A Flower's Affection (KiriBaku Flower Shop AU)

Katsuki Bakugo-Brewing Tension

This chapter comes with content warnings. BUT, you have to guess what they are.

It was not nothing.

Katsuki knew that as soon as Eijiro said it, but Ei somehow managed to convince him it was nothing. Ei didn't seem jumpy or relatively paranoid, though he did keep looking over his shoulder or out windows—not in the 'somebody's watching me way' but more in the looking for someone way. His smile persisted, his good smile that Katsuki got to see so much of, so Katsuki allowed himself to believe that maybe it was nothing.

But it wasn't nothing.

Katsuki knew it wasn't nothing.

He knew it the first time screaming woke him up in the middle of the night and he met Shoji in the hall, knowing at once that it was Ei. When he brushed the other boy off, promising he could take care of it as he let himself into the other room, finding his boyfriend sat up in bed with his arms around his knees. When Ei flinched from him initially but immediately sought him out a second later. When Ei fell asleep in his arms that night and shrugged about it in the morning like he genuinely had no idea and went about his day.

But Katsuki knew.

He knew it again when it happened the next two nights as well, prompting Katsuki to ask to spend the night just so that Eijiro might get a full night's rest.

So this time he was there when Eijiro sat up in bed with a heartbreaking scream. This time he saw the panic fresh in his partner's eyes, heard the stressed hyperventilating before Ei realized again that it had been a dream and calmed down. And this time when Katsuki reached out to him, a bit before he was ready, and Eijiro nearly jumped off the bed in pure terror, he got to watch Ei break down in frustrated, confused tears.

"I'm sorry, Kats, I'm so sorry," Eijiro started almost at once, diving into Katsuki's arms when the embrace was offered and barreling on before the blonde could tell him he didn't need to apologize. "I don't know what's gotten into me, I don't know why I'm being like this, nothing's even wrong, I don't understand. I don't fucking understand!"

"It's okay, baby," Katsuki tried to no avail. Eijiro used him like a teddy bear, locked around his middle, just silently begging Katsuki not to let go. So Kat held him, stroking fingers slowly through his hair, whispering assurance where it was so desperately needed.

Because Eijiro really didn't understand. He genuinely thought that nothing was just... nothing. While he was awake, he was fine. He could smile and joke and go about his day like nothing was bothering him.

Maybe subconsciously, Ei knew it wasn't nothing. Maybe subconsciously he had perceived some threat that he was trying to warm himself about.

He'd seen something.

And Katsuki knew it wasn't nothing.

It wasn't nothing when Eijiro started avoiding sleep again, like he hadn't been caught doing in weeks.

It wasn't nothing when his smile became forced, bags forming under his eyes. When he became more distracted, scanning large crowds like he was waiting to see whatever it had been again.

On Friday, he tried to give Katsuki the slip.

Katsuki dropped by Chivalrous Arrangements after seven, catching Uraraka on the closing shift. She sent him a look that was full of concern, pointing upstairs.

Of course the class was worried; rumors had spread like wildfire, no matter how Eijiro tried to pretend he was fine, and it had set them all on edge. Denki started sparking around large crowds, Todoroki developed a tendency of accidentally icing over doorknobs, Jiro jumped at quiet noises, and even Deku started treating every conversation like it was about to turn into a fight.