Archive of Our Own

Kirishima lay on his back with the grass cool and springy beneath him, the earth still holding the day’s warmth like a quiet secret. The sky above them was wide and impossibly clear, a deep indigo scattered with stars so sharp they looked close enough to pluck from the dark. He could hear insects somewhere beyond the edge of his awareness, the steady, living sound of summer humming along without them, and beneath it all the slow, familiar rhythm of Bakugou’s breathing at his side.

Their hands were tangled together between them, fingers slotted so naturally it felt like muscle memory rather than choice. Bakugou’s palm was warm, roughened in places, his thumb occasionally brushing against Kirishima’s knuckle in absent, restless little movements. Every time it happened, Kirishima felt it in his chest, a small tightening that he pretended not to notice. It was comfort, closeness, two friends lying under the stars because it was quiet and the night felt kind enough to hold them.

Bakugou snorted suddenly, sharp and bright, breaking the hush. “That one looks like a deformed bird,” he said, chin tilting towards a crooked cluster of stars. “Or maybe a grenade.”

Kirishima laughed, the sound bursting out of him before he could stop it. It felt good, easy, like exhaling after holding his breath too long. “You see grenades in everything, man.”

“Because everything would be better if it exploded properly,” Bakugou shot back, but there was a smile in his voice, soft around the edges. He turned his head just enough for Kirishima to catch the glint of his eyes, reflecting starlight, bright and alive and so achingly familiar it made something twist low in Kirishima’s stomach.

They fell into a comfortable silence after that, the kind that didn’t demand filling. Kirishima watched the sky, naming constellations in his head even when he wasn’t sure he had them right. Orion, maybe. Cassiopeia, probably. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was this feeling, the strange weightless sense that time had slowed just for them, stretched thin and gentle.

“Hey,” Bakugou said eventually, quieter now. “Have you ever made wishes on stars? Or is that, like, too cheesy for you?”

Kirishima grinned despite himself. “Dude, I’m the king of cheesy. Of course I do.” He shifted slightly onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow so he could look at Bakugou properly. Up close, Bakugou’s expression was almost shy, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the sky like he didn’t quite trust himself to meet Kirishima’s eyes.

They counted together, low voices murmuring numbers into the night until Bakugou declared they’d found a shooting star, even though Kirishima was pretty sure it was just a plane. Bakugou squeezed his hand suddenly, firm and grounding, the pressure deliberate.

“Wish,” Bakugou said.

Kirishima closed his eyes.

The wish came easily, frighteningly so, like it had been waiting just beneath the surface. He pictured himself standing strong, unshakeable, someone people could lean on without fear. A hero who didn’t just rush in fists first, but stayed. Someone dependable. Someone manly in the way that mattered, steady and kind and brave enough to keep going even when it hurt.

“I wish,” he said aloud before he could stop himself, voice soft in the dark, “that I can be someone people can rely on. A real hero. One who doesn’t crack when it counts.”

For a moment there was only the night again, the hum of insects, the vastness of the sky pressing down gently on his chest. Then Bakugou’s fingers tightened around his, their hands lifting slightly off the grass as if Bakugou was anchoring him there.

Bakugou turned his head fully this time. His eyes were on Kirishima now, sharp and intent and shining with something Kirishima didn’t quite have a name for. Not anger. Not fire. Something softer, almost vulnerable, barely contained.

“That’s a stupid wish,” Bakugou said, but his voice didn’t carry any bite. “You already are.”

Kirishima’s chest went warm, full to the point of aching. He laughed it off, because that was easier than sitting with the way Bakugou’s words lodged themselves somewhere deep and stayed there. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“I get to decide a lot of things.” Bakugou’s mouth curved, small and sincere in a way he’d never admit to. He looked back at the stars, blinking once. “My turn.”

He didn’t close his eyes. He just stared up at the sky, jaw set, like he was bracing himself against something unseen. Kirishima watched him, memorising the line of his profile, the way the starlight softened the sharp edges of his face.

“I wish,” Bakugou said slowly, his voice lower now, steadier than it had any right to be, “that this stays like this. Right here. Right now.” His thumb brushed over Kirishima’s knuckle again, lingering. “Forever, if possible.”

The words landed heavy and strong, settling between them with a quiet finality that made Kirishima’s breath hitch. He turned fully onto his side without thinking, their faces close enough that he could see the faint freckles dusting Bakugou’s cheeks, the soft curve of his smile, unguarded and almost tender.

Something about Bakugou’s expression felt different. Not loud. Not explosive. Honest in a way that made Kirishima’s heart stumble. The moment stretched, thick and luminous, like the universe had paused to watch them.

Kirishima thought, distantly, that this felt too perfect. Too complete. Like a photograph you only realise you’ve treasured once it’s already faded.

The sound came out of nowhere.

A harsh, insistent buzzing cut through the night, jarring and wrong. The stars blinked out. The grass vanished. Bakugou’s warmth was gone.

Kirishima jolted upright in his bed, heart slamming against his ribs like it was trying to escape. His breath came in short, panicked bursts, his chest tight and burning. The dorm room was dim and unfamiliar in the early morning light, shadows stretching long across the walls. The alarm on his phone screamed on from the bedside table, merciless and real.

He fumbled to silence it, hands shaking, and only then did he notice.

His right hand was curled tightly into the sheets, fingers grasping at nothing.

Empty.

The ache hit him all at once, sharp and disorienting, like he’d woken up mid-fall. He stared at his hand for a long moment, chest rising and falling unevenly, the echo of Bakugou’s warmth still lingering in his bones even as reality settled back in.

It had felt so real.

Kirishima moved through the morning like he always did, on instinct and routine, as though nothing inside him had shifted at all. He showered, scrubbing sleep from his eyes until the mirror showed him back something recognisable. His hair was still red, stubbornly bright even under the harsh bathroom light. His shoulders were still broad. His body still felt solid, capable, strong in the way he had worked so hard to make it. He flexed his hands once, feeling the familiar resistance of skin hardening beneath his quirk, grounding himself in something real and reliable.

Everything was normal.

That was the thought he held onto as he dressed, as he tied his boots, as he slung his bag over his shoulder. Normal was safe. Normal meant there was nothing to examine too closely, nothing that demanded he sit still long enough to notice the hollow echo in his chest. Dreams were just dreams. His brain had misfired, pulled together scraps of longing and comfort and dressed them up as something that felt too real for its own good. That happens sometimes. Everyone had dreams like that, probably. It didn’t mean anything.

He told himself this firmly as he stepped into the corridor, the dorm already alive with the sounds of early morning chaos. Doors slammed. Someone shouted about being late. Mina laughed too loudly at something Kaminari said. Life surged on around him, bright and insistent, and Kirishima let it carry him along.

By the time he reached the kitchen, the smell of food hit him first. Oil sizzling. Something savoury and sharp, unmistakably Bakugou. Kirishima slowed despite himself, his chest tightening in a way he pretended not to notice.

Bakugou was at the stove, sleeves shoved up his forearms, hair messier than usual like he hadn’t bothered fighting it this morning. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes sharp and awake, and clicked his tongue. “You’re late, shitty hair.”

Kirishima laughed automatically, the sound easy and familiar. “Good morning to you too, Bakugou.”

There was nothing different about him. That, somehow, hurt more than if there had been. Bakugou moved with his usual efficiency, flipping something in the pan with a practised flick of his wrist. He shoved a plate towards Kirishima without ceremony. “Eat. We’re running.”

Kirishima took the plate, fingers brushing Bakugou’s for the briefest moment. The contact sparked, quick and bright, and he ignored it just as quickly. He sat, ate, listened to Bakugou complain about something he’d overheard yesterday, about idiots and shitty sleep and how Aizawa was definitely planning to push them all to their untimely deaths with early drills. Kirishima nodded and laughed in the right places, his body remembering how to be this version of himself even while something inside lagged a step behind.

They ran together after breakfast, laps around the training grounds while the sun crept higher in the sky. Bakugou kept pace beside him, occasionally surging ahead just to prove he could. Kirishima pushed himself harder than usual, lungs burning, muscles singing with exertion. Sweat slicked his skin, grounding him in the present, in the undeniable fact of his body working exactly as it should. For brief stretches, the ache in his chest faded beneath the physical strain.

Still, there was a strange wrongness to the day, subtle and persistent. It followed him into class, into training, into the spaces between conversations. It felt like misplacing something important and only realising hours later, when the absence had already settled in your bones. He caught himself glancing at Bakugou too often, tracking his movements, the way he leaned back in his chair, the way his mouth twisted when he was annoyed, the way his eyes lit when he was engaged.

Bakugou was loud. Bakugou was annoying. Bakugou was close, always close, in the way he had always been. He kicked Kirishima’s chair during lunch for no reason at all. He stole Kirishima’s drink without asking. He argued with him about something inconsequential and then grinned like he’d won a battle that only existed in his own head.

Kirishima smiled back. He always did.

But underneath it all, there was a low, constant ache. A sense of grief that made no logical sense, sharp and quiet and deeply personal. He felt as though he’d lost something fragile and precious, something no one else had known existed in the first place. The memory of the night sky clung to him, phantom sensations brushing against his awareness: the weight of Bakugou’s hand in his, the warmth, the way his voice had softened when he spoke that wish.

Kirishima shoved the thought aside every time it surfaced. He didn’t dwell. He didn’t indulge. He told himself the same things over and over until they became a kind of mantra. Nothing was wrong. Everything was exactly as it had always been. He had always loved Bakugou quietly, carefully, from a safe distance. That hadn’t changed overnight just because his subconscious had decided to be cruel.

By evening, exhaustion settled over him like a heavy blanket. He welcomed it, hoping it would pull him under quickly, that sleep would come without ceremony or complication. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a long while, listening to the muted sounds of the dorm winding down, his thoughts finally slowing as his body gave in.

Sleep took him gently, without the usual jolt or resistance, as though his body had been waiting for it. As he drifted, the day replayed itself in fragments. Bakugou’s voice. Bakugou’s laugh. The steady rhythm of running side ny side. His mind circled the familiar shapes of these moments, comforting in their repetition. The darkness behind his eyes warmed instead of closing in, colour bleeding through the black in soft gradients. The tension he carried all day loosened its grip, his breathing evening out as the world shifted around him.

Music found him first.

It wasn’t loud or defined, more a pulse than a melody, something that lived in his bones rather than his ears. A low, steady rhythm that moved through him, coaxing motion from stillness. Kirishima became aware of light, golden and diffuse, as though the air itself were glowing. The floor beneath his feet felt smooth and warm, responsive in a way reality never quite was. He realised he was standing, and then, almost immediately after, that he wasn’t alone.

Bakugou was there.

The recognition came with a rush of feeling so sharp it stole his breath. Bakugou stood close, close enough that Kirishima could feel the heat of him, the familiar crackle of presence that always made his awareness tilt in Bakugou’s direction. He looked different in the way dreams always altered people just enough to feel unreal, softened at the edges, lit from within. His hair caught the light like fire caught in glass. His eyes were bright, impossibly vivid, a rich, molten red that reminded Kirishima of candy from childhood, glossy and inviting.

Bakugou’s mouth curved into a grin when he noticed Kirishima staring. “Are you gonna keep gawking,” he said, voice lighter than it ever sounded awake, “or are you gonna move?”

Kirishima laughed, the sound bubbling out of him, easy and unguarded. “Sorry, man. You just,” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to. Words felt clumsy here, unnecessary.

Bakugou snorted and reached out, catching Kirishima’s wrist with casual certainty. His touch sent a thrill through Kirishima’s arm, a gentle hum rather than a jolt. Bakugou tugged him closer, one hand settling at Kirishima’s waist, solid and warm. The contact felt natural, expected, like this was where they were always meant to be standing.

They began to move together without deciding to. The rhythm guided them, subtle and insistent, carrying them in slow turns that widened and tightened in time with the music. Kirishima felt weightless, as though gravity had loosened its hold. Bakugou leaned into him, shoulder brushing chest, their steps aligning with an ease that made Kirishima’s heart swell.

They laughed as they moved, the sound shared between them, woven into the music. Bakugou said something under his breath, teasing and sharp, and Kirishima answered without thinking, their banter flowing in that familiar cadence that always felt like home. Bakugou’s hand slid, fingers splayed against Kirishima’s back, guiding him in a lazy spin. Kirishima followed, trusting him completely, the world blurring into streaks of light around them.

Round and round they went, drifting and circling, the space stretching impossibly wide. At one point, Kirishima realised his feet had left the floor. The discovery didn’t scare him. It made him laugh harder, the sound echoing bright and unrestrained. Bakugou’s grip tightened slightly, anchoring him, and Kirishima tilted his head back to look at him.

He couldn’t stop looking.

Bakugou’s eyes held him captive, rich and shining, filled with something open and unguarded that Kirishima had never quite been brave enough to look for in waking life. The longer he held Bakugou’s gaze, the more certain he became of what this was.

A dream.

The knowledge settled quietly, without panic. Bakugou’s movements were too gentle, his touch too light, his voice carrying a softness that never survived daylight. When Bakugou spoke, it was close to Kirishima’s ear, words brushing his skin like a secret. His voice had a ticklish quality, as though it were threaded with laughter even when he wasn’t smiling.

“You’re terrible at leading,” Bakugou murmured, breath warm against Kirishima’s neck.

Kirishima grinned. “Good thing I don’t have to.”

Bakugou huffed, amused, and Kirishima felt the vibration of it through their shared space. Bakugou’s fingers traced along Kirishima’s spine, light and feathering, a touch so delicate it made Kirishima’s chest ache. It was wrong in the way only dreams could be, intimate without hesitation, unburdened by fear or consequence.

Kirishima knew he should pull away. He knew he should let go, wake himself up before the weight of this settled too deeply. The awareness sat at the edge of his mind, distant and faint, drowned out by the way Bakugou’s forehead rested briefly against his, by the way their breaths synced without effort.

He didn’t let go.

Instead, he leaned in, closing the last inch of space between them. His hands found Bakugou’s shoulders, solid beneath his palms, and he felt a surge of gratitude so overwhelming it made his throat tighten. Gratitude for the warmth, for the laughter, for the way Bakugou existed here without walls.

They moved slower now, swaying rather than dancing, the music stretching into something languid and unhurried. Kirishima rested his cheek against Bakugou’s temple, eyes slipping closed. He could feel the steady beat of Bakugou’s heart through his chest, strong and sure, and he let himself imagine that this was real, that this was allowed.

A quiet plea rose in him, instinctive and wordless. He held it close, shaping it carefully, afraid that even thinking it too loudly might shatter the moment. He wished they would stay like this. Suspended. Untouched by the sharp edges of reality. He wished the world would keep spinning without waking him.

Bakugou shifted, pulling back just enough to look at him again. His expression softened further, something tender flickering across his features. He opened his mouth, as though to say something important, something that might change everything.

The light wavered.

The music faltered, stretching thin. Kirishima felt the sensation of falling, the gentle buoyancy draining away. Panic flared, sudden and sharp, and he clutched at Bakugou instinctively, fingers tightening in the fabric of his shirt.

“Wait,” he said, the word tearing out of him. “Please.”

Bakugou’s face blurred, his features smearing like wet paint. The warmth began to fade, the glow dimming around them.

Kirishima woke with a sharp intake of breath, chest heaving. The dorm room was dark, quiet except for the distant hum of the building settling. His sheets were twisted around him, damp with sweat. His hands were clenched tight against his chest, empty.

The loss hit him harder this time, a deep, hollow ache that settled beneath his ribs and refused to move. He lay there staring at the ceiling, heart racing, replaying the dream in fragments. The laughter. The music. The way Bakugou had looked at him.

He missed him with an intensity that made his eyes burn, even though Bakugou was only a few doors away, breathing the same recycled air.

Morning came too quickly.

Kirishima dragged himself out of bed, limbs heavy and uncooperative. The day pressed down on him, dull and grey in comparison to the light he’d left behind. He couldn’t face the noise of breakfast, the easy proximity, the way Bakugou would exist so solidly in front of him after feeling so painfully intangible.

Instead, he went to the training grounds alone.

The air was cool and sharp, biting at his skin as he began to move. He ran until his lungs burned, until the ache in his muscles rivalled the one in his chest. He punched and kicked and hardened his skin, each impact grounding him in the certainty of his body. Sweat stung his eyes, his breath ragged and loud in the empty space.

He trained as though he could outrun the memory of warmth, as though exhaustion might dull the edges of longing. The rhythm of exertion carried him, steady and relentless, but even as his body worked, his mind drifted back to the dream.

To dancing. To laughter. To the weight of Bakugou leaning into him, close enough to feel real.

The night consequently came quietly, without the sharp edge of anticipation or dread. Kirishima fell asleep the way he always did, flat on his back, arms flung wide like he took up space even in rest, the faint hum of the dormitory settling around him. His body was tired in a way training never quite managed to achieve, muscles heavy and warm, mind dulled just enough that he didn’t chase his thoughts in circles. He thought, distantly, that maybe this would be the night it stopped. That the first dream had been a fluke, the second an echo, and that his brain would finally correct itself and let him rest.

It didn’t.

He knew it almost as soon as it started. That was the strange thing. There was no jolt of realisation, no delayed awareness blooming halfway through. The dream announced itself immediately, not with anything fantastical, but with the feeling of sitting still while the world moved around him.

They were at the movies.

The seats were narrow and soft, the kind that swallowed you a little if you slouched. Kirishima could feel the faint stickiness on the armrest beneath his forearm, the residue of spilt drinks and hurried clean-ups. The air smelled like warm butter and sugar, popcorn ground into the carpet by hundreds of shoes. The screen loomed large and bright ahead of them, colours washing over the dark room in slow, cinematic pulses. Light flickered across the rows of heads in front of them, across the walls, across Bakugou.

Bakugou sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed when either of them shifted. Too close for coincidence. Their hands were clasped together between the seats, fingers woven like it had never occurred to either of them to do anything else. Kirishima could feel the press of Bakugou’s knuckles, the warmth of his palm, the way his thumb rubbed absent circles against the side of Kirishima’s hand during quieter scenes. It was such a small, thoughtless gesture that it hurt.

Bakugou’s face was half-lit by the screen, the harsh whites and saturated colours carving sharp lines along his cheekbones, catching in his eyes. The explosions on-screen reflected there, blooming and fading, turning his irises molten for a heartbeat at a time. His mouth was relaxed, parted slightly, a piece of popcorn forgotten between his fingers. He looked young like this, unguarded in the dark, the constant edge softened by shadows and flickering light.

Kirishima swallowed.

This was a dream. He knew that. The knowledge sat calmly in his chest, solid and undeniable. He didn’t have to test it. He didn’t have to look for seams or wrongness. The certainty was there from the start, heavy as a truth he couldn’t put down. His brain had done this before. Twice now. It was repeating itself with a precision that felt almost cruel in its tenderness.

And still, his chest ached.

He squeezed Bakugou’s hand before he could stop himself, the pressure instinctive, grounding. Bakugou glanced at him, eyebrows drawing together just a fraction, expression sharp even in the low light.

“What?” he murmured, voice pitched low out of habit, out of respect for the room.

“Nothing,” Kirishima said, and his own voice sounded steady, sounded right, which made something in him twist. He smiled, the easy grin he wore like armour, and Bakugou huffed softly, attention drifting back to the screen.

The film played on. Kirishima didn’t know what it was. He couldn’t have told anyone the plot if he tried. He wasn’t entirely convinced he dreamt up a real film to be quite frank. He watched it anyway, watched the way Bakugou reacted to it more than the story unfolding ahead of them. The way his jaw tightened during tense moments, the way he leaned forward without realising it, elbows digging into his knees. The way he snorted quietly at jokes he pretended not to find funny, lips twitching despite himself.

Every detail felt sharpened, saturated. The bass of the soundtrack vibrated through Kirishima’s ribs. The laughter of the audience rose and fell around them like a tide. He could feel Bakugou’s pulse through their joined hands, steady and real, a quiet reminder of a presence he had memorised over years of training and living and surviving side by side.

This is what I want his mind whispered, not frantically, not desperately, but with a tired honesty that surprised him. This exact thing. This quiet closeness. This shared dark, where no one was looking too closely, where he didn’t have to be brave or strong or anything at all.

He turned his head again, unable to help it. Bakugou caught him this time. Their eyes met, and something flickered there, a question, a recognition. Bakugou’s thumb stilled against his hand.

“What?” Bakugou asked again, softer now, like the word itself mattered.

Kirishima opened his mouth. The truth crowded behind his teeth, too big, too heavy. That he loved him. That he had loved him for years in ways that had nothing to do with admiration or rivalry or shared ambition. That even knowing this was a dream, even understanding that his own mind was constructing it piece by piece from longing and memory, he still felt like this mattered.

He didn’t say any of it.

“Just,” he started, and the word trailed off uselessly. He laughed under his breath, embarrassed even here, even now. “I’m glad we came.”

Bakugou studied him for a long second, eyes sharp despite the darkness. Then he scoffed quietly, turning back to the screen.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s not half bad.”

The dismissal didn’t sting the way it might have awake. Here, it felt familiar, fond even. Kirishima leaned back into his seat, letting the world move around him again, letting the film wash over him in colour and sound. He let his thumb brush against Bakugou’s knuckle, just once, a silent acknowledgement.

Time passed strangely in the dream. Scenes blurred together, applause swelling and fading. At some point the credits rolled, white names scrolling against black, music echoing through the room. People began to stand, seats creaking, the quiet murmur of conversation rising like static.

Kirishima didn’t want to move.

He stayed seated, fingers tightening reflexively around Bakugou’s hand, anchoring himself there. The knowledge pressed harder now, a weight in his chest. This would end. It always did. The dream would slip away from him the moment he let go, dissolving into the grey of morning and the hollow echo it left behind.

Bakugou tugged gently at his hand. “Come on,” he said. “Are you gonna sit here all night?”

Kirishima looked up at him, at the familiar impatience, the warmth threaded through it. He nodded, standing on unsteady legs, letting Bakugou pull him up into the aisle. They shuffled out with the rest of the crowd, bodies brushing, shoulders bumping. The exit doors opened, and the bright hallway lights flooded in, too harsh, too real.

The world tilted.

Kirishima felt the dream thinning around the edges, colours leaching away, sound dulling. Panic flared sharp and sudden, a hand closing around his throat. He tightened his grip, nails biting into Bakugou’s skin.

“Hey,” Bakugou snapped, half turning. “What’s your problem?”

“Don’t,” Kirishima said, and the word came out wrong, fractured. He didn’t know what he was asking for.

Don’t let go.

Don’t disappear.

Don’t wake me up.

Bakugou frowned, confusion creasing his face. For a moment, just a moment, he looked like he might understand. Like he might say something that would anchor this dream, pin it in place.

Then the light flared too bright, the noise collapsed into silence, and Kirishima woke up.

His eyes flew open, breath tearing from his chest in uneven pulls. The ceiling of his dorm room stared back at him, pale and blank, unmoving. His hands were clenched tight against his chest, fingers curled around nothing. Sweat cooled against his skin, the sheets twisted around his legs.

He lay there, staring, heart hammering like he’d just finished a sprint he hadn’t trained for. The ache settled in slowly this time, spreading through him with a dull, familiar weight. It pressed behind his eyes, lodged itself beneath his ribs.

He rolled onto his side, burying his face into his pillow, breathing in the clean, faint scent of laundry detergent. His chest felt hollow, like something vital had been scooped out while he slept. He understood it now, with a clarity that made his throat tighten.

This wasn’t random. This wasn’t his brain misfiring or playing tricks. It was memory and desire tangled together, replaying everything he’d never let himself have. Every quiet want he’d packed away and labelled impossible. His mind was generous in sleep, reckless with the things he denied himself awake.

Kirishima squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to breathe evenly. He could do this. He could endure it. He always had. He would wake up, get dressed, smile, train, laugh too loudly at Bakugou’s insults. He would be normal. He would be fine.

He lay there until the alarm went off, until the day demanded him again, and he answered it with the same steady resolve he always carried, even as something inside him quietly mourned a night that had felt, for a few fleeting hours, like everything he had ever wanted.

That afternoon stretched out in that hazy, slow way it always did when classes ended early and the weight of the day hadn’t quite decided where to settle. Sunlight poured through the common room windows in wide, slanted bands, dust motes drifting lazily in the warmth. Kirishima sat hunched over the low table, elbows braced, notebook open but untouched, his pen resting idle between his fingers.

Bakugou was sprawled opposite him, boots kicked off somewhere behind the sofa, one knee hooked up on the cushion as if gravity applied to him differently. A battered copy of The Great Gatsby lay open between them, spine cracked, pages dog-eared and marked with Bakugou’s aggressive scrawl in the margins. He chewed the end of his pen as he read, brow furrowed in concentration, eyes sharp and restless as they dragged across the page.

Kirishima tried to focus. He really did. He read the same paragraph three times, the words sliding off his mind without sticking. Something about rain and flowers and a small house that suddenly felt too full of people and feeling. His gaze kept drifting instead, pulled magnetically to the familiar angles of Bakugou’s face, the way his jaw flexed when he was annoyed, the faint crease between his eyebrows that never quite smoothed out.

He told himself he was being normal. This was normal. Studying together, quiet except for the rustle of pages and the distant sounds of other students passing in the corridor. They did this all the time. Had done it for years. There was nothing in it that should have made his chest feel tight or his thoughts lag behind his body like they were trudging through water.

Bakugou broke the silence abruptly, snapping the book shut with a sharp crack that made Kirishima jump.

“This is stupid,” Bakugou said, scowling down at the cover. “Why the hell is everyone acting like this is romantic.”

Kirishima blinked, dragged back into the room. “Huh?”

Bakugou jabbed a finger back at the book. “This bit. The cottage. The flowers. All that crap.” He leaned back, folding his arms, eyes flicking up to Kirishima with an intensity that felt misplaced for the subject. “People call that a good date?”

The word landed between them, heavy and sudden.

Kirishima laughed on instinct, a bright, easy sound that burst out of him before he could stop it. “Dude, I dunno. It’s a book. An old one, too. Different times, right?”

Bakugou didn’t laugh with him. He just watched, eyes narrowing slightly, head tilting as if he were reassessing a calculation.

“I’m serious,” he said. “What do you think a good date even is? Is what Gatsby and Daisy are doing a good date?”

The laughter died in Kirishima’s throat.

He stared at Bakugou, mouth half-open, a dozen answers scrambling for purchase and finding none. His mind reached, automatically, traitorously, for starlight and warmth and fingers threaded through his own. For popcorn and shared silence and the soft brush of a thumb against his knuckle. For dreams that still clung to him in fragments when he closed his eyes.

He swallowed.

“I mean,” he said slowly, buying time, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s probably different for everyone, yeah? Like doing something you both enjoy. Spending time together. Stuff like that.”

Bakugou snorted. “That’s vague as hell.”

Kirishima forced a grin, leaned into it, let the familiar version of himself take over. “Hey, romance isn’t really my thing. I’m more of a ‘hang out and see what happens’ guy.”

The words tasted sour. He hadn’t realised how untrue they were until they were already out in the air.

Bakugou studied him again, gaze sharp and unyielding, like he was trying to see through the answer to something underneath. His eyes flicked briefly to Kirishima’s hands, still curled loosely around the pen, knuckles pale with unconscious tension.

“That's all you’ve got?” Bakugou asked.

Kirishima shrugged, a deliberate, careless motion. “Guess so.”

For a moment, something unreadable crossed Bakugou’s face. Disappointment, maybe. Or frustration. He scoffed under his breath, already turning away, already retreating back behind his scowl.

“Figures,” he muttered, flipping the book open again with unnecessary force. His pen scratched harshly against the page as he started writing, jaw set, shoulders tense.

The conversation ended there, cut cleanly and decisively, the way Bakugou ended most things he didn’t like the shape of.

Kirishima sat there for a long moment, staring down at the table, at the sunlight pooling around the edges of his notebook. His reflection wavered faintly in the polished wood, distorted and unfamiliar. He felt exposed in a way he couldn’t quite articulate, like he’d been asked to name something vital and realised he didn’t know how to say it out loud without breaking it.

He picked up his pen and pretended to read, to write, to exist in the same easy, thoughtless way he always had. Across from him, Bakugou’s pen continued its furious march across the page, the sound sharp and relentless, filling the quiet with something unspoken that Kirishima didn’t yet have the courage to examine too closely.

The common room felt smaller at night, as though the walls leaned in once the daylight left and the overhead lights cast their warm, artificial glow. The windows were dark mirrors now, reflecting the room back at itself: the sagging sofa, the low table cluttered with controllers and half-empty bottles, the faint scuff marks on the floor from years of restless pacing and sparring matches that had spilled indoors when it rained.

Kirishima sat cross-legged on the floor, back resting against the couch, controller loose in his hands. The television hummed softly between races, colours blurring into cheerful nonsense as the game loaded again. He told himself he was relaxed. He told himself this was easy. Mario Kart nights were sacred in their own stupid way, loud and competitive and familiar enough that he could usually sink into them without thinking.

Bakugou sat on the sofa above him, one foot planted on the floor, the other tucked beneath his leg, posture tense even at rest. He leaned forward whenever the race began, elbows on his knees, shoulders tight, jaw set like every corner mattered in a way that could decide the fate of the world. He swore viciously when he hit a banana peel, barked a sharp laugh when he knocked someone else off course, glanced sideways at Kirishima after every finish like he needed the victory witnessed.

Kirishima lost on purpose once, then won by accident the next round, his focus drifting in and out like a faulty signal. He could feel Bakugou’s presence behind him without looking, a constant heat against his back, loud and alive and achingly close. Every time Bakugou leaned forward, Kirishima felt it, a shift in air, a nearness that tugged at something sore inside his chest.

Halfway through a race, Bakugou spoke again, sudden and sharp, cutting through the game’s music.

“So,”

Kirishima startled, kart swerving off the track. “Hey, give a warning next time.”

Bakugou didn’t apologise. He never did. “About earlier.”

Kirishima’s hands tightened around the controller. He kept his eyes on the screen, watched his character respawn, tried to keep his voice light. “What about it?”

Bakugou scoffed. “You know what.”

The race ended. The screen filled with bright, triumphant graphics that felt aggressively out of place. Kirishima set the controller down carefully, like it might shatter if he wasn’t gentle with it.

Bakugou clicked through menus with quick, irritated movements. He didn’t look at Kirishima when he spoke, gaze fixed on the television as if the words were easier to manage when they weren’t aimed directly.

“I don’t like not knowing things,” he said. “It makes me sloppy.”

Kirishima huffed a small laugh despite himself. “That’s a new one.”

Bakugou shot him a glare. “Shut up. You know what I mean.”

And Kirishima did. He always did. Bakugou hated uncertainty with a passion that bordered on fear, treated unknowns like personal affronts. He trained harder when he didn’t understand something, pushed until his body learned what his mind couldn’t grasp right away. Problems were meant to be wrestled into submission.

Bakugou exhaled through his nose, sharp and controlled. “I need to figure this out.”

“Figure what out?” Kirishima asked, though his chest already felt tight, already braced for impact.

Bakugou finally turned to look at him then. Really look at him. His eyes were bright in the low light, intense and unwavering, reflecting the television’s glow in sharp flecks of colour.

“Expectations,” he said. “What people want. What they like. How you’re supposed to do it right.”

The words settled slowly, heavy and deliberate.

He didn’t say dating. He didn’t say romance or feelings or anything fragile enough to crack if held wrong. He framed it like a problem to solve, a system to master. That was how Bakugou survived things that mattered.

Kirishima swallowed.

“Oh,” he said, intelligently.

Bakugou frowned. “Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not making it weird,” Kirishima said quickly, a reflexive defence. “Just surprised, I guess.”

Bakugou clicked his tongue. “Well don’t be. I asked around.”

Kirishima’s stomach dipped. “Asked around?”

“Uraraka,” Bakugou clarified, like it was obvious. “She talks too much but she’s not stupid.”

Kirishima smiled, though it felt a little stiff. “Yeah. She’s good with that stuff.”

Bakugou shifted on the sofa, restless. “She gave me a bunch of vague bullshit. Feelings. Atmosphere. Whatever.” He waved a hand, dismissive, then clenched it into a fist. “I want specifics.”

Of course he did.

“And you think I can help with that?” Kirishima asked.

Bakugou looked at him like the answer was self-evident. “You pay attention. You remember things. You’re good with people.”

The words landed softer than anything Bakugou had said all day.

Kirishima felt something warm bloom behind his ribs, sharp and tender all at once. He ducked his head, scratched at his knee, suddenly aware of the way his heart had picked up speed.

“I don’t know, man,” he said. “I’m not exactly an expert.”

Bakugou snorted. “Don’t care. You’re still better than me.”

There it was. That quiet, unguarded honesty Bakugou rarely let slip, slipped into the space between them like a confession neither of them were meant to hear.

Kirishima’s resolve crumbled instantly.

“Yeah,” he said, too fast, too easy. “Yeah, ok. I can help.”

Bakugou’s eyes flicked up, sharp and searching. “You sure?”

“Of course,” Kirishima said, the words automatic, instinctive. Of course he would. Of course he always would. Helping Bakugou had long ago become as natural as breathing.

Bakugou studied him for a beat longer, then nodded once, firm and decisive. “Good.”

Something shifted in his expression then, subtle but unmistakable. A spark of focus, of intent. Determination lit his features, bright and unyielding, the same look he wore before a fight he intended to win.

Kirishima’s heart did something stupid in his chest.

Bakugou leaned forward, forearms braced on his thighs, gaze fixed on some distant point Kirishima couldn’t see. “I’m not gonna half-ass it,” he said. “If I’m doing this, I’m doing it right.”

Kirishima nodded, throat tight. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

Bakugou glanced at him again, eyes narrowing slightly. “You’re not gonna screw around, are you?”

Kirishima laughed, soft and genuine this time. “When have I ever?”

Bakugou huffed. “Fair.”

They sat there for a moment, the game forgotten, the room quiet except for the hum of the television and the distant sounds of laughter from somewhere down the hall. Kirishima felt strangely suspended, caught between something that had already happened and something that hadn’t yet found its shape.

He told himself it was fine. He told himself this was harmless. He was just helping a friend. Just offering advice. Just being reliable, steady, the way he always tried to be.

Still, as Bakugou straightened and picked up the controller again, that determined glint lingering in his eyes, Kirishima felt his chest ache with a warmth that bordered on painful.

That night, the dream didn’t announce itself as a dream.

There was no jolt of transition, no telltale softness at the edges, no wrongness that warned him he was slipping somewhere unreal. Kirishima simply was, and the world met him with a solidity that made his breath catch.

They were walking along a beach, the shoreline stretched long and pale beneath a sky still heavy with the day’s last light. The sun hovered low, not quite setting, casting everything in that molten gold that flattened shadows and made colours bleed into one another. The air tasted of salt and warmth. Somewhere behind them, waves broke and pulled back again, patient and rhythmic, a sound so constant it felt like breathing.

Kirishima looked down and felt sand between his toes.

It pressed and shifted with every step, cool where the tide had reached, warm higher up where the sun had lingered. Grains clung to his skin, caught against the creases of his feet, real enough that he flexed his toes without thinking, just to feel it move. The hem of his trousers was damp, fabric darkened where water had brushed against it. A breeze lifted it, light and damp, threading salt through his hair.

Beside him, Bakugou walked in silence.

That alone should have told him something was off. Bakugou was rarely quiet for this long without cause. He filled space instinctively, noise and presence and sharp edges, as if silence was an enemy to be fought. Here, though, he moved with an uncharacteristic calm, hands loose at his sides, shoulders easy. The usual tension he carried like a coiled spring had eased, unwound by the open space and the steady hush of the sea.

The light caught on him in a way that made Kirishima’s chest ache. The sun outlined Bakugou’s figure in fire, tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the familiar slope of his nose, the wild spikes of his hair glowing almost white at the edges. His skin looked warmer like this, burnished, alive. Every detail felt sharpened by the brightness, painfully clear.

Kirishima didn’t reach for him straight away. He let himself walk in that shared silence, afraid that any movement might fracture it. His heart beat slow and heavy, each thud loud in his ears. This felt different. This didn’t feel like the others.

He tried, distantly, to catalogue the signs. Dreams usually came with a faint distortion, a heightened vividness that tipped into unreality if he focused too hard. There was often a sense of being carried, of events unspooling without his input. This time, his body felt anchored. He could feel the way his calves tightened as he walked, the slight drag of wet sand beneath his feet, the sun warming the back of his neck.

He could smell the sea.

Bakugou stopped without warning.

Kirishima nearly walked into him, pulling up short with a quiet laugh that felt too loud in the open air. Bakugou turned then, slow and deliberate, facing him fully. For a moment, he said nothing. He just looked at Kirishima with an intensity that softened around the edges, something open and unguarded that Kirishima rarely saw in daylight.

Up close, his eyes were impossibly red, catching the light until they looked almost translucent. Candy-like, Kirishima thought distantly, the same word his mind always reached for in moments like this. Sweet and sharp all at once.

Bakugou lifted a hand.

The movement was unhurried, almost careful. His fingers brushed Kirishima’s wrist, tentative at first, before curling properly, warm and solid. The contact sent a jolt through Kirishima’s arm, immediate and grounding. He stared down at their hands, at the way Bakugou’s thumb rested against the inside of his wrist, right over his pulse.

It was steady. Real.

Bakugou’s grip tightened slightly, anchoring. When Kirishima looked back up, Bakugou’s expression had shifted, something earnest settling over his features. The usual scowl was gone. His mouth curved into a small, almost hesitant smile.

“Hey,” Bakugou said.

His voice carried easily over the sound of the waves, low and rough in that familiar way that always made Kirishima’s stomach flip. There was no echo, no distortion. It didn't sound like a memory.

Kirishima swallowed. “Hey.”

They stood there, hands joined, the tide creeping closer with each passing second. Water brushed against Kirishima’s ankles, cold enough to make him hiss softly. Bakugou didn't let go. He stepped closer instead, their shoulders almost touching, heat bleeding through fabric.

Bakugou looked back out at the horizon. The sun hovered there still, stubborn, refusing to sink. The sky had begun to bruise at the edges, blues deepening, pinks stretching thin and luminous.

“I’ve been thinking,” Bakugou said.

Kirishima’s chest tightened. He didn't trust that phrase, not here, not like this. He waited anyway.

Bakugou exhaled through his nose, a quiet sound, then turned his head just enough that his gaze caught Kirishima’s profile. “I don’t say it,” he continued. “I know that. I don’t do this stuff right.”

Kirishima shook his head instinctively. “You’re fine. You don’t have to,”

Bakugou squeezed his hand, not hard, but firm enough to stop him. His eyes flicked back to Kirishima, sharp and searching, then softened again.

“Just listen,” he said, with a waiver in his voice so gentle it was borderline unrecognisable.

Kirishima nodded, throat tight.

Bakugou took another breath, steadying. The sea rolled in, washing higher this time, water curling around their calves. Kirishima could feel the tug as it pulled back, sand shifting beneath him.

“Thank you,” Bakugou said.

The words landed quietly, without ceremony. It took Kirishima a second to realise what he’d said.

“For what?” he asked, confused.

Bakugou’s mouth twitched. “For sticking around. For not giving up on me when I was an asshole. For all of it.”

Kirishima’s heart stumbled. Heat bloomed behind his eyes, sudden and unwelcome. He laughed, short and breathless, because that was what he always did when things edged too close to sincerity.

“Come on,” he said. “That’s just what friends do.”

Bakugou’s gaze held his. The smile faded into something more serious, more intent.

“Yeah,” he said. “But you do it anyway. Even when you don’t have to.”

The tide surged again, cold and insistent. Kirishima barely noticed. His world had narrowed to the space between them, to the warmth of Bakugou’s hand and the weight of his words settling somewhere deep and fragile.

“You’re always there,” Bakugou continued, quieter now. “Every time I turn around.”

Kirishima’s chest ached. He wanted to say something, anything, but the words tangled and stuck. He had spent years wanting to hear something like this, imagining it in fragments, in dreams that always slipped away before they could settle. Now it was here, spoken plainly, and he didn't know where to put it.

“I want to be,” Kirishima said finally. His voice came out rougher than he intended. “I mean, that’s just me.”

Bakugou studied him for a long moment. The light shifted as the sun dipped lower, shadows stretching. When Bakugou spoke again, his voice had softened further, stripped of its usual bite.

“I know,” he said. “That’s why.”

Something in Kirishima cracked open.

The words settled into him with a weight that felt both unbearable and right. His grip tightened around Bakugou’s hand, fingers threading together properly this time. Bakugou didn't pull away. He stepped closer still, close enough that Kirishima could feel his breath against his cheek, warm and faintly salty.

The world felt hushed around them, as if the beach itself were holding its breath.

Bakugou’s free hand lifted, hovering for a moment near Kirishima’s shoulder, uncertain. Kirishima leaned into the touch without thinking, his body making the choice before his mind could catch up. Bakugou’s hand settled there, warm and solid, thumb pressing lightly into muscle.

“Stay with me,” Bakugou said.

It didn't sound like a demand. It sounded like a truth already assumed.

Kirishima nodded, the motion small. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Bakugou’s smile returned, slow and genuine, transforming his face into something almost unrecognisable in its openness. The sight of it hit Kirishima hard, a physical blow to the chest. He felt dizzy with it, with the ease of this moment, with how perfectly it fit.

The sun finally began to sink then, light bleeding away in long, glowing streaks. The air cooled. The tide rolled in again, higher than before, water brushing against their knees. Kirishima laughed softly as it tugged at him, instinctively leaning closer to Bakugou for balance.

Bakugou laughed too, a short huff of sound that warmed Kirishima through and through. He tightened his arm around Kirishima’s shoulders, drawing him in, solid and sure.

For a moment, Kirishima allowed himself to believe it.

Allowed himself to stand there, held and holding, feet in the sand, salt on his skin, the future stretching out in front of him as wide and open as the sea. The fear that usually shadowed his joy stayed quiet. The part of him that always waited for the drop, for the sharp snap back to reality, was muted by the weight of Bakugou’s presence and the sincerity in his voice.

This felt earned. This felt real.

Bakugou turned his head, forehead brushing against Kirishima’s temple, a familiar gesture that made Kirishima’s breath stutter. He closed his eyes without realising he’d done it, letting himself rest there, suspended.

“Thank you,” Bakugou murmured again, softer still.

The words echoed through Kirishima, filling every hollow place. He didn't question them. He didn't pull back.

And then the world fell away.

The sound of the waves cut off abruptly, replaced by the shrill, insistent ring of his alarm. Kirishima jolted upright in bed, breath tearing from his chest in sharp gasps. His heart raced, pounding so hard it hurt. His hand closed around empty sheets, fingers curling into fabric that was cool and still.

The room was dark and unfamiliar in its quiet.

For a long moment, he sat there, disoriented, the echo of warmth still clinging to him, the phantom weight of Bakugou’s arm heavy around his shoulders. His feet ached with the memory of sand. Salt lingered on his tongue.

Then it drained away.

The emptiness that followed was vast and immediate, swallowing him whole. He pressed his palm against his chest, as if he could hold something there, as if he could keep the dream from slipping completely out of reach.

It didn't help.

When he finally lay back down, staring at the ceiling, the silence felt unbearable. He felt lost in it, unmoored, like he had been pulled abruptly from shore and left to drift, alone, with nothing but the memory of solid ground beneath his feet.

He moved through the morning on habit alone, dressing, tying his shoes, forcing food down even though his stomach felt tight and hollow. By the time he reached the common area, he had settled into that careful, brittle normal he’d been cultivating all week, the one that smiled easily and asked no questions.

Bakugou was already there.

He leaned against the counter, arms folded, jaw set in that familiar way that meant he had decided something and the world was simply going to have to catch up. He looked put together in the rough way he always did, hair only half-tamed, shirt tugged on without much thought. When he spotted Kirishima, his eyes sharpened with focus, locking on immediately.

“Oi,” he said. “We’re going out today.”

The words landed wrong. Too casual. Too close to something Kirishima didn’t let himself name.

Kirishima paused, one hand still on the back of a chair. “Why?”

Bakugou pushed off the counter and came closer, already talking. “I’ve planned it. I know what we’re doing. You don’t need to think about it.”

Kirishima blinked, trying to recalibrate. His pulse picked up, sudden and unwelcome. “Going out where?”

Bakugou waved a hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. Just,” He stopped, scowled, clearly irritated with himself. “Uraraka said people like it better if it’s a bit of a surprise.”

Something cold slid down Kirishima’s spine.

“Oh,” he said, because his mouth needed to do something. “Right.”

Bakugou narrowed his eyes. “You got a problem with that?”

“No,” Kirishima said quickly. Too quickly. “No. Sounds good.”

Bakugou’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, sharp and assessing, then he nodded once, decision reaffirmed. “Good. Dress summery. And don’t ask a million questions.”

Kirishima laughed, a reflex more than a feeling. “Since when do I do that?”

Bakugou snorted. “Since always.”

He turned away then, already done with the conversation, leaving Kirishima standing there with the faint sense that the ground had shifted under his feet.

Summery.

The word followed him back to his room, echoing in strange places. He stood in front of his wardrobe longer than necessary, staring at clothes he’d worn a hundred times without thought. Eventually, he picked something light, simple, casual. He told himself that was all it meant. He told himself a lot of things.

They took the train out of the city.

Kirishima watched the buildings thin out through the window, concrete giving way to low houses, then open stretches of road. Bakugou sat beside him, knee pressed close enough that their legs brushed when the train rocked. The contact sent little sparks up Kirishima’s spine that he pretended not to feel. Bakugou talked, restless as ever, complaining about the crowds, about the heat, about how public transport was a nightmare. Kirishima responded in the right places, laughed when expected, kept his eyes trained forward.

When the smell of salt hit him, he went very still.

The station was small, open to the air. The breeze was unmistakable, cool and damp, carrying the sound of gulls and the distant hush of waves. Kirishima stepped onto the platform and felt something inside him give way, a quiet, awful click of recognition.

No. He told himself the word firmly. Beaches were common. Plenty of people went to the beach. It didn’t mean anything.

Bakugou strode ahead, purposeful. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “This way.”

The path opened up suddenly, dunes rolling out towards the horizon, pale and windswept. The sea stretched beyond them, wide and glittering under the sun. Kirishima’s breath caught before he could stop it.

It was wrong how close it was.

The light was different from the city, softer, brighter, washing everything in that same golden clarity he’d woken from only hours ago. The air tasted of salt. Sand shifted beneath his shoes, familiar in a way that made his chest ache.

Bakugou stopped near the edge of the shore, boots sinking slightly. He turned, hands on his hips, surveying the space with a critical eye. “This should work.”

Kirishima forced himself to smile. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s nice.”

Nice. The word felt inadequate, thin as paper.

They walked along the waterline, waves curling up to greet them, just as they had in the dream. Kirishima kept his gaze fixed ahead, refusing to look too closely, refusing to notice the way the tide moved, the way the sun caught in Bakugou’s hair. He laughed when Bakugou complained about sand getting everywhere. He nodded when Bakugou pointed out a food stall up ahead and declared they were stopping there.

“This is the sort of thing people like,” Bakugou said, more to himself than to Kirishima. “Stuff to do. Food. Somewhere to walk.”

Kirishima’s chest tightened. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Sounds about right.”

Bakugou shot him a glance, sharp and searching. “You sure?”

“Course,” Kirishima said, easy, automatic. “You’re doing great.”

Bakugou’s mouth curved into a small, satisfied smirk. “Damn right.”

They ate greasy food with sand between their fingers, sat on the low wall overlooking the beach. The sun warmed Kirishima’s shoulders. The breeze tugged at his clothes. Every sensation felt turned up too high, overwhelming in its familiarity. He kept waiting for the moment where it would diverge, where the path would split away from memory and into something safely ordinary.

It didn't.

At one point, Bakugou nudged his shoulder with his own, a casual bump meant to get his attention. “Are you having fun or what?”

Kirishima startled, then laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Bakugou studied his face for a beat longer than necessary, eyes bright and intent. “Good.”

They walked again after that, closer to the water. Bakugou kicked off his boots and rolled up his trousers without ceremony. Kirishima followed suit, heart thudding loud in his ears. The sea was cold when it reached his feet, sharp enough to make him hiss. Bakugou laughed, loud and unrestrained, and the sound cut through him cleanly.

“Still glad you came?” Bakugou asked, grin fierce.

Kirishima nodded, throat tight. “Always.”

He didn’t let himself look at how the light framed Bakugou’s face. He didn't let himself think about dreams, about gratitude, about hands clasping together. He stayed firmly in the moment he told himself he was in, treated it like something simple and harmless.

This was just a day out. This was just Bakugou doing research. This didn't mean anything more.

The thought repeated, steady and insistent, even as the sun dipped and the sea breathed around them, even as the shape of the day traced lines he knew far too well.

Kirishima smiled through it all, held himself upright and solid, and refused to see the way the world kept lining up too neatly around them.

The dreams didn't stop.

They changed.

At first Kirishima told himself they were the same, that his mind was simply continuing its cruel rehearsal, replaying scenes he had no right to want so badly. But it became impossible to ignore the pattern once it set in, once the rhythm of waking began to bruise rather than ache. The dreams still arrived with that same impossible clarity, still opened gently, almost kindly, as if nothing had shifted at all. He would be there with Bakugou, always Bakugou, close enough to feel the heat of him, close enough to hear the minute changes in his breathing. The air would be warm or cool in exactly the right way. The light would fall just so. The world would hum with that strange fullness dreams carried, the sense that everything important had already been arranged.

And then, always, just before.

Just before Bakugou leaned in, the space between them charged and fragile, breath ghosting across Kirishima’s mouth, eyes darkening with something unguarded and real.

Just before Bakugou spoke his name differently, softer, weighted with meaning Kirishima felt in his chest before he could think to deny it.

Just before a hand slid from familiar contact into something unmistakably deliberate, fingers tightening as if to anchor them both.

Kirishima would wake.

It was never abrupt in the way nightmares were. There was no jolt, no violent snap back into his body. It was worse than that. It was a gradual tearing, a slow realisation that the warmth was gone, that the closeness had thinned into air, that the moment he had been bracing himself for had simply been removed. His eyes would open to the dark of his room, the quiet hum of the dorms settling around him, his sheets twisted beneath restless hands.

His heart would be racing anyway.

Sometimes he woke with Bakugou’s name caught behind his teeth, the shape of it pressed against the inside of his mouth like a confession he’d almost said aloud. Sometimes his body reacted before his mind could catch up, heat curling low in his stomach, breath shallow, palms damp with want he couldn’t pretend was abstract anymore. That was the worst part, the way his own body betrayed the careful distance he maintained while awake.

He lay there most nights, staring up at the ceiling, jaw clenched so hard it ached. The silence felt accusatory. Every unfinished dream lingered like a held breath, like the world itself had leaned in and then decided he didn’t deserve the rest.

By morning, the frustration had settled into something sour.

He moved through his days with a constant tightness under his ribs, a coiled impatience he didn’t recognise as his own. Training left him sharper than usual, blows landing too hard, reactions just a fraction too aggressive. He snapped once at Sero over nothing and apologised immediately, embarrassed by how quickly the edge had surfaced. His body felt wrong-footed, strung too tight, as if he was perpetually braced for something that never came.

Bakugou didn’t help.

He was there, as always. Loud, solid, infuriatingly present. He hovered at Kirishima’s side in ways that felt casual to anyone else, close enough that their shoulders brushed in corridors, close enough that Kirishima caught the scent of him without trying. Sweat and smoke and something sharp that was just Bakugou. He spoke to him like nothing had changed, barked complaints, threw insults that landed with familiar ease. Sometimes he looked at Kirishima with that focused intensity that made his chest tighten, eyes flicking over him like he was checking something important and coming up dissatisfied.

Each look felt like a question Kirishima refused to answer.

The shame crept in quietly.

It arrived in the spaces between things, in the way Kirishima found himself anticipating the dreams even as he dreaded them. He hated that part of himself most, the part that still hoped, that lay down at night with a traitorous flicker of expectation. He told himself he was being selfish, that this was his mind indulging in something it shouldn’t. Wanting more from Bakugou felt like a failure of character, a crack in the sturdy, dependable image he had worked so hard to build.

A manly hero didn’t wake up aching for his best friend’s lips.

A manly hero didn’t feel sick with disappointment because a dream ended before it crossed a line.

The mornings were the hardest. He would sit on the edge of his bed, elbows braced on his knees, head bowed as if in prayer. His stomach churned with a dull nausea that had nothing to do with hunger. His thoughts felt sticky, looping back on themselves no matter how hard he pushed. There was always a residue left behind by the dreams, a phantom closeness clinging to him that made the real distance unbearable.

He scrubbed his face in the sink until his skin burned, stared at his reflection and forced his expression into something normal. Bright. Solid. He told himself to get a grip, to stop indulging, to be grateful for what he had. Bakugou was alive. Bakugou was here. Bakugou trusted him.

That had to be enough.

But the dreams kept ending at the edge of confession, at the brink of contact that would have changed everything. They denied him resolution with a precision that felt intentional, as if his own mind had decided to punish him for daring to want reciprocation. Each unfinished moment sharpened the next, the absence compounding until the ache became something close to physical pain.

By the end of the week, Kirishima was exhausted.

Not just tired, but worn down to something raw and exposed. He laughed less easily. His smiles took effort. The constant restraint, the careful way he monitored his thoughts and reactions, left him feeling hollowed out. He wanted release, clarity, an end to the suspended state he seemed trapped in.

Instead, he woke up again, heart racing, hands empty, Bakugou’s almost-kiss still burning behind his closed eyes.

He rolled onto his side and pressed his face into his pillow, breath shuddering despite his efforts to steady it. The shame washed over him in a slow, heavy wave. He hated himself for wanting more, for resenting the waking world, for craving something that was never his to claim.

Above all, he hated how real it felt in the moments just before he woke.

How natural.

How close.

To make it worse, Bakugou started doing things that felt pointed.

Kirishima didn't allow himself to call them that. He didn't give the thought enough space to settle, let alone sharpen. He took each moment as it came and filed it away under coincidence, under Bakugou being Bakugou, under the easy familiarity of two people who had known each other long enough that patterns blurred into background noise. He had grown very good at that kind of filing. It was how he survived.

It began quietly, almost kindly.

Bakugou waited for him after class.

The first time it happened, Kirishima barely noticed. He came out of the lecture hall to the usual chaos of voices and footsteps, the corridor thick with students shaking off the stiffness of sitting too long. Bakugou stood near the wall, arms folded, bag slung over one shoulder, scowl firmly in place as if daring anyone to comment on his presence. Kirishima clocked him in the way he always did, a quick unconscious check, and raised a hand in greeting.

“Are you ready?” Bakugou asked, already pushing off the wall.

Kirishima blinked. “For?”

“Training,” Bakugou snapped. “What else?”

“Oh,” Kirishima said, laughing softly at himself as he fell into step beside him. “Yeah. Yeah, totally.”

It felt normal enough. They trained together all the time. Bakugou walking him there saved maybe two minutes at most, but Kirishima didn’t question it. He didn’t question the way Bakugou matched his pace without comment, or the way he glanced back when Kirishima lagged a step behind to answer someone calling his name.

The next day, Bakugou was there again.

And the day after that.

Sometimes he didn’t say anything at all, just jerked his head in a direction and assumed Kirishima would follow. Sometimes he complained about the lecture, about the instructor, about the way everyone around them walked too slowly. Kirishima listened, laughed when appropriate, offered the occasional agreement. He told himself Bakugou was bored. He told himself Bakugou hated being alone between commitments. He told himself a lot of things.

It was only when Bakugou waited for him outside a class they didn't share that Kirishima felt something inside him tilt.

Bakugou stood there, unmistakable, a fixed point in the flow of students Kirishima emerged into. Their eyes met immediately. Bakugou’s narrowed slightly, relief or irritation or something else flickering across his face before he masked it.

“Took you long enough,” he said.

Kirishima smiled automatically. “Sorry, man. That one ran over.”

Bakugou turned and started walking, clearly expecting him to follow.

Kirishima did.

He didn't ask why Bakugou had waited. He didn't ask where they were going. He told himself it didn’t matter, that this was just how Bakugou was when he decided something. That explanation smoothed over the strange warmth curling low in his chest, the quiet satisfaction he refused to examine.

Then there was the drink.

They stopped by a vending machine after training one evening, both of them sweaty and flushed, steam still clinging to their skin. Bakugou dug into his pocket with his usual impatience, coins clinking harshly. He stared at the selection for an unnecessarily long time, scowl deepening.

“What’s taking you so long?” Kirishima asked lightly.

Bakugou clicked his tongue. “They changed the layout.”

He jabbed at the buttons with more force than necessary. The can dropped with a dull thud. He bent, retrieved it, and without looking, tossed it towards Kirishima.

Kirishima caught it on instinct.

It was his favourite.

The one with the slightly ridiculous mascot on the label, the one Bakugou always mocked him for buying, the one he never chose when they trained together because Bakugou said it tasted like syrup and regret. Kirishima stared at it for half a second too long.

“Oh,” he said, lifting it slightly. “Thanks.”

Bakugou shrugged, cracking open his own drink. “They didn’t have the one I wanted.”

That was a lie. Kirishima had seen it, bright and obvious on the second row. He took a sip anyway, the familiar sweetness blooming on his tongue. He told himself it was chance. He told himself Bakugou had just grabbed the wrong thing. He told himself it meant nothing.

The pattern continued.

Bakugou suggested they grab food after training, steering them towards a place Kirishima liked without acknowledging the choice. Bakugou complained about the noise, about the crowd, then manoeuvred them into a quieter corner with the ease of someone who had done this before. Bakugou bought extra portions and slid them across the table with a grunt, muttering something about not wanting leftovers.

Each moment on its own was easy to dismiss. Together, they formed something dense and disorienting.

The worst part was how closely it all mirrored the dreams.

They went to a small arcade tucked away near campus one afternoon, the kind that smelled faintly of dust and old circuitry. The lights were low, neon reflecting off polished floors. Kirishima’s chest tightened the moment they stepped inside. He had dreamed of this place, or something close enough that the difference felt negligible. In the dream, Bakugou had stood beside him at a fighting game, shoulders brushing, their laughter loud and unguarded.

In reality, Bakugou immediately claimed the machine, shooing Kirishima aside with a sharp elbow. “You’re trash at this. Watch.”

Kirishima laughed, relief threading through him even as the familiarity unsettled him. He watched Bakugou play, watched the way his focus sharpened, the way his mouth curled in satisfaction when he won. Bakugou handed him the controls without ceremony.

“Your turn. Don’t embarrass me.”

Kirishima lost spectacularly. Bakugou cackled. It was easy. It was normal. It was exactly like the dream and nothing like it at all.

They walked back as the sun dipped low, the air cooling around them. Streetlights flickered on one by one, bathing the pavement in soft orange pools. Kirishima became acutely aware of the space between them, of how Bakugou drifted closer without ever quite closing the gap. He remembered another dream, another walk, the way Bakugou had glanced over and smiled like he had something to say.

In the waking world, Bakugou asked, “Is this boring?”

Kirishima startled. “What?”

“This,” Bakugou said, gesturing vaguely around them. “Hanging out. If it’s boring, say so.”

Kirishima’s mouth opened, then closed. His heart thudded once, heavy and insistent. “No,” he said, forcing a laugh. “It’s good. I like it.”

Bakugou hummed, noncommittal. “Good.”

He never called them dates.

That was the thread Kirishima clung to most tightly. The absence of the word gave him room to breathe, room to rationalise. Bakugou was figuring things out. Bakugou liked having a plan. Bakugou was gathering data, testing expectations, doing research the way he approached everything else in his life — aggressively and with full commitment.

Kirishima told himself he was simply a convenient variable.

When Bakugou suggested they go to the cinema, Kirishima’s stomach dropped. He went anyway. When Bakugou bought the tickets without asking what Kirishima wanted to see, Kirishima smiled and followed. When Bakugou shared popcorn with careless intimacy, their hands brushing in the dark, Kirishima stared resolutely at the screen and catalogued his breathing.

In the dream, Bakugou’s fingers had laced with his.

In reality, Bakugou grumbled about ads and leaned back in his seat, knee angled just close enough to touch.

Afterwards, Bakugou asked, “That alright?”

“Yeah,” Kirishima said. “Totally.”

Bakugou studied him for a long moment, eyes sharp in the glow of the lobby lights. Kirishima held his smile steady, his expression open and uncomplicated. Whatever Bakugou was looking for, he seemed to find enough of it to nod once and turn away.

The repetition wore him down.

Each coincidence scraped against something already raw. Each familiar setting, each echo of a dream, made the line between what he wanted and what was happening harder to see. Kirishima began to feel like he was walking through fog, his footing uncertain despite how solid everything appeared on the surface.

He rationalised constantly.

Bakugou was intense with everyone he cared about. Bakugou didn’t do things halfway. Bakugou trusted him, relied on him, liked having him around. That was all. That had always been all.

When Bakugou waited for him after class, Kirishima told himself it was efficient. When Bakugou bought his favourite drink again, he told himself it was habit. When Bakugou asked, quietly this time, “You’d tell me if you hated this stuff, right?” Kirishima told himself it was about control, about not wanting to waste time on things that didn’t work.

He answered the same way every time. Easy. Agreeable. Uncomplicated.

Inside, something twisted tighter with each passing day.

The dreams grew louder in response, more vivid, as if his mind was trying to compensate for the restraint he practised while awake. He began to dread the overlap, the way reality kept brushing too close to fantasy. He began to dread how badly he wanted Bakugou to slip, to say the word he was refusing to say, to name what they were circling.

But Bakugou never did.

He just kept waiting. Kept choosing Kirishima. Kept doing things that felt deliberate and meaningful and impossible to confront head-on.

And Kirishima, steadfast and smiling and quietly unraveling, kept finding reasons to explain it all away.

It was inevitable that one of them would line up too cleanly.

Kirishima didn't realise that was what was happening at first. He felt it only as a disturbance, a faint wrongness in the air that prickled at the back of his neck long before his mind caught up. The evening had been unremarkable in all the ways he had learned to depend on. Training ran long. Bakugou complained about it. They left together, shoulders still warm from exertion, the sky already darkening into a deep, cloudless blue.

Bakugou suggested they walk instead of catching the bus.

“It’s not far,” he said, hands shoved into his pockets, gaze fixed ahead. “And I don’t feel like standing around.”

Kirishima agreed immediately. He always did. He liked walking. He liked the way movement settled his thoughts, liked the rhythm of it, the sense of forward motion even when he felt stuck everywhere else. The streets were quieter than usual, most people already home, windows lit in soft squares of yellow. The air smelled faintly of rain, though none had fallen.

They talked about nothing important. Bakugou complained about a sparring match, about how predictable his opponent had been. Kirishima laughed in the right places, offered commentary when prompted. His body moved on autopilot, but something inside him had gone tight, drawn thin as wire.

He had dreamed this street.

Not exactly this street, perhaps, but close enough that the difference felt cosmetic. The same narrow pavement. The same low buildings. The same stretch of quiet where the city seemed to exhale. In the dream, Bakugou had walked just ahead of him, backlit by a single streetlight, the glow catching in his eyes when he turned.

Kirishima told himself this was coincidence. Cities were full of streets like this. Dreams recycled impressions constantly. It meant nothing.

They slowed without discussing it. Bakugou stopped beneath a streetlight that hummed faintly overhead, its light spilling down in a soft amber circle. Kirishima came to a halt beside him, heart suddenly loud in his ears. The light caught Bakugou’s hair, turning the edges molten. It caught his eyes too, red deepening into something almost luminous.

Kirishima’s chest dropped.

The dream had been like this. The angle. The colour. The way Bakugou’s face was half-shadowed, half-lit, as if he stood on a threshold. In the dream, Kirishima had known what was coming. He had felt it with absolute certainty, a rising sense of rightness that had made his breath catch.

In the waking world, Bakugou looked at him and frowned.

“What?” he asked.

Kirishima realised he was staring. He forced a laugh, too quick, too bright. “Nothing. I just spaced out for a second.”

Bakugou studied him, suspicion sharpening his features. “You’re weird lately.”

“Am not,” Kirishima said automatically.

Bakugou clicked his tongue, but his gaze lingered. He shifted his weight, scuffing the toe of his boot against the pavement. For a moment, it looked like he might say something else.

Kirishima’s heart hammered. Every instinct he had screamed at him to move, to break the alignment, to do something that would fracture the moment before it could settle into place. He thought of the dreams that now ended too soon, of waking with his mouth dry and his hands empty. He thought of how close this felt to the edge of something he didn't deserve.

Bakugou glanced away first.

“Come on,” he said roughly. “It’s getting cold.”

They walked on.

Kirishima didn't remember much of the rest of the night. He remembered the sound of their footsteps. He remembered the way Bakugou’s shoulder brushed his once, briefly, sending a sharp jolt through him that he pretended not to feel. He remembered lying awake hours later, staring at the ceiling, the streetlight replaying behind his closed eyes.

That was when it became too much.

The next morning, he woke with the familiar heaviness in his limbs, the residue of a dream that had cut itself off mid-breath. Bakugou had been close, close enough that Kirishima could feel the warmth of him, close enough that leaning in would have been effortless. He woke before it happened, heart racing, a sour taste at the back of his throat.

He went to class anyway. He smiled. He answered questions. He nodded along to conversations he barely heard. When he spotted Bakugou across the room, something in his chest seized so hard he had to look away.

Bakugou waited for him after class.

Kirishima pretended not to notice.

He took the long way out, detoured through a different corridor, told himself Bakugou would leave once he realised. He didn't. When Kirishima finally emerged, Bakugou was still there, arms folded, expression thunderous.

“Where the hell were you?” Bakugou snapped.

“Sorry,” Kirishima said, too quickly. “Got held up.”

Bakugou opened his mouth, then closed it again, jaw working. “Whatever. Are you coming or not?”

Kirishima hesitated for half a second too long.

“I’ve got stuff to do,” he said. “Rain check?”

Bakugou stared at him, clearly unaccustomed to this answer. “Since when?”

“Since now,” Kirishima replied, forcing a grin. “I’ll catch you later.”

He didn't wait for a response. He turned and walked away, pulse roaring in his ears, every step an effort. He didn't look back.

That night, the dream came hard and bright. The streetlight was there again, the glow too intense, Bakugou’s eyes burning with something Kirishima could not bring himself to name. He woke shaking, sheets twisted around his legs, a deep ache settling into his bones.

The next time Bakugou asked him to hang out, Kirishima said he was busy.

The next time after that, he said he was tired.

He cancelled once, then twice, each excuse layered carefully over the last, each one delivered with the same easy smile he had always worn. Bakugou grew sharper, his texts shorter, his looks longer. Kirishima told himself it was better this way, that distance would dull the edge of everything.

It didn't.

Every night he slept alone made the dreams louder. More insistent. Bakugou’s shape began to blur at the edges, his expressions smearing as if Kirishima were losing focus. The smile Kirishima loved, the one that appeared only in rare, unguarded moments, became harder to see, like it was slipping out of reach.

He lay awake one evening, staring at the dark, heart aching with a fear he could no longer ignore, and wondered how many times he could keep walking away before there was nothing left to walk back to.

Strangely sleep came with no sense of falling, no warning shiver along his spine, no moment where Kirishima could have named the boundary between waking and dreaming. One second there was the familiar weight of his blanket, the faint hum of the dorm at night, the ache in his chest he had learned to carry with a kind of dull pride, and then there wasn’t. The world softened around the edges, like breath fogging glass, and he was somewhere else without ever remembering the act of going.

It took him a while to realise where he was. The room felt close, compressed in a way dreams usually weren’t, the air warm and still. The smell hit him first, detergent and metal and something unmistakably Bakugou, sharp and clean and grounding. His own dorm room came into focus slowly, wrong in its familiarity. The desk was where he’d left it, cluttered with training notes and half-finished assignments. His jacket hung crooked on the back of the chair. Even the faint crack in the ceiling above his bed was there, the one he’d noticed months ago and never fixed. Dreams never bothered with details like that. They skipped and blurred and softened the corners. This one held them tight.

Bakugou was on his bed.

Not standing, not pacing, not looming in that restless way he always did when he didn’t know what to do with himself. He was lying there, on his side, close enough that the mattress dipped under his weight, close enough that Kirishima could feel it through his own body before he consciously registered it. Bakugou’s arms were wrapped around his torso, solid and sure, forearm warm across his ribs, hand curled into the fabric of his shirt like it belonged there. His ear was pressed flat against Kirishima’s chest, hair brushing his collarbone, listening.

The contact was so ordinary it hurt. There was no grandness to it, no cinematic framing. Just the quiet intimacy of shared space, of breath and heat and the steady, traitorous rhythm of Kirishima’s heart beneath Bakugou’s ear. He could feel Bakugou breathe in time with him after a few seconds, could feel the subtle shift as Bakugou adjusted to settle more comfortably, like he’d done this before. Like this was habit.

Kirishima didn’t think, not properly. He didn’t catalogue the impossibility of it, didn’t reach for logic or denial. He stood there, or maybe he was already sitting, he couldn’t tell, with Bakugou holding him like this was the most natural place in the world, and something inside him loosened despite himself. His shoulders dropped. His jaw unclenched. For the first time in days, his body stopped bracing for impact.

Bakugou’s voice came muffled, distorted slightly by the fabric and skin between them. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t sharp. It was stripped down to something low and rough, threaded with an exhaustion that made Kirishima’s throat tighten before he understood why.

“You’ve waited too long,” Bakugou said.

The words didn’t echo. They didn’t reverberate or ring out like pronouncements in other dreams. They landed heavy and close, like they’d been carried there on breath alone. Kirishima felt them as much as he heard them, the vibration against his chest, the slight hitch at the end of the sentence that Bakugou would have hated anyone noticing.

Kirishima’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. He didn’t know what he would have said even if it had. An apology, maybe. A joke. Something loud and easy to smooth the moment over, to keep it from cutting too deep. He stayed silent, afraid that speaking would break whatever fragile, impossible balance had settled between them.

Bakugou shifted again, just enough that his forehead pressed briefly into Kirishima’s sternum. His grip tightened, not hard, just firm enough to be unmistakable. Anchoring.

“You never choose yourself,” Bakugou murmured.

It wasn’t accusation. It wasn’t anger. It carried a tired certainty that frightened Kirishima more than shouting ever could have. Like Bakugou had turned this thought over and over in his mind until all the sharp edges had worn smooth, until it had become something he accepted even as it hurt him.

Kirishima felt exposed in a way he hadn’t expected. This wasn’t one of the dreams where Bakugou looked at him like he hung the sun in the sky. This wasn’t laughter or dancing or the bright, intoxicating ache of being wanted. This was quiet and close and devastatingly clear-eyed. Bakugou wasn’t asking him for anything. He was stating a truth Kirishima had built his entire life around and never named out loud.

His hands hovered uselessly at his sides. He wanted to touch Bakugou back, to card his fingers through that familiar ash-blond hair, to press his palm between Bakugou’s shoulders and prove, somehow, that he was there. That he could be chosen. That he could choose himself if he tried hard enough. The weight of Bakugou’s trust sat heavy on his ribs, a pressure he didn’t know how to hold without breaking it.

The room felt unbearably real. The sheets creaked softly when Bakuogou breathed deeper. Somewhere down the hall, a door closed. The world outside the dream kept moving, indifferent, and the thought that this moment existed only here made something crack inside Kirishima’s chest.

He felt the tears before he realised he was crying. They came hot and sudden, blurring the edges of the room he had been so sure of. His breath stuttered, chest tightening under Bakugou’s ear, and Bakugou reacted instantly, arm flexing, pulling him closer with a sound that might have been his name. Kirishima didn’t hear it properly. Everything folded inward, sensation collapsing into that single point of contact where Bakugou held him and the truth pressed too close to ignore.

He woke up with a broken sound in his throat, half-sob, half-gasp, the echo of it tearing him out of sleep like a snapped cord. The dorm room was dark and empty and wrong in the way only reality could be. His bed was cold where Bakugou had been. His chest ached where that impossible weight had rested moments before. His pillow was damp under his cheek, tears still clinging to his lashes as if his body hadn’t received the message that the dream was over.

Kirishima rolled onto his side and curled in on himself without thinking, one hand fisting in his sheets. His heart hammered, too fast, too loud, each beat a reminder of what he had felt, of what had been said. The words stayed with him, clear and merciless, stripped of any dreamlike distortion.

You never choose yourself.

He lay there until the shaking subsided, until the dormitory sounds crept back in and anchored him to the present. When he finally sat up, wiping at his face with the heel of his hand, his eyes burned and his head felt hollow, scraped clean by grief he hadn’t known he was carrying.

By the time morning came, his decision had settled into him with a heavy, resolute calm. He would help Bakugou. He would give him everything he knew how to give, all the care and planning and thought he had been hoarding quietly for years. He would do it properly, without letting himself blur the lines any further. And when it was done, when Bakugou no longer needed him in that way, he would step aside.

It felt like the only choice left that wouldn’t shatter them both.

Kirishima planned it with the kind of careful devotion he usually reserved for training schedules and rescue drills, the sort of attention that came from wanting something to go right even when it no longer belonged to him. He told himself this was practical. He told himself it was what any good friend would do. The truth sat quietly underneath all of it, steady and aching, but he didn’t look at it for long enough to give it shape.

He chose the aquarium because it felt safe. Public enough that it wouldn’t demand anything of Bakugou he wasn’t ready to give, gentle enough that silence wouldn’t feel like failure. He’d been there once on a school trip years ago and remembered the way the light bent through the glass, the way the world slowed down inside it. He wrote it all out in his head as if it were a map, beginning to end. Meet in the late morning, when the crowds were thinner and the sun sat high enough to turn the tanks into something luminous. Bring snacks, something familiar and comforting, something Bakugou liked without thinking about it too much. Walk slowly. Let things unfold. End it by dropping them off at home, a clean conclusion, no room for lingering questions.

He handed the plan over in pieces, pretending it was casual. Suggestions, he called them. Ideas. Bakugou listened with that intense focus he gave to anything he cared about, eyes narrowed, jaw set, absorbing every word like instruction. He didn’t scoff. He didn’t interrupt. He nodded once, sharp and decisive, like this was a mission he’d committed to seeing through.

“I’ll handle it,” he said, like that settled the matter.

The morning of it, Bakugou showed up early. Kirishima clocked it immediately, the way Bakugou stood outside the station with his arms crossed, foot tapping against the concrete in a barely restrained rhythm. He had a bag in his hand, crinkled at the top, and when Kirishima drew closer he realised it held the exact snacks he’d mentioned offhandedly, down to the brand Bakugou always pretended not to care about. His chest tightened at the sight.

“You ready?” Bakugou asked, sharp as ever, but there was an edge of something else there too. Nerves, maybe. Or anticipation.

“Yeah,” Kirishima said, grinning, because that was easier than letting the moment sit too heavily between them.

The aquarium loomed cool and bright against the late morning sun, glass reflecting the sky in fractured pieces. Inside, the temperature dropped immediately, the air carrying that faint, clean scent of water and machinery. Kirishima felt himself relax despite everything, his steps slowing as the light dimmed and shifted to deep blues and greens.

Bakugou slowed with him.

It was such a small thing that it nearly slipped past unnoticed, but Kirishima felt it all the same. Bakugou adjusted his pace to match his without comment, hands still shoved in his pockets, shoulders squared. He didn’t rush ahead. He didn’t hang back. He stayed exactly where Kirishima was, presence steady at his side.

They moved from tank to tank, the world around them muffled and distant. Schools of fish swept past in coordinated arcs, silver bodies catching the light like coins. A turtle drifted lazily near the glass, ancient and unbothered. Kirishima pointed things out without thinking, murmuring observations he’d half-forgotten he knew, and Bakugou listened. Really listened. He leaned in when Kirishima spoke, head tilting slightly, eyes following the line of Kirishima’s finger.

“Huh,” Bakugou muttered at one point, watching a jellyfish pulse gently through the water. “Didn’t think I’d like these.”

Kirishima laughed softly, warmth blooming in his chest. “They’re kinda hypnotic, right?”

Bakugou snorted, but he didn’t argue. He stayed there longer than necessary, gaze fixed on the slow, glowing movement, expression smoothed into something almost peaceful. The blue light washed over his face, softened the sharp lines of him, and Kirishima had to look away before the ache sharpened into something unbearable.

They sat on a bench in front of the largest tank, the one that stretched from floor to ceiling, a living wall of water and shadow. Massive shapes moved through it with unhurried grace, silhouettes gliding past like dreams you couldn’t quite hold onto. Bakugou handed him one of the snacks without looking, fingers brushing his briefly. The contact sent a jolt through Kirishima that he masked with an easy smile, unwrapping it quickly, grateful for something to do with his hands.

Bakugou watched the tank as he ate, eyes tracking a shark as it passed, jaw working thoughtfully. “This isn’t boring,” he said after a while, like he was answering a question that had been hanging between them since the beginning.

Kirishima’s chest warmed painfully. “Told you so,” he said, voice light, casual, like he hadn’t spent the last nights dreaming about what Bakugou might enjoy.

They wandered again after that, slower now, the initial momentum giving way to something more meandering. Bakugou stopped to read every plaque in full, brow furrowed in concentration, lips moving silently as he absorbed the information. Kirishima hovered nearby, watching him with a fondness that bordered on reverence. This was Bakugou giving his full attention, his full effort, unfiltered and unapologetic. He didn’t do things halfway. He didn’t pretend.

A child bumped into Bakugou’s leg as they passed one exhibit, barely looking where they were going. Kirishima tensed automatically, waiting for the snap, the sharp word. Instead, Bakugou stepped aside, steadying the kid by the shoulder before they stumbled, grumbling something under his breath that didn’t carry any real heat. The child scampered off, oblivious. Bakugou watched them go for a second, expression unreadable.

Kirishima felt something twist in his chest. He told himself it was nothing. Just Bakugou being decent. Just another coincidence.

By the time they made it back outside, the sun had dipped lower, the day mellowing into a softer, warmer hue. They walked back towards the flat at an unhurried pace, footsteps falling into an easy rhythm. Bakugou stayed close, close enough that Kirishima could feel the heat of him through their sleeves, could sense him there without looking.

Outside the building, they slowed to a stop. The end, just like Kirishima had planned. Clean. Contained. Safe.

Bakugou shifted his weight, hands still in his pockets, eyes flicking up to Kirishima’s face with that same intensity he’d worn all day. “So,” he said. “Did that work?”

Kirishima laughed, a little too quickly, because the way Bakugou looked at him made his throat tighten. “Yeah. You nailed it,” he said, meaning it in a way that made his chest ache. “Anyone would’ve loved that.”

Bakugou held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary, something unspoken stretching between them, fragile and bright. Then he nodded once, sharp and final, and stepped back.

Kirishima watched him walk away, heart pounding, hands clenched at his sides. He told himself this was what he’d wanted. That this was enough. Even as every part of him ached with the wish that it could be real, if he’d only let himself see it.

That night, the dream didn't open gently.

There was no laughter easing him into it, no warmth waiting at the edges. It arrived like a held breath finally let go, sudden and disorienting, and Kirishima knew almost immediately that this one was wrong. Not wrong in the way the others had been wrong — too kind, too giving — but wrong in a way that pressed cold fingers into his ribs.

He was standing somewhere indistinct, a place without walls or sky, the air colourless and thin. It felt like the inside of a thought he had tried very hard not to finish. The ground beneath his feet was solid, but it carried no texture, no grit or grain, and that alone unsettled him. His dreams had always been generous with sensation. They wanted him convinced. This one didn't care if he believed.

Bakugou stood several paces away.

At first, Kirishima felt the familiar, instinctive relief at seeing him. His chest loosened by habit, his body leaning forward before his mind caught up. Bakugou was there; therefore, things could still be salvaged. That reflex had lived in him for years, long before the dreams began. But as he took a step closer, something in his stride faltered.

Bakugou looked wrong.

Not injured. Not angry. Worse than either of those. He looked emptied out, as if something essential had been siphoned away and never returned. His posture lacked its usual sharpness — the tension that always coiled through him was gone, leaving him strangely slack, shoulders lowered, hands hanging uselessly at his sides. His eyes, usually so incandescent they felt lit from within, were dull. Still red, still recognisably Bakugou’s, but flat, like glass left too long in shadow.

“Katsuki?” Kirishima said, and his voice sounded distant even to himself.

Bakugou didn't answer.

Panic rose quickly, unmediated by denial. Kirishima crossed the distance between them in a few hurried steps, heart knocking hard against his sternum. Up close, the wrongness sharpened. Bakugou’s skin was cool beneath his fingers when he reached out, far cooler than it should have been, and there was no immediate reaction to the touch. No flinch, no snap, no instinctive shove away accompanied by a barked insult.

“Hey,” Kirishima tried again, forcing brightness into the word like it might ignite something. “Come on. What’s going on?”

Bakugou’s gaze shifted at last, settling on Kirishima’s face with a slowness that hurt to watch. There was recognition there, faint and delayed, like a signal struggling through interference. His mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

The silence stretched, heavy and absolute. Kirishima felt it press against his eardrums, his throat, the inside of his skull. He swallowed, suddenly aware of how dry his mouth was, how loudly his own breathing sounded in the absence of anything else.

This is a dream, he thought, distantly. He had learned to identify them quickly. The logic slips, the emotional surges without consequence, the way the world bent itself around what he wanted most. But this dream didn't bend. It stood firm, unresponsive to his fear.

Bakugou lifted a hand with visible effort, as if even that small movement cost him something. His fingers brushed Kirishima’s sleeve, not gripping, just resting there, and the contact sent a jolt through Kirishima’s chest. It felt like goodbye.

“No,” Kirishima said immediately, the word tearing out of him before he could stop it. “No, don’t, don’t do that.”

Bakugou’s brows drew together, a faint echo of his usual expression, and for a brief, cruel moment Kirishima thought he might speak. That he might laugh this off, call him an idiot, tell him to quit hovering. Instead, Bakugou’s eyes slipped past him, unfocusing, and his knees buckled.

Kirishima caught him.

The weight in his arms was wrong too. Bakugou was solid, yes, but it was a dead weight, unresisting, his body folding in on itself without protest. Kirishima dropped to his knees with him, arms tightening instinctively around Bakugou’s torso, pressing him close as if proximity alone could force warmth back into him.

“Stay with me,” Kirishima whispered, the words scraping his throat raw. “Please. You can’t, this isn’t funny. You don’t get to do this.”

Bakugou’s head lolled against his shoulder. His breathing was shallow, uneven, each rise and fall of his chest a question mark rather than a certainty. Kirishima could feel his heart beneath his palm, faint and erratic, and the sensation punched the air from his lungs.

This was not longing. This was not hope twisted too tight. This was loss, fully realised, unfolding without ceremony.

Images bled into the dream, harsh and uninvited. Bakugou walking away down a corridor without looking back. Bakugou’s bed stripped bare, his room emptied of all the sharp, familiar mess that marked his presence. Bakugou’s voice, once so constant it felt like background noise to Kirishima’s life, reduced to memory. The future unspooling in grey increments, each day missing a shape it had been built around.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Kirishima said hoarsely, though he no longer knew who he was speaking to. “I was just trying to help. I was trying to do the right thing.”

Bakugou’s fingers twitched weakly against his arm. His lips moved again, and this time something did come out, barely audible, fraying at the edges.

“You always,” Bakugou breathed, and the rest dissolved into nothing.

Kirishima shook his head, sharp and frantic. “No. Don’t say it like that. You don’t get to blame me and then leave.”

The world around them began to thin, the colour draining away until it felt like they were suspended in blank space. Kirishima clutched Bakugou tighter, his arms aching with the effort, with the terror of letting go. He could feel tears spilling down his face, hot and unstoppable, blurring his vision until Bakugou’s features wavered and smeared.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go,” he said, voice breaking. “You’re supposed to be loud. You’re supposed to be here.”

Bakugou’s breathing stuttered, then steadied, then slowed. Kirishima pressed his forehead against Bakugou’s temple, desperate to anchor himself to something real, something solid, but the sensation was already slipping away. Bakugou felt lighter in his arms, less defined, as if the dream were erasing him piece by piece.

The worst part was the gentleness of it.

There was no explosion, no final argument, no cathartic rupture. Just a quiet, irreversible dimming. Bakugou’s eyes closed, his face smoothing into an expression that might have been peace if Kirishima had not known better. If Kirishima had not been the one holding him as he went still.

“No,” Kirishima sobbed, the sound tearing loose from somewhere deep and unguarded. “No, no, no.”

He woke with the echo of that word still lodged in his chest.

The ceiling of his dorm room swam into focus above him, pale and ordinary, and for a disorienting second he could not reconcile it with the emptiness still screaming through his body. His sheets were twisted around his legs, damp with sweat. His throat burned. His hands were clenched so tightly his fingers ached.

He dragged in a breath that hitched halfway through, then another, forcing air back into lungs that felt like they had forgotten their purpose. His heart was racing, each beat sharp and painful, and it took him a long moment to realise he was crying. Not silently, not with any dignity, but openly, chest shaking, tears soaking into his pillow.

Bakugou was alive.

The thought landed belatedly, fragile and uncertain. Kirishima pressed his palm against his own sternum, grounding himself in the solid proof of his body, the present. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed. Someone laughed. The world continued.

Bakugou was warm and breathing and probably asleep in his own room, utterly unaware of the version of himself Kirishima had just watched disappear.

The relief didn't come.

Instead, it left behind a hollow so deep it made his ribs ache. The dream clung to him, its images refusing to fade with the usual mercy of waking. It felt deliberate, targeted. A warning, or worse, a punishment. As if his mind had grown tired of indulging him and had decided to show him the cost of wanting.

Kirishima rolled onto his side, curling in on himself, one hand fisted in the fabric of his shirt. He stared at the dark, blinking hard as the last of the tears slid free despite his efforts. He felt stripped bare, flayed by his own thoughts.

This was what he got for imagining a world where Bakugou chose him back. Not fulfilment, but fear sharpened into something almost unbearable. A future where his wanting didn't end in tenderness, but in absence.

Somewhere between the racing of his heart and the slow, inevitable creep of exhaustion, a quiet understanding settled over him, heavy and cold.

The dreams were no longer trying to give him what he wanted.

They were teaching him what he stood to lose.

Fear threaded itself through the day with quiet persistence, settling beneath his skin, coiling around his ribs. Kirishima moved through his classes on instinct alone, smiled when spoken to, nodded at the right moments. His body remembered how to exist even as something inside him stayed braced, waiting for another blow. Every time he closed his eyes for too long, he saw Bakugou’s slack posture, the dullness in his eyes, the weight of him going still in Kirishima’s arms. He carried that image like a bruise no one else could see.

By the time afternoon bled into evening, exhaustion had dulled him down to something fragile. He told himself it would pass. He told himself he was overreacting to a dream, that he had always been prone to feeling things too loudly. That this was just another thing to endure quietly.

Bakugou found him anyway.

He always did.

They were alone in one of the common rooms, the late light slanting in through the windows, turning dust motes into slow-drifting sparks. Kirishima had chosen the space deliberately because it was familiar, neutral. A place where nothing momentous was supposed to happen. Bakugou stood by the table, arms folded, jaw set in that way that always meant he was working himself up to something. He looked sharp, alert, painfully alive.

The sight of him sent a jolt through Kirishima’s chest that felt too close to relief and too close to dread all at once.

Bakugou didn’t start with an insult. That alone set Kirishima on edge.

“There’s something I need to say,” Bakugou said, voice rougher than usual, clipped but controlled in a way that took effort. His eyes flicked away for half a second, then snapped back, locking onto Kirishima’s face with a focus that made it hard to breathe.

Kirishima’s first instinct was to laugh it off, to make a joke, to deflect. He felt the shape of the moment before it fully arrived, like pressure building before a storm breaks. His heart began to pound, each beat loud in his ears, syncing uncomfortably with the memory of the dream.

Something bad will happen if you let this continue.

The thought came unbidden, sharp and absolute.

Bakugou took a step closer. Not crowding him, just closing the distance enough that Kirishima could feel the heat of him, could smell the faint smoke and soap that always clung to his clothes. Bakugou opened his mouth again.

“I’ve been thinking about,”

“No,” Kirishima said.

The word escaped him too quickly, cutting across the space between them like a reflexive block. He barely recognised his own voice. It sounded too loud, too urgent, echoing faintly off the walls.

Bakugou froze. His brows knitted together, irritation flashing across his face, quickly followed by something else. Confusion, maybe. Hurt, sharper and more vulnerable for how quickly he tried to bury it.

“What the hell?” Bakugou snapped. “I wasn’t done.”

Kirishima’s hands clenched at his sides. He could feel the tremor in them now, small but insistent, like his body was protesting the decision his mind had already made. He forced a grin onto his face, the familiar one, practiced and bright.

“Hey, you don’t have to,” he said, words tumbling out too fast. “I mean, whatever it is, you don’t have to stress about it right now. We’ve both been busy, y’know? Training, classes. It’s probably just,”

“Don’t do that,” Bakugou cut in sharply. “I’m trying to talk.”

The frustration in his voice scraped at Kirishima’s nerves, but underneath it there was something rawer, less guarded. It made Kirishima’s chest tighten painfully.

Bakugou inhaled, clearly reining himself in. When he spoke again, his tone was different. Lower. Careful in a way Kirishima had almost never heard directed at him.

“You matter to me,” Bakugou said, haltingly, like the words themselves were unfamiliar terrain. “More than,” He stopped, jaw tightening. “You’re important.”

There it was.

The moment Kirishima had dreamed himself into and out of a hundred times. The moment his mind had rehearsed in secret for years, always ending either in warmth or in ruin. His pulse spiked violently, the room seeming to tilt just slightly, as if the ground beneath him had shifted.

He saw it then, vividly and cruelly. Bakugou going slack in his arms. The dimming of his eyes. The unbearable quiet after.

Kirishima stepped back.

“Hey,” he said quickly, forcing a laugh that sounded brittle even to his own ears. “You don’t have to get all serious about it. We’re friends. That’s just how it is. You don’t need to make it weird.”

Bakugou stared at him, eyes narrowing. “That’s not what I’m,”

“You’re overthinking it,” Kirishima pressed on, the words piling up as panic took the reins. “You always do that. Trying to plan everything out perfectly, like it’s a mission. Sometimes stuff just is what it is, y’know? You don’t need to label it.”

Bakugou’s mouth snapped shut. He went very still, the tension in his body drawing tight as wire. Kirishima could almost hear the calculations running behind his eyes, the way Bakugou always tried to make sense of things by force.

“I’m not an idiot,” Bakugou said quietly. “I know what I’m feeling.”

The honesty in that admission made Kirishima’s throat burn.

“And I know you,” Bakugou continued, taking another step forward despite Kirishima’s retreat. “So don’t tell me this doesn’t matter.”

Kirishima shook his head, the motion sharp. “It matters. Just not like that. You’re my best friend. I don’t wanna mess that up.”

The words tasted like ash.

Bakugou’s eyes widened a fraction, then hardened. “So that’s it?”

Kirishima nodded, too quickly. “Yeah. That’s it.”

Silence fell between them, heavy and suffocating. The late light had shifted, casting long shadows across the floor, and Bakugou stood half in it, half out, his face caught between brightness and shade. Kirishima had the strangest urge to reach out, to grab him, to prove to himself that he was solid and real and still there.

He kept his hands to himself.

Bakugou let out a short, humourless laugh. “Unbelievable.”

He turned away, raking a hand through his hair. When he looked back, whatever he had been about to say was gone, sealed behind a wall Kirishima recognised all too well. It was the expression Bakugou wore when he decided something was no longer worth the risk.

“Forget I said anything,” Bakugou said flatly.

The words landed like a blow. Kirishima felt his chest cave inward, his lungs stuttering uselessly. He had expected anger. He had expected yelling. He had not expected this quiet withdrawal, this sudden absence of warmth.

Bakugou grabbed his bag from the table, slinging it over his shoulder with more force than necessary. He paused at the door, hand hovering on the handle, and for a brief, terrible moment Kirishima thought he might turn back.

He didn’t.

The door shut with a soft, final click.

Kirishima stood there long after Bakugou was gone, staring at the empty space he had occupied. His heart thudded erratically, each beat echoing with a sickening sense of inevitability. He pressed a hand to his chest, breathing shallowly, trying to steady himself.

He told himself he had done the right thing. That he had protected something precious. That this was better than risking everything on a feeling that could destroy them both.

But the image of Bakugou’s face as the light drained from it refused to leave him.

He sank down onto the nearest chair, elbows braced on his knees, head bowed. The room felt too quiet, too large, every sound amplified by the absence Bakugou had left behind. Kirishima swallowed hard, eyes stinging.

He had wanted to save them.

Instead, he had watched something alive and vital flicker, dim, and disappear right in front of him.

And this time, it hadn’t even been a dream.

With that, the quiet spread slowly, almost politely, slipping into the spaces Bakugou used to fill without asking permission. Kirishima felt it in the mornings, when he reached the bottom of the stairs and didn’t hear shouting echoing down the corridor. He felt it in the kitchen, where two mugs sat untouched on the counter, where only one plate was taken from the cupboard. He felt it in his muscles during training, the familiar absence of Bakugou’s presence like a missing weight that had once kept him steady.

They didn’t hang out.

Not loudly, not dramatically. There was no argument that rippled through the class, no slammed doors or raised voices to gossip about. They simply stopped orbiting one another. The way two bodies might drift apart in space, slow enough that it took a while for anyone else to notice the growing distance.

But people noticed.

Sero asked first, leaning across the desk with his usual careless grin dulled into something tentative. “Hey, man, where’s Bakugou been running off to lately? You guys have a fight or something?”

Kirishima laughed automatically, the sound easy and hollow. “No. We’re good.”

The words came out smooth, practiced. He had said them enough times now that they almost felt true.

Mina tilted her head at him a day later, eyes sharp despite the playful tone she tried to keep. “You’ve been kinda quiet,” she said. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Kirishima replied, smiling wide. “Just tired.”

It was always tired. Tired covered everything. It explained the heaviness in his limbs, the way his laughter came a beat too late, the way his eyes drifted instinctively towards doorways as if expecting someone who never appeared.

No one pushed. Not really. There was no obvious wound to prod at, no visible fracture to examine. Whatever had happened between him and Bakugou existed in the negative space between them, and negative space was easy to overlook if you didn’t know what used to be there.

Bakugou himself became something distant and sharp-edged. He moved through the days like a blade drawn from its sheath, precise and unyielding. He didn’t look at Kirishima unless he had to. When he did, his gaze slid past him as if there was nothing worth stopping for. He trained harder. He snapped quicker. The air around him felt charged, volatile in a way it hadn’t before.

Kirishima watched all of it from the edges.

He told himself this was fine. That this was what he had chosen. That protecting what they had meant accepting this version of things, the one where Bakugou stayed intact and Kirishima swallowed whatever ache threatened to surface.

At night, the silence followed him back to his room.

The dreams were gone.

No stars, no warmth, no echo of Bakugou’s laughter lingering in his ears when he woke. Sleep came heavy and blank, like sinking into dark water. He would close his eyes and open them again hours later with no sense of having been anywhere in between. No images clung to him. No phantom touches. No cruel awakenings.

He hated it.

The absence felt louder than the dreams ever had. It left him with nothing to hold onto, no soft deception to dull the edges of his longing. He lay awake longer than necessary, staring at the ceiling, listening to the distant hum of the building settling around him. Sometimes he pressed a hand to his chest, half-expecting to feel something there that he’d lost track of.

His body remembered Bakugou even when his mind refused to conjure him. He caught himself turning towards empty spaces, slowing his pace instinctively to match someone who wasn’t beside him. His hands twitched when laughter broke out nearby, the reflex to reach out ingrained too deeply to disappear overnight.

Training became his refuge and his punishment. He pushed himself harder than usual, worked until his muscles burned and his lungs screamed, chasing exhaustion like it might fill the hollow space inside him. Recovery Girl raised an eyebrow at him more than once. He grinned and said he felt great.

He didn’t.

He felt suspended. Like everything had paused on an inhale that never quite released. The days blurred together, marked only by the subtle ways Bakugou remained absent. Meals eaten separately. Routes taken carefully to avoid crossing paths. Conversations that skirted around a name no one wanted to say out loud.

Sometimes Kirishima caught Bakugou watching him when he thought he wasn’t being seen. The look never lasted long. It was gone as soon as Kirishima turned his head, leaving behind a tightness in his chest that made it hard to breathe properly for a few seconds afterwards.

He wondered, late at night, if Bakugou was sleeping any better than he was. If the quiet pressed in on him too, or if anger filled the space easily, comfortably. The thought twisted uncomfortably in Kirishima’s gut, the idea that Bakugou might be hurting because of him settling in like something earned.

This was the cost, he reminded himself. This was the price of keeping everything from shattering all at once.

Still, as the days stretched on and the silence deepened, Kirishima couldn’t shake the feeling that something vital had slipped out of reach. That he had traded one kind of pain for another, quieter one. This pain didn’t scream or claw or wake him in the middle of the night.

It just sat with him.

Patient. Unmoving.

Finally, the dreams came back.

It didn't arrive with colour or spectacle, no sweeping sky or impossible light. It slipped in quietly, like breath fogging glass, like the moment just before sleep when the world thins and you don’t yet know you’ve crossed a threshold.

Kirishima was standing somewhere that didn't feel like a place so much as a pause.

There was no clear ground beneath his feet, no horizon to orient himself against. Everything was washed in a pale, uncertain grey, as though the dream hadn’t finished deciding what it wanted to be. Sound existed only in fragments. A distant echo of something that might have been wind. A pulse, low and steady, that might have been his own heart.

And then Bakugou was there.

Present, as if he had always been standing a little further away and Kirishima had only just noticed him.

His shoulders were hunched forward in a way Kirishima recognised instantly, a posture he took when anger and hurt tangled together too tightly to separate. His hands were clenched at his sides, fingers trembling, the skin around his knuckles pale with strain. His eyes were glimmering red, not with fury but with something rawer, something stripped bare. Tears clung there without falling, suspended as though even gravity had stalled.

The sight of him hit Kirishima like a physical blow.

Relief surged first, sharp and irrational. You’re here. You’re still here. His chest tightened around it, around the familiar outline of Bakugou’s body, the exact angle of his jaw, the way his hair fell messily into his eyes no matter how often he cut it. The relief twisted immediately into fear, because the air between them felt wrong. Stretched. Fragile.

“Katsuki,” Kirishima said, and his voice sounded too loud in the quiet, like he had spoken in a room meant for whispers.

Bakugou flinched.

It was small, barely there, but Kirishima saw it. His throat closed around the instinctive apology that rose up, heavy and practiced.

Bakugou lifted his head then, finally meeting Kirishima’s eyes. The look on his face was not explosive. It didn't crackle with rage. It was devastated in a way that scared Kirishima more than any shout ever could.

“Why,” Bakugou said, and his voice shook despite the effort he put into steadying it, “do you keep deciding things for me?”

The words landed slowly, one after another, each syllable weighted.

Kirishima took a step forward without thinking.

The space between them stretched instead of shrinking.

Panic flared hot and immediate. He stepped again, longer this time, boots scraping against nothing. Bakugou seemed no closer. The air itself resisted him, thick and viscous, like trying to run underwater.

“Katsuki, wait,” Kirishima said, breath quickening. “I didn’t. I was just trying to,”

“Stop.” Bakugou’s voice cracked on the word. He dragged a hand through his hair, fingers snagging, yanking hard enough that Kirishima felt the echo of the motion in his own scalp. “You think you’re being noble. You think you’re being strong. You think you’re protecting me.”

Another step. Another failure to close the distance.

Bakugou’s eyes burned. Tears finally broke free, tracking hot and unchecked down his cheeks. He didn't bother to wipe them away.

“You don’t get to choose this for me,” he said, and this time the words tore out of him. “You don’t get to decide what I want and then disappear like that’s somehow the right thing to do.”

Kirishima’s chest ached with the effort of breathing.

“I was scared,” he said, and the admission felt small and inadequate even as it was dragged from him. “I didn’t want to ruin anything. I didn’t want to,”

Bakugou laughed, sharp and broken, the sound splintering in the air. “Ruin it?” His hands curled into fists again. “You think this isn’t ruined? You think pretending you don’t matter to me hurts less than whatever you’re imagining?”

Kirishima ran.

There was no thought in it, no hesitation. His legs burned, muscles screaming with effort as he pushed himself forward, arms pumping uselessly at his sides. The space warped around him, folding and stretching, Bakugou remaining just out of reach no matter how hard he chased.

“Katsuki,” he gasped. “Please. I’m right here.”

Bakugou shook his head, the movement slow, grief-heavy. “You’re not,” he said. “You never are when it counts.”

The words struck deeper than anything else.

The world around them began to thin, edges blurring, the grey dissolving into something like fog. Bakugou’s outline flickered, his form losing definition, as though the dream itself couldn’t hold him anymore.

Panic turned frantic, clawing.

“No,” Kirishima said, voice breaking. “Don’t go. Please. I’ll do it right. I’ll stop pretending. I’ll choose,”

Bakugou looked at him one last time.

There was no anger in his eyes now. Only hurt. Only a quiet, exhausted plea that cut through Kirishima far more cleanly than rage ever could.

“Just choose yourself,” Bakugou said softly. “For once.”

And then he was gone.

Kirishima woke with a sharp inhale, chest heaving as though he had surfaced from deep water. His sheets were twisted around his legs, damp with sweat. Morning light spilled pale and unremarkable across the walls of his dorm room, illuminating the familiar clutter, the unmade bed, the ordinary shape of everything.

His heart raced, each beat loud in his ears.

The dream clung to him stubbornly. The sound of Bakugou’s voice echoed behind his eyes. The look on his face burned itself into Kirishima’s mind, impossible to shake. His hands trembled where they lay uselessly at his sides, fingers curling instinctively as though they might still grasp something solid if he reached out fast enough.

He sat up slowly, pressing a hand to his chest.

This was not like the other dreams.

There had been no comfort in it. No sweet deception. No borrowed warmth to soften the edges of waking. It had felt unfinished, unresolved in a way that refused to fade with consciousness. It lingered, heavy and insistent, as real as the ache in his ribs.

Something had shifted.

Kirishima knew it with a clarity that startled him. The dreams were no longer offering him escape or punishment or wishful fantasy. They were stripping him down, peeling back every excuse he had wrapped around himself and laying the truth bare.

Just choose yourself.

He had been choosing silence because it felt safer than rejection. Choosing absence because it felt less selfish than wanting. Choosing endurance because it was familiar, because it let him pretend he was being strong.

Bakugou had never asked for that.

Kirishima swung his legs over the side of the bed, feet pressing into the cool floor. His hands steadied gradually as he breathed, slow and deliberate, grounding himself in the weight of his body, the certainty of being awake.

Something had to break.

Just choose yourself.

The thought settled with surprising calm.

He would rather it be his fragile heart than whatever still tethered him to Bakugou, strained and aching and unspoken. He would rather risk losing everything than continue hollowing himself out in the name of being selfless.

For the first time in days, the quiet didn't feel patient.

Kirishima didn't go to breakfast.

The thought had arrived fully formed when he woke, sitting heavy and unmovable in his chest, and he had accepted it with the same quiet resolve he used for most difficult things. His body felt leaden, as though the night had poured itself into his bones and refused to drain away. The dream still lingered in fragments behind his eyes, Bakugou’s voice echoing with a clarity that made the silence of the room feel wrong.

Just choose yourself.

He sat on the edge of his bed for a long time, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the floor as the morning crept in around him. The dorm room was washed in soft light, dust motes drifting lazily through the air. Everything was ordinary. The hum of distant voices in the corridor, the muffled sound of footsteps, the day continuing as though nothing monumental had shifted overnight.

His chest tightened.

He told himself he would go later. He told himself he just needed a minute. Then another passed. And another. Eventually the excuse dissolved into nothing, and he remained where he was, unmoving, staring at his hands as though they might give him instructions.

The knock came sharp and insistent.

Not loud enough to be angry. Too rhythmic to be casual.

Kirishima flinched.

His heart lurched, immediate and traitorous, racing ahead of him as if it had already recognised the sound. He stood before he fully realised he had decided to, feet carrying him across the room on instinct. The closer he got to the door, the more his pulse thudded in his ears, drowning out thought.

Another knock, firmer this time. Fingers rapping against the wood with barely restrained impatience.

He hesitated with his hand on the handle.

For one breath, he considered pretending he wasn’t there. Letting the moment pass. Letting Bakugou leave, furious and confused and intact enough to walk away.

The image from the dream rose unbidden. Bakugou’s red eyes, wet and bright with hurt.

Kirishima opened the door.

Bakugou stood in the hallway like he had been carved there by force of will alone. His hair was unstyled, falling messily around his face, the sharp angles of it softened by exhaustion. His eyes were swollen and puffy, rims flushed raw, lashes clumped faintly as though he had wiped at them too many times with the back of his hand. A patchy red bloomed across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, the kind of flush that came from too little sleep and too much feeling.

He looked wrecked.

The sight stole the air from Kirishima’s lungs.

Bakugou didn't give him time to speak. He didn't step forward or soften his stance. He stood rigid in the doorway, shoulders tense, hands flexing at his sides as though they had not yet decided whether they wanted to clench into fists.

“You didn’t come to breakfast,” he said, voice hoarse and tight.

Kirishima swallowed. “I,”

“Don’t,” Bakugou snapped, the word cracking slightly at the edges.

His jaw clenched, muscles jumping as he ground his teeth together. He looked past Kirishima into the room, then back at him, eyes sharp and burning with something dangerously close to desperation.

“Did you really think,” Bakugou said, slow and deliberate, each word pressed out like it cost him something, “that I’d do all of this for just anyone?”

The question hit Kirishima square in the chest.

Bakugou stepped closer, invading the doorway, his presence overwhelming in the narrow space. Heat radiated off him, restless and volatile. Kirishima could feel it like a physical thing, could feel how tightly wound Bakugou was, how close he was to snapping.

“I don’t plan shit,” Bakugou went on, voice roughening. “I don’t ask people what they like. I don’t ask for advice. I don’t rehearse things in my head like some idiot trying to get a gold star.”

His hands flexed at his sides, fingers trembling faintly. “I don’t care about doing things right unless it matters.”

Kirishima’s fingers curled into the hem of his shirt.

“You think I don’t know what I’ve been doing?” Bakugou said. “You think I don’t see it? Waiting for you. Looking for you. Losing my fucking mind every time you dodge me like I’m some kind of mistake.”

His breathing hitched, sharp and uneven. “I don’t chase people. I don’t bend like that. I don’t try unless I’m all in.”

He laughed then, short and bitter. “And I hate that I tried. I hate how bad I wanted to get it right. I hate that I kept thinking if I just figured out the perfect way to do it, you’d finally stop looking at me like I was about to take something from you.”

Bakugou’s eyes locked onto Kirishima’s, red and burning. “I was doing it for you.”

The words landed heavy, undeniable.

“For you,” Bakugou repeated, quieter now, voice stripped raw. “Every stupid plan. Every question I asked. Every time I swallowed my pride and followed your lead. That was all you.”

Kirishima’s vision blurred.

“You don’t get to decide I don’t want this,” Bakugou said, anger flaring again, sharp and wounded. “You don’t get to decide I’d be better off without you just because you’re scared.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, knuckles scraping against his scalp. “I waited. I waited for you to choose me back. I waited for you to stop stepping aside like your feelings were some inconvenience.”

His voice dropped, rough and shaking. “And then you cut me off. Like I was about to ruin something. Like wanting you was some kind of mistake I’d regret.”

The silence that followed felt stretched thin, vibrating with everything unsaid.

Bakugou exhaled slowly, shoulders rising and falling. When he spoke again, the anger had burned down into something far more exposed.

“It’s you,” he said. “It’s always been you.”

His eyes flicked down for a second, then back up, as though forcing himself to stay present. “I don’t do this with anyone else. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t care how messy it gets or how bad it hurts, I’d still pick you.”

His hands shook openly now. “So don’t you dare tell me you’re doing this for me. Don’t you dare act like pushing me away is some kind of kindness.”

Kirishima’s chest burned.

“Katsuki,” he whispered, the name trembling out of him.

Bakugou stepped closer again, voice low and fierce. “Say it,” he demanded. “Say you don’t want me. Say this is all in my head.”

Kirishima couldn’t.

The truth pressed against his ribs, desperate and aching.

Bakugou stared at him for a long moment, eyes shining. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I didn’t think so.”

The hallway felt suddenly too exposed, too public for something this fragile. Kirishima stepped back, the movement small but deliberate, clearing space.

Bakugou hesitated only a second before stepping inside.

The door shut behind him with a soft click that sounded final.

Kirishima stood there, heart hammering, watching Bakugou fill the room with his presence, with his warmth, with everything Kirishima had been denying himself for years.

Something had already broken.

And there was no pretending it hadn’t.

Bakugou stood just inside the room like he didn’t trust himself to move any further. The door was closed behind him, the quiet click still ringing faintly in Kirishima’s ears, and for a moment neither of them spoke. The air felt thick, saturated with everything that had been dragged into the open and left there to bleed.

Kirishima realised, distantly, that his hands were shaking.

He hadn’t noticed when it started. His body had been carrying this weight for so long that it barely registered as strain anymore, just a constant pressure beneath the skin. Now that Bakugou was here, now that the truth had nowhere left to hide, it felt like his bones were finally giving way.

“I didn’t mean to cut you off like that,” Kirishima said, and immediately knew it was the wrong place to start.

Bakugou’s eyes snapped to his, sharp and blazing even through the redness. “That’s what you lead with?”

Kirishima swallowed. His throat felt raw, scraped clean. “I don’t know how to say this without it sounding like an excuse.”

“Then don’t,” Bakugou said. “Just say it.”

Kirishima nodded, once, as though bracing himself. He turned away, not because he didn’t want to see Bakugou, but because the sight of him made something inside his chest fracture further. He crossed the room slowly, stopping near the foot of his bed, fingers digging into the duvet until the fabric bunched beneath his grip.

“I’ve been dreaming about you,” he said.

The words landed softly, deceptively gentle.

Bakugou didn’t react at first. He just watched, eyes narrowed slightly, waiting for the punchline, for the part where Kirishima laughed it off or redirected. When it didn’t come, something in his expression shifted.

“Dreaming how,” Bakugou asked, voice low.

Kirishima closed his eyes. The images surged up immediately, vivid and merciless. Stars overhead. Warm sand. The weight of Bakugou’s body against his. A hand squeezing his own like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Like we were together,” he said quietly. “Like it was real.”

Silence filled the space between them.

Kirishima forced himself to keep going. “It started small. One dream. I thought it was nothing. Just my brain being stupid. But it kept happening. Every night. Different places. Different moments. And every time, you wanted me back.”

His voice wavered despite his effort to steady it. “You looked at me like I was chosen. Like I was enough.”

Bakugou’s jaw tightened.

“I knew it wasn’t real,” Kirishima went on. “I always knew. Even when it felt perfect, there was always this… wrongness to it. Like I was borrowing something that didn’t belong to me.”

He let out a shaky breath. “Waking up was the worst part. Every time.”

Bakugou took a step forward before he seemed to realise he was moving.

“They weren’t just nice dreams,” Kirishima said. “They were everything I’ve never let myself want out loud. Every version of you where you stayed. Where you chose me. Where I didn’t have to guess.”

He laughed weakly, the sound breaking apart as soon as it left him. “And then you started doing those things. Waiting for me. Asking me questions. Taking me places I’d already been with you in my sleep.”

Bakugou froze.

Kirishima turned back to face him, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I thought I was losing my mind. I thought if I wanted it hard enough, my brain was just filling in the gaps. I told myself it couldn’t mean anything, because if it did, then I’d have to face what I was feeling.”

“And what was that?” Bakugou asked, barely audible.

Kirishima’s chest tightened painfully. “That I love you.”

The room seemed to contract around them.

“I’ve loved you for years,” Kirishima said. “I love the way you never half-ass anything. I love how angry you get when you care. I love how you pretend you don’t notice when people are hurting, then show up anyway. I love how you make space for me without ever saying you are.”

His shoulders shook. “And I was terrified of it.”

Bakugou’s breath stuttered.

“I told myself it was better this way,” Kirishima continued. “That being here for you, supporting you, mattered more than what I wanted. That if I stayed quiet, if I stayed useful, I wouldn’t risk losing you.”

He dragged a hand over his face, smearing at the wetness there. “The dreams stopped being kind. They started taking things away. Cutting off right before something happened. Punishing me for wanting more.”

Bakugou’s eyes widened slightly, recognition flickering through them.

“I started waking up sick,” Kirishima said. “Ashamed. Like I was stealing something every time I thought about you that way. When you tried to talk to me, when you looked like you were about to say something that mattered, I panicked.”

He met Bakugou’s gaze again, forcing himself to hold it. “I thought if I stopped you, I could save you from regretting it. From realising you didn’t actually want me once it was said out loud.”

Bakugou’s fists clenched. “You don’t get to decide what I regret.”

“I know,” Kirishima said. “I know that now.”

His voice dropped, softer, stripped bare. “But I’ve spent my whole life measuring myself against other people. Trying to be strong enough, reliable enough, good enough to earn my place. Loving you felt like the one thing I wasn’t allowed to ask for.”

The words poured out of him then, unstoppable. “I thought if I chose myself for once, I’d ruin everything. That wanting you would make me selfish. That I’d take something you deserved to give to someone better.”

Bakugou shook his head sharply. “You don’t get to,”

“I’m not apologising,” Kirishima interrupted, surprising even himself with the firmness in his tone. “I’m telling you the truth.”

He straightened, shoulders squared despite the tremor running through him. “I didn’t push you away because I didn’t want you. I pushed you away because I wanted you so badly it scared me.”

The confession hung between them, heavy and irrevocable.

Bakugou lifted his head slowly, like the movement itself cost him something. His eyes were rimmed red, lashes clumped dark, his expression laid bare in a way Kirishima had only ever seen in flashes — after battles that went wrong, after losses that cut too close to the bone. Seeing that same rawness directed at him made Kirishima’s chest ache with a strange, trembling warmth.

“You think I don’t notice you,” Bakugou said quietly. “That I don’t see when you shrink yourself down. When you decide what I need before I ever get to open my mouth.”

Kirishima’s breath caught. “I wasn’t trying to,”

“I know,” Bakugou cut in, softer now. “That’s the problem.”

He released Kirishima’s shirt only to slide his hands up, firm and grounding, palms settling against Kirishima’s ribs. The contact sent a shiver through him, immediate and undeniable. Bakugou held him like he meant it, like he was making a point with his body where words had failed them both.

“You keep acting like you’re lucky just to stand next to me,” Bakugou said. “Like that’s all you get. You don’t see what you do to me.”

Kirishima swallowed hard. He had spent years training himself not to look too closely at Bakugou’s softer edges, the ones that felt like they were meant only for him.

“I don’t do things halfway,” Bakugou went on, voice roughening. “If I care, I go all in. You know that. You’ve always known that.”

His thumbs pressed in slightly, just enough to be felt. “So when I plan something, when I ask you questions, when I want to know how to do something right, it’s because it matters to me. Because you matter.”

The words settled deep, heavy and reverent.

Kirishima’s vision blurred. He laughed weakly, disbelief threaded through it. “You’re saying this like it’s obvious.”

“It is,” Bakugou said. “You just refuse to look.”

He stayed pressed there, forehead against Kirishima’s shoulder, breathing unevenly, like he was relearning how. Kirishima could feel the heat of him through the thin cotton of his shirt, could feel the way Bakugou’s grip loosened and tightened again, uncertain, recalibrating.

“You really thought I’d want you to disappear,” Bakugou said after a moment. It wasn’t a question. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw. “That you stepping back was doing me a favour.”

Kirishima swallowed. His throat hurt. “I thought you deserved someone who didn’t hesitate. Someone who wouldn’t,” He stopped himself, jaw tightening. “Someone better.”

Bakugou went still.

Slowly, he lifted his head. When Kirishima met his eyes, there was no anger there. No sharpness. Just something exposed and aching and deeply human.

“I didn’t need better,” Bakugou said. “I needed you to stop deciding what I could handle.”

Bakugou stepped back then, just enough to look at him properly. His hands didn’t leave Kirishima’s shirt, but the grip shifted, less desperate, more deliberate. “You weren’t wrong about one thing,” he continued. “My timing was shit.”

Kirishima let out a weak, breathless laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “You don’t say.”

Bakugou huffed, the ghost of his usual bite flickering through. “I kept circling it. Asking stupid questions. Planning things halfway. Waiting for the right moment like it was gonna announce itself.”

His jaw clenched. “I thought if I did everything perfectly, it would protect me. Protect us.”

Kirishima’s chest tightened painfully. He recognised that impulse too well.

“I didn’t know you were breaking yourself over it,” Bakugou said. “I didn’t know you were punishing yourself every night for wanting something I was standing right there trying to give you.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and heavy and alive.

Kirishima rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, embarrassed by the tears he couldn’t seem to stop anymore. “The dreams felt so real,” he admitted quietly. “And every time I woke up, it felt like I’d already lost you.”

Bakugou’s expression twisted at that, something sharp passing through it. “You didn’t lose me,” he said. “You just never let yourself believe you had me.”

That landed harder than anything else had.

Bakugou exhaled slowly, like he was making a decision. He reached out again, not grabbing this time, just resting his hand against Kirishima’s wrist. The touch was tentative, reverent.

“I haven’t been dreaming,” he said. “Not like that. But I’ve been awake, and I’ve been watching you disappear right in front of me, and I didn’t know how to stop it without scaring you off.”

His thumb brushed once over Kirishima’s pulse. “Turns out I scared you anyway.”

Kirishima’s lips trembled. “I never wanted to make this harder for you.”

Bakugou’s mouth tilted into something wry and painfully fond. “You idiot,” he murmured again, but this time it was soft. “You make everything harder. That’s kind of your thing.”

A fragile laugh broke out of Kirishima before he could stop it, cracked and breathless. Bakugou watched him like he was memorising the sound.

They didn’t rush after that. There was no sudden surge forward, no cinematic inevitability. Just two people standing in the quiet aftermath of something that could have broken them both if left unspoken.

Bakugou squeezed his wrist once, grounding. “We don’t have to fix this today.”

Kirishima nodded. His chest still hurt, but it didn’t feel hollow anymore. “I don’t want to run from it again.”

“Good,” Bakugou said. “Because I don’t chase.”

The statement carried weight, not as a threat, but as a truth they both understood.

Later, much later, they ended up sitting on Kirishima’s bed, backs against the wall, shoulders touching. Not holding hands. Not yet. Just close enough to feel each other’s warmth, close enough to know the other was real.

Bakugou leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. “You know,” he said after a while, “I’m really bad at slow.”

Kirishima smiled, small and genuine. “I’m really bad at choosing myself.”

Bakugou glanced sideways at him. “We’ll work on it.”

The certainty in his voice didn’t feel like pressure. It felt like an invitation.

That night, when Kirishima finally slept, there were no dreams waiting for him. No stars, no tides, no half-formed wishes suspended in unreality. Just darkness, deep and quiet and whole.

Bakugou’s breathing was steady beside him, solid and present.

Kirishima didn’t wake up reaching for something he’d already lost.