Chapter Text
Shinso really had no idea what to expect the next morning.
Kaminari had retreated to his room pretty quickly after they came down from the roof. It had been years since Shinso had been this close to someone like this and he had no idea what he was supposed to do now. Because they were close, as much as he hated to admit it. Somehow Kaminari had wormed his way into Shinso’s life and Shinso wasn’t sure he wanted them to leave him alone anymore.
Except that seemed to be exactly what Kaminari planned on doing.
Shinso didn’t see him at all the next day. It was a Saturday, so by the time Shinso dragged himself out of bed in the late morning, Kaminari was nowhere to be found.
Shinso didn’t see him in the bathrooms, or when he went to get breakfast in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the common room either.
Shinso passed by their room on his way back up to his room, which definitely was not out of his way at all. The door was open, but no one was inside.
Whatever, they were probably just training, or they went shopping with Mina or something. It wasn’t a big deal. Shinso would see him at dinner.
~~~
Except Shinso didn’t see him at dinner.
When he came down to help with the cooking like they all did, Kaminari wasn’t in the kitchen. Shinso had found it odd but he figured he’d show up when dinner was ready.
But when everyone sat down to eat, Kaminari was still MIA.
“Where’s Kaminari?” He blurted out before he could stop himself.
The whole table turned to stare at him. Honestly, it was pretty warranted. He didn’t really talk much.
“He went home for the weekend,” Sero answered after a few seconds.
“Home?” Shinso asked, once again lacking a filter.
“Yeah, that’s a thing most people have, Mindfreak,” Bakugou snapped from across the table.
“Play nice, Bakugou,” Kirishima chastised from beside him.
Shinso decided to ignore the comment altogether, focusing on his food instead. The table quickly devolved into other conversations while Shinso tried not to think too hard about Kaminari’s absence. It made sense that he'd go home to his family sometimes. He was probably just not feeling great after last night and wanted that comfort that people say you can only get from home. It’s something Shinso never really understood, but Kaminari seemed like the type to be close with his parents like that.
Shinso suddenly realized that he actually didn’t know anything about Kaminari’s family.
Well, of course he didn’t. Why would he? They weren’t friends or anything.
But Shinso couldn’t keep from wondering if they had siblings.
What were their parents like?
What did their bedroom at home look like?
Shinso didn’t realize how long he had been thinking about Kaminari’s home life until he noticed his plate was empty.
Maybe he did want to be friends with Kaminari.
~~~
Shinso didn’t see Kaminari again until Monday morning.
He showed up to class barely on time, falling into the desk beside Shinso just as Aizawa started class.
Shinso watched Kaminari all through class, in the least creepy way possible, and for the most part, he seemed normal but there was something off. They were keeping up the same energy they always had but Shinso thought it was more forced than normal.
There was also the fact that Kaminari somehow managed to avoid making any sort of eye contact with Shinso the entire day. Usually, Shinso wouldn't think too much about something like that except he kept catching Kaminari glancing at him but as soon as Shinso tried to look at him, he’d act like he wasn’t.
It was starting to piss Shinso off.
For weeks Kaminari had been following him around and insisting he participate in shit like the movie and D&D and now when Shinso thinks it might be okay, that he might actually want Kaminari to follow him around, he gets all distant. Shinso thinks he can probably guess why. He’d probably also avoid someone if they saw him all vulnerable like that, but this was Kaminari not Shinso. Kaminari, who was friends with everyone, who listened to everyone’s problems and understood how to respond to them. Kaminari wasn’t like Shinso. He was supposed to be the one who knew how to deal with this shit.
~~~
Shinso decided he’d had enough when he saw Kaminari trying to slip upstairs as soon as they finished their share of the post-dinner clean-up.
His fist clenched around the drying cloth he was holding. “Sorry Jiro, but can you finish drying the dishes by yourself?” Shinso asked, not looking away from where Kaminari just disappeared.
“What, why? I’m not doing your job-”
“Please.” He cut them off, still not even looking at them. “I need to go,”
“Is this about Kaminari?” Shinso actually did turn to them now.
“How did you-”
“It’s obvious,” They cut him off this time. “He’s been obsessed with you for weeks, but he didn’t even try to talk to you today. Did you guys fight or something?”
Shinso did, in fact, know that this was the point at which he was supposed to respond, but he was really just too busy trying to process what they just said. He decided to skip over the part about Kaminari being obsessed with him altogether and focus instead on the fact that Jiro and possibly other people were aware that there was something between him and Kaminari.
Jiro sighed and grabbed the cloth out of his hand. “Go fix whatever the hell you broke.”
“But I didn’t-”
“Just go,” They pushed, shooing him away with their hand.
“Right, well, thanks,” He stammered out, turning and heading towards the stairs before they could respond.
If Shinso ran up the stairs, well no one was there to see it anyway.
He stopped when he got to Kaminari’s door. Unlike last time he was here, there was no sound from inside. No music, no moving around, nothing.
He knocked.
Still more silence.
If he hadn’t just seen Kaminari come up here he might have believed no one was there. But he had and if he hadn’t thought Kaminari was avoiding him before he sure did now.
Shinso felt anger flutter through him. Part of him wanted to just break the goddamn door down but he knew that was like the opposite of helpful. Instead, he stepped back and took a deep breath. Then he tried again.
“Kaminari, I know you’re in there.” He said as he knocked again. “Just open the door.”
He waited a few seconds with no response.
He was about to try a third time when the door swung open.
“Shinso!” He was greeted with a fake smile. It pissed him off. “Sorry, I had headphones on so I didn’t hear you the first time.” It was a good lie. Shinso might have believed it but he could see Kaminari’s phone lying on his bed with no headphones in sight. “What’d ya need?”
Shinso didn’t answer, instead pushing Kaminari into the room and closing the door behind himself.
“Why are you avoiding me?” Shinso really wasn’t one to beat around the bush. Kaminari didn’t answer him right away. They seemed to be stuck staring at where Shinso had just forced his way in.
“I, uh, I wasn’t?” Kaminari eventually said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away.
“You weren’t?” Shinso deadpanned back.
“Yeah.”
“Then what were you doing?” Shinso crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the door, waiting to hear Kaminari’s explanation.
“Nothing? I just went home for a few days because I hadn’t seen my parents in a while.” Kaminari was still not looking at him, scuffing his feet against the ground instead.
“Then what about in class today?” Shinso’s grip on his arm tightened as he listened to Kaminari’s excuse. He was used to people not trusting him enough to tell him the truth but for some reason when it was Kaminari it felt a hundred times worse.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t bug me like normal, hell you didn’t even look at me.” Shinso was aware that his words were getting harsher but that didn’t stop his anger from building, simmering just under a boil.
“Sure I did, you must just have not noticed.” Kaminari dismissed, still not looking at Shinso.
“Bullshit.” Shinso snapped, dropping his hands and pushing off the wall. He realized his mistake when Kaminari flinched at his raised voice. He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Look, I’m sorry, but if you don’t want to be friends with me or whatever it’s fine. I get that I’m not like the most trustworthy person.”
“What?” Kaminari whipped his head toward Shinso, finally looking at him. His eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open. “Why would I not-” They cut themselves off. “Look, it's nothing like that. Of course I want to be friends with you. Why else would I-” They stopped again, groaning and flopping backwards onto the bed. “It just felt a little weird, okay? I don’t usually tell people about stuff like, uh, what we talked about the other night and I just didn’t know what to do because I felt like I had overshared or something. So then I just avoided you for the weekend but then when I got back it felt even weirder because so much time had passed and I thought that maybe I was just like a burden for you or something but that just made it worse because now I really did burden you by avoiding you and-”
“Denki, it’s okay, I get it,” Shinso said, stopping Kaminari’s rambling. Luckily, he had spent enough time with Kaminari that understanding them wasn’t very hard. It made sense, Shinso just assumed Kaminari was a person that was open with everyone. He sighed again, sitting down on the bed beside where Kaminari was still sprawled out. “I understand how you feel, I mean I’m not exactly the type of person who talks about their feelings, like ever, so I’m pretty sure if our roles had been switched I would have reacted just as badly.”
“What, you’re not big on heart to hearts? I never would have guessed,” Kaminari joked. He turned to Shinso, serious now. “But thank you for understanding and I really am sorry for avoiding you.”
“You should be, but I forgive you.” Shinso leaned back on his hands, and fixed Kaminari with a stern look before continuing. “As long as you stop avoiding me now so we can be like, friends, or whatever.”
Kaminari’s eyes lit up as he shot up, sitting so he was right beside Shinso now. Shinso tried to ignore the fact that it made his heart speed up. “Yes! Hell yes! I can do that.” Kaminari was practically bouncing now.
“Good.” Shinso moved away slightly and let out a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding. “So then, can I help you figure out your quirk?”
“What? You were serious about that?” Kaminari faltered.
“Of course I was.”
“Oh, um, yeah. We can definitely do that.” The smile they gave Shinso was small and genuine. He kind of never wanted it to stop.
“Cool.” He smiled back.
~~~
Over the next month, Shinso’s life fell into a routine of sorts. Classes got easier, he started helping Kaminari with math in return for Kaminari helping him with Literature. They trained together now too, partially to help Kaminari fine-tune his control but also so Shinso could work on using his binding cloths. Others from class joined them sometimes too, which Shinso was more okay with than he thought he would be.
Then there were also hours pouring over textbooks on electricity and searching through scientific papers, looking for any information that could help Kaminari. It was weird because while Kaminari had a hard time taking in information, once he did, he didn’t need any more help to understand it. Things that Shinso would need to go over three or four times, Kaminari got the first time.
Shinso was really curious who managed to convince this kid that they weren’t smart, because they were probably one of the smartest people he had ever met.
Oh, then of course there was also D&D. Every Sunday they played and every Sunday Shinso felt more at home around that table. Everyone else got so into the role play that he couldn’t help but feel comfortable with them. It was actually really fun.
And he had Kaminari to thank for it. Not just for D&D, but for everything. His life felt so good now and it was all because they insisted on getting close to him.
Which is also how Shinso found himself sitting around one of the tables in the common area with Mina, Bakugou, Kirishima, Sero, and of course Kaminari. The tabletop was covered in laptops, all plugged into one power bar in the middle. There were also books, papers, and drinks scattered everywhere. They were all working on essays for their Literature class.
Well all of them except Kaminari, who was reading a book. They were practically falling out of their chair with how wrong they were sitting on it but they seemed too absorbed in the story to even realize. Shinso couldn’t help but notice that the book, which was titled ‘Prey’, was by the same author that wrote Jurassic Park. He’d seen a lot of their books in Kaminari’s room over the last month. Like at least 15. It must have been Kaminari’s favourite author or something.
Shinso figured that he should probably stop staring at Kaminari and get back to work. Especially since Mina was smirking at him in a way he really didn’t like.
“So Shinoso,” Mina called from across the table. “You and Denki have been spending an awful lot of time together lately don’t you think? One would almost think you guys were friends.”
“Please, like Shinso ‘I’m not here to make friends’ Hitoshi would admit to that.” Bakugou scoffed, not even looking up from his laptop.
“No, she’s right.” Shinso kept his eyes down as he talked. He really didn’t need to see their reactions to this one. Well, maybe just Kaminari’s. “We are friends.” He knew he said the right thing when Kaminari smiled at him over the top of his book.
“Seriously!” Mina shouted, standing up to lean over the table towards them. In the process, she managed to knock over the glass of water beside her.
There was a second as the water spread across the papers and chords that no one moved.
And then everyone was scrambling to pull their laptops off the table. Bakugou reached in to pull the power bar out of the way.
Except it was already covered in water.
“Wait-” Shinso, who was now standing and awkwardly cradling his laptop, tried to warn him but it was too late. Bakugou was going to get electrocuted.
Before that could happen though, Kaminari, who had dropped his book, reached toward Bakugou.
The table all watched in shocked silence as the electricity arched from the power bar to Kaminari, just as Bakugou’s hand reached it.
Bakugou pulled his hand back, his reaction finally kicking in. It should have been too late, but he didn’t seem to be shocked at all.
Kaminari didn’t miss a beat, reaching in and grabbing the power bar himself. They watched as he set it on the floor away from them. He turned back to the table and placed his hand in the water. Electricity flicked through the spill towards his hand.
“Okay,” Kaminari said, flopping back into their chair. “You guys should be good now.”
Mina hesitantly poked the water. Nothing happened. Someone started throwing paper towels over the mess.
Shinso turned to Kaminari.
“What just happened?”
“Oh, uh-” Kaminari rubbed the back of their neck, staring at the ceiling. “I think I managed to manipulate the energy coming out of the power bar into coming to me instead of Bakubro and then I just absorbed the leftover energy in the water.”
“Yeah, okay,” Shinso nodded. “But how?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think.” Kaminari turned to look at him now. “It just happened.”
~~~
“Shinso?” He would be lying if he said he didn’t jump at the sudden knock on his door. To be fair it was 2 am.
He got off his bed and opened the door. Kaminari was standing in the hall.
“Sorry, did I wake you up?”
“No, but why are you here? What’s wrong?” Shinso moved out of the way, letting them in and shutting the door.
“Right well, I have a favour to ask.” They sat down on Shinso’s bed, looking down at their hands.
“What is it?” Shinso had no idea what Kaminari could possibly need, but that didn’t stop his brain from trying to come up with the worst possible options.
“I know I already ask for a lot of favours between training and studying but this one is really important.” Shinso was getting more and more nervous as Kaminari continued to stall.
“Kaminari, what is it?” He asked, trying to cut Kaminari to the point.
“I need you to come to Bakugou’s room with me so you can make him go back to sleep if he wakes up.”
That was not what he was expecting at all.
“What? Why?”
A horrible grin split across Kaminari’s face. Shinso was almost scared.
“I’m gonna steal all his clothes and put them in the common room so he has to come down in his All Might pajamas tomorrow morning.”
There was a second of silence while Shinso processed his words. Then he promptly burst out laughing.
“Sounds good, I’m in.”
~~~
Somewhere along the way watching the Phantom Menace turned into weekly movie nights in the 1-A dorms. And somehow, Shinso always got roped into attending.
Tonight was no exception.
He was sitting in front of the couch this time. Kaminari was, of course, right beside him. They may have also been sharing a blanket but that was only, only, because Uraraka and Tsu were hogging all the other blankets.
They were currently making through the Marvel series and tonight was Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It was great fodder for all their dreams of being heroes.
Things were getting intense on the screen. Natasha shot at Bucky from underneath the bridge.
Kaminari moved closer to Shinso.
“Damn, she’s good.” They whispered into Shinso’s ear.
He felt his cheeks heat up. When they were this close Shinso could almost count Kaminari’s eyelashes. He was tempted to, but he knew his gaze was lingering too long. He turned back to the screen just in time for Bucky’s dramatic jump off the bridge.
He landed, crushing the car beneath him.
At the same time, a horrible screeching sound descended down on the common room. They all watched in horror as three big shapes crashed into the grass on the other side of the windows.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the movie playing in the background.
Then the shapes uncurled themselves and, staring straight at the kids, approached.
It was the first time Shinso had ever seen them in person, but there was no mistaking it.
They were Nomu’s.