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Katsuki’s thigh hurts.
“Shitty Hair,” he says, without looking up from his phone. “Poke me with your bony toes one more time and I’m cutting them off.”
“I’m cold,” Kirishima whines. Pokes him again for emphasis. “Please?” Poke poke.
Katsuki opens his mouth—ready to cuss him out, call him several slurs, and raise his thigh a centimetre or two before Kirishima hardens his toes and tears Katsuki’s Burberry sweatpants. Katsuki will have to fight him for that, and the rest of the class—half of whom are milling about the common room—always gets weirdly upset about that.
The stairwell door slams open.
Uraraka runs out into the common room, brandishing her phone like it’s the Olympic torch.
“I hold here in my hand the only picture in the whole world that exists of our class president making out with Kaminari and Shinsou at the same time!”
Kaminari, Shinsou, and Iida all run out after her, red-faced and panting. Kaminari’s hair looks like he’s been electrocuted. There are several dark marks crowding Iida’s throat.
“What?” Kirishima squawks, almost upending Katsuki as he jumps to his feet. “No way, show me—”
“Ah, ah, ah!” Uraraka dodges him. “Wallets out. I’m selling it to the highest bidder.”
That’s insane. Who the hell is willingly paying money for—
“Three hundred thousand,” Todoroki says.
Right. Of course.
“This is unethical,” Yaoyorozu says, face pinched as she observes Kaminari hopping around like a hyperactive zebra on a pogo stick, attempting to snatch Uraraka’s phone out of her hand.
“Thank you, Yaoyorozu,” Iida says, face red. “I’m glad someone here understands—”
“...Three hundred fifty,” Yaoyorozu says.
Iida groans in despair.
“Aw, man,” Krishima says, sitting back down beside Katsuki. “Guess I’m not in the right tax bracket for this, huh.”
There’s an odd edge to his tone.
“Shitty Hair,” Katsuki says, impressively calm. “I will pay for your dinner, and your sneakers, and your ridiculous Crimson Riot themed weights, but if you are asking me to give you money to buy softcore porn of three of the biggest losers in our fuckass class—”
“Hey, no, I’m just saying—” Kirishima’s eyes get all big. “You’re not even a little curious?”
“No.”
“Right,” Kirishima nods. “You’re above us, too enlightened to bother with these petty disputes…Man, if only we were all more like you.”
In front of them, Kaminari is finally making some headway. Uraraka is too busy negotiating with Todoroki (on what appears to be a seven-digit-number, fucking hell) to notice Kaminari sneaking up behind her.
She whirls around last minute, but it’s too late, he’s too close, fingers a hair’s breadth away, already closing in on his prize—
The room goes dark.
“No,” Kaminari wails. “Uraraka, seriously, you don’t get it, if I let that picture get out I’m never getting kissed again!”
“We’re in a recession, I need to look out for myself,” Uraraka says primly. “See? They can’t even afford to keep the lights on.”
“All the grounds lights are out, too,” Yaoyorozu reports, looking out the window. “Does anyone know if it’s U.A. specific? It could be a villain attack.”
“A villain attack?” Deku whines. “My favourite All Might collector is streaming an unboxing tonight…I don’t want to fight villains.”
“You won’t have to,” Katsuki says. “Just watch your little videos while they let the real heroes do the fighting.”
“Oh, honestly, Kacchan, like you won’t be watching from your room—”
“Okay, this is—not productive,” Iida interrupts. “I’m calling Aizawa. My phone is up in my room.”
“Yes,” Shinsou says, a little too quickly. “That’s a great idea. I’ll come with you.”
“Y’know, that really sounds like a three person job—”
“I’m going alone!” Iida splutters.
The stairwell door clangs shut behind him.
“...So, on a scale of one to ten, how well does he—”
“Ashido, you know I love you, but I would rather hang myself from my own intestines than fumble this.”
“I respect it.”
They wait in silence.
Kirishima scoots closer to Katsuki. He’s not scared, Katsuki knows. He’s close for protection. Just in case it’s something more than a power outage.
The minutes pass by. The clock on the wall ticks slowly, methodically.
Iida’s back soon enough. It would have been longer if he’d let his two paramours come up with him—but they don’t let him be Class President for nothing.
“I talked to Aizawa,” he says. “There was a villain attack, but it was already subdued, so no one needs to worry. Unfortunately, they managed to bring down a couple power lines before that happened. We just need to wait until they’re back up, but there’s no telling how long that’s going to take.”
“No villain attack,” Deku says, relieved. “Okay, so that means goldenage64 is still going to be streaming, right?”
Todoroki clears his throat. “Uraraka, about my offer—”
“Okay, there is no way you two are still—”
“If the electronic money transfer is an issue, I have about fifty thousand in cash up in my room right now, and I can give you the rest at a later date—”
“Man, don’t tell me that during a purge, I’m trying real hard not to rob you right now—”
“We are not robbing anyone—”
“Hey,” Kirishima says, nudging Katsuki’s knee. “If there’s no lights…in the whole city…that means the stars probably look pretty nice right about now, huh?”
Katsuki grunts.
“And…I remember you mentioning you and your dad used to stargaze?”
Katsuki lets out a slightly more hesitant grunt—hesitant only in that he’s debating how hard he’s going to hit Kirishima if he starts bothering him.
“You know me,” Kirishima says lightly. “Hair for brains…Can’t tell my Big Dipper from my Orion’s Belt…It’s a travesty, man. I look like an idiot out here.”
“Wow,” Katsuki says, monotone. “I guess I have to show your dumbass everything, huh.”
“Yeah,” Kirshima says. “I guess you do.”
And Katsuki could pick his grin out of a lineup—could map the curve of it, draw the exact angle of the corners of his mouth. Even in the dark.
There are no seeing eyes to point out his smile. No lights to give him away as he sneaks out the front door, Kirishima’s finger hooked in his belt loop to stay close.
Kirishima stands with his hands on his hips, surveying the total height of Height’s Alliance.
“You think you could blast us up there?”
“If you want the school to think they’re being bombed, sure.”
“Remind me why we can’t just take the stairs?”
“Aizawa says Deku and I aren’t allowed on the roof without supervision after last month when we were training and he fell off and told Aizawa it was because I baited him into jumping.”
The door to the rooftop has a camera. Aizawa says it was installed during construction of the building, but Katsuki didn’t notice it until after Deku’s little stunt.
“Right,” Kirishima says. “He fell.”
“Wh—” Katsuki glares at him, incensed. “Do you actually think—”
“Hey, y’know, I just think—you say a lot of things, and he wanted to teach you a lesson about words having power—”
“He fell on accident and I didn’t say shit.”
“Sure, man! It’s all in the past anyway.”
“All in the—”
“So you’re saying we can’t let anyone see us going up there.”
Katsuki doesn’t feel like responding to him. Kirishima evidently takes his silence as agreement—instead of the telepathic slur that it truly represents—and makes a thoughtful noise.
“I guess…we could use the balconies?”
They’re close enough together. Besides, Katsuki boulders and Kirishima…is just freakishly strong.
“Sure,” Katsuki says. “Looks doable.”
“Light work!” Kirishima says, punching his fist in the air. He coughs, then, and nudges Katsuki. “You wanna show me how it’s done?”
“I have seen tornado sirens more subtle than you,” Katsuki tells him seriously.
Kirishima blinks innocently. “Hey, there’s no one better than you, man! I’d just feel safer, y’know?”
“Ass-kissing isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“What if I just throw you up and you see if you can catch on? And then you can just pull me up?”
That…does sound kind of fun. The roof of the veranda is too high for Katsuki to just jump up onto himself.
“Wait, so what, you give me a boost, or—”
Kirishima grabs him around the waist, takes a step back, and launches him up. It happens stupidly fast—Katsuki doesn’t even have time to scream—muscle memory tucks him into a roll and he lands cleanly on the roof.
Below him, Kirishima whoops, face bright with glee. “That was insane! Shit! New combo move, you think?”
Combo move—he almost threw Katsuki into a brick wall and he’s thinking of combo moves—
“You couldn’t count me in or anything—”
“Hey, didn’t wanna insult my aerial god by assuming—”
“Kirishima, you can shut the fuck up and take my hands or I can Howitzer you in the head so bad they won’t let you look at screens for the next two weeks.”
Kirishima takes his hands. Katsuki grunts, pulling him up slowly but surely.
“Hey, don’t sound like that, you’ll make me insecure.”
“You need to lay off the mochi brownies.”
“The—dude, I make them low-cal, you know that—”
He’s high up enough that Katsuki can let go—so he does, and lets Kirishima desperately slap around for the ledge with his newly-freed hand.
“You think you can pull yourself up with one hand?”
“I—uh, maybe? I don’t—Katsuki, don’t you fucking dare—”
Katsuki lets go of the other hand. He won’t fall.
Kirishima yelps—several unmanly swears exit his mouth—but he makes it up, shoulders trembling. Just like Katsuki thought he would.
“Not bad,” Katsuki says.
Kirishima glares up at him. “I could have died.”
“It’s not even an eight-foot drop.”
“I could have broken something—”
“I have way too many videos of you jumping off various buildings downtown.”
“Dude, if you keep yelling at me someone’s going to look out of these windows and we’re going to be toast.”
“If I—” Katsuki stops. It’s not worth it. They’re right outside of Deku’s window and, while Katsuki would bet money that the nerd has his noise-cancelling headphones on to focus solely on his livestream, he still wouldn’t put it past Deku’s nosy-ass to stick his big bug eyes out his window, see Kirishima flopped on the roof like a muscular walrus, and call Aizawa.
“We should have climbed up the girls' side,” he says, finally.
Kirishima winces. “Yeah. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, huh?”
The balconies go easier than the initial mission up onto the veranda roof—they’re closer together, for one, and all Katsuki has to do is dig his fingers between bricks until he reaches the balcony ledge and can rest.
“Dude,” Kirishima says, eyes twinkling. “This is Kami’s.”
The curtains are open—they both peak inside the open window—
Katsuki’s jaw drops.
“Holy fucking airball,” Kirishima mutters.
“Did you know Glasses even knew how to do that?”
“I didn’t know anyone knew how to do that.”
“We should go,” Katsuki says. Kirishima hums in agreement.
They stay for another minute.
“Dude, if they see us we’re fucking cooked.”
“Yeah, so move your ass—”
And they scuttle further up the wall, up past their own empty rooms on the fourth floor, and taking a breather on Sato’s balcony.
“Home stretch,” Katsuki pants. “C’mon.”
“Race you!” Kirishima says cheerfully—and scrambles up past him, lurching to the side when his hand misses. Katsuki inhales sharply, but Kirishima catches himself, hysterical laughter bubbling out.
“Scared you, did I?”
“You fucking—”
Katsuki chases him up the wall. Kirishima has his head start, but Katsuki is practiced, and they reach the roof at the same time. Katsuki lets him land first—and then tackles him to the ground, incensed.
“Be careful, Hair for Brains, what if you fell—”
“That’d be bad, huh, that’s two suicide baitings you’d have on your record—”
“For the last fucking time—”
“Oh, wow,” Kirishima’s voice is quiet, awed—he’s not listening to him anymore, focused on something beyond Katsuki. “Look up, man.”
Katsuki does.
Oh.
The night sky is—
“Oh, wow,” Kirishima breathes out. “Man, this is beautiful. Like that hike we did in Nagano, don’t you think?”
“That was better.”
“Sure, but we didn’t need to hike, like, three hours for it.”
“Yeah. Just needed to climb up the fucking building.”
“Could’ve taken the stairs if you weren’t obsessed with suicide baiting Midoriya.”
“I told you, I didn’t fucking—”
Kirishima’s laughing. Katsuki’s been hearing him do it for two years now and it still stops in his tracks. Every time.
Kirishima blinks at him. His laugh trails off. His eyes go wide, curious.
Katsuki coughs.
“So that’s—look at the sky, dumbass, that’s Ursa Minor—you see the super bright one? Polaris. The North Star.”
“Uh-huh,” Kirishima says quietly. He’s still looking at Katsuki.
“Yeah, right, and then below it—way bigger, Ursa Major.” Katsuki’s not even sure if Kirishima’s looking at the right spot. He keeps talking, a little frantic. “And then beside it is—that’s Gemini, with all the—prongs coming out of it. You see the two stars at the end? Castor and Pollux. They’re twins, in Greek Mythology. They—”
Kirishima’s hand interlaces with his. His hands are rough from climbing. “They’re holding hands, right?”
Katsuki stares at him.
Kirishima looks embarrassed. “Wait, they are, right, I thought last time you said—”
“You fucking liar,” Katsuki says slowly. “Why’d you bring us up here if you already know everything?”
“I only know what you told me that one time!”
“I know everything. I told you everything.”
“Okay, well—well, it was honestly just that, I thought it was cute that they were holding hands, that’s all, it’s—ignore me, keep going!”
“Right…” Katsuki points with his free hand. “Whatever. There’s Scorpius. That brightass star at the tip of it is Arcturus—”
“You mean Antares?”
Katsuki stares at him, deadpan.
Kirishima’s hand is clammy. Katsuki doesn’t let go.
“It’s—I—it’s just cause you said that thing about Antares being, like, the rival of Mars—and I thought that was a fun story, y’know, because you and me, we’re totally rivals—”
“We are not rivals—”
“Kirishima and Bakugou, neck and neck—”
“You demanded to be my friend an hour into meeting me.”
“Okay, fine, you got me!” Kirishima’s breath rushes, trips over itself. “I—I wanted to hang out with you. I’ll take any excuse to hang out with you. I remember everything you told me, alright, I—it all—stuck with me. Sorry. Do you really mind telling me all over again?”
He looks at Katsuki with wide, glimmering eyes. They wouldn’t look out of place in Scorpius—or any constellation. But Katsuki is greedy, and he wants to keep them all to himself.
“Why the hell would you want that? Stay up listening to me yap about shit you already know. You’re not bored? Million ways to spend a night and you choose that?”
Kirishima laughs. “Do you really need to ask me that?”
No.
Katsuki is amazed, yes—but not disbelieving. Not unsure.
“Nah,” he says, tugging Kirishima closer to him. “We’ll stay. You had a good idea.”
“There are blankets and pillows in the shed, I think. You want me to go check?”
“In a minute.” Katsuki doesn’t want to let go of him yet. His hand slips around the edge of Kirishima’s hip. His shirt has ridden up just an inch. Katsuki’s thumb, the side of his index finger—brands the soft, warm skin.
Kirishima makes a little noise. His lips press together, his eyes go wide—
“Katsuki,” he breathes out. “Can we? Please?”
“Yeah?”
“Just one,” Kirishima says—softly, like a secret he’s keeping. Middle school slumber party, hushed, don’t tell anyone, but I like him. “‘N we can go back to looking at the stars.”
“Just one,” Katsuki agrees. Tangles their ankles together. Rubs his thumb over the strong bone of Kirishima’s hip.
The concrete roof feels pillow-soft. Kirishima kisses him gently, sweetly.
The constellations can wait. This is something Katsuki has yet to learn.
“Kirishima? Kirishima! You need to wake up, we need to go, I think Kacchan’s been kidnapped again, and we need you, it has to be you—Oh.”
Katsuki has had a lot of rude wakeup calls over the years, but Deku’s reedy voice takes the cake.
“Huh, look at that.” Uraraka’s unimpressed voice reaches him. “Guess we won’t be mounting any rescue missions this time, huh.”
“How did you guys even get up here? The door was locked, we needed Iida’s key to open it.” And that’s Sero, fucking hell, how many people are on this roof?
“Climbed,” Kirishima rasps.
Katsuki looks over at him. Kirishima has his hand thrown over his face, blocking out the sunlight—as well as the incriminating glares of Deku, Uraraka, Sero, and Iida.
“‘S there… a problem?”
“Is there—” Iida’s jaw drops. A plume of smoke puffs out of his calf engines. “Neither of you told anyone where you were, and the only reason we found you was because Kaminari has your location tracked—”
“And where was Kaminari when you discovered this,” Katsuki says dryly.
Everyone turns to look at Iida.
“He—We were—That isn’t—Kirishima isn’t wearing his shirt!”
Everyone looks back at Katsuki and Kirishima.
Kirishima says, “Bakugou needed a pillow.”
Katsuki is, indeed, lying on Kirishima’s folded shirt—only because Kirishima’s pillow of choice was his chest, and he’d felt bad that Katsuki’s head was on the cement.
Iida massages his temples. Deku pats his shoulder lightly.
Sero’s crouched on the ground, snickering. “They thought you were kidnapped,” he wheezes. “Whole time you’re—”
The roof door opens. Aizawa strides outside, half the class crowded behind him.
A chill rushes through the air. The sun hides behind a cloud. Even the birds stop singing.
They both sit up. Katsuki passes Kirishima his shirt, and he yanks it over his head so quickly it looks painful.
Aizawa just stares at them in silence.
Finally, in an eerily soft voice, he says, “Do you know there are solar-powered cameras all around the grounds, that work even in the event of a power-shutoff?”
“Yikes,” someone mumbles.
“Imagine my surprise,” Aizawa continues, “when every single teacher could say their students were safely inside the dorms—except for me, because mine were climbing the walls. Like raccoons.”
Personally, Katsuki doesn’t think any man with undereyes that dark deserves to call anyone else a raccoon. He makes inopportune eye contact with Kaminari, who is very obviously thinking the same thing, and bites down on his tongue. Hard.
“We’re sorry, sensei,” Kirishima says earnestly. “We just—we weren’t thinking. We thought it would be fun, but we didn’t think of how it would reflect on you. We’re really sorry.”
Aizawa tilts his head.
The whole roof holds its breath.
“They were betting,” Aizawa says slowly. “And you made me money. Which is the only reason I am not giving you detention.”
With that, he turns on his heel and goes back inside.
There is a brief moment of shocked silence.
And the roof explodes in noise.
“Betting? Betting?”
“What the hell were they betting on—”
“What did you guys even do last night—”
“Kirishima,” Katsuki says. “Give me your shirt.”
Kirishima laughs, and does. As the class converges upon him—asking what exactly they were doing, how they made it up, and why his throat looks like he’s undergoing a severe allergic reaction—Katsuki lies down, covers his face with Kirishima’s shirt, and goes right back to sleep.