knew he was tired, but it didn’t hit how tired he actually was until he was stretched out on the couch, and now it was on him, swaddling him in a thick and heavy blanket around his body and eyes.  

Bakugou still had three hours left before he had to get ready for tonight, and sleep had been in his plans for today, so he let himself slip into the welcoming darkness. Killmonger joins him on the couch with his toy, curling next to his ankles to chew on the rope and occasionally lick his feet. “Stop, you fuckin’ foot fetishist...”   

He has to say it a couple of times and rearrange his feet before the dog gets the memo and strictly chews on his toy. Bakugou has one final thought before he’s unconscious, and that’s about what Soy-sauce and the others were doing now that he was gone. Probably shit.   

He thinks nothing else of it.  

Bakugou is dead to the entire world in less than ten seconds; he doesn’t even feel Killmonger’s wet snout on his ankle. He sleeps for a solid hour, his snores reverberating inside his chest and filling up the living room, muffling the drone of voices coming from the TV.  

At an hour and thirty minutes, vibrations suppressed by cushions and sleep go off above his head. 

Bakugou doesn’t hear them. They ring three times before going off, and then they come back again, an octave louder. Bakugou hears them, but he doesn’t move to cut the sound off.  

His phone goes off a third time, and it’s louder. Bakugou growls at the sound, but he still doesn’t move to turn it off or see who was calling him.  

When it goes off the fourth time, he grabs the phone with a harsh swear that even startles the dog. He doesn’t check the caller ID before he smashes his thumb across the green button.

“Who the fuck is this,”  he growls, the dregs of sleep still caked around his voice. 

“Katsuki, what the hell! I had to call you five times before you picked up.”   

He only heard four rings—who the fuck cares. “What the fuck are you calling me for, Soy-sauce?” Bakugou rubs the sleep in his eyes, blurring his vision just slightly. When he glances over at the clock beneath the TV, he’s annoyed to see that it was only five and his boyfriend still hadn’t shown up yet. “I thought I specifically said not to call me unless it was for an emergency—” 

“This is an emergency!”   

Bakugou’s words cease on his tongue, the gravity in Sero’s voice waking him up quickly. He's made aware of the chaos in the background—loud voices, lots of movement, a woman barking orders. “The fuck is going on over there? Is it a raid?”  

“No, it’s different from that. One of the mules brought somebody over to the warehouse and he’s staying in one of the empty rooms right now—yes, I got him on the phone!”   

The woman that was barking orders in the background was now shattering Bakugou’s left ear. “Katsuki, get your ass over here, right now.”   

“Whatever’s going on at that fucking warehouse, Soy-sauce can handle it. Leave me alone, hag—”  

“If you’re not here in the next fifteen minutes, I will make the next month of your life a living hell. Get. Over. Here. Now.” 

"I'm on my break-"  

Kayama hangs up and Bakugou screams. “Fuck!  I can’t leave for one goddamn minute without something going wrong or that fucking bitch bothering me. God, dammit!”   

This is exactly what he feared would happen. 

He gets off the couch, Killmonger startled by the fast movement. He’s hurrying after him into the bedroom, watching with a slow swing of his tail as Bakugou pulls his gun out from the bottom drawer. “Move, Killmonger.”  

He’s in the hallway next, shoving his socked feet back into his boots. In the back of his mind, he thinks about leaving Kirishima a note. Maybe a text would be better-

His phone's almost painful spasming against his leg pulls him out of his thoughts and down to the unknown number calling him again. "I'm on my fucking way, stop calling me," he snarls and hangs up before Sero can say anything. Whatever's going at this fucking place, I'll get it done before he comes home.  

Bakugou slams the door behind him, the wood rattling from the heavier than normal force. 

“Alright dude, have fun on your date tonight.” 

“Bye, babe!”  

Kirishima waves at the retreating figures of Kaminari and Ashido heading to their cars before he turns for his. Aizawa had kept them right until it was time to go, answering questions about the requirements for their final paper. While it was a much-needed session for all of them, Kirishima was peeved that it had to be today the man decided to keep them until the curfew.

Hope he isn't mad when I get there, Kirishima thinks, and then with a chuckle, he’s never gonna let this one go.    

Underneath the increasingly reddening sky, a majority of the parking lot was empty, most of the commuters having left the campus already. The only cars that remained in the large lot belonged to the students attending the nearby nursing hall and the dance and theater building—Ashido being the latter—and students who refused to park any closer to the campus—him and Kaminari being a part of that group.  

He unlocks the backseat of his red Wrangler, tossing his backpack across the brown seats. Bakugou had been trying to get him to trade the old thing in for a new one, but Kirishima didn’t see what the big problem with it was. Sure, there was a dent in the front of it when he hit that woman’s car in the gas station, and yeah,  there were a couple of scratches on the side because he can’t really park for shit, but it still ran fine! It wasn’t like Ashido’s Camry—that poor thing was just waiting to kill over on the side of the road.  

He jumps into his car, shoving the key into the ignition. I should call him.   

At the sound of the engine revving to life, Kirishima shakes his head. Nah, he’ll just get mad wondering why I’m calling him when I’m coming home. He’s probably asleep anyway.   

He sends him a text instead, dropping his phone onto the passenger seat afterward. His green tassel from his high school graduation shakes underneath the rear-view mirror as he backs out of his parking space, swinging into smoother motions once he pulls out of the gravel parking lot. Music from his favorite Spotify playlist plays during the short drive back home, and he’s turning into the complex, heading towards the mailboxes first before going to Building-C.  

A quick look in their numbered box confirms that Bakugou didn’t check the mail today, so he grabs the stack of envelopes and fliers and drops them next to his phone once he gets back in his car. He finally drives into Building-C's parking lot, pulling into his usual spot next to Bakugou’s car.  

The Audi isn’t there. That’s weird.   

Kirishima grabs his phone, unlocking his screen with his finger and going to his messages.  

To: My Future Husband
Omw home  
Sent at 5:25 PM 

Bakugou didn’t even read it. That wasn’t a big issue; however, his car missing was. He might be at the store.    

Or he left you for that job again-   

Kirishima puts an end to the growing anxiety before it could develop into something else. He reaches behind him to grab his backpack and grabs the mail in the passenger seat next, slinging the black bag on one shoulder at the same time he slides out of his car. The anxiety is still present in the back of his mind like a constant drip of cold mercury, poisoning his brain with skeptical and negative thoughts of the other man lying to him. 

He slams the door, harder than usual to push down on the negativity brewing in his mind. As another distraction, Kirishima shuffles through the mail on his way to his apartment. 

There was a notice from a restaurant, something about catering now being available; a few coupons from a couple of stores Kirishima hadn’t had the time to go to in a while because of senior crunch-time. The last item was a postcard from the vet reminding him about Killmonger’s next appointment for heartworms.  

 He’s in front of his door when he flips to the back of the postcard, frowning at the dates. I can probably make that, he thinks, reminding himself to put it into his calendar. Or maybe Kats can take him if he can get off work early again.    

He raises his hand holding his school’s lanyard, separating his apartment key from his car keys and school ID, and sticking the former into the lock. Excitement goes off behind the door in a flurry of barks, muffled behind the white wood. Kirishima’s excitement is just as palpable, swinging open the door with a wide grin across his face.  

Killmonger matches him with the same expression. “Socks!”  

He’s moving at the sound of his nickname, bouncing up and around Kirishima’s waist. “Hi, baby! Did you miss me—wait, wait, don’t knock me over, let me get in the door first,”  

Killmonger barely moves from his spot as Kirishima pushes himself inside to shut the door, his entire body moving like his blur of a tail. Kirishima drops his keys and wallet into the bowl and the mail next to it, toes out of his shoes next, and then he’s opening his arms to the elated puppy. “Socks, up!”  

Killmonger jumps into Kirishima’s awaiting arms. “Good boy!” his praises turn into coos as he’s showered in a multitude of wet kisses. Every day, the puppy seemed to gain another inch and put on a few more pounds. He and Bakugou knew that the pit mix was going to grow into a huge dog; his large paws were an indication of that.  

But that wouldn’t stop Kirishima from picking up and carrying him around like he was still a three-month-old puppy. It’s one of the reasons why he hits his campus’s gym so often; he wants to never stop holding his fur-baby, to be able to pick him up and hold him close to his heart, where he belonged.  

Killmonger thumps his tail against Kirishima’s backpack, his left side, and along his arm in a frenzy of excitement. “Did you see daddy today,” he asks the puppy. His eyes did a full sweep across the empty living room while an answer from the puppy came to him, in the form of a wet lick along his jawline. 

"Well, he definitely was here,”  Kirishima muses aloud when he sees an empty white bowl sitting on the coffee table. The TV was on, too. A confused pout pushes out his bottom lip as he makes his way to the short and carpeted hallway, bypassing the kitchen and the bar counter.

Red catches his peripherals.  

“...no...”   

Killmonger’s almost dropped onto the floor, but he manages to land on his feet. Pain is etched deep into the lines on Kirishima’s face at the heart-wrenching sight on top of the counter.  

His red croc, more holes chewed into the shoe than normal, with half of the buttons missing. “ Killmonger ...”   

The puppy’s happily wagging tail slows and falters. Grabbing the destroyed shoe, Kirishima turns his body and looks down at him, and the puppy looks the other way. “Killmonger, look at me.”  

He does, slowly. “Why did you chew up my shoe?”  

Killmonger looks away again. His tail barely moves from behind his legs.  

“You have a thousand and one toys that your dad and I bought you—expensive toys that cost almost forty dollars—and you chose to destroy my shoe. My favorite shoe.”  

Killmonger closes his mouth. He looks up without moving his head, guilt swimming in his dark chocolate eyes. Kirishima’s heart pulls at the sad look, but he toughens himself up, determined not to let his emotions be swayed by the inexplicable skill of his son’s puppy-dog eyes. “I’m very upset, you know? I love you so much, but I have to punish you.”  

The puppy takes a seat, his head still hanging. It’s a sad, pitiful look, and Kirishima almost doesn’t want to do it to him, but he has to. He can’t let this bad behavior go unpunished.  

And so, with a deep, painful sigh, he says, “No more rawhide chews after dinner for a week, and you’re grounded from sleeping in the bed with us tonight.”  

Kirishima throws his ruined shoe in the trash and walks into the bedroom, his dog trailing behind him. It hurts, but it had to be done.

Turning the bedroom lights on, Kirishima drops his bag by the door, careful about his laptop inside, and walks over to the bed, taking note of the black hoodie strewn over the comforters. He’s been here, then,  he hums, sitting next to the sleeve.  

Killmonger walks over to him, sitting his head onto his thigh. “I know it hurts baby, but you did this to yourself. Next time, you’ll learn not to chew on mine or your daddy’s shoes, okay?” Kirishima grabs his face and leans forward, pressing a tender kiss to the top of his head. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m gonna yell at Kats too, because I know he was the one that probably told you to chew on it.”  

He scratches lightly behind his folded ear before pushing himself off the bed, moving Killmonger gently aside in the progress. “After I take a shower, I’ll feed you, and then we’ll go for a walk, okay?” 

That works in cheering the puppy right back into his previously happy state. Kirishima returns his grin and turns to the en-suite bathroom, heading for the showers. He should be back once I'm ready, he hopes, turning the hot water knob first.  

He ignores the tight clutch of his stomach after the thought.  

Kirishima takes a long shower, washing the day’s grime off his body and out of his hair. He walks out the steaming shower once he’s done and into the even steamier bathroom, wrapping a towel around his dripping lower half. He dries off his conditioned hair with a white towel and then a blow-dryer, and then he walks back into the bedroom, a wet footprint trail leading from the bathroom to the dressers, where he towels off the rest of body before slipping into a clean pair of underwear, and a lighter trail tracking into the walk-in closet, where he digs through his side for his evening attire.  

Bakugou hadn’t come back home while he was in the shower and still hadn't arrived yet. Kirishima raises the volume of the TV to ignore the gradual spike of stress in his mind, instead actively engaging the worrying organ into watching the show he had chosen. He applies lotion and deodorant to their appropriate areas before dressing into his evening attire: a pair of tight jeans that brought out the fullness of his ass and thighs and a cotton button-down dress shirt, the fabric light blue like a pair of washed-out jeans with the areas over his collarbones faded gray. He rolled his sleeves up in the bathroom vanity, pinning them in place above his elbows, and loops a leather belt around his waist, completing the look.  

Simplistic, but still classy.  

Next is his hair, which is a ten-minute progress of figuring out what he wants to do with it. He chooses a style that’s completely different from the usual, the one that earned him the affectionate moniker Shitty-hair, as well as a slew of other equally affectionate names, for a simple look—half down and half-tied up in a neat bun. He pulls out his bangs with the thin endpiece of a comb, combing them down his face and then combing the rest of his hair over his shoulders.  

Makeup is right after, courtesy of his friend Ashido. He hides years of acne scars and dark spots behind a light coat of concealer and applies eyeliner, mascara, and a thin coat of lip-gloss to the best features on his face. The transformation his eyes go through, going from their normal rounded shape to an alluring, coquettish slant is startlingly and at the same time so mesmerizing to behold. The power a tube of liquid eyeliner and a black wing has.  

He puts on his jewelry, which isn’t much, just a pair of diamond studs Bakugou bought him during the first months they were dating each other. He chooses his Apple watch over a bracelet, a birthday gift that came with the phone sitting on his bed—all from the same man. 

“Is he like, your sugar daddy now?”  he remembers Ashido asking him when he showed off his new gifts. The corners of his lips crinkle at the memory.  

He finishes up with a spritz of cologne (Burberry, an anniversary gift), and he’s ready.

Bakugou still isn't home.   

He’s feeding Killmonger an hour before his usual dinnertime and takes him out on a quick walk around the complex. He gets compliments from other residents taking their canines out, one asking him what the occasion was for tonight. “Date tonight,” Kirishima answers, a smile on his face, “I’m just waiting for him to come home.”  

He doesn’t. It’s thirty minutes until they have to be at the restaurant for their dinner reservation, and Bakugou still isn’t home.  

Kirishima steels himself with a rocky breath as he goes through his phone, scrolling through his contacts to Bakugou’s name. The man still hadn’t responded—or even looked at—his text.  

He doesn’t pick up the first time he calls him, so he tries again.  

When he picks up, Kirishima hears a light curse before a hard “What?”   

“Where are you?”  

It wasn’t supposed to come out like that, but the words left his mouth before he could change his tone. He hears more swearing, followed up by a chair scraping a floor and fast shuffling. “Shit—you’re home already?”   

“Uh, yeah? It’s almost seven. Didn’t you get my text earlier?”  

“You texted me?”   

Kirishima sucks in a deep breath, closes his eyes, and exhales. “Yes, I did. Where are you?”  

“Fuck. Listen, I have to go—”  

“Wait a minute," Kirishima cuts him off, and Bakugou curses again. At the same time, the redhead hears a woman’s loud voice screeching in the background. Please don't tell me he's there. "You're at the job again, aren't you?"

“Look, this isn’t the best time. I’ll call you back once I’m done.”  

“With what? I thought you said you got off work.”  

“I can’t tell you,”  Bakugou answers him shortly, Kirishima’s head jolting at his tone. “And I did, I just—something came up, alright? I have to go back, but I'll call you when I'm done.”   

“Katsuki—!”  

The line goes dead just before the woman’s voice shouts something else. His phone falls away from his ear, his other hand tightening into a balled fist and then popping the bones inside his knuckles. It’s fifteen minutes after seven, and Kirishima’s head drops to the back of his neck, his eyes shutting in a frustrated intake of air.  

I knew this was going to fucking happen. 

Chapter Text

every risk you dare to take... 

At 7:25, Kirishima cancels their reservation.  

He’s in the living room, a greasy burger from a nearby fast-food restaurant in his hands instead of an exquisite steak entrée in a classy restaurant for dinner. A wall of tears burns the back of his retinas, but wait a minute, we still have time to go to the movies. It’s not even eight yet.   

Swallowing the burger takes more strength than he realizes, and he hardly tastes the meat and vegetables packed between the soggy buns, but Kirishima chews through his mediocre meal with that thin sliver of hope still burning inside of him.

Because surely, surely, Bakugou would come home in time to make it for that.  

Right?  

It’s fifteen minutes after nine when Kirishima comes to the realization that Bakugou wouldn’t make it. The movie they were going to see was already showing previews for upcoming films; they would be in the back row sharing a large box of popcorn and some sour candies, Bakugou getting mad at him because he ate all of the popcorn before the movie even started.  

At 9:30, Kirishima comes to another bitter realization: he was stood up. 

Once again.   

The wall of water behind his eyes starts to hurt, but he rubs the sockets raw until the skin around them is bright red. He picks up his trash off the coffee table, startling Killmonger at the force he yanked the paper bag with, and drops the trash into the garbage can on his way to the bedroom. 

I knew it, he pushes open the door with a little too much force, I knew this was going to happen, he pulls off his shoes and throws them into the opened walk-in closet. One of the soles hits the wall a little too hard, once again making the pit mix jump.  

Kirishima changes out of his evening attire, tossing the nice clothes into the closet without a care of where they landed, pulling on a pair of loose sweats and an old t-shirt from the bottom of one of their dressers. He’s removing his diamond earrings with the same vexed speed, almost ripping off the studs and losing them behind the wooden furniture when he drops them inside their black box. Stomping into the bathroom, Kirishima removes his makeup with heavy hands, his skin reddening over his cheeks and around his eyes as he takes off the concealer, eyeliner, and lip-gloss.  

A few tears squeeze from his waterline. Don’t.   

He breathes in a deep inhale, pulling the salty water back over his waterline. Don’t you dare cry. You knew this would happen, so why are you upset?  Kirishima tugs the tied-up portion of his hair out of its bun and pulls all of it into a low ponytail. He’s home for the rest week. Be happy about that at least.  

Kirishima hits the bathroom lights on his way out. By ten o’clock he was back on the couch, tucked into the corner with his legs drawn up and his arms around him. He couldn’t even focus on the people on the TV screen. Whatever they were saying went through one ear and filtered out of the other, their words hardly registering in the tumultuous web of emotions circulating in his mind. He was so angry— for what? — and fed up— why? — and tired. He was emotionally exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep, but he knows that the minute he lays his head down and closes his eyes, he’s going to get angrier.  

I don’t understand why you’re even mad in the first place, he—no, his brain is talking to him, like, he’s home. For the rest of this week. And for the weekend! He’s home, Eijirou. Isn’t this what you wanted? To come home and see your boyfriend after school so you guys can actually hang out and do couple-stuff? Stop acting like a crybaby and get over yourself, dammit.  

Killmonger’s folded ears perk at the sound of muffled sniffles.  

Kirishima had his face buried in his hands. They were actually clutching his face, but then he relaxes his grip just enough so that his knuckles could bend inwards over his forehead, his fingers not pulling at his roots anymore. His body twitches and jerks under silent sobs, starting at his shoulders and working down his bent legs to his bare toes. Even with how hard he’s driving his hands into his eyes, moisture still pushes through, wetting the skin on his palms and smearing underneath his waterline.  

He keeps trying to tell himself that he’s not upset, that his boyfriend’s home for a while at least, so there’s no reason for him to cry. It could be worse, you realize that right,  he hears his own voice ask him, the tone as dry and cutting as sandpaper. It could be so, so much worse.    

And he knows that. He’s well aware of how lucky the circumstances are. Bakugou could have been—God fucking knows where because he never tells him anything, he just leaves him—but he’s going to come back home, he will come back home, he said he was coming back home. So stop. Being. Such. A fucking. Crybaby—  

Click.   

Kirishima’s face shoots up from his hands at the same time Killmonger jumps off the couch. He wipes away the residue of tears until his skin pulls painfully from the dryness. Killmonger’s deep barks morph into whines, above them the rapid thumping of his hammer-like tail hitting the wall and wooden furniture.  

Above that, a hoarse, "Get the fuck out of my way, mutt.”   

Kirishima sucks in a tight breath. Bakugou steps into his peripherals, and his face flares.  

Bakugou’s entire body looked worn completely out. Even in the lacking sight of his peripherals, Kirishima could see the weariness weighing on his shoulders and the lines of exhaustion creasing underneath his eyes and around his mouth. The man finally looked like his true age of almost thirty, not his youthful mid-twenties appearance, Kirishima swallowing at the pitiful sight. Bakugou had crossed his vision on his way to the couch and he followed his fatigued form, opening his mouth to say something, but Bakugou's weight sinking into the couch creates a lead weight on top of his tongue, pinning it to the bottom of his mouth.  

Bakugou wasn’t even looking at him. He faces the ceiling with closed eyes, the back of his neck and head sinking into the back cushions of the couch. He looked even older like this, Kirishima tracing the lines of wrinkles down his face with his eyes, wishing he could say something to him. Or maybe him saying something, at least. But it looked like neither was going to happen, so all Kirishima does is look back at the TV and push down the emotions twisting inside of his stomach. I should have gone to bed.   

“Did you cancel the reservation already?”  

Bakugou was looking at him when he tears his gaze from the screen a second time. Bakugou waits for his answer with an unusual patient stare, something that shocked Kirishima even more. He's blinking in dumbfounded silence, but once his words register inside of his mind, he finally answers him. “I did.”  

His voice was hard and flat; an uncharacteristic trait from him, but Bakugou doesn’t react to it. He rolls his head back into its previous position, a heavy exhale following the movement. Kirishima thinks he hears an apologetic sound clipping the end of the long breath, but it’s gone as soon as he heard it. “I lost track of time and I—” 

“Where were you?”  

The question that’s been burning on his tongue finally freed from his tongue's self-constraint. The pause that follows up after the peremptory question is long and thick with tension; Kirishima doesn’t miss the clench in Bakugou’s jaws or the brief flash of guilt streaking through his eye. Each passing second that he has to wait, a knot that’s been twisting inside of his gut grows larger, tighter, and heavier, spreading a weight of cold certainty throughout his whole body.  

Bakugou doesn’t look at him when he answers. Kirishima follows the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows before saying, “I was at the warehouse.”  

Kirishima steels his face. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t twitch his lips; he doesn’t even breathe. “I see,” is all he says, and he looks back at the TV, ignoring the look on Bakugou’s face.

“I had to go back.”  

“I get it.”  

His voice was tight and emotionless. He can see Bakugou’s brows twisting into the beginnings of a scowl, but then another heavy exhale from the man relaxes the light blonde hairs. “Did you eat already?”  

Kirishima doesn’t say anything. He really wishes he had gone to bed earlier. “Shitty-hair, I’m talking to you.”  

He still had that option. It wasn’t too late for him to get up and go to the back, sleep this failure of a date night off. And then tomorrow, he could just act like this night never happened at all, that it was a bad dream because his piece of shit boyfriend— 

“Eijirou!”  

“What!?”   

“Did you not fucking hear me? I asked if you ate already.”  

“I’m not hungry,” Kirishima says, his short tone twisting a scowl across his boyfriend’s brows. With upturned lips, Bakugou asks, “What the fuck is your problem?”  

Like before, his tongue pins itself to the bottom of his mouth, words flooding on top of the muscle in desperation, trying to climb out into the growing tension between them. You standing me up for the fifth time in a row over that freaking job. Or maybe you breaking your promise to me about not doing this shit again. Or, maybe you just being an overall asshole and not letting me know why you had to cancel our date in the first place.  

“What are you talking about?” Kirishima asks instead, his voice as dry and harsh as the anger broiling under his skin.  

“This. You’re not even looking at me, and you keep talking like you’re pissed off about something.”  

A smile pulls taut across his lips, dripping with bitter humor. “Really? I wasn’t even aware of that, honestly.” His voice drips in the same tone and he still refuses to spare a glance at Bakugou. What he wants to say burns deep holes in the middle of his tongue, but he can’t find the strength to remove the weight off of it, most of his strength trying to keep his anger from reaching its max boiling point.  

Beside him, Bakugou asks in a deep sigh, “This is because I missed our date, ain’t it?”  

If you knew that, why’d you fucking ask then?   

He doesn't confirm or deny the question. “I’ll reschedule everything again tomorrow and we’ll—” 

“Don’t.”   

Bakugou’s burning gaze melts holes into the side of his face, but he ignores him. “Why not?”  

“Because you’re just going to cancel on me for that job again.”  

The cushions shift underneath Kirishima’s legs as Bakugou turns his full body in his direction. “Are you fuckin’ serious right now?” he asks him, and a muscle in Kirishima’s bottom jaw clenches at the growl biting the end of his question. He feels the cushions shift again and sees Bakugou leaning back into the couch in his peripherals. His eyes seal shut, and Kirishima’s nostrils flare in a sharp breath when he hears him mutter, “I’m way too fucking tired to deal with this bullshit right now.”   

How the fuck do you think I feel, Kirishima almost asks him, but he bites the tip of his tongue. 

In a louder voice, Bakugou says, “I get it, you’re pissed off at me because I missed our date—”  

Kirishima cuts him off with a dry scoff and heavily exaggerated eye roll. “—but you don’t have to give me a fuckin’ attitude about it. I told you, I’ll reschedule everything and we can do this shit again.”   

“No, Katsuki,” Kirishima glowers at him now, “you don’t get it. Because if you did, you would know why I have this attitude in the first place.”  

“Eijirou—” 

“Five times, Katsuki,” Kirishima says as he pushes himself off the couch, glaring into the man’s bright red eyes. “Five times, and after the last time you said to me, you promised me, this wouldn’t happen again. That you wouldn’t do this shit to me again.”  

“Eijirou, listen—”  

“But you did it again anyway,” Kirishima cuts him off. He turns away from the glower in Bakugou’s eyes and stalks off to the hallway, Bakugou yelling behind him, “I didn’t have a fucking choice! You think I wanted to go back, knowing what we had planned for today?”  

“I don’t actually because you never answered my text or called me back like you said would! And when I tried calling you, you just hung up on, not giving me any type of explanation or anything.”  

“Because you called me at the wrong time you fucking asshole—”  

“Right, right, me. I’m the asshole, not you, not the guy that stood me up for the fifth fucking time for that job. Nope, it’s me who’s really the asshole in this situation.”  

Kirishima scoffs, walking further inside the dark hallway, leaving Bakugou cursing at his back in the living room. He goes into their room, turning in the direction of the bed, and just as he yanks the covers back Bakugou appears in the doorway, Killmonger squeezing past him. Kirishima saw his softened scowl on his brows and lips that read more exhausted than anything else, a harsh sigh matching the fatigued expression. “Fine.”  

The covers drop from Kirishima’s hands. “That’s it? Fine?”   

“What the fuck do you want me to do?” Bakugou throws the question at him in a rising voice, “I tried telling you I can reschedule this shit for another day, but it’s like you’re not even listening to me. I can get us that dinner reservation again, and it’s not like that movie is sold out everywhere. I can fix this if you’d just fucking wait and give me a chance.”  

“What, just so you can leave me for that job again?” Kirishima asks him with a harsh scoff. “God, you just don’t get it all.”  

“Get, what?  What the fuck is your problem, Eijirou?”  

“You!”   

His scream takes both Killmonger and Bakugou by surprise, the dog rushing to stand behind his second owner and the man glancing at the redhead with rounded eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about,” Bakugou growls after his shock dies down.  

His words lifted the weight holding down Kirishima’s tongue, because the next thing he knew, he was spitting a tirade at him. “This! It’s like every single time we try to plan one freaking date together, you end up leaving me for that goddamn job! It wouldn’t mean so much if you, you know, called me in advance and told me that you wouldn’t be able to make it. But do you do that, Katsuki? No, you don’t. You just leave without telling me anything every, single, fucking time and I’m so tired of it!”  

“You’re mad because I never tell you what the fuck I’m doing? I’m a fuckin’ adult Ei, I don’t have to tell you shit.”  

“No you don’t, but that’s not what I’m saying jerk. I just want you to at least tell me that you’re gonna miss out on our date. Don’t just disappear out of thin air and then not call or text me to let me know where you’re at. That freaks me out.” 

“Alright, fine. Fuck. ”  

Bakugou grumbles and stomps into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. While listening to him in the other room, Kirishima slowly crawls into bed, nibbling down on his bottom lip. He’s unsure if Bakugou really heard him, or if he only said those words just to put an end to their argument like he always does. Definitely the latter,  Kirishima answers himself, drawing his knees up to his chest under the covers. A cold wave of déjà vu was coming down on his shoulders: right after their argument, Bakugou would just go to sleep, and Kirishima would still be up, fighting with his emotions to keep them bottled up so that he can go to sleep and “move on” from their fight.  

That was the order all the time, and Kirishima was about sick of it. He was sick of being the one that always felt the worst out of these arguments. Like he was the only one that really gave a shit in this relationship and wanted something out of it. That’s why he agreed to move in with him, much to his ex-roommate and best friend’s dismay. What a horrible mistake that turned out to be.   

“What the fuck is wrong with you now?”   

Bakugou had emerged from the bathroom in nothing but his underwear, a toothbrush muffling his words. Kirishima doesn’t feel them until he swats at a fly landing on his cheek, his fingers brushing away water instead of the small body of an insect. He sniffs and wipes the water from his cheeks, his voice cracking as he says, “Nothing.”  

Bakugou stops brushing his teeth to hold Kirishima’s gaze, and then he’s turning back into the bathroom to spit the toothpaste into the sink. Kirishima listens to him in the bathroom, wiping away more tears from his moist eyes. This was the part where he was going to get into bed and go to sleep, leaving Kirishima to deal with the act of moving on by himself. His anger melts out of the tight knot inside of his stomach into tired frustration, and he stares at the water glistening on the side of his palm after wiping away the last of it from his eyes. 

It’s like he doesn’t even care at all, Kirishima sniffs.  

“What did you just say?”  

He thought he had said it to himself, but Bakugou was standing closer to the bed, his closer distance startling Kirishima into silence. “What the fuck did you just say,” Bakugou repeats in a darker, snarling tone, and the anger that was gradually melting out of his core comes back, burning in full force.  

“I said it’s like you don’t even care about my feelings at all,” Kirishima throws at him, blinking back the rush of water building up behind his eyes.  

Bakugou just rolls his eyes at him. “Exactly my point. You don’t care.”  

“I’m tired, and you’re yelling at me about some shit I can’t even control.”  

“But you can! You can tell me that you’re not gonna make it to one of our dates. It's not that hard to do—” 

“I said alright already! Can you shut up about it? Fucking Christ,”   

Bakugou gets into bed and flips over grumbling around the curse, Kirishima forced to look at the tattoo across his upper back. The dark blue and gold lines blur in his vision and his face twists, burning behind the wall of salty water pushing into his retinas once again.  

This is how it was going to end, he supposes. In the morning, Bakugou was going to act like this argument never happened, and Kirishima would have to do the same. Because if he even mentioned this argument again, the blonde was going to snap on him.  

I’m done with this.   

Maybe he heard him, or maybe he didn’t, but Kirishima doesn’t care. He’s tired, tired of being treated like a second choice to Bakugou’s job. If Bakugou can't do the one thing he asks him to do, why should he even bother anymore? 

Kirishima throws the covers back, the dark red comforter landing on top of Killmonger’s body (he didn’t even notice the puppy had jumped onto the bed). If Bakugou stirred, the other didn’t show it, and Kirishima didn’t stop to look. He stalks into their shared closet, rummaging the corner of the walls for a pair of shoes to slip his feet into because he can’t even be bothered to be in the same room as the other man in the bed.  

“What the hell are you doing?” 

Kirishima hadn't heard the man getting out of bed, his anger muting all of his senses. He was standing in the closet's entry, his arms folded across his bare chest. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?”  

“Don’t fuckin’ get smart with me, bitch,”  Bakugou says. In any other situation, that low growl in the back of his throat would send a thrill between his legs up to his back, but right now it only worsens his anger.  

Kirishima sees red amongst the shadows and reaches for it, his expression darkening when he only pulls out one red croc. Why—oh, his face twists, tossing the red shoe back into the shadows. He forgot Killmonger destroyed the other one and didn’t get rid of the second shoe.  

He looks for another pair of shoes. “Eijirou!”  

“What?”  

He finds a pair of slides and slips his feet into those. “Answer my fuckin’ question.”  

“I’m leaving,” he says as he straightens his back and turns, not bothering to spare Bakugou a glance. He’s almost shoving past him, but the other brings him to an abrupt halt with a vice grip around his arm.  

Kirishima glares up at him. The subtle height difference the blonde had on him normally made these types of tensions so hot, but the redhead only feels fury burning his skin, pulsing through his veins. Fury at the man, at all of his lies—everything.  The bottom of his eyes shine with unshed tears, but he holds them back with a tight jaw.  

He refuses to cry in front of this man again. “Let me go.”  

“You’re way too fuckin’ emotional right now. Just calm down and go back to bed.”  

Kirishima rips his arm out of his grip, his mouth falling with a sound of bewildered shock. “You want me to what?”   

“You heard me. You’re getting upset over nothing.”  

Over nothing—   

Kirishima rolls his eyes with a dry laugh and shoves past him with an even drier, “You’re such a selfish dick.”  It doesn’t surprise him; of course, Bakugou would think he’s getting mad over nothing, and maybe he is. It’s not like he stood me up before, and he never tells where he’s at. So yeah, why am I getting upset? He does this all the time.   

Behind him, Bakugou explodes. “And you’re acting like a selfish bitch!”   

Kirishima had just emerged out of the hallway when he heard Bakugou roar behind him, and he whipped on his heels to see the man standing in the hallway’s entry, his face contorted in nothing short of rage. “Ex-cuse  me?”   

“You fucking heard me. You’re acting like a selfish and spoiled little bitch, catchin’ a fuckin’ attitude with me because I couldn’t make it back in time for our date. So fuckin’ what, I missed it alright? I can’t do anything about that shit.”  

“If you actually listened to a word I just said, you would know that it’s not just about the date, Katsuki. It’s the fact that you keep disappearing without telling me anything.”  

“I can’t help that shit either! My job’s been like that since the fucking beginning. This is what happens when you decide to date a drug-dealer.”  

“No,” Kirishima shakes his head, a bitter scoff in the back of his throat, “That has nothing to do with it. That’s just your excuse for being an asshole who doesn’t give a single shit about my feelings.”  

“Don’t you fucking go there with me,” Bakugou snarls, “You know that’s a goddamn lie.” 

“Actually? I don’t.  When you keep bailing out on me for that job, and then you just don’t say anything? I don’t know what to think. ”  

“Oh my God, I told you already—”  

“That’s not an excuse anymore!” Even as he’s yelling, Kirishima’s voice is rigid. “We’re three years deep into this relationship and you’re still doing the same immature shit you used to do in the beginning! You should be in a position where you can finally say no or get someone else to do it, but instead, you chose to leave without telling me shit. Aren’t you the closest thing to a leader at that place? Why does it always have to be you?”  

“Because, you fucking moron, I am the closest thing to a fuckin’ leader. That doesn’t mean I can do whatever the hell I fucking want. Yeah, I have certain privileges and shit I didn’t have before, but I still got fuckin’ responsibilities that only someone in my position can do, so I’m sorry  if I have to leave you for that.”  

“So you’re saying drugs are more important than me?”  

“Are you fucking kidding me? No—”   

“Because that’s what it sounds like to me,” Kirishima crosses his arms. “It sounds like selling cocaine is something you care about more than your own fucking boyfriend, the one you supposedly will ‘drop everything in the world just to be with,’”  venomous sarcasm laces around his air-quoted words.  

“No, goddammit! I never said this shit was about fucking drugs.”  

“Then why did you miss tonight? What was so important  that you had to be gone for nearly five hours without telling me a single thing, missing both our dinner reservation and the movie?” 

“I can’t talk about it,” Bakugou says, and in a louder voice in response to Kirishima’s eye roll, “you know I can’t talk about half the shit that goes on at that fucking warehouse, so I don’t know why you’re rolling your fucking eyes at me.”  

“So I just gotta keep accepting this bullshit, right? The no-texting or calling when you leave suddenly, you coming home at twelve or five in the morning, sometimes the next day or even not at all? You just want me to shut up and accept that I’m only an afterthought when it comes to that job.”  

“You know what? If that’s what makes you happy, then fine. Believe that shit, I don’t give a fuck.”  

Bakugou turns away, grumbling incoherent swears under his breath. Kirishima watches the ram’s blue face retreat into the hallway’s shadows, and with a tight exhale he says, “Just what I thought.”  

Heavy stomping comes to a full halt. “You thought what,” Bakugou asks from the hallway, the threat of a growl in his voice.  

Kirishima’s inhale is shaky, more tears flooding the bottom of his eyes.  

“You don’t care about me at all.”   

Bakugou reemerges out of the hallway, his almond-shaped eyes rounded into the shape of disbelief, anger pooling into the center of his carmine irises. “Stop—fucking— saying that!”  he shouts, and Kirishima can hear the sound of muffled knocking on their living room wall. “Not once, during this entire pointless-ass fucking argument, did I ever say I didn’t give a shit about you.”  

“You don’t have to! Your actions speak loud enough!” He’s only barely able to control the warbling in his voice, but it still pokes through.  

“What, because I missed a few dates? Because I have a job that’s fucking stressful and requires my full attention every single fucking day? That’s why you’re saying I don’t give a fuck about you?” 

Bakugou steps closer, and out of reflex, Kirishima takes half a step back.  

“Tell me something, Eijirou. Who the fuck was the one that got you that Apple Watch and iPhone for your fucking birthday last year? It was me, right? Does that mean I don’t care about you?”  

Bakugou is even closer and Kirishima has to fight his legs to not take another step back.  

“What about that fucking dog that chews up every goddamn thing in this fucking house?” Bakugou points at the puppy standing in the living room, “Who was the one that bought him after someone fucking begged  him to because 'nobody’s going to buy mixed breeds like him, he’ll just get put into the system and then be put down.’  Who the fuck bought him, along with all of those fucking forty-dollar toys that are everywhere in this motherfucking house?”  

Kirishima’s lips twitch with a retort, but the words crumble on his tongue at Bakugou’s closing proximity.

“It was me, right? Does that mean I don’t care about you? What about this apartment,” Bakugou motions to the living room, “who was the one that offered you to live with them so you didn’t have to keep paying that fucking expensive ass tuition from living on campus with your roommate anymore? It was me, right? And you still want to say I don’t give a fuck about you?”  

Bakugou was so close now, Kirishima could feel the heat radiating from his body.

“As a matter of fact, who was the one that set up this entire fucking date in the first place? Who was the one that worked their fucking ass off to get the rest of this week free just so this date could happen in the fucking first place? It was me, and you still want to say I don’t give a shit about you?”   

“Nice, you just told me that you can get me whatever I ask for, but you still can't get me the one thing I really want, which is just to spend some time with my fucking boyfriend." 

“No, what I just said was how much of an ungrateful fucking ass you are. Everything you asked for, I did what I fucking could to get it for you. Me, because newsflash, you selfish fucking bitch, I actually do give a shit about you, otherwise I wouldn’t even be bothered to live under the same roof as you. Just because I missed a few dates ain’t taking that fact away, so don’t you dare,”   

Bakugou lifts his hand, his finger pointing at Kirishima’s chest in a rigid line but never touching him, “ever fucking lie to my goddamn face like that again, because I can show you what not giving a fuck about you really looks like, and I know you don’t want that. You really, really don’t.”  

Bakugou lowers his hand with a heavy exhale, his breath washing over Kirishima’s twisted face with the faint scent of mint. When he speaks again, his voice is leagues softer than before, all of the anger in his tone seeping out of him in replacement for an exhausted tone that can be seen in the way his shoulders sag to the ground. “No more of this shit, alright? It’s late, and I had a long ass fucking day.”  

Kirishima breaks his watering gaze away from Bakugou, looking at his chest first, and then finally at the floor, a long and faltering exhale rolling over his trembling bottom lip.  

It’s not fair. None of this was even remotely fair to him. The carpet blurs to an undisguisable mess before his eyes and he pinches his fingers to his moistening sockets, clamping on his bottom lip in hopes of keeping the tears behind his eyes for a little while longer. Why was he the one getting yelled at and being treated like all of this was his fault? All Kirishima wanted was one night, one chance to spend an entire evening with the one man he loves more than anything in the world, so why? Why was he made out to be the one that’s being unreasonable and selfish?  

Maybe... maybe it’s because I am.  

His bottom lip trembles even under his teeth and he sucks it into his mouth. Bakugou was probably—no, he was right, Kirishima is being a selfish, ungrateful bitch. It’s just like how it was in the beginning when he didn’t understand what Bakugou did for a living.  

Only this time, he knows what he does. And yet somehow, this hurts even more.   

He feels them squeeze from behind his fingers, rolling down previously dried lines along his trembling cheeks. He sniffles only once, the sound so soft it barely registers over the whirring of the A/C in the hallway. Kirishima drags the side of his hand over his wet eyes, another sniffle breaking through his lips, and he’s slowly pulled into a warm chest by even warmer arms. 

As if a second dam has been lifted behind his eyes, the light trickles strengthen into a deluge down his face, soaking every surface area of skin they came in contact with. Hands rest on his body in a soft caress, one hand settling on the small of his back while the other comes up to the back of his head, guiding him to lay his head across his chest.  

The smell of outside still clings onto his skin, warm against his cheek. The stale air of a warehouse mixed with his natural musk of smoke and faint cologne. Kirishima always found solace in the embrace, loving the way it swaddled him with warmth and reassurance. But tonight, he doesn’t feel that warmth or love.  

He only feels cold, a block of bitter ice that settles in the pit of his stomach and works its way up to his aching heart.  

Kirishima’s shoulders tremble as lightly chapped lips press into his temple, soft words gently murmured into his hair. “Let’s go back to bed. We’ll deal with this shit in the morning, okay?”   

Kirishima sniffs once, and then in a warbled voice, “No.”   

He breaks away from Bakugou’s arms, his eyes frothing with pain, anguish, and fury inside of his deepened irises. “I’m done dealing with this, Katsuki,”  Kirishima spits. “Fuck you, fuck your lies, and fuck this.”   

Bakugou’s mouth fell open. Kirishima’s hand goes to the smartwatch on his wrist, Bakugou following the movement with wide eyes and a steadily closing mouth. “Shitty-hair, what the fuck do you think you’re doing.”  

His fingers fumble as they undo the buckle and clasp. Bakugou’s eyes go from round, to narrow, and back to the rounded shape again after Kirishima pulls off the watch and lets it dangle from the end of its strap. “Don’t you fucking do it,” the blonde warns him.  

Time seems to freeze at that moment. In that back of his mind, Kirishima knew what he was about to do was wrong, childish, and disrespectful. This is going too far, an inner voice warns him, and it was right, Kirishima slowly lowering his arm back to his side.  

But why is it right for him to hurt you? Why can’t you let him see how it feels, to be treated like you’re something that can be disposed of? Like you don’t fucking matter at all?   

The watch hits the carpet with a hard thud, the glass shattering on impact. Bakugou doesn’t flinch when he hears the sound, but confused hurt makes a brief appearance in his eyes, only to be swallowed by dark rage. “You fucking—I’m not buying you another one.”  

Kirishima remains emotionless under his guttural voice. “I don’t care,” is the only thing he says to him before he’s turning for the direction of the door, the need to get far away from the man burning in his legs.  

Already, a fresh new wave of tears burns behind his eyes. “Shitty-hair, where the fuck do you think you’re going?”  

He’s in the small foyer, fishing his lanyard out of the bowl on the table. “Eijirou!”  

Kirishima rips open the door, almost breaking the lock and pulling the hinges out of the wall. Cool night air stings inside of his eyes, but it does nothing to staunch the heat emanating off his body. The walkway is lit by a single bulb glowing from the ceiling, but it’s enough to light the rest of the doors belonging to their neighbors’ apartments. 

“Eijirou, fucking look at me, dammit!”   

He turns, just enough to see over his shoulder. Bakugou is behind him in the foyer, his eyes full of deep-rooted anger. However, Kirishima can see fear cracking through, leaving behind fissures in his scarlet-orange irises. Bakugou swallows once, Kirishima seeing his Adam’s apple follow through with the movement.  

“Don’t.”  

Hearing the waver at the end of his sentence almost has Kirishima hesitating at the door. He’s never heard that sound come out of him before and it nearly works on him; his fingers loosen around the knob, and he’s starting to pull his hand away.  

But then he’s yanking the door wider. His words flood his mind: selfish, ungrateful, a spoiled little bitch. Kirishima turns his body halfway around, his gaze hardening into crimson stones.  

“Bye.”   

He slams the door on Bakugou's slack-jawed face.  

Chapter Text

there's one thing I can't ignore...

That bitch left him.   

His state of shock leaves him motionless in the hallway.

He was gone—just like that.  

Kirishima really left him.  

And without his wallet, Bakugou notices still sitting in the bowl. That fucking idiot. He only took his keys—and then slammed the door in my fucking face. Now the idiot was going to get pulled over for being a negligent, over-emotional, dumbass. 

Maybe he’s still out there. Maybe I can catch him before—  

Before he leaves.   

And that was his plan of action, but his hand hesitates around the doorknob. Bakugou had only one article of clothing: his boxers. Yeah, it was nearing twelve o’clock in the morning—and it was a Monday night at that—but there were security cameras hidden in almost every corner of the building with even more of them watching the parking lot. Bakugou went to jail for a few things—vandalism and attempted assault, just to name a few—but he didn’t want to tack on public indecency to that list, nor did he want to be registered as a sex offender.  

And if there is one thing Bakugou Katsuki did not do, he did not chase after a bitch. It didn’t matter the gender or how much of a good lay they were, he never ran after someone. He had too much pride for himself to be reduced to that level, and he wasn’t going to make an exception for that red-haired moron. Even though he has the ass and thighs of all of my wet dreams combined and a smile that makes it worth living to see another day—  

Fuck!   

Bakugou rips his hand off the doorknob with a hoarse snarl. He turns away from it, his knees colliding into a solid object. A sharp yelp floats into his ears.“Get out of the fucking way!”  Bakugou pretty much screams when he looks down to see Killmonger standing directly in front of him. The puppy turns around, flattening his body to the ground, and he slinks off to another part of the apartment with his tail firmly pinned between his hind legs. Seeing him crawl away like that squeezes Bakugou's heart, but once the black and brown dog disappears, his anger drips back into him.  

Bakugou stalks in the same direction as the puppy, his nails digging into his palms in heated fists. He passes by the living room’s TV still playing whatever bullshit Kirishima was watching and turns it off with a forceful jam on the power button, almost denting the remote when he threw it back on the coffee table. His eyes travel to the couch, a silver glint catching his peripherals, bringing his attention to his phone nestled in between the couch’s washed gray cushions. He didn’t even know it fell out.  

Bakugou dials the redhead's number after yanking it out of its place. Not to beg him to come back home like some weak pussy; he's only calling him to curse him out for leaving his fucking wallet behind. And slamming the goddamn door in my fucking face. 

Kirishima’s cheery voicemail answers him after three long rings. “Shitty-hair, pick up this fucking phone!”  

He tries again; it’s the same result. “So that’s how it’s gonna be? You’re gonna fuckin’ ignore me now? Pick up this goddamn phone!”  

Bakugou tries one more time, because third times a charm, right? But the only charming thing that happens is that Kirishima’s voicemail answers him once again. That motherfucker. A long chain of vulgar expletives leaves his lips in a guttural snarl. 

He almost throws his phone at the nearest wall, but a split second of rationality holds him back from making the regrettable move. Instead, his anger is directed in his powerful stomps on his way to the hallway, generating pure hell for his neighbors a floor beneath him. Something else catches the corner of his peripherals, glinting silver over the beige carpet.  

Kirishima’s broken watch. Seeing the shattered glass face spreads a red haze across Bakugou’s eyes. His true feelings lay destroyed on the carpet. Everything he put into their relationship; all of his time, energy, and fucking money, now in shiny fragments embedded the beige fabric.  

Bakugou picks up the smartwatch by its cracked center, his eyes darkening the longer he glared at the fissures. The screen was so damaged, it only showed a mirage of colors on one side, while on the other side it was nothing but pitch black. He’d have to buy a whole new watch in order to replace it, since salvaging it was a no-go.

Five-hundred dollars gone, just like that.  

The money was the least of his worries. Buying these shits hardly put a dent in his wallet. That selfish, ungrateful bitch breaking it in front of him was what bothered him. It was a bigger ‘fuck you’ than him actually saying it. Kirishima basically told him, “Fuck you, and fuck this relationship.”   

He threw the broken smartwatch into the garbage can with enough force to pop the lid out of its place. Bakugou left it like it was, stomping into his bedroom with vexation that could be heard three rooms in every direction. That’s how the bitch really felt, then fine. Bakugou didn’t care anymore. Let Kirishima act like the spoiled and immature child in this.  

Sooner or later he would come crawling back to him and apologize for how childish he was acting. All because I missed a fucking date. What a fucking joke.  

He finds Killmonger laid against the headboard when he turns into the bedroom, but a guttural “Off,”  has the puppy crawling off the bed and into his crate. He hits the light switch to cut it off, ignoring the stinging along the side of his palm. Bakugou throws his phone across the nightstand's smooth surface and rips back the comforter and second sheet, getting back into the cooling surface of the bed. For all he cared, that emotional idiot could get a fucking ticket. He was too tired to deal with his bullshit anymore. Fuck me? No, fuck you Eijirou. 

Bakugou closes his eyes, but it’s a long time before he actually falls asleep.   

For the briefest of seconds, Kirishima regrets the choices that led him to this moment.  

He’s driving through the city in the middle of the night, barely able to see anything on the roads through his disorientated vision. After spending fifteen agonizing minutes openly sobbing in his car, he was left with a pounding headache, blurry eyes—and in his haste to get away from Bakugou, he had completely forgotten his wallet, so now he was driving illegally. Any cop patrolling the streets could pull him over and give him a ticket for driving without his license, and he's pretty sure the excuse of "I'm sorry, my boyfriend is an asshole and I needed to get away from him, that's why I forgot my license," wouldn't work to get him out of it (that excuse would land him in an even bigger mess, and he just can't handle that right now.)  

Not to mention that he didn’t even know where the fuck he was going. The lights glowing from lamps and on the sides of buildings, normally making the city a beautiful sight to see at night, were nothing but painful blobs and streaks of color in the back of his eyes, useless in helping him find his way to wherever destination he was going. Kirishima was just driving, his body stuck on autopilot with a failing vision that could barely make heads or tail of anything on the road. 

Kirishima takes the back of his hand and wipes it across his eyes with a deep sniffle, smearing more tears over the already moist area. You really are a fucking idiot sometimes, Eijirou.   

Beside him, in the passenger seat, his phone goes off for what had to have been the third or fourth time. Kirishima ignores it with his teeth digging into his trembling bottom lip. Earlier, Bakugou had called two times too many that he got annoyed hearing his ringtone interrupting his playlist, so he disconnected his phone's Bluetooth just to save his ears from the jarring sound. 

It's not like it helped. Underneath the guitar's thrum of whatever country song was playing through the radio, Kirishima still heard his phone vibrate on top of the seat. And when it stopped, the blessed silence was ruined immediately after it arrived with the blonde's harsh voice in his ears, repeating all of the things he called him earlier. It was like Kirishima's mind was punishing him for not answering his phone or calling him back. You’re acting like a selfish bitch! A selfish, spoiled little bitch.

No, what I just said was how much of an ungrateful fucking ass you are.  

The words cut him deep, starting at the top of his chest and slicing down over his heart, splitting the Aries tattoo on his chest in half. Kirishima covers one hand over his mouth, twisting in a pained grimace, while his other hand tightens over the steering wheel, his knuckles paling under the firm grip. His vision continues to deteriorate, water rushing in on his eyes from both sides. 

But he was right, wasn’t he? Bakugou finally came home. He managed to get the week off, plus part of the weekend, so why was he acting like this? Kirishima got what he always wanted! Never mind the fact that Bakugou disappeared and never told him where he went, or why he left in the first place. Never mind the fact that he broke his promise to him, saying that he would never do something like this again. 

Never mind the fact that when Kirishima asked him if this was going to be a repeat of last time, Bakugou lied and said no.  

No, all of that shouldn’t matter because Bakugou was home. They could have easily rescheduled everything for another day. Kirishima shouldn’t have yelled at him for that; he shouldn’t have walked out on him, and he definitely shouldn't have thrown his watch at him.

More tears cloud his eyes, crinkling the corners into a squint. He’s right... he’s right about everything... I am a selfish and spoiled bitch. Oh, God, I’m so fucking stupid! I’m such an idiot!  

A mantra of “this is all your fault”  drowns over the lyrics playing from the radio. Kirishima reaches for the volume knob, turning the music up until it’s well above the range of unbearable, but it barely masks over his own gaslighting. He wipes his face with his hand and wrist, dragging his salty tears everywhere over his cheeks but still unable to stop the deluge gushing from his eyes.  

Outside his car, the scenery makes subtle changes. Shopping plazas and brand-named restaurants appear less and less. Gas stations, smaller convenience stores, and local restaurants replace them, with the occasional fast-food restaurant and small pizza parlor in between. Kirishima finds himself turning his Wrangler down a familiar block and he snorts dryly despite the sobs still clinging in the back of his throat. You always go to her with your problems, huh?   

The two-way street he drives down is empty. On one side, there’s a stretch of woods that disappear over the subtle hill in the road, but Kirishima can see the roofs of suburban houses peeking over it. On the other side, an apartment complex and a cottage village neighboring it. Kirishima drives past the complex to the village’s security gate, pulling his car beside the small metal-gray keypad at the same time he’s lowering his window.  

Because of his poor vision, he flubs the code twice. On the third time he tries it, another car pulls up beside him, driving close to the edge of the curb. The black gate opens without Kirishima getting a chance to retype the code and the other car goes through first, Kirishima crawling behind.  

Both cars come upon a small roundabout, the first car continuing straight after following the curve while Kirishima turned left. The row of cottages he passes while inching down the street is nearly identical to one another, their only major difference being in the black numbers pinned next to their doors along with whatever decorations the tenants chose to decorate their front porch.  

Kirishima strains to find the number1803 through his vision and once he does, he pulls into an empty parking space beside a light gray Camry.  

He sits in his car for several long minutes, letting the engine run idle. It was extremely late, and they both had classes the next day. Plus, he didn’t let her know he was even coming. She’s probably asleep, Kirishima tells himself, a wet sniffle hanging at the end of the quiet words. And she definitely doesn’t want to hear about your boy problems, either.   

A harsh voice suddenly cuts through his thoughts, even louder than the music blaring in his ears. You know she’s never asleep. You might as well call her since you drove all the way over here.  

Kirishima drags his wet hand down his equally wet face. The bitter voice was right. He didn’t have another place he could go that was only ten minutes away from his apartment, and he didn’t want to risk being out on the streets without a license any longer than he has. Another wet sniffle in the back of his throat, Kirishima lowers his volume down until it’s barely a whisper inside the car and grabs his phone, ignoring the three missed call notifications covering his lock screen.  

He goes into his contacts, dragging his thumb up his screen to the list of M’s in his phone and then slowing down until he finds her name. He taps on her name slowly, and he’s even slower to bring it to his ear.  

The phone rings only once. “Ei! What’s up, babe? I thought you would still be hanging out with your boo.”   

The back of his eyes burns with that familiar wall of salty water again. He should be hanging out with him, but because of his dumb choices— 

“A-are your roommates there?” Kirishima asks, hurriedly swallowing down a sob and the thoughts connected with it. "Kyouka’s still at work and Tooru’s with her boyfriend—... Are you crying, Ei?”   

He doesn’t hear himself until after she asks, and now he’s made aware of his soft hiccups and stuttering gasps of air. “K- Katsuki and I... w-we had a fight and... and...”   

Kirishima drags his hand across his face. “I’m sorry,”  he says into his palm, “I know it’s late, and—I didn’t want to bother you, I just... I had to get away from him, and I was d-driving, not really knowing where I was going—and I don’t even have my license on me because I’m a fucking idiot...”   

“Whoa, whoa, okay slow down.” 

Kirishima hears soft movement on Ashido’s end. “God, Mina, I’m an idiot, I’m such a f-fucking idiot. I... I fucked up so badly...!”   

“Babe,”   

Her voice was soothing through his hoarse cries. “It’s okay,”  she says, “just come inside. The door’s already unlocked.”   

Kirishima nods until he remembers the woman was on the phone. “Okay,”  he whimpers, adding an even more pitiful “sorry,”  at the end.

" Don’t apologize. Talk to you soon."

His body moves like he’s stuck in slow motion, every single action going at negative two times the regular speed it takes. He’s even slower in getting out of his car, his body protesting against the movement like it’s been stuck in the same position for several hours rather than the ten minutes it took to get here. That fictional stretch of time weighs down on his muscles, Kirishima trudging to the cottage’s side door.  

Like she had said, the door was unlocked. He pushes it open, finding his friend leaning against the back of the living room couch. She was in her pajamas; a light pink tank-top and a pair of purple shorts that cut off above her mid-thigh. Her pink braids, the ends normally reaching to the middle of her back, was pulled up into a high bun with a black bandana around her head, keeping the dyed braids in place.  

Kirishima’s stomach twists into guilty knots. She could have been in her bed already, getting ready to go to sleep, and then he had to come over and bother her with his boy issues. Not manly at all, Eijirou.   

His face pulls into the start of another sob and Ashido immediately pushes herself off the couch in a rush to get to him. Kirishima feels her arms wrap around his middle and he crumbles, burying his face into her neck. Her light brown skin had a clean smell to it: fresh coconut and aloe that helped soothe his fragile nerves. Ashido rubbed small circles into his trembling back, letting the taller man soak her neck with his tears until the last of his tremors ebbed from his body. “Whatever happened,” she says to him while he cried, “just know that I love you, and I’m always here for you.”  

Kirishima only nods in response. He reluctantly pulled himself out of her embrace, cringing at the wet trails clinging to her skin. Ashido didn’t make any moves to wipe it off or show that she noticed it. “I’m gonna call Denki and tell him to bring an Oreo blizzard back from Sonic, okay?”  

He nods again, wiping away his face. The tasty treat sounded like pure Heaven right now. “And then, whenever you’re ready, we’ll talk about it.”  

He nods one more time, not trusting himself to speak. Ashido closes and locks the door behind him and takes him by the hand into the living room, helping him on the couch, where he spends the next fifteen minutes waiting on his other friend with his head on Ashido’s chest.  

Kaminari arrives in the quickest fifteen minutes either of them had ever witnessed since being friends with the blonde. If Kirishima wasn’t so distraught, he would have been impressed by his friend’s ability to actually show up on time. When a medium Oreo blizzard found its way into his hands, and his tears were reduced to slow trickles after three slow bites, Kirishima recounted his fight with his boyfriend to his two friends, beginning when he came home to the empty house.  

When he finished, shocked and gaping faces stared at him. The torrent that was previously expelled from his eyes had returned along with his sobs, the latter muffled by several spoonfuls of cookie-filled ice cream in the thickening silence.  

Kaminari was the first one to break it, an incredulous “He called you what!?”  ringing between their space. “A selfish—and spoiled—”   

He shook his head, huffing through lips twisted in a disbelieving grimace. “Oh, fuck no. I’m gonna find him and beat his fucking ass—”  

“Denki, please...”  Kirishima sniffles around his plastic spoon. His voice was a ruined mess of wrecked vocal cords from screaming and sobbing nonstop for the past two hours. “He called you a bitch! Like, what the hell!”  

Kirishima’s eyes shut with an anguished groan.  

“Denki, you can’t even fight, so shut up,” Ashido interjects, but even she nods with his statement. “He does need to get his ass beat, though. Like, severely.”  

Their seating positions had changed after Kaminari’s arrival. Kirishima sat on the floor with a pillow to cushion his bottom from the hardwood; above him sat Ashido, his body between her legs. She had her fingers in his hair while he slowly ate his frozen treat, combing through the long red locks while her long black and pink acrylic nails massaged his scalp.  

Sitting across from him with a pillow taken out of Ashido’s room on his lap, Kaminari scowls at Ashido’s previous and truthful statement. “Okay fine, I won’t do it. That guy’s arms look like he could bench-press me anyways.”  

And so much more, Kirishima thinks sadly, imagining said arms hoisting him up with zero effort to fuck him against the wall.

“Tetsu can be the one to beat his ass,” Kaminari suggests, ruining the fantasy playing in Kirishima’s mind. He hangs his head to his knees. “Nobody scares him, and you know he’s always down to lay someone out if they hurt you.”  

Thing is, that was the last thing Kirishima wanted, even though he definitely deserves it—  

No, stop it. No matter how badly  Bakugou deserved to get punched in the jaw, Kirishima did not want one of his best friends fighting him. What he really wanted was to just forget about this failure of a night—and most importantly, stop fucking crying.  

“T knocking out Katsuki isn’t going to fix what happened tonight,”  Kirishima says with a short sniffle. That’ll only make things worse—and bloodier. He picks his head up to shove another spoonful of Oreo and creamy ice cream into his mouth.  

“You won’t know that until you try it,” Kaminari says, and Kirishima groans his name to shut him up. “Denki, stop trying to get people to fight his boyfriend.”  

“Well, he fucking deserves it!”  

“Okay, but that doesn’t mean it needs to happen. Ei’s got enough bullshit to deal with right now and you’re not helping by trying to inadvertently start a fight with a guy that could easily lay you out with a single punch.”  

Kirishima’s attention was pulled down to his vibrating pocket before he could hear Kaminari’s weak attempt at a rebuttal. He pulls out his phone, staring blankly at the caller ID across the screen.  

My Future Husband is calling...   

“That’s him?” Kaminari asks. Kirishima nods, continuing to stare dully at the screen. The name disappears, and a notification pops across his lock-screen.  

Five missed calls from My Future Husband.   

Ashido gasps, “Wow."

“What?” Kaminari asked, and Kirishima shows him his phone. His eyes and lips stretch at the number. 

"He's probably only calling to yell at me because I left my wallet,"  Kirishima says while pulling his vibrating phone back to him. He drops it next to his lap and takes another bite of his blizzard, the frozen treat steadily depleting inside the blue cup. "Well, it's nice to know that he cares at least," Ashido says above him.  

Kaminari firmly shook his head. “Let’s not forget that this is the same asshole that stood you up for a job. And not even that.”

He raised his hand and counted off each sin the other man committed on his fingers, “On top of standing you up—over a fucking job—he yelled at you because of something that was clearly his fault, insulted you, and let’s not forget about the reason you’re in this mess in the first place—him choosing his job over you. A retail job. If that piece of shit really cared about you, then he wouldn’t have chosen some stupid job over his own boyfriend.”  

With a growl in his throat, Kaminari says, “I knew you moving in with that asshole was going to be a huge mistake. You should have never done that because now look; it’s like that was an open invitation for him to walk all over you and treat you like shit.”  

“That was his choice, Denki,” Ashido says to him, “how was he supposed to know something like this was going to happen?”  

“Oh yeah, this is the first time you’re actually hearing about something like this happening to him. When Ei and I were rooming together in the dorms, that asshole did shit like this all the time. Like Ei’s feelings didn’t mean shit to him. And then he had the nerve to ask him to move into an apartment with him, only to keep doing the same shit. Ugh.”   

An intense look forms in the center of his eyes, but it melts away. “I wish you never even met that guy.”  

“Okay, but I did,” Kirishima says, his sob still ever-present in the back of his throat. “And I still moved in with him, because I’m fucking dumb. Let’s not act like I’m not at fault either. I screamed at him about something he had no control over like some immature baby, and I—” he swallows,  “I t-threw my watch at him—the same one he got me for my birthday, a-and said he didn’t give a shit about me. L-like, I’m just as guilty as he is, s-so, please...”   

His sob finally overtook his throat, killing the rest of his words on his tongue. Kirishima drops his head into his hands, the empty blue cup and plastic spoon falling off to the side.  

“Ei,” both of his friends say at the same time, but Kirishima continues through his sobs, wiping the onslaught of tears from his face. “I fucked up too, ok. M-maybe even worse than he did.”   

“That’s not even close to being true,” Ashido starts.  

“And even if it was—which it’s not—that doesn’t give Bakugou the excuse to treat you like this,” Kaminari finishes. “I don’t give a damn how good that company pays him. Nobody should treat their boyfriend like a second choice.”  

“Facts,” Ashido nods. She had moved on from massaging his scalp to braiding his hair while he cried into his hands.  

“But maybe he’s right,”  Kirishima says into his palms. He lifts his face from his teary and snotty hands, wiping them down his sweats. “L-like, I don’t know, maybe I am a selfish and spoiled bitch. Because—because someone wouldn’t do all of that right? Someone wouldn’t yell and throw their own birthday gift at someone’s face b-because,”  he hiccups, “because their boyfriend missed a date that could easily happen the next day. He had the entire week and part of the weekend off. All I had to do was wait, but I fucked everything up because I’m a goddamn child...!”   

More was supposed to come after that sentence, but Kirishima’s throat was so choked up with emotions that the only sounds he could make were deep groans into another hoarse sob. He wished he could just go back and tell his past self to wait, wait a minute before you freak out and yell at him. Then he wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place; he’d still be at home with his boyfriend, tucked into his warm embrace.

Only for this to happen again, the harsh voice interjects.  

“Oh yeah, it’s guaranteed now,” Kaminari said, his voice slightly catching as he sat up from off the ground. “If I ever see him, I will find somebody to hurt him.”  

“Babe,” Ashido cups the bottom of Kirishima’s jaw, pulling his face upward while their other friend walked into the kitchen. Kirishima follows Kaminari’s retreating figure before he’s looking up at his pink-haired friend through his watery eyes. “You said it yourself. It’s not about the fact that he can reschedule—it's the fact that he stood you up and lied to you. Not once, but five times.” 

Kaminari walks back into the living room with an entire roll of paper towels and hands it to Kirishima. “He broke his promise to you, dude,” he says as Kirishima’s shaky fingers grab at the white cloths. “And the fact that he has you thinking that this is all of your fault is not only shitty but so incredibly immature that it’s honestly laughable. Like, how dare he?”  

“I agree. None of this is your fault, babe,” Ashido says while she rubs tiny circles into and underneath his jaws. “And the simple fact that he’s making you feel this way not only tells me what a piece of shit boyfriend he is, but also what a piece of shit person he is, too.”  

“And that’s facts right there.”  

They’re right, Kirishima miserably agrees, jabbing the corners of his eyes with several paper towels. A question plagued the back of his mind; Kirishima could also feel it in the air, waiting to be spoken into existence. How many more times will you let this happen before you leave him? 

It didn't come up the first time it happened, because the first time is always an accident. And Bakugou promised him it wouldn't happen again. The second and third time it happened, Kirishima let it slide because he made it up to him. The fourth time, he flat out ignored the question because again, Bakugou made it up to him. But now... now he doesn't know anymore. He doesn't know if he could keep putting that question off. 

There was another question that always followed up after the first one. In Kirishima's mind, this one was the scariest. Could he actually leave him for good? Could he live the rest of his life completely free of Bakugou. He did it before, and it wasn't like his life was dark and depressing during that time. It was actually quite alright. 

But meeting Bakugou in that club his sophomore year and getting a taste of those lips for the first time kickstarted the most exciting and possibly the best relationship Kirishima's ever been in. Could he really give all of that up? 

Images of a life without the blonde rolled through his mind in black and white pictures of an old film. Waking up without the man beside him—well, that didn’t count, he was hardly there, to begin with. Coming home and not seeing him in the apartment—that didn’t count either, because that already happened.  

Kirishima pressed a soaked paper towel over his sealed eyes, sucking his trembling bottom lip into his mouth. What about never getting that random text message in the middle of the day, asking you how you’re doing, his brain asks him, and an old image reminds him of those moments. What about those nights cuddling next to each other in bed when he was home? Or waking up to soft kisses? Or walking Socks together through the park? Or all of the rough sex and sweet lovemaking?   

Could you really give all of that up?   

Kirishima squeezes his eyes tighter. His brain was such a fickle thing; sometimes it worked against him, reminding him of every single flaw and mistake, and other times it reminded him of the sweet memories he had with his boyfriend. It makes his heart ache because as badly as he wanted to agree with the side that reminded him of all the good times he had with Bakugou, Kirishima just couldn’t let go of all the pain and misery that the man brought him.  

He didn't know what he wanted anymore. A grief-stricken sound tears out of his throat and Ashido wraps her arms around his neck in response, pulling him into her sweet-smelling fragrance. “Ei...”  

Kirishima cries into several more paper towels, stuffing wet and used ones back into his empty blizzard cup. 

“You need to break up with him.”  

His heart pounds at a fast tempo at Kaminari’s cutthroat tone. “Denki,” Ashido starts to reprimand him, but the other blonde cuts her off. “Look at what he’s doing to you, man. You haven’t stopped crying since I got here. The last time you were like this was only six months ago when that asshole disappeared for four days on some random ‘business trip.’”  

Kirishima remembers that day. The memories were already resurfacing behind his eyes. “And just like right now, he didn’t call you, text you, or let you know anything. He just up and left for four days straight and then returned as if nothing happened.”  

Bitter words accompanied the memories. Kirishima’s face hurt from how hard he was squeezing his eyes. “That’s what he always does, Ei. He just leaves, and you have no idea where the hell he is or what he’s even doing. He could be cheating on you with someone else for all you know.”  

A pitiful, anguished moan is ripped from the bottom of his throat. “Denki, that’s enough!” Ashido snaps, her yellow eyes darkening under her sharp tone.  

He’s wrong though, Kirishima thinks, everything else the blonde said being true. Katsuki would never cheat on me. I know he won’t.   

“How do you know that?”  

He hadn’t realized he muttered the statement aloud until Kaminari throws the question at him, and he’s looking at his friend with stretched wet eyes and parted lips. Kaminari’s gaze is neutral when he looks back at him. “Kats isn’t like that,”  Kirishima counters. “Do you really know that?”  

“He isn’t!”   

“Eijirou, that man is more secretive than Professor Aizawa. You can’t tell me you actually believe that that guy won’t cheat on you when you hardly know him yourself.”  

“I know him more than you do, Denki,” Kirishima says back, his voice climbing in the back of his throat.

“You’ve only been with that guy for three years. You literally just moved in with him at the beginning of this semester. What do you really know about him Eijirou, because I’m telling you, you don’t.”  

Anger bubbles to the surface inside of Kirishima’s chest. How dare you, he wants to say, how dare you think Katsuki is like that when you never even spent a full day with him.  Neither Kaminari nor Ashido saw the man underneath his tough exterior. They didn’t see the man that told him he loved him after every phone call or saw the adoration in his eyes every time he kissed him. Kaminari only saw that last part once, so how dare he even think to insinuate that Bakugou was someone who would stoop so low as to cheat on him when he didn’t fucking know him at all!  

Why are you getting mad?   

There went his traitorous brain, working against him now. He’s only talking about what he knows because you never tell him anything else about Katsuki. Because you don’t even know your own boyfriend like you think you do.   

The air was tight between the two men, one glaring at the other with indignance while the other only held a firm, blank gaze.  

It takes Ashido to break up the tense silence, clapping her hands several times to physically put an end to the strained tension. “Alright, that’s enough, both of you. I’m not gonna let another fight happen between two friends just because of differing opinions about one person. I think all of us can agree that Eijirou’s boyfriend is the definition of rotting garbage on the side of the road and that he needs to get punched in the throat. Alright? Let’s just leave it at that.”  

Kirishima’s chest deflates, as well as his shoulders. Kaminari’s eyes soften back to that their light-yellow tint. “Sorry bro, I didn’t mean for it come off like that. I just really hate how that jerk treats you. Like, you’re so good to him! And then he turns around and does this dumb shit to you. It’s not fair, man.”  

“No, it’s okay,” Kirishima drags another paper towel across his face. Miraculously, his cheeks were drying. “You’re right about everything, anyway. I guess I just didn’t want to hear it.”  

“It's like that sometimes,” Kaminari shrugs. "Like they always say, the truth hurts."

"Yeah," Kirishima sighs, "I’m sorry. About everything.” He crinkles the paper towel in his hands and stuffs the white paper into the conjoined mess inside his empty blizzard cup. “Dude, don’t even apologize,” Kaminari says, and Ashido adds “Yeah babe, it’s totally cool. We’re always gonna be here for you.”  

“Still...”  

Kirishima’s head falls back onto Ashido’s lap in a deep sigh. “I came all this way to talk about my bullshit to you guys. Mina, I know you were about to go to bed, and Denki, you came all the way from campus and even brought me a blizzard, and then I came at you like that over my boyfriend. That wasn’t fair of me at all.”  

“I literally was gonna stay up for another three hours before you came over,” Ashido counters with a tiny laugh, and Kaminari waves off Kirishima’s second statement. “The school isn't but like five minutes from here. And that blizzard was only like six dollars, which is nothing. However,”   

Kaminari wiggles his brows, “I won’t say no if you wanna repay me. Just say sayin’.”  

“Yeah bro,” Kirishima stretches his clenched fist towards the other man, doing the short version of their handshake they came up with back in their freshmen year of college. “I definitely owe both of you guys for tonight.”  

Kaminari reciprocates his smile and Ashido hugs him from behind. “I still feel bad,” Kirishima huffs, sitting back between his other friend’s legs, “like, I should be getting railed right now, but instead I spent the last hour and a half crying to you guys about my problems like a giant baby.”  

“Okay, first of all—ew,” Kaminari says while Ashido threw her head back in a loud snort, “second of all—I literally just said it’s fine. If I get a call at twelve saying that one of my best friends is crying over some asshole, you  know  I’m dropping everything just to come and make sure that he’s okay.”  

“Yeah, we’re not your boyfriend—who's the real selfish bitch here,” Ashido quips, and Kaminari nods in agreement with her.  

A sad smile drags across his lips. “I think it’s group-hug time,” Kaminari announces, Ashido coming to the same agreement, and Kirishima is simultaneously pulled and pressed into the warmest group hug he’s ever received, Ashido squeezing him from behind while Kaminari held him close to his chest. For five full minutes, the trio stayed in the embrace, squeezing their arms around Kirishima’s body.  

His eyes fluttered at the sensations of pure warmth and love seeping into his body. Kirishima couldn’t imagine a world without these two guys. Every day he was thankful for his younger self breaking out of his shell at the beginning of their freshmen year, talking to the other two on the first day of orientation. It had been the decision of his entire life, and in moments like these, it paid off well.  

Kaminari is the first to break out of the group hug, a teasing comment about Kirishima’s tears ruining his shirt leaving his smiling lips. The redhead warbles a pathetic “sorry,”  earning him a playful tap on his shoulder. Above him, Ashido pulls away and starts undoing all of the braids she twisted into his hair.  

“So, what now hon’?” she asks him as the silence starts to settle over their heads. Her fingers make quick work of undoing the braids she twisted in his hair. Kirishima shrugs in response.

“Hopefully you dumping his ass.”  

“Denki, shut the fuck up.”  

“What? I'm serious! There's so many better guys at school that'll treat Ei with respect than that asshole. And they're way more attractive too."

That’s a lie,  Kirishima scoffs quietly.

“Denki, c’mon. You know Ei’s type. Five years or older with a slightly questionable past that makes you question his morals.”

"I can name five people that fit that exact description in my world literature class."  

“Guys,” Kirishima cuts in. They didn't have to read him like that at the end—that was uncalled for. “I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I’m still not over any of this, but... I don’t know.”  

“I can tell you what to do,” Kaminari nods at his phone. “Give me that real quick.” 

“No. You’re going to do something stupid.”  

“I won’t, I swear. Just trust me, dude.”  

“I definitely won’t now,” Ashido says, and Kaminari smacks his lips. “Fine! Then you can do it. Block his number and move on.”  

Kirishima glances down at the device next to his lap. When he activated the screen, he saw that he had several missed calls and text messages, all from the same contact. He noticed the time a second later and his eyes rounded at the late numbers. “Oh, shit.”  

“Yeah. Your phone’s been going off since forever, but I didn’t want to say anything because the last thing you needed was to deal with him right now—” 

“No, not that! Dude, it’s like two in the morning. We got class tomorrow.”  

“Oh—"   

Kirishima cleared his screen and pocketed his phone. Maybe he’ll read those messages. He pushes himself up, using Ashido’s knees as leverage to pick himself up off the ground. “I need to get back home anyway,” Kirishima says as he kneels down to pick up the pillow and his trash. “Are you sure you want to go back there? You can spend the night here, I’ll just let the girls know tomorrow morning—well, that’s if either of them shows up,” Ashido adds at the end.  

He shakes his head before heading to the kitchen, speaking in a raised voice, “I need to make sure Socks is doing okay. He’s probably scared out of his mind, and I don’t know if Kats—if Katsuki is there with him.” He throws his trash in the garbage and puts the roll of paper towels back where it belonged on the marbled counter.  

“Oh, I forgot all about him. The poor baby,” Ashido croons. “Besides, I’m not trying to get fined again. No visitors can stay overnight, remember?”  

“Technically we're already staying overnight, but you’re right about that,” Kaminari says, picking himself up off the floor too. “And the dorms got a curfew. Dammit.”  

“That’s so stupid,” Ashido says. “Like, you’re a senior. Why do you have the curfew too?”  

“‘To ensure the safety of our students,’”  Kaminari says in a tone mocking the university president’s voice. He rolls his eyes at the end. “I agree with you, it is stupid.”  

That’s one reason why I moved out, Kirishima says to himself. Kaminari’s leading the other two to the side door, shoving his socked feet into his shoes by the doormat. He turns, him and Kirishima redoing the shorter version of their handshake before pulling each other into a tight hug. “I’ll see you in class?” he asks him as they pull away.  

Kirishima nods. He may be distressed, but he wouldn’t use that as an excuse to miss class. I need every excuse to get away from him anyway.  “Alright, take care man. See you guys in like ten hours.”  

“Text me when you get back,” Ashido says to his retreating back and Kaminari waves goodbye. She faces Kirishima next, pulling him into another tight. “You too, babe,” she tells him once they break away. “And remember, I’m always here for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s eight in the morning or twelve at night, I’m always gonna be here for you. Don’t you ever forget that, okay?”  

“Yeah,” Kirishima nods, “okay.”  

He gets pulled into another bone-crushing hug. “Love you, Ei. Please, for the love of God, drive safe.”  

The drive back to his apartment is infinitely better. For one, Kirishima can see clearly. His eyes are dry enough to where they don’t affect his motor skills, and he’s able to drive back less suspiciously than he did before. His head and hurt still hurt, but instead of being a piercing pain, it was more of a dull ache that he was constantly reminded of.  

He makes it back to his apartment, finding his parking spot next to the orange and black Audi taken by another car. Kirishima chooses a spot further away from the car and cuts the engine, sending his promised text message to Ashido.  

He trudges up the three flights of stairs, ignoring the heavy hammering in the center of his chest. He won’t even know you came back, he tries telling his racing heart. When he stands in front of the door, hesitation grips every muscle in his arm and hand. Maybe coming back was a bad mistake.

No, it was.   

He could spend the night with Tetsu— 

No, you don’t have any spare clothes on you. And did you forget that you don’t have your license? And that he lives on the other side of town?    

Kirishima swallows down a large lump. Just open the door, he’s telling himself, forcing himself, he won’t even realize you came back.   

He sticks the key into the lock and turns it, then twists knob. The door doesn’t open.  

Deep barking starts up on the other side. Well, there goes that plan. Also, seriously? Leaving the door unlocked?  

Kirishima rolls his eyes as he unlocks the door again and pushes it open, meeting Killmonger’s barking outline in the dark hallway. The dog’s body wiggles forward when he sees who’s standing in the doorway. 

“Hey, baby,” Kirishima greets, closing and locking the door behind him. He runs his hand across the top of the puppy’s large head. “What’re you still doing up? You know it’s way past your bedtime, right?”  

Killmonger stands on his hind legs, licking several sloppy kisses on Kirishima’s hand. Toeing off his slides, Kirishima drops his keys into the bowl and carries his shoes back to their bedroom, the dog trotting behind him with a curved tail. He saw that the TV was turned off when he passed through the living room and noticed the trashcan’s lid bent in an odd shape beside the kitchen. Kirishima messes with it for a few minutes, successfully managing to pop the lid back into place. How'd it get out of shape in the first place?

A part of him shudders even without reaching the conclusion.   

He heads into the bedroom, closing the door after Killmonger walked in and cutting on the lights. “What the fuck—” 

Kirishima lets out an unmanly sound.  

Bakugou was sitting up in bed, shielding his eyes with his arm from the harsh light. "Didn't know it was you," he growls, "thought someone was trying to break in or something." 

"Maybe don't leave the door unlocked." 

"You're the one that fucking left in the first place. And forgot your wallet, like a dumbass." 

"Why are you even still here?" Kirishima spits back. "I thought you would be somewhere else." Sleeping with someone, he doesn't say, and he doesn't need to. Bakugou's venomous scowl told him he had heard the unspoken words. "Are you serious? Where else would I be? I fucking live here too." 

Heat builds up at the tips of Kirishima's ears. Why did I even say that he asks himself, letting his embarrassment continue to flood him. You're really not gonna take Denki's words seriously, are you? 

"Could you turn off the fucking lights?" 

Kirishima hits the light switch with a huff and harsh jab. He went to the bathroom and cut on those lights instead, letting its dim glimmer flow into the dark room. “Where the fuck were you? I called your ass ten times and you didn’t answer me.”  

He strips himself out of his sweats and dunks the pants into the basket.  

“Eijirou, I swear to fucking God, if you don’t stop fucking ignoring me I’m going to get up and punch you in the throat.”  

Bakugou’s empty threats were always just that; empty threats. He never carried out with them no matter how lethal or outlandish they sounded, so the fact that his words sent Kirishima’s heart up to his throat not only startled the man, it sent the tiniest sliver of fear down his back. Perhaps it was the growl in his voice that set him off, deeper than usual. Or maybe Kirishima was just so emotionally tired that his body was reacting to every tiny thing.  

“Eijirou!"    

“Why? Do you care all of a sudden now?”  

Emotional exhaustion was definitely the answer because Kirishima would have never said something like that—especially with so much attitude.  

Bakugou’s taken aback expression contorts into a look of pure rage. “You know what? Fuck it.  I was so fucking worried about you because your dumbass left this house without your fucking wallet and didn’t even tell me where the hell you were going for two fucking hours—” 

Now you know how it feels, don't you? Doesn't it fucking hurt? But Kirishima keeps the scathing words on his tongue and replaces them with something a little less harsh but still in a vexed tone. 

“I was at my friends’ place, alright? Are you fucking happy now?”

“Whatever. I don’t care anymore. Good-fucking-night.”  

Bakugou flips back over in the bed, and Kirishima forcefully turns the bathroom lights off, regretting walking in the house. He stomps to his side of the bed and rips the covers back, climbing into the bitterly cold space. Killmonger jumps into the wide gap placed between the two, and Kirishima’s so upset, he doesn’t even try enforcing his punishment.  

He's separating him from Bakugou right now, and that’s what really mattered.

“Tomorrow morning, we're talking about this shit,” he hears Bakugou say on the other side of the dog, “because I’m not letting this bullshit go on for another fuckin’ day.”  

Kirishima wants to snort and mock him because he really wants to act like the bigger man now? Where was this three years ago? 

But he holds his tongue. Bakugou had nothing he could say to him that Kirishima wanted to hear. Kirishima didn't even want to look at the man in the morning.

And so, after feeding and taking Killmonger on a short walk, Kirishima leaves the apartment at seven o'clock in the morning.

For a class that he had in the middle of the afternoon. 

Chapter Text

Kirishima is gone once again. 

Bakugou sits up in a partially empty bed, the right side’s covers flipped over a vacant spot. The door to the bathroom was wide open, barren on the inside. The only sign that life was once present in the gray room was in the form of the shower door hanging open in the empty room. Bakugo gets out of bed to check the other rooms in the apartment: the living room, the kitchen, the laundry room even.  

All of them were empty. The house was completely devoid of the other man.  

Bakugou walks back into the living room, a scowl hardening the sleep-ringed corners of his face. Today was only Tuesday; Kirishima’s earliest class was at one, and it wasn’t even ten yet. They didn’t live that far away from the school, either. Kirishima could leave the house with only ten minutes left until one and still be able to make it on time for his first class (that’s happened before, actually. Twice.)  

He’s still fucking mad at me.   

Bakugou expected as much. Maybe it was a little too wistful of him to think that Kirishima would be over what had happened yesterday so they could talk about it in the morning, but that's not his problem. He was willing to talk things over, like a normal adult, so they could put this shit behind them before it got worse. Isn't that the mature thing to do? 

He’s gotta be over it after his classes then.   

It was another foolish thought. Kirishima comes home two hours later than usual, walking straight past Bakugou and his attempt to get his attention. He didn’t even bother sparing the man a second glance; Bakugou was in the middle of saying his name as Kirishima brushed past him, going straight to their bedroom and slamming the door shut. The ringing sound filtering down the hallway left Bakugou and Killmonger speechless in the living room.  

It's Killmonger who overcomes his stunned silence first and races after his second owner. That—he can’t be fucking serious.

Bakugou finally gets over his shock and marches down the hallway after the pit mix, standing behind him in front of the door. “Shitty-hair, open this door.”  

Below him, deep whines crawl up Killmonger’s throat. There are only muted sounds from the TV in the other room and the distinct flushing sound of water that told Bakugou the other man was in the bathroom. He tries once again, knocking on the door with a heavy hand; Killmonger’s whines deepen, threatening to burst into a bark. “Shitty-hair, open this fucking door now—”  

The door swings open when he’s mid-knock and mid-sentence. Kirishima stands behind it with the same expression from last night engraved on his lips and inside his eyes, darkening the usually bright and cherry-red luster. Killmonger happily trots into the room and Kirishima prepares to slam it shut again, but Bakugou’s hand on the door holds it taut.  

“Katsuki, let go.”  

“Fuck no. I told you, we’re talking about this shit today.”  

“I don’t want to. Let the door go.”  

“I don’t fucking care that you don’t want to. We’re talking about this right now.”  

Bakugou holds Kirishima’s bitter gaze with a look of his own until he feels the door go slack under his fingers. It opens an inch wider, allowing Bakugou to see a little more into their room and the redhead that stood in it. His arms were folded across his chest, his eyes matching his peeved stance.

“What.”

Kirishima’s voice was harder than cinderblocks, Bakugou almost flinching from it. “My bad.”  

Red eyes widen at him. “...that’s it?”  

“The fuck do you mean ‘that’s it’? I’m sorry, alright? I fucked up yesterday, and it won’t happen again.” Bakugou sighs, but it comes out more strained than usual. “Can this be over with now?” 

Red eyes continue to stretch at him until dyed brows are disappearing into a matching hairline, and then they close in a fluttering eye roll. “Un-fucking-believable,” Bakugou hears Kirishima mutter under his breath, and right as he’s about to ask him what the fuck does he mean by that, air swipes past his nose and a slam rings in his ears. “What the fuck!?”  

He hears the soft click of a lock sliding into place. “Shitty-hair, are you fucking for real right now?”  

“Go away, Katsuki.”   

“I don’t get why you’re fucking acting like this! I’m trying to make things right with your bitch ass but you’re making that impossible with this shitty, childish behavior of yours!”  

A lock pulls out of place in a messy speed, the hurried sound followed by the rush of a door swinging open, narrowly missing Bakugou’s nose. Kirishima’s eyes are brimming with fury as he says, “You want to make things right? Then leave, me, alone !”  

Slam!   

The door is locked once again. Bakugou stands behind it with his tongue pinned to the back of his throat, too many words to say locked behind his clenched teeth. His right hand twitches at his side, and then it falls loose. 

“You need to get over your fucking self,” he tells him behind the door. His response to that is the TV's volume steadily increasing. Bakugou heads back down the hallway with a bitter scoff in the back of his throat. Fucking bitch. Be like that then. 

It’s three hours later until he sees the redhead come out of the room, Killmonger walking ahead of him fully harnessed and leashed. Bakugou watches him out of his peripherals from the living room (since he can’t watch TV in his own room now) heading for the small foyer, shoving his socked feet into a pair of old Converses. He leaves without sparing another word or glance at him, the sound of the door closing and locking resonating in the living room in a hollow sound.  

Bakugou only rolls his eyes and goes back to watching TV.  

They return, and it’s right back to the room. “What do you want for dinner,” Bakugou tries asking him while he was on his way to the back, but he might as well have been speaking to the dog because he was the only one who stopped to actually pay attention to what the fuck he said. “Hey—”  

Both canine and man disappear into the hallway, a loud shut following thirty seconds later.

“Fine, fucking starve,” Bakugou says into the living room, pushing himself off the couch to grab him something to eat.

(Bakugou still gets him something to eat. He leaves it by the door and knocks once to let the other know it was out there and leaves immediately. He doesn't check right away, but twenty minutes later he peeks into the hallway and is relieved to find the bag and drink gone.) 

When it’s getting past eleven, Bakugou cuts off the TV and all of the lights in the bedroom and makes his way to the back. He tests the doorknob with a tight breath, releasing it in a soft exhale when he finds it twisting to the side without resistance. Kirishima was in the bed when pulls it open, Killmonger occupying his side of it.   

The redhead gives Bakugou one look before he flips over. God, he huffs under his breath, can you just get over this shit already?  He strips into the same sleeping attire as the previous night and stands in front of the sink to brush his teeth. Over the faucet water, Bakugou hears the other man cutting off the TV before falling silent again. 

He spits one last time into the sink and wipes his mouth of the residual toothpaste left before exiting the bathroom, flicking the lights off. Killmonger's outline remains in his spot, and while Bakugou pushes the puppy out of his space, he rolls onto his side with his front legs jutting out, gently pawing at Bakugou's bare chest. “Killmonger, move, dammit.”  

Bakugou has to physically push him over to Kirishima to free up his spot. He shoves him to the middle, leaving him in the same spot he was in the night before: a physical barrier between him and his boyfriend. Kirishima remained silent and still the entire time; even after Bakugou said "goodnight," he didn't budge or make a sound. 

He'll get over this shit, Bakugou tells him, but in the back of his mind he doubts it. Bakugou turns over onto his side, his back facing both the dog and the other man. 

It's the same routine the next day: Kirishima leaves the house hours before he wakes up and comes home hours later. Yesterday it was two hours past his regular arrival, tonight it was three. And when he came home, it was straight to the bedroom with the dog following behind. No "hey" or a glance spared his way. 

Bakugou struggles to fall asleep that night. Kirishima acted like he didn't exist anymore. Every chance he took to get a response out of him left him with a stiff and awkward silence, like he was talking to a brick wall instead of another human being. Even now while they laid next to each other in bed, Bakugou felt that stiff awkwardness, physically driving a wedge in between them. Earlier, he tried moving Killmonger out of the center so he could pretend to be physically closer to him, but when he pushed the dog to the bottom of the bed Kirishima had the dog coming right back to him. He then fixated Bakugou with a glare that could melt steel even through the dark and told him, "Don't touch him again." 

It was the first time Kirishima had said more than three words to him since yesterday. Bakugou pinches the bridge of his nose between his tight fingers, squeezing out the harsh words and bitter look from his mind. Never mind his tone, that didn't bother Bakugou half as much as this forced distance did. Their small apartment was tinier now, this wedge between them driving Bakugou to one side and keeping him there away from his boyfriend.

An irritated sound wrestled from tightly squeezed lips. Bakugou didn't know how much more of this he could take. Kirishima's silence and refusal to look at him or let him even get close to him was boiling him alive from the inside. Bakugou didn't care that it's only been two days of this nonsense; he just wants Kirishima to fucking get over himself so they can finally do something while he's still on this vacation of his. 

"You're gonna keep being mad at me forever?" he asks him. "You realize you're wasting this one chance we have while I'm off, right?" 

He doesn't get an answer and turns over with a vexed huff. 

He doesn't see the point in staying inside the apartment any longer, so on the third day of this unnecessary silent treatment, Bakugou returns back to the warehouse three days before he's supposed to. Because what's the point of sitting on his ass alone waiting for another man to show up and act like he was a stranger in his own house? He could get that same treatment back at the warehouse, so that's why Bakugou finds himself walking through one of the warehouse's opened garages with a look of death etched into his brows. 

Of all the people eager at his return, Kayama was the one who showed the most excitement, which didn't shock Bakugou at all. The older woman didn't take in the dark look in his scarlet gaze or the extra wrinkles from continuous scowling pulling down his brows and the corners of his eyes. No, she ignored all of that and immediately assigned the man with the job of watching the newcomer that ruined his fucking relationship. Just as soon as Bakugou was assigned with the task, he gave it to someone else who would actually do something if the man decided to do something stupid. 

Because if Bakugou saw that freckled-face fuck, he would probably- 

No, he would definitely kill him. Right along with someone else. 

There was only one benefit to returning back to the warehouse, and that was the fact that everybody avoided him like he was the walking plague. People rarely came up to Bakugou; if they had to it was because of emergencies only. His volatile temperament kept everyone at a safe fifty yards away from him, which was absolutely perfect for the man. Nobody spared him a single glance when he was ambling through the warehouse, the slouch in his back heavier than normal, or asked him about the dark bags and wrinkles his face bore that aged him ten years in advance. 

And those that had the nerve to show a modicum of curiosity at his state, he sent them away with a scathing glower. Bakugou didn't want other people's pity or their concerns. He never made it his priority to care about the bastards here, and he's glad that everyone gives him the same treatment. They let him sulk outside the warehouse in peace, saying nothing to the man while he sat in the dark shadow of the warehouse's tall wall with his arms folded across his legs and scrolled through his phone with an almost sad look weighing down his face. 

"Hey, you alright?" 

Well, everyone except for one. Fucking Soy-sauce.

"Fuck off."

Bakugou's voice held no bite, softened by weary fatigue that he felt deep in the marrow of his bones. "Whoa, something's definitely up with you. You didn't even call me Soy-sauce." 

What a wonderful observation. Bakugou rolls his eyes as he shuts his phone off, the screen turning black. "You okay, man?" 

No, Bakugou was not okay. He was trying to find solace outside of the warehouse when the tall freak had to find him. All he wanted to do was sit out here and be fucking miserable in peace while he went through his unread messages in his phone, but it seemed like that was going to happen anymore. 

Today would have been the best day for it too. It was a gorgeous bluebird day, not a single trace of white across the azure stretch. The sun glowed like a bright and yellow diamond from its throne, but from where Bakugou was sitting, the rays weren't harsh on his exposed skin. And there was a strong breeze coming in from the east, further cooling him down. Every time it dragged over his arms he could feel pleasant chills run along his skin, rising the inked flesh into little bumps. 

This setting was not only great to sulk in, but it would have made the perfect day for a picnic in the park or a walk on the beach. Both of which could be happening for Bakugou if someone wasn't treating him like he didn't fucking exist anymore— 

"Hello?"

Bakugou forgot Sero was still there. "What the fuck do you want, asshole?" 

"The guy you put in charge of watching the newcomer wanted me to tell you that he was going on break." 

Bakugou grunts and returns to his brooding. "What are you doing back so early? I wasn't expecting you to come back until the middle of next week, at least." 

Bakugou wants to laugh; instead, he makes a dry chortle. "Like you fuckers would ever give me that chance. I can't even leave for two hours without you bitches call me back for whatever goddamn reason." 

Sero laughs, and for a split second Bakugou sees the world through a red haze. "'I mean, you're not wrong about that. It's like this place can't even function without you here." 

He says it in a sarcastic manner, but to him it sounds like a compliment. It deepens his angered gaze. 

"Don't you have some shit you need to be doing instead of bothering me, Soy-sauce?" 

"Ah, there it is. And I could be asking you the same thing." 

Bakugou's lips twist into a tighter scowl and Sero laughs again. "I'm on my break actually, but then I saw you sitting out here looking like your world was ending and came over to see what was up." 

"Nothing is up, so go away." 

"Nah," 

Like the insufferable enigma that he is, Sero takes a seat next to him. Bakugou listens to the sound of his shoes scuffing over the cement with a bitter scowl as he sits on the sidewalk, his legs comically stretching over the curb. "This is where I go for my breaks anyway," Sero finishes after he settles. 

His bitter scowl continues to darken. "I take it your date didn't go so well." 

Yeah,  because of you and every other motherfucker here that loves to make my life more miserable than what it already is. 

"What told you that," Bakugou says instead. 

"Well, you being back early for one. And I don't see any hickies on your neck, which automatically tells me something happened back at home." 

Bakugou sneers in potent sarcasm, "Whoop-de-fucking-doo, you want a prize now bitch?" He goes back to his regular bitter voice, "Get the fuck away from me, Soy-sauce." 

"C'mon, don't be like that dude. Tell me what happened." 

He's nudged both physically and verbally and he snaps on the other man, his voice climbing in a pitch of intense fury. "No! Does it fucking look like I want to you right now? Just leave me the fuck alone!" 

Again, Sero does the exact opposite of what he asks for. "You want the truth?" he asks, and Bakugou closes his eyes with a deep groan, "Because yeah. You honestly look like you need to vent right now." 

Bakugou presses his palm to his crinkling face. He was now coming to the realization of why Kirishima was so fed up with him for trying to get him to talk so damn bad. He could at least see why he was getting the door constantly slammed in his face; when the last thing you wanted to do was talk to somebody else and they kept pestering you to open up, it was fucking aggravating. 

Too bad I don't have that fuckin' luxury, Bakugou growls into his skin. "Can I ask you a question at least?" 

"Get the fuck away from me." 

"Are you and Kirishima fighting right now?" 

"If I give you the goddamn answer, will you fuck off?" 

"Depends on how you answer it." 

Bakugou lets his hand fall away from his face, hanging limply over his knees. 

"We are." 

"What happened?" 

"No, I already answered your shitty question. Fuck off." 

"Bakugou, come on." 

His patience was being ripped into thin ribbons. If he knew the other wouldn't follow him around like some annoying puppy, Bakugou would have already left his ass on the curb, but the tall fuck was too damn nosy for his own good. He would have kept asking the same question in a different format until Bakugou finally broke down and told him, and he just didn't have enough patience inside of him to deal with that. 

Plus, he didn't want to leave his shady spot. 

"Listen," Sero starts, and Bakugou scowls, "it's not just me worried about you. Everyone else is, too." 

A dry sounding laugh scratches the back of Bakugou's throat. "Alright, I lied. It's mostly just me. But everyone else is noticing how you're acting way quieter than usual. Which is already concerning, because you're the last thing from quiet. Even Kayama's getting tired of seeing you like this, and that's definitely saying something." 

"So, what? The old hag sent you out here to bother me because I'm fucking quiet?" 

"Nah, that was actually my plan," Sero chuckles. "She told me to tell you, and I quote, 'Tell that brat to get over whatever his fucking problem is or he can just go back home.' She also told me that she was cutting another hundred out of your pay because you put someone else on your job." 

That fucking bitch. 

Bakugou growls several heated swears underneath his breath. God, he hated that woman sometimes. She was more of an insufferable enigma than the bastard sitting right next to him. "Obviously I wasn't going to actually say all of that, because unlike her I do care about you, even though you have a pretty shitty personality and can be insufferable to be around sometimes." 

He doesn't say anything, but he does snarl when Sero elbows him on his left side. "I'm serious here, Bakugou. You really don't look that good and it's kinda worrisome." 

"My bullshit is none of your fucking concern Soy-sauce, so get the fuck away from me before I kill you." And every last person in this warehouse. 

Why was it impossible for the tall bastard to just do that? Everybody else did it so easily. Why couldn't he? He acted as if the two of them were friends or something, and that gave him a right to shove his nose into his business. I should have never come here, Bakugou groans under his breath. For once, he's thinking about following Kayama's orders with bitching about it. Going to some shitty bar downtown and getting wasted was an infinitely better idea than being around fuckers who think they have a right to his personal life. 

"Alright. Fine." 

Bakugou's tense shoulders give way in relief at his words until he sees a thin white stick appear in his peripherals. He glares at the cigarette and the hand it's attached to, his gaze traveling up the long and tatted arm to Sero's face. "What? I told you, this is my break." With a curve of his lips, he adds, "And you look like you need one too." 

Red eyes flicker back to the cigarette. A sharp tsk leaves his lips. He plucks the cancerous stick out of the man's long fingers, muttering, "Should've bought a fuckin' joint instead," in a low voice as the man lit the end. Sero chuckles while he aims his lighter at the end of his cigarette, "Would've been better, huh?" 

Bakugou makes no comment. He lets his chest and lungs fill up with smoke in a deep inhale, holding the puffs of nicotine inside of his mouth before pushing it out in a exhale through his lips and nose, a steady plume of whitish-gray smoke spreading over his lips. 

The space between them fills with clouds of smoke under their shared silence, the air churning through the toxic fumes. Sero blew rings of white smoke that floated and broke apart before they could reach the warehouse's metal roof, while Bakugou let the fumes down his throat into his chest, filling the cavern with its harsh warmth. 

Five minutes into their peaceful silence, Bakugou breaks it with a smoke-filled sigh, thick tendrils curling above his upper lip. "Shitty-hair's pissed at me because I missed our date." 

Sero makes a soft hum to acknowledge that he's listening. "He got mad because I didn't 'let him know where I was' like I'm so fucking child or something," Bakugou air-quotes, his voice dipping into a sneer, "and now he won't talk to me or look at me. He won't even let me get close to him when we go to bed. He has that fucking mutt sleeping in between us." 

"Damn," Sero laughs a little, "he's really pissed off at you." 

"No fucking shit." Bakugou takes another deep drag, this time exhaling it immediately through his nose. "You happy now, you long-ass bitch?" 

"Yeah, actually. Not at your circumstances, but I'm glad you told me what was up. You had me worried for a second." 

"You would be happy," Bakugou grumbles in a dark tone around his cigarette, pushing out another cloud of smoke through his nose. "You fucked everything up for me." 

Sero's face is one of genuine confusion, and it pisses Bakugou off. He growls, "Don't fucking look at me like. This is all of your fault." 

"What the hell are you talking about, man? I'm not the one who pissed Kirishima off, so why are you even blaming this on me?" 

"Because you did!" 

Bakugou ignores the crack at the end of his voice; Sero makes a grimace at it. "You had to fucking call me two hours before my date with him to drag me back to this motherfucking warehouse. Because of you, my own boyfriend won't even tell me what the fuck he wants for dinner. I can't even get him to look at me in my goddamn eyes!" 

"I'm still not seeing how this is my problem. I only did what I was told." 

Bakugou swallows molten rage down his throat, his body shaking under its force. The logical part of his brain agreed with Sero, knowing that he was only speaking the truth. The other was only following the orders of his superior, contacting the second-in-command during a state of emergency. 

But that part of his brain was a small, tiny dot in comparison to the larger, illogical, and emotional part of his brain that didn't give two fucks about logic or reason. It only wanted to find someone to pin its misery on and it did so unfairly on the other man instead of Bakugou. 

The hurtful streak in Sero's onyx eyes disappears under a hardening film. "Look, I know you're pretty hurt and pissed off right now, and all you wanna do is lash out on someone because that's what you think is appropriate right now," 

It is fucking appropriate, Bakugou snarls under his breath. 

"But you can't blame me for some shit I had no control over. You really think I wanted to interrupt your date with Kirishima like some asshole?" 

"If you didn't, why the fuck did you call me? I put you in charge for a reason when I left—” 

"Because I was ordered to, Bakugou. And I don't have the luxury of going against that woman's orders like you do. Someone like me disobeys her, and she'll fucking kill them." 

Sero then asks him, "Why didn't you just call Kirishima to let him know you couldn't make it? He probably would have understood if you did." 

"Because you kept blowing up my fucking phone, asswipe," Bakugou retorts. "It doesn't even matter anyway. Shitty-hair fucking hates my ass and now he's probably going to leave me for that vegan fucker he swears he's only friends with." 

"You honestly don't believe that, right?" Sero asks him, his voice laden with skepticism. Bakugou snorts around his cigarette. "Kirishima would never leave you. He's madly in love with you." 

A cloud of smoke leaves his lips in a bitter chortle. "Yeah, fuckin' right. You should see how that asshole acts when I'm in the house. It's like I'm not even there." The acrid smoke swarms around his taste receptors on his tongue and inside his mouth, matching the bitterness in his voice. "I could stay at this fucking shithole all day and he won't even fuckin' notice." 

“Bakugou—” 

"That asshole hates me Soy-sauce. He hates my fucking guts, and for what? Because I missed one date? Because I didn't call or text him where I fucking was? He's gonna just, fuckin' ignore me over stupid shit like that?" 

Sero closes his mouth. 

"I'm sitting here trying to make this shit right, trying to get over this so we can go back to how we were before, but it's like that bitch doesn't even want to! He'd rather waste my entire fucking week off being pissed about one thing that happened two days ago, and for what? Over one fucking date!?" 

The cigarette nearly falls out of Bakugou's fingers in his tirade. 

"I can't fucking take this shit anymore! There's hardly any fucking space in that goddamn apartment as it is and it's like he's put in this wide gap between us, keeping me away from him and that fucking dog. I haven't touched my own boyfriend in two goddamn days because of this dumb bullshit." 

His emotional rant comes to a short conclusion in an exasperated huff, a strained silence filtering over the men. 

"Well," Sero begins, "have you tried apologizing to him?" 

Bakugou sends gray ashes to the ground in rough flicking. "Of course I fucking tried. Twice. The first time, he didn't want to fucking hear it. Fuckin' stormed out of the room and then called me a selfish fucking dick." 

He shoots a glare at Sero's soft, "he's not wrong." "Then when I tried again the next day, that bitch had the fucking nerve to tell me to fuck off. Right after he slammed and locked the door on my face, so I couldn't even get into my own goddamn room for six hours because that asshole wanted to have a fucking temper tantrum for no reason." Thank god their apartment had two bathrooms. 

"It sounds like both of those apologies were full of shit," Sero says through a cloud of smoke, and Bakugou turns on him. "What? You got a history for having the worst apologies ever. Both of them sounded equally bad, so that's probably why it didn't make Kirishima feel any better." 

"What, so now you're saying I deserve having doors slammed in my fucking face and getting screamed at to fuck off?" 

"No, obviously not, and that's shitty to go through. What I'm saying is that you, Bakugou, can't apologize for shit."

"How the fuck do you even know that? You weren't even there." 

"I know you, dude. And I know how absolutely ass you are trying to admit that you were wrong." 

But he wasn't wrong. He's not wrong. Kirishima was just acting like some bitch baby for no fucking reason and taking it out on him- 

"See? You don't even look like you want to admit it. No wonder Kirishima's fed up with your ass." 

"Shut the fuck up," Bakugou growls. "I don't know what that bitch's problem is. He's acting like how he used to back when we were starting out in this bullshit relationship. I told him how fucking his demanding this job is, so I don't get what his problem is now." 

"You ever stop to think that maybe he's tired of this always happening? It sounds like this a repeated occurrence," Sero suggests in a casual tone, but his brows pull down in a frown at Bakugou's detached scoff. "That's his fucking fault for deciding to be with me," he says after an inhale of smoke. 

"Wow. You're unbelievable." 

Sero shakes his head in disbelief at the way Bakugou blows out a puff of air through his lips and back into his nose, all nonchalantly and uncaring. What the fuck was he supposed to do? Conform to Kirishima's wishes by disobeying Kayama? As much as he couldn't stand her, that woman held a type of power over him that could kill him if he even thought about disobeying her. This was Kirishima's harsh reality that he was just going to have to accept if he wanted to continue being with him. 

Or you could stop putting this job over him like you always fuckin' do. 

Bakugou chokes the voice in his head with a cloud of smoke and pushes it out of his body in a heavy exhale. 

"You know what sucks?" Sero suddenly asks beside him. Bakugou remains silent, but he ends up answering his own question. "I can see where both of you guys are coming from." 

He lets his words ruminate in the air behind a large ring of smoke. "This is why I don't settle down. Relationships are almost impossible to keep with a job like this. You can never make them work without taking some sacrifices." 

"This ain't about you bitch," Bakugou bites back, "and that's not the real reason. You're too tall and freakish for someone who wants to be with you. What idiot would be with someone who's legs make up more than their body length." 

"You're just jealous of me." 

“Bull-fucking-shit. You’re like Godzilla if it was even uglier and had a shitty haircut.”  

“There’s plenty of people who actually find me height very attractive, thank you very much,"  Sero chuckles in between, "And let's not even talk about looks. We all know who's the better looking between the two us." 

“Yeah, me.”  

“Maybe if your personality wasn’t shitty, I’d actually agree with you on that.”  

“Fuck you, my personality is the greatest fucking thing in the world.”  

"If it was, then you wouldn't be in this mess with Kirishima in the first place, would you?" 

Sero laughs once again at the dark growl in the back of Bakugou's throat, but there's no teasing mirth to it. "But you're right, this isn't about me. This about you and Kirishima. Do you realize how you're putting this job over him? Like, I know it's important and all, but that still doesn't make it fair for him." After another ring of smoke, he adds, "That's my opinion at least." 

Bakugou shuts his eyes, a barely audible groan passing over his lips. Similar words drift through his mind, spoken in harsh volumes with a vitriolic tone. That must mean it's true, he tells himself, his eyes opening in a gradual progression, landing on his parked Audi sitting across from them in a shaded corner. "That's exactly what he said," Bakugou said in a voice of uncharacteristic of him. 

Sero lifts one eyebrow. "He said that I was treating him like a second choice. That I didn't give a shit about him." 

Bakugou flicks more ashes onto the sidewalk, watching a gentle breeze carry them away with a somber gaze. A surprised sound leaves Sero's parted mouth. "Whoa, that's... I don't think I would say all of that," he shakes his head, "why would he say something like that?" 

"Because," Bakugou's voice and eyes harden, "he's a fucking dumbass who believes I don't give a shit about him. I called him a selfish and spoiled bitch after he said that—”  

“What?”   

“—and then he decided to throw his fucking watch at me. The same one I got him for his birthday.”  

“Holy shit,” Sero breathes. In a clearer voice, “wait a minute, all of this went down that night you guys were supposed to go out?”  

“Yeah, can you believe that shit?” Bakugou’s voice cracks in a humorless laugh, the sound scratching the back of his throat. “And then he slams the door in my face and leaves for several goddamn hours and doesn’t come back until almost two in the fucking morning. Now he just ignores me.”  

“I mean, what’d you expect would happen?”  

“For him to grow up!" 

Bakugou snaps once again, "He thinks the shit I do for a living is something I can just easily turn down for him, and it’s never been like that. It never will be like that! He needs to fuckin’ get over himself and accept that not everything in life will always be about him.”  

“Are you actually serious right now?”  

Bakugou turns his heated gaze to Sero; the fire in his eyes melts under the obsidian stones glaring back at him. "You seriously blaming him for your mistakes again?"   

“What, you agree with him too? You think I should just drop everything for him?” Bakugou sneers cruelly, “You and every other motherfucker in that warehouse is the reason why I can’t!”  

“No, that's not what I'm talking about right now.”  

Sero holds Bakugou’s burning gaze with an unflinching glare. “What I’m talking about is how you’re continuing to blame him for something you did. Is it Kirishima’s fault that you took up this job? Is it my  fault that you’re in this mess in the first place?”  

Bakugou opens his mouth to say yes, this is every last bit of his fault, but Sero cuts him off before he can get the first syllable in. “No, it’s not. This is nobody else’s fault but  yours, and the fact that you keep shifting this blame onto him and other people tells me who actually needs to grow up right now.”  

Sero continues with his rant, even as Bakugou’s glare deepens into molten rage. “It sucks that Kirishima’s mad at you for something you can’t control. I get that dude, I really do, but that doesn’t make it right for you to blame him for it. It’s not like he was the one who told you to take up this job. He only wanted to go out with you, and he got mad when you didn’t call him or text him why you guys couldn't. Do you realize how fucking shitty that is? You left Kirishima in the dark!" 

Searing heat burns at the tip of Bakugou’s ears. Sero still wasn’t finished.  

“This is all on you, man. Not me, not Kirishima—not even Kayama or anyone else. You fucked up, so you need to be the one that fixes this and quit blaming others for your mistake. That’s fucking childish as hell.”  

That searing heat continues to travel until it wells up behind his glowering red eyes. Bakugou tears his gaze away from the black-haired man to look back at his parked car. Wind suddenly veers off course into his eyes, burning his heated irises, and he jabs the heel of his palm into his left socket with a faint growl.  

Water squeezes between his skin.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

No way, there was no way he was about to cry right now, not because of what Sero just said. Fuck no- 

Bakugou jabs his other palm into his second eye, but all it does is squeeze more water out of his tear ducts. They brim over his waterline with the threat of spilling over, no matter how hard he was pressing into his eyes. 

"You fucked up," is the last thing Sero says, and Bakugou's shoulders began to quiver from the weight of his tears. 

Fuck, he's really crying right now. And for what, because he got yelled at by Sero? How fucking childish, Bakugou spits at himself, furiously rubbing his wet and leaking eyes. So what if everything he had said was true? So what if this was his fault and he was unfairly pitting his blame on his boyfriend?

So what if the one person who I care about the most in this fucked up world is gonna end up leaving my selfish, immature ass? Because I can't keep something as simple as a fucking promise to him. 

Was that really a fucking reason for him to cry like some bitch right now? He gets his answer through a groan that rips his body apart and splits the air around him with its jarring sound. The conclusion he comes to physically pains him like no other; Soy-sauce was right. He was right about every fucking thing, and the fact that it took him getting lectured to like some goddamn kid made Bakugou nauseous at himself. He needed to grow up and stop acting like his teenage self before he lost the one person he actively gives a shit about in this world. 

Bakugou doesn't keep crying for long. In five short minutes, he's sucking down the rest of his hoarse sobs and drying his eyes with unforgiving hands until the skin around them turns bright red. He doesn't look up from his hands until he's absolutely positive the last weak sob died down in his throat, and only after a full minute does he drop his hands over his knees, his cigarette dangling precariously between loose fingers. 

Whoever said that crying made you feel better was a fucking liar, and Bakugou wanted to confront them with a fist lodged in their throat. He only felt worse; his head ached, his body felt weak and disgusting, and now he has to live with the fact that he cried in front of another person who just had to be fucking Soy-sauce himself. 

Bakugou pulls the inflamed skin around his eyes. Sero was quiet throughout the whole ordeal, letting only the gentle breaths full of smoke accompanying Bakugou's hoarse crying. When the man stopped, he asks him the intelligent question, "You alright?" 

Bakugou balls his fist over his knee to keep him from hitting the other in his jaw. "What the fuck do you think," he growls at him. "That for someone who thinks they're always right all the time, it hurts when someone hits you with the truth. I'm not apologizing by the way. You definitely deserved to hear all of that." 

"Fuck you." 

Bakugou wasn't going to give him the satisfaction again. "Nah, that's Kirishima's job." 

He wipes off the dried tear stains with the hem of his shirt, letting the crumpled fabric fall back onto his abdomen. "If you tell anyone about what just happened," Bakugou says, his voice dipping into a low growl, "I will kill you." 

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone that you cried. It's kinda honoring, y'know? I feel like we're even closer to each other now." 

"Fuck you," Bakugou says again in a voice free of emotion. "We're never getting close. And how fucking dare you talk down to me like that. Like I'm some goddamn child, I'm two years older than you bitch." 

Sero says to him while Bakugou throws his shortened cigarette halfway across the lot, "Once again, that's Kirishima's job, and what? You were acting like one." 

Hearing that confirmation confuses the turbulent emotions still swirling inside of Bakugou, unable to choose between his default angry and avoidance of the obvious truth or passively accepting it as fact. 

Bakugou goes with his default, but as soon as he does one simple sentence goes through his mind:

Kirishima was still going to leave him. 

It quells the emotions inside of him, leaving an empty and vacant hole inside his chest. 

Kirishima was going to leave him soon and it would be nobody's fault but his. 

A new pressure builds up inside of him, squeezing tight around his beating heart. It's unsettling how it wraps around the organ, lines of cold dread dripping down his spine. Fuck, he was going to lose Kirishima because of himself, and he still has the audacity to try and think that it was the other way around?  

"I know I laughed at you when you brought this up once, but right now, I think you should consider doing it." 

Sero distracts him from the wall of water finding its way behind his eyes once again. Bakugou sniffs once, further drying his eyes. "Doing what?" 

"Quitting." 

Bakugou remembers when he first said it and Sero's bark of laughter. He laughs again, the sound both wet and hoarse in the back of his throat. There wasn't a day that went by where the thought of quitting wasn't in the back of his mind. He always thought about it, and every time that he did, he would get a little reminder as to why he couldn't. "You and I both know that'll never fucking happen, Soy-sauce."

"Yeah, but you need to. Unless you run the risk of breaking up with him." 

That feeling earlier comes back two-fold. "Because that's what it looks like is gonna happen, unless you start making some sacrifices." 

"Sacrifices? You think I can do that shit, especially with what's going on right now?" 

"See? There you go again. Putting this job before Kirishima-" 

"I don't have a choice." 

"Then you gotta work something out! It takes two to start a relationship and two to make it work, Bakugou. Either you try to quit or you figure something out that'll work for both you and Kirishima. Or," 

Sero's face comes down in a hard expression, "Break up with him." 

Yeah, fuck no. Bakugou would rather die; he probably would if Kirishima decided to walk out on him. But what the fuck am I supposed to do when he won't even give me five seconds to try and fix this!? 

"How about apologizing and actually meaning it this time around?" 

Bakugou thought he said that to himself, but apparently not because Sero was looking at him. He scowls at him in response. "What the fuck did I say earlier? That bitch won't—" 

"Okay, you need to stop calling Kirishima that." 

"—look at me or even talk to me. If I try to apologize to him again, he's just gonna keep ignoring me." Or leave, he doesn't say at the end. 

"Man, how the hell did Kirishima put up with you for three years?" Sero asks with a disbelieving shake of his head. The same way I put up with his dumb ass, Bakugou answers to himself. "I wonder how you even manage to get into a relationship in the first place." 

Sero ignores Bakugou's threat to his legs while he continues, "You wanna know how? Because I'll tell you, but only on one condition." 

"What, my foot up your ass?"  

“An apology.” 

Bakugou’s face twists in confusion. “What, did you forget how you blamed all of this on me earlier?” Sero asks him. His words from the start come to mind and Bakugou rolls his eyes. "Are you fucking kidding me? You're still on about that shit?" 

Sero doesn’t answer him, clearly waiting on his well-deserved apology. “Oh my God—fine. I’m sorry, alright?”  

“Sorry for what?”  

His left eye twitches. “Sorry for—what the fuck do you mean for what? I gave you your shitty apology already!”  

Sero has the gall to look the other way, and Bakugou wants to ring him by his long-ass neck. He doesn't respond when he calls his name or threatens his long legs and Bakugou nearly shrieks in frustration. “Oh my God, alright! I’m sorry for fucking blaming my shitty problems on you! Are you fucking happy now?”  

His apology was thrown at Sero in the form of a yell, but the other man accepted it with a lopsided smile. "See how easy that was? Now just do that with Kirishima, minus the yelling and cursing. And make it better, obviously, since he's your boyfriend." 

“Wait a minute, did you only do that to prove a fucking point—”

"I suggest taking him out. That would be the best place to do it," Sero continues, completely ignoring the look of molten rage in Bakugou's eyes, “or wait, an even better idea—cook him something you know he's gonna love. Make it like a super fancy meal, something like steak and lobster, or just the steak—not everybody likes lobster. People are willing to listen to apologies and forgive when they get some good food in their stomachs, and I know you can cook pretty fuckin’ good. Don’t just stop at the dinner either, make it a whole thing—flowers, candles, dressing up nicely. Y’know, all that stuff. And then you apologize to him—and mean it this time.”  

Two thin black brows crawl up his forehead in a suggestive curve. “And then, if he lets you, fuck him really good. Because what’s better after a good apology? Some amazing make-up sex.”  

Sero’s smiling as he says, “Make a whole day out of it, so he knows you’re serious. Start off with breakfast in bed, then take him out to his favorite spot for lunch, and finish off with a good homecooked meal and good sex. I bet if you do all of that with your apology, he’s gonna forgive you instantly.”  

“You are a fucking idiot.”  

Sero’s smile falls right off his face.  

“First of all, fuck you for trying to teach me how to fucking apologize,” Bakugou spits out, “second of all, if you really think that shit is going to work, then you’re the biggest idiot I’ve had the misfortune of meeting. You think Shitty-hair's gonna even give me the time of day if I try to do half of that shit you just said?”  

Bakugou already knows how it’s going to play out: he’s going to try to walk up to Kirishima with a plate of food in his hands and get the door slammed on his face again. Sero’s advice was a pipedream, a fairytale ending to some dumbass love story. His “advice” was only going to send Kirishima out of the door.  

“You won’t know that unless you try it.”  

“And what if it doesn’t? Because I can tell you right now that what you just said won’t even get him to fucking breathe in my direction.”  

“Whoa, is that Bakugou Katsuki actually giving up on something before he tries it?” Sero suddenly asks in an over-exaggerated voice, dragging a scowl between Bakugou’s brows. “I don’t believe it! Bakugou Katsuki—the Bakugou Katsuki, the same man that can take on an entire gang by himself and win—is admitting defeat already! The world must be coming to an end.”  

“Shut up, Soy-Sauce.”  

“Man, of all the things I thought would be impossible for you to do, I didn’t think it would be something as simple as an apology to your boyfriend. I guess there are just some things even the great Bakugou Katsuki can’t do, huh?”  

Sero shrugs his shoulders and lets out a bark of laughter when Bakugou roughly pushes him. “I said shut up! I can fucking apologize to him.”  

“Then do it, dumbass! Go apologize to him right now. If it doesn’t work, do it again, and if that doesn’t work? Do it again. Keep doing it until he accepts your apology, and don’t stop until he does. If he actually means something to you, you'll keep on trying even if he doesn't want to see your face again. So, go." 

He pushes Bakugou onto his feet with a hard slap across his back, the latter cursing him out for hitting him so hard. “You can thank me later after you’re done with this,” Sero said. “Matter of fact, don’t bother—just tell me how much of a good friend I am and I’ll be okay with that.” 

“We are not  friends.”  

“Dude, you cried while I was sitting next to you. Plus, we’ve been through too much shit together. I think both of those things more than qualifies us as friends.”  

“No it fucking doesn’t. And stop calling me—”  

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say,” Sero waves at him. “Don't worry about anything happening here. Just go get your man back," 

With a smile that reaches the corners of his eyes, he adds affectionately, "dude." 

It earns him a middle finger to his face. 

Kirishima isn’t home when Bakugou comes through the door, that fact not surprising to him at all. He drops a bag of frozen wings next to the sink to cook for dinner later tonight. There was nothing in the refrigerator, pantry, or cabinets for Bakugou to make a fancy meal out of like Soy-sauce had suggested to him, once again a reminder that grocery shopping needed to be done soon. And Bakugou didn’t feel like eating fast-food again for the third night in a row, so he settled on the easy choice of buffalo wings with a note in the back of his mind to go grocery shopping by the end of this week.  

Maybe even with Eijirou, his mind tacks at the end, and it makes him laugh. Who knew if he was still going to be around him by the time the weekend comes? 

He takes Killmonger out for his regular three-mile walk before he’s inevitably taken away by the other man’s presence. When he comes back, he gets started on the first batch of wings.  

Kirishima comes home, half an hour later than normal but not as late as the other two nights. Bakugou was in the middle of preparing the buffalo sauce, the first batch of wings sitting in wait inside of a Ziploc bag while the second batch was frying to a golden crisp inside of the deep fryer. “Hey,” Bakugou says to him while he walks through the living room, but Kirishima keeps on walking, Killmonger tagging along behind him.  

Bakugou closes his eyes with an exasperated sigh at the jarring slam of their bedroom door. This is going to be fucking impossible, he hears himself say.  

Then keep trying, he hears Sero say back.  

His voice opens his eyes with a scowl wrinkling across his brows. All twenty wings were ready in less than thirty minutes, steaming on top of a plate wrapped in several paper towels. Bakugou grabs another plate and drops eight hot wings drenched in orange sauce onto it, ripping off another paper towel from the dispenser and carrying it down the hallway to the closed door. “Dinner’s ready,” he announces after rapping his knuckles across the door.  

He hears no movement on the other side, only the sounds of the TV and Killmonger’s panting. A cramp was tightening his hand from holding the plate for so long, so Bakugou turns back around to put it in the microwave when he’s stopped by the sound of the doorknob rattling and turning with a muted click.  The gap that opens up is wide enough for a diagonal streak of light to stretch across the floor, as well as give enough space for Bakugou to see his boyfriend’s face behind the door.  

It’s the first time he’s able to look at the other man for longer than a second, and the sight of him has him swallowing down a guilt-ridden lump.  

Kirishima’s eyes were still several shades darker than normal, a dull film glazing over his once beautiful and vibrant wine-red irises. His hair laid flat to his head, pulled into a low and messy ponytail with long bangs framing the edges of his sullen, gray face.  

Come to think of it, Bakugou hadn’t seen the man gel up his hair in those ridiculous spikes since after their fight. 

You did this to him,  a voice reminds him, and he internally flinches at the bitter truth in its tone. He had nothing to say that could refute that.  

Kirishima looks between him and the plate with dim eyes. Slowly, he widens the door some more, Killmonger wriggling through the space to walk around and sniff at Bakugou’s knees and finally the plate of wings in his hand. He follows the plate as Kirishima takes it from him and trots back into the room after Kirishima’s soft whistling.  

Bakugou thinks he might’ve heard a thank-you before the sound, but he wasn’t too sure. “You want something to drink?” he asks him.  

The door jerks to a stop. A long second of silence passes before he answers, “No.”   

His voice was just like his eyes: dull, lifeless, and sad. Kirishima’s closing the door again and Bakugou reaches out like last time, stopping him from closing it on his fingers with a tight grip.  

Unlike last time, Kirishima doesn’t tell him to let go. He stares at him for the longest time, drilling into Bakugou’s nerves with his morose gaze.  

The look in his eyes freezes the words dying to claw out of his throat. I’m sorry, please talk to me. Bakugou is unable to say either of them when he’s looking into the somber expression of his boyfriend, the expression that he put on his face. His fingers slide down the door’s edge, finally releasing when it falls further down. “If you need anything else, just let me know.”  

Kirishima shuts the door, Bakugou listening to his and Killmonger’s feet walking away from it, a tight breath constricting in his lungs. He should have apologized. He had the perfect opportunity to do it. 

No, it wouldn’t have been right. It wouldn’t have felt right for him. And what could he have said, other than ‘sorry’? No, if Bakugou was going to apologize, he needed to fucking apologize. He needed to come up with the right words to show that he meant what he said, and not that bullshit of an apology he gave him three nights ago.  

That’s what he thinks about while eating his dinner on the couch, barely paying attention to the crime documentary he had put on TV. It was hard trying to come up with the right words to really apologize to the other man. Every sentence starter Bakugou came up with sounded either corny, cliché, or downright juvenile. Fuck Soy-sauce for making this shit sound so easy. I should kill him for that.   

Multiple feet come his way and he glances over his shoulders to see Kirishima emerging out of the hallway, a plate of bones and crinkled paper towels in one hand and a retractable leash in the other. He throws the plate into the trashcan and walks past Bakugou on the couch, his direction for the foyer. “You fed him already?”  

He knows the answer. This was Killmonger’s new routine until Bakugou somehow manages to fix this shit before it’s too late. He doesn’t expect Kirishima to answer him, so he’s surprised when he gets a soft hum in affirmation from the man while he’s slipping into a pair of old Converses. Kirishima and the dog leave the apartment with the hollow sound of a lock sliding into place.  

Bakugou’s in the kitchen putting away the rest of the wings when they return, the sound of a stack of papers hitting a wooden table floating into his ears. He sees Kirishima emerge from the foyer with the pit mix racing into the kitchen, his harness still attached to his upper body. Killmonger bumps his head into his legs and Bakugou reaches down to stroke him behind his ear, one of his many favored spots.  

Kirishima calls him from the hallway’s entrance, but Killmonger hesitates. “Socks, let’s go,” he says, and the puppy starts to walk after him, but then he stops, glancing back at his other owner in the kitchen.  

“He can stay out here with me,” Bakugou says, instantly regretting speaking when Kirishima throws a hard look at him. But then he disappears into the hallway, a door shutting thirty seconds later.  

That’s Killmonger’s alarm because he’s running back into the hallway, Bakugou hearing his whines all the way from the kitchen. The door opens and shuts automatically.  

Traitor.   

Bakugou cleans up the rest of the kitchen with his regrets keeping him company in the silence. He cuts off the lights when he’s done and turns off everything in the living room, walking down the dark hallway to the closed bedroom door.  

It’s a similar scene like every night so far: Kirishima already in the bed, Killmonger laying right next to him. Bakugou stares at the puppy with envy in his eyes, wishing to be in that mutt’s place instead of him, and then he’s swearing at himself to get a fucking grip for being jealous over a damn dog. He strips down to his boxers and brushes his teeth, cutting the lights off in the bathroom after he leaves and walking to his side of the bed.  

Kirishima’s back is already facing him when he’s climbing under the covers. “Goodnight,” Bakugou hopes to get one more response from him, but as usual, Kirishima doesn’t say it back. He turns over, tucking and folding his arm underneath his pillow, a quiet exhale huffing through his nose. Tomorrow, all of this was going to be fixed. Bakugou was going to make everything right between them.  

So please, just give me one more chance, Eijirou.   

Chapter Text

Friday morning was beautiful, the early hours full of singing birds and brilliant sunshine. Rays of the golden light poured into the gray bedroom, washing away the drab color at the same time they stretched over Bakugou’s face, waking him up with an unpleasant touch. His head rolls over to the side, and after a few blinks, Bakugou finds himself staring at an empty space.

Once again, he wakes up alone.  

Bakugou brings his arm over his face, blotting out the rays piercing and blinding his sleepy eyes. Somewhere in the room, he hears Killmonger entertaining himself with one of his squeaky toys. He knows the dog is already taken care of; Bakugou had figured out Kirishima was feeding the puppy earlier than his normal routine after waking up to the sound of him eating in their room (no wonder Bakugou could smell an increase of dog food in the air).

But, he supposes, that is his fault for pissing him off to the point of a three-day silent treatment. Bakugou slides his arm down his face, simultaneously wiping crust out of his eyes. Today he was (hopefully) going to rectify all of this and, at the very least, get Kirishima to at least look at him for longer than five seconds.  

And he was going to do that by following Soy-sauce's straight-out-of-a-fantasy advice. Bakugou knew that Kirishima’s schedule today was his easiest: he had only two classes, and in between those classes he had a two-hour lunch break. Since he missed his opportunity for the breakfast-in-bed (as if he had anything in the kitchen for that), Bakugou was going to shoot his shot for a lunch date at the redhead’s favorite café, where he also planned on apologizing to him.

And if that didn’t work, then like the tall freak told him he was going to try again after dinner.  

He only had one thing planned for today’s events, and that was dinner. Bakugou still didn’t have a working apology or even know where to begin with one. Waiting to the last minute really fucked me over, he gripes to himself, but once again he pushes that problem aside to deal with it later. An apology would come; right now, he needed to get tonight’s feast ready, and he knew he didn’t have a single ingredient in their pantry for it.  

Which meant going to the store, and grocery stores were cesspools for bad interactions. Might as well get the worst of it out of the way, he groans as he pushes himself out of bed. It was still relatively early, thirty minutes before eleven on the clock, so the store wouldn’t be a nightmare yet.  

Bakugou takes a quick shower and puts on a pair of gray and white-striped joggers with an old graphic t-shirt, the skulls on the sleeves chipping off with age. The color, once a rich black, faded into a light gray around the collar and underneath his arms from numerous tosses in the washing machine. He leaves a rawhide chew for Killmonger in the living room and slides his feet into a pair of sneakers next to the table in the hallway, leaving the dog to chew on his treat in his absence.  

During the drive to the store, Bakugou tried for the umpteenth time after their fight to call Kirishima. He didn’t want to show up at his campus unannounced just to ask him out on a lunch date. Apart from not knowing where he would be on the large campus, Bakugou wasn’t too keen on feeling that sting of rejection when Kirishima tells him no in public; he’d rather have it happen in private, where no one could see how he would react.  

Like right now. Kirishima didn’t verbally decline him, but his bright voice coming right after the three rings might as well have been a rejection. Bakugou rolled his eyes shut on an irritated sigh, mostly aimed at himself. Kirishima still wanted nothing to do with him. He probably wouldn’t even want to go out to lunch with me anyway—  

Bakugou plucks his phone out of one of the black cupholders and sends the other man a quick text.  

To: Baby  
Can you call me back
Please
Sent at 9:58 AM 

The ‘please’ was an afterthought, an attempt to urge Kirishima to follow his request, but as soon as he sent it, he immediately regretted it. It sounded like the other desperate texts he sent him the night he had walked out on him and left a bad feeling in his stomach and taste in his mouth. Bakugou wasn’t desperate, and he definitely didn’t do desperate.  

But it was already too late. He sent it, and Kirishima still hadn’t read it.  

Bakugou turns into an intersection and drives down a curving road taking him straight to the grocery store’s massive parking lot. His previous statement about this trip not being a nightmare ended up being a fucking lie—there were cars everywhere, filling up the lot all the way to the gas station owned by the store. Bakugou’s blood boiled in agitation under his skin. Everybody else must have had the same idea as him, going to the store early so they could get their shopping out of the way. Fucking hell.   

Bakugou chooses an empty spot away from the maddening full areas of the lot, parking closer to the small gas station. He didn’t want some idiot with no insurance hitting his car. The only solace he was going to gain from this trip was how quickly he was going to be in the store, already knowing the exact items he needed to get.  

Once he passed under the air-conditioned threshold inside the building, Bakugou grabs a handheld cart off a nearby rack and makes his way to the first section he needs to go to: the produce aisle. He grabs the fresh bundle of asparagus and a small bag of potatoes, then concludes his time in the section by plucking out a small bottle of lemon juice and moves on to the meat section, picking up a pack of tenderloin steaks and dropping them in the small cart.  

Next is the spices’ aisle where he picks up the necessary seasonings: steak seasoning, garlic powder and minced garlic, dried parsley and basil flakes, and further down olive oil. The wine aisle is his next stop, pulling a large bottle of Stella Rosa off the shelf and carefully sitting it in the weighing cart. Bakugou knew how much Kirishima loved the wine, and he grew to love it too. It was sweet, but it wasn’t too sweet where it had him cringing at the taste and it didn’t have the dry aftertaste that white wines had.  

His final stop was in a part of the store completely adjacent to the food section, where he picked up a box of water-based lubricant and tossed into his basket. Bakugou had no idea what the outcome of tonight was going to be; the lube might never come in use, but as Soy-sauce said, he won’t know that until he tries. It stops him from putting that box back on the shelf.  

Bakugou takes his items to self-checkout, concluding his short grocery shopping. After leaving the busy grocer, he pulls into the parking lot of a neighboring florist shop, picking up an already-prepared bouquet of red roses for tonight.  

He’s back at his complex, parking in his usual spot and carrying the groceries and rose bouquet up to his apartment number. He’s acknowledged by barking behind the door and is swarmed by it upon walking in, though the barks turn into high-pitched yaps and whines around his legs. “Move, dammit. I can’t get through the door.”  

Bakugou has to literally push his way into the hallway, kicking the door shut behind him with his foot. He drops his keys and wallet into the small bowl, toes off his shoes, and continues fighting his way into the kitchen, almost tripping over Killmonger who decided it was a good idea to cross directly in front of his path to sniff at the plastic bag containing the steaks. “Move,” Bakugou growls, but Killmonger decides to stay right next to his legs.  

He manages to make it to the dining room without another incident, dropping the plastic bags and flowers on top of the table and reaches into his back pocket for his phone. A quick scroll through his messages shows that Kirishima still hadn’t texted or called him back. Or read it,  Bakugou sighs. He still had more than two hours left, so he set his phone down on the table and started putting away the vegetables to prepare for later and got started on the actual main course for this evening.  

It’s not a quick feat, and Bakugou wishes he’d been smart enough to do this last night while disinfecting the cutting board. Grabbing the steaks next, he cuts and removes the two pieces out of their package and washes them in the sink before dropping them onto the glass board. Killmonger sits on his right in a perfectly erect stance, watching the man sprinkle, shake, and toss seasoning after spice after seasoning on both sides of the pieces of red meat. When the tangy smell hits his nose, his tongue flashes over lips.  

“None of this is for you,” Bakugou tells the puppy after he finishes seasoning the steaks. Leaving them to sit on the cutting board, he quickly washes and dries off his hands, then grabs a plastic bag from one of the top cabinets to prepare the marinade. It’s a ten-minute process of tossing parsley, basil, garlic, and olive oil into a food processor and blending them together on high, stopping periodically to add in small quantities of lemon juice. Killmonger takes the entire process in with his big brown eyes and Bakugou rolls his gaze. Funny how he was so focused when it came to food, but still couldn’t differentiate between chewing on a toy or one of their shoes.  

Once the ingredients were perfectly blended together, Bakugou pours the liquid into the bag and drops the steaks inside, using a pair of metal tongs to move them. He seals the bag, moving the liquid around so every inch of the meat could soak, and then sets it inside the refrigerator to continue soaking for the next nine or so hours. Would have been better if I did this shit yesterday,  Bakugou grumbles after washing his hands a second time. Letting it soak overnight would have ensured a much better turnout, but alas, he had to make do.  

He’s in the middle of telling Killmonger to get out of his kitchen when the dog’s folded ears lift at a faint sound. His head swivels to the dining table; Bakugou follows it, seeing his phone’s screen lit up with a familiar name and picture.  

It’s embarrassing how fast he gets to his phone, but Bakugou doesn’t care. He grabs the vibrating device off the table and hits the green button, immediately pressing it to his ear. “Hello?”  

“Hey.”   

Thank fucking God. Bakugou could have died on the spot, and he would have been satisfied. Kirishima had called him back—he was speaking to him, actively speaking to him after three days of no communication. “You said to call you back. Did something happen?”   

Never fucking say please in your life ever again,  Bakugou viciously reminds himself. “No, I just—I called you earlier, but you didn’t pick up.”  

“I was in class.”   

Ah.   

“What’re you doing right now?”  

In the background, Bakugou hears a woman’s voice say, “ Oooh, is he about to do what I think he’s  gonna  do?” 

Another voice, a man’s, replies with a stark, “Whatever he has planned, say no.”   

Both of them are silenced. “Nothing. Just sitting in Subway until my next class.”   

“Shit, you ate lunch already?” Well, there goes that plan— 

“Eventually, after I got off the phone with you.”   

Wait, never mind then—Bakugou might still have a chance. “Do you want to...”  

It was at that exact moment, his nerves decided to get to him, clotting inside his throat and forcing him to swallow harshly. It was just one simple request, Bakugou tells himself, one single question. The worst the other could do was say no.  

But that sting of rejection— 

No!  He has to get over that. If Kirishima rejected him, then he rejected him. He wasn’t someone who was so weak that he’d break if they’d get rejected once. He grew out of that annoying phase several years ago, and like hell he’d let it come back.  

On the other end, Kirishima waits for him in a slightly unnerving silence that puts him on edge.  Just ask the damn question already before he hangs up on you.   

“You want to go out? For lunch, I mean.” Bakugou hastily adds, “If not, it’s whatever. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”  

Kirishima remains silent, doing nothing to abate the anxiety twisting under his skin.  C’mon, just say something. Say fucking no, I won’t care. I mean, I will, but I won’t do anything about it. Just say something, please—  

“You don’t have to work today?”  Kirishima finally asks, and  Bakugou pushes out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “Still have the rest of the week off,” Bakugou answers, for now.   

“Oh yeah, that’s right...”   

He’s silent again, but his environment around him isn’t. Bakugou hears the same man’s voice say, “Say no, Ei. You’re still mad at him, remember?”  and Bakugou wants to tell that man to shut the fuck up and mind his own damn business, but somebody else does it for him; the same woman as before, “Denki, shut. Up.”  Followed by a strong thwack! 

“Alright,”  Kirishima eventually says over the background exchange. Bakugou straightens his back; he didn’t realize he was slouching waiting for the other man to answer.  “When I come home, we can go—”  

“No, I’ll come get you. Just tell me where you’re going to be and at what time, and I’ll be there in about half an hour.”  

Kirishima tells him and he hangs up on Bakugou, this time with an actual goodbye (albeit it was short). Bakugou doesn’t hide his relief in the crooked smile on his face. That went by much better than he had hoped. He’s positive that the host of at the café he calls could hear his relief and excitement in his voice when he set up a reservation for outside dining. The hardest part has still yet to come, and Bakugou hopes this train of unexpected luck continued to carry on throughout his day while he got ready for their lunch date.  

An hour and a half later, Bakugou is outside the university’s colossal union building, the largest building on campus. The size of the front entrance still intimidates him and he’s been here several times since dating Kirishima. He’s standing in the visitor section of the building’s equally massive parking lot, leaned up against his car under the postcard-picturesque sky. Students and faculty surround him as they either walk to their parked vehicles, alone or in groups, or drive in and out of the several entrances the lot has to offer.  

A few give him curious stares upon passing him by, some going as far as to gawk at the gleaming luxury car he leaned his back against. However, neither of those stares affected him as much as the leering eyes he got from every gender and age that took a peek at him. It wasn’t like Bakugou could judge them (he still did)— 

He was dressed nicer than the university’s president.  

A slim-fit navy blue dress shirt adorned his upper torso, both of the long sleeves rolled up to his elbows to show off his thick and tatted arms under the warm sunlight. In the direct light, the smooth fabric almost shone black, hiding dark gray symbols that ran across the ironed material in long diagonal lines. Those who had a good eye for fashion immediately could see the label of the designer brand finely printed across his body and gaped at him, Bakugou hearing a few whispers, even. A pair of dark jeans hugged the lower half of his body, especially around his large thighs and narrow hips, leaving nothing to the imagination. Leather brown shoes and a diamond earring through his left ear lobe completed his look.  

Bakugou took a deep breath at the next set of whispers he heard passing by him. Some of these kids had probably never seen opulence displayed in the form of designer clothes and a custom painted sports car in their entire lives, but that didn’t give them permission to gawk at him like he was some exotic creature in the zoo. Some of the whispers weren’t bad...  

“Who is that?”  

“Does he go here?”   

“He must be a foreign exchange student—look at his clothes.”  

“How’d he get that ride?”   

“Bet he’s a business major.”   

Bakugou could deal with those. They were harmless. It was the whispers about other things that really got under his skin.  

“Oh my God, he’s so hot. I’d climb him like a ladder if I could.”  

“Look at how tight his ass looks in those jeans!”   

“I want him to fucking crush me with those thighs.”   

And the worst comment out of all of them came from a group of girls that walked too close for  Bakugou’s liking, the man being able to pick up their fruity perfumes clouding around them. “I’d ride his fine ass like a stallion.”   

Bakugou pulls out his phone, instantly going to Kirishima’s contact. Shitty-hair, hurry your ass up and get out here before I end up killing one of these fucking kids.   

Luckily, he doesn’t have to send the text; red hair catches his attention from far away and the tension in his shoulders gradually seeps out of him. Bakugou spots Kirishima emerging out of one of the doors underneath the union’s massive awning. Behind him were two others: another man with blonde hair that looked too golden to be natural with a weird black highlight dyed into it, and a light-skinned woman with bubblegum pink braids pulled into two buns on top of her head and the rest falling down to the middle of her back.  

Kirishima’s sweeping his gaze across the parking lot, the other doing the same, but it’s the chick that spots Bakugou first. She pokes Kirishima on his shoulder, and when he looks at her, she points at the blonde across the street, standing in the parking lot. Kirishima follows her finger to him, and Bakugou can see his eyes take on a wider and rounder shape when he finally spots him.  

Heat floods his cheeks, joined together by the sharp tinges of anxiety twisting in his stomach. All too soon the tension in his shoulders comes back to him, holding him rigid. This was like a first date all over again; only, Bakugou couldn’t tell if Kirishima’s wide-eyed expression was one of happiness or growing annoyance.  

Maybe it was the latter because he sees Kirishima hiding his face behind his hands at whatever the woman said to him. The other man said something too, judging by how fast both Kirishima and the chick turned on him. He started walking down the stairs, turning around when he reached the bottom and waving at his two friends.  

Kirishima was crossing the street now. Bakugou’s heart was a stuttering mess inside his chest, the organ quickly jumping to full-on palpitations when the redhead was in the parking lot. Get it to-fucking-gether. What are you, some bitch ass teenager? He's your fucking boyfriend, for God’s sake.

Who was most likely still mad at him and wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

He was only a few yards away. Bakugou closed his eyes and took in a deep breath; when he opened them, Kirishima was in front of him. “Hey.”  

It was like the ability to speak was lost on him when he hears his voice. It wasn’t sad, not full of anger, or disappointment. It wasn’t necessarily happy either, or even relieved.  

Just, neutral. Emotionless.  

He swallows, gaining what little control he had of his voice. “Hey.”  

Kirishima’s hair still wasn’t gelled up, Bakugou noticed. He had it down his shoulders instead of in a ponytail, which he didn’t mind. He always loved it when he wore his hair down, but for once, he was missing the redhead’s abhorrent spiked-up hairstyle.  

He sees Kirishima giving him a quick once-over. “I thought we were going to lunch?”  

“We are,” Bakugou tilts his head, “why?”  

“I—nothing, forget about it,” Kirishima says after a short pause. “Just tell me,” Bakugou urges him, and then in a shamefully low voice, “I look like an idiot, don’t I?”  

“Wha—no!”  

Bakugou was surprised at his sudden outburst, and so was Kirishima. In a much calmer and quieter voice, he says, “I mean, you look nice. Really nice. I was just surprised because you look really good, and we were just going to lunch...”  

His hand comes to the back of his head and he looks away from Bakugou, teasing the corner of his lips. Bakugou glances away, following the movement of a student’s car pulling into a parking space. “This ain’t nothing. Just some old shit I found in the back of the closet and decided to wear it for today.”  

“It looks good on you.”  

Bakugou’s turning back to Kirishima, once again surprised to see a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “I always knew blue was your color. You smell really good, too.” He pulls his hand from the back of his head to his left ear, pointing at his lobe. “And I love your earring. You look good, man.”  

Sudden elation overrides his nerves, but Bakugou keeps his emotions in check behind a crooked smile. Kirishima matches a similar expression on his lips, but he hides it from him with a shy turn of his head. Bakugou still sees it in the shadow of his face.  

I want to kiss him.   

Kirishima turns back to him, showing off the cute smile on his enticing lips and in his dazzling, beautiful red eyes, sparkling back to life after three days of pure darkness.  Fuck, I really want to kiss him.   

It takes every ounce of strength inside his body not to pull the shorter man into a bruising kiss and ruin this peaceful mood, but fuck. Bakugou couldn’t help but feel relief right now. He doesn’t push his luck. He still had a long way to go before he could get the chance to feel the other’s lips on his.  

“C’mon,” he says to him as he pushes himself off of his car. “Don’t wanna be late for the reservation,” he tells Kirishima while walking over to the passenger side, pulling the door up. “You made a reservation?”  

Bakugou helps him take his backpack off his shoulders, nodding at his answer. When he’s inside, he closes the door and walks back to his side, pulling open his door and getting inside. He presses the button to shut his door, ignoring the awed looks of people outside his car. He hands Kirishima a white AUX cord once his door clicks shut and he turns the car on. “None of that pop shit.”  

Kirishima gingerly takes it from his hand and plugs his phone up.  

“Sure.”   

To be fair, Bakugou more or less expected this outcome, going as far as to say he even deserved it. But after five minutes of listening to the same peppy and fast-tempo beats with annoying autotune, Bakugou felt like he was close to losing his goddamn mind. The usually quick fifteen-minute drive to the café felt like a five-hour-long ordeal, and he couldn’t take any more of it.  

When he pulled into the café's parking lot, he shut the car off before unbuckling his seatbelt, killing the next song on the godforsaken playlist. He shoots Kirishima a red glare of death.  

The other has the nerve to return an innocent look back to him. “What?” 

Bakugou looks away. 

“Nothing.”   

Whatever. He deserved it.  

He opens their doors, waiting for Kirishima to get out first before he closes the doors behind them. They walk side by side to the front entrance, their hands and shoulders occasionally bumping into each other. Bakugou thinks about grabbing Kirishima’s hand a few times they touch, but hesitation holds him back. Both of them arrive in front of the door and the moment, as well as the opportunity, passes. He opens it for Kirishima, getting a soft smile in return at the chivalrous gesture.  

The hostess greets them with a bright smile when they stand in front of her. “Hello! Is it just you two today?”  

Bakugou tells her about their reservation and she leads them to their table outside, placing two menus in their respective spots while they took their seats under the wide red umbrella. “Your waiter will be with you shortly. Enjoy!”  

She departs, leaving the two alone. Bakugou watches Kirishima set his phone face-down on the table before he looks his way. “I didn’t know you put in a reservation for here,”  he tells him, Bakugou shrugging it off. “The food here would’ve been better than that hellish sub you always get,” he says.  

“It’s not hellish. You just can’t handle it.” 

“No shit I can’t. You put like fifty types of meat on it.”  

“I only put three on my sub. It’s not like that’s a lot.”  

“Yes, it fucking is. It’s too damn much.”  

“Whatever, man.”   

Bakugou lets a soft smile grow on his lips. The playful banter, as short as it was, was nice. Reminded him that even though they were still going through something, that small part of their relationship never changed.  

Kirishima was looking around at their surroundings. There was another couple who sat three tables down from them, smiles in between each other, and a family of four laughing farther down. Bakugou stares into his side profile, following the outline of his face, partly covered by his hand supporting his chin and his red hair, resting against his cheek. A cool breeze blew a stray strand into his lashes and Kirishima flicked it away, tucking the loose strand behind his ear.  

A deep sigh whistles through his nose, grabbing Kirishima’s attention. “What? Is there something on my face?” 

Bakugou didn’t notice how hard he was staring until the man was speaking to him again, and red colors his cheeks. “No, I—you haven’t put your hair up in those shitty spikes in a while,” he quickly says, looking away. Getting caught for staring was still embarrassing. Kirishima makes a nonchalant sound in front of him, Bakugou seeing his shoulders lift and fall in a quick shrug. “Ran out of gel and didn’t feel like getting some more. Why, you miss my amazing spikes?”  

He waggles his brows and Bakugou scoffs a little too hard, “Fuck no.” But the truth was the exact opposite of that. Kirishima chuckles softly while combing his fingers through his hair. “ Kinda been too tired to really do anything with it,”  he adds in the same quiet tone and falls silent, letting his hair slip out from his fingers.  

Bakugou leans forward, folding his arms over his menu. The part he was dreading, only because he didn’t know how to say it, was finally here. There were words that he wanted to say, but he had no clue how to go about them, in what order to say them in, or hell, if he could even say them at all. The simple phrase shouldn’t have been as heavy as they felt on his tongue, but it was, like a massive weight of lead that kept the muscle pinned to the bottom of his mouth.  

Bakugou opens his mouth, then closes it. He bites his lips, opens his mouth again, and then closes it in a tight sigh.  

Fuck it. Just say it.   

“Hey—” 

“I’m sorry.” 

 Bakugou’s mouth falls in an ‘o’, his train of thought derailing instantly. Kirishima blinks before looking away, red dusting over his cheeks. “Crap, I didn’t mean to interrupt. You go ahead.”  

“What were you apologizing for? You didn’t really do anything wrong.”  

You didn’t fuck up like me, Bakugou wants to tell him. Kirishima shakes his head. “I did. I was being a total jerk to you for the last few days and—wait, let me finish.” 

Bakugou closes his mouth again when Kirishima raises his hand. “Yeah, you were too, but so was I, and I really had no right. I mean, I threw my watch at you. You bought that for me and I threw it at you. That was so wrong and so, so incredibly fucked up, I—I should have never done it, and every day I regret doing that to you. I could have hit you and probably severely hurt you for that.”  

He takes in a deep breath before continuing. “I’m also sorry for being a rude asshole overall. Slamming doors in your face? Ignoring you when you were just trying to talk?  Screaming at you?  Like, that’s the unmanliest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and you were right when you said I needed to grow up and stop acting like a child because that’s how I was acting.”  

Kirishima takes in another deep breath, and Bakugou opens his mouth, thinking the redhead was done with his apology, but he suddenly says, “I have something else to say. It’s... it’s going to hurt, but just... Just listen to me, okay?”  

His tone shifted the atmosphere, turning into something darker—colder. Bakugou nods once, slowly.  

Kirishima closes his eyes, breathes in once. He opens his eyes, and after a slow exhale, he opens his mouth.  

“I almost broke up with you.”  

He doesn’t hear the sound, but Bakugou feels the bullet piercing through his heart. You knew that though, he has to tell himself, you already knew something like this was a possibility.  He clenches his jaw, holding back the words desperate to climb out of his throat, letting Kirishima continue.  

“That night after we fought, I went over to Mina’s house. Not that I think it matters, or anything, but the reason why I didn’t call or text you back was because I wanted you to know how it felt to be left in complete silence like that, not knowing where the other person was at. I mean, it could have backfired. I was driving without a license and could’ve crashed into a fucking tree because I couldn’t see anything, crying so damn much.”  

Kirishima laughs without any humor. Bakugou figures that was the reason why he was ignoring him that night; it was a shame he couldn’t figure that out during that time, too overrun with emotions to use logic or reasoning.  

He was still talking. “Anyways, I went there, pretty much told her and Denki what happened, and when I finished they told me to leave you. Well, Denki really, but Mina agreed with him. They both wanted me to leave you. And... I was considering it...”  

Hearing it again perforates another hole in his heart. 

“They both made good points. Like, for one, you always kept lying to me. If I asked you if you had to go back to that warehouse, you’d say no—but then you’d ended up back there. Other times you’d never even tell me, y’know? You would just leave, not telling me anything, not even calling to let me know where you were. Sometimes you’d disappear for days, and I wouldn’t even know whether or not you were still alive.”  

“I hadn’t done something like since the last time,”  Bakugou interrupts in a soft voice, and Kirishima’s eyes match his tone. “You haven’t, but you still kept doing all of the others. You’d still kept leaving me and disappearing for that job. And then you would come back, expecting me not to say anything about it.”  

Kirishima says after a deep sigh, “Every single time that happened, I’d just go along with it, thinking that ‘maybe this will be the last time he does it,’ or ‘he’s not gonna put that job over me again,’  but then you’d do it again, and again, a third time, a fourth time, a fifth...  You would prove how much of an idiot I was for thinking that the next time was going to be different, so when they told me to break up with you, I really almost did it.”  

Another muscle clenches within Bakugou’s locked jaws. “I mean, fuck.  It was only logical—you already did this five times, and you even promised after the first time that something like this was never going to happen again. When you kept breaking that promise, I didn’t know if I could keep taking it anymore. Shit, I still don’t.”  

“W-what,” Bakugou stops, his voice sounding foreign in his own ears. He was terrified to ask the question and even more scared of the answer he would get, but he had to know. He swallows down the tremble in his voice and tries again. “What stopped you, then? Why’d you stay?”  

Kirishima hides his face behind his hands. Bakugou hears a muffled, “It’s so stupid,”  and it sort of alleviates a few his fears, though it still greatly confuses him. “The fuck are you talking about?”  

“My reasons for still staying with you,” Kirishima says after dropping his hands back onto the table. “You remember the first night we spent together? How that went down?”  

The words helped jog Bakugou’s memory; he drove Kirishima to a secluded area of campus, where they both sat in his car (the more precise seating arrangement was Kirishima on Bakugou’s lap in the driver’s seat) and talked about every topic in the world until three in the morning. Bakugou got rid of the smile coming together on his lips, but it had been one of his favorite moments in his life, and he didn’t have that many. Especially that many he was willing to sacrifice sleep for.  

Kirishima had a similar smile growing on his face. “We ended up talking about everything. I told you every little thing about me, even all of my insecurities—I'm still sorry for that, I know that was annoying—and not once did you try to leave or get me to shut up. I know, I know, so stupid, but that means a lot to me. Every other relationship I’ve been in, guys only wanted me for one thing and I hated it so much, but with you it was different, and I liked that. You also made me feel good about it,” he added, and his smile grew larger.  

Bakugou’s lips twisted into a crooked smile. “And then we moved in together, bought our first dog together... Really, we just had so many good times together, and yeah, we had a lot of bad times too, but we built so much together in these last three years and I didn’t want all of that to go away. I definitely didn't want to start over with someone else, and I couldn’t handle the thought of being lonely again after getting to know you for so long. It... hurts thinking like that... 

“A-and, when you keep doing shit like this,” Bakugou could see the faintest traces of water glistening in the corners of Kirishima’s eyes, “it hurts even more because I—I love you so, so  much, I really love you and I want to keep staying with you, but then you do this and it’s like you don’t care about me at all.”  

“That’s not true Eijirou—” 

“That’s what you say, but that’s what it feels like to me. Especially when it comes to that job—and I know, I know, your job is really stressful and you have to leave like that, but I just—I wished you would just tell me something. I’m not asking you to tell me what you’re doing every minute of the hour, but if you have to leave for work unexpectedly, then tell me! Let me know something came up and you had to go back, don’t just leave without saying anything, because then I get worried and scared. Like, Katsuki, you give me severe anxiety every time you do that.”  

Another muscle in Bakugou’s lower jaw visibly clenches as he watches Kirishima wipe away at the water welling up in his eyes. Remember how you called him a selfish bitch for that?   

Kirishima’s sniffle disrupts the bitter voice in his head. “That’s all I want. Just tell me that you can’t make it, and I’ll be fine. I’d rather hear that then nothing at all.”  

He nods his head out of distrust of his voice. He felt it straining inside of his own vocal cords and didn’t want to hear it back in his own ears. “Denki kept saying how much of an idiot I was for doing this, and maybe I am because honestly if you ask me? I really don’t think you deserve a sixth chance after this. But I’m still going to give you one because I want to make this work between us. And I personally believe some people deserve several chances to get something right. Unless they’re extremely bad people. And you’re definitely not Katsuki, even if your job is a little... dark.”  

"Just say illegal," he mumbles, scoffing in the same quiet breath. “I don’t think that guy is allowed to call anyone an idiot when’s he the supreme king of idiocy,” Bakugou says, and Kirishima laughs, the sound wet and weak-hearted. “Yeah, that’s probably true, but,” his light-hearted tone drops into a grave octave that’s reflected in his eyes, “if this happens again, that’s it. I’m taking Socks and I’m leaving you, got it?”  

“Yeah.”  

Bakugou matched Kirishima’s tone and eyes, even when he felt that familiar pressure of burning water pressing into his retinas. “I swear, I’m not doing this shit again.”  

And he means that.  

Kirishima wipes the rest of his tears from his eyes and nods. “Well, I’m done with what I had to say.” He waves his hand at him next, “Your turn.”  

Bakugou hesitates, for a different reason than before. The words that kept his tongue fixated to his mouth lift in preparation, ready to speak to the other, but he falters out of nervous apprehension. “Fuck,”  Bakugou sighs, dragging a sweating palm down to his pursed lips.  

He takes one look into expectant red eyes, waiting on him to say something, and he’s reminded of all the hurt he’s caused to those beautiful eyes, how he turned them from a vibrant red to a sullen gray in the span of one evening. Bakugou swears under his breath again, but he looks back at Kirishima, opening his mouth once again.  

“Eijirou, I... God, I’m sorry, I’m fucking sorry for everything. I’m sorry for calling you a selfish and spoiled bitch,” his tongue trips over the last word, cracking it immediately, but he keeps going, “and for treating you like shit. Everything I said about you, I take all of it back—I was the selfish bitch that was putting that fucking job over you, and me calling you selfish was the dumbest fucking thing I ever said to you. 

God, just thinking about all that shit I said to you—and then I had the fucking gall to give you that weak-ass apology, thinking it was actually going to solve shit. Yeah, right, I deserved getting the door slammed on my face after that.”  

“No you didn’t,” Kirishima starts, but Bakugou shakes his head in denial. “I deserved all of that shit, Eijirou. Because I treated you like you were nothing. I made you feel like you were nothing. I made you feel like you were a second choice to a job that wouldn’t give two shits if I died today or tomorrow, and that was so fucking stupid of me because nothing—absolutely nothing in this world comes close to how important you are to me. And I fuckin’ mean that, you mean more to me than all of that bullshit.”  

 The smile he gets in response to his words heals the holes punctured in his beating heart. Bakugou wants to cherish that smile, to keep it close to him and never, ever let it go, not even for a second. He looks away as he says, “You’ll probably never really forgive me after this, and that’s fine with me. I’ll keep apologizing however many times it takes, and I’ll change Ei, I swear to fucking God—I will change. I don’t ever want to see you cry or upset because of me again.”  

Bakugou turns his head to Kirishima, worried about the line of water glistening along his waterlines. “I know you’re going to change, Kats,” Kirishima says as he wipes his eyes again, and Bakugou croons hearing his nickname again. Another thing he truly missed since their fight three days ago.  

He watches Kirishima let his hand fall back onto the table and reach to grab his other wrist. With hesitance stifling his arm, Bakugou slowly reaches for him across the table, letting his own hand fall on top of the white surface.  

Kirishima grabs it, locking their fingers together in a gentle squeeze that Bakugou wasn’t expecting but was still glad for. “This means we’re still together, yeah? And that you’re still mine?”  

The other nods, smiling. “Well, until you fuck up again,” he adds.  

Bakugou only laughs, but the sound is wet in the back of his throat. He pulls their conjoined hands to his lips, peppering kisses over his knuckles and the back of his hand. “I really thought I was gonna lose you.”   

“You almost did,” Kirishima says to him, sighing from the gentle presses of soft lips on his skin. “Yeah,”  Bakugou places one last kiss on the back of his hand, his eyes traveling over his lips to the red pair staring back at him. “I almost did.”  

“I’m still super sorry about the watch. I didn’t hit you with it, right? I can’t remember if I did or not, I just stormed off and left.”  

“Don’t worry about it. I would’ve have deserved it anyway.”  

“Don’t say that, Kats.”  

Their waitress came over in the middle of their conversation, a warm smile across her face. “You two looked like you were talking about something serious, so I wanted to give you as much privacy as I could before coming over. Are you guys ready to order, or do you still need a couple of minutes?”  

Both hadn’t noticed the woman’s late arrival, too engrossed in their apologies to realize how late she was for coming to their table, and at the same time were shocked by her decency. Now that they were done, the two men placed their drink and food orders, both of them already knowing their orders for how much they frequent the café.  

The next hour and a half is spent with laughter, love, and plates of good food. They stayed up until the last minute of Kirishima’s lunch break, hand-in-hand with each other and sharing looks of adoration and love across the table. When it was finally time for them to go, Bakugou paid the bill, leaving the waitress a large tip for her generosity. They left the café hand-in-hand, Kirishima pressed close to his boyfriend’s side and Bakugou crooning at the comforting presence.  

It came with them on the drive back to the school, Bakugou relieved that his ears weren’t assaulted with the torment of jarring pop music and instead filled with something more of his and Kirishima’s style combined.  

Bakugou pulls up next to the university’s School of Journalism and Communication building when he’s back on campus. He presses the car door button, but only Kirishima’s door lifts up. “I’ll see you when you get home,” he tells him as he gets out of his car, slinging his backpack onto one shoulder. “Yeah, see ya.”  

He’s a little dejected not getting a kiss when he closes the door again, but it doesn’t bring down his relief at how well today’s lunch date went. Bakugou gets ready to pull away from the curb, but then he sees Kirishima walking in front of his car and over to his side. He stands next to his window and raps his knuckles across the tinted glass, Bakugou’s confusion steadily growing. “What?” he asks him after lowering it. “Come out really quick.”  

“Why?”  

“Just come out. Please.”  

Kirishima’s begging him to move by the pleading in his eyes and in his voice, and with a begrudging—but still very curious—sigh, Bakugou opens his door and steps out. “What do you—”  

His sentence is under a melting kiss and warm hands holding his face. Bakugou is immobile for several long seconds, but the press of a tongue lights his body into action with a surging need for more. He pulls Kirishima even closer to him, parting his lips more so the other man could lick inside his mouth, and he holds him tight, his hands falling down his back and to their normal perch above his jeans.  

Whistles go off around them, but Bakugou tunes them out. He’s too focused on the soft lips and the hot tongue on him, finally giving him what he’s been craving for that last three days. All too soon does the kiss end, Kirishima dragging his teeth over his bottom lip as he pulls from him.  

Bakugou chases after his sweet lips, his silent plea making Kirishima chuckle. “One more,”  he whispers against his mouth, and he kisses him again, his tongue licking its way into Kirishima’s mouth. The second kiss is even shorter than the first. “I have a class, Kats,” Kirishima reminds him.  

“One more and I’ll let you go.”  

Bakugou leans in for a third kiss, a chaste peck that Kirishima pulls away from in an audibly wet smooch. “Okay, you got your kisses. Let me go.”  

He sneaks in one more, smirking at Kirishima’s urgent “Kats!”   

“Alright, alright, I’m done.”  

He doesn’t let him go, though. Kirishima leans into his embrace—for a hug, squeezing the man tight around his shoulders. “Bye. Love you.”  

“Love you too,” Bakugou doesn’t hesitate to say, squeezing him back just as tightly. He gives him one more kiss to his temple and murmurs, “See you soon,” before finally letting him go, watching Kirishima head to his final class for the day. He stops just before entering the building to wave at him, a bright grin stretching across his face when Bakugou returned the gesture in a short wave of his own.  

Kirishima disappears behind the doors, and Bakugou lowers his hand to his face, touching his tingling lips. He was too close, way  too close, to losing that man, all because of his own selfish stupidity. Like he had said, Bakugou wouldn’t know what he would do with himself if that had actually happened, and he was so thankful Kirishima was willing to give him another chance after blowing this so many times already.  

He hopes this turning point would be a fresh chapter into a new start in their relationship, but then he crushes that idea and throws it away. Hope was the idea of putting faith into the universe’s hands to fix the problem without the person doing anything to help. Bakugou needed to be the one to mend their relationship together, on his own since he was the one that nearly destroyed it. Part of it was already finished thanks to the highly successful date, but there was still more work needed to be done.  

Bakugou gets back into his car, his lips twisting into an anxious smile.  

i still love you more

Kirishima comes home at six o’clock sharp, walking through the door and into the pure jubilation of the Rottie-pit mix at his feet and the rich, mouthwatering aroma of sizzling meat and vegetables in the air. He takes in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the delicious smells while shutting the door behind him, the savory aromas making him shudder as its taste spreads across his tongue.  

A wet tongue brings his attention back to his feet, switching Kirishima’s attention from the delectable scent to the puppy impatiently waiting for his attention. “Hey, Socks, you mind letting me in the house?”  

Killmonger’s answer is jumping up on Kirishima’s waist. “Socks, please—”  

“Killmonger, move your fucking ass and let him inside.”   

Kirishima only had to force his way inside a little bit before Bakugou’s booming voice pulled Killmonger out of the hallway. “That’s right, you better listen to your dad,” Kirishima tells the puppy while he toes out of his shoes. He gives Killmonger several scratches behind his ears while following the tasty scents into the kitchen, where he finds the other man standing behind the stove. Here, the smell of seasoned meat and roasting vegetables attack his nose in the most pleasant way imaginable, and Kirishima can’t help the soft sigh that escapes from his lips.  

“Hey,” Bakugou says to him, pushing around what looked like potatoes inside of a smoking skillet 

“Hey,” Kirishima repeats with a smile.  

Bakugou returns his gesture. Kirishima sees that he changed out of his fashionable clothes into something homier: a pair of gray sweat pants that sat low on his waist and his college’s t-shirt he gifted to him a year ago. Bakugou had ripped wide holes where the sleeves supposed to be, exposing the length of muscles tapering down his midriff as well as the unique sculpture tattoo inked down his right arm. He still had his diamond earring in his ear, Kirishima notices. That’s not all, either.   

His eyes travel downward. A sizable dick print was visible through the light gray fabric, the tip just shy of reaching his mid-thigh. Kirishima’s tongue poked out over his lips, wetting the corners with its smaller tip. While he could smell meat in the air, his stomach was beginning to crave a different type the longer he looked at Bakugou’s crotch. “Oi, Shitty-hair, you hear me talkin’ to you?”  

“Huh—” Kirishima tears his gaze away from the front of Bakugou’s sweats to his eyes that were suddenly on him. “You said something?”  

“Yeah, I did. Your dumbass hear anything?”  

“Sorry, was thinking about something...” Kirishima pretended not to see the knowing glint in the corners of Bakugou’s eyes, or the suddenly rising temperature in the room, particularly feeling it in his cheeks. He walks up to him, looping his arm around his waist. “What’d you say, babe?”  

“Forget it.”  

“No! Don’t be like that Kats, tell me what you said.”  

“It wasn’t important anyway, so don’t worry about it.”  

Kirishima pouts on top of his right shoulder, but Bakugou wasn’t looking at him so the effect was lost. He looks at the skillet on the stove, watching him stir around browning potatoes sprinkled in black pepper and other various spices. “Whatcha’ cookin’?” he asks him, and Bakugou answers, “We hadn’t had steak in a while. And I completely blew it the last time, so I thought I’d treat us to some tonight. Didn’t feel like paying over forty dollars when I can cook the same shit myself, anyway.”  

“Aww, babe,” Kirishima laughs over his shoulder. He wishes Bakugou could cook more often. The man was like a god in the kitchen, turning even the simplest of foods into something that looked like it came from a gourmet restaurant. He wishes he had that skill.  

Kirishima rests his chin on his shoulder, watching him swirl the spoon around the potatoes in languid strokes. It was such a rarity too, coming home to seeing him cooking. Moments like these hardly ever happened, and if they did they were so few and far in between that it felt glimpses into a past life for Kirishima. He wishes domestic things like this happened more often between them, and not after bitter circumstances.  

His thoughts are broken when Bakugou turns his head to press a kiss on his temple. “Everything’s just about ready, but there’s something else I have to do, so go put your stuff down in our room. And don’t come out until I say you can.” 

“Why?” Kirishima wanted to keep watching him cook.  

“Because I fuckin’ said so.”  

“Kats.”   

“Ugh, because I have a surprise for you. Now get the fuck outta my kitchen.”  

Now Kirishima was curious—and excited. He’s sent on his way with a hard slap across his ass, him yelping so loud that Killmonger checks on him in the kitchen. “I didn’t hit you that hard, now go—and Killmonger, out.”   

Kirishima goes into the back, the puppy following after him. He places his bag on the floor and sits on the bed in as much patience as he could muster while Bakugou did... whatever he was doing in the kitchen. He heard chairs moving across the floor and glass clinking against each other quietly, but the sound was muted during the long travel it took to reach him in the back, and it didn’t help him at all in figuring out what he was doing out there.  

He decided to pass his time by scrolling through his timeline on Twitter when Bakugou finally calls him. “Alright, I’m done.”   

Kirishima hops up off the bed, excitement coursing through his body. Bakugou’s shadow stretches across the floor in the direction of the dining room when he comes to the end of the hallway, still moving about. His shadow stops when he turns the corner, and a loud gasp is yanked out of his gaping mouth.  

Bakugou had turned their dining room into a five-star restaurant. The table, used more as a place for late-night cramming and writing essays at the last minute, shone in a polished deep mahogany that glowed like luxury underneath the dining room’s overhead lights. The center was furnished with a stunning bouquet of red roses, tucked inside of an ornated glass vase Kirishima had never seen in their house before. The petals were such a rich and deep red, they appeared fake in his eyes. Red candles burned at a safe distance away from the beautiful petals, encapsulating the atmosphere inside of their tiny, dancing flames.  

“Surprise,” Bakugou said. His smile was nervous as he looked between Kirishima’s awestricken face and the lavishly decorated table.  

Kirishima’s hand went to his mouth.  “Y-you... you did all of this for me?”   

Bakugou nods, and the emotions choking his voice threaten to spill over his eyes. Bakugou noticed his watering gaze and quickly begins to panic, “Is—is it too much? I can take it all down if you want, it’s not a problem—”  

“No, no please, don’t.”  Kirishima swallows down the emotions in his throat, smiling at his boyfriend. “It’s beautiful. Thank you, Kats.”  

“It—it’s nothing,” Bakugou stammers, turning away from his boyfriend’s smile with pink-dusted cheeks. Kirishima walks up to him, pulling his face back in his direction and leaning up to give him a heartfelt peck. “It’s everything, baby,”  he says over his lips.  

Bakugou’s smile is a nervous, crooked thing, reminding Kirishima of a little kid who was praised for doing an exceptional job on something. He smiles at him and his cute expression.  

Tonight, I’m gonna ride him.   

Bakugou steps away from him and walks to the table, pulling out his chair for him. The chivalrous move only further cements Kirishima’s promise as he takes a seat in the offered chair.  

“The steak probably won’t be the best,” Bakugou warns him while he heads into the kitchen, Kirishima hearing the slight annoyance in his voice as he says, “I ended up starting on it too late.”  

“That’s fine, I’m still gonna eat it regardless.”  

Kirishima sees him wincing in his peripherals, but he doesn’t make a comment about it. He watches Bakugou pick up two steaming plates full of food with the appropriate utensils tucked on their edges and carry them to the table, setting the first plate in front of him and the second plate where he was going to sit. The rich smells of meat and vegetables entice him to look down and stare at the most exquisite plate he’s had the privilege of seeing.  

It was like Bakugou had pulled a picture of a steak dinner out of some high-class restaurant’s menu and plopped it down in front of him to eat. The filet mignon was seared to a perfect dark brown complexion, long coils of steam rising from its lightly charred top. Long green stalks of asparagus glistened in a buttery glaze, and the potatoes looked like they would melt in his mouth before he even bit down on them, their coating roasted to a golden-brown with green parsley flakes and black pepper sprinkled on top.  

Bakugou went into the kitchen one last time, fetching two wine glasses, a large bottle of—Stella Rosa? I'm riding him so fucking hard tonight— and a small corkscrew. He sets the glasses beside each other's plates and rips the red seal from around the bottle’s tip, sticking the point of the screw into the cork and ripping it out with a sharp pop!  Grabbing Kirishima’s glass first, he pours the dark red liquid to the appropriate capacity and takes his seat, pouring the same amount in his glass. 

“Alright,” Bakugou says, pushing the bottle to the side, “you can eat.”  

Kirishima was waiting for the command. He grabs the fork and knife and cuts into the steak, marveling at how easily the metal blade slid through the tender meat, revealing its fleshy pink middle to him.  Just how I like it.   

He takes a bite, Bakugou watching him closely, and Kirishima wants to yell at him for lying to his face about the steak tasting bad—he actually does yell at him. “What the hell do you mean this might not taste good? This taste’s freaking amazing, Katsuki!”

He takes another bite and moans. “This is way better than any steakhouse I’ve been too,”  he mumbles around a mouthful of tender meat, practically melting under the taste. He didn’t even have to put any steak sauce on it; the array of juices that were spreading across his tongue were savory enough for him.  

Bakugou shrugs off his compliment, but Kirishima can see the prideful mirth drifting in his eyes. “It would’ve been even better if I let it soak overnight instead of all this afternoon,” he says before taking a bite of the vegetables. Kirishima would have disagreed with him, but he couldn’t stop eating the delicious steak. He moved on to the vegetables next, carrying a forkful of potatoes into his mouth, and his eyes fluttered shut. Just like he predicted earlier, the starchy vegetable melts over his tongue.  

The dining table became an environment of forks scraping plates and comfortable conversations about mundane things, broken in by the occasional licking of jaws beneath the table. The peace Kirishima felt during this, being able to talk and laugh and enjoy his boyfriend’s presence, was insurmountable. He never wanted this moment to end; their house truly felt happy again, the glows from the lights and smiles around the dinner table lifting away the last dregs of darkness still clouding inside their small home.  

They both finished around the same time, chasing down the last drop of wine from their glasses. Tranquil silence settled above their heads; Kirishima fed a small piece of steak he saved for Killmonger while Bakugou chastised him for it, saying that he ate already. “But he can have a little bit of steak too. He deserves it for being a good boy.”  

“He’s gonna get fat if you keep feeding him table scraps,” Bakugou warns him, but Kirishima waves the statement off. “I don’t feed him scraps all the time—” 

Bakugou’s look cuts him off. “Okay, maybe a few times. Not every time though!”  

Bakugou had the same look in his eyes, but it disappears in a heavy eye roll. “Whatever. I bought some ice-cream for you if you want it.”  

You’re saying I’m getting Socks fat, but you’re doing the same thing to me too.   

Kirishima keeps the comment to himself. As tempting as the frozen treat was, especially after such an exquisite meal, Kirishima was craving something equally sweet and just as rich as the filet mignon. “Maybe later tonight,” he tells Bakugou as the man gets up to throw his plate away, grabbing Kirishima’s on his way to the kitchen. When Bakugou comes back to the table, he says, “I think I’m a little overdue for something.”  

Bakugou halts in the middle of grabbing the wine glasses and bottle and turns to Kirishima with a confused expression. “Overdue for what?”  

Kirishima waits a moment for Bakugou to catch on; meanwhile, his eyes take on a sultry gaze, darkening into a deep red that matched the color of the liquid inside the wine bottle.  

Three black dots appear one by one over Bakugou’s head until his eyebrows shoot up to his forehead in an exclamation point. “Oh.”  

“Yeah.”  

“I knew what you were talkin’ about.” 

“Of course you did,” Kirishima says teasingly. “Are you sure though? We don’t have to, I’m fine with that. I know you still might be pissed at me and—” 

“Katsuki.”  

Bakugou comes to an abrupt halt in his rambling. “You took me out to lunch, and you just cooked me a bomb ass dinner, and you even bought me ice-cream. I’m not even thinking about being mad at you, I’m thinking about either riding you so hard that I break my hip or you railing me into the bed until you break my back. So,”  

Kirishima stands up from the table, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure about this.” 

Bakugou’s Adam’s apple bobs in a long and heavy swallow. Kirishima internally shivers at the film of lust that travels over his carmine eyes, sharpening his fire-like irises.  

“Get your ass in the room, then. And have a choice already made, before I choose for you.” 

His internal shudders become visible, coursing down his spine and ending in pleasurable zaps around his toes. “Yes, daddy,”  Kirishima says, the word dripping wantonly from his lips. The effect it has on Bakugou makes him giggle with mischievous pride—he hears the tight breath drawn between his lips and sees the lust in his eyes darken the sharp color.  

Kirishima walks to the hallway, throwing a hooded gaze over his shoulder from the entrance. “Don’t keep me waiting forever.”  

He’s walking down the hallway, his smile a wide simper across his face at the growl that pushes up his back. As usual, Killmonger trots behind him, but he’s called back to where Bakugou was with a sharp whistle.  

Kirishima closes the bedroom door, falling back on it as the weight of the current situation falls onto him. He feels nothing but giddy excitement inside of his body, which is probably not a good thing because he should still be mad at Bakugou—but Kirishima can’t find one single reason to give a shit about something like that. It’s been three days since he last even touched his body and several more days since he’s had his dick splitting him apart. He needed this right now. He’d figure out his emotions about everything after tonight, if he’d even have the energy left to.  

He goes into the bathroom to prep himself for the intense bed-breaking session, taking extra care to clean himself in preparation for his boyfriend. He leaves the bathroom in only his briefs and walks over to the bed, stretching his body across the soft duvet. The front of his briefs rubs over the thick blanket, pleasure sparking through his stiffening cock at the upcoming thrill that was soon to arrive.  

Kirishima hears someone approaching the door and flips over as Bakugou walks into the room, blocking Killmonger from following behind him with his legs. “Get back,” he tells the puppy, successfully pushing the pit mix out of the way of the door. He closes it on his face, and like clockwork deep whines pass through the door. “No.” 

Bakugou swung open the door to say the command and closed it again. Killmonger restarts his whining, but a sharp “Enough,”  has the puppy shuffling down the hallway. “What a fuckin’ baby,” Bakugou says when the dog is fully away from the door. “Why are you looking at me like that?”  

Kirishima was glaring at him as he came towards the bed, and as he climbed on top of him he gently slapped his arm and said, “Don’t make fun of my son, jerk.”  

“Tell your son to fuckin’ grow up, then.”  

Lips press along his neck, over his jaws, next to his mouth, Kirishima sighing, “Leave him alone,”  under the gentle assault. A puff of laughter spills over Bakugou’s lips into his parted mouth, and Kirishima leans upward to connect them, sucking his lips into a deep and passionate kiss he heartily moans into. His hands slide up Bakugou’s hips and into the holes in his shirt, leaving cool touches in his wake that Bakugou shivers under as they make their way to the back of his neck, his fingers intertwining over it.  

His rapidly warming touches work deep moans into Kirishima's mouth, the sound resonating over their tongues. A small squeak escapes through the redhead’s lips into the heady air, Bakugou having coaxed the sound out of him by grabbing both of his thighs to sit above his hips, squeezing the swell of thick muscle around it. Their erections, protected behind tightening fabric, rub together and Kirishima locks his ankles behind Bakugou, keeping his thick bulge pinned right above his in a deliciously hot friction every time the other moved.  

Bakugou pulls away from him, his wet lips peeling into a lazy smile. Kirishima chases after his lips, but a hand tangling itself in his hair holds him to the bed, his other hand still groping his thigh muscle. “You think you’re being sneaky,”  Bakugou  leans forward, murmuring underneath his ear, “but I know what you’re doing.”   

“What’re you talking about, Ka—a-ah!”   

Lips are back on him, but they’re in a new position, sucking gentle bites and wet kisses closer to his collarbone. At the same time, a hard grind into Kirishima’s erection sends a flurry of stars to the back of his head and Bakugou’s name being whispered on a shaky, gasping breath. Bakugou’s lips, teeth, and rolling hips reduce Kirishima into a pliant mess underneath the other man; the muscles in his neck relax, his head rolling to the side to give more room for Bakugou to mar with sweet love bites. His hips move in conjunction with his, faltering only when his teeth rolled over his most sensitive areas on his neck.  

A particularly hard bite over his collarbone halts his hips up and cants them upwards, Bakugou’s name falling from Kirishima’s bottom lip in a broken and stuttering sigh. “K-Kats...”  

Muffled whining outside the door drives a crack into the warming atmosphere. “Killmonger, shut the fuck up,” Bakugou shouts, his lips separating from Kirishima’s neck in a lewd pop.  

His yell hushes the puppy for approximately two seconds. “Kats, just let him in. He’s not gonna stop,” Kirishima says when the whines turn into mini barks. “Fuck no. The last time I did that, he wouldn’t stop fucking humping me.”  

“Put him in his crate then,”  Kirishima sighs around his neck, kissing down his throat. “Then we’re gonna have to hear his bitching up close.”  

Bakugou turns back to the door, Kirishima’s mouth kissing the empty air. “Killmonger, enough!”   

The command works yet again, the pit mix falling silent behind the door. Both men sigh in unison when they hear Killmonger lay down in front of the door with a quiet huff, Bakugou grumbling “‘m  gonna  kill that fuckin’ dog, I swear.”   

“He’s just a baby, Kats.”  

“See, it’s that fuckin’ attitude right there that’s enabling this shit. You’re the reason why he keeps crying when you shut the door on him.”  

“Do not act like I’m the only one at fault,” Kirishima haughtily says, “you’re just as guilty at enabling some of his problems too.”  

“Yeah, but who’s trying to fix them right now?”  

Kirishima narrows his eyes at his boyfriend and the man gives it to him right back. You’re not about to kill my boner with this, Kirishima tells him through his mind, so he ends the unnecessary tension with a small cant of his hips. “Fine, whatever. Just get back to kissing me.”  

Bakugou gives him a coy smile that he rolls his eyes too, but he easily falls back into the mood when the other resumes widening the bruise on his collarbone. He travels further down, forcing Kirishima’s thighs apart as he moves to his chest, leaving behind a trail of soft and teasing bites. His fingers slid up with the motion, burying inside the nest of dark brown roots.  

Bakugou’s lips hover above the small Aries constellation tattooed onto the left side of his chest, kissing the tiny stars inked onto his skin. A deep rumble in his throat responds to Kirishima’s hands cupping his face in a soft caress. He turns his face into his left palm, kissing the center of his hand that has the other purring under the incredibly soft touch. Bakugou kisses him in the same spot again as he sits up, holding his left palm to his lips to press more kisses to his hand.  

The loving embraces made Kirishima’s heart flutter inside of his chest. This side of him he never revealed to anybody else except for him was just another example of why Kirishima still stayed with him. Kaminari’s words from before still made him angry, basically trying to get him to believe a myth that was the furthest thing away from the truth. “You don’t know anything about him, Eijirou.”   

Bakugou loosens his grip on his hand, just enough for Kirishima to pull them down to his chest. He abolishes his friend’s lie from his mind, smiling at the man he knew better than anybody else. I love you so much, Kats.   

He smiles back at him as if he heard his unspoken confession, the pull at the corners of his lips almost going unnoticed through Kirishima's lust-filled gaze. Slipping his hand out of his grasp, Bakugou tugs his shirt off his body, discarding the ripped clothing with a toss someplace on the floor.  

Broad shoulders, a muscled chest, and a toned abdomen meets Kirishima’s gaze, and he feasts upon the sight without shame, drinking in the sculpted bodice sitting above him. His hooded eyes fall to the Libra tattoo between his sternum, a soft smile pulling across the lower half of his face as his fingers trace over the small constellation. 

Kirishima loops his arms around Bakugou’s neck and pulls him into another deep kiss when the man lowers himself back onto his chest. “I’m so lucky,”  he hums into his bottom jaw, sucking a reddening kiss there, “to have someone like you in my life.”   

“ Ei,”    

He kisses down his throat, purring in response to the deep rumble surrounding his name. Several red spots bloom in spots left behind his teeth, softly rolling and pulling his skin. He kisses up the developing hickies to his lips, easily falling into another breathtaking kiss. “Daddy...”   

A deep shudder he feels down to his toes has him smiling, the other responding with a throaty growl he can feel deep inside his chest. Bakugou answers him with a rumbling growl that sends tingles down to the redhead’s toes. Kirishima remembers the first time he called him that; an accident that quickly turned into a routine after seeing how easily it riled the other up.  

He murmurs the name into his ear, reveling in the calloused hands that seize his thighs in a strong grip and the hard grind of his hips, flushing their erections together in a savory drag.  

Bakugou resumes his trail of kisses down Kirishima’s body, making another stop around an erect dark nipple. Bakugou wraps his lips around the sensitive flesh, sucking the tip into his searing hot mouth, his tongue curling above and around it. One hand still holds his thigh while the other abandons its grip in favor of the other nipple, twisting and flicking the pink teat until it pebbles into a hard bud under his fingertips.  

“Kats,”  Kirishima’s voice is a tight moan, a whimper clipping the last consonant. A soothing groan surrounds his nipple, and he’s arching into the wet heat, shuddering as the hot drag of a tongue pulls over the hypersensitive flesh.  “Fuck...”  

Bakugou pops off his nipple in a wet salacious sound, smirking above the glistening tip. “We just got started and you already look so wrecked baby,” he purrs into Kirishima’s flushed face.  

His cheeks were the same shade as his hair, a deep and ruddy crimson that traveled down to his bruising neck. Red hair laid around his head in a crimson halo on top of the pillows, his eyes flushed in the dark same hue, a shadow of lust filming over his dark eyes.  

Kirishima looked absolutely wrecked; he felt that way too, sucking in deep breaths through a heavily rising and falling chest.  

Bakugou sucks his sensitive nipple into his mouth one last time, rolling the bud between his teasing teeth, and then he pulls away from it, leaving behind a small bite above the flushed tip. “Stop teasing me,” Kirishima whines, squirming his hips in the other’s lap. He feels a hard bulge nestling in between his lower cheeks, wedging the fabric between them as the other grinds his erection into his clothed bottom.  

“Have you decided?” Bakugou asks him, Kirishima melting under his velvety voice. He leans closer, sandwiching his cock into Kirishima’s ass, his lips close to his ear, pinching the lobe between his teeth.  

Kirishima trembles. “How you want me to fuck you?”  Bakugou whispers, hot and full of promising desires.  

A deep thrust of hips colliding into his leaking cock coaxes a deep moan from the depths of Kirishima’s throat. He repeats the maneuver again, and Kirishima comes to a swift conclusion; he can ride him in the morning before he has to go back to school.  

“Wreck me,”  Kirishima answers, his voice light and airy from the deep thrusts rolling into his groin, I want you to wreck me, daddy. I don’t wanna feel my legs or anything else for a week.”   

His body stiffens under the dark growl above his chest. Bakugou leans back, and Kirishima is seized underneath the dilated pupils inside of his lust-filled gaze, black pools of pure debauchery filling in the rounded circles.  

“Turn over,” Bakugou demands him, and Kirishima whines under his order, flipping his body so his back was facing him. He lowers himself into position, spreading and bending his legs and pushing his chest to the bed, forming the perfect arch in his back the way he knows the other man likes it.  

Hot hands travel up and over the front and backs of his thighs, fingers teasing at the hem of his briefs, slipping underneath the tight fabric. Kirishima falls back into the palms, a purr spreading over his chest, but it ends sharply as a hand comes down on his covered cheek, a muted ringing in the air.  

Bakugou repeats the hit, his hand coming down in a different spot, and Kirishima’s purrs deepen into a groan. “My little slut,”  Bakugou growls, rubbing the smarting area through the soft fabric.  

Kirishima mewls, a soft and pathetic sound. His hips are pulled back into the man’s thick erection, but it’s the man’s chest coming in contact with his back and the light touch of his lips on the back of his neck that has him shivering. Bakugou lips are soft velvet over his sensitive skin, no specific pattern as they lay kisses over the expanse of his neck and shoulders. He reaches a particularly sensitive spot behind his ear and licks a hot stripe over it, Kirishima moaning as teeth roll the skin into a deep red bruise.  

His lips obtain somewhat of a pattern as they travel further down, pressing into the lines and dips of muscle and fat that span down his back. Kirishima’s moans turn into light gasps at the application of teeth in some areas, nipping lightly tanned flesh with gentle pressure. Bakugou’s kisses go lower, peppering around his tailbone, and Kirishima sucks in a quiet breath at the feel of fingers pulling the tight waistband of his briefs down his hips, cool air washing over the gradual exposure of his ass cheeks.  

A soft press of lips on his left cheek has Kirishima moaning, fuck yes. Bakugou leaves a dark hickey in the spot, his hands stroking the plush and fatty muscle, eventually morphing into full-on massages that mold and squeeze the plump muscles into his palms.  

Kirishima sighs in pure indulgence in the comfort of calloused palms tending to his ass, his eyes flickering shut as they travel lower and lower, massaging his upper thighs. A soft sound opens his eyes again, and he throws a curious glance over his shoulder.  

Bakugou’s eyes are soft, his red gaze full of unspoken love that’s reflected in the smile peeking his lips. He squeezes his hands back up Kirishima’s ass, lips parting as he says, “That moment, I didn’t realize how close I was to losing you. It just hit me right then.”  

He leans forward, one hand supporting him beside his arm, the other cupping his chin and pulling him into an affectionate kiss. A blissful moan is swallowed down the blonde’s throat, pulled out of the redhead by his tongue. Kirishima’s eyes flutter shut as Bakugou pulls away, dragging his teeth over his bottom lip and then snatching it up again in another sweet kiss.  

“I know I said this before,” he says over his boyfriend’s kiss-swollen lips, “but let me say it again. I’m sorry about everything, Eijirou. Let me make it up to you baby, please. I promise I will.”  

Kirishima chases Bakugou’s mouth for a heated but chaste kiss. “I know you will, Kats,” he says over his lips, “I believe you. Now please,” he pushes his hips backward, need dripping in his voice, “keep kissing me. And don’t stop.”   

Bakugou’s eyes harden into their predatory gaze, sending a full-body shiver racing down his spine. Bakugou kisses the side and back of his neck, his shoulders, and finally his back before sitting up, holding up Kirishima’s falling hips. “Keep ‘em up, just like this. Yeah, that’s it. Good boy.”  

Kirishima’s crooning at his praise with a lilting sound. He watches Bakugou crawling and reaching for the nightstand's top drawer, retrieving a dark blue box from inside.  

His eyes widen. “Is that...?”  

“Yeah,” Bakugou says, ripping open the carton and pulling out a small bottle, tossing the empty carton onto the floor. He drops the bottle of lube next to his bent legs and slips his fingers inside Kirishima’s partly drawn briefs, pulling them down his thighs and calves and finally tugging them off his feet, throwing them somewhere onto the floor. He spreads Kirishima open, revealing his winking entrance to his scarlet-orange eyes.  

The touch is everything all at once. Piercingly cold and so, so hot, it sears his flesh on the first contact, making him jolt and hiss at the same time. Bakugou flattens his tongue over the tight brown ring, coating the corded nerves in a thin layer of spit as he licks up, dragging the soft bumps of his taste-buds over sensitive flesh, coming to an end in a kiss above his hole. He repeats the action, going lower this time, his tongue starting at the thin skin behind his ballsack and licking up. 

Kirishima’s airy breaths turn into open-mouthed silent pants as his tongue repeats once more, dampening a dark spot on top of the pillow cover his head had fallen onto. Bakugou licks up his taint to his winking hole again, wrapping his lips around the ring of muscle and sucking lightly.  

Kirishima’s teeth dig into his bottom lip, a soft groan barely squeezing through. Bakugou’s tongue teases his rim, and his soft groan is sucked down his throat in a short gasp, arid against the back of it.  

Slowly, frustratingly slowly, the tip of the wet muscle breaches him, fleeting strokes disappearing and reappearing inside his walls. “Katsu— ki!”   

Bakugou’s chuckle washes over his wet hole. Kirishima wants to curse him out, but his tongue turns into lead inside his mouth as a thick one is fully sheathed inside him, licking deep inside of his walls.  

He eats him out like a second dinner, curling his tongue over sensitive nerves and tightening walls. Kirishima bucks his hips onto the expert muscle, moaning in wanton need for more. The tip of his tongue flicks close to a bundle of tightly corded nerves and his arms give out, his chest falling onto the bed without their support. Bakugou pulls his hips closer to the bed, repositioning himself without his mouth leaving his ass.  

“Katsuki,”  Kirishima's voice was a sob in the back of his throat, Bakugou's tongue almost reaching his prostate again. His answer is a smack across his left cheek, the sound sharper without the barrier of fabric to soften it. Kirishima’s mewling under the smarting pain that spreads over his bare cheek and the long tongue stretching out his ass, coaxing more pitiful sounds from the depths of his throat.  

Bakugou pulls his tongue out of him in a curling motion and slips it back inside, his lips sucking on the ringed muscle.  

“Katsuki, please...!”  Kirishima swallows and gasps. He eats him out until he’s on the verge of cumming, the tip of his dick beading in clear pearls of precum around the flared slit. His hips stutter, unsure of whether they want to get away from the tongue inside his ass or push back for the tongue to reach deeper.  

“I’m gonna cum,”  he warns, the blonde still eating him out with fervor. Kirishima bites down on his bottom lip, hoping to stave off his climax for a few moments longer, but he can feel the familiar build-up of pressure coiling in his gut, dripping down into his tightening balls.  

Bakugou finally feels it too, how his walls tighten and relax and tighten again around his incoming orgasm. He gives his walls one final deep lick before he’s pulling his tongue out, the tip catching on his rim.  

His hole winks around the lack of something inside it, the rim’s circular edge puffy and soaked with spit. “Fuck, fuck me baby, I can’t,”  Kirishima swallows around a pool of spit in his throat, “I can’t wait any longer.”   

“So pushy,” Bakugou simpers, sucking a deep hickey into his right cheek. Kirishima makes a piteous sound. “You need it that badly?”  

“Yes,”  Kirishima’s voice is thick with arousal and need. Bakugou sits up, grabbing the bottle beside his leg and twisting the cap open, popping the white seal with his thumb nail. Kirishima listens to the soft commotion behind him in anticipation, his entire body jolting forward as wet fingers sink into his asshole two at a time.  

“Keep talking,” Bakugou demands, pouring more of the lube onto his stuffed hole, Kirishima shivering as long lines drip hotly over his heavy balls.  

“I want you inside me,”  Kirishima says, his breath stuttering as two thick fingers stretch his puffy walls apart. “I need you inside me s—so bad, filling me with your f-fat dick, fucking me so—so g-good—oh, fuck,”   

His hips roll with Bakugou’s hand, grinding them down onto his prostate. “Tell me how good I fuck you, baby,” Bakugou says, rubbing his prostate in tight circles.  

Kirishima pants, “So good daddy, you fuck me s—...so g-good, oh yes, like that...”  Bakugou was thrusting his fingers inside of him at a good pace, one that Kirishima’s heartbeat matched. He gripped the duvet underneath his sweating body with trembling fingers, the familiar pressure in his balls building back up again. “Kats—daddy, I’m  gonna cum again—hurry up and fuck me, please, please, please—!”   

Fingers slip out of him, his hole winking around nothing once again. Kirishima feels the bed dip and covers rustle, Bakugou pulling his sweats off his legs and dropping them onto the mess on the floor. Rolls of muscle shift underneath tatted skin, the skulls on his arms coming to life almost as Bakugou grabs his hips.  

Wordlessly, Kirishima gets himself back into his previous position, his hips at the perfect angle for deep penetration.  

“Good.”   

If he had the appropriate genitalia, his inner thighs would have been soaked. Gone was the smooth and melted chocolate of his voice; it was a husky, gravelly sound, scratching down Kirishima’s back and churning inside his guts. His voice told Kirishima one thing:  

He was going to get fucked.   

Bakugou grabs the bottle of lube again, twisting the cap back open and pouring a generous amount into his palm before slathering it over his long cock, sitting the opened bottle on top of the nightstand. Kirishima licks his lips while he watches him, the blonde pumping himself with quick jerks while his other hand rested on top of his hip.  

“You better scream  my name, you got that?”  

Kirishima almost didn’t hear him, nodding half a second later. His eyes were locked onto the man’s dick—a beautiful, thick part of him, just like his thighs, the tip a delicious shade of pink. A pair of heavy balls tempted Kirishima’s fingers and lips, his tongue wetting his bottom lip. He wants that thick cock deep inside him so bad, tearing him apart from the inside out, ruining him beyond belief. “I want every motherfucker in this building to hear how good I’m fucking this fat ass.”  

A harsh slap that makes his cheeks jiggle accentuates his command, tearing his hungry gaze away from his dick. Kirishima swallows a spit-covered breath, “Yeah, yeah, I will, just put it in me, please.”  

 Bakugou chuckles at his impatience. He pulls his hips closer at the same time he shifts his own hips forward, the wet tip of his cock sliding down Kirishima’s crack and kissing his entrance.  

Red eyes flutter upwards at the heavy press. It’s a tight drag of wet skin over wet skin, slowly inching inside a cavern of intense heat.  

Both parties hiss, Kirishima whining at the end while Bakugou swore. He pushes forward some more, engulfing himself into that tight heat until it’s halfway around his cock, and then he’s pulling out again, back to the tip before rocking his hips forward.  

Each drawn-out drag sends sparks across Kirishima’s skin. It wasn’t enough, he needed more—he wanted more.  He groans as the blonde pushes to the same length, stopping short while another four inches of his cock were left out. “Shit, you’re still so fuckin’ tight,”  Bakugou hisses above him, pulling his hips back. “Relax, you gotta relax for me, Ei.”  

Tension Kirishima was unaware he had released at the touch of thumbs into the dimples on his hips, rubbing circles into the light dents. Bakugou slides his cock into his body again, tight heat swallowing him halfway, over halfway, and finally down to his pelvis, fully sheathing him inside. Bakugou groans at the same time Kirishima sighs, “Yes,”  once every inch of the man’s girth is inside him, a sizable weight in his stomach that gives him a bloated, comfortable feel.  

The mattress whines beneath him, joined by the steady creaking of wood and metal. The back of the headboard thumps against the wall on every other beat, the bedframe a steady monotone beneath the soft claps of hips against cheeks. Above that are Kirishima’s pants and moans, a continuous stream breaking only once in a low whine when Bakugou’s dick scrapes close to his prostate.  

“You feel so fucking good, Ei,” he purrs deeply, dragging one hand from his hip down to his thigh and bringing it back up, a sharp slap resonating in the air. “Taking my cock so well, like you were born to take it.”  

Kirishima reminds him that he was with a slow grind of his hips, his ass rubbing into his pelvic bone. He croons under the smack he’s rewarded with, the sound piercing above him. Bakugou groans, “Do that again.”   

He does, much slower, taking his time in bringing his hips around in a circle for the man, and he’s rewarded with another smack and a deep, lip-biting thrust.

“Fuck, daddy,”  The pornographic sound of a lip, previously sucked into a biting grasp, releases in a wet sound at another deep stroke. “Yeah, keep doing that.”   

He thrusts back into the third stroke, the tip of the other’s girth firmly hitting his prostate dead-on. “O-oh, god, y-yes,”  Kirishima whimpers, his hips falling slightly only so that the next set of thrusts was attacking that spot.  Bakugou adjusts his thrusts to the new position, his strokes pushing in deep and grinding into the oversensitive organ. His hips do slow rolls into the new angle, whines and mewls coaxing out of the redhead, and then a splitting thrust into his prostate has a feeling akin to lightning crackling across his spine.  

“F—fuck!”   

More of the same powerful strokes pushes Kirishima face-first into the pillows, his arms giving out on him a second time. He’s still supported by his hips as Bakugou drills deep into his ass, the tip of his cock a bruising battering ram into the sensitive organ inside of him.  

Every thrust has the headboard hitting the wall now, a pleasant cadence for their neighbors to hear. Joining it, high-pitched cries of the blonde’s name in a constant state of repetition, sometimes followed by a plea, sometimes followed up with a curse.  

The lascivious symphony of his voice, the beating headboard, and his moist walls stretching and pulling is a sinful song to Kirishima’s ears. He can only imagine what his boyfriend saw—the pink blur that disappeared rapidly between their hips, spearing his walls constantly with its thick girth.  

Bakugou’s chest falls onto his back, sealing together by the droplets of sweat pouring into flexing lines. A thick arm comes around the front of his chest and picks him up, pressing him closer to the searing body heat riding on his back. Kirishima comes up with a groan, and then a high-pitch cry cuts off the sound as the thick shaft inside him slips over his prostate and into his guts.  

“F-fuck, again,”  the redhead gasps, clutching the arm supporting his chest with his hand around his wrist.  

“Like this?”   

Bakugou’s voice was molten lava in Kirishima’s ear, hot and sultry inside his head. He gives him that same drag of his cock, so long and heavy, the redhead tastes in the back of his throat. Lips find their way up to his neck, kissing over the multitude of bruises darkening over his throat. A slurred mantra of “more, right there daddy, more, right there”  is laced underneath the unbroken cadence of flesh smacking flesh, hips and balls colliding into each other at a consistent pace.  

His cock, a lethal piston currently carving out his lower abdomen, slips even deeper, each stroke rearranging the makeup of his organs while sliding over his abused prostate at the same time. Tears stream down his flushed cheeks, Kirishima wailing Bakugou’s name.   

“C’mere .”   

His growl drips into the marrow of his bones. Kirishima’s empty for a brief second; he’s manhandled onto his back, legs thrown over an inked and bare shoulder, his thighs bent at an angle that should have been impossible to muster but only gave him a pleasurable burn deep in his hamstrings.  

Bakugou folds him in half and pushes back inside him, sliding back into his guts with hardly any resistance, right down to his balls.  “Oh God, d-daddy...!”   

Kirishima’s moan is swallowed into a bruising kiss. Bakugou’s dick forms a small bump in his abdomen, quickly disappearing and reappearing under his quivering skin. 

“That’s right, Ei,”  Bakugou says close to his lips, his breath a hot puff of air over the wet and plump flesh,  “say my name, fuckin’ scream it, baby. Tell everyone who’s fucking you right now.”   

“D-daddy!”   

“Louder.”   

He screams it from the bowels of his chest, amplified by a splitting thrust slicing his stomach, pushing every organ above into his ribcage. His tears are kissed away, Bakugou’s lips going down into the crook of his neck where they turn from feathery touches into skin-pulling suctions along his skin.  

“You sound so beautiful,”  Bakugou says in between the sloppy kisses, and Kirishima cries. “Fuck, you look so beautiful right now—you are beautiful. Ei, you’re gorgeous, amazing, the best—ah, fuck—and I’m so lucky to have you. I love you, I love you, I love you so fucking—much! S-shit!”   

Kirishima feels a twitch inside of his walls, a similar one traveling up the length of his cock. His lay flat over his abdomen, the tip flushed almost a deep purple at being neglected for so long. Lines of precum drool out of the slit and into the outlines of his abs, staining his glistening skin some more.  

Kirishima loops his arms around Bakugou’s neck, his nails raking plow lines into his shoulders, next to the horns of the ram skull across his upper back. “I love you too,”  he breathes out, his voice jumping into a pitched lilt on a devastating thrust inside his guts. “I love you, Kah-suki, daddy, daddy...”   

Bakugou shuts his growing mantra up with an open-mouthed kiss, another reaching a spot close his ear. “Inside, or outside,”  he asks him, the question punctuated by another twitch against his walls.  

“Inside,”  Kirishima  gasps, “fill me up, breed me, f-fuck,”   

Bakugou sits up with a guttural growl, gripping the backs of his thighs in strong hands. He pushes them down until the man’s knees are parallel to his ears.  

The next series of thrusts forms a hazy film over his eyes. Bakugou is laying into him with strokes that leaves the redhead disorientated and seeing stars. Words don’t even form anymore; his voice is a garbled mess, Bakugou barely making out the pleas and warnings of the man approaching his climax.  

Bakugou’s cock crashes into his prostate and Kirishima’s back arches off the red comforter, “Daddy!”  keening over his lips. His dick twitches over his abdomen, and long ropes of white semen arc across his skin, white streaks reaching his chest. He clenches down on Bakugou’s cock through his orgasm, and the man’s hips go rigid, heat cinching around his twitching girth.  

Warmth spreads inside of Kirishima’s walls. Bakugou makes stuttering motions with his hips as his balls empty inside the redhead, painting his guts in thick, white fluid. Slow-grinding rolls have him groaning as Bakugou pushes his seed deeper inside him, and then he’s pulling out of him, thin white bridges connecting his shaft and tip to his stretched rim snapping from gravity. Appearing in its wake, a trail of white semen, slowly leaking over his rim and down his crack.  

The come-down for both of them takes a full minute, Kirishima spending a few extra milliseconds as he took the full brunt of Bakugou’s dick. Chest spasms ripple at each attempt of dragging in breaths down a ruined throat. He swallows, wincing at the raw feeling of pulled muscles both in his throat and along the back of his thighs as Bakugou lowers his legs onto his waist. Kirishima’s eyes float up to the spinning ceiling, fluttering shut.  

A soft whine too animalistic to be human floats into the quiet room. “Oh, my fucking god,”  Bakugou groans in a tired breath above him.  

Kirishima’s face crinkles, a soft snort huffing over his lips. “That’s your fuckin’ dog, Shitty-hair.”  

“No, I’m not laughing at that.”   

Dear God, his voice sounded like pure hell. He opens his eyes and tilts his head to Bakugou, lightly giggling at the scowl in between his brows. “What the fuck are you laughing for, then?”  

“Earlier today,”  Kirishima swallows around his bruised throat, “Mina said something about how guys who were guilty always gave the best dick. I don’t even know how we got onto that conversation, I can’t remember who started it, but I didn’t really believe her until just now. Because oh my God, that was the best dick I ever got in my life.”   

“I knew you were hanging out with a bunch of fucking idiots,” Bakugou says with a deeper scowl, but Kirishima sees the prideful mirth swelling in his eyes and across his chest. Kirishima sits up, wincing at the pain blooming across his lower torso and the slide of cum down his ass. “I’m serious,”  he croaks, brushing his lips next to the corner of his boyfriend’s mouth, “that was amazing.”   

“You don’t have to tell me that. I know.”  

Kirishima’s airy chuckle is cut short by another wince as Bakugou slides him onto his waist. His eyes flash in apology and Kirishima cups his face, kissing both of his cheeks, his nose, and then his forehead. He keeps kissing him, down his jaws, over the hickies on his neck, and then back up to his lips, draping his arms over his shoulders.  

“I love you,”  he says after he kisses his lips a second time.  

Bakugou looks away, a soft pout tugging his lips. “Say it back.”   

“I’m sorry.”  

Not what I was expecting.  

Bakugou’s eyes close with a deep sigh, and he turns to him slowly, reopening them when he faces the other. “I still can’t stop thinking about what I said to you and I just—…I’m sorry, Ei...”  

Kirishima holds his face again, their noses bumping together as he pulls him close.  “Hey, no more of that, okay? I know you’re sorry, so you don’t have to keep apologizing anymore. Let’s just put this behind us already.”   

He kisses him on the lips, and then underneath his left eye, rubbing a tender circle into the blonde’s cheek.  “Alright,”  Bakugou sighs, turning his face into his palm and laying a kiss there. “No more apologies.”  

“None.”   

Kirishima smiles at the second kiss placed into the center of his hand.  “Can we take a shower now?”  he asks him, the other heartily agreeing with him. “Yes. It’s hot, and I feel fucking disgusting.”  

Kirishima rolls off of his hips with a laugh in his sore throat. He grabs the forgotten cap for the lube and stretches over to place it back on the bottle, an uncomfortable burn riding up his back from it that twists his brows in pain.  

Out of the corner of his eyes, Bakugou is at the door, twisting the knob to the side and pulling the door back. A tri-colored blur jumps at his waist, panting excitedly at finally being allowed back into the room. His head suddenly swivels to Kirishima, and with a bright smile, he comes barreling towards the bed, leaping over the side with poise and grace. “Wait, Socks, wait a minute, waitwaitwait —”   

Kirishima’s high-pitched yelp has Bakugou at his side in less than a minute. He’s sure the neighbors heard that, too. “The fuck happened? Killmonger, move.”   

He pulls the dog away by his collar as Kirishima curls in on himself, his hands cupping his nether regions. Agony leaves him quiet for several long minutes, Kirishima using that time just to get his breathing back in order.  

“He stepped on my balls...”  he finally wheezes, his body shying away out of reflex as the puppy wriggles over to him. “ Killmonger, get back,”  Bakugou stiff-arms the pit mix out of the way, then he looks over Kirishima again. “You gonna be okay?”  

He feels the pain in his groin beginning to subside, so he nods.  

“Good.”  

Bakugou’s laugh has him reaching for a pillow. “Shut up! That’s not funny.”  

“That’s fuckin’ hilarious,” Bakugou says, dodging the pillow coming at his head. He blocks the next hit, taking the pillow out of his hand and throwing it aside. “It’s not! What if he crushed them? You know he weighs almost eighty freakin’ pounds!”  

“Then you would’ve had a crushed pair of nuts,” Bakugou says matter-of-factly. “Remind me why I even put up with you,”  Kirishima mumbles. “Because I have a great personality.”  

He scoffs as thick arms wrap around his back and underneath the backs of his thighs. “And my dick is huge.”   

That sounded like more him. He’s carried into the bathroom and placed on the tiled floor, Kirishima leaning against the sink for support. “If it makes you feel any better,” Bakugou says, pulling open the shower door, “he does that to me too.” 

“He’s so excitable,” Kirishima said, sweeping his gaze to the puppy on the bed. Killmonger’s tail wags slowly. “I love him.”  

“I fuckin’ know.”   

Rushing water fills the bathroom. Bakugou twists the shower knobs until it’s at a temperature Kirishima won’t complain at and Bakugou would still feel burning his skin and helps the redhead inside, shutting the door behind him once he’s under the spray. “Oh shit, you still have your earring on.”  

Bakugou shrugs it off, telling him to leave it be when he’s about to take it out. “You're gonna mess it up.”  

“It’ll be fine,” he says, pulling Kirishima closer to him. “If it bothers you so much, take it out when we get out.” 

“Nah.”  

He brings him down for a kiss, his hand sliding to cup his left ear and thumb around the diamond-studded lobe. “It looks too good to be messed with right now.”  

Bakugou massages his most tender areas while he returns his kiss. The embrace turns lazy, lips and tongue sliding together in languid speeds while rough hands tend to sore spots on his body, starting with his smarting groin. Kirishima pulls away in a deep sigh as those hands go to his ass, squeezing the plush muscles and spreading them apart so his finger could slip into his hole, still loose from their previous romp. Lube and cum are scooped out of him, and Kirishima’s sighs deepen into a long groan that ends on Bakugou’s name.  

The other clean his body next, running a soapy rag over his shoulders, down his back, across his chest and abdomen, stealing pecks in between. Kirishima helps along the way, returning the gestures to his body with kisses underneath his chin and jaws. They take as long as the water allows them, cleaning each other off until the warm droplets of water turn cold. They wipe off the rest of the soap before the water turned colder, and Bakugou turned off the showerhead, letting Kirishima wobble out of the shower first.  

Kirishima leaves the bathroom first after toweling off his body. Bakugou follows after, cutting off the lights in the room and heading to their closet with his fingers next to his left ear. When he emerges, Kirishima’s in new clothes: a fresh pair of underwear and one of Bakugou’s plain black t-shirts, the hem reaching his thighs.  

He sees the diamond earring free from his left ear as Bakugou slips on an identical pair of gray sweats, once again going commando. As if I’m complaining, Kirishima says with a hidden smile, watching the way his dick flaccidly swung behind the fabric as he walked to the bed.  

Kirishima joins him on the other side, pulling back the covers while Bakugou grabbed the remote for the TV. “Hey, Kats?”  

He called him right as he was about to climb into bed. Bakugou grunts.  

“You know what sounds really good right about now?”  

He grunts again.  

“That ice-cream you mentioned earlier. Along with some Oreos.” 

Kirishima gives him the sweetest smile he can muster, and it earns him a long eye-roll. “You and your goddamn sweet tooth,”  the other grumbles, but he’s already walking out the room, Killmonger jumping off the bed and trailing close behind him. “Thanks, babe!” Kirishima says to his retreating back.  

He gets another grumbled response in return.  

Kirishima climbs into bed, listening to his boyfriend fixing him his late-night dessert in the kitchen. Beside him, his phone was vibrating on top of the nightstand on his side. Kirishima remembers hearing it go off several times during his time with Bakugou, but neither paid any attention to it.  

He grabs his phone, turning the screen on to four missed messages covering his boyfriend’s face. 

Wow.   

The number goes up to five. Kirishima opens the messages up before the number went up again.  

From: The Squad  

Mina: You alright Ei? You’ve been silent for a long time 
 I hope you’re getting that good dick  

Denki:  Bet his POS bf screwed him over again  

Mina: No he wouldn’t!!  
If he did then I’ll beat his ass this time 

Kirishima hurriedly types a message before the dots were replaced with another text bubble.  

It’s ok!! We’re good now.  
He apologized and everything 
You don’t have to fight him mina  

Mina: HE LIVES!!!!!!! 
Did you get the quality dick???  
Pls tell me he gave it to you good. It’s the least his ass could do after how he fucked you over like that 

Lol yes 
I can’t really feel anything right now. And you were right 
Guilty men really do give the best dick lol 

Mina: Yesssss see I told you guys!! And nobody wanted to believe me 
I know what Im talking about a good 25% of the time lol  

I believe u 
I really really believe you 

Denki: Well, nice to kno that ur POS bf finally did something right 
You do realize we have to be back at the school to do our project tho, right?  

Ah... shit.   

I’m gonna make it!! Might be limpin tho 
 

Mina: Looks like ur  gonna  have to do everything Denki LOL   

Denki: R i g h t? 

I’m not gonna be that useless tomorrow 
o shit, gotta go. Bf just walked in  

Mina: o shit!!! Round 2!!!  
Tell me everything when we get back on Monday. I wanna know all the details  

Denki: that’s gross mina  

“The fuck are you texting?” Bakugou asks him as Kirishima smiles down at his screen. “Friends,” he answers, closing his phone and pushing it back onto the nightstand.  

Bakugou walks over to the bed with a bowl of ice-cream in his hand, a metal spoon sticking out of it. “I didn’t get any Oreos when I went to the store today,” he tells him right as Kirishima notices the lack of chocolate and crème cookies.  

“It’s fine,” he says, shrugging. Dammit.   

Bakugou climbs into bed, Killlmonger jumping up over his legs. He crowds him, his black nose pressing into his clenched hand.  

“Whatcha got there?” Kirishima asks him around a spoonful of vanilla ice-cream. “These nasty ass bones. Killmonger, sit.”  

The puppy plops his rump on the bed. Bakugou has him lay down next, and once he’s calmed down enough, he gives him the rawhide treat. “I grounded him from those for a week,” Kirishima says as the blonde gets back up to turn off the lights. “Why?”  

The room washes in darkness, black and red light pouring from the TV as the Netflix symbol comes on. “He chewed up my croc.”  

Bakugou snorts.  

“I knew you had something to do with it.”  

“Don’t pin this on me. That’s between you and him.”  

Killmonger had his back turned on both of them, chewing on the tasty treat. Kirishima side-eyes him before shoving a spoonful of ice-cream into his mouth. “Whatever.”   

Bakugou steals the next bite from him, sucking the spoon clean. “Fuckin’ gross.”  

“I never said you could have any.”  

Bakugou ignores him. He leans his back against the headboard, logging into his account on the streaming site and going down the list of action movies and original series, settling for a show he was currently in the middle of binging. He gets comfortable under the sheets, bringing one arm up to rest behind his head while the other was on top of Killmonger’s backside, caressing the dog’s soft black fur.  

Kirishima finishes off the ice-cream and places the bowl next to his phone, still vibrating with missed conversations. He scoots closer to his boyfriend, Bakugou raising his arm stroking his dog to wrap around the redhead’s shoulders and pull him to his body.  

He drops his head onto Bakugou’s chest, sighing in the embrace.  

After three days of no contact in bed, Kirishima forgot how nice it was having the man beside him. He had grown touch-starved in those last few days, depriving himself the comfort of his boyfriend out of sheer anger, and now he soaks himself in his presence, letting himself be engulfed by the warmth radiating off his skin. His breath is a light puff of air over his chest as fingers traced patterns in the back of his arms.  

“S’feels nice,”  Bakugou hums after a while. His eyes were still on the TV.  

Kirishima lightly cringes. “Sorry—”   

“Didn’t you say to put that shit behind us?”  

He’s looking at him now. Kirishima nods, a soft chuckle pushing over his lips. Bakugou turns back to his show, Kirishima doing the same thing. One more thing still eats him alive, and he can’t help the sigh that leaves his lips. “What?”  

“I basically ruined this entire week we had together,” Kirishima sighs again, “tomorrow I have to go back to school to do my senior project—who knows how long that’s gonna take—and then you have to go back to work on Sunday. I fucked up everything by just being mad at you...”  

“Can’t be helped, alright? We can still do something tomorrow before you leave.”  

Kirishima sits up, resting his chin over his hand splayed across Bakugou’s chest. “Like what?”  

“What do you want to do?”  

“Mmmm ...”   

There was always that movie...  

“Let’s go see that movie again.” 

"Alright," Bakugou nods, "when?"  

“Tomorrow night.” Kirishima’s head falls to the side as he says, “Take me out on another date,” with a smile.  

“Fine.”  

He was being a little greedy right now, but that’s alright. Kirishima thinks he can be greedy, just this once. “You’re graduating in May still, right?”  

“Yeah?” His head perks back up again. “Why?”  

“Thinkin' about quitting then.” 

Kirishima sits all the way up now. “Quit like—like quitting your job? Katsuki..."  

"Don't get your fuckin' hopes up," Bakugou quickly interrupts, "I doubt it'll happen." 

"Yeah, but just imagine," 

Kirishima runs his hand down the left side of his face, thumbing over his cheek and along his jaws. "The freedom you'd have once you leave that place." His thumb comes down to a stop at his chin. "You wouldn't have to deal with that life anymore. You'd be able to get a normal job, a normal life." 

"Ei," 

Kirishima's voice climbed with the excitement of a possible future. "I mean, shit, we could finally be together! Like actually be together. We could buy a house, get another dog, maybe even have a family-" 

"Ei." 

With one look, all of Kirishima's fantasies come to an end. Because that's what they really were; just fantasies of a future that might never happen for them. "Yeah, too unrealistic. You don't even like kids-" 

Bakugou stops him with his hand reaching up to hold his face. "One thing at a time," he says, rubbing his cheek. "Yeah." 

Kirishima smiles into the gentle embrace. One thing at a time. 

"And you're right. Fuckin' hate kids." 

Kirishima laughs as Bakugou pulls his hand away from his face. He lays his head back onto his chest, snuggling back into his previous position. Bakugou drops his arm around his shoulders. "We can get another dog though," he hears Bakugou say quietly. "Let's get a purebred pitbull this time." 

"Yes."

Kirishima could already see that life: the two of them owning a large house with a huge backyard, maybe even a pool. No, definitely a pool. Two dogs always by their sides, or three; Kirishima always wanted three dogs. Maybe a couple of children, if he could convince his boyfriend about it. 

He could see that life perfectly and it brings a grin to his face as well as a dreamy, almost forlorn sigh. Bakugou said not to get his hopes up, but Kirishima couldn't help himself sometimes. He wanted that life. There doesn't even have to be kids or a big house or another dog. Just him. 

Kirishima prays that change happens after May. 

He gives Killmonger a few well-placed scratches on his rump before a wide yawn makes note of his exhaustion. “Alright,”  he says, his arm stretching over Bakugou’s chest like a cat. “I’m  gonna go to sleep.”   

“The fuck you tellin’ me for?”  

Kirishima’s lips pull in a lazy smile. He stretches to press a couple of kisses over his lips before he settles his face into the crook of Bakugou’s neck. “Goodnight, Kats,”  he murmurs into his neck.  

Bakugou’s hand comes down to his waist, pushing his shirt up to caress his skin. “Goodnight,” he gets a gruff reply back.  

“I love you.”   

The fingers tracing over his skin stop. Kirishima feels Bakugou stir as he turns over, pushing him down into the soft sheets. Lips touch his forehead in a soft, barely-there caress.  

“I love you, too.”   

Kirishima’s falls asleep with a placid grin on his lips, nestled into the arms of the man he loves with all of his heart, their son curled in between them.