Chapter Text
Denki awoke humming with electricity. It jumped over his skin and bounced off the lights, making them flicker. 12:13 am blinked at him from his nightstand. He briefly entertained the idea of smothering himself in his pillow but thought that that’d probably just make the lights worse anyway.
Thoughts and feelings of dreams slowly slipping away carded through his hair. He knew what they meant. At least some of it. The taste of want on his tongue wasn’t unfamiliar. It wasn’t the kind of want most would expect from a teenage boy. No, it was a sticky want that clogged up his heart. It forced itself down his throat until he couldn’t breathe properly.
But he was afraid of the want, so he did what anyone else would do in his situation; ignore it. Box it up and put it away. Pretend it was nothing when he could feel it growing under his skin. Pretend that he didn’t want Shinsou’s arm around his shoulders. Act like he wouldn’t die when Shinsou eventually moved into the dorms.
The buzz of his phone dragged him out of his spiralling thoughts. Denki rolled over, pulling his phone close to his face and squinting at the bright screen.
Shinsou
Is your room the one with the lights going insane or am i just crazy
The lights were in fact, still going crazy. They were rapidly blinking on and off in time with his heart. Denki narrowed his eyes at his phone, looked through the glass doors and out onto the grounds. That night a week or two ago took hold off his memory, shook his head around until he remembered that he had seen Shinsou walking around in the middle of the night before.
He scrambled out of bed, pulling his blanket along with him because it was cold and he didn’t want to deal with that yet. It was brighter than it had been last time, and he could clearly see Shinsou standing at the bottom of the building. He was wearing that thick jacket again, with the hood pulled over his face. He was looking directly up at Denki, purple hair falling around his face. It was like his usual hairstyle had been squashed to fit into the hood. He blew a strand out of his face and put his phone up to his ear.
Denki startled when his own phone started ringing in his hand. He didn’t even check who was calling before putting it up to his ear.
“So I was right about the lights,” It was more of a statement than a question. He sounded tired.
“Why,” Denki started, pulling the blanket more firmly around his shoulders. “Why are you standing below my balcony in the middle of the night?”
Shinsou’s laughter huffed through the phone. “You’re not even gonna say hello to me? That’s rude.”
Denki leaned over the railing, not letting himself think about how the lights were still going crazy behind him. He knew they were, and he knew why they were. He knew that it had something to do with the way Shinsou didn’t have any walls up, how he hadn’t since Denki had talked with him after their joint training session.
He had expected Shinsou’s walls to be high and strong. He thought, just like everyone else in the class, that they would be riddled with past frustrations and doubts. But they had come down easily, with little effort on Denki’s part. Apparently, all he had to do was say some nice words and show off his bare chest for the boys to come knocking at quarter past midnight.
“Oi, you’re the one standing under my balcony. I think you have some explaining to do,” Denki tried not to let the fondness show in his voice.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Shinsou offered up, looking down at his shoes as he lazily kicked the ground. “Sorry for waking you.”
As if his thoughts had summoned them, the walls Denki had expected sprang into existence. They came in the hesitance in Shinsou’s voice and the way he seemed to curl in on himself.
“Don’t worry about it; I was already up anyway.” Shinsou looked up at that, a teasing grin hanging off his features.
“Does it have anything to do with the lights?”
“Fuck off,” Denki spat back, but he knew Shinsou would be able to pick the playfulness out of the statement. “Stupid electricity quirk. It randomly activates sometimes and makes the lights go crazy. Does that ever happen to you with your quirk?”
Shinsou blinked up at him. Denki could hear the tiredness seeping into his voice. “Kinda hard to make the lights go crazy with a mind control quirk.”
“Shut up you know what I mean.”
“I try not to let it happen,” he sounded sad, and the wave of protectiveness that crashed over Denki startled him almost to the point that he tumbled off of the balcony. He hastily pulled back, resting his head on his palm and tracking the way Shinsou’s foot kicked at the ground. “Don’t want more people to think I’m a villain.”
Denki’s frown pulled at his face, and he was about to tell Shinsou that that wasn’t true, no one thought he was a villain. Then he remembered the whispers that had flooded through the train carriages after the sports festival.
“I don’t think you’re a villain,” Denki found himself saying before his brain could catch up.
Shinsou stared up at him, his face unreadable. His lips parted as if he were about to say something, and from the look in his eyes, he was. There was a storm eating him up from the inside, and even Denki could see it thrashing around in his irises. It all disappeared when a yawn disfigured his features. Shinsou rubbed his eyes and it was gone, only a huff through the phone to be found in its place.
“It’s late; you should sleep.”
Denki spluttered as a harsh beeping sound echoed in his ear. Shinsou pocketed his phone and started making his way back into the darkness.
“Did you just hang up on me!?” Denki screeched at Shinsou’s retreating back. The latter paused, Denki’s flickering lights still just illuminating him. He threw a smirk over his shoulder before continuing on.
He didn’t look back, the shadows eventually swallowing him whole. Denki continued to stare, even as he heard Iida moving around in the room next to him, no doubt preparing to give him a lecture.
The lights were no longer flickering when Denki eventually dragged himself back to bed. Iida had hit him no less than three times with his extravagant hand gestures, but Denki probably deserved it.
Smothering himself in his pillow didn’t seem like a particularly bad idea at this point. Maybe it would smother the feelings blooming in his chest as well.
There was only one tv in the dorm, and if there was something you wanted to watch, you had to make sure you were the first awake and that the remote stayed in your hand until whatever it was you wanted to watch had ended. Denki had learnt this the hard way.
That’s how he found himself padding down the stairs at 6 am on a Saturday morning. Even after staying up all night pretending not to think about certain shades of purple.
Denki yawned, stretching out his entire body in the process. He hadn’t even thought about looking presentable. He knew that his hair was sticking up in every direction physically possible (the perks of having an electricity quirk), and that his blanket wasn’t a fashion accessory and should probably be kept in his room, but he didn’t care.
Something popped when he stretched out an arm, and his eyes were still half closed, but it was the price he had to pay. His arm made contact with a face, an involuntary zap making the face yelp. Denki turned around slowly, as if he was stuck in some sort of honey that made time sticky and slow. The place where a face should be stared back at him. Hagakure, his mind supplied helpfully. Where before his eyes were half closed, they now bugged out of his head. He was sure Hagakure’s were doing the same.
There was a split second where they both just stared at each other, minds blank and frozen in the early hours of the morning. A cog in Denki’s brain broke free with a small groan; his feet were moving soon after.
The blanket blew behind him like a cape as he rushed down the stairs. He could hear Hagakure thundering behind him, a war cry building up in between footfalls. She grabbed at his blanket with a yell, and he went tumbling down the last two steps. A foot found its place in Denki’s back, and he watched on in horror as a pair of pyjamas bobbed along in front of him. They disappeared around the corner as Denki scrambled back to his feet, blanket left behind at the foot of the stairs.
“Hagakure!” He flung himself around the corner, locking on to the way Hagakure’s footfalls faltered just slightly. Denki grinned. This was war, and there was no time for hesitation.
Denki managed to latch onto her waist as she rounded another corner, the final flight of stairs looming ahead of them.
“Get off of me,” Hagakure hissed as she frantically slapped the top of his head. Denki just squeezed harder, pushing his head into her back. It threw them off kilter, Hagakure letting out a yell as she realised what was happening.
They tumbled down the stairs, crashing and banging as they went. They landed in a tangle, limbs flailing for control. Hagakure muscled her way to the top; body pressed firmly into Denki’s back.
She laughed as Denki’s will to fight seeped into the floorboards. “Looks like I win this time.” She rustled his hair, yelping again as she got zapped by static.
“Please, anything but this,” Denki begged. “Anything but another three hours of If You Are the One. I can’t handle it. Not again.”
Hagakure just laughed harder.
“What a mad banquet of darkness.”
The voice startled both of them. Horror flooded their expressions, and Denki started to beg again. “I lied. I’ll take If You Are the One over this. I’m sorry Hagakure. I’m sorry god. What have I done to deserve this?”
Tokoyami glanced over at the pair for a second, but his attention was quickly drawn back to the screen. Some blurry footage of something that could be passable as a spaceship if you squinted and looked at it upside down with a pair of those dodgy 3D glasses flashed up on the screen. Tokoyami practically inhaled a handful of popcorn, nodding his head along to the narration.
Hagakure rolled off of Denki and started to sob.
“Guess I’ll go get my blanket then,” Denki sighed, making sure to drag his feet extra loud as he went.
By 11 most of the class had made their way down to the living room. Tokoyami’s conspiracy documentaries had gotten increasingly worse, which caused arguments between the entire class. Denki was planted between Tokoyami and Midoriya, watching the former trying to convince the latter that Mothman wasn’t just Hawks messing around and was an actual interdimensional being. It was like watching a tennis game, the class’s heads going back and forth with the conversation.
“C’mon, you’re saying that Hawks isn’t the type of guy to do this? You’ve met him you should know this.”
“It’s because I’ve met him that I know that it definitely wasn’t Hawks. He has red wings, which means it couldn’t be him because Mothman has brown wings.”
Midoriya sighed, pulling at his hair a little. “It’s not that hard to disguise your wing colour.”
Denki interrupted before Tokoyami could reply. “Well, it is hard to disguise an ass like that. Anyone can see that Hawks can’t even begin to compare.”
The entire class turned to look at him, eyes wide. His words eventually caught up to him, and he flushed red. Denki fumbled for his phone, quickly googling a picture and shoving it in the nearest person’s face. He heard someone whistle appreciatively and then everyone was clambering to get a look. Denki sunk further into the couch cushions, pulling his blanket firmly around his shoulders. Why was he such an idiot?
As the arguing continued, someone snatched the remote, quickly flicking the channel to Avatar the Last Airbender. There was grumble of protest from Tokoyami and a cheer from everyone else. They settled into their positions, squashed onto the couch and lying all over each other on the floor. They sat in relative silence, people piping up occasionally to make comments and others to shush them seconds later.
The show continued to flicker over the screen for a few more episodes, the class paying rapt attention. Even Bakugou seemed to be enjoying it, swatting Kirishima away as he tried to whisper something in his ear from their place tangled together on the floor.
They were disturbed by the click of the front door opening, Aizawa pushing into the dorm only a few seconds later. He made his way into the kitchen without a word; everyone already used to their teacher’s strange behaviour to even bat an eye at his arrival. Denki’s gaze caught on the figure hovering in the door though.
“Shinsou?” he questioned, and everyone’s gaze snapped to the boy in question. Shinsou startled, raising an awkward hand in greeting. The bags under his eyes seemed more pronounced than usual.
Aizawa shuffled back into the room. He grabbed onto Shinsou’s shoulder and almost pulled him into the class. He glared at the group, a sort of fondness finding its way into his expression as he surveyed them.
“As you all know, Shinsou’s been trying to join the heroics department. And as most of you have probably figured out by now, there’s been a recent vacancy in our class.” The fondness had wormed its way into Aizawa’s voice. The bags under his eyes rivalled Shinsou’s. The transfer had no doubt been giving him stress.
One by one, people began zeroing in on the bag slung over Shinsou’s shoulder.
“Wait a second,” Uraraka leaned over to Tsuyu and began to whisper frantically, never taking her eyes off of Shinsou. Tsuyu nodded, shushing the girl next to her with a finger pressed to lips.
Denki could feel the excitement radiating off of Midoriya next to him. It flickered and fizzled off of his skin. It bounced around the room until it was reflected in everyone’s eyes. Denki could feel it welling up inside of himself as well, painting his insides with the colour of it.
Aizawa sighed, already turning around to leave. “I have to get back to Hizashi. He’s probably fallen asleep while trying to make breakfast again.” He placed a hand on Shinsou’s shoulder, just briefly, before he was gone, leaving the boy standing in the doorway alone.
The brief relief that had flitted onto Shinsou’s face with Aizawa’s touch had disappeared. His body was strung tight like a bowstring, his shoulders hunched and expression carefully neutral. It didn’t help that the entire class, minus the few that were still sleeping, were staring at him.
He raised a hand awkwardly to the back of his neck, trying for a smile. Denki watched with bated breath as he tugged at the hair at the back of his neck. The put together façade he was trying to go with was cracking, just slightly. “Uh, hey guys, thanks for having me.”
Denki leapt off the couch, abandoning his blanket and carefully procured spot. Shinsou seemed to startle at the sudden movement, but Denki continued to bound up to him, momentarily forgetting that he needed to stop and crashing into the other boy. A large pair of hands steadied him as he pulled back. Denki bounced slightly in his spot, trying and failing to keep the sheer joy that he was experiencing from showing on his face.
A million things bubbled up on Denki’s tongue, waiting to be let out into the air. ‘Sorry for crashing into you I was just really happy.’ ‘Is this the reason you couldn’t sleep last night?’ ‘I told you you’d make it.’ ‘Did you know that you look really good in that jacket? If not, I’m telling you now just so you know.’
“Do you wanna watch Avatar with us?” is what came out instead, his voice laced with the same fuzzy feeling in his stomach that he was half-heartedly trying to stamp down.
Denki watched Shinsou’s façade break. He watched the hairline cracks spread over his face. He watched them grow, and the chains holding his smile down snap. His lips twitched up at the corner, and his eyes grew just that little bit softer. The hands holding his arms squeezed lightly.
“Sure,” Shinsou said softly, all previous nervousness floating away on the exhale.
And Denki? He beamed. He was sure his smile was eating him alive because his eyes had gotten all squinty and he felt as if he could float away at any second.
The class erupted; one unintelligible mass of joy that filled every corner of the room. Denki wriggled out of Shinsou’s grip only to start to tug him back towards the couch. His classmates, Shinsou’s classmates as well now, clapped the taller boy on the leg, or anywhere they could reach from their places on the floor. Congratulations were thrown around the room, Shinsou laughing nervously and thanking people as he was dragged back to Denki’s spot.
His spot, which had been occupied by a very unsubtle Jirou. She sat cross-legged on top of his blanket, the yellow one with little lightning bolts that his mother had bought him. She refused to look at him, instead overly enthusiastically greeting and congratulating Shinsou.
Denki relinquished his grip on Shinsou’s arm, pulling them closer together as he narrowed his eyes at Jirou. “You heathen,” he whispered.
Shinsou quirked a brow at him, and that was all the encouragement he needed. Jirou shrieked and tried to stab at Denki with her earphone jacks as he rolled off the couch, pulling her down as well. Ojiro just managed to lean out of the way, holding a stunned Ashido above his head.
“What was that for?!” Jirou yelled after she had successfully rolled out of Denki’s grasp and into Momo’s.
“You know exactly what that was for you evil spot stealerer,” Denki glared at her upside down from the floor, one leg in Tokoyami’s lap and the other dangling in the air.
Jirou laughed, even though she was partially hiding behind Momo now. “Stealerer isn’t even a word you idiot. Plus, I doubt you’ll tackle him for being a ‘spot stealerer’.”
Denki frowned, what was he talking about? He tilted his head to the side, almost as if he was trying to impersonate a confused puppy. A soft tap to his shoulder alerted him to Shinsou’s foot, which was connected to Shinsou’s leg in his very nice black jeans. His leg which was above him, and bent at the knee.
His head spun a little as Denki sat up, mouth hanging open a bit at Shinsou’s amused face. He spluttered, enamoured for a second by a particularly wavy strand of purple hair.
“Yeah, well, its Shinsou’s first day so he’s allowed to steal my spot,” Denki said, feeling his face go red the longer he looked up at Shinsou. He quickly spun around, ignoring everyone’s muffled laughter as he nestled between Shinsou’s legs.
After everyone had settled down, Denki leant his head on Shinsou's knee. Joy still bubbled through his veins, and he found he couldn't particularly control his actions even if he wanted to. He tipped his head back, just to see if Shinsou was enjoying the show, only to find the light eyes already trained on his face. Shinsou didn’t look away immediately, so neither did Denki. A smile wormed its way onto his face, and he found it mirrored on Shinsou.
“Don’t hang up on me again,” Denki whispered, pretending not to notice Midoriya’s eyes flicker over to them.
Shinsou’s smile grew a fraction. “Only if you don’t hang up on me first,” he whispered back, fingers twitching and fiddling with the end of Denki’s hair.
Denki smiled, satisfied, pillowing his head against Shinsou’s knee once more.
The day had been oddly calm, especially considering they had a whole new person join their class. After lunch, Shinsou had holed himself up in his new room and began unpacking and sorting. Denki had offered to help, but Shinsou had just waved him off and disappeared.
That was a few hours ago now, and people were starting to gather around him in the common room. Hagakure was watching something on her phone on the other couch, but she kept rustling around every few minutes. Even Denki could tell that she was glancing over at him. Midoriya had been hovering awkwardly in the kitchen with Todoroki for the past five minutes, which would have been normal considering how much time they spent together these days. Except Todoroki had only accidentally set his shirt on fire once, compared to the usual six when he spent time Midoriya. Uraraka and Tsuyu whispered back and forth to each other, glancing over at him far too often for his liking.
Denki knew that they thought he was an idiot but thinking that he wouldn’t notice this told him that his classmates had severely misjudged his character. When Ashido threw herself over the back of the couch, leaning back and peeking over a magazine at him, he snapped.
“Okay, what’s all this about?” Denki said, phone dropping unceremoniously into his lap.
Midoriya and Todoroki slunk into the room as Ashido sat up, magazine abandoned somewhere on the floor. “Well, that’s what we were hoping to ask you.”
She grinned at him, but Denki didn’t grin back. Confusion muddled his face, and his gaze flicked from person to person, hoping to find an answer. He only found curious and somewhat sheepish faces staring back at him. “What?”
Ashido sighed, leaning forward into Denki’s space. “What’s going on with you and Shinsou?” she deadpanned, continuously creeping into his space until he found his back hitting the arm of the chair.
“What? There’s nothing between me and Shinsou.” Denki was starting to get scared now, everyone was slowly closing in on him, and he was still confused about what was even happening. Last time he checked, he hadn’t ordered an interrogation.
“C’mon,” Hagakure whined. “We’ve all seen the way you act around each other.”
“Yeah!” Uraraka joined in, cheeks growing the slightest bit red when everyone turned their attention to her. “You never let anyone steal your spot on the couch, but you didn’t even hesitate to let Shinsou take it.”
Denki sputtered, face growing warm as he tried to spit out an excuse. “Yeah, well it was his first day in our class. I wanted him to feel welcome!”
Everyone, even Todoroki, looked at him in a way that screamed yeah right.
Hagakure shoved her phone in his face, bouncing up and down on the spot. “That doesn’t explain why you were sitting on his lap last week.”
Denki was definitely red now. Not just his face, but his entire body, inside and out, flooded with warmth. He knew Shinsou moving into the dorms would kill him; he just never expected that it would come from the prying eyes of everyone else.
He almost went cross-eyed trying to see Hagakure’s phone. “Why is that your lock screen?” Denki's mortified yell had turned into a whisper somewhere along the way.
Todoroki leaned over and snatched the phone out of Hagakure’s hand, staring at it for a second before looking directly at Denki, his face expressionless as ever. “There was also that time you fell off the desk because of him.”
“And that time you walked into a door because you saw him outside,” Tsuyu added.
Ashido grinned, eagerly jumping into the conversation. “Plus the other day when you stole Aizawa-sensei’s phone and called him in class. You had the dopiest smile–”
Denki cut her off, attempting to hide his burning face in his hands. “Fine. What if I do like him? It’s not like I’m gonna do anything about it.”
When Denki looked up again, the teasing grins had fallen off all of their faces. Instead, concern and confusion mixed in equal amounts in their expression. The exact mixture that Denki had been dreading to see as soon as this conversation had started.
“Why?” Ashido started, and the concoction dripping into her voice. “You have no problem hitting on us girls. Why is he any different?”
Something sharp made its way into Denki’s chest. It stabbed and tore at his heart. It shredded his insides to pieces until it hurt to breathe to deeply. Electricity sizzled. He stared down at his lap, hiding his face.
“I don’t know,” Denki lied. He could feel Ashido’s annoyance steaming off of her, fogging up the air until he could feel himself start to choke on it.
“Just leave it,” came Midoriya’s a voice when Ashido opened her mouth again. He was barely audible when competing with the tension in the room.
Denki was thankful, even as he silently walked away. He was thankful that Midoriya was as perceptive as he was. He was thankful that no one chased after him. He knew that as soon as they did, he would spill all of the ugly things swimming around his head and his heart. He didn’t want everyone else to pick them apart when he didn’t even want to look at them.
His door clicked behind him, a thud echoing throughout the room as he collapsed on the floor.
“Stupid feelings,” Denki muttered to himself.
By the time someone knocked on his door, he had migrated to the bed. He had spent an hour staring at the ceiling and pretending not to think. Even if he liked Shinsou, he wasn’t going to anything. Even if he had fallen hard and fast and everyone could tell he was going to do absolutely nothing. Especially considering the person was Shinsou, and he had just joined the class. Denki wasn’t going to ruin that for him.
Even if doing absolutely nothing included giving up the best spot on a Saturday morning and staying up to talk when Shinsou appeared under his balcony in the middle of the night.
It was still nothing if he denied it was anything.
Denki plastered something akin to his usual joy on his face. He made sure to stamp down the pain in his chest and replace it with all the warm fuzzy feelings that usually slept there.
He pulled open the door to see Ashido standing there, staring at her feet with her face covered by hair.
“Sorry,” she whispered into the space between them. Denki could feel all of those things rising up like a flood in his veins. He threw an arm around her and made sure to waterproof his response. She startled and looked up at him.
“Don’t worry about it,” a tiny bit of softness leaked out. He smiled at her, pulling his arm away and leaning against the door frame. “So, what do you want of the great Dorm King Kaminari today?”
Ashido laughed, easily slipping back into her normal self. He could see the relief swimming in dark eyes. “First of all; you aren’t the dorm king, I am. Second; we were thinking of doing a little something special for our new classmate.”
A mischievous grin spread across his face. He fell into step with her as they made their way down the hall. “Do tell.”
Ashido’s smile dropped a fraction as she continued. “That’s the problem. We need an initiation, but we can’t think of one. Which is where you come in.”
Denki didn’t even pretend to think. “Hide and seek.”
“What?” Ashido laughed.
“It’s perfect,” Denki said, flailing his arms about to try and prove his point. “Gang up hide and seek. There’s plenty of places to hide in the dorms and it’ll make it easy for Shinsou to get to know the place as well as interact with everyone else.”
Ashido stared at him for a moment before a smile lit up her face. “You might be onto something!"
A few minutes later and everyone was gathered in the common room, a motley assortment of teenagers all excited over a kid’s game. Shinsou stood in the corner looking equal mixes of confused and wary. He had his big jacket on again, the one that Denki had seen him wearing outside. He didn’t have the hood up this time, and his hair was beginning to fall around his face.
Ashido clapped her hands a few times, gathering the attention of everyone in the class. “Okay, let’s get the initiation started,” she belted out, laughing as people started clapping and cheering. Shinsou looked startled, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Don’t worry Shinsou, we’re just playing hide and seek,” she directed at the boy in question, who visibly relaxed. “Time for some rules! Once you’ve been spotted, the person the seeker will call you out, and you must join the search. The last person to be found is the winner and gets that bag of Doritos Midoriya bought this morning. The game will continue until everyone has been eliminated. You can hide anywhere in the dorms, including bedrooms and balconies. Considering Hagakure is literally invisible, she’s been forced to wear neon, sparkly clothes. Sparkles courtesy of Aoyama of course.”
Ashido gestured to Hagakure, who was perched on the back of one of the couches. When everyone turned to look at her, she posed dramatically, showing off all her best angles. She had a pink crop top on; savage scrawled across in messy sparkling handwriting. A fuzzy, neon green bomber jacket was draped over her shoulders, almost engulfing her. Neon colour block pants with a mishmash of blue, yellow, green, and pink covered her bottom half. They reminded Denki of those colourful parachute things you played with when you were a kid. To top it all off, patches of glitter dotted her skin, making nowhere completely invisible. It kind of hurt to look at.
“You can use quirks to aid your hiding,” Ashido continued once everyone had gotten a good look at Hagakure. “But they can’t be used on the seekers. Also please don’t destroy our dorm, Aizawa-sensei will murder us. Now let's get started! The first seeker will be drawn out of a hat.”
She clapped her hands one last time before reaching into a bowl filled with tiny bits of paper.
“That’s not a hat,” Denki called out, earning him a slap on the arm from Iida.
He held his breath in anticipation, Ashido taking far too long just to pick a piece of paper. When she finally chose one, she stared at it carefully for a few seconds, swatting away Kirishima’s prying eyes.
“Bakugou!” She announced, watching with glee as Bakugou scowled at her, small explosions forming in his hands.
“I don’t wanna be in your stupid fucking initiation ritual!” Bakugou was doing that thing where he pretended he wanted to murder everyone but was just slightly annoyed. Denki, after spending possibly life-threatening hours of time trying to befriend the guy had picked that much up. Kirishima was much better at reading him though and actually knew how to get what he wanted out of him.
The red-haired boy flung himself at Bakugou, gripping his shoulders and staring up into his eyes. “C’mon, it’d be so manly. Plus, everyone really wants to play, and we can’t just pick another seeker.”
“The fuck are you talking about of course you can,” he wasn’t yelling anymore, just grumbling at Kirishima’s pouting face.
“But it’s not the same,” Kirishima whined, falling dramatically into Bakugou’s chest. Denki watched with bated breath as Bakugou struggled to fight against Kirishima. Some people would say that Bakugou’s weakness was his aggression, or maybe his pride. Denki knew better than that; it was how whipped he was for Kirishima.
“Fine, I’ll be the stupid seeker for your shitty game.”
Denki found himself cheering with the rest of the class. Shinsou, who had uncrossed his arms and didn’t look like as much of an outsider anymore, was looking at the pair with an amused expression. Denki almost lost himself in that expression, only pulling himself away from it when Bakugou stomped to the couch and started counting. He scrambled away, back turned away from Shinsou and heading in a direction that hopefully lead away from all the tangled feelings in his chest.
Denki had ten seconds left to hide, and he was still sprinting down the halls, looking for anywhere that could be passable. He forgot how terrible he was at hide and seek when he suggested the idea.
His room had been a no-go, considering that it was filled to the brim. He felt too awkward to go into anyone else’s room other than Kirishima’s, but he’d already spotted the door closing as he made his way past.
“Shit,” Denki swore under his breath, turning a corner and planning to just hide in the pantry or something.
Before he could make it there, a hand appeared out of nowhere and dragged him into a cupboard he hadn’t noticed before. His back hit a chest as the door closed quietly in front of them, left open just a crack. A hand pressed firmly against his mouth, stopping him from yelling out.
“It’s okay, it’s just me,” Shinsou whispered into his ear, his voice both soothing him and making his heart beat ten times faster.
When Denki stopped panicking, Shinsou dropped his hand from Denki’s face, instead wrapping it around his waist and using it to pull the smaller boy further into his chest. Denki was suddenly very aware of how little space there was, and how each point of contact felt like it was burning into his skin. Shinsou’s breath rushed against the side of his quickly warming face, and his hands linked resting on Denki’s stomach.
A loud string of profanities echoed around the house, startling Denki into almost knocking over broom that rested against the wall next to them. His hand shot out to steady it, both Denki and Shinsou freezing as Bakugou’s heavy footfalls could be heard on the stairs above them.
The footsteps, and the concurrent stream of profanity and accusations, slowly faded into the distance. Denki let out a sigh of relief, letting go of the broom and relaxing against Shinsou’s warm body. He tried to shuffle around a little but found there wasn’t even room to do that. It was either stand like they were now, or chest to chest.
Denki would prefer to live, thank you very much.
“Hi,” he whispered into the darkness, letting himself smile when Shinsou whispered back a reply.
“Fancy seeing you here,” came Shinsou’s now familiar drawl.
He let the rustling and distant stomping eat up the silence a bit before replying. “Thanks for saving me.
Shinsou huffed a laugh directly into Denki’s ear. “Couldn’t let the big bad Bakugou get you now could I?”
“You’re warm,” Denki mumbled, his mouth moving before his brain could catch up.
Shinsou was silent at that, and Denki worried that he had messed up, but then Shinsou made a little noise in his ear and was rustling around behind him. Hands left his waist and all of a sudden he was enveloped in Shinsou’s jacket as well. Shinsou’s back was still warm behind his as he helped do the zipper up as quietly as possible. It stopped at his chin, head just poking out of the shared jacket.
Something about the little distance between them, the dark that had fallen over them like a cloak, and the sparks of electricity between them, the ones that weren’t from Denki’s quirk, ate away at his sanity. ‘Why is he any different?’ echoed in his head. Denki had said that he didn’t know, but everyone could tell that that was a lie. Himself especially.
‘Because maybe I have a chance with him, and that scares me more than getting rejected’ Denki thought when he could almost feel Shinsou’s smile against his skin. He ignored it. He ignored the pounding in his heart and swallowed down the protests rising in his throat.
“Let’s win us a bag of Doritos,” Denki whispered as Shinsou placed his chin on Denki’s hair.
“Good plan,” Shinsou replied, voice muffled by blond hair.
They didn’t win the Doritos.
Shoji heard them whispering together about fifteen minutes later. An eye peeked through the crack in the door, staring them down before slowly pulling the door open. They shuffled out awkwardly, Shinsou looking only mildly terrified by the appearance. Denki slipped out of Shinsou’s jacket, almost immediately missing the warmth.
The pair headed off in a different direction to Shoji, Denki assuring Shinsou that they would find more people if they worked together. It’s not like Shinsou argued against that statement anyway.
They found Tokoyami perched in the rafters, seemingly embracing his bird heritage. Tokoyami was, unfortunately, the only person they found. Iida was the very first person to be caught, apparently he hadn’t been able to properly grasp the idea of hiding, sitting in his room and ‘hiding in plain sight’, instead of actually trying to hide. Aoyama was a close second, choosing to hang himself from the ceiling, quirk activating in short bursts, disguising himself as a disco ball.
Hagakure lasted a surprisingly long time with her neon outfit, positioning herself in Kirishima’s closet, among all the other weird clothes he never wears.
In the end, Sero won the Doritos. It had taken them two hours to find him after Denki had been found, and an hour after Momo, who came in second after building a part of the wall around herself. The wrong wall, but a wall nonetheless
A startled had Midoriya looked up to find Sero taped to the underside of a balcony, grinning down maniacally at him.
“So, was the initiation a success?” Sero asked Denki as he devoured his prize Doritos after the game.
“How would I know?” Denki fired back, too preoccupied with watching Shinsou trying to use his mask to imitate Bakugou’s voice and say nice things to people to actually think about the question.
Sero didn’t reply, just stared at him meaningfully. Denki didn’t even notice, head filled with cotton candy, phantom arms wrapped around his waist and a phantom smile pressed against his skin.