M u t e L o v e // KiriBaku

• Changes, No Matter How Disconcerting •

      The walk back is a blur.

With each foot in front of the other comes the mildly successful attempt at shutting out all second-guessing his mind has grown used to doing.

He passes the gates of the dormitories asking himself if that had been the right thing to do.

He opens the main doors to the building convincing himself that it had been the right thing to do.

He steps out of the elevator beaten beyond mental exhaustion, but with a continued great fight to give. He heads straight towards Kirishima's door and taps his knuckles against its surface before letting himself in, and upon catching that first glimpse of an extremely tuned-out boy with his hand on his chin and his brows furrowed low above his eyes, radiating focus and poise towards the laptop he stared at, he tells himself with certainty; it is the right thing to have done.

Whatever took up his short attention span is drowned out when his door opens. A smile overpowers his face and whatever force grabs him by the shoulders and turns him to face that door is beyond what he can fight again. When those wandering eyes come into view a soft gasp is given, as if that head of spiky blond hair has not been seen by him for ages.

"Katsuki!" He cheers. His voice pulls apart every knot of stress hunching up his body into that of a meaner appearance. His body droops under his gaze and could even sway to the image of that homey smile.

"Who the hell am I for questioning for even a second if this is the right thing to do?"

Bakugo's knees drop into an irreproachable stance, his hands held out almost menacingly. He's lunging forward at the speed of light and locking on to every single open spot that Kirishima's clueless self has given up for him to latch on to and take advantage of. The boy's world is flipped upside down before it starts to spin, and all he can hear is laughter. Raw, genuine laughter.

"Ooohhh what are we doing!?" He cries out through hoots. He hugs him close as he's handled around like a weightless doll, being tickled and flipped over all for Bakugo's amusement. He's completely lost on everything, but seeing him have fun makes him want no other explanation or reason.

There's no sound or word that he can offer that would convince Bakugo to end this before his own time. The attack is relatively short-lived, as is his ability to keep up with his own breathing.

He ends up hugging his body as a koala does to a tall tree– but the grip that Bakugo has on him, in comparison, is out of this worldly. With his ear to his chest and his arms tight around him, he pants out the sudden burst of eagerness he had crashed into. Biting his lip, squishing his lips together, hiding away against his chest– nothing aids him in the attempts to break down his smile.

A tender hand runs down his hair. There's that sweet laughter again, beyond far from girly or smooth but everything that Bakugo has grown to love, and his voice comes through. "I have never seen you so excited like that in all the time I've known you," he claims through chuckles. "Did you win the lottery? Or did you just miss me that much?"

He pulls away to stare up at him, fearless in knowing exactly what he wants now.

"Oh no... Oh no, I know that look." Kirishima begins. "That's victory. That's– You won something," he goes on. "All I gotta ask is, is anyone hurt–?"

"Shut your mouth, dumbass," he cuts in, with a tone that's beyond just sweet. "I'm just happy."
"About...?"
"About me." He confidently responds. "And about you."
"About me too?" He croons.
"About us." He states.

Kirishima's stomach flips with how much of his chest he had put into those words. Bakugo is left to watch in wonder as his face introduces a new shade of red; strong, obvious, and absolutely all over his face's surface, until it lessens as it travels to his ears.

"Holy shit, wait." There's a beat that settles. "I didn't know you could blush."

"I–" There's nothing he can think of that could rescue him from this. "I'm not blushing."
"Like hell you're not!"

His position is manipulated yet again, and the hollers and laughter ensues. Ending up on his back brings more comfort to Bakugo's arms and to Kirishima's pride.

"I can feel how hot your face is against my neck, loser, don't try to hide away against my shoulders now!" He exclaims, and groaning tickles his need to laugh again.

"This is bullying!" He whines. "When do I get to make fun of you like that! You blushed a crap ton when I–!"
"I don't blush."

A sound gets shoved out of his chest, in the purest form of disbelief. Rants about times when he had, without doubt, done so are thrown into the wind with his pride on the line. Moments that are secretly material for Bakugo's utopian parts of his brain are pulled out and all he can do is smile in all of his smug glory.

"Are you even listening to me!?"

He bites his lip and looks up at him over his shoulder. If this were any other guy, the need to punch that smugness straight out of his face. His head drops forward and his chest empties itself of a breathy laugh, one that shoots straight toward Kirishima's gut.

"You done?" He asks, but the question is never fully registered by a brain as fried as his. A hum is all he gains in return.

"Let's go cook something," he then proposes as he bounces the boy on his back. "I'm fuckin' starving."

The dormitory's halls are revived again as two children in the bodies of teenagers breach the kitchen exactly how they had left the room; with one on the back of the other, smiling and hollering like drunk dogs while the world sleeps around them.

Pots and pans become their instruments and laughter their melody. They settle on making a singular dish for the other with the ingredients their kitchen currently holds while little white sabotaging comes into play; a splash of hot sauce here while the other isn't looking and a douse of tomato sauce there when the other is distracted. Messy counters and dirty dishes fail to bother Bakugo today, and Kirishima's lack of skill in cooking or cutting things flies right over his head– though, what gets Kirishima the most staggered is when Bakugo's phone comes into the picture.

"Wait, is this a selfie?!"
"Get your ass over here, and stop squirming or it'll come out blurry!"

He's left to choose between three out of the seven pictures taken, with the factor of "which picture is the least blurry?" He was a clueless man in the face of the fact Kirishima could become so ecstatic once a camera was pulled out– but a part of him wondered if the energy's source is the sole reason that the camera belonged to him.

"Wow, they're all blurry..." Kirishima's humbled self sheepishly comments.

"And who's the cause of that?" He asks with sass. Kirishima stutters, flabbergasted at the accusation.
"I wasn't the one holding the phone!" He defends, eyes as wide as his smile. "You just suck at taking pictures!"
"You're telling me that I suck!?--"

It had almost slipped his mind, the pictures taking up storage in his phone.

With so much to focus on as Kirishima gifts him another day of bliss, the need to do much else other than find more reasons to love this person was eradicated from his mind.Though, when the sun hit the backs of mountains and rooftops glowed a nice moonlit blue, seven perfectly blurred pictures are sent to a mother and a father.

While his phone chimed away with text messages, it felt the coldness a lone corner can provide as the night is wasted away with someone who truly knows the human behind those explosions, and gold medals.

//
Stay with me
Won't you?
Your existence is home
//

Reminder: The book was not deleted, nor is it missing. This book is edited from its original copy (due to a rather confusing way of jumping towards plot peaks, spelling mistakes, and an overall amount of blurry or unsatisfactory [in the writer's eyes] scenes), therefore new scenes and a cleaner plot has been added. Updates are slow, but surely coming. Thank you!