Chapter Text
Bakugou is glaring at him.
Ordinarily, Denki wouldn’t care, but he’s feeling a bit sensitive at the moment. What with all the band’s practicing, Denki is pretty worn out, and he doesn’t have much energy to spare outside of class.
“Can you just, like, yell at me for whatever I did wrong already?” Denki asks tiredly, laying himself upside down on the couch, head hanging low, legs kicked over the back of the sofa. Bakugou’s eyes narrow at him, kicking his feet up on the coffee table.
“You don’t even know what you did?”
“Dude, if I knew what I did wrong, I’d probably be running for my life.”
His sneer, rather uncharacteristically, diminishes slightly.
“What was the last thing you said to Deku?”
Denki blinks. “Huh?”
“He was fine. Then he talked to you. And now he’s fucking miserable. Ergo, it’s your goddamn fault.”
“Hey, there could be plenty of reasons!” he says, before trying to think back on the last few days. Maybe Izuku has been a little quieter than usual? Denki’s been pretty down in the dumps himself and avoiding him. He doesn’t want to make it worse for either of them. He’s a bit of a bad person for it, but he does get tunnel vision sometimes. “I don’t know, I – he just – you know, I don’t need to answer anything you ask me!”
“I’ll give you one chance.”
Denki does not whimper.
“Look,” he lowers his voice and sits himself upright, pressing his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose. “I don’t even know why you care. You and Izuku are like… what are you guys? Not friends, for sure, rivals? I guess?”
Bakugou’s eye twitches. “I give a shit, because I’m supposed to wipe the floor with the shitty nerd. It’s no fun when he’s not putting up a fight.”
“You have so many issues, man. Have you tried therapy?”
“I’ll have one less problem in about ten minutes. Either you start talking, or,” his palms pop menacingly. “What’s it going to be?”
He grinds his teeth together and glances around, if just to make sure that Izuku isn’t nearby to overhear. Then again, he hasn’t really seen Izuku since yesterday – he disappeared in the afternoon to go walk that little girl around campus with Togata, and then dancing with the crew, and then Denki got busy, and then—
“He figured out I liked him, and rejected me,” Denki mutters flatly. His cheeks feel burning hot, and he doesn’t look at the other boy. This is the last conversation he ever expected to have with Bakugou of all people. “That’s the last thing we talked about, so I don’t really know why he’s been acting weird, and I doubt it’s ‘cause of me. Maybe you insulted him by accident or something.”
“Hah?!”
“Oh, right. Maybe you insulted him on purpose again and he didn’t like it. Or his mom.”
“I wouldn’t fucking insult—” Bakugou cuts himself with a growl. “You’re dumb as shit.”
“Yeah, we established that one a while ago.”
“No, dipshit. Why the fuck would Deku reject you when you’re the one he’s fucking mooning over?”
“Very funny,” he mumbles bitterly, getting back to his feet. “Look, I’m gonna go ask Kyouka to help with the chord progressions again. If you want a verbal punching bag, or a literal one, go ask your boyfriend, ‘cause I’m not in the mood.”
But Bakugou grabs his wrist tight. Denki yelps.
“Hey, watch it! That’s my strumming wrist!”
“You’re done when I say you’re done,” and Bakugou tugs him back down.
“I seriously never expected you to be the talk-about-your-feelings guy,” he laments. “I prefer it when you’re yelling at me. At least then I can go cry in my room and not have you yell at me for that too.”
“Don’t be a fucking wimp. And I’m dead serious. Do you need your eyes checked? Are you blind? Deku’s been mooning over you since we moved in here, you idiot.”
Denki rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure, because if you have a crush on someone, you definitely tell them they could do better than you.”
Bakugou stares at him, disbelief curling his lips. “Definitely sounds like shit Deku would say,” he mutters under his breath. Denki gestures emphatically.
“See? Although he did tell me not to tell you that. Or Kirishima, I don’t remember.”
That piques Bakugou’s interest, because he’s no longer slouching.
“What?”
“What?”
“What exactly did Deku say about me and Shark Week?”
“Can you not call your boyfriend by his name?”
“Quit avoiding the question.”
“I don’t really remember by now,” Denki says. It’s a lie. He’s gone over every last word Izuku said, especially since it was their last conversation in almost two weeks. A lot happened since then – Bakugou and Kirishima’s explosive start to their relationship was just one of them. “Just, some stuff about how we weren’t going to work out, and how I shouldn’t say anything to you, but I could do better. And then said you would actually agree with him, so I shouldn’t tell Kirishima. That was a little weird, but hey—”
“Oh my fucking god,” Bakugou grunts, rubbing at his temples. “Alright, Pikachu. One last question. Did you ever say the words, ‘Deku, I like you’ in a sentence to his fucking face?”
“First of all, I don’t call him Deku, dude. Second of all…” Denki frowns. He tries to think back to his conversation with Kyouka. “I don’t think so. But he overheard me saying it. Why else would he say all that stuff?”
“Okay,” Bakugou gets to his feet, smiling viciously. Denki kind of hates that smile. “I’ll be right fucking back.”
And then he’s marching away, hollering Deku, get your ass over here right fucking now—
And Denki decides, you know what? Peace out. He hides like a coward in Kyouka’s room and doesn’t say a goddamn word about it for the rest of the day.
It’s suspiciously quiet when Denki creeps back to his room later that night, especially given that it’s a Saturday. Something tells him that something terrible is afoot. No good, very bad. Denki slips into his room and silently clicks the door closed.
Why are you being so paranoid? He curses himself. Who’s going to jump out at you?! Bakugou?
Well.
Kind of.
He wouldn’t put it past the dude, and he’s definitely pissed him off a teensy bit with the whole having a crush on his fated rival thing. But Izuku and Kirishima get along like a house on fire! Maybe that’s just because Izuku and Kirishima are pretty alike. Damn, Denki should have gotten a crush on the redhead instead. Too bad greenets are his type.
…
He’s never saying greenet again, and he’ll politely ask Kyouka to shoot him if he ever thinks about it.
Denki bitterly pulls out his math homework and grumbles at it, glancing at the time. Yeah, it’s getting late, and he does have another day, but then he’ll have to rush to do it tomorrow and he’ll be double pooped from all this band practice. It’s just that math reminds him of Izuku, because if math was a colour, it would totally be green, and English would be yellow, which are coincidentally colours belonging to Izuku and Denki, which is totally a happy accident, and not at all because his stupid head really likes thinking about Izuku at stupid times.
He’s so caught up in math=green, English=yellow that he almost misses the light tapping on his door. Denki frowns at it, patting his pocket and feeling his phone there, so it’s definitely not Kyouka coming to sigh at him for leaving it behind again.
Oh shit, what if it’s Bakugou?! Denki did kind of run away with his tail between his legs, but he wasn’t going to get in the middle of an Izuku and Bakugou fight! Those two are the only idiots with a death wish! Except maybe Uraraka. She’s pretty feral.
There’s a slightly more hesitant tapping.
Nah, Denki thinks, getting to his feet. Bakugou doesn’t tap, he’ll barge in or yell at you if your door’s locked.
So who’s at the door?
Denki tugs the door open, chokes down a weird, pathetic little noise in the back of his throat, and slams the door shut again.
Or at least, he would.
If Izuku didn’t put his foot in the way.
He yelps, and Denki throws the door open and panics. “Okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t know your foot was there, why did you put your foot there?!”
“I wasn’t expecting you to slam the door that hard!” Izuku whines, eyes already watering as he stares pathetically at his foot. Denki wants to slap himself. Twice he’s talked to Izuku in two weeks, and both times, he’s made him cry! “Sorry, I just – I didn’t want you to shut the door on me, I know you’re mad at me, but I just—”
“Mad at you?” Denki interrupts, utterly confused, and a teensy bit horrified. “What? I’m not mad at you, man.”
Izuku’s face does something it doesn’t often do, even to Bakugou – an expression that screams, seriously? Right alongside that cute little brow thing—
Stop it Denki. Stop. No thirsting. Stop.
“I’m really not,” Denki insists, stepping back as he glances up and down the corridor. “I mean, come in? I guess? My room is kinda a mess, though.”
“It’s okay!” Izuku chirps, stepping confidently forward as though Denki hadn’t fractured his trapezoid bone (take THAT Yaomomo, I do pay attention! Wait hang on, isn’t that bone in the hand?), and okay, maybe he didn’t actually slam the door that hard. “And, you know, you can admit that you’re mad at me. I won’t, um – take it personally, I guess? I mean, Kacchan spent ten whole years mad at me for something or another, and I know I’m not a very easy person to like—”
“Are you joking?” Denki interrupts, astounded. “I’m seriously not mad at you, and you know you’re like… probably the nicest kid in the class?”
Izuku blinks at him, expression bouncing back to that thing again.
“Then why have you been avoiding me for the last two weeks?”
It’s not a genuine question. It’s also not really a fair one.
Denki still drops his gaze and sinks into his chair, scratching awkwardly at his neck as he cranes over to stare at his homework.
“I just… figured it would be easier for you if I did, dude.” Also because your face is too cute. and I’m probably going to scream into my pillow again later for making you cry. “After what you said, y’know, you were pretty adamant. I didn’t want you to get weirded out by me.”
Izuku is silent for a long moment, squinting at nothing and mouthing something Denki can’t make out.
“You didn’t want me to be weirded out by you,” Izuku repeats quietly. “Why… why would I? I’m the one who made you uncomfortable.”
Denki is seriously confused, now. And he throws his hands up into the air with a huff.
“Man, I just – I was a little miserable, you know? Hold it against me if you want. The dude I like isn’t interested in me back, can’t I have some time to wallow?”
Don’t make me say it.
Izuku’s lips twist. “Yeah. I – I guess so. I’m sorry, I – I should have been nicer about it—”
“You were plenty nice about it,” Denki practically stumbles over him to say. “Really, you didn’t laugh in my face. Most people probably would’ve.”
Izuku doesn’t look comforted as he wrings out his hands, rubbing at scarred fingertips.
“Kacchan’s so unpredictable,” Izuku mutters, gaze a little distant. Denki isn’t quite sure what Bakugou has to do with this. “And, well, I’d just found out Kirishima was going to ask him out, and Kacchan obviously liked him back – well, obvious to me, anyway – I didn’t want you to get hurt, Denki.”
Yeah, no. this isn’t adding up.
“Okay?” Denki says slowly, eyes narrowing. “And Bakugou’s got… what to do with it, anyway?”
Izuku’s face is a perfect mirror of his own. “You like Kacchan.”
Denki blinks a few times. He’s pretty sure he looks like a fish.
“No,” he says slowly. “I don’t.”
Izuku laughs awkwardly, looking away. “You don’t – you don’t have to be embarrassed about it. I heard it all, okay?”
“I don’t think you heard as much as you think you heard,” Denki says, pit in his stomach feeling like it’s going to open up and swallow him whole and spit him back out covered in peanut butter for a very large, angry dog to chew on. Where was he going with this?
At once, Izuku’s eyes close in his grimace, slapping himself in the face.
“Oh, god,” he whines. “I really made a mess of everything for you! I – who was it? Because they – they might actually like you back, since it’s not Kacchan, and I – I must have ruined everything for you, because I told you he didn’t like you back, and you weren’t even talking about Kacchan, oh god, no wonder he yelled at me earlier—”
“I hope he wasn’t too hard on you?” Denki yelps. “He didn’t say anything bad, did he?”
Izuku flaps a hand. “Oh, the usual! Just that I’m an idiot and wouldn’t know what hit me in the face until I died and looked down at it.”
“Bakugou can be pretty graphic when he wants to be.”
“Kacchan’s always been like that. He – he was really insistent I had to talk to you, because he’s tired of our crap, but, god, I’m so sorry – you probably want to avoid me even more now, so I – I think I’m just going to go, okay?”
Denki’s never moved faster in his life. And never will again.
He wraps his hand around Izuku’s wrist and tugs, squeaking a quiet wait—
Except either Denki is stronger than he expected himself to be, or Izuku put a lot less effort into resisting than he should have, because in an instant, a dizzying half second, Izuku is pressed right up against his chest and blinking up at Denki in surprise.
And then darting down.
To Denki’s lips.
And back up to his eyes again.
And Izuku is going pink.
Denki’s brain might be blue screening a little bit.
Fuck it.
Denki crosses the inch, maybe two difference between them, and presses his lips against Izuku’s.
And, uh.
Izuku is.
Izuku’s kind of–
Izuku is actually kissing him back?
No, Denki’s totally going crazy. Izuku isn’t kissing him back. His lips are just, uh… trying to fight Denki’s off? Enthusiastically? And he’s… throwing his arms around Denki’s neck to… fight him off. Yeah, Denki’s totally winning this fight.
He’s the first to break for air, and Izuku’s eyes are blown when Denki opens his (oh shit, when did he close them?) and he swallows.
“I,” Denki says, eyes suddenly finding the ceiling. “Uh, don’t know if… that… was clear enough for you…”
“I don’t know,” Izuku says. “Maybe you should kiss me again. To check I got the message.”
Denki definitely isn’t going to say no to that.
“So – so it was me?” Izuku says, pink-faced and gasping for breath after a much softer kiss on the lips. Damn, Denki must be pretty good at it. He’ll never admit that was his first-and-second kiss, though.
“Of course it was you,” Denki replies dumbly. “It’s always been you.”
He turns even redder. “I don’t – I don’t get why?”
“Dude, I think I’m the one who should be saying that.”
“But you’re incredible, Denki!” Izuku says, his earlier anxiety dissipating completely at the idea of Denki undervaluing himself. “You’re so smart and in so many different ways and the way you use your quirk is amazing, and the way you’re working on the band is just so inspiring, and you’re so good at playing the guitar, and I just know that thanks to you all of this is going to come together—”
Denki kisses him again, partly because he can. Izuku’s laughter is addictive, he knew that already, but even more so when he breathes out his laughter beneath Denki’s lips. Oh, Denki is so going to do this all the time. This is fantastic.
“You’re amazing,” Denki replies quietly, suddenly finding himself shy, face burning hot as he looks away from the other boy. “Like, ever since the Summer Camp, when you did all that stuff for that kid, and then you went after Bakugou, which was kinda stupid of you not gonna lie, but it worked, and then we started training, and you just – yeah. You’re… insane. And that raid you went on, how hard you’re trying to make everything nice for that little girl…”
He trails off, because he doesn’t think there are enough words in the world to describe the complexity of why he likes Izuku, why he thinks that this guy is going to be one of the greats, and in turn why he wants Denki, of all people.
“Eri,” Izuku says, smiling brightly enough that his eyes close. It’s too bright to look at up close. Like the sun. “You haven’t met her properly yet, have you? I should introduce her to you, I think she’d like you, especially after the concert, I hope she enjoys it!”
And at once, it all becomes…
Simple.
Easy.
“Well,” Denki says, smothering his own giggle because he doesn’t giggle. “I look forward to it. We’re only a few days off, now… it’s all going to be perfect.”
“Perfect,” Izuku repeats, and then seems to remember that the two of them are pressed very closely together and takes an awkward half-step back. “Would – uh, well, would you – would you like to – to go—”
“Go on a date?” Denki asks, a little cheekily at the sight of Izuku’s face turning a bright shade of pink. “Sure. I happen to know a pretty good cat café, if you’re not opposed.”
“That sounds great!” Izuku says, even brighter.
With one final, chaste kiss, Izuku slips out of Denki’s room and leaves him processing the fact that, uh.
Denki has a boyfriend, now. Kind of. He should probably check they’re exclusive. Oh damn, there are so many things to think about, Kyouka’s going to lose her mind—
Denki squawks for himself, and fumbles for his phone.
“Kyouka,” he hisses down the phone, a half moan. “Oh my god.”
“What?” she huffs. “You left a half hour ago. You can’t possibly have—”
“Confessed to Izuku that I had a crush on him after he realised that I wasn’t talking about Bakugou?”
They fall deadly, utterly silent on the other end of the phone.
“Are you joking?”
“Kyouka.”
“Oh my god. Bakugou? Why the hell did he think you wanted Bakugou?!”
“You’re missing the part where he likes me back, Kyouka!”
“No, I knew that, I just really need to connect the dots on Bakugou, that’s seriously tripping me up.”
“Oh my god. I hate you so much. I’m going to bed.”
“Waitwaitwaitwait—”
Denki pauses. “Yeah?”
“…how’d you tell him?”
He coughs an awkward laugh. “Uh. I kissed him?”
“…excellent. I expect a full review tomorrow morning.”
And then they hang up.
Yeah. If Denki dies right now, he’ll die happy. He’ll ascend. He’s pretty much on top of the world, right now.
