unexpected love ||serobaku||

sero hanta is JACKED

Bakugou didn't find himself thinking about other people very often.

Why would he? He's focused on his own shit, his own progress to become number one, there's no room in his mind for superfluous nonsense involving other people. Sometimes his mom floated her way into his mind, the occasional negative comment she would needle at him while he was home making its way into his thoughts.

The phrase "not good enough" seemed to be a permanent resident in his brain, suspiciously using his mother's tone of voice, but Bakugou doesn't dwell on it.

Sometimes his stupid groupies occupied his thoughts. Not often, but sometimes. He'd have a passing thought about needing to spar with Shitty Hair, or about how he had to tutor Sparky and Raccoon Eyes. Small, inconsequential thoughts, not enough to derail his focus from his one and only goal. He couldn't even bother to remember their names, he told himself.

And there was that tall, tape-armed bastard. Bakugou found himself thinking about that fucker a lot lately. Tape Arms, or whatever. Sero, Bakugou's mind said, against his will.

This... distraction, if Bakugou was to name it, started, like most of his problems, with the Sports Festival. Bakugou wanted to die just thinking about it. Such a monumental waste of his time, compounded with the myriad of issues he's now having to deal with because of it. And top of the damn list, just below having "won" the damn thing, is that Sero bastard.

Bakugou made a point not to remember the specifics of the Festival for his own sanity, but his mind seemed to always circle back to the cavalry battle.

It was right after he had launched himself at stupid Deku and his team, in an attempt to get that ten million point headband. That Bird asshat had his stupid shadow demon thing blocked Bakugou, sending him hurling toward the ground. Before Bakugou even had a chance to react, he felt a tight band around his abdomen, pulling him in a linear direction downward.

He felt his back hit something solid, less so than the ground would have been, and realized that someone had caught him from his fall. He looked around, noticing that neither Pinky or Weird Hair had caught him, meaning that—

Bakugou looked to his right, seeing a wide, shit-eating grin, and one of that bastard's stupid tape elbows up in the air, retracting the rest of his tape. Ah, Bakugou thinks, his tape caught me, huh.

Wait.

Bakugou's brain, still mildly reeling from adrenaline, catches up to him. If one of his arms is free, then that would mean that he managed to catch Bakugou, and cradle him against his stupidly solid chest, with one arm.

One arm. One... arm.

Oh.

Bakugou felt his face warm, his jaw slightly slack, and Sero's—Tape Arms, Bakugou reminded himself— stupid grin grew wider at the sight.

"Gotcha, Blasty Boy." Bakugou tried to school his face into a scowl, but the intended effect was diminished by the bright red blush on his damn face. He could feel Sero's hand splayed across his back, the heat like a brand against his skin. Fuck this fuck this holy shit.

With a smug smirk still plastered onto his stupid fucking face, and his free arm now under Bakugou's knees hoisting him in a bridal carry— no, Bakugou's heart did not skip a beat, fuck you— Sero quickly manuvered Bakugou back onto the cavalry horse without so much as a grunt of exertion.

Bakugou felt himself shudder, before quickly attempting to regain his composure. He tightened his hands on Shitty Hair's head, yelling at him to get moving. He had a festival to win after all.

The feeling of Sero's hand, warm against his back, didn't leave him for the rest of the week.

***

So that's where it started, this annoying distraction taking up most of Bakugou's active thoughts. He could be doing literally anything, and he'd remember glimpses of that moment in the festival weeks prior.