The writing quality of this chapter is ugh but cute things happen that sorta make up for it :3

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Kirishima

"Look, Dumb Hair..." Bakugou mumbled the following Sunday night as the two were getting ready for bed. Kirishima—looking dumb with a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth and his hair hanging in his face—turned to face Bakugou where he was standing in the doorway to the bathroom and gave him a questioning look. "'M sorry about my parents."

The question mark look quickly faded into a frown. Swiftly the redhead finished brushing, spat and rinsed. "Sorry for what, exactly?" he asked.

"Whattaya mean, what? They're fucking obnoxious and my mom is nosy as shit. I already told you."

"They're not so bad," Kirishima told him before taking a swig of water and swishing. Usually he'd do that gurgling thing, but with Bakugou's narrow red gaze practically scrutinizing him, he wasn't about to do something so... gross.

"...were you even there?" Bakugou asked, crossing his arms, his eyes narrow.

Kirishima spit. "Yeah, man. I think you just think they're annoying 'cause they're your parents. Everybody thinks that about their parents at least once," he said with a shrug, sticking his toothbrush back into its holder.

"Hmph. My parents are exceptionally annoying if you ask me," muttered Bakugou. "But whatever." With that he slipped back into the bedroom, leaving Kirishima to finish his nightly routine before joining the other.

"I didn't think they were annoying," Kirishima told him as he flopped down in the center of his bed and crossed his legs, facing Bakugou where he sat in a similar position, already halfway under his blankets and getting ready to lie down for the night. "I just thought they were interesting. I've... never seen someone have a relationship like that with their parents, y'know? Like, with the cussing and stuff. My mom would probably smack me upside the head if I ever talked to her like that, but it was kinda like that's how you and your mom express yourselves to each other."

Bakugou's eyes, free from the smudged eyeliner Kirishima was so used to (and looking so much more open without it, Kirishima had noticed from the beginning), narrowed for a split second before his features relaxed again and he leaned back against his pillows, tucking his hands behind his head. "Yeah, you're not the first person to say someshit like that," he said. "Literally everybody freaks out when they see it." His sentence was punctuated with a sigh.

Though on the inside Kirishima wanted to keep looking at him—at the perfect contour of the profile of his face (for art purposes... he thought), he too elected to lie down, spreading his limbs out around him. "You don't sound happy about that," he observed.

"'S not it. Believe it or not I gotta be careful around them 'cause they're so goddamn nitpicky about my 'attitude' or whatever, and if I do some shit that pisses one or both of 'em off, they'll ground me or take away some privilege in a heartbeat like I'm still a damn middle schooler."

"You mean the bike, right?"

"Probably. They hold that shit over my head all the damn time."

"It kinda didn't seem like your mom was happy about that whole thing when they were talking with Mr. Aizawa," Kirishima said.

"She's not. It was my dad who brought it up and it took like six months to get her to agree before they sent me off here to get me off their backs."

"How come?"

"...didn't tell you this shit before, but my dad's friend—the one who I rode with when I was younger—got into an accident a couple years ago, and he almost didn't walk away from it. So she's being all overprotective and shit about it. Fucking figures."

Kirishima couldn't help turning his head back toward his roommate, who hadn't budged save for the very obvious frown on his face. "But that just means she cares about you, dude. It's kinda her job to be like that, you know?"

"Yeah. I fucking know. Doesn't mean it's not annoying as shit, though. The shittiest part is that I'm not guaranteed anything even if I fucking graduate 'cause of her shit. She's the type of person who needs proof that I'm serious or whatever, and even then she could change her mind at any second. Women are fucking weird."

A chuckle escaped Kirishima as he kicked his legs under his blankets and turned on his side, propping his head up on his hand. "I get you, dude. My mom hardly wanted to let me go outside after I face-planted into that glass, but then she made me walk a mile up a busy street to get groceries like a week later 'cause I was grounded and that was my 'punishment'."

Bakugou's eyes fell closed. "Must be moms, then. Moms are fucking weird."

"Can't disagree with ya there. At least we know they love us, though."

"Funny way of showing it."

"You're not wrong. Anyway, I'mma get some shut-eye. See ya in the mornin'," Kirishima said as he reached over and switched his light off, leaving the room illuminated only by Bakugou's. Just as Kirishima was getting comfortable, that light switched off too, followed by the familiar ruffling of Bakugou situating himself into a suitable position.

"'Night, Dumb Hair."

⚜️

Kirishima honestly didn't think he could like memes more than he already did. Seriously—they were one of the best things the internet provided, and time and time again they fueled him through stressful tests and homework during school, or brightened his day when things in life were getting rough. His camera roll was probably 50% memes, 50% other random crap like screenshots, photos of his art, selfies, pictures with friends, or other miscellaneous things. And since becoming friends with Bakugou and having his plan in place to use memes to try and get Bakugou's attention as Kaminari had brilliantly suggested, his phone storage had started to fill up even more. He knew it was dumb, but it made him happy. He truly believed his love for memes was at maximum capacity.

But as he'd been many times before, he was wrong because that inkling changed completely when Bakugou started sending them to him.

It wasn't often, and memes from Bakugou still didn't make him nearly as happy as just being with Bakugou did, but it felt like a breakthrough when that little red notification popped up on his Instagram as he absently checked it before class one morning to find his roommate's username at the top of the list.

"fuck_off tagged you in a post. 23m"

Since the day in the art room, Bakugou's tagging became more consistent, though not nearly as frequent as Kirishima's (who was constantly finding things to send to him, which continued to be the kindling to so many of their awesome conversations). Kirishima was sure to save every single post Bakugou sent his way, and regardless of what they were, none of them failed to put a giant smile on his face that he knew was horribly cheesy.

The photos, memes, and such Bakugou tagged him in tended to have a similar theme as those from the day in the art room, having to do with stuff like hiding a body or murder. It was a dark sort of humor, but it was so Bakugou. And Kirishima had to admit that even he got a laugh out of it, too. His favorite amongst what Bakugou had sent him was one of the first he'd received from the other.

And of course, Kirishima kept up his own strategic memeing, with the flirty ones (that he was trying to make a bit less subtle, seeing as it didn't seem like Bakugou had picked up on the hints quite yet).

He'd send things like that in between others he'd send normally.

It was still unclear whether Bakugou was picking up the hints he was dropping, but Kirishima had all but forgotten Kaminari's words from their day off when that pipe burst in the girls' bathroom:

"But you know he seems to have a thing for you too, right?"

"Have you seen the way he looks at you?"

He'd gone and interrogated Mina about it the second he'd gotten the chance, and with her bright, excited gold eyes she only reaffirmed what Kaminari had told him, only making him more nervous and confused about the whole thing. It was inevitable that he'd keep a keen eye on Bakugou and found himself constantly comparing the way his roommate interacted with him as opposed to how he interacted with others. But he just couldn't tell. A million questions he had no answers to flew around his brain, too, like... what if Bakugou only acted different around him because they were friends? It was clear Bakugou didn't consider many other people friends, so it was next to impossible to tell. And what if Kirishima was just noticing little things because he wanted to see them, and because he wanted to think that maybe, slightly, possibly Bakugou had a small, sort-of, little thing for him, too?

"You're too biased," Jirou had told him after he'd rambled about his frustrations one afternoon while they were in the girls' lounge, a rare occurrence when Bakugou hadn't joined them for the first time in a while because he was meeting with the principal. "It's easier to see stuff like what Mina's talking about when you've got an outside perspective."

"But we all agree with her, dude," Sero said. "Like, Bakugou's totally not a soft guy at all. You've seen the way he curses and stuff when he's losing at Smash Bros! But when he talks to you it's different somehow."

"Different how?" Kirishima pressed. He was growing desperate for answers and he knew it was obvious, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"It just is!" Mina said, tossing her hands up. "It's impossible to explain!"

"Bro, you're overthinking it," Kaminari intercepted. "Maybe I shouldn't have told you about it in the first place. But I think the bottom line is that you like him and you should just keep doing what you're doing, yeah? You guys are already pretty damn close. Keep it up and see where it goes. You can't really force this stuff, you know? You're a pretty go-with-the-flow guy anyway."

Kirishima scratched frustratedly at his head. "Yeah, yeah," he mumbled. "I guess that's the best way to not get my hopes up, too, huh?"

His friends all nodded in agreement, allowing Kirishima to relax a bit. He knew it would take a little more than that for him to stop being so obsessive about it, but it was a start and already he felt a bit of that relief sink in.

⚜️

Kirishima had never been so sick of staring at a textbook before in his life. As he tried for what felt like the hundredth time to start this page of a Shakespeare play he could barely remember the name of, the words seemed to blur together. His thoughts kept straying far, far away from whatever weird language was in that book, and nine times out of ten they would land right on Bakugou, who was supposedly off campus "getting some shit," as he put it.

Sighing, Kirishima rubbed his forehead and adjusted his headband. He was more than ready to just throw the stupid book in the garbage than try and make sense of this weird old language anymore when the sound of the doorknob twisting caught his attention and he glanced up. Bakugou strode in with windblown hair and an irritable frown plastered to his face.

"Yo, Bakugou," Kirishima greeted, happily letting the textbook fall shut and reveling for a second in the butterflies erupting in his belly.

"Hey, Dumb Hair," Bakugou grumbled, setting the plastic shopping bag he held on his bed and carelessly kicking off his shoes beside his bed as he usually did.

"What's up?"

"It's cold and windy as fuck outside, and I hate it."

Automatically Kirishima turned around to look outside where it was indeed windy—enough for the last of the dried up leaves to be losing their fight in clinging desperately to their branches. Trees bent over, and a huge white cloud was quickly blowing in from the east.

"Whoa. Wonder if it'll snow," he said a bit thoughtlessly, thinking that it'd be pretty damn cool if it snowed. He couldn't remember the last time it snowed, and he definitely missed it.

Bakugou, on the other hand, was clearly not so enthusiastic. "If you just fucking jinxed it, I'll kill you," he practically hissed.

"Ah, I guess I shouldn't be surprised you don't like snow, huh?" Kirishima said, grinning.

"Yeah, and even less since they can't fucking cancel school because of it since it's a shitty boarding school." Bakugou snatched his bag back off of his bed. "Anyway, I have some shit for you."

Kirishima's heart jumped. "You what?" he mumbled, blinking in confusion.

The fact that Bakugou kept his eyes averted from his roommate didn't make it past Kirishima (whose stomach was again a mess of weird butterflies) as the other dug through the plastic bag. Involuntarily his fingers clenched into light fists, wondering if he should be worried.

"...I'm shit at remembering birthdays and crap, so I barely realized that I fucking missed it a month ago or whatever, so here." His wrist snapped in Kirishima's direction, sending a small black object flying (and rattling) in his direction. Fortunately his reflexes acted quickly and his hands shot up to snatch it from the air. He turned it over once to find it was nothing more than a jewelry box.

"You didn't have to get me anything, man," Kirishima told him while on the inside he was screaming; Bakugou got me a freaking birthday present?!

"Yeah well, I did. So just fucking open it already."

Kirishima finally let the smile that'd been poking at the corners of his mouth break through and he slid the lid carefully off of the box. Within was simply a silver chain that he pinched between two fingers and lifted. The pendant—or rather, tag, he realized after closer inspection—slid to the bottom and hung in the air, glinting faintly in the daylight. It rotated to reveal the red R etched right into its center.

"Dude!" he blurted, reaching up to grip the tag and get a better look at it. "This is awesome!"

"Figured it suits you," Bakugou said nonchalantly. "Sorry it's small or whatever."

"Nah man, I think it's great!" Kirishima practically exclaimed. Before he really knew what he was doing he lurched off of his bed and, necklace still in his fist and all, enfolded his roommate in a bear hug. "Thank you!"

The words oh crap filled a Kirishima's brain the second he realized what he'd done. Bakugou wasn't a hugger; any of their physical contact since the day they met was nothing more than fist bumps aside from when their arms or knees accidentally brushed when they studied together. And those were accidents. This was... impulsive. As soon as Kirishima felt Bakugou stiffen in his arms, he didn't know what might happen.

In the second between realizing just what he was doing and making the decision to retract himself and apologize, he hadn't enough time before he felt a hand pat the center of his back a couple times—stiff but gentle.

"You're welcome, Dumb Hair," mumbled Bakugou. Any rough edge his voice usually held was, for once, gone.

And Kirishima could only smile wider when he (reluctantly, he had to admit) removed himself from the hug. "Here, mind helping me put it on?" he asked, unclasping the chain and holding it out to Bakugou. He pinched it between his fingers gingerly before Kirishima turned around and let him hook it around his neck.

Kirishima was so aware of his roommate all the sudden—of Bakugou's arms moving around him, of the tiniest brushes of his fingers on the skin of Kirishima's neck when he hooked the chain together. He was even acutely attuned to Bakugou's freaking breathing. Kirishima felt like he was about to explode.

As it fell into place, the tag came to rest against the center of Kirishima's chest. He flipped it so the R faced upwards and turned to face the other again.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, whatever..." Bakugou mumbled, running a hand through his hair and turning his attention back to his bag. "And here. You like twizzlers?" he asked, waving a bag of said candy in Kirishima's direction.

"Heck yeah I do."

"Take 'em."

"You don't want them?"

"No. Got them for you."

"You didn't hafta do all this, Bakugou," Kirishima said as he accepted the candy.

"Too bad. Happy late as fuck birthday, or whatever."

"Thanks, bro."

"So did you not celebrate that shit a month ago or what?"

"Nah. 'M not super big on having a celebration, so me and the others just did our normal thing and watched some movies and played games in the lounge."

"Right..."

"Hey, speaking of, d'you wanna go do our Smash Bros match?"

"Fine by me. Don't cry when I kick your ass, though."

"Hey, don't get too cocky! You haven't seen what I can do with Zelda yet..."

Kirishima was more than grateful to get away from his stupid textbooks for the rest of the evening, and spending it with Bakugou no less only made him that much happier.

Even still, the feeling of Bakugou's solid, warm figure enfolded in his arms didn't leave his mind for the rest of the night. Bakugou had been... weirdly gentle—weirdly soft despite his stiffened frame. Solid but soft. It was such a contradiction but something about it just... fit Bakugou. He'd smelled so nice, too, and fit so easily into Kirishima's arms...

In the back of his mind he could hear Kaminari's words. "You're getting it pretty bad for him, huh?" Kirishima couldn't even deny it anymore—he was. He so was. He found himself hanging off of Bakugou's every word and trying to memorize the tones of his voice—smooth as freaking chocolate when he was calm and rough and almost chilling when he was fired up. He loved the way Bakugou was so passionate about little things and it only made Kirishima wonder what he was like when he felt strongly about something major.

Almost as much as these thoughts surfaced, his mind equally aware of the chain hanging around his neck now, he was trying to ward such thoughts off. Kirishima wanted Bakugou—of that much he was certain—in so many ways, but he'd known what it was like to get his hopes up only for them to be crushed. He wanted this time to be different. Needed it to be. And his mind felt like scrambled eggs because of it.

Even so, at the end of the day Kirishima knew, regardless of his crush, that he was happy to have Bakugou as a friend if nothing else. For that he was unimaginably grateful.

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Sorry about any mistakes. Last couple days have been shit for me so this is very lazily edited.