BNHA, Don’t Name It If You Aren’t Keeping It

Title: Don’t Name It If You Aren’t Keeping It [Kirishima/Bakugou]
Rating/Warnings: PG
Summary: Kirishima doesn’t know what to call what’s happening between him and Bakugou; he just wishes Bakugou would call it something already.
AN: Written for shiritori, for Goldie’s birthday.

Don’t Name It If You Aren’t Keeping It

He didn’t care what Bakugou called it, whatever they’d been doing since the end of first semester. They were clearly past just friends and Kirishima doubted they were at boyfriends yet either, although last week Bakugou had let Kirishima kiss him for longer than a split-second.

He just wished Bakugou would call it something.

“You kissed him?” Kaminari asked at lunch, looking halfway between delighted to ask about pervy details and disgruntled they had to be about Bakugou. Pervy won out. “Kissed him where?”

“In the stairwell,” Kirishima sighed, picking at his rice. Kaminari rolled his eyes and Ashido burst into giggles before Kirishima caught on what he’d been really asking. “Dude!”

“Nobody ever has any good details,” Kaminari griped. “I’m living in a co-ed dorm, I should be rolling hot gossip, and you all are like the League of Vanilla!”

“Wow,” Ashido said, shaking her head. She turned back to Kirishima. “So are you like…dating?”

“I don’t know.” Kirishima said, frowning down at his food. “He still calls me names most of the time, and only looks happy when we’re punching each other. Maybe he’s just tolerating the kissing because he likes the fighting so much?”

“I think you’d know it if he didn’t want to be kissed,” Ashido said, chuckling. “He’s probably just as confused as you, there’s no way he’s dated someone before. Has he ever even had a real friend before?”

“Yeah, maybe he thinks kissing is a normal friend thing,” Kaminari put in. Kirishima opened his mouth to argue then closed it, frowning.

“You made it worse!” Ashido groaned, punching Kaminari in the shoulder. “Don’t listen to him. If anybody can win Bakugou’s heart, it’s definitely you. Don’t give up!”

“Thanks,” Kirishima said, offering Mina a smile. He spotted Bakugou heading towards their table and waved. “You’re a pal.”

“You know it, best friend!” Mina leaned over to rough up Kirishima’s hair, making him whine and laugh as he slapped her hand away.

Bakugou dropped his lunch tray on the table with a wham, definitely not laughing. He shrugged when Kirishima asked what was up; Kirishima dropped it when prodding Bakugou further only got him a ruffled glare.

Bakugou’s bad mood lasted several days, through class and hero training. Kirishima tried asking him about it, tried ignoring it, and even gave the kissing a shot which definitely did not go as well as the stairwell last week. Not even sparring seemed to lighten Bakugou up, until even Kirishima was fairly well sick of it. They were in Kirishima’s room to supposedly study together when Kirishima finally had had enough of Bakugou’s silent treatment. Sometimes studying was just an excuse to sit too close without the others teasing them, but this week Kirishima didn’t understand the math at all, something about triangles and bisecting them—trisecting them?—and instead of teaching him in between insults, Bakugou had been sitting on Kirishima’s floor for an hour, finishing his own homework in silence.

“I don’t even know how to start this,” Kirishima said, elbowing Bakugou gently. “C’mon.”

Bakugou pushed one of his papers over without looking up, the one that had the first homework problem written out. Kirishima read it, and then read it again, but it didn’t make any difference; it might as well have been written in English for all the sense it was making to him. Past his limit, Kirishima shoved the paper back.

“I’m telling you, I don’t get it. Look, are you gonna help me or what?” Kirishima demanded. Bakugou shrugged a shoulder, and Kirishima had to hold onto his temper with both hands to keep from throwing his pencil right in Bakugou’s face. “All right, that’s it! What’s your deal? You’ve been a jerk for days, even for you.”

“Nothing,” Bakugou grunted. “Whatever.”

“Seriously?” Kirishima threw his pencil down. “You’re gonna keep sulking like a little kid and you won’t even tell me why?”

“Go complain to your best friend about it,” Bakugou snapped. Kirishima opened his mouth to snap back, but paused, something about Bakugou’s tone needling him. Bakugou sounded almost…jealous?

“Are you talking about Mina?” Kirishima asked, honestly perplexed, but then he remembered this had started at lunch, when Bakugou had shown up in the middle of Ashido and Kirishima talking about him. Comprehension dawned. “Are you mad we were talking about you? It wasn’t anything bad.”

“I don’t fucking care what you idiots talk about,” Bakugou said. Now that he was looking, Kirishima could see the way Bakugou’s jaw tightened. He reached over to grab Bakugou’s chin, forcing him to look up, but he only caught a glimpse of Bakugou’s eyes before Bakugou yanked his head back. He was definitely hurt about something, covering it over by refusing to meet Kirishima’s eyes.

Kirishima tried to think what they’d been saying when Bakugou had turned up, but over the noise of the lunch room it couldn’t have been more than the last couple words of Ashido encouraging him. Then he realized, Bakugou hadn’t said them, he’d said your best friend. “It’s something about Mina?”

“She’s your best friend, isn’t she?” Bakugou used that same ground out emphasis, and Kirishima thought he maybe was starting to get it.

“Yeah, she is.” Kirishima watched Bakugou’s grip tighten on his pencil. When he reached over to touch fingers to Bakugou’s wrist, Bakugou flinched. “You know that’s different than us, right? Do you?”

“No, I don’t fucking know,” Bakugou declared, belligerent. He lifted his head to glare directly, and Kirishima remembered Kaminari asking whether Bakugou had ever had a friend before, a good one. Kirishima had thought Kaminari was just making fun of Bakugou’s social skills, but maybe it had been closer to the mark than he’d thought.

“Yeah, man, it’s different. Mina and I are close, but I don’t want to kiss her.” Kirishima paused, wondering how far he could push. “Have you…ever had a best friend before?”

“Guess not,” Bakugou said sarcastically.

“Oh shit,” Kirishima winced, as he realized the exact nature of the fuckup here. “I’m your best friend, huh?”

“Fuckin’…I don’t know.” Bakugou dragged a hand through his hair roughly, making it stand on end in aggravation. “You’re the only person who bothers trying to put up with me most of the time, so that’s it, isn’t it? Doesn’t have to go both ways, apparently.”

“It does, though!” Kirishima insisted, edging in closer until Bakguou grumbled under his breath. “It does, I swear, I do like you best but just…different. When most people call someone their best friend, they mean their best non-kissing friend.”

Bakugou’s lips pressed into a thin line. “What if it’s both? Then what the hell is that?”

“I…don’t know,” Kirishima murmured, voice thin because he couldn’t get any air into his chest past how tightly it was squeezing. “I don’t know what we are.”

“Yeah, that makes two of us,” Bakugou grumbled, but the next second he was turning his head enough to press his mouth to Kirishima’s.

The kiss was clumsy, the angle awkward, and brief, but still set Kirishima’s blood on fire because it was the first time Bakugou had kissed him instead of the other way around. When Bakugou tried to pull back, Kirishima grabbed Bakugou’s face between his palms and kissed him again, and again.

“Yr squishin’ m’face,” Bakugou complained against Kirishima’s lips, but he didn’t pull back. Kirishima muttered and apology and slid his hands back until his fingers were in Bakugou’s hair, tugging on it gently to fix the angle. One of Bakugou’s hands fisted in the front of Kirishima’s tank top, the other touching tentatively to Kirishima’s waist, and Kirishima felt like his whole heart was going to explode.

Bakugou had practically crawled into Kirishima’s lap by the time the kiss actually broke, and Kirishima wrapped arms around his back and squeezed him tight as he tried to pull himself together, heart still racing. Bakugou was still in Kirishima’s grip, forehead resting against Kirishima’s shoulder, breath uneven against Kirishima’s collarbone.

“Didn’t answer my question,” he said eventually, voice low and rough.

“Nope,” Kirishima agreed, but he was ok with that for now, he realized. Naming it wasn’t what made it a real thing.

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