Curate, connect, and discover
my other wips have been fighting me so i decided to return to this gem and it did not disappoint. i love being able to laugh while i write, lol
its also looking like this is gonna be a small series? (to be updated who knows when, but i'll create a taglist for it so lmk if you want to be added/dropped from that!)
part 1 is here
Taglist: @antsday :)
Katsuki contemplated the torn off receipt in his hand, slowly wrinkling the paper between his fingers and re-straightening it in even turns.
The ink was slightly faded- courtesy of an accidental encounter with his washing machine that nearly resulted in the machine’s death at Katsuki’s hands- but he could still clearly make out the string of numbers and the name Deku. The smiley face, however, had not survived.
After twenty minutes of staring, setting it down, picking it back up again, and glancing consideringly towards his phone, Katsuki decided it was time to stop being such a fucking loser and call already.
“I’m Katsuki fucking Bakugou,” he muttered to himself. “King of the jungle.”
“What jungle?” Kirishima asked with a snort.
With a jolt, Katsuki spun on his heel, finding Kirishima sitting casually at his kitchen table, nursing a half-eaten bowl of cereal.
“When the fuck did you get here?” Katsuki exclaimed. “I thought I fucking confiscated your key!”
Kirishima waved his- Katsuki’s- spoon around in a yes-and-no manner, crunching around another mouthful of cereal.
Katsuki’s cereal, goddammit. And that shit was expensive.
“You really think me and Denks didn’t make copies?” Kirishima finally replied.
Katsuki crossed his arms, scowling.
“Answer the other question,” he commanded darkly.
Kirishima grinned without an ounce of shame.
“Long enough to know that someone’s got a crush,” he replied, drawing out the last word like a fucking twelve-year old.
Katsuki reached for the closest object- an apple, sitting nicely atop Katsuki’s fruit bowl- and lobbed it at Kirishima’s head.
“Mercy!” Kirishima cried, laughing and ducking away from the projectile.
“Fuck you!” Katsuki reached for a can of air freshener next, catching Kirishima in the shoulder with it. “Trespassers don’t fucking get mercy!”
“Bro,” Kirishima cried, crawling awkwardly under the table while Katsuki continued to throw things at him, bowl of cereal balanced in one hand while he dragged Katsuki’s chair legs around to create a half-hearted wall. “Can’t we just talk about our feelings like men?”
Katsuki practically growled in response, but the roll of paper towels in his grip lowered.
“I feel like I need to change my locks,” he spat.
“No!” Kirishima despaired. “But then how would I know my bro is having an emotional crisis?”
“I’m not!” Katsuki shot back, sticking out a foot to kick the chair in front of Kirishima, making sure that one of the legs rammed into his knee.
Kirishima made a wounded noise at the attack, shuffling further under the table. Then he sniffed dramatically.
“Bakubro, do you smell something burning?”
Katsuki turned suspiciously toward the oven, abandoning the paper towel roll on the countertop. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked, striding over to investigate. “You can’t leave a fucking hot oven unattended, dipshit.”
Katsuki pulled down the handle but found its contents cold and empty.
“Oh wait,” Kirishima said in his most annoying voice, “it’s just your pants. ‘Cause you’re a lying liar. No emotional crisis, my ass.”
Katsuki slowly closed the oven but remained crouched in front of it, forehead falling against the door with an audible thunk of resignation.
This was just his life now. Trespassers and stolen food and schoolyard taunts he hadn't heard in over a decade.
Fucking Kirishima.
“I don’t think your brain aged past thirteen,” Katsuki muttered scathingly.
Kirishima loudly slurped at his cereal, unbothered.
“So’re you gonna call this guy or not?”
Katsuki let his forehead begin to slide unpleasantly down the oven.
“How the fuck do you even know about him?” Katsuki complained dismally.
Katsuki could hear chairs being pushed away from the kitchen table and what was probably Kirishima’s empty bowl being tossed in the sink, but he didn’t bother to acknowledge the man until he had pried Katsuki’s head away from the oven door.
“Denki glanced at the security tape,” he explained. “And then showed it to me and Jirou.”
Katsuki took a deep breath through his nose as he mulled over the new information, then collapsed unhappily onto his back in the middle of his kitchen.
Kirishima dropped into a cross-legged seat beside him. “General consensus was that you had a flirty encounter,” he continued. “Oh, but Todoroki wasn’t convinced.”
Katsuki stared unblinkingly at his ceiling.
“Fuck my life.”
“So’re you gonna call him?” Kirishima asked again, excited.
“And say fucking what?” Katsuki bit out skeptically. “I’m cool, go out with me?”
Kirishima raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Well…he did give you his number, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, for the fucking bird.”
“Uh, what?”
Katsuki suddenly shot up, eyes wide. “The bird!”
Kirishima watched on in a mixture of confusion and concern as Katsuki quickly clambered to his feet and retrieved his phone and the scrap of paper he’d been obsessing over from the countertop.
“I’m so lost,” Kirishima whispered.
“Fucker’s a pet therapist,” Katsuki explained, somewhat manically, jabbing at his phone.
“He’s a what?” Kirishima spluttered.
“That’s my in,” Katsuki said, determined.
“Wait. What happened to ‘I’m cool, go out with me’?”
Katsuki clicked his tongue and angrily flicked his hand at Kirishima.
“Shut the fuck up, it’s ringing!”