Work Text:
Click. Click, click.
Katsuki lowers the viewfinder from his eye, holding up the digital screen to look over the photo. It’s mid-morning, twenty past nine, and Katsuki loves the angle in which the late spring morning light hits the lay of the land. The subject of his photograph, tiny cherry tomatoes still green with only the larger ones bearing a hint of a crimson blush on their taut skins, is cast in a warm golden glow, sunlight dancing gracefully off their waxy exteriors.
Katsuki smiles. He loves the morning light, when most of his photos taken won’t need to be edited.
“Mm,” Shouto mumbles from behind. Katsuki turns to find Shouto shuffling towards him, one hand scratching his waist and the other rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“Mornin’, half-and-half.”
“Morning.”
Shouto bends down beside Katsuki, stray strands of his fringe falling across his forehead and brushing against his eyelashes. The morning light bathes his face in gold as he leans forward to inspect the tomato plant. Katsuki’s hands, fingers still curled around his camera, twitch instinctively towards him.
“Wow,” Shouto brings up a finger and gingerly pokes at a small tomato. “These grow pretty fast. I can’t believe they’re fruiting already.”
Katsuki smiles, turning back to the tomatoes, “I told you we could start them indoors first.”
“Do they taste any good?” Shouto asks as he bends lower, peering up at the tomatoes with childlike curiosity from as low as he can bring his eye-level to.
Katsuki’s hands do move then. The viewfinder is in front of his eye, his fingers pressing into the grooves of the zoom ring on the lens.
Click.
Shouto chooses one of the medium-sized fruits, still mainly green with barely a few streaks of red, and pushes it into his mouth.
“Doubt it,” Katsuki lowers the camera, admiring the shot of Shouto aglow in the morning light on the LCD screen. His eyes flick up to the real Shouto, who chews his tomato with a perplexed expression on his face.
Katsuki laughs, then takes another shot.
“So? How’s it taste?”
Shouto frowns before swallowing. “It doesn’t taste of anything.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki laughs, “I figured. They’re not ripe yet, and usually the first ones out don’t taste the best. The ones that come out halfway are my favourite, if you leave them on the vine for long enough and you have the right touch.”
Shouto smiles cheekily. “If you ‘shower the plant with enough looove’, was what you said when they first started to sprout.”
Katsuki scowls. “I never said anything stupid like that. You just have to have a little patience with them. It’s a waiting game.”
“How’d I look?” Shouto asks, arms crossed over his knees as he tilts his chin towards Katsuki’s camera.
Katsuki pulls up the photo of Shouto chewing on his tiny bland tomato and angles the screen towards him. Shouto nods, eyes lighting up.
“You look real dumb, half-and-half,” Katsuki smirks. Shouto rolls his eyes and reaches for the camera, fingers brushing over Katsuki’s as he does so. Katsuki ignores the small tingle that runs down his spine at the contact.
Click.
Shouto lowers the camera, beams at the screen, then tilts it towards Katsuki.
Katsuki laughs, slapping his knee.
“Your focus is on my hair, idiot! Not my face!”
“Oh,” Shouto says, a small laugh playing on his lips as he brings the screen back to face him, “I forget you leave this on manual when you use it. I can’t really tell the difference anyway.”
Katsuki’s about to launch into his usual spiel of how manual focus is superior when Shouto returns the camera to him, standing to pad back into the apartment and patting Katsuki’s shoulder gently as he brushes past.
“Have you had coffee yet?”
“Not yet,” Katsuki calls, adjusting the settings on his camera before pointing the lens at the baby olive tree in the corner of the balcony, brought out from its spot by the TV once winter had bid the country farewell.
Shouto clatters about in the kitchen as he opens and closes cabinets. Katsuki can practically hear him nodding.
“Okay. I’ll use the French press then.”
.
Katsuki’s phone buzzes beside his hand.
What do we need again? I forgot to bring the list and the only thing I remember is zucchini
Katsuki sighs, rolling his eyes as he reads Shouto’s message under ‘Notifications’ and unlocks his phone to reply.
(picture of a list stuck onto the fridge)
I knew this would happen. Don’t forget it’s two bags of spinach
“What are you smiling at?”
Katsuki’s head whips around to find Eijirou standing beside him, a warm smile on his face and a gleam in his eyes as he peers over Katsuki’s shoulder at his phone.
He scowls and locks his phone immediately. “’m not smiling at anything, stupid.”
“Hm,” Eijirou says, shrugging as his smile widens, “could have fooled me! Anyway, ready to go?”
Katsuki glances back at the desktop screen in front of him, a close-up of tulips dappled with sunlight on display. The weather had been good that day he and two of the other guys in the photography society had headed out to the lakeside garden, famous for their tulip fields in spring, and the remaining thirty odd pictures wouldn’t need any heavy editing.
“Yeah,” Katsuki closes the photo editor and pulls his SD card from the computer, “let’s go.”
Eijirou laughs as he slings an arm around Katsuki’s neck with a quick, “a’ight let’s go man!” Katsuki just rolls his eyes and shoves his hands in his pockets, allowing Eijirou to regale him with stories of Mina, Denki and Hanta getting into their specific brand of trouble over the weekend. Katsuki doesn’t pretend to dislike Eijirou’s style of touchy-feely friendship nowadays. Eijirou’s friendly with everyone, is kind to everyone, and constantly has his arm around or a hand on someone in their tight knit gang. Katsuki’s instinct in first year had been to growl at the loud boy with the dumb hair. He’d get his shovel out now, no questions asked, if Eijirou came to him and said he needed to hide a body.
Katsuki’s phone buzzes again. Speaking of dumb hair…
What’s the last thing on the list?
I can’t read your handwriting
Fucking pumpkin
P U M P K I N
As if your handwriting is any better
ok
“Ah, so you were texting Shouto just now.” Kirishima chuckles as he peers at Katsuki’s screen.
“Fucking breach of privacy, asshole,” Katsuki says as they walk out the main campus gates and head for the gym.
.
Shouto’s lying on his back on the sofa when Katsuki gets home.
“Oh,” he says, tilting his head slightly to peek past his phone, red and white hair splayed over a cushion, “welcome back.”
“Hey,” Katsuki pushes his gym bag against the wall and removes his sneakers and socks, “did you get everything?”
Shouto hums in response as Katsuki heads into the kitchen, confirming that all their groceries have, in fact, been purchased correctly before taking out a bag of spinach, an onion, and two zucchinis.
His hands move on autopilot as he minces garlic, grates a small piece of ginger, cuts up the zucchinis into cubes and slices up the onions and bunch of spinach.
Shouto’s like Eijirou, in a way. He’s nowhere near as loud and not as outwardly friendly, but he’s just as kind, if not more. Katsuki doesn’t think he’s ever known anyone with as big a heart as Shouto. Shouto’s touchy-feely too—he’s always patting Katsuki’s arm, or his shoulder, or placing a warm palm on his back for a brief second before moving away. Katsuki’s been noticing these gestures more and more lately, ignoring the tingle of excitement they induce and wondering why he never noticed that Shouto was a touchy-feely sort of guy before.
The garlic, ginger and onion go into a pot on the stove. The bacon goes into a pan.
“That smells amazing.”
Katsuki jumps. His back presses into Shouto’s chest. Shouto places a hand on his waist to steady him, eyes trained on the bacon sizzling on the heat.
“Fucking—! Half-and-half, you’re lucky I’m holding a fucking frying spatula and not a big-ass knife!”
“What are you making tonight?” Shouto asks, hand still on Katsuki’s waist and eyes still trained on the sizzling bacon.
Katsuki frowns as he turns back to the stove, ignoring the warmth of Shouto’s hand seeping through his shirt.
“Korean soybean paste stew. I left my windbreaker on my chair in the photo soc room and froze on my way back from the gym, so dinner’s gonna be something nice and toasty.”
“Ooh,” Shouto moves away from Katsuki to open the fridge. Katsuki pretends not to notice the exact moment the warmth from Shouto’s hand dissipates from the fabric of the shirt pressed against his waist. “We still have some kimchi we got that night from the convenience store, don’t we.”
Katsuki nods as he adds the chopped zucchini, water, and a stock packet into the pot. “Think so. Can you hand me the tofu?”
“What’s the bacon for then?” Shouto says as he places a packet of tofu next to the chopping board.
“The spinach.”
Shouto nods, then folds his arms and leans against the kitchen counter, watching Katsuki cook.
Todoroki Shouto, as it turns out, is surprisingly easy to live with.
Katsuki hadn’t really thought much about the whole setup when they had split the group into two apartments. He, Shouto, Eijirou, Hanta, Denki and Mina had met in their first year on campus through a combination of being roommates, living in the same dorm complex, and sharing some of their classes. When first year had ended and they had moved out from the freshman dorms, they had found a perfect apartment for four and a perfect apartment for two, both still on campus and within ten minutes of each other. The split had been completely natural: Katsuki and Shouto weren’t late night party animals, end of story. Katsuki figured Shouto would be a decent roommate, though he hadn’t been too sure on how neat and tidy Shouto would be given how famously rich his family was.
Todoroki Shouto, as it turns out, is very neat and tidy. He doesn’t leave his laundry hanging around, he definitely doesn’t leave a single dirty sock lying on the sofa, and he does his fair share of the chores well and in a timely manner.
Katsuki had been thoroughly impressed, until he had seen the state of Shouto’s sorry diet and his even sorrier attempts at cooking. The guy didn’t know the importance of vegetables and non-processed food to save his life, and if left to his own devices, would eat like a five-year-old child.
Shouto was banned from all the knives in the kitchen and would take charge of groceries and the cleanup. Katsuki would do all the cooking.
“This looks like an eclectic spread,” Shouto says when they lay their dishes on the dining table, eyes glistening in excitement.
“My kitchen, my rules,” Katsuki pulls out his chair and picks up his rice bowl. He’s just helping himself to a spoonful of the soybean paste stew when he hears the ‘click’ of a shutter.
Click. Click.
He looks up to find his own DSLR in Shouto’s hands. Shouto lowers the camera and smiles at the screen.
“Another unflattering picture of you to add to the pile.”
Katsuki scowls. “Shut up and eat before everything gets cold.”
Shouto laughs and picks up his chopsticks, carefully putting down the camera with his other hand.
“Thank you for the meal.”
Shouto tells him about his classes and the truckload of assignments he has to get through over the weekend. Katsuki tells him about his boring and not so boring lectures, and the preparations for the upcoming mid-semester photography society exhibition. Shouto’s foot brushes against his under the table at one point. Katsuki nearly chokes on a mouthful of spinach when it happens.
“What kind of photos will you be showcasing this time?” Shouto asks in between bites of kimchi and stew.
“Still life, mainly,” Katsuki says from the stove, helping himself to another bowl of stew, “I need more practice with this camera.”
Shouto beams at him when he returns to the table. Katsuki’s stomach does a strange little flip.
It’s been doing that a lot lately. He hopes he isn’t giving himself an ulcer with all the late nights he’s been pulling editing photos.
“Will your parents come?”
Katsuki shrugs, picking up another clump of rice with his chopsticks. “They’re usually fully booked with location shoots throughout spring. My mom might be able to come, but I doubt my dad can.”
Shouto nods. “Are you excited about working with them after graduation?”
“I’ve still got close to three full years left before that happens,” Katsuki laughs, rice bowl still in hand. “Who knows? Things might change.”
Shouto looks down as he picks up his spoon to finish the last of his stew, a small, thoughtful smile on his face.
“It sounds nice,” he says, and the conversation ends.
Katsuki feels the now-familiar confusing swirl of emotions arise in the depths of his chest whenever Shouto brings up the topic of family. Sure, he and his parents are close. They’re not his best friends, and he doesn’t discuss and confide in them about everything, and just like most other families, he has his fair share of fights with both or either of them. But they’re his parents, and he loves them, just as he knows they love him.
Katsuki never knows how to reconcile that with the knowledge that Shouto occasionally still walks around too quietly because of his horrible childhood; that he had been moulded all his life to be another’s puppet; that he is law school bound right after graduation even though he has little interest in the subject; that his oldest brother had finally defied their father after years of abuse and eventually pursued music, only to be promptly disowned; that ‘love’ wasn’t the adjective that came to mind when the Todoroki family was brought up in conversation.
Katsuki had regurgitated all his insecurities to Shouto one dark and cold night, not long after they had moved into their new apartment together. Shouto had returned the sentiment immediately and had poured out story after story of his nightmarish childhood.
“Oh,” Shouto calls from the balcony when Katsuki emerges from his bath later. “Katsuki, come look.”
Katsuki moves to where Shouto crouches before the tomato plant, his leg brushing gently against Shouto’s curved back. Shouto turns to look up at him, eyes wide and gleaming.
“Look,” Shouto says, turning back to the tomato plant and pointing at something. Katsuki’s eyes linger on Shouto’s hair, individual strands silky-looking and falling artfully over his right ear, the hairs on the base of his neck cropped short, leading the leering eye down to his long nape.
“I wonder what you’d look like with an undercut,” Katsuki says out loud, then mentally slaps his own forehead.
Geezus fucking all mighty.
Shouto brushes off the sentiment like water down a duck’s back.
“I’d probably look good in one. Anyway, c’mere and look at this.” Without turning, he lifts a hand to tug on Katsuki’s sweatpants, other still pointing at the tomato plant.
Katsuki schools his features into a glare before he squats next to Shouto. “I see your ego’s still as gigantic as ever.”
Shouto shrugs, continuing to point at the small cluster of new tiny cherry tomatoes, green, waxy and bright.
“Mina said at the bar last week that I’d look good in any sort of hairdo. We have three more tomatoes now.”
Katsuki scoffs, prodding the new baby fruits before inspecting the larger, reddening ones on their vines. “I’d like to see just how good you’d look in braids with flowers woven into them.”
He turns to find Shouto’s mismatched eyes trained on him, nose only an inch from his.
“I think I’d look pretty good actually. You’d probably look good with flowers in your hair too.”
“No I would not!” Katsuki laughs, pushing his knee hard enough into Shouto’s arm to make him topple over. “We’d both look ridiculous, and don’t you dare breathe a word of this to Mina or she’ll find a way to turn it into reality!”
Katsuki makes to stand up, but Shouto’s arm shoots out and grabs his ankle and he ends up stumbling over his own feet and right back on the floor with Shouto. They scuffle like little children would in a sandbox, worming their way over the parquet and onto the carpet in front of the couch.
Shouto fights dirty, but Katsuki fights dirtier. He pins Shouto to the floor, one wrist above his head and the other next to his face.
“Hah!” Katsuki exclaims, triumphant, before the smile freezes on his face.
They’re both heaving from exertion. Their noses are almost touching. Katsuki can see every fleck of navy in Shouto’s blue eye and every streak of green in his grey one. Shouto just lies there on his back, eyes bright and pinned on Katsuki’s face, cheeks flushed and breath uneven, his strawberry shortcake hair fanning a halo around his head.
Your hair looks perfect like this, Katsuki thinks. And then—now I’m gonna kiss you.
Shouto chooses that exact moment to speak.
“Did you drain the bath?”
Katsuki doesn’t respond. Shouto asks again.
“Did you drain the bath?”
“Uh,” Katsuki startles, then sits up, releasing Shouto’s wrists in the process. “No. You haven’t had a bath yet, right?”
Shouto pushes himself up. “Right. Thanks for leaving the water, I’ll go wash up now.”
He heads for the bathroom, leaving Katsuki still kneeling on the floor, face flushed and heart racing, trying to make sense of the preceding fifteen minutes.
.
If Katsuki thrusts into his own hand that night, under the covers while muffling his moans with his pillow, nobody needs to know, least of all Todoroki Shouto. Because it isn’t specifically him that Katsuki pictures splayed below him, red-faced and teary-eyed, pleading for Katsuki to let him cum.
It’s some random candy-cane haired pretty boy with, hey, what do you know it, heterochromia. It’s just some random dude, and not specifically Todoroki Shouto.
Fucking shit, Katsuki just really needs to get laid.
.
The end of a busy midterms week finds both of them at the supermarket together, standing side by side in front of the vegetables section.
“Green beans,” Katsuki reads aloud as Shouto picks up a bag of green beans and places it in a basket hanging from his arm. “Round cabbage,” Shouto does the same. “Leeks, and eggplant.”
“Eggplant never tastes good when I try to cook it,” Shouto says as he lifts a bag of eggplants to eye level, frowning at the dark purple vegetables within. Katsuki cackles as he grabs the bag from Shouto and chucks it into their shopping basket.
“That’s because you suck at cooking. What were you trying to make?”
“I really like the miso-grilled eggplant my sister makes.”
“Okay, and how did you make it?” Katsuki asks as they steer through the after-work crowd towards the dairy section.
“I’d cut them in half lengthwise, slather them in miso then put them under the grill.”
“You’d make them like that? Word for word?”
Shouto nods, placing a warm hand on Katsuki’s shoulder as he pushes him gently towards the shelves of yogurt. “Word for word.”
Katsuki laughs. “No wonder it tasted like shit. You did it all wrong. Don’t worry, I’ll show you how. Miso-grilled eggplant is easy, even an idiot in the kitchen like you should be able to do it.”
Shouto’s eyes light up. Katsuki can’t keep the smile from spreading on his face.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Tomorrow? We have Mina’s party tonight.”
“Tomorrow,” Katsuki agrees as he picks up a block of tofu. “Speaking of, we should probably head back now and dump all of this into the fridge before heading to her new place, or we’ll be late.”
Mina had decided, four months into a two-year lease, that she wanted her own place. Eijirou, Denki and Hanta hadn’t fussed about it at all. They all knew it was because things were going very well with her new boyfriend, and she wanted a little more privacy, which living together with three of your best friends just wouldn’t provide. Per square metre, the four-bedroom the guys were renting was cheaper than what Katsuki and Shouto were paying for their apartment. They had decided not to look for a fourth person to rent share and had immediately turned Mina’s old room into a gaming-centre-slash-workout-space with glee.
Mina’s had found a new place off campus, in the young and hip part of town where the six of them usually find themselves on Friday nights.
“Guys!!” Mina beams when Katsuki and Shouto show up at her apartment with a bottle of wine and gin, dressed in a fluffy white top and a deep violet miniskirt. “Come in, come in!”
Katsuki and Shouto get there before the rest of the gang, and Mina introduces them to a couple of her boyfriend’s friends, gives them a tour of the small and cosy space, dressed up with candles, fairy lights, and multiple portable speakers wirelessly linked to each other. Katsuki insists on helping her in the kitchen with the finger food while Shouto makes idle chitchat with the other guests. When Eijirou, Denki and Hanta show up, they do so with a full backpack of booze with them.
“Congratulations on your new place!” they yell as Mina opens the door.
“Guys!!!” Mina squeals, just as they pull party poppers out from their pockets and raise them to the ceiling.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Mina laughs, covered in thin streamers of crepe paper and glitter confetti, pulling the three of them in for a group hug.
“Katsuki!” they yell when they spot him in the kitchen. Katsuki scowls at them, then shouts at them when they tackle him into the fridge. Shouto pads in; “Shouto!!” they yell; and laughs at the spectacle, bro-hugging Eijirou before he makes his way into the living room to high five Mina’s boyfriend.
They spend the night drinking, nibbling on finger food, laughing, and drinking some more. Shouto hovers around Katsuki in the kitchen trying to help while being shooed away, and presses his arm into Katsuki’s leg where he sits on the floor and Katsuki sits on the couch. He pats Katsuki’s knee or shoulder whenever he stands up to refill his glass, once resting his chin atop Katsuki’s head, gangly arms draped over Katsuki’s shoulders from behind the couch while trying to rejoin the conversation after a brief break outside on the balcony with Hanta. Katsuki pretends not to enjoy the contact, swatting at Shouto’s arms and yelling at him to go sit on the floor instead, but Shouto laughs as he straightens, patting Katsuki on the shoulder before heading into the kitchen to refill his drink. Katsuki finds himself unwittingly smiling along with the half-and-half idiot.
His smile falls the minute he turns back to the group where he finds Mina, Eijirou, Hanta and Denki looking at him, eyes sparkling with mischief and dumb, dopey smiles on their faces.
“Fucking what?!” Katsuki demands. Eijirou dashes to his side.
“Bro bro bro!” he exclaims, just as Mina rushes over too. “So? So??”
“So what, shitty hair?” Katsuki asks, already exasperated with the conversation.
“Who made the first move?” Mina squeals from beside Eijirou. To Katsuki’s dismay, Hanta and Denki materialise immediately in front of his face, meaning that he’d have to physically push them aside to get to the kitchen where Shouto is and he’d rather not make a scene at Mina’s party.
“Who made what move? Fucking make sense or don’t ask me questions!”
“You know! You two!” Mina squeals again.
“Huh?” Katsuki intones, as Hanta and Mina’s expressions morph into confusion to match his own. Denki and Eijirou remain bright and excited though. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Huh?” Hanta chimes in.
“Huh what, man?” Fucking hell. Katsuki loves these bozos, but it’s past his bedtime, he’s had more alcohol than he should have, and he isn’t in the mood to be quizzed on a topic nobody seems to even have a grasp on.
“You and Shouto!” Eijirou says, punching his shoulder gently.
Katsuki feels ice run up his spine. “What about us?”
“You guys are official now… right?” Denki asks, suddenly uncertain.
“Official what? Officially living together? Yeah, we’ve been living together since February, just like you guys have been, hello?!”
“Wait, what?” Eijirou says. Katsuki wonders what the hell Shouto’s doing in the kitchen. The conversation has already gone on for too long, half-and-half isn’t back yet, and leaving him by himself in a kitchen is always a bad idea.
“You and Shouto aren’t together yet?” Mina asks.
The fight leaves him. Katsuki isn’t sure why he feels disappointed, only recognising the emotion that courses through him at Mina’s question. He isn’t going to bother to address the word ‘yet’.
“No,” is all he says, reaching between Denki and Hanta for his drink on the coffee table behind them.
“But he touches you all the time,” Denki says, “he’s always patting your knee, or your shoulder, I mean just now he practically draped himself over you!”
“And he told me you were teaching him how to use your new camera,” Hanta adds. “You never let us touch your cameras!”
Katsuki shrugs. His drink is lukewarm. He needs to go to the kitchen to get more ice, and he needs to go to the kitchen to supervise Shouto or he’s liable to burn the entire building down. “He’s a touchy-feely kinda guy. He does that with everyone. And I don’t let you guys touch my cameras because you guys suck at looking after stuff and you’ll probably break them all.”
Denki’s eyes boggle. Hanta roars with laughter. Eijirou shoots him a confused look. Mina giggles and tries to hide it.
“Uh, dude,” Eijirou says slowly, “Shouto definitely isn’t a touchy-feely person. Actually, he rarely touches anyone. And also, I don’t break everything. Denki does though.”
Katsuki frowns at him as Denki splutters at the insult. “What’re you talking about? No, he definitely does, and he’s just like you. And you always have your arm around everyone.”
“Katsuki,” Denki says, right up in Katsuki’s face and tone very serious, “Shouto only does it with you. Trust me. He doesn’t touch me, like, ever.”
Katsuki pushes Denki’s face away, about to retort, when he feels a hand on his head. He turns, expecting it to be Eijirou who’s squeezed in next to him on the couch, but Eijirou’s looking behind him and smiling, so Katsuki turns a little more and looks up.
“What did I miss?” Shouto asks, gently ruffling Katsuki’s hair. Katsuki feels the back of his neck start to heat as he turns back to the four idiots.
“Nothing much, these guys were just being dumb.”
Denki and Hanta look pointedly at Katsuki’s face, then at the hand in his hair and back down to his face, trying and failing not to smile like creepy fools. Mina gives up on hiding her giggles.
“Bro!” Eijirou smiles, standing up. “You wanna sit here?”
Shouto nods, moving around the couch before squeezing into the space Eijirou vacates. He pats Katsuki’s knee when he’s seated, and Katsuki’s eyes instinctively flick up to the four musketeers before him, all sparkly eyes and brazen grins.
Katsuki rolls his eyes and ignores them. Shouto remains pressed against his side for the remainder of the party, and Katsuki can feel the warmth of him against his skin even after they leave, when they sit a good three feet apart from each other in the cab on their way home, all the way past the threshold of their front door.
“Night,” Shouto yawns, “see you in the morning.” Katsuki hesitates before reaching over to pat Shouto gently on the shoulder.
“Night, half-and-half.”
.
Click. Click, click.
Katsuki lowers the viewfinder from his eye, holding up the digital screen to look over the photo. Being an overcast day, the lighting isn’t great, and Katsuki’s trying to emulate a Noir Photography style with a steaming cup of black coffee on the coffee table. The pictures come up flat and boring, and no matter how many times he throws out the cold coffee and refills it from the still steaming pot, none of his shots are evocative enough to satisfy him.
“Maybe I need an actual crime scene,” he mumbles under his breath as he picks up the cup of coffee.
“Who’re you planning on murdering?” Shouto asks from the balcony, prodding at the cherry tomatoes.
Katsuki snickers, “You heard ‘crime scene’ and thought of murder? That’s dark, half-and-half.”
Shouto smiles as he walks over, picking Katsuki’s camera up.
“That’s only because it came from you. I wouldn’t have thought of murder if it’d been someone else.”
Katsuki smiles up at Shouto from behind the coffee cup as Shouto lifts the viewfinder to his eye.
Click.
His eyes widen when the photo appears on the display.
“Oh, you’re taking black and white pictures now.”
“’m just trying a different style,” Katsuki lowers the coffee cup from his lips before he stands and holds out a hand for his camera, “but it’s hard to recreate it without professional lighting, and there’s only so much I can do editing-wise.”
“Hence the crime scene?” Shouto asks, a small smile on his face.
“Exactly,” Katsuki grins back. “I’ve got a ton of photos to edit for the exhibit, so I’ll be back late tonight. There should be a bunch of leftovers in the fridge though.”
Shouto nods, trailing after Katsuki to the front door. “Should I leave some for you? Or I could make miso-grilled eggplant, since I know how to now.”
Katsuki laughs. “Don’t wait up. We’ll probably order a bunch of takeout to share. Just make sure you don’t burn the place down.”
“Okay. See you tonight then,” Shouto calls out as Katsuki opens the front door.
“Later, half-and-half.”
Afternoon classes go by quickly, and Katsuki grabs himself a can of coffee and a bunch of snacks to settle in for the long hours of editing. He’s just inserted the SD card when the photography society president calls him over to talk logistics for the exhibit. An entire hour later, Katsuki settles back into his chair before the desktop, clicking into the folder of his most recent shots.
The first one he opens is a black and white picture of himself, smile half hidden behind a cup of still steaming coffee, eyes lit and expressive as he looks at the person taking his photograph. It’s not very well focussed, and if Katsuki wants to use it for the exhibit, he’ll have to edit it quite a bit, but he pauses to take in his own expression, emotion in his eyes filling the entire widescreen and impossible to hide.
He clicks through the next couple of shots: an assortment of black and white steaming coffee cups taken from various angles. He continues to flick through the folder. There’s their cherry tomato and olive plant on the balcony, latte art, interesting shop fronts he had noticed around town, a flower shop he and Shouto had walked by on Sunday afternoon that looked like something out of a Wes Anderson movie, bursting with all manner of pastel-coloured blooms, a number of Shouto poking at their tomato plant, looking surprised or confused at something off screen, smiling directly at the camera with eyes as bright as the sun, and at least a hundred photos of Katsuki himself, most of them taken without him noticing.
Katsuki’s breath hitches as he selects all the ones of himself and drags them into a separate folder to scroll through. There’s him on the balcony, bathed in sunlight and tending to the cherry tomatoes. There’s another one of him, completely unfocussed but still recognisable, a blurry figure by the day curtains billowing in the spring winds. There’s him in the kitchen slicing leeks, peeling an apple, tasting something from the pot. There’s one of him asleep on the couch, mouth open and looking very unattractive.
Shouto must have taken all of these. Katsuki recognises all the other photos on the SD card, which means that Shouto had picked up Katsuki’s camera and taken pictures of only Katsuki. Katsuki cycles through the ones of himself looking at the camera, or rather, looking at Shouto. He’s smiling in most of them. He’s laughing in some. There’s a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks in one of them, and that one had been taken indoors. His eyes dance with happiness in all the shots. His eyes look alive. His eyes are filled with emotion. Katsuki’s heart races as he scrolls back through to the photos of Shouto looking directly at the camera. There’s that same emotion reflected in them, dancing in every fleck of green on grey and every speck of navy on bright blue.
He yanks the SD card from the computer and shoves all his things back into his bag.
“Tanaka!” he calls to the photography society’s president, already halfway to the door. “I’ve got something urgent tonight, so I’ll get all the editing done tomorrow!”
.
The journey home is a mad rush.
Are you home?
Yes
Shouto hears him from inside before he has his keys out and opens the door.
“Katsuki,” Shouto says, surprised. Katsuki stands just outside the front door, heart still pounding. “You okay? I thought you said you’d be late today.”
“Let’s go out for dinner,” Katsuki blurts. Shouto tilts his head to the side.
“Out?” Katsuki nods. “But we still have leftovers and zucchinis in the fridge. And I thought—”
“We’re going out,” Katsuki says, hands clenched in a death grip around the straps of his bag, “on a date. Now.”
Shouto takes his time replying. His head stays tilted to the side.
“…With other people? Together? Tonight?”
Small creases form between Shouto’s brows. He looks so ridiculously cute, Katsuki starts to laugh.
“Without other people. Tonight. Together. With each other.”
The creases disappear, and Shouto’s eyes widen. He remains still as a statue, one hand on the wall in their entryway, and Katsuki takes a step forward as he shakes his head.
“Fucking hell half-and-half,” he reaches forward, palm turned upwards, “don’t make me say everything.”
Shouto smiles. He reaches for Katsuki’s hand. Their front door is still wide open.
“Let’s go. Out for dinner. On a date.” A smile spreads on Shouto’s face as he speaks. His face lights up, and his eyes laugh.
“With each other,” Katsuki finishes.
.
Shouto’s fingers brush over the leaves of the tomato plant as Katsuki bends down next to him and props his chin on Shouto’s shoulder, one arm winding around Shouto’s waist.
“Look,” Shouto whispers to Katsuki, as though his voice will be a bother to the growing cherry tomatoes, “some of these are getting so big.”
Katsuki hums, turning to press a small kiss into the side of Shouto’s neck. Shouto’s fingers move to a plump tomato, left on its vine to ripen to a brilliant crimson. He plucks it gently, careful not to disturb the other tomatoes on the same vine, before popping it in his mouth.
“Mm,” Shouto turns to smile at Katsuki, pressing his nose into his cheek, “this is good.”
Katsuki chuckles. “What’d I tell you?”
“Who knew? Bakugou Katsuki: Hallway Menace slash Vegetable Whisperer.”
A few weeks ago, Katsuki would have scoffed. A few weeks ago, Katsuki might have even growled. All of it would have been a front. Now, Katsuki no longer needs to pretend.
He laughs instead, pressing closer to Shouto.
“That asshole deliberately walked into me! And that other night is all on you, because if you hadn’t gotten drunk and fallen asleep and taken my keys and then locked me out, I wouldn’t have had to yell just to get back into my stupid apartment.”
“Our apartment,” Shouto turns, pressing his lips to Katsuki’s.
Yeah, Katsuki thinks as he kisses Shouto back. When they break apart, Shouto’s fingers return to the tomato plant, choosing two tomatoes for himself and Katsuki.
“These really do grow fast,” Shouto mumbles as he chews, “I never knew. And you were right,” he says with a smile, “they taste much better after waiting.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki returns his smile, tucking stray strands of Shouto’s hair behind his ear.
“Some things are worth waiting for.”