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Depending on where you start this story, it’s about Bakugou Katsuki.
Katsuki would refute this, if he wasn’t so busy being completely speechless with rage.
“That bastard,” he finally manages, strangling the air in front of him as he mutters furiously. “That absolute fuck.”
“I know someone you’d like an absolute fuck—” Kaminari begins, voice crowing and smug, before Kirishima immediately smothers his mouth, smiling genially as he does so.
“Not helping, dude,” Sero says, flicking Kaminari a dry glance, which Katsuki would usually think is fuckin’ rich, considering Sero is normally conducting the whole goddamn clown train when it comes to intentionally saying shit to make Katsuki pop a vein, but he’s a little busy right now. Being furious. Strangling air. Cussing out his completely fucking maddening pretty boy classmate. Important shit like that.
“Also doesn’t really make sense,” Jirou says, tone bored, not looking up from the notebook she’s been intermittently scribbling in for the last three minutes. Kaminari makes a wounded noise, muffled by Kirishima’s still-present hand.
“Why is he a bastard this time?” Ashido asks curiously. Some part of Katsuki immediately doesn’t trust it—knows her predilection for criminal activity innately after two years—but more of him is like an uncorked bottle, foaming at the brim.
“The goddamn rock.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“Uh,” Sero says. “What?”
“You heard me!” Katsuki barks. “That fucking—” He starts strangling the air again with renewed force, “—rock.”
Kirishima and Ashido exchange a glance.
Jirou finally looks up from her notebook to frown at Katsuki. “Okay, we know what those words mean, but not like that. What are you talking about?”
“His stupid rock!” Katsuki repeats, frustrated. At Jirou’s unimpressed look, he elaborates, “that stupid fucking rock he’s taking everywhere!”
“He’s what?” Ashido asks.
Beneath Kirishima’s hand, Kaminari starts laughing, which either grosses Kirishima out or reminds him that his hand is still clamped over the idiot’s mouth, because he releases him. Unfortunately. Because now Kaminari can say words unhindered.
“He’s showing you his rock, Kacchan?” Kaminari asks, voice way too sly for the level of stupidity leaving his mouth.
“That’s not even a euphemism!” Katsuki roars.
Sero, amused: “Are you booking him a yoga appointment?”
Ashido, unrepentant: “He needs to balance his chi.”
Katsuki, scoffing: “Chi is Chinese, dipshit.”
Kaminari, thoughtful: “You’re probably more flexible than her.”
Kirishima, wincing: “Wait, Mina, your elbows are really pointy, he might throw up—”
Jirou, interrupting: “Rewind. Todoroki is showing you his rock—not a euphemism—what?”
Katsuki groans. “Do none of you speak Japanese?” he demands. “Here, just – I’ll fucking show you.”
It goes against Katsuki’s instincts to willingly approach Todoroki when he’s being a bastard—suffice to say, it’s a permanent state of being—but he’s got a point to prove to the local clown brigade.
“Oi,” he says, sauntering up to Deku’s group’s favourite area of the common room.
“Bakugou,” Iida says, nodding in greeting, because that’s just how he is. Used to drive Katsuki nuts back in the day, and now it’s – well, still annoying as shit, but he’s used to it now, the way you get used to anything if it happens in your vicinity enough. Lived in, loved in.
“Hello Bakugou-chan,” Asui says, surveying him. “You look on edge. Did Kaminari say something again?”
“Hey!” Kaminari protests, while Uraraka laughs, exchanging a conspiratorial glance with Ashido. Which – okay, what the fuck ever. Katsuki’s not touching whatever’s going on there with a ten foot pole. He’s happiest when he doesn’t know anything about his classmates.
“He’s always saying something,” Katsuki says dismissively. “He’s like Deku that way.”
“Rude, Kacchan!” Deku says, rolling his eyes. It’s probably a clear sign that something’s fucking wrong with him, but Katsuki feels a little fond at the sight. A little warm. It’s something about the way Deku would never have reacted like that a few years ago – something about the way Katsuki would have been absolutely outraged if he had. It’s something about the way they’ve grown up a bit, become something better – actual friends, or whatever you call someone you’d happily knock off a cliff but follow into a war.
Lived in, loved in.
“Really,” says the one person at the table who Katsuki has quite deliberately not looked at up until this point, “everyone but Kouda is always saying something.”
It’s a ridiculous nothing statement, made all the more egregious by the thoughtful tone used to deliver it.
Katsuki hates him.
“Where the fuck is it,” he says, instead of expressing that. Normally he doesn’t have a problem telling someone what he thinks, but there’s always that undercurrent when he’s mouthing off to Todoroki, like he might get ahead of himself and say more than he’s meant to.
“That didn’t sound like a question,” Sero says, because he’s the worst and Katsuki can’t trust him or take him anywhere.
“Yeah,” Uraraka chimes in, which is the tag team from hell that Katsuki didn’t know he needed to cleanse from this earth. “Where are your manners, Bakugou?”
“Bite me,” he says, then frowns at Todoroki, who is regarding him with the sort of serene expression that belongs on the fucking Dalai Lama or something, not the world’s most annoying excuse for a walking dichotomy. “Quit dicking around. Out with it.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Todoroki says, sounding calm. If Katsuki were more gullible—like Ashido, currently looking at Todoroki like he’s actually telling the truth—or just didn’t know the bastard so well—and he’s not thinking too hard about when that happened—he might believe him, but as it is, Katsuki is neither gullible nor inexperienced when it comes to the awful whims of one Todoroki Shouto, and so he can very easily detect the goddamn amusement radiating off his stupid perfect pretty face.
“Bull-fucking-shit,” Katsuki snaps. “Bring out the fucker.”
Behind him, he can hear Kaminari and Kirishima murmuring. Katsuki does his best to ignore this, instead keeping his frown fixed on Todoroki, who affects a look of surprise.
“Oh? You mean—”
“Yes, you insufferable bastard,” Katsuki says through gritted teeth.
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“I did—”
“Here,” Todoroki says, interrupting him. Fucking rude. Katsuki is torn between telling him off for his audacity, and exploding the stupid rock now present in Todoroki’s hands. He settles for fixing it with a deep glower, then looking at his friends with exasperation.
“See?” he demands, indicating the offending rock.
Katsuki feels vindicated by the way Jirou’s eyebrows shoot up, and the way Iida looks vaguely perturbed by this turn of events.
“His name is Iwa-chan,” Todoroki says casually. As if introducing a fucking rock to his friends is a normal thing to do. As if using honourifics is a normal thing for Todoroki to do.
“I,” Iida says, then visibly regroups. “I didn’t realise you were interested in rock-collecting, Shouto-kun.”
“I’m not,” Todoroki says.
This evidently throws Iida for a loop, which gives Katsuki immense satisfaction. Finally. Some fucking validation in this goddamn circus.
“Why do you have a rock, Todoroki-chan?” Asui asks.
“He is my friend,” Todoroki says. His expression is entirely serious, voice perfectly steady. Katsuki is certain he’s fucking with them.
Unfortunately, Sero is the next to speak. As Sero is an agent of chaos, this is almost never a good sign. Today is no exception.
“Nice to meet you, little dude,” Sero says. To the rock.
Kaminari swiftly catches on. “Yeah, Iwa-chan, bring it in.” He then, to Katsuki’s utter disbelief, holds out his fist. Like he actually expects the rock to give him a fist bump.
The rock, unsurprisingly, does not move.
Astoundingly, those three assholes act like it did. Todoroki gives a weird approving nod, Kaminari moves his fist as if to simulate the impact that very much did not fucking happen, and Sero lets out a low whistle, like he’s – like he’s impressed.
“What,” Katsuki articulates carefully, “the fuck.”
“It was a great fist bump, Kacchan,” Kaminari says, not even trying to bite back his shit-eating grin.
“Real stellar,” Sero adds. “I might have to ask him for pointers.”
Then the hat trick of clownery and bullshit.
“He has a play date with Eri, so maybe after dinner,” Todoroki says smoothly—seamlessly!—as if he’s actually talking about a real, living human, instead of his goddamn fucking rock.
Katsuki spins around, incredulous, to meet everyone else’s eyes.
Deku lets out a weird sigh; a noise of resignation. Kirishima sort of shrugs, while Ashido and Uraraka ignore him in favour of gossiping with Asui. Iida looks a little nonplussed, but he’s on his phone, and Katsuki would bet ten to one that he’s googling something stupid like rock care. Jirou meets Katsuki’s eyes, then—while maintaining eye contact!—plugs her ear jacks into her phone and starts humming, closing her eyes.
“I fucking hate you all,” Katsuki announces.
It would have been bad enough if it had ended there, once the circle of knowledge had expanded from ‘Katsuki’s private torment’ to ‘the entire class’. At no point would that have been redeemable, but at least it would be done.
But no.
First, there was the glasses incident.
“Tenya,” Todoroki says, “can I borrow a pair of glasses?”
Iida blinks. So does Katsuki, and Deku, and the entire fucking class, because they were all there when Aizawa let Hatsume use one of her stupid machines on them all to find any weaknesses in their eyes for her to use as a test subject for her new goggle design, and they all heard his diagnosis of 20-fucking-20 vision.
“Of course, Shouto-kun,” Iida says after a moment. “But I must warn you, my prescription is quite particular! Please take care not to strain your eyes.”
“Oh,” Todoroki says. “That’ll be fine.”
Fifteen minutes later, when Todoroki emerges back in the common room with a conflicted-looking Iida and a rock wearing fucking glasses, Katsuki gets it.
“Are you kidding me?” he demands. “I know you guys are all card-carrying members of Rich Kids Anonymous, but glasses for a goddamn inanimate hunk of landscaping material has to be a new level.”
Uraraka chokes on her mochi, and Deku seems torn between the way he clearly wants to agree with Katsuki and his innate need to defend his friends, which – Katsuki has no idea how he could defend such stupidity. Pointing out that Katsuki’s never had secondhand clothes either, maybe.
Todoroki doesn’t even bat an eye. “He’ll take very good care of them,” he says loftily. “He just needs them so he can read the subtitles on the movie tonight.”
“He shouldn’t have chosen an American movie,” Ashido mutters, which Katsuki is about to roll his eyes at, because she needs to improve her marks in English anyway so it’s probably a good study opportunity for her, before the rest of her sentence registers.
“What,” he says flatly. “Who chose the movie?”
“Iwa-chan-kun,” Iida says, which has the simultaneous effects of Uraraka spraying mochi everywhere as she laughs and Katsuki letting out a blast towards the ceiling in exasperation.
“He’s a rock,” Katsuki stresses, which is a sentence he has had to repeat entirely too many times recently. “He can’t even watch a movie!”
The collective shrugs of his classmates do absolutely nothing to calm him down.
Next was when they decided to go swimming as a class.
Technically, this one was Katsuki’s fault. At least partially. He still personally blames Todoroki.
They’re packing their things, which means that Katsuki, Iida, Yaoyorozu and Asui have already packed, and everyone else is still getting their things. Which is ridiculous. They’re going swimming, not on an international mission. It’s hardly a preparation-heavy event.
Katsuki is with Todoroki, because he’s the worst at packing, other than Kaminari and Deku, who Katsuki straight up refuses to be around at times like this. He can only put up with so much before he explodes someone, and Todoroki is generally a little better than the other two at working out where the line is. Which is infuriating, in its own way, because it means he knows exactly what he’s doing, but. Katsuki is resigned to this existence, he supposes.
Todoroki is surveying the surroundings, as if they’ll give him a hint as to what he should put in the ugly cat tote bag Jirou and Ashido got him as a gag gift last year, instead of just using his brain and putting in swimming shorts, sunscreen, a towel and some fucking water. Maybe a hat and sunglasses if he’s feeling competent, but Katsuki’s not optimistic.
“You done, princess?” Katsuki asks, raising an eyebrow as he watches Todoroki—for reasons utterly beyond both Katsuki and reason, though they’re basically the same thing in his opinion—drag over a chair. Not a sunchair, which would be ridiculous but at least thematically acceptable. One from their dining table.
Meanwhile, Todoroki is frowning at the tote bag, like he’s actually expecting the chair to fit. Holy fuck.
He sighs. “No, it’s too big,” he murmurs, having the audacity to sound disappointed. As if this could possibly be a surprise to anyone with working eyes.
“Maybe you need the fuckin’ glasses,” Katsuki mutters. Then, because he can’t resist, he snipes, “not bringing along your friend?”
Todoroki gives him a confused look, before his expression clears as he realises. “Don’t be silly, Bakugou,” he says sternly. “Iwa-chan can’t float.”
Un-fucking-believable.
Katsuki is speechless for a moment. This turns out to be his downfall, because Sero is in the vicinity.
“Oh, is that all?” he asks. “I thought he was worried about sunburn. We can fix that!”
While Katsuki is processing this, Sero turns and calls, “Yaomomo!”
“No,” Katsuki says, realising where this is going, but everyone ignores him.
That’s how they end up at the pool with two bottles of sunscreen between the entire class, three sunchairs, an umbrella that immediately gets claimed by Ashido and Uraraka, a dining chair (Satou volunteered to carry it), and a miniature fucking inflatable bed with a goddamn rock sitting on it.
Katsuki hates his life.
And then, later, there was dinner on what should have been an uneventful Tuesday night. Fuyumi had dropped a few dishes off for Todoroki, and Yaoyorozu had brought back some takeaway from a local restaurant half the class liked (the other half just liked free food), and so people were grabbing dishes of their choice, occasionally supplementing by making their own food.
All around, a relaxing turn of events.
Or it should have been.
“You can’t have it,” Todoroki says, closing his hand around Katsuki’s wrist.
Katsuki wills himself to stop noticing the way Todoroki’s cool touch feels against his skin, and musters up a glare. “And why the fuck not?” he asks incredulously. “You don’t even like spicy—”
“It’s Iwa-chan’s,” Todoroki interrupts, his tone matter-of-fact. He shrugs. “No points for taste, but it’s his favourite.”
Katsuki can’t decide if he’s more offended at Todoroki’s casual insult towards one of his favourite foods, or the fact that Todoroki is acting like a fucking rock has opinions on things and deserves food more than Katsuki. Who is a human.
Then he forces himself to get a grip, and settles decisively on the latter.
“He’s a rock,” Katsuki enunciates slowly. “A fucking rock. He doesn’t have a mouth! Or a brain! He’s not alive!”
Todoroki frowns at him and—to Katsuki’s endless disbelief—slowly closes his hands over the rock, the way one would cover the ears of a small child. Except it’s a rock and it has no goddamn ears.
“You’ll hurt his feelings,” Todoroki scolds.
“He doesn’t have feelings!” Katsuki exclaims. “Or any fucking ears!”
Todoroki’s mouth sets in a stubborn line. Great.
The rock ends up with the mapo tofu.
Katsuki ends up spearing some hot udon with his chopsticks, which infuriates the part of himself that values hypercompetence, but soothes the part of himself filled with homicidal intent. Petricidal? Katsuki doesn’t know, because presumably nobody in history has ever needed the correct terminology for killing a goddamn rock.
(At one point, he goes to the bathroom. When he comes back, there’s a small dish with mapo tofu on it next to his bowl of udon, and a note in Todoroki’s small handwriting:
Iwa-chan decided to share.
Katsuki stares at it for a beat too long. Kaminari notices, and tries to peek over at what he’s looking at, so he snatches the note up and shoves it into his pocket. He glances up at Todoroki, who’s sitting over with Deku, Iida and – the fucking rock.
Todoroki meets his eyes, and he does that – thing. It wouldn’t be a smile on anyone else’s face, but. There’s a small, secretive curve to his lips – something warm in the corner of his eyes – and that ever-so-slight tilt of his head. All of it thuds in Katsuki’s chest. He’s so aware of his own heartbeat, of the fact that he’s held Todoroki’s gaze a little too long, of the fact that he’s still not looking away.
It’s not until he notices Ashido trying to steal some of his recently-gifted mapo tofu that he breaks their eye contact, instead catching her wrist before she can grab it.
“Fuck off,” he says, and he sits down, dragging the plate closer to himself.
He’s not going to say thank you to a fucking rock. But –
He thinks about Todoroki’s expression, and swallows.
The rock’s stupid owner isn’t so bad, sometimes.)
Depending on where you start this story, it’s about Todoroki Shouto.
The first thing to know is that Shouto quite likes walks.
The second thing to know is that Shouto quite likes Bakugou Katsuki, which, more often than not, presents itself as him driving Bakugou to homicidal urges.
These two things are generally unrelated facts.
Not today.
He’s walking through the forest, mind refreshingly blank (contrary to the belief popularised by Bakugou that Shouto’s head is permanently empty), when he spots a – well, he doesn’t know what it’s called. He commits it to memory as best as he can, and resolves to ask Kouda for clarification later.
Whatever it is, it’s a small animal, and it seems to be having some trouble.
He crouches down and peers at what it’s doing. It seems to be trying to get into a hidey hole of sorts, but lacks the intelligence to go around the small rock in its way instead of just trying to walk through it.
Well. Shouto can solve this.
He stands and lifts up the rock. The little animal treats this as a miraculous turn of events and lifts its arms in what Shouto assumes is exaltation, then dives forward into the hole.
He’s still peering into the hole fifteen minutes later when—of all people—Bakugou and Eri show up.
Well, Eri shows up. He can hear Bakugou somewhere in the distance, calling out find the best hiding spot you can, rugrat, and I’ll still find you in a minute flat! Which doesn’t strike Shouto as particularly sporting to a child, but is also so very Bakugou that he can’t help the flash of fondness anyway.
“Shouto-chan?” Eri asks, tilting her head up at him. It still makes Kirishima tear up every time she calls him Ei-chan, even though he told her she could use it instead of Riot-chan. Shouto’s fairly sure she used to call Izuku Deku-san before picking up the -chan habit from Asui, but it’s also maybe because everyone calls her Eri-chan. (Even Bakugou and Shouto sometimes, though it’s rare.) Eri picks up a lot from the people around her, especially their class; it reminds Shouto of himself, a little, back in first year. His class taught him how to have friends, how to be a friend, how to be a hero; he can’t imagine any group better to show Eri love.
“Hi Eri,” he says.
“What’s that?”
Shouto follows her gaze, and realises he’s still holding the rock.
“It was in the way of that little entrance,” he explains, pointing into the hidey hole. She looks in, then looks back at the rock.
“It looks like it has a face,” she says thoughtfully, reaching out to trace the indents of its apparent face with her finger.
“It does,” Shouto agrees.
“What’s it called?” Eri asks.
Shouto considers this. “Rock,” he settles on.
Eri also considers this. “Iwa-chan,” she says, with a little nod.
Personally, Shouto thinks that’s probably a little extravagant—it fits in his hand, so it’s hardly a boulder—but then Bakugou saunters through the trees, stopping short at the sight of them.
“Eri, you didn’t even hide,” he complains, then scrunches up his nose at Shouto. “The fuck are you two up to?”
Shouto looks at Bakugou. In the space of two seconds, he considers:
- Bakugou’s personality, most notably his delightful tendency towards aggressive exasperation
- how wonderfully expressive his face is
- Shouto’s own sense of humour, which Izuku once described as ‘surprising’
- Eri’s quiet pleasure at finding a face in the indents of the rock
- His personal hobby of garnering reactions from Bakugou, which Izuku once described (to the pillow he was smushing his face into) as ‘terrifying’ and ‘bad flirting’, which Shouto had ignored
Then he smiles. Bakugou looks struck for a moment, then immediately suspicious.
“This is Iwa-chan,” Shouto says, raising the rock from between him and Eri so Bakugou can see it better. “He’s my friend.”
Eri beams.
Bakugou stares. Then: “HAH?!”
Shouto personally believes this is one of the funniest decisions of his entire life.
Admittedly, it was difficult at first to remember to keep addressing Iwa-chan as his friend, but he’s got the hang of it now. He’s even starting to feel fond of the rock’s company, especially because Eri seems so content to play with it, but that fondness is a mere firefly compared to the sun that is his endless entertainment at Bakugou’s reactions.
And oh, how Bakugou reacts.
It’s musical, the way he swears. Shouto thinks he could probably record himself and market to what Jirou calls ‘screamo’ fans. Maybe Shouto is a screamo fan. He doesn’t think so. Most of it seemed like mindless noise to him. Perhaps Bakugou is just particularly talented.
(“Or maybe,” Jirou suggests when he expresses this hypothesis, flopped over on Momo’s bed while Kendou paints Momo’s nails on the floor and Jirou uses Shouto’s stomach as a table for her lyric notebook, “you’re just a Bakugou fan.”
Yes, Shouto considers. That could be it.)
He’s got a very elastic face. Uraraka told Shouto that was a very unappealing description, but Shouto doesn’t know how else to say it. It’s like – when Bakugou feels something, his whole body feels it. Every ridge of his face reshapes itself into a more appropriate mountain range. Shouto is not particularly good at deciphering most emotions or expressions, but Bakugou’s face is the world’s clearest map. Equally clear: Bakugou’s clenched fists, Bakugou’s bark of laughter, Bakugou’s scrunched up eyebrows, Bakugou kicking at table legs, Bakugou’s quirk rumbling through the faults in the rock face, Bakugou’s palpable glee as he soars through the sky, Bakugou’s indignant scoff, Bakugou, Bakugou, Bakugou.
When he says this to Izuku, Uraraka, Tenya and Tsuyu, they all exchange a glance.
“I don’t think this is as common of an opinion on Bakugou as you seem to think,” Tenya says, adjusting his glasses.
“You have the weirdest taste,” Uraraka comments, but she sounds cheerful.
Izuku, meanwhile, just looks pained. “Shouto-kun, I think—oh, this is so bizarre—Shouto-kun, I think—” he stammers, before Todoroki turns his gaze to Tsuyu, hoping she will interject some clarity. Preferably this century, though he doesn’t really mind listening to Izuku ramble. It’s quite endearing. He doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of stopping, though. Tenya is now clasping his shoulder in what Shouto assumes is solidarity, but seems to mostly have the effect of Izuku sighing more and leaning into Tenya’s touch.
“You should probably tell Bakugou-chan all that,” she says. “Kero. If you’re done with the rock-flirting.”
Shouto considers this.
“Please, please be done with the rock-flirting,” Izuku mutters, tone slightly desperate.
Shouto considers that too.
“Okay,” he says.
Depending on where you start this story, it’s about Iwa-chan.
(“No,” Izuku says, when Shouto expresses this thought. “I’m pretty sure every version of this is about you being fixated on Kacchan’s face.”
“To be fair,” Uraraka chimes in, “Bakugou does have pretty funny facial expressions.”
“That’s not what I said,” Izuku mumbles.
Shouto has to admit that Izuku may have a point.)
Up until recently, his entire life has been spent in a garden. Also, he didn’t have a name. He’d never needed one. His closest relationship was with the large boulder nearby (though distance was fairly unimportant to a rock, given his inability to traverse it) and the moss growing upon it.
But now he is a Friend.
He doesn’t think his new companion—who has many names, mostly from the grumpy boy called Bakugou, like Icyhot and Half ‘n’ half and stupid pretty bastard (that had been said quietly, but rocks have excellent hearing, despite the lack of ears that Bakugou had pointed out quite rudely) and Todoroki and Shouto-kun—really needs a Friend, as he seems to have several friends (including grumpy Bakugou, but also Izuku—also known as Midoriya, or Deku, and who has very sweaty hands—and Tenya—also known as Iida, or Prez, and who reminds Iwa-chan of a falcon with his sharp, precise movements and severe eyebrows—and Momo—also known as Yaoyorozu, or Yaomomo, and who has surprisingly smooth skin despite the fact that Iwa-chan once observed a spear emerging from it—and even Eri-chan—also known as rugrat, at least to Bakugou, and who gave Iwa-chan his name) but. He said Iwa-chan was his Friend, with emphasis, and so Iwa-chan is a Friend now.
He is not entirely sure of his duties as a Friend. With Eri-chan, he knows he just has to listen to her confess her quiet thoughts in her quiet voice and with her quiet eyes. Sometimes he accompanies her on walks, or to her tea parties, but those don’t require much effort from him.
With Todoroki, he’s not as sure.
So he decides he will keep watch.
Todoroki sits there for some length of time—Iwa-chan is not very good at measuring time, he has discovered—until finally—
“Oi.”
Grumpy Bakugou.
“Hello Bakugou,” Todoroki says. He sounds as unflappable as ever, but Iwa-chan is of the opinion that it’s not as unflappable as his friends seem to think. Todoroki is not as expressive as many of his friends, but he’s still quite expressive in Iwa-chan’s humble opinion. Perhaps it is difficult to seem inexpressive to a rock.
“Fuckin’ hi, I guess,” Bakugou says, then throws himself down in the seat next to Todoroki. “What do you want?”
Todoroki hums. It’s a soothing sound, in Iwa-chan’s opinion.
“Did you like your mapo tofu?”
Bakugou frowns, then scoffs. “Tch! I can’t believe you gave it to a rock.”
Neither can Iwa-chan. He doesn’t have a mouth.
Todoroki lets out a noise. It’s a laugh, Iwa-chan thinks, but quiet the same way Eri-chan is. Small, contained, still finding its way around.
“Nourishment is very important,” Todoroki says, eyes gleaming with amusement. “We can’t have Iwa-chan suffering from malnutrition under my care.”
“I’ll suffer malnutrition under your care,” Bakugou mutters.
“I wouldn’t under yours,” Todoroki says softly.
Bakugou looks up. His eyebrows are knit at first, like Tenya’s with the falcon-focus, but then they ease. He swallows. It’s loud enough that Iwa-chan can hear it even from here, with his excellent hearing and lack of ears.
“No,” he says after a moment. “Guess not.” He kicks at the concrete slab they’re sitting on, the back of his heel echoing against it.
Todoroki watches.
“I know you’re fucking with me,” Bakugou says suddenly, and Todoroki frowns.
“What? Now?” he asks. He sounds – discontent.
“No,” Bakugou says dismissively. “I mean – maybe, but no, I don’t think so. I meant with the goddamn rock.”
Todoroki lets out a laugh again, sounding a little more robust this time.
“I know,” Todoroki says. “That you know.”
Bakugou gives him an unimpressed look. “Then why the fuck do you do it?”
Todoroki shrugs. “I like your reactions to things,” he says.
“You like my – sadist,” Bakugou accuses.
“I don’t think you’re suffering that much,” Todoroki says thoughtfully. “You could have just stopped hanging out with me.”
Bakugou looks like he wants to argue, but he visibly bites back. “You’re always around,” he mutters, half-hearted.
“So you’re saying you couldn’t avoid me? There’s something you can’t do?” Todoroki – teases? Needles? Iwa-chan isn’t sure. He’s never heard this tone in his Friend’s voice before.
“Fuck off,” Bakugou bristles, then deflates. “Okay. No. Fine. I don’t fuckin’ know. Being around you’s not that bad, I guess. Asshole.”
Todoroki smiles then, looking for all the world like the fireflies that nest in the trees at night, instead of just a strange-coloured boy with hair a little too long in the front.
“I like being around you too,” Todoroki says. For a moment, Iwa-chan feels a swell of something new at the sincerity being offered – hope, maybe. He’s not sure he’s felt it before. Then Todoroki continues talking. “I’m glad you had such a good time with Iwa-chan.”
Bakugou groans. “You’re the worst,” he says, and makes to move.
Iwa-chan doesn’t think he’s actually going anywhere, but Todoroki reaches out and catches his wrist anyway. Bakugou stills, and looks down at where their skin is connected.
Touch seems so important to humans. Iwa-chan supposes he understands; he’d only been touched by the rain, and the wind, and passing creatures before, usually on their way to somewhere else. Todoroki was the first person to ever hold him – a foreign sensation, but not an unpleasant one.
Maybe people don’t hold Bakugou much either.
“I—” Todoroki begins, then looks down. “Stay?”
Bakugou looks at him. The cricket to the left of Iwa-chan chirps. A bird cheeps.
The cricket chirps once more.
“What do you want, Icyhot?” Bakugou asks. It sounds different to how he asked before. Iwa-chan doesn’t have a mouth, and doesn’t know how to hold things, but that’s what it makes him think of. Like Bakugou is holding the words carefully in his mouth.
“I want you to stay,” Todoroki says. The cricket chirps. Todoroki looks down at where his hand is still wrapped around Bakugou’s wrist, then back up at Bakugou. He quirks up the corner of his lips. “Even if you don’t understand my deep friendship with Iwa-chan.”
“I’m going to strangle you,” Bakugou threatens, but he doesn’t make a move to do so. He just keeps looking at Todoroki. “That it?” he asks eventually.
Todoroki frowns. “What else is there?” he asks, before he seems to realise that wasn’t the right thing to say.
Iwa-chan thinks maybe this is why Todoroki needed him to be his Friend. You’re probably pretty hopeless if your communication instincts are worse than a rock’s.
“Wait,” Todoroki says, even though Bakugou hasn’t moved away yet. “You have my favourite face.”
Bakugou’s jaw drops.
Todoroki, evidently, is not finished.
“Uraraka says ‘elastic’ is a bad description for faces, but yours is elastic. I’m like – I’m like Iwa-chan,” (Iwa-chan disagrees), “and everyone says I’m not that expressive, but you are.” A pause, then, in a smaller, thoughtful voice, “I like that you are.”
“You’re not like a rock,” Bakugou says.
Todoroki gives him a quizzical look, and Bakugou snorts.
“It’s not that hard to tell when you’re being a mischievous dickbag,” Bakugou says, rolling his eyes. “You just gotta know how to look.”
His wrist is still in Todoroki’s hands.
“Oh,” Todoroki says, sounding a little strange. “Then I guess I like that you know how to look.”
Bakugou’s breath hitches. Iwa-chan is starting to feel like he should look away, but he doesn’t have any eyes.
“Yeah?” Bakugou checks. His voice sounds a little strange too. Thick with something.
Todoroki nods. There’s something glinting in his eyes, kind of like the way he looked when the class was practicing fighting last week, when he caught Bakugou’s gaze and wouldn’t let it go, not even when Izuku threw a boulder at them both. (Iwa-chan had been quite impressed with that, though somewhat traumatised by the fate the poor boulder suffered. Could have been his cousin.)
“I think about it sometimes,” Todoroki says.
“What, me looking at you?” Bakugou asks. His voice is a little hoarse.
“Mm,” Todoroki agrees. “And me looking at you, sometimes.”
Bakugou snorts. “You do a lot more than think about looking at me, asshole,” he says, and it’s fond. “Swear to fuck that you look at me more than you talk to me.”
“I think about it even more than that,” Todoroki says, shrugging.
Bakugou sucks in a breath.
“Is that all you think about?” he asks. His voice sounds strangely – vulnerable. Iwa-chan does not know much of vulnerability—there is only being whole, and being less than, be it as volatile as a teenage boy blasting you during a fight, or as slowly creeping as erosion—but he thinks he recognises it here, in Grumpy Bakugou’s not-so-grumpy voice.
Todoroki’s cheeks get a little pink. “No,” he says, as straightforward and steady as ever. In that way, he is like a rock. Nothing ever seems to compromise his honesty.
Bakugou flicks his gaze to Todoroki’s face. He seems to be searching it for something.
Iwa-chan guesses he finds it, because he moves a little closer. Steps into Todoroki’s space. Todoroki’s breath hitches.
The cricket’s chirp sounds so loud.
Bakugou tugs his wrist free, but moves his hand to cup Todoroki’s face instead. Todoroki leans into it, eyes still intent on Bakugou.
“Do you ever think about this?” Bakugou asks quietly. Something is pounding. It could be an earthquake, Iwa-chan supposes, but he thinks it might be their hearts.
Humans are such expressive creatures. Every fear, every want, every worry – it all bleeds out of them. The whole world can tell, if only they bother to notice.
“Yes,” Todoroki whispers.
“Time to stop thinking,” Bakugou says, all bravado and staccato heartbeat ringing through the air, and then he leans down and seals his lips over Todoroki’s.
It’s a little like moss, Iwa-chan observes. Rocks and trees don’t need them; they’re whole by themselves. Moss is a plant in its own right too. But when they stick together, they stay that way. The rocks don’t mind, nor do the trees. Sometimes the company is nice. Sometimes it feels right, just sticking together.
That’s roughly what Iwa-chan assumes is happening here. Bakugou and Todoroki are certainly still sealed together at the lips, despite it being unnecessary. They are not lichen. Iwa-chan knows this, because he has seen them exist entirely separately—if close, if often connected, if orbiting each other endlessly—up until this point.
So, it’s a choice.
Iwa-chan is happy his Friend has found his moss.
No matter where you start this story, it’s about Bakugou Katsuki and Todoroki Shouto.
(“I think Iwa-chan should be the ringbearer at your wedding,” Kaminari says when they’re twenty-two and flicking through old photos to compile for Eri’s birthday powerpoint.
Katsuki spits out his drink. Sero starts laughing.
“No fuckin’—I can’t believe you reminded me of that bullshit,” Katsuki mutters. He is not touching the ‘wedding’ thing, no matter how warm his cheeks feel. His chest too, maybe.
“That bullshit scored you a boyfriend,” Jirou says. Four years on, and she’s still looking at her notebook instead of at Katsuki as she speaks, but now she’s sitting sideways on the couch, leaning against Kirishima’s side, legs propped up on Kaminari’s lap.
“It’s not because of the rock,” Katsuki protests. Uraraka gives him a pitying look. Fucking unreal. “We’d have gotten there eventually,” he insists.
Jirou makes an undignified noise.
“Probably,” Kirishima says, sounding agreeable. “But like…”
“It would have taken a lot longer,” Ashido says.
“Yeah,” Kaminari chimes in. “Anyway, I bet Eri-chan still has him in her room! We can ask her!”
Katsuki is not having a rock at his wedding.)
(Two years later, Fuyumi’s son Koutarou is the ringbearer at Katsuki’s wedding.
Iwa-chan still ends up at their table at the reception. Un-fucking-believable.)
No matter where you start this story, it’s about Bakugou Katsuki and Todoroki Shouto. (One day Bakugou Shouto.)
They wouldn’t have it any other way. Rock and all.
