"fuck_off started following you. 9h"

Kirishima didn't see the notification until he got back to his (vacant) room, and it hadn't clicked right away who the hell 'fuck_off' could be until he tapped the icon.

Bakugou. He grinned. Of course Bakugou would have a username like 'fuck_off.' Without hesitation and before scrolling even a single time down Bakugou's page, he tapped the follow button.

Kirishima had only just kicked his shoes off and plopped down onto the end of his bed when he started scrolling, getting a first glance at Bakugou's pictures. He didn't post much—there were fewer than a hundred photos overall—but most of what his account did contain were pictures of himself. Pictures of himself that Kirishima couldn't help but notice contained a lot of middle fingers.

The oldest photo was from two years ago and lacked the eyeliner that Bakugou spent his waking hours donning as well as most of the piercings he wore now. It was pretty surprising just how different—how much younger—he looked without the piercings and such. He was definitely still attractive, Kirishima concluded, but the redhead found he preferred the appearance of the Bakugou who was his roommate rather than that of the one he saw in the picture. (Though he couldn't deny the attraction he had to either one.)

Amongst the selfies were photos of miscellaneous things—a few other people in photos with Bakugou whom Kirishima obviously didn't recognize, a few of a big black and white dog he probably had at home, and—admittedly striking Kirishima as somewhat strange—a couple of a big black motorcycle. Very few of them were actually captioned, though, offering no clarity to whose dog or bike it was, or who any of the other people were.

Kirishima's attention was ripped away from his phone the second the doorknob clicked. His head snapped up just as the door swung open and Bakugou stepped into the room, and he swore he'd never jabbed his finger into the lock button so fast in his life—as though he was getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar or something silly.

"Yo," Kirishima said quickly—too quickly, he was sure—as Bakugou tossed his keychain onto his bed.

"The fuck's up with you?" Bakugou asked.

"Whattaya mean?"

Bakugou's thin blonde brows inched up. "Dunno. You're acting weird...er."

"I am?" Kirishima asked, attempting to play dumb. He had no idea why he felt like he needed to keep the fact that he'd been... mildly stalking Bakugou's Instagram a secret, but he did.

The blonde merely huffed as he flopped onto his bed, kicking his shoes off toward the wall, muttering a "whatever."

⚜️

Falling into a routine with Bakugou as his new roommate was fairly easy after the first couple of weeks, especially after Bakugou (with evident reluctance) asked Kirishima to make sure he was awake on time to get ready and make it to first period without being late.

"That fucker Aizawa chewed me out for being late all the time 'cause my shitty teacher ratted me out, of-fucking-course, so if I don't start 'being punctual'"—(he'd air-quoted it, an annoyed scowl pressed into his brow)—"it's gonna be another shitty write-up, which means getting bitched at by my damn mother again, which gets me closer to being fucking expelled," he explained after asking in a grumble.

"Yeah, man, I don't mind helping you out," Kirishima said. "Want me to wake you up in time for breakfast, too?"

"Might as fucking well," Bakugou sighed out in irritation.

"How much time do you need to get ready?"

The blonde shrugged. "Twenty minutes," he said.

"'Kay. I'll wake you up at like 7:00 so you'll have like half an hour to get ready before breakfast, yeah?"

Bakugou, already seated on the edge of his bed, sighed as he flopped backwards, muttering, "Yeah, whatever."

"Mkay," Kirishima said, crossing his legs and returning his attention to the game he was in the middle of on his DS. Aside from the faint sounds from the device's speakers, the room fell into silence.

That is, until Bakugou spoke up again.

"...thanks, or whatever," he mumbled.

"Hm? Oh, no problem, man. Can't blame ya for not wanting to get in trouble."

The blonde huffed. "That ain't even the issue. I don't give a fuck if I'm in trouble, but I gotta graduate."

"Fair enough," Kirishima said. Though he hadn't looked away from his game since going back to it, the motion of the other sitting back up caught in the corner of his eye and drew his attention over to his roommate, whose narrow eyes were trained right on him. "What?"

"Lemme ask you somethin', Dumb Hair," Bakugou said.

Jabbing his thumb into the pause button, Kirishima too sat up straight. "What's up?" he asked. Already he could feel his heart picking up the pace in anticipation.

"Why the fuck haven't you asked me why I got reassigned?"

"Oh... well, 'cause it's not really any of my business," the redhead explained.

"But that was practically the first fucking thing your dumb friend said to me that one time," Bakugou said, his tone almost accusatory.

Kirishima felt a mildly rueful grin pull at the corner of his lips. "Yeah, like I said, Sero's full of gossip and rumors and stuff. That's one thing he and I definitely don't have in common."

"Hmph," the blonde huffed, the accusation in his eyes forming quickly into something of a smirk—the closest Kirishima had seen to him actually smiling yet. "So you're sayin' you're not the least bit curious?"

Kirishima's back straightened. "Er... well..." he mumbled, eyes drifting away from Bakugou. "...I wouldn't say that, but I figure if it's somethin' you wanna tell me, I'll listen. If not, I won't blame you."

Bakugou snorted and moved to lean back into his pillows, snatching his stress ball off of the table to start repeatedly tossing it up and catching it. "So then what kinda dumb rumors has your friend spread about me?" he asked as he did so. "Probably that I do drugs, right? Or that I punched a teacher before?" His tone remained amused as he made guesses.

"Nah, nothin' like that. Why? Has that been a thing before?" As he spoke he, too, preoccupied his attention a bit by turning back to his video game.

"You bet your ass it has," Bakugou said, almost smug. "Shit like that, anyway. Once somebody said I broke into a teacher's bathroom and wrote 'fuck you' in Sharpie on the wall."

Kirishima nearly dropped his DS. "Seriously?" he blurted.

"Yup."

"What the hell do you do to make people say this crap about you?!" As soon as the question was out, he snapped his teeth shut. "Crap—uh, you don't have to answer that. Sor—"

"I never said it wasn't true."

"Wait—it was?"

A snicker escaped from between Bakugou's teeth just as he caught the ball again. "Fuck yeah it was."

"...dude," the redhead breathed. "That's... kind of insane. How much trouble did you get into?"

"I'm fucking here, so a lot."

"Wow."

"Yeah. So what kinda shit have you heard?"

"Hm..." Once again, Kirishima went back to his game, thinking back to the day he first met Bakugou and all of the rumors he'd heard not long after. "Sero said a few things about why you got reassigned. Most of it surrounded Iida, though. Guess someone thought he got you kicked out of school, and someone else said you were just suspended and reassigned, but he didn't say anything about why. Except Jirou... uh, that's Kaminari's girlfriend... she said she heard you threatened to kill him and that's why they made you move, 'cause he's the student council president and everything."

"Shit, so people aren't as fuckin' stupid as I thought," Bakugou mused. The ball came within inches of the ceiling before landing back in his hand.

"Wait, so that's true, too? You threatened to kill him?"

"Fucker was touching and moving my shit around for like the fourth fucking time after I told him not to, so what the fuck else was I supposed to do to get him to quit?" the blonde grumbled. "I wasn't fucking serious, but his stupid tighty whities are lodged too far up his ass to get that, so the fucker told Aizawa about it. Best thing that prick coulda done though, 'cause now I don't have to deal with his bullshit."

Kirishima couldn't help his chuckle, prompting Bakugou to pause in tossing his ball. "The fuck is funny, Weird Hair?"

"Nothin', man. You've just... got a way with words, is all."

"...what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Kirishima flashed a grin at him, shaking his head. "Don't worry about it. It's a good thing, I promise."

After a second of glaring, Bakugou clicked his tongue before snapping the ball upward again, finally hard enough to smack into the ceiling.

⚜️

It was no surprise when the next day Kirishima found out just how grumpy Bakugou was when he was woken up early. He was a particularly heavy sleeper, and when Kirishima had shaken him awake after he'd slept through all three alarms that'd gone off in the room, all of the spitting of curses and profanities were to be expected. (Though, Kirishima had to admit, he couldn't take the blonde seriously with the way his hair was smashed down on one side and the pillow crease marks on his cheeks that were sort of endearing—not that Kirishima would ever admit to the blonde that he thought so.)

"What fucking dickweasel decided it's fucking okay to make school start this goddamn early?" he grumbled as he threw his blankets off. Running a hand frustratedly through his hair a few times was all it took to get it to stick out again.

Kirishima grinned, amused. "Dickweasel?" he asked, laughing.

"What?" Bakugou spit. "What the fuck else am I supposed to call the moron who made this shitty rule?"

"Nah, man, you have a point. I just don't think I've ever heard 'dickweasel' before," Kirishima told him as he was combing through the closet for something to wear. He was just making a mental note to do some laundry soon when the bathroom door swung shut with more force than necessary, and his grin of amusement at Bakugou's grumpiness never so much as faltered.

"How have you not heard dickweasel before?" the blonde was saying a minute later as he emerged from the bathroom.

"I dunno," Kirishima told him. "You've got a pretty colorful vocabulary."

"...thanks, I guess," the blonde grumbled before he yanked one of the drawers to his dresser open and started pawing through it, seemingly yanking clothes out at random.

Kirishima was only vaguely aware of his amused grin at the more-than-usually grumpy Bakugou as he got dressed himself. He was only just finishing pulling his t-shirt over his head when Bakugou turned around, his still sleepy eyes narrowing as he saw the redhead adjusting the shirt.

"How the fuck do you get a shirt over that freak hairdo anyway?" he asked.

"'S not super hard. The gel is so stiff that it doesn't really affect it. 'Course, I usually like to change my shirt first, but I tend to forget sometimes."

"Hmph," grunted the blonde.

"Hey, you want me to wait for you to head to the mess hall?" Kirishima offered, sticking his wallet, phone, and room key into his pockets.

"...sure, I guess." With that, Bakugou yanked the black t-shirt he wore to bed over his head to start getting dressed.

And Kirishima would be lying if he said he didn't look at the blonde's bare torso despite flopping back into his bed and reaching for his DS. He didn't know why he was surprised, however, that Bakugou was toned. And he meant really toned, with a freaking six pack and everything, though it wasn't too much (not at all; in fact Kirishima would go so far as to argue it was just the right amount of muscle), it was enough to make Kirishima feel inferior. He had some muscle himself, but it suddenly felt like the work he'd put in at the gym last summer wasn't nearly enough.

His face suddenly felt hot.

And then his mouth was opening, and words were flying out of it as if his stupid tongue had a mind of its own.

"Yo, nice tattoo," he said.

Bakugou paused in stuffing his head through the hole in the typically black v-neck t-shirt he had his arms through to glance down at the left side of his chest, where the tattoo of a grenade in the shape of a skull was etched into his skin.

"Thanks," the blonde quipped before tugging the shirt the rest of the way on. "At least one other person thinks so," he muttered.

"Whattaya mean?"

"My parents fucking hate it," Bakugou explained casually, as if talking about his day. "It was the 'last straw' when they were deciding to make me come to this shitty school. Like I fuckin' care, though, 'cause it's not like I murdered a puppy, and it's my body."

"I agree, man. I'm sorry your parents are like that."

The blonde shrugged again in the midst of finishing getting dressed. "Like I said, I don't give a fuck."

"So does it mean anything or whatever?" Kirishima asked. He'd completely forgotten about the game device resting in his hand.

"Not really." Bakugou dumped his pajamas into his laundry basket.

"No? 'Cause it kinda reminds me of Green Day," Kirishima said thoughtfully. It was clear by the way Bakugou's eyes narrowed in his direction that he had no idea what Kirishima was talking about. "Y'know, that one logo of theirs?" supplied the redhead. When the confused expression only hardened, the DS nearly slipped from Kirishima's fingers. "Dude, you've never heard of Green Day?" he blurted, surprised.

"Of fucking course I've heard of Green Day, moron," the blonde defended quickly. "What logo are you talking about?"

Kirishima couldn't help but blink at him, shocked. "The American Idiot logo, man! It's like their most famous album!"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know that? I don't keep up with their shit."

"Dude..." Kirishima tossed his DS back on the table beside his bed before fumbling to slide his phone from his pocket. One quick google image search had half a dozen photos of said logo filling the small screen. Clicking on the first, he practically thrust the device in Bakugou's direction. "No way you haven't seen this before."

Bakugou glared at the screen for only a second before yanking the blankets on his bed up over the pillows. "Of course I've seen that before, dumbass. You think I live under a rock?" he grumbled, not bothering to flatten out the wrinkles.

Kirishima relaxed. "See? I knew you'd seen it." He locked the phone and pocketed it again as Bakugou disappeared back into the bathroom with his eyeliner pencil. "D'you not listen to them, though?" the redhead called after.

"Not really," Bakugou said, voice slightly muffled by the wall between them.

Kirishima stood and crossed the room to the bathroom. Bakugou hadn't shut the door, so he took it as a sign that it was okay to approach and tentatively leaned against the doorframe. "So then what kinda stuff do you listen to?" he asked as Bakugou was in the middle of smudging black beneath his right eye.

"Dunno. All kinds of shit." Bakugou snapped the lid back on his eyeliner and moved back into the room to stuff his feet into his shoes and sling his backpack over his shoulder.

Kirishima spoke as he followed the blonde's lead. "You got a favorite band or something? Or a favorite genre?"

"Not really. I like metal and stuff, but I don't really pick favorites," said the blonde.

Being the last one out the door, Kirishima was the one to lock it. "What about stuff like Shinedown?" he was asking as he did so before they headed toward the door at the end of the hallway.

"Who?" the blonde muttered.

"Shinedown, man. Have you never heard of 'em?"

"Nope."

Kirishima nearly tripped over his own shoes, his eyes wide with shock and staring at his roommate like he'd been slapped. "Seriously?! I mean, I don't really like to play favorites either, but I friggen grew up with Shinedown! And I mean, they're not metal, but they're still damn good."

"So then what genre are they?"

"Rock," Kirishima put simply, relaxing from the initial surprise. "If you like metal, you'll probably like them if you're cool with something a little bit softer."

"Are they like Green Day or what?"

"Mm, sorta, but in my opinion, they're better," the redhead said proudly.

"In your biased opinion?" Bakugou snorted; Kirishima thought he detected the slightest of cocky grins on Bakugou's lips as he kept his eyes on the blonde as they walked, but he couldn't be sure because if it had been there, it was very brief and very subtle.

"Well, yeah," Kirishima said with his own, very not subtle grin. "I don't think they're as popular, though, which is sad. I'd kill to see 'em in concert together."

"So what the fuck do they sound like, anyway?"

"You wanna hear 'em?" Kirishima asked, hopeful. By that time they were very nearly to the mess hall. "You got Spotify? 'Cause I can show you my playlist of favorites if ya want. I mean, I like pretty much all of their songs, but there are some that are playlist-worthy."

"...sure," the blonde mumbled. They were both silent as he handed Kirishima his phone, unlocked, and open on the music app. The two stopped just outside the double doors of the mess hall building while Kirishima searched up his playlist and handed the device back to Bakugou, who tapped the 'save' button and pocketed his phone after locking it once again.

"I think you'll like 'em," Kirishima said, holding the door open for his roommate. "Lemme know what you think, yeah?"

"Yeah, whatever," the blonde mumbled, seemingly too distracted by the appetizing smell that met them as they entered the air conditioned building. With a giddy feeling of hope held in his stomach, Kirishima followed the other toward the large buffet of food on the other side of the room.

---

Thank you for all of the positive feedback on this so far! ♥