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Denki was confused.
Which, on its own, was not a particularly remarkable statement. Denki was usually confused during 95% of the school day, with the only exception being lunchtime.
(And even then, when his classmates decided they wanted to spend that time talking about assignments, he was left in the dark.)
But for the first time in a long while, the cause of Denki’s confusion was not related to schoolwork.
It was because of Bakugou.
When the boy came into class that day, he hadn’t suspected anything out of the ordinary. It was only until Jirou started to whisper loudly to Mina about Bakugou’s painted nails that Denki felt himself start to tense up.
Bakugou painted his nails? As in the Bakugou that insulted him for choosing to paint his own?
The news washed over him like an icy torrent, but he could’ve pushed it aside. Maybe if he suppressed the bitter feeling bubbling deep inside him, it would go away and he could forget about it.
But he obviously didn’t do a good enough job of that, since he found himself wide awake the next morning with the very thought he hoped to forget still racing through his mind. Normally, Denki slept in as late as he possibly could, but he’d been tossing and turning for ages and rest didn’t seem to want to take him back in again.
Irate, he flung the covers off and toed around the icy floor until he felt his slippers. He took a random jacket from his closet to chase away the morning chills, slipped his phone into his pocket, and headed to the kitchen to get water or something.
While walking down the staircase, he checked his phone. 5 AM? That’s a terrible time to wake up. Too early to feel well rested, yet too late to sneak in some extra sleep before Iida inevitably roused everybody awake.
He shuffled downstairs, biting back a yawn, but stopped in his tracks when he heard two voices in the kitchen.
It’s probably not too heroic to eavesdrop on people. If they’re having conversations at this time of day, in such a low tone of voice, they almost definitely don’t want other people to hear. But even in his tired stupor, he could still pick out Jirou’s and Bakugou’s voice. An interesting duo indeed. What could one possibly have to say to the other?
“You let Mina paint your nails?” Jirou asked suddenly. Denki, about to head back upstairs, froze in his tracks. He shouldn’t stay to hear this. But when Bakugou started to speak, another part of him told him to stay put. What could Bakugou possibly have to say?
“Yeah,” the blond boy snapped. “Got something to say about it, Jacks?”
There was a brief pause before Jirou spoke up again. “Why?”
“Shitty hair wanted to, so I did it too.” Denki could practically see the frown on Bakugou’s face for simply having to have this conversation. “If you’ve got a fucking problem with it, just spit it out already.”
Jirou sighed. “It’s just… painting your nails seems like such a girly activity. It seems out of character for either of you to do it.”
“Hah? What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t either of you feel, uh, uncomfortable about it? I mean, you don’t really see many guys painting their nails.”
Another silence. Then Bakugou’s voice trailed through the air, uncharacteristically gentle. “Listen here. I know you’re all about your ‘tomboy’ shit, but does it really matter?” he said. “If Kiris- Shitty Hair, the manliest one in class, wants to paint his nails, then it’s probably not as much of a ‘girly’ thing as you think it is. If you want to do it, fucking do it, and I’ll beat the crap out of anybody who tries to say shit about it.”
It was quiet once more, but Denki didn’t think he’d be able to listen to any more, even if he wanted to. He hoped to god that Jirou wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings so that he could sneak away without getting caught.
Safely back in his room, Denki allowed him to think over what he’d just heard. Jirou wanted to paint her nails, and Bakugou supported her. That was great! Denki supported the purple-haired girl too.
But something about the whole interaction made Denki’s eyes a little watery, and his throat a little dry.
Why was Bakugou so kind regarding Jirou’s situation, yet so disgusted by the idea of Denki doing the same thing?
----------
One Friday night, the Bakusquad was hanging out in Sero’s room. It was indisputably the most comfortable room in the dorms and the only one out of the five that had a television, which made it optimal for video game bonding time. Denki had been painting his nails before Sero sent out the text for them to come to his room, so when he did arrive at his sticky friend’s room, his nails were still wet.
Denki hesitantly curled his fingers towards his palm in a way that allowed him to knock on the door without smudging anything, but it swung open before he could even make a sound.
“There you are, Dunce Face,” an irate Bakugou snapped. “What took you so fucking long?”
He instinctively reached to put his hand behind his head but then remembered that he had to be careful with his fingers, causing him to make an aborted half-motion that could’ve been mistaken for a stray pulse of electricity jolting through him.
“Sorry Bakubro, I was just trying to finish painting my nails before coming over.” Denki smiled sheepishly at the other boy, who frowned in what Denki later identified as disapproval.
“You willingly paint your nails?” the boy scoffed. Denki frowned. What was that supposed to mean? “That’s fucking weird, Dunce Face.”
Bakugou then turned around and walked into the room, leaving a stunned Denki standing in the doorway. Snapping himself out of his stupor, he shut the door behind himself and joined his friends on the bed as if nothing had happened.
For the rest of the night, Denki allowed himself to slip into a dazed headspace, letting the others knock his Pikachu off the map and jostle him when he fell off the ledge on his own. Mina’s Ice Climbers were an absolute menace, and Kirishima wasn’t so bad as Little Mac on the spare occasion he managed to land a hit.
A dazed Denki was a playful, yet airheaded Denki. But since that was his default state most of the time, none of his friends noticed that something was wrong. Bakugou might not have considered the weight of his words, but from that day on, Denki was careful to not paint his nails until after squad bonding time.
----------
So when Denki noticed Jirou’s nails colored a deep indigo the morning after the girl's usual sleepover, he hurried back into his room to shed angry tears into his sheets, ignoring the concerned looks from his friends.
It probably looked pretty bad on his end. Leaving the room immediately after noticing Jirou’s fingers? Yikes. How could he even explain any of this to them?
Kirishima and Sero were both pretty out of the loop when it came to this issue, so Denki didn’t blame them if they were a little confused by his sudden behavior.
But he’d mentioned Bakugou’s comment to Mina before. Even if he hadn’t said anything else outright, he knew the pink haired girl had picked up on his hesitancy to paint his nails on days the Bakusquad had scheduled hangouts.
And Jirou? He knew the girl had seen him with various shades of yellow adorning his hands when they’d fooled around with the guitars in her room on the weekends.
He knew that she had been hesitant to paint her nails since she tried to avoid stereotypical ‘female’ activities like the plague. Denki respected her wishes and didn’t push further when she divulged that information to him, but he helped with Mina’s plan regardless. Maybe seeing boys with painted nails would help her ease into the idea, he had thought.
Maybe she’d seen him with painted nails a few too many times for it to make a difference. That, he understood.
But for Bakugou to be the straw that broke the camel’s back? For Bakugou to be the one to finally convince Jirou that it was okay?
Denki felt bad for even daring to think this, but something about that idea just stung like betrayal.
----------
It felt wrong to seek Mineta’s company on weekends, but at this point he wanted to stop thinking about nail polish and his friends. If it meant that he had to listen to the smaller boy talk about porn and objectifying women, he would just grit his teeth and bear it.
Although, it seemed that luck wasn’t on his side, since Mineta couldn’t even do his job properly and talk about the one thing he normally focused all his interest on.
“Dude, did you see Jirou? She finally painted her nails,” Mineta said, the disgusting lecherous grin still on his face.
Denki resisted the urge to just stand up and leave the room immediately, but he didn’t want to storm out of the common room for the second time that day. The stares of his friend group were boring into his back from the other side of the room, probably trying to analyze his behavior before confronting him for his behavior.
He tried not to roll his eyes at the thought. He wasn’t Bakugou, they didn’t need to tiptoe around him like he was going to explode.
“Yeah, I saw it,” he responded blandly, hoping that if he sounded unenthusiastic enough, the conversation would die on its own.
Mineta snickered. “I guess she’s finally realized that she’s a girl and not a boy. Do you think she’ll stop dressing like a stupid dyke so that I can finally get a picture of her panties?”
“Dude, what the fuck? That’s not cool,” Denki snapped. “She can wear what she wants.”
“Yeah, sure, but nobody’s going to want to date a girl like that.”
“Get off her fucking case already!”
As soon as those words left Denki’s mouth, he regretted it. Not because he was defending Jirou, but because he accidentally raised his voice and attracted the attention of all the others in the common room. When he saw Bakugou stomping over with his hands in his pockets, Denki’s heart sank in his chest.
“Is something wrong over here?” Bakugou asked, voice low and deadly. His quiet fury may have been directed towards Mineta, but a quiet Bakugou had Denki trembling in his seat.
Mineta scoffed and jerked a thumb towards Denki. “We were just trying to have a normal conversation before mister ‘white knight’ over here decided to get offended for no reason.”
The more Mineta spoke, the more Denki regretted ever trying to befriend the jerk.
“I’m not playing white knight, it’s just a dick move to call someone a ‘stupid dyke’,” Denki retorted. “Stop talking about Jirou like that.”
At the mention of Jirou, Bakugou seemed to realize what Mineta had been talking about and his face turned sour. “Listen up, grape fucker,” Bakugou said, seizing Mineta’s collar and yanking him closer. “Jacks can do whatever she wants and you don’t get to make a comment about it, or else I’ll blow your face to pieces. You hear me?”
“Got it!” Mineta whimpered. Evidently he didn’t want to get on Bakugou’s bad side. Well, too bad for him, since he was on the shit list of practically everybody in 1-A at this point.
“Good. If I hear you saying anything else about Jirou choosing to paint her nails, I’ll fucking pummel you into the ground.”
“You’re one to talk,” Denki muttered. He didn’t register the words coming out of his mouth until Bakugou turned his head to face him. Oh shit, he didn’t mean to say that out loud.
Bakugou scowled, an ugly, twisted expression for such a pretty face. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean, Dunce Face?”
Oh. He’d forgotten. But that didn’t make his words any less hurtful.
“It’s nice of you to have a change of heart after letting Mina paint your nails once, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what you said to me,” he responded coldly. And with that, he stood up and walked out of the room.
Bakugou stood there, hands still holding onto Mineta’s shirt, baffled. What did Denki mean?
Sero, Kirishima, and Mina sat in the corner. The first two were still puzzled by the entire interaction, but puzzle pieces were beginning to click in Mina’s head.
“Oh,” she whispered to nobody in particular.
----------
Saturdays used to be for the boys, but Denki really did not want to be with the boys right now. He decided that sticking to his usual routine would help to distract him from any intrusive thoughts, so despite the fact that nail polish was what caused all this internal turmoil in the first place, he found himself seated on the floor with a bottle of nail polish, acetone, and a tool to push back his cuticles.
It required a lot of concentration for Denki to fix his cuticles without accidentally fucking up and hurting himself, so for the few minutes that he was occupied, his mind was completely focused on his hands and not the hands of others.
He applied a layer of clear base coat on each finger, then fanned them around in the air to dry them faster. Did it actually help? He didn’t know, but he liked to think that it did.
Experimenting with different colors was always fun, and sometimes he’d find gaudy nail stickers with ridiculous designs. Mina liked to joke that those were a little tacky, but Denki supposed that even she could not recognize the glorious nature of cheetah-print nails.
But today felt like a yellow day. A warm buttery yellow, like his hair. Denki pulled the small bottle from beneath his bed (hidden, in case someone decided to pay him an impromptu visit) and rolled it between his fingers.
Unscrewing the cap, he drew the brush out and swiped it against the inner rim to remove any excess before painting a single stroke on his thumb.
He frowned. Was he running out of yellow?
Denki tilted the bottle and squinted, peering into the depths of the bottle. Ugh. Just as he figured, the paint was only clinging to the outside, giving it the appearance of barely being used when there was really nothing left.
But he’d already set his mind to the task, so he had to finish it with what little paint he had left.
Maybe it was luck or something, but he had just enough to paint all of his left hand without the layers being too thin. Denki gave it ten minutes to dry (he especially didn’t want to smudge his favorite color) before applying a top coat.
That had killed a significant amount of time, and he hadn’t had to run into anybody, but there was yet another pressing matter at hand. As if he didn’t have enough running through his mind as is.
He hadn’t eaten breakfast, since he knew his friends were hanging around downstairs to try and apprehend him.
But as his stomach released a deafening grumble, Denki knew he’d made a mistake when he forgot to restock his snack drawer a few days ago. It was hard! Aizawa-sensei was careful about allowing food in dorms because it increased the presence of bugs, but sometimes it was just too draining to be in an area with lots of people, despite how hungry one got.
Well, part of being a hero in training involves a proper diet, so he knew it would impact him poorly if he decided to skip another meal.
Resigned, and almost expecting everything to go wrong, Denki slipped out of his room.
It wasn’t like the common room would be bustling at this time. Most of his classmates ate lunch around 12 to 1 then retired to their own dorms to study for the upcoming final. He hadn’t been as up-to-date with his studies like they were, but when was he ever?
The thing is, class 1-A is full of developing teenagers. The kitchen is never empty, no matter how obscure of a time you choose to get the munchies.
11 P.M.? Aoyama would be sitting in front of the fridge with a whole charcuterie board, cheese crumbs littering the floor.
(It drove Iida nuts in the morning to see such “reckless disregard for the hard work your peers put into maintaining the tidy nature a school building should stay in.”)
12 A.M.? Jirou was probably getting a glass of juice to keep herself hydrated before returning to her room.
Anywhere from 1 A.M. to 4 A.M. meant the kitchen was likely occupied by Sato, who occupied nearly all of the countertop space with trays, bowls, and half-opened ingredients. The bigger boy had mentioned that he didn’t have enough room to bake goods for the class in his room, but it was also near-impossible to keep the same peers from stealing bowls of batter from under his nose.
And Tokoyami liked to perch on top of the refrigerator when he felt like ‘reveling in the dark’. It was not a fun discovery to make after spending the night binging horror film theories with Ojiro and Hagakure.
(Denki had screamed when he saw two sets of eyes staring into his soul from the pitch-darkness of the kitchen, but despite what his classmates might say, it was not loud enough to wake up everybody.
Kirishima had remained fast asleep as those events had taken place.)
Maybe if he was lucky, it would just be Shoji making protein shakes, or Momo brewing tea to help her concentrate on the most recent English unit (which was kicking all their asses).
Alas, this was Denki Kaminari, newly proclaimed unluckiest guy in the world, since the two people standing in the kitchen were the two people he wanted to see least.
Mineta and Bakugou.
Although to be honest, Denki wasn’t quite sure how Mineta had managed to stay within Bakugou’s proximity this long without saying something to earn him a few explosions in his scalp. The small purple boy normally didn’t like to keep his thoughts to himself, despite how much the rest of his classmates begged him to.
Carefully, yet casually so as to not draw more attention to his entrance, Denki walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the snack cabinet.
He’d reached up, secured a pouch of squid snacks, and was about to make a hasty exit when Mineta’s voice reached his ears.
“Ew, dude, did you paint your nails?” Denki froze, plastered on a fake smile, then turned to face Mineta.
“What are you talking about?” he replied casually, voice barely audible over the rapid fear pounding in his chest.
Mineta pointed a tiny, grubby finger at Denki’s left hand and sneered. “Are you dumb or what? Obviously I’m talking about that shit.”
Bakugou, who’d been searing some vegetables in a pan, paused in his movements, but did not turn around or give any other acknowledgement that he was listening in on the conversation.
“It’s nothing much, I just felt like doing ‘em. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Mineta said incredulously, raising his voice. “You can’t seriously be so nonchalant about this. Boys don’t paint their nails unless they’re f-”
The rest of Mineta’s statement turned to ringing in Denki’s ears. No, the smaller boy hadn’t said that word. Maybe he was just hearing things, that’s all. He didn’t think that Mineta would actually say such a thing to him-
“Say that word one more time, grape fucker,” Bakugou hissed, turning the heat off with a sharp snap of his wrist. Brandishing the wooden spoon like a weapon, he jabbed it in Mineta’s face, who made an ‘eep’ sound and stumbled backwards into the counter.
Surprisingly, the normally cowardly Mineta straightened up and met Bakugou’s glare head-on. “You heard what I said. Or are you going to tell me that you disagree?”
Bakugou looked like he had a number of things to say to Mineta, yet the explosive boy didn’t say a thing. Denki seized the opportunity to get out of the room as quickly as he could.
He didn’t care how hungry he was. It probably would’ve been better to go hungry for a few more hours than to have to partake in that conversation.
----------
If the gym hadn’t been so crowded, then Bakugou would’ve been able to eat lunch a lot earlier than normal. If he’d been able to eat lunch at a normal time, he wouldn’t have had to be in the kitchen at the same time as the grape bastard. And if he hadn’t had to be in the kitchen at the same time as the grape bastard, he wouldn’t have had to overhear the conversation that definitely wasn’t meant for him to overhear.
That blond asshole from 1-B didn’t even work out on Saturdays. He just kept following Bakugou around to get on his nerves.
So if he shuffled the vegetables around in his pan with a little more aggression than usual, who was going to call him out on it? Besides, if he focused enough on the sound of the satisfying sizzle of cooking food, then he wouldn’t even have to hear the little rat speak.
But then Denki came in. Bakugou itched to drag the other blond into a hallway to drag some answers out of him, but if he didn’t eat now, he wouldn’t be able to focus on his studies.
He resigned himself to glaring furiously at the broccoli, like it had offended him personally.
Then the other two boys started talking, and Bakugou rolled his eyes. God, why hadn’t he remembered to bring his earbuds so that he could drown them out?
“Ew, dude, did you paint your nails?”
Never mind, he thought to himself, ears perking up. As far as he knew, Denki hadn’t painted his nails in a while. Did he do them now because of Jirou? That wouldn’t be surprising, Denki was the biggest simp in 1-A.
But while this seemed like a topic that piqued his interest, he couldn’t ignore the blatant hostility in Mineta’s tone. Mineta and Denki may have been friends at the beginning of the school year, but as more of their personal differences started to come to light, the boys began to drift to different social circles.
(That is, Denki bonded more with the ‘Bakusquad’, and Mineta ran around campus making anybody who wore a skirt uncomfortable.)
Lost in his own thoughts, Bakugou missed Denki’s reply, but regardless of what the electric boy said, Bakugou knew that it couldn’t have warranted Mineta’s response.
“-Boys don’t paint their nails unless they’re f-”
His blood boiled. Denki might not have been too happy with Bakugou right now (for reasons he hadn’t been able to pin down just yet), but it would’ve been a dick move to let the small bastard get away with saying anything like that.
Deftly turning the stove off and removing the pan from the heat source, Bakugou gripped the wooden spoon he’d been using tightly and jabbed it in Mineta’s face, scowling the whole while.
He had a few choice words to spit back, although it wasn’t like Mineta would take any of them to heart.
“You heard what I said. Or are you going to disagree?”
Bakugou opened his mouth to say something, but in that very moment, a very vivid memory rang through his mind.
----------
The entirety of the Bakusquad had assembled to play video games, but Bakugou couldn’t beat their asses if Denki wasn’t there. Where the fuck was he?
Footsteps were approaching the door. He didn’t care if it was anybody else, he was going to give the other boy a piece of his mind. Flinging the door open, he was greeted by a shocked Denki.
“There you are, Dunce Face,” he snapped. Today had been shitty, and he didn’t have the patience for anybody’s bullshit, not even Shitty Hair’s. “What took you so fucking long?”
“Sorry Bakubro, I was just trying to finish painting my nails before coming over.” Denki replied, smiling sheepishly.
“You willingly paint your nails?” he scoffed, unaware of the way Denki’s face dropped like a sack of bricks. “That’s fucking weird, Dunce Face.”
----------
Oh. Fuck. Was that why Denki had stopped painting his nails for a while?
By the time he’d had that realization and snapped back to reality, Denki had long since left the kitchen, Mineta was smirking, thinking that he’d won that argument, and Bakugou was stewing in his own emotions.
Bakugou knew he was an asshole, and a shitty friend at that. But he hadn’t meant for his words to hurt Denki so much. It hurt his pride to admit it, but he had to apologize.
Now how was he going to go about doing it?
----------
There was school tomorrow, so Denki knew he couldn’t avoid his friends forever. He’d have to confront the issue eventually. It wasn’t like he was even mad anymore! He just hated confrontation and was dodging the issue with all of his abilities.
So when Bakugou began banging on his door, all rationale flew out the window.
He really did not want to talk to Bakugou at the moment, even though his initial shock and disbelief had long since died off.
“I know you’re in there, Dunce Face! Open the door, or I’ll blast a hole through it!”
Wow, Bakugou really needed to work on his conversation skills, since that made him want to talk to him even less.
The window was looking rather tempting right now…
----------
Midoriya loved All Might and all, but with his idol also being his teacher, his brain begged him for a change of scenery every now and then. So he obliged and headed out to his balcony to get a nice view of the afternoon sky. The breeze wasn’t too bad either. Wait-
Was Denki-
Nope. He wasn’t doing this today.
If Denki felt like jumping out of the window on the third floor of a building, then that was his decision and Midoriya wanted to maintain plausible deniability.
Nature was overrated. He’d stick to his All Might posters from now on.
----------
Bakugou gaped at the sight before him. He’d sworn that sparky was in his bedroom?
But the window was also wide open, and there had been a suspiciously loud thump…
He groaned and slapped his hand to his face. Did Denki really jump out of his window?
If Denki was willing to jump out the window just to avoid talking to him, then Bakugou knew he’d fucked up badly. He’d have to try another approach to this.
----------
Maybe it was a testament to Denki’s frequently chaotic antics that nobody questioned him when he walked through the front doors of the dorm building with twigs nestled in his hair. His shirt was tattered and there were unpleasant grass-stained scrapes on all of his limbs, but that’s just a small price to pay to avoid unwanted interaction, right?
Well, nobody questioned him, but that didn’t mean that nobody noticed. Momo offered to make him some bandages and ointment for his scrapes and Jirou raised an eyebrow at his haphazard state of being, but otherwise, that was all.
Denki headed up to his room again, praying to all that was good and holy that Bakugou wasn’t camped outside his bedroom.
But to his surprise, there was a figure waiting at his door. It just wasn’t Bakugou.
Mina was sitting there, cross-legged with her back leaning against the door. Her eyes were shut, but as Denki approached, they flew open. Neither of them spoke for a moment, Mina probably trying her best to not scare him off like Bakugou had just moments ago.
After the hesitant pause, Mina spoke up first. “Can I talk to you, Denki?”
“Sure,” he responded. She stepped to the side so he could unlock the door- wait, why was there a hole in his door?
Had Bakugou really blown a hole through his door when he didn’t respond? Denki groaned internally. He’d have to explain this to Aizawa-sensei. He really didn’t want to, though.
Rolling his eyes, he reached his arm through the hole, unlocked it from the inside, and nudged it so it swung open. With a small jerk of his head, he indicated that Mina should enter first. She walked in, sat backwards at his desk, and waited until Denki sat at the edge of his bed.
“You’re okay with me bringing this up, and not Bakugou, right?” she asked gently. “Is that why you let me in?”
“I don’t want to talk to Bakugou for a while, but I know I have to confront the issue eventually,” he responded.
She offered him a hesitant smile. “I think I know what’s going on. If you don’t want to tell me directly, then that’s okay, but can you nod or shake your head to confirm or deny my statements?”
He nodded.
“Okay. I’m pretty sure the trigger was when Jirou painted her nails, right?”
Well, yes, but also no? Denki thought that his mood started to plummet when Bakugou painted his nails, and the conversation he overheard between the other blond and Jirou certainly didn’t help. He shook his head ‘no’.
Mina scrunched up her face a bit. “Oh. Darn, that was my first guess. Hm, was it when Bakugou painted his nails?”
He nodded.
“There we go! So, I remember you saying ‘you’re one to talk’ when Bakugou tried to defend Jirou painting her nails. Does it have anything to do with the one time you told me that Bakugou made fun of you for painting yours?”
“Yeah,” he finally whispered. “I just don’t get how he’s willing to defend her while making me feel like shit about it.”
He felt his face crumple, and Mina’s expression warped into one of guilty concern. “Oh no, Denki, I’m sorry he made you feel that way. Can I give you a hug?”
It made him feel strangely vulnerable to let the pink girl see him with little rivers flowing down the planes of his face, but he leaned forward into her hesitantly outstretched arms and let himself bury his face into the crook of her shoulder.
“I know it probably hurts a lot,” she said soothingly, patting his head and squeezing his torso to ground his staggered breaths. “And you might not want to hear this, but he told me some things and I sort of understand where he’s coming from. It’s not my place to tell you what he said, but I think things will make a bit more sense when you’re ready to listen to his apology.”
“I can’t imagine him trying to apologize,” he half heartedly joked, voice still thick and watery. Denki detached himself from Mina and got himself a few tissues from his bedside stand. As kind as she was, he was sure she wouldn’t appreciate him getting snot on any of her shirts.
She giggled in response to his statement. “I can’t see it either. Maybe you can tell us how it goes.”
----------
There was knocking at his door. Seriously? He had to wake up for school in about… nine hours, and he was going to need every drop of sleep he could get if he wanted to have any chance at paying attention during Ectoplasm’s class.
The knocking was hesitant, yet insistent. Denki laid in bed, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds, before deciding that the sooner he dealt with whoever wanted to see him at this hour, the sooner he could get back to the safety of his bed.
Though his eyes were bleary from having just been jolted awake, the spiky blond hair at his door was unmistakably Bakugou’s.
Wait, didn’t Bakugou normally go to sleep at 8 P.M.? Why was he still awake?
Those trademark crimson eyes, already scary in daylight, glinted eerily in the dim hallway. God, Denki hoped he wasn’t going to get murdered right now.
“Hey Dunce Face,” Bakugou muttered. “You better not shut the door on my face right now.”
“I wasn’t going to?” he replied, eyebrows rising higher and higher on his face.
“I’d sure fucking hope not. Can I talk to you or what?”
Denki shrugged, then stepped to the side for Bakugou to walk in. However, the other boy stayed put and shook his head.
“Not here. In the kitchen. I know you skipped dinner, dumbass. If you pass out during training tomorrow, I’m going to laugh in your face.”
Well. That was oddly observant of him, though Denki also knew that Bakugou liked to pay close attention to his friends while pretending like he didn’t care at all. Ah, such a tsundere.
They walked down the stairwell in silence. The elevators were disabled past 10 P.M., which Denki didn’t quite understand, but taking the stairs never hurt anybody. He was greeted with the sight of… an empty kitchen? Glancing to the side, Denki noticed that the common room was also devoid of the presence of a certain shadowy bird boy.
“Where are Aoyama and Tokoyami?” he asked aloud, not really expecting an answer.
Bakugou abruptly hid his face and muttered something unintelligible.
Denki frowned. “What was that?”
“I said, I bribed them to stay in their rooms tonight. If I’m gonna fucking… apologize or whatever, I don’t want any extras overhearing us.”
The probability of this being a fever dream was getting higher and higher by the moment. Sure, he figured that ‘can we talk’ would probably result in some sort of apology, and Mina had notified him beforehand, but that didn’t mean that he was expecting one.
Denki pulled a stool up to the counter while Bakugou rummaged around the pots and pans. He felt like falling asleep where he sat, but a small object flying at his face caught his attention.
Acting on reflex, he caught it before it could hit him in the nose. It was a small box, neatly wrapped in black tissue paper and tied together with a small white ribbon. Somehow, Denki wasn’t surprised by Bakugou’s ability to wrap presents nicely, assuming this was one. He smiled to himself.
“What are you smiling about?” Bakugou snapped, although his crossed arms and red face indicated that he was more embarrassed than angry. “Fucking open it already.”
Denki knew that Bakugou wouldn’t dare to pull anything while trying to apologize, but he also didn’t feel like pushing at his buttons this late at night. Gently tugging at one end of the ribbon, the bow undid itself. He pushed the tissue paper down to expose a plain cardboard box the size of an apple.
He could feel Bakugou staring, urging him to hurry up. Denki removed the lid, only to be greeted with more tissue paper. It felt like waking up at midnight to open Christmas presents. Removing the final layer, he was greeted with- was that a bottle of nail polish?
All Denki could see was the black cap; the color was still buried in the wrapping. He picked it up to examine what color Bakugou had chosen and was pleasantly surprised to see the very shade of yellow that he’d just run out of. How did he even know?
He asked Bakugou the question pressing at his mind, and the boy paused in slicing a bun in half.
“Haah? What do you mean?”
“I just ran out of this shade of yellow yesterday. How’d you know?”
Bakugou looked at him funny. “I didn’t know. I just chose it because it matches your hair.”
Denki looked at Bakugou incredulously, partially in shock and disbelief. Was this really happening, or was this just a hyper-realistic fever dream? “Are you trying to butter me up before delivering your apology?”
The other boy scowled, and got back to chopping up slices of tomato. “Maybe. You better fucking like it, express shipping was fucking expen- never mind, forget it.”
Denki sat there and watched as Bakugou retrieved a package of meat from the fridge, procuring a few pre-shaped discs. After putting the package away and waiting for the oiled pan to heat up, the discs went in.
He must’ve been beyond tired, since he didn’t even realize that Bakugou was making hamburgers until the familiar smell of ground beef patties slapped him across the face.
“You’re making me burgers, Bakubro?” Denki said excitedly. “You’re really pulling out all the stops here.”
Amused, he watched as a rollercoaster of emotions washed over Bakugou’s face. Irritation, for being the one in the wrong. Relief, for Denki bringing back his usual nickname. In true Bakugou fashion, not being able to express relief, he chose irritation.
Bakugou lifted the knife he’d been using to chop onions and pointed it in Denki’s direction. “Shut up Sparky, or I’m never doing this for you again.”
“I didn’t even know you’d considered cooking for me ever again, Bakubro!”
Seeing a repentant Bakugou was surreal. He would’ve laughed to himself, but a third pair of footsteps approaching the kitchen made him freeze. It was Aizawa-sensei, looking as disheveled as ever and tired of life.
“Bakugou, what are you doing?” he asked, but in that teacher way where they know exactly what you’re doing and they want to know why you’re doing something.
Without skipping a beat or looking away from the pan, Bakugou responded: “Sparky here forgot to eat dinner, so I’m feeding him.”
Aizawa-sensei looked like he had so many more questions to ask, like “could you not have done this earlier in the night” or “you’re making hamburgers now”, but any of the answers would probably shave years off his life.
“What are you doing up?” Denki asked, trying to divert the tired glare boring holes into Bakugou’s side. Aizawa-sensei looked at Denki and heaved a heavy sign.
“Well, a certain classmate of yours suggested that another classmate’s behavior should be put under review and considered for expulsion, so I’m dealing with that request.”
Even without the pointed glance at Bakugou, Denki knew that it was Bakugou who’d requested for Mineta’s expulsion.
He couldn’t say that he was disappointed. If anything, he would be just as excited as the rest of the girls of 1-A if the request went through.
Then, Aizawa-sensei turned on his heel and headed back to the teacher’s dorms. “You better clean up after yourself, Bakugou.”
“Obviously.”
As his teacher’s silhouette disappeared into the shadows once again, a plate slid in front of him, and Bakugou stood there, leaning one arm awkwardly against the counter. Denki could bask in this glory for a while, but the mature part of him told him to let Bakugou end his own suffering.
“Are you going to listen now?” Bakugou snapped, holding stubborn eye contact even though his ears were burning red.
Denki laughed. “I was going to listen even without the nail polish, food, and request to kick Mineta out, but go ahead.”