Bakugou

Graduation was boring as hell. Throughout the entire thing, Bakugou felt like he was counting every fucking second until his name was called, and then every second until the last name was called and they were allowed to get the fuck out of that hot, crowded gym.

Of course, the second he met back up with his parents they were asking about Kirishima and if they could meet his parents, to which Bakugou passive-aggressively reminded them that he only had a mother before they walked around the entire goddamn gym before finding Kirishima near the door with his mom.

And for a reason he didn't really get, his gut was tight the whole time they were talking. It was like he was afraid Kirishima's mom was going to let something slip and give away that they were together, but he knew that she didn't even know. At least, she hadn't been told directly.

"She might know," Kirishima told him once. "But if she does, she won't say anything. She'll let me come to her about it first, and she won't just assume anything. I promise."

As much as he wished they did, those words didn't reassure him all that much.

He was safe, though, when his dad started talking about some shitty dinner reservations his parents had while they 'let him' go to the school-wide graduation party that Kirishima had talked him into going to (not that it took him much effort, which was annoying as hell). As soon as they were out the door and Kirishima's mom, after saying goodbye to both of them, headed off in the opposite direction, he was able to let out a breath of relief.

⚜️

It came as no surprise to Bakugou that the school-wide graduation party was lame as hell, and it didn't help that he was in the shitty mood since long before they walked into the mess hall where it was being held. The whole place had been transformed—all of the tables were folded and lined along the walls and the breakfast bar that he hadn't even realized moved was nowhere to be seen. There was music, of course, and food. Most of the school was there, which fucking figured even though the damn thing was optional.

If Bakugou could have his way, he'd get the fuck out of there and find somewhere isolated with Kirishima to avoid both the people and his parents. But Kirishima wanted to be there, and at this point he was pretty sure there was very little he wouldn't do to make the little fucker happy.

So he stayed and let himself be pulled along by the other, who was making his way around the room to say good luck and farewell to people he knew—people he probably wasn't going to keep in contact with after this thing was over. To Bakugou's slight delight, Deku and his Half-and-Half boyfriend were among those. Teachers were, too. For pretty much the entire time, Bakugou didn't say a damn thing. His mind was too preoccupied with everything else going on and to be frank, he didn't give much of a shit about saying goodbye to anyone. The only one he really cared about (aside from the other four losers, which figured) was right beside him, holding his hand.

"Is there anybody you wanna say bye to?" Kirishima asked him once he was finally done.

"Nope."

"...you sure?"

Bakugou merely nodded, which earned a squeeze of the hand from the other. "I know you're stressed, but try to loosen up a little, alright? Just focus on me for a bit. I'm right here."

Kirishima moved just a bit closer when he said it, and that alone had Bakugou's nerves calming a bit. "Yeah. Let's... go get some food," he said.

They met back up with the rest of the group outside after filling a couple plates with food. The other four already had a table and were chattering away about summer plans when they joined them and eased their way into the conversation. Kirishima stayed close—closer than usual, which was actually kind of impressive—in silent support. Often his hand or shoulder would brush against Bakugou one way or another, and their knees rested together beneath the table the entire time they sat and ate, talking with the others. For a few moments it was as if nothing had changed and they'd be going back to their rooms soon to get some sleep before having to wake up at the asscrack of dawn the next day for first period. While Bakugou was fucking glad that wasn't the case and that he'd finally get to fuck up his sleeping schedule (or, in his eyes, fix it) again, there somehow was a pang of disappointment in his stomach.

Add that on top of the stress he was holding from his dad's out-of-the-goddamn-blue offer (on top of keeping his promise to get him the bike, which he'd made clear) and keeping almost everything that had happened over the past school year from his parents, especially when it came to Kirishima, and he wanted nothing more than to get the fuck out of there.

His parents had questioned him, of course, but it was less of an interrogation than it was simply asking, being curious about how his school year went in the few days between the last day of school and the day of graduation. He'd been paranoid, though, and remained as careful as he could be with his answers. He skirted around everything that had to do with being with Kirishima, which led to lying. It wasn't like that was a big deal; he'd lied to his parents more times than he could count on his fingers and toes ten times. It was the fact that Kirishima, Kiri-fucking-shima was the most important goddamn thing in his life and how he was too damn chicken shit to just tell his parents he was probably falling in love or someshit.

"Hey, do you guys maybe wanna meet at one of our houses tomorrow and have our own little party?" Mina was suggesting when Bakugou zoned back into what was in front of him.

"Hell yeah! That sounds awesome," Sero agreed.

"Whose house?" Kirishima asked.

"Don't you think yours is big enough?" Bakugou muttered, half-jokingly, to him.

"Well, yeah... but it's pretty far out of the way for Kami and Jirou to go to."

"Whose is in the middle ground, then?" Jirou asked. "We can all just meet up there."

Ironically enough, Jirou's house ended up being the place that was most central within where each of them lived. It only took her a few minutes to call her parents and make sure it was okay they had something of a 'slumber party,' as Mina cringingly called it, and it seemed like her parents were more than elated to let them do it.

Mina was, typically, the first to jump up and encourage them all to go back inside when they were finished eating, and just as Bakugou was looking for an excuse to not have to go back in there, Kirishima—as always—came to his rescue, even if it was unknowingly.

"You guys go ahead without us," he said. "There's something I gotta talk to Baku about."

"Ohh, is it what I think it is?" Mina asked excitedly. Kirishima gave her a look that told her to shut up and earned a giggle in the process. "Okay, but don't keep us waiting too long, you two!" she said before following the rest back into the mess hall.

"Should I be worried?" Bakugou grumbled.

"'Course not, Katsuki," Kirishima told him with a smile—one that he thought to be deceptively happy. He didn't have time to think too much about it, though, because there was always something of a jolt within him whenever Kirishima said his first name. It wasn't the name itself, but the way he said it; like it was delicate and something he wanted to treasure; he said it more lovingly than he even said the stupid (but adorable) pet names Kirishima sometimes used. And that was distracting enough to let himself be led along toward the school building without a thought.

"Lemme guess—a surprise?" he mumbled as Kirishima held the door open for him.

"Yup."

Bakugou huffed but said nothing else as they walked along. The building was eerily quiet with no one but them in it.

He should've guessed they were headed to the art room the second they walked into the building because that was exactly where Kirishima led him. He punched in the code and they let themselves in, completely used to doing this by now when no one else was around to see them.

"So my art final was to use a medium I wasn't really used to working with," Kirishima explained once inside. "I'm used to colorful stuff, y'know? Like paint and colored pencils and all that. So for this I decided to use what's probably the least colorful medium on the planet."

"Which would be...?" Bakugou asked.

"Charcoal." Kirishima tugged out a stool at one of the tables speckled with all sorts of messy art things. "Sit here while I go get it from the closet."

Mildly skeptical, Bakugou did as asked. He watched Kirishima cross the room to the closet and disappear inside. There was just a bit of shuffling before he came out with a big, rolled up piece of paper that was probably more along the lines of cardstock or whatever (Bakugou had learned quite a bit of art during his time being with Kirishima, that was for fucking sure). He took a seat beside Bakugou with a strangely unreadable expression.

"This is definitely not the best thing I've ever drawn," Kirishima said as he slowly worked on sliding the rubber band to the end of the paper. "But I promised myself I'd show you whether I liked it or not. I mean, 's only fair."

"The hell d'you mean?" Bakugou mumbled, doing his best to try and hide his nerves—the elevated beating of his heart—by letting his skepticism coat his tone.

"You'll see," Kirishima said, finally with the smallest hint of his classic grin. "But um, will you promise me something first?" he asked, eyes flicking up as he paused in unrolling the stupid piece of paper.

"What?"

"If you don't like it, tell me, okay? Don't pretend to like it just for my sake or whatever, alright?"

If it was Kirishima's art, there was almost no goddamn way Bakugou wasn't going to like it, and he almost said so. Instead he gave a firm nod to solidify the promise. He swore his heart beat faster with every second that ticked by as Kirishima finally unrolled the whole thing, and his fingers curled into fists when the other didn't immediately turn it around for him to see. Patience was, and had never been, his forte.

"But if you do like it, I hope you don't mind that I keep it," he said. "'Cause even though I'm not all that impressed by it, it's still kinda special to me."

"'S fine, Ei. Just show me already," Bakugou muttered.

With a chuckle, Kirishima said, "Okay, okay. Here goes..."

As soon as he finally flipped the damn paper around, Bakugou had the familiar feeling of looking in a mirror—that was, if his face was varying shades of grays, blacks, and whites rather than actual color. On that paper, probably somewhere between two and three feet across diagonally, was him in a scary amount of detail. It was just his head; only a fraction of his shoulders were visible at the bottom and his hair was cut off at the top, and it was right up close.

And it was completely drawn by hand, of course, in a dusty charcoal.

Every detail was there, he swore, even if he thought it might just be a bit off-proportion. His piercings, the rings tilted asymmetrically the way they always seemed to be regardless of how much effort he put in to try and keep them even. His eyeliner, smudged just a little more on one side than the other. His sharp, narrow gaze, looking off somewhere else because the whole thing faced slightly to the left. He wasn't smiling, but his eyes were... weirdly soft. Definitely different than what he usually saw in the actual mirror or in pictures.

Bakugou was so stunned by what he was looking at that he couldn't even make his mouth form the 'holy shit' he was thinking. But if there was one thing Kirishima had gotten exceptionally good at besides art, it was reading Bakugou, and that was apparent in the way his whole, beautiful, stupid face lit up.

"I kinda had a feelin' you would like it, man, since you seem to be blind to all the flaws in my art," he said with a chuckle.

"What fucking flaws?!" Bakugou was quick to retort.

"See?" Kirishima said.

"You're fucking ridiculous, Eijirou."

Another laugh rumbled out of Kirishima's chest. "I'm glad you like it, Katsuki. I was really worried the whole time I was working on it 'cause I'm so not used to charcoal, let alone doing realism or faces and I seriously wanted to do you at least a little justice. It did turn out better than I'd hoped, too... even though I had to start over a few times."

Bakugou was still looking over the fucking amazing drawing ('amazing' not being nearly enough to cut what it actually was, but Bakugou had always been shit at vocabulary) when he said, "What grade did you get on this?"

"An A," Kirishima said with a mild shrug. "A low A, because my teacher thought I could do a little bit better with the proportions. She was originally only gonna give me a high B because the rings aren't symmetrical in your lip, but when I showed her a picture and how they're pretty much always like that, she heightened the percentage."

Automatically Bakugou was adjusting his piercings with his teeth from the inside as Kirishima spoke about it. "And why the fuck did you think I wasn't gonna like it?"

"...well, mostly I was worried you were gonna think it was creepy that I drew you," the other admitted. "Plus it's a lot smudgier than most charcoal drawings I've seen."

It wasn't creepy in the slightest. In fact, Bakugou was fucking flattered that Kirishima would use him as a muse of sorts for the final project in his favorite class. He sucked ass at saying that out loud, though, so he settled for shaking his head. "Give yourself some damn credit, you nerd. For your first fucking charcoal thing, it's goddamn amazing."

"Thanks, Katsuki." Kirishima said it with so much feeling, with so much passion that ran deeper than just a simple thank you that Bakugou felt it almost... physically touched him, and all he wanted to do was kiss the little fucker. "Hey, wanna go on one last vending machine raid?" he asked as he began to roll the drawing back up, before Bakugou could act upon his impulse.

"Why the fuck not?" he agreed.

Bakugou wanted to roll his eyes at the other as he murmured a small, 'bye art room' to the room just before he shut the door and keyed in the code to lock it back up, but he couldn't bring himself to. He just slipped his fingers through Kirishima's and they went on their way toward the nearest vending machine.

Because it was the end of the school year, none of the machines had been restocked in at least a few days which meant there wasn't much to choose from, but they got what they could. It was clear Kirishima had the intention to head back toward the mess hall once they were done, but Bakugou pulled him back before he could get too far.

"Wait," he mumbled. "Let's just... sit here for a bit. 'M not in the mood to go back to all the noise yet."

Kirishima, as usual, agreed easily and they ended up sitting together in a small nook in front of the door to some teacher's office together, facing each other with their backs against opposite walls.

"D'you wanna talk more about it?" Kirishima asked after a few minutes of silence, neither of them even having opened their snacks.

Bakugou figured he should've seen that coming; he wasn't exactly going out of his way to hide the fact that there were still knots in his stomach and that the whole 'my dad wants to pay for school but I'll feel like shit unless I tell them about my boyfriend' thing was still on his mind, and had been since the second his dad dropped that bomb on him in the car on the way to the stupid ceremony thing.

"Tell me what the fuck to do," he mumbled, leaning far enough forward so that his forehead rested on Kirishima's knee.

Almost immediately a warm set of fingers tangled through his hair and let him relax, if just a little. "I... don't think I can, Katsuki," Kirishima told him quietly.

"...hmph. I fucking suck at making decisions like this..." he sighed, sitting back up a little.

"It's okay, man. Take all the time you need to decide. And like I said, whatever you decide, I'll back you up. I'm with you no matter what."

Bakugou's eyes narrowed. "Then why the hell do you look so worried?"

"Huh? Whattaya mean?" Kirishima asked, clearly attempting to play dumb.

"You know what I mean, Ei. You're getting some dumb ideas in your head outta nowhere again, aren't you?" Bakugou could tell because there was a tiny crease between the idiot's eyebrows that was almost never there; his creases were usually around his eyes because he smiled so damn much, and he was worse at masking his dejected feelings than he probably thought he was. That, or Bakugou had gotten pretty damn good at reading him, too.

"...not exactly..." His eye flicked away for a split second, but it wasn't quick enough to get past Bakugou.

"Spill it."

Kirishima pulled in a deep breath. "...it's just that you might have to make a decision between me and school, and if you choose to go for something that's gonna help you out in the future, then I won't—"

What the fuck?! "Who the fuck said anything about choosing between you and school?" Bakugou cut in, leaning toward the other again.

"Nobody, really. You just said you wouldn't be able to feel good about using your dad's money to go if you were hiding our relationship from them, so I figured—"

Bakugou could hardly believe what the fuck he was hearing. "Whoa whoa, slow the fuck down, Eijirou. I never said shit about choosing between the two, and you can't just go off and assume that I'm gonna break up with you over someshit like that."

"...yeah. You're right, Katsuki. I'm sorry. I guess I just jumped to conclusions."

"Damn right you did."

"I'm sorry."

The little fucker looked so dejected and apologetic that Bakugou felt the immediate guilt of being so fucking harsh, as usual, and scrambled to appease it. "'Sides, it's more like choosing between school and having to tell my parents about us. There was never a scenario where I'd wanna break up with you just to go to some shitty school, and if there was, it'd be no goddamn contest. I'd choose you. I'm with you no matter what. Got it?" As he spoke, he took Kirishima's hand again, which got the other to meet his gaze again.

"...got it, Katsuki," Kirishima responded softly, looking just a little more like his bright self again.

"And anyway, even if I did do something as absolutely idiotic as to break up with you just to go to school on my dad's money, I still wouldn't feel good about it 'cause I've still been hiding us from them. In fact I'd probably feel worse 'cause I wouldn't be with you anymore, and then I'd lose my shitty motivation to actually go, and—"

Kirishima, in one swift move, cut off Bakugou's rambling and the conversation altogether by leaning in and capturing his lips in a kiss. Bakugou felt the jolt down to the pit of his stomach when those lips molded into his, but it took him almost no time to melt right into him.

He would have to tell his parents. Eventually. Because whether he liked it or not, there was already a certain amount of guilt weighing on his shoulders about hiding his relationship from them, school or not. And he wanted Kirishima to be a part of his life—fully. And that meant with his family, too. Hiding it felt shitty, especially now that he'd be going to live back at home for at least the summer while he worked at Sero's restaurant to make some money. He already knew there would be quite a bit of sneaking out and lying to them about where he was (or at least what he was doing, seeing as his parents liked Kirishima and knew they were friends at the very least) before he mustered up the balls to just fucking tell them and hope for the best.

But right then he was just happy to be sitting there in the quiet of the hallway with his boyfriend, the idiot who was probably the most important person in the world to him at that point, and kissing him softly. Regardless of whatever the fuck might happen in the future with his parents or whatever, Bakugou was glad—really, really, stupidly fucking glad his parents made him go to the shitty boarding school, was even happier Aizawa made him change rooms, and was over the fucking moon elated that he'd had the dumb, almost miraculous luck to meet Kirishima.

---

i can't express how fucking amazing you guys are and, believe me, you're not the only one sad to see this fic end. i look forward to reading your comments and everything every week and it's gonna be kinda weird not to see you all screaming about bananas and stuff (the emoji that i literally just chose 'cause i thought it was a cool way to break things up a bit where needed, since that's part of my writing style).

it's not all sad, though! the mini-sequel is still in the works, though i don't know how long it'll be until that's up. i'll definitely be sure to let you guys know when it is, though! plus, for those of you who don't read my message board, i have another au in progress that'll probably go in place of the updates of this fic on Tuesdays, if y'all are cool with that. there might be a week break in between (so, nothing next week; the first chapter will likely go up the week after on November 6th (which, if you live in the US and are 18+, PLEASE VOTE).

again, thank you all so much for so much support and love on this fic. i'm really glad i wrote it and i appreciate you all so, so fucking much. ♥