Archive of Our Own

Sero had said that there was nothing lame about sitting on the balcony and watching your friend smoke after getting kicked out of a party, but Denki didn’t buy that for a second.

“We didn’t get kicked out, dude,” Sero said. His face was illuminated by the cold purple of the string lights hanging off the balcony railing, and the single isolated orange glow of his blunt. The warm light made his wide grin glow like a jack o’ lantern. “Kendou just wanted me to go outside because the smoke was making Monoma’s asthma act up.”

“Well, that’s his fault for having asthma.” Denki put the cold glass rim of his bottle to his lips. Kendou had said it was a homemade mix of watermelon soda and Skittles vodka, but in his opinion, it just looked like bubblegum Ramune. The carbonation frothed against the roof of his mouth, tickling his sinuses and making him sneeze. There was some random remix of a trap song buzzing through the speakers, and the bass made the glass doors vibrate behind their backs, rattling their eyeballs in their skulls. Sero eyed him through a cloud of smoke, and Denki shot him a sloppy smile in return.

“You doing okay, dude?”

“Course I am.” Denki ran a hand through his hair, pulling it back and examining the black nail polish. Jirou had insisted that it would be a good look for him, especially if he wore his hero costume choker to match, but he was fairly sure he was looking more like an awkward middle school goth than the punk pretty boy look he was going for. At least Tokoyami would be impressed by his outfit, if nothing else.

“I’m just saying,” Sero said, taking another drag. “It’s pretty early in the night for you to be this liquid.”

Denki spluttered and put his bottle down indignantly. “No it’s not! I’m allowed to drink at a party, it’s not against the law.”

“I mean, technically it is-”

“I turn twenty in like, a year and a half. Shut up.”

Sero didn’t look any more convinced. He extinguished his blunt against the concrete with a sigh, then leaned back against the glass door. His white T-shirt hung limply off his wiry frame, shifting with each inhale.

“You know you can tell me if something’s up, right? Your very open-minded and currently super high best friend is here to listen to your angst.”

Denki opened his mouth to respond, his fingernails tapping nervously against the bottle. He grimaced, closing his eyes to avoid seeing Sero’s expression.

“I invited Shinsou to the party.”

“Ooh!” Sero cried, sitting up eagerly. “You didn’t tell me you actually decided to do it! And he said yes?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“So are you freaking out right now?”

“Ye-e-es!” Denki whined, burying his face in his knees. “Bro, he’s so cool. And I invited him to a party with people who are way cooler than me. He’s going to meet someone else, and they’re going to ask him out, and he’ll say yes, and then I’m going to have to poison myself like Juliet because I couldn’t live with the shame.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, man. You’re plenty cool enough for Shinsou.”

“Really?” Denki said incredulously. “Because I’m currently sitting out here watching you smoke after spending the whole day marathoning alien documentaries.”

“Hey, I offered to roll you one.”

“Dude, I’ve already been drinking. I don’t wanna cross the streams, it makes me trip super bad.”

“Pot is far more effective at calming the nerves than alcohol. Plus it doesn’t chew holes in your liver.”

“I don’t remember asking for a WebMD article.”

Sero wrinkled his nose. “Oh, are you a mean drunk now? That’s a new one.”

“I-” Denki waved his hand in apology. “I’m nervous, okay? I need some liquid courage.”

“Except drinking just makes you loud and horny. So I’m confused about how that’s better than being sober.” Sero’s voice was serious, but a poorly-concealed grin was twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Denki let out a mock gasp. “I don’t get horny when I’m drunk! Frankly, I’m offended by that accusation.”

“You made Mina lick Pixy Stix dust off of your nipples last time you were at a party.”

“I didn’t make her, it was her idea! And there was enthusiastic consent by both parties!”

“That’s because the only person who gets hornier than you at a party is Mina.”

Kaminari pouted. Sero stared across the rooftops visible from the apartment balcony, seemingly deep in thought.

“Why don’t you try asking her out?” he said. “She’s bi too, isn’t she? I bet she’d say yes.”

“I mean, yeah, but she’s way more into girls than guys. And she’s just my friend, you know? Like, an awesome best friend, but it’d feel too weird to make out with her and stuff. Plus, well…”

“You really like Shinsou?”

“Yes I really like Shinsou!” Denki buried his face in his hands. “Stop making me say it out loud, it’s making me more nervous!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Sero waved his hands, chuckling. “I’m not used to seeing you freak out like this. It’s kinda cute, in a middle-school-drama kinda way.”

Denki glared at him. “This is what I get for telling you about Shinsou. Look, I don’t tell you how to ask dudes out, so don’t go giving me any sass.”

“I mean, it would be weird for you to tell me how to ask anyone out, given that I have no interest in dating anyone. That’s kinda how my whole ‘aromantic’ thing works.”

“Okay, see, that’s the sass I’m talking about right there.” Denki pointed accusingly. “Stop being right about stuff.”

Sero shrugged and resumed his quiet contemplation of the rooftops. Denki tried to sit still, but the nervous energy coursing through him was becoming too much to ignore. He got to his feet with a growl and flung the balcony door open, letting the bass-boosted music wash over them at full volume.

“I’m gonna go in there and see if he’s here yet. If I see Kendou I’ll tell her to let you back in.”

“Take your time. It’s kinda nice sitting out here in the quiet.”

Denki shook his head, putting one foot over the threshold.

“Bring out that hummus and veggie tray when you have a sec!”

He huffed in annoyance. “Excuse me? You got two legs, dude. Get it yourself.”

“Not to be dramatic, but I’m pretty sure if I go in there I’m gonna start tasting sound.” Sero grinned sheepishly.

Denki reflexively grinned back. “You shouldn’t get so high for such a scrawny guy.” As an afterthought, he snatched his bottle off the ground and downed the rest of drink in three gulps. Sero smirked.

“You’re one to talk. Good luck trying to stay upright.”

“If the night goes the way I want it to, then standing up is gonna be the least of my priorities.”

“I don’t...oh, okay, you’re being gross, I get it.” Sero nodded sagely. “Tell you what. If Shinsou turns you down, then we’ll find a McDonalds somewhere and I’ll pretend to propose to you so we can get free food. Sound good?”

“Thanks for the offer, but he’s not gonna turn me down.”

“Ooh, I like the confidence! Maybe the alcohol does help after all.”

Denki stepped fully into the apartment and closed the door behind him. His grin melted off his face like candle wax, replaced with the worried grimace he’d worn for the majority of the past two days. He had figured the hardest part of this whole thing would be asking Shinsou to the party in the first place. To be honest, he hadn’t been wrong about that; a knot had sat in his stomach for four days before he finally managed to make his way over to Shinsou during training and asked him if he was going to Kendou’s party. In retrospect, he probably should have been concerned about striking up conversation with Shinsou while he was in the middle of using his Quirk. From what Midoriya and Ojiro had said, getting brainwashed was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. But unlike Denki, neither of them knew what it felt like to have their brains liquefied multiple times a week. If Denki could handle that, a little brainwashing would be no sweat. So he loped over to the side of the ring, jumped the ropes, and sidled over to Shinsou. Even with his best, most endearing smirk, and his effort to shout over the dull roar of Bakugou’s screams from the other side of the gym, Shinsou hadn’t even bothered to look his way when he responded, “don’t you have some dummies to electrocute right now?”

Denki had decided not to dignify that with a response, and was already on his way back to his own training ring when Shinsou continued, “were you hoping for a specific answer?”

“Uh…” Denki hesitated, one leg already over the ropes separating his ring from Shinsou’s. He turned away, as though he were expecting Denki to remain silent. But Denki plowed through the rest of his sentence regardless. “I mean, it would be fun if you came. It’d give you a chance to get to know our classmates.”

“Do I want to get to know them?”

“Isn’t that a ‘you’ question?” Shinsou didn’t reply, and Denki scowled in frustration. “Jirou is super cool, and so is Mina. Not everyone in our class sucks. Besides, aren’t you already friends with Midoriya?”

Finally, Shinsou turned to meet his eye. The scowl was wiped clean off Denki’s face as those purple eyes pinned him to the spot, swirling like lavender vortexes with the effects of his quirk. Denki’s thoughts turned to television static in his head. If this wasn’t Shinsou’s brainwashing, then he was even more fucked over this crush than he thought.

“Do you want me to come?”

Okay, well that was an easy question.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Fine.”

“Really?” Denki had tried to keep the excitement out of his voice, but knew he was failing miserably judging by the wide grin hurting his cheeks. “That’s awesome! Come find me when you get there, all right?”

Shinsou supplied him with a curt nod, and Denki had returned to his room in high spirits. However, that quickly gave way to abject terror as he realized the second step in his plan was far more daunting than the first. While it was easy enough to mistake Denki’s party invitation as a simple friendly gesture, there was no way “do you want to go out with me?” could be interpreted the same way. That wasn’t to say that Denki wanted Shinsou to see him as just a friend; but the finality of admitting his feelings for someone had always been a terrifying prospect. Since he was in middle school, Denki had always been the one who fell hard and fast for anyone who bothered to be nice to him; and when they turned him down, he would just go and have a cry about it before moving onto the next kind person in his life.

But Shinsou was a very different story. For one thing, Denki’s crush on him had taken months to rear its ugly head. He hadn’t even been conscious of it until a few days after Shinsou had joined their class, long after Denki had first seen him in the sports festival. For another, Shinsou was distinctly not nice to him. That wasn’t to say that Denki was singled out; Shinsou just didn’t seem to want to be nice to anyone, with the occasional exception of Midoriya. But Denki had never gotten a crush on someone who wasn’t nice to him. And for all intents and purposes, that should have been a distinctly unlovable quality. So what was it about Shinsou that made Denki’s heart fall into his butt whenever they were in the same room together? It wasn’t like Shinsou was that attractive. Of course, he did have those crazy cosmic eyes, and that perpetual bedhead which Denki found chokingly endearing. He also had a Little Twin Stars notebook in his schoolbag, and while Denki was pretty certain that Shinsou hadn’t purchased it for himself, the fact that he carried it with him, possibly a gift from a younger sibling, might as well have made sparkles bloom around Denki’s face whenever he thought about it. And of course, none of this was even counting his perpetual “I’m too cool to care but I’m secretly really edgy” expression, or his surprisingly defined shoulders, or the fact that, despite his seeming best efforts, Shinsou was still very popular at UA. Far more popular than a certain idiot who fried his brains on national television. And who was about to go up to said popular student and tell him that he had feelings for him.

Denki sighed as the noise of the crowd swallowed him up. He needed at least six more drinks before he was ready to deal with this.

He angled his body through the ebb and flow of the crowd, waving at students he knew. Although Kendou still lived in an on-campus dorm like the rest of her classmates, she spent most of her weekends at her brother’s apartment while he was traveling for his administrative job at a hero agency. Small weekend gatherings of a few of Kendou’s friends from 3B and 3A had quickly led to encompass the entire grade, and with that came the need for bigger and more lavish weekend celebrations. They became something of a group retreat for the students; a welcome break from classes and internships which had only become more taxing as they had gotten older. Denki had been invited down the chain of command from Momo, who never went anywhere on the weekend without her girlfriend, to Jirou, who knew that Denki would show up whether he was invited or not. Luckily, seeing as Momo was best friends with Kendou, and Jirou possessed the coveted skill of unlicensed DJ, it had been a breeze for Denki to slip his way into every one of Kendou’s weekend parties for the past two years.

Denki scanned the crowd for his best friend (or rather, his most bestest friend, because all of his friends was his best friend), and his eyes finally landed on a purple bob on the other side of the kitchen counter. Jirou leaned against the counter, twirling a green glowstick between her fingers like a drumstick and laughing at something Momo was whispering in her ear. Next to her sat Denki’s final goal: the blessed, elusive drinks cooler.

“Jirou! What is up, my good B-word?” Denki shouted over the music. Jirou glanced up and grinned at him, but her smile melted into an exasperated smirk as he reached around her and popped the cooler open. He had been hoping for something stronger than hard lemonade, but the vodka bottles had long been lost to the fists of the undulating crowd. He pulled two cans from the cooler and shook the condensation off, opening both at once.

“B-word?” Jirou asked.

“Yeah, you know. Like the actual B-word, but not rude.”

“Oh, you’re not saying bitch anymore!” Jirou raised an eyebrow. “You worried I'm gonna punch you again?”

“No ma'am, I've just been drinking my respecting women juice recently.” Denki punctuated his statement by knocking back half of one of the cans, winking at her over the lip.

“That’s not the only thing you've been drinking. I haven’t seen you this drunk in like, a whole month. Your guts must feel like a lava lamp right now.”

“Actually, I feel absolutely stellar. I could fight the sun right now.”

Jirou narrowed her eyes and lunged forward, poking him in the stomach. Denki staggered back, almost slopping lemonade down his chest. “Oh god, no stomach poking, I’ll puke,” he gagged.

“Wow, that’s really something. Hey, you know what I hear is super delicious and gets you real fucked up? Water.”

“No!” Denki tossed the now-empty can of lemonade towards the trash can, fist-pumping when it made it in one try despite his slightly blurred vision. He took a gulp of the second can before continuing. “I can’t be sober when Shinsou gets here. I’ll be too nervous to talk to him and then all of this will be for nothing.”

“Wait, you got this plastered on purpose?”

“Firstly, I am not plastered. I am just slightly fuzzy. Secondly...yes, this is on purpose.”

Jirou squeezed Momo’s hand before planting an iron grip on Denki’s arm, swinging him around to the other side of the kitchen.

“Babe, you know I love you to bits, but this is the worst plan you’ve ever come up with. And I’m also counting that time you got Sero to tape you to the ceiling fan.”

“Wha-?” Denki gaped at her. “I...come on, dude, it’s not that bad!”

“Shinsou is a very sober, serious boy,” Jirou said deliberately. “If you go up to him acting like your usual drunk self, he will leave this party.”

“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit. I’m sure he knows how to have fun.”

“Oh? Are you expecting him to lick Pixy Stix off your nipples too?”

“Would you people stop bringing that up?” Denki threw his hands into the air, sloshing lemonade down his hand. “Like, how else should I approach this? You know I’m a dumpster fire when it comes to flirting with people. How do you think I should get him to like me?”

Jirou blinked at him in bewilderment. “Hi, have we met? My name’s Jirou. I don’t know how to talk to boys because I’m a huge lesbian.”

Denki rolled his eyes and side-stepped her, attempting to make his way back into the crowd. “Okay, then I’ll find Mina and ask her-”

“Don’t!” Jirou grabbed his arm, leaning over to mutter into his ear. “She’s been trying to bag Shiozaki all night. If you interrupt her, she’ll literally kill you.”

“Shiozaki?” Denki spluttered. “No fair, I used to like her. This is betrayal!”

Jirou shrugged. “Guess you’re not the only one who’s seduced by those creepy vines.”

“Man, you guys all suck. Where’s Kirishima?”

“He stayed home, remember? He and Bakugou had a date night in.”

“Holy shit!” Denki shouted, digging the freezing side of the lemonade can into his temple. “How did I manage to only make friends with queer people, and yet none of you want to help me get a boyfriend? I swear to God, when Shinsou and I get married, none of you are invited to the wedding. You’re literally no help-”

“What wedding?”

Kaminari spun around, more lemonade dripping down his sticky hand. He and Jirou looked up simultaneously to see the ultraviolet will-o-the-wisp that was Shinsou Hitoshi standing before them.

“You asked me to find you when I got to the party,” Shinsou said, his dark eyes fixed on Denki. “Found you.”

Shinsou’s lilac shirt was far too big for him, gaping away from his chest and hanging past the back pockets of his black jeans. The words “Mind Fuck” were printed across the fabric in iridescent block letters, radiating beneath the black light. Denki was getting light-headed for distinctly not-PG reasons. He shifted his stance, holding the lemonade can over his jeans zipper in what he prayed was a casual manner.

“Whoa, dude! Your shirt is sick!” Jirou leaned forward to get a better look at the glowing text. “Where did you get it?”

“One of my classmates gave it to me after the Sports Festival as a joke.”

“Oh.” Jirou’s smile faltered, and she looked confused. “But you still wear it?”

Shinsou shrugged. “I don’t say no to free clothes.”

Compliment him, dumbass. Now’s your chance.

“It looks really good on you!” Denki said, flashing a wide grin. Shinsou blinked at him.

“It’s too big,” he said simply.

“Uh, I mean,” Denki stuttered, backtracking. “The color looks really good on you. Like, it matches your hair, so you’ve got a whole monochromatic thing going. Plus the baggy shirt is like, very street fashion-”

“He’s trying to say that he thinks you look sexy,” Jirou shouted over the music. Denki’s eyes widened, and he elbowed Jirou. She coughed and glared at him, rubbing her chest. “Could you maybe not elbow me in the tit, please?”

Shinsou’s eyes flicked between Jirou and Denki. “Thanks,” he said slowly, as though unsure how to respond. One of his bright white shoes took a step backwards into the crowd of students.

“Do you know this song?” Denki spluttered. He didn’t care about the answer, and he knew Shinsou knew he didn’t care. But he was desperate to keep the boy pinned by him for as long as possible.

“Uh, no. Do you?”

“No. I’d sing along, but I have no idea what this song used to be. Also I suck at singing so like, there’s that too.”

Again, Shinsou nodded with uncertainty. Another step backward.

“You look like you’re made of neon,” Denki said. “The way the blacklights reflect off your clothes. It’s super cool.”

“Are you high?” Shinsou asked.

“No, I’m Denki.”

He grinned sloppily, but Shinsou didn’t return his smile. His heart sank. If he wasn’t going to warm up to Denki’s stupid jokes, then the cause was hopeless. Beside him, Jirou slapped a hand over her eyes.

“That was meant to be a joke,” Denki said. “Sorry, guess I should have mentioned that I’m not good at making jokes.”

“You didn’t need to mention it. I figured that out on my own.”

If this dimension was actually just one giant Sims game played by aliens like Sero always said, then those giant aliens probably heard a sad sound effect as Denki’s heart split in two.

Shinsou seemed confused by his silence. He took three steps closer. “That was also supposed to be a joke.”

Oh my god. One half of a life restored. The time for playing it safe was over.

“Dance with me,” Denki said.

“What?”

Denki bit his lip nervously. His face was burning white-hot, and he could only hope that the dim lights of the kitchen adequately obscured it. “Do you...I...come dance with me? Please?”

Shinsou’s nose crinkled. “No, I’m good. I don’t like people looking at me.”

Denki frowned as he watched an unhappy shadow fall across Shinsou’s face. He reached out and tugged on the cuff of his denim jacket. “Hey. You look great. Let them stare. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

Shinsou glanced up at him, a flash of something cautionary flitting across his eyes. But Denki didn’t remove his hand from his sleeve.

“Trust me, Shinsou, Denki’s going to draw all the attention off of you,” Jirou said encouragingly. Shinsou eyed Denki appraisingly.

“Promise not to fall over,” he said.

“You mean promise not to fall head over heels for you?” Denki chugged the last of the lemonade and tossed the can, turning around before he could see it smack into the opposite wall. “I make no such promises!”

“Okay, I’m gonna leave before you embarrass yourself more,” Jirou said, already making her way back towards Momo. “I take no responsibility for Denki from this point onward, Shinsou!” she shouted over her shoulder.

Denki forced a laugh and turned a glittering grin to Shinsou. “She’s just joking. I’m not actually that drunk.”

Shinsou’s eyes flicked to the hand which still had a vice grip on his sleeve. “So, dancing?” he said uneasily.

“Right!” Denki shook his head, trying to clear some of the sparkling yellow tipsy-fog from his brain. He threw an arm around Shinsou’s shoulders and dragged him bodily through the crowd of students to the center of the room. Although this wasn’t an actual party in the sense that a DJ wasn’t present, Jirou had outdone herself with the speaker system, which she herself had brought from her room. The floor rumbled beneath his feet, and Denki sincerely hoped that the neighbors in the floor below had some kind of silencing quirk. He would feel enormously guilty if Kendou received a noise complaint in return for trying to do something nice for her classmates.

Denki swung around until his was facing Shinsou, an arm still looped around his neck. “Do you know how to dance?” he asked.

The bass prevented him from whispering the question into Shinsou’s ear like he would have preferred, but there was something exciting about knowing that no one was paying any attention to them. Everyone around them was too caught up with their own lives to see Denki loop his other arm around Shinsou, pulling him closer.

“No,” Shinsou said, staring at the ground. Denki ducked his head to get a better look at his face. A dark crease had appeared between Shinsou’s brows, and that troubled expression drove a spike of worry through Denki’s stomach.

“Hey, that’s no problem!” he said encouragingly. “No one dances for real at these kinds of things, you know? You just kinda bounce around and look pleased with yourself.”

Shinsou snorted. “Bouncing isn’t really my style.”

“Well, it’s different when you’re not dancing alone.” Denki replied. He edged a hair closer to Shinsou, letting the rotating colorful lights obscure his ulterior motive.
It didn’t seem to do him a lick of good. Shinsou glanced down at thin sliver of empty air between their bodies, growing smaller all the while. He glanced up at Denki, and rather than frown or shove him away like Denki expected, Shinsou arched his eyebrow.

“Different how?”

Denki blinked at him, his arms going slack around Shinsou’s neck. All of his expectations of sloppily flirting at the brick wall that was Shinsou were completely flying out the window. He would never, in a million years, have expected that Shinsou would flirt back. But it made sense, in a logical way. Whether due to quirk or personality, Shinsou could only go so long before he took over the conversation. Talking to him was like playing a game of cat and mouse, and Denki had long learned that the only way to get him to relinquish control was to stop talking. His nerves flickered excitedly.

“Are you asking me because you’re just curious, or because you want me to show you?” he asked.

Shinsou reached behind his neck and unlaced Denki’s hands. But before Denki’s body could flood with disappointment, Shinsou affixed Denki’s hands to his hips. His fingertips brushed beneath the hem of Shinsou’s cropped denim jacket. The cotton of his shirt was far softer than Denki expected.

“Whichever one you have the balls for,” Shinsou said.

What follows is a comprehensive list of Denki’s thoughts. Much to his misfortune, his brain decided the best way to handle things would be to think all of this simultaneously:

Nothing. A row of television test bars accompanied by the sound of static.

From the logical part of his brain: you just got hard so fast that you’re lightheaded. Chill, bitch.

From the impulsive, early-human reptilian part of his brain: kiss him kiss him KISS HIM, YOU WILL HAVE AN ACTUAL ANEURYSM IF YOU DON’T KISS HIM RIGHT NOW.

But Denki didn’t kiss him. Instead, he clamped down on Shinsou’s hips and pulled until they were flush against each other, pelvis to chest. Denki could feel their heartbeats communicating, the bass rumbling from one body into the next, and he hoped desperately that, whether through brainwaves or breath patterns or blips of electrical currents, Shinsou could subconsciously understand how much he wanted him.

“I think you want me to show you,” Denki said. “Am I right?”

He rolled his hips into Shinsou’s, and the tingling warmth of the alcohol spreading through his body sent his skin into overdrive, feeling and touching and reacting at approximately 300% the average human capacity. Denki distantly wondered if it was possible to be so flustered that you passed out.

Shinsou’s lips twitched, and he threw his arms over Denki’s shoulders casually.

“You might be,” Shinsou replied. He had the audacity to shrug, as though none of this were a big deal. It was especially rude of him, seeing as Denki’s brain was experiencing traveling at lightspeed, the heat death of the galaxy, and doing the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs simultaneously. His sheer, undiluted anamouration of Shinsou had turned him into a living Universe Brain meme. What a way to go, Denki thought as the tempo of the music slid into a slower rhythm, directing the speed of their bodies. This boy makes me so fucking stupid I might die from it.

It was so warm in the cramped apartment. The students milled closer, gravitating together like magnets as they pulled closer to the speakers at the front of the room. Shinsou momentarily removed his arms from around Denki’s neck to pull off his denim jacket and tie it around his waist. He replaced his arms where they were, and Denki decided that he preferred it this way. Feeling Shinsou’s bare skin against his neck, still warm from its confinement in the jacket, was somehow more intimate still. Dewdrops of sweat were rolling down his back, and he was still rolling against Shinsou, trying to follow the ebb and flow of the music rather than the hammering of his own frenetic heart. Shinsou followed the path of Denki’s shoulder, down the length of his arm, down to the swell of his own hip.

And there were fingers on his hand; cold, uncertain fingers wrapping around his palm. Denki looked down and saw his and Shinsou’s intertwined hands glowing violet and indigo beneath the blacklights. Denki’s rings were cuffs of electric green around his fingers, and crosshatching scars marched their way up the inside of Shinsou’s arm in shades of white and flamingo pink. Denki had never noticed them before.

“Worried you might lose me in this crowd?” Denki asked. He gave Shinsou’s hand a cautious squeeze.

Shinsou reached forward with his free hand and snagged a lock of hair from behind Denki’s ear. He pulled it forward, allowing Denki to admire the lemon-yellow lock glowing between his fingers.

“Hardly. You look like a fire hydrant in this light.”

Shinsou twirled the hair around his fingertips appraisingly. He leaned forward to examine it closer, and Denki’s breath caught in his throat. It would be so easy to accidentally burp a pink lemonade burp into his face, to have some random student slam into them and break the spell which Shinsou seemed to have him under. His breath smelled of blueberries and coffee grounds, and from this distance Denki could see every microscopic line and freckle on Shinsou’s skin. Was this what his brainwashing felt like? If so, Denki couldn’t imagine why Midoriya and Ojiro had an issue with it. Denki’s heart felt like it was sitting on a pink cloud, and his brain was filled with nothing but the electrifying hum of kiss me, kiss me, you’re so close, just close the distance and kiss me. Every nerve tingled with a neon, vaporwave sensation of hypersensitivity, as though every part of him which Shinsou touched was filled with livewires. Denki tilted his head forward invitingly, and his stomach sloshed with pink froth.

Oh, no. That was definitely not the cute kind of sloshing.

Denki disentangled himself from Shinsou, whirled around, and puked a waterfall of bubblegum across the floorboards. Fireflies of light danced at the corners of his clenched eyes, and distantly he heard the sounds of people’s feet thundering across the ground, a mass exodus from the center of the room as the contents of his stomach were forcibly evicted absolutely fucking everywhere.

Deep in the wrinkles of his brain that were still sober, Denki was already devising a way to perform damage control. He didn’t have a whole lot of cards left to play in this situation, given that he was doubled over a pool of his own vomit, but there was one strategy that had never failed to lighten the mood.

He looked back over his shoulder at Shinsou. He was hovering Denki, one arm suspended in the air as though he wanted to comfort him, but was too disgusted to do so. Denki grinned at him, hoping his teeth weren’t coated in pink drink, and said, “This is your fault for making me feel so lovesick.”

Shinsou turned on his heel and bolted.

“Wait!” Denki tried to go after him, but his legs wobbled too violently to carry him more than a few feet. He stumbled to the side and banged into a small cluster of students, who awkwardly shuffled away from him. Denki did his best to walk straight. If he could just make it to the bathroom behind the kitchen, he could wash his face before finding Jirou and Sero and beg them to get him back to the dorm. Once he was there, he’d be able to nurse his broken heart and his preemptive hangover in peace...and begin to accept the fact that Shinsou literally ran because he was so disgusted by him.

The toe of his boot caught on a pair of bright white shoes. Denki looked up, and there were two pairs of stern eyes staring at him.

Jirou was the first to reach for him, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him over to the side of the room, where the crowd thinned along the wall. She put a finger under Denki’s chin and tilted his head back, pushing the neck of a water bottle towards his lips. Next to her, Shinsou stared at him impassively.

“Thought you ran away,” Denki said weakly between sips of water.

“If he was a smarter man, then he probably would have.” Jirou put the cap back on the bottle and pulled her sleeve over her arm, using it to mop up the flecks of water and vomit on Denki’s chin. “Just so you know, I’m gonna slap you tomorrow for being such a hot mess.”

Denki nodded slowly. His stomach had calmed, but his head was still spinning with the vibration of the speakers.

Distantly, he felt the pressure of a hand on his upper arm. He looked down to see Shinsou’s pale fingers wrapped steadyingly around him. His face was illuminated in the white glow of his phone screen.

“Okay, so Jirou has my number, and I’ve got your bag and your coat. Do you need help walking?”

“If I say yes, does that mean you’ll carry me?”

“Do you always talk to people like this?” Shinsou asked. “Or is this just for me in particular?”

“Nah dude, this is just undiluted extract of pure Denki,” Jirou said. “I promise you get used to it after a while.”

Shinsou pulled Denki closer to him, looping one arm around his shoulder and leading him towards the front door. Denki stumbled along beside him, Jirou following close behind. She arched up on her toes and muttered into Denki’s ear at a volume too low for Shinsou to hear. “I don’t know if you’re gonna remember this in the morning, but this boy is adorable. You better get him to fall in love with you, because I already added him to our group chat.”

Before Denki could reply, the front door to Kendou apartment was flung open. Cold air hit his face before he tripped over the doorjamb, saved from falling only by Shinsou’s arm. The door swung closed behind them, and they were alone in the dark together.

In the sudden silence of the street, Denki felt shame creep hotly up his neck. While the current situation was about as ideal as he could have expected given the circumstances, it still didn’t change the fact that Shinsou still saw him blow chunks across the floorboards, which had definitely not been a step in his “go on a date with Shinsou” plan. The acidic reminder still sitting on the back of his tongue did nothing to alleviate his embarrassment.

They were already down the steps their shoes tapping loudly on the empty sidewalk as they made their way towards the underground station. The cold was beginning to seep into Denki’s skin, and he shivered against the surprising warmth of Shinsou pressed against him. It was probably even colder for Shinsou, since he didn’t have an alcohol blanket to warm him from the inside.

“Can I have my coat?” Denki asked quietly.

“In a minute.” They turned the corner at the end of the block, and the entrance to the station rose before them. “Being cold will sober you up faster.”

This wasn’t the first time Denki had heard this, and he certainly didn’t have the scientific acumen to refute that statement, but he still pushed his lip out in a pout. “Can I at least get a hug then? So that I don’t die of hypothermia?”

“Will it stop you from complaining?”

“Probably not.”

Shinsou sighed, then stopped in the middle of the street. Denki stumbled on the asphalt, but before he could keel to the side, Shinsou turned toward him and wrapped him in a hug.

Denki froze for a moment against Shinsou’s chest, listening to the slow thrum of his heart against his ear. He hadn’t realized how much taller Shinsou was than him, but it was enough that he was able to envelop Denki completely in his arms. Denki shivered. When it came to his crushes on girls, he’d always had a tendency to fall for girls who were shorter than him. With guys, on the other hand…

“There,” Shinsou said, pulling away far too quickly for Denki’s liking and turning him back towards the station. “That should hold you long enough until we get on the train.”

The station was quiet as they entered. Shinou passed Denki his bag, and Denki spent about three minutes rifling through the pockets before Shinsou took it bag from him and found his card in less than ten seconds.

There were a handful of people waiting on the platform; mostly business men wearing rumpled luxurious suits, and a few younger teenagers who eyed the two boys curiously. Denki opted for leaning against Shinsou rather than the wall, thinking that if the train arrived and he somehow didn’t notice, Shinsou would at least move away and cause him to fall over and wake up. Each individual eyelash weighed about twenty kilos, and it was becoming harder and harder to keep his eyes open against the glaring fluorescence of the station lights.

“I might fall asleep in the train,” he mumbled. He snuggled unconsciously into Shinsou’s shoulder. “Hope that’s okay.”

“I don’t think me being okay with it or not is gonna change the outcome,” Shinsou said. But he still guided Denki through the doors when their train arrived, and led him to a pair of seats towards the middle of the train car, where the rattle of the wheels would be less aggressive.

Denki slumped into the fabric of the seat cushions, and a web of darkness stretched across his vision. He shut his eyes, and then the train was stopping, and Shinsou was getting to his feet and holding his hand out for him.

Denki sat up, and his coat fell off of his shoulders from where it had been draped around him.

“You were shivering in your sleep,” Shinsou said. “I figured that meant you weren’t being dramatic about being cold.”

“My knight in shining armor,” Denki replied, pulling the coat on as they exited the train. Although he still felt fuzzy and distant, the small nap had done him a shocking amount of good. He didn’t stumble once on the steps, and only struggled with the automatic ticket gate. He stepped through, but jerked back with a gag as the shoulder strap of his bag tangled itself into the arm of the gate, which closed behind him.

“I’m gonna be stuck her forever,” he whispered. “Like a fly in a spider’s web. Am I gonna die here?”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,” Shinsou said. He reached behind Denki and tugged the strap through the gap between the gate’s arm and the ticket reader. “Come on. The sooner we get back to the dorm, the sooner you can shower.”

“What about-”

“I swear to God, if you try and make a joke about us showering together, you’re sleeping in this station tonight.”

Denki held up his hands in submission, grinning.

The walk from the station was brief, empty, and uneventful. Denki realized he was fantasizing about the warm comfort of his bed, of turning on his white noise machine and slipping into the closest thing to a coma he could possibly achieve. Those sweet hours between the vomiting and the hangover were going to be the most glorious of his life, Denki could already tell.

The two boys snuck back onto the grounds of Yuuei like whispers of shadows. Denki knew they would still be visible on security camera footage, but at least by entering the grounds quietly, they wouldn’t alert any of the faculty to check it anytime soon.

Denki pulled the double doors open and slipped into the student lounge, toeing off his shoes. He was already making a beeline for the stairs before he realized that Shinsou was lagging behind.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“I mean...are you good with me coming up with you? Like, I don’t want you to die in the shower or something, but I just-”

“Dude, you’re totally fine. Come on up.”

Shinsou dithered on the spot for a moment before following at a sullen trot.

Denki led the way upstairs, holding the door to his room open for Shinsou. He silently congratulated himself for bothering to clean last week after Bakugou had yelled at him for accidentally keeping a petrified pizza under his bed. Now the room looked as clean as it was going to look with his usual brand of clutter, and even smelled vaguely of vanilla and roses, a vestige of the tray of pastries he had stolen from Sato’s room during a study session a few days previous.

Shinsou’s eyes flicked around the room, hovering on the bed for an alarmingly long time. Denki’s heart rate spiked.

“Whatcha thinking about right now?” he asked breathlessly.

“That leopard bedspread is...a choice.”

Goddamnit. Denki took in a deep breath.

“Okay, I’m gonna shower, I guess? So you’re good to go, if you want to.”

Shinsou glanced at him with an expression Denki couldn’t quite decipher. And then he walked across the room and plopped onto the bed.

“I’m good here, actually.”

In retrospect, Denki was pretty sure he had had 1% of a stroke in that moment.

“You...I don’t...really?”

“I really don’t want you to pass out in the shower and choke on your own puke. Jirou would rip me a new asshole if I let that happen.”

“Oh, I get it. You’re only sticking around because you’re scared of Jirou.”

Denki walked sullenly to his dresser and pulled out a pair of pajamas, closing his drawer with a snap. “I guess I’ll have to take what I can get.”

“Yep,” Shinsou said. He had adjusted to sit cross-legged on Denki’s bed, typing on his phone. “That’s the only reason.” His tone was aggravatingly apathetic.

Denki walked into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. He glanced down at the garments in his hand when he realized that, of all the dozens of innocuous black gym shorts that sat in his drawer, his hand just had to land on the Pikachu boxers Mina had bought him as a Christmas joke. Whatever. It wasn’t like these would ruin his chances with Shinsou any more than they already had been.

The shower was scalding when Denki stepped into the shower, but he grit his teeth and let the burning water cleanse the sweat from his skin. He shuddered to think what he probably smelled like after hours at the party, and set to scrubbing his skin as thoroughly as he could. Jirou had left her shower gel here after her own bathroom had lost its hot water for a week. Denki didn’t even realize he’d picked up the wrong bottle until he saw lavender suds sliding down his legs, and a sharp aroma hit his nostrils. Well, he could only hope that Shinsou didn’t hate the smell of grapefruit and star anise, because Denki would probably smell like it for the next straight month.

He spent far longer in the shower than he needed to, and he refused to admit that it was because he was afraid of walking back into a dark, empty room. He scoured his skin thoroughly, rubbing until the skin turned pink. He washed more thoroughly than necessary, and far more thoroughly in certain areas than he had any reason to. There was that stupid hope again, making him waste his time. He turned off the water, and the silence that followed was a unbearable weight on his shoulders.
The pajamas felt like a warm hug sliding over his damp skin, and Denki couldn’t help but wrap his arms around himself and let out a long, whistling sigh, trying to keep himself from falling apart. He wasn’t ready to admit that this night had been a resounding failure, and despite achieving the impossible dream of Shinsou potentially still sitting on his bed on the other side of the wall, it didn’t mean anything. He would walk out that night, maybe tweet something about a yellow-haired idiot with exploding guts almost ruining his shoes, and then never speak to Denki again.

But what sort of person would he be if he at least didn’t try one more time? Denki’s mind flicked back to that pulsing, ultraviolet moment at the party. Shinsou had held his hand and pulled him close, and there had been something more than vague interest in his eyes. Denki was drunk and an idiot, and sometimes was both of those things simultaneously, but he wasn’t that dumb. If just for one fleeting moment, Shinsou wanted him. He didn’t know what kind of sinister magicks he would have to perform, but Denki was sure as hell going to try his best to crawl his way out of the hole he had dug for himself.

He creaked the bathroom door open, poking his head around to see that blessedly, miraculously, horrifyingly, Shinsou was still sitting on his bed and hadn’t apparently left and given him up for dead. His legs were folded beneath him, and his face was illuminated in the glaring blue light of his phone screen. His jacket was hanging on the bedpost, and his enormous T-shirt sagged away from his frame, revealing his pale chest.

“What do you like?” he asked.

“Sorry?” Shinsou looked up at him in confusion, and his eyes flicked to the Pikachu boxers. Denki forged onward, forbidding himself from becoming discouraged.

“What are you interested in? Like, do you have any hobbies?”

“Uh…” Shinsou turned his phone off, his gaze coming to rest nervously on a stain in the carpet. “I like bicycling? And, uh, cats? If that counts as a hobby?”

Shit. That is too cute.

“Okay. So I have this idea. I know it’s probably gonna sound really stupid, but hear me out first. I think next weekend, we should rent some bikes and go to a cat cafe. There’s one about fifteen blocks away that all the girls say they really like. And then afterwards, we can go out and get dinner somewhere. I’m not saying we should get burgers, because if you don’t like burgers then we can get something else, but I really like burgers, so it would mean a lot to me if we got burgers.”

Shinsou didn’t reply. He just stared at Denki, his eyes wide and owlish in the darkness of the room. The only light was the one leaking from the open bathroom door, illuminating Denki from the back and casting his black shadow along the floor.

Finally, Shinsou spoke in that monotone, unaffected tone which made Denki’s stomach clench into a painful ball. “You...are you trying to ask me out on a date right now?”

“I mean...kinda? Is it not coming across that way?” Denki’s face fell. “It’s not coming across that way.”

Shinsou blinked, letting his phone fall into his lap. “Look, honestly? I’m just really confused right now.”

Denki blinked. Confusion was probably the last emotion he would have expected from Shinsou, given that every signal he had been given so far was one of pure disinterest. When someone was confused, that meant they wanted to understand a situation better. That meant that they were interested to a certain degree...right?

“Is there anything I can do to un-confuse you?”

Shinsou let out an aggravated sigh and flopped back onto Denki’s bed, his arms splayed out like a starfish. Denki tried to quell his excitement at the sight of Shinsou making himself at home in his room.

“I thought you were just looking for a quick lay,” Shinsou said. “That’s why Jirou was teasing you, right? You were trying for a one-night only thing?”

“What?” Denki gaped like a fish, his empty stomach flopping obscenely in his belly. “Dude, I don’t do stuff like that. Ever. Like, props to people who are into that, but it’s really not my style.”

“That’s pretty much the only thing I’ve ever done.”

“Really? I mean is that...is that what you prefer?”

Shinsou shrugged. “It’s more like that was the only thing anybody wanted to do to me, and I didn’t really care enough to ask for anything else. No one was interested in sticking around long-term, and I learned to be okay with that. I kinda figured they all thought I was too depressing.”

He glanced over at Denki, and his nose wrinkled with distaste. “Stop making that sad face at me.”

“I can’t help it!” Denki wailed. “I feel so bad! If I had known that you were used to people flaking on you, then I would have approached this way differently!”

Shinsou sat up on his elbows, staring at him. The silence grew thicker between them by the second as Shinsou dragged his eyes once more across Denki. But this wasn’t the same expression as before. Whatever small universe the two of them occupied together had undergone a subtle, world-altering shift.

“How do you want to approach it now?” Shinsou asked.

Denki took a deep breath in the silence of the room. He couldn’t even console himself with the idea that this was his second chance. He was on his fourth or fifth chance at this point, and the time for error had long since passed. Whatever he could possibly say to express the amorphous thoughts and feelings which had settled over his heart like a cloud for the past two years, he had to say it now.

“I have feelings for you.”

Wow. Real fucking eloquent, dipshit.

Shinsou didn’t say anything for a moment. He sat up straighter, tapping his fingernails against the glass of his phone screen. The sound pinged around the quiet room like an echo.

“I thought you were joking. At the party. Like, you were trying to make fun of me. And I thought that maybe...I don’t know. Maybe if I hooked up with you, gave you what I thought you wanted, then you wouldn’t do that anymore.”

Denki felt his lungs blacken and wilt as he stared at Shinsou’s face. A face that was cautious, and tired, and more than a little hurt.

“Wha-? No, oh my God, absolutely not. I just...I make jokes when I’m nervous, you know? As a way to kinda lighten the mood?”

Shinsou scowled. “I don’t mean to make you nervous.”

“It’s okay, dude! It’s totally not your fault, I just don’t want to look like an idiot in front of you. Which I, uh, clearly haven’t been doing a great job of.”

Shinsou didn’t respond. Denki swallowed around the knot in his throat.

“I had no idea that that was how the jokes were coming across,” Denki said. “Like, I can’t even express how sorry I am. I never would have done any of that if I’d know that it would upset you-”

“Why did you invite me to that party?” Shinsou asked suddenly. “I’m not an idiot. I know it wasn’t for me to make friends. You could have asked me out whenever you wanted, so why did you pick a place with all those people if it wasn’t to make me be part of your friend’s joke?”

Denki was sober enough to keep it together. There was no way he would allow himself to be a sad drunk too. He kept assuring himself of this even as his lip began to quiver.

“No. No way. You’re got gonna fucking cry right now-”

Denki flopped onto his bed beside Shinsou, burying his face in the pillow before the first sob could escape his throat. The words tumbled out of him, muffled by the fabric and sounding nonsensical even to his own ears. “I wanted to ask you out, but then I got scared and drank like a metric fuckton because I thought that would calm my nerves, but it turns out I really am just a horny drunk and I probably really embarrassed you and even if you were going to say yes, you’re definitely not now because I looked so stupid at the party and nearly threw up on your shoes, and that would’ve turned them pink, and then they would have clashed with your hair, goddamnit-”

Shinsou pulled on Denki’s shoulders until his head surfaced from the pillow. The cold air burned against his wet cheeks, and Denki squeezed his red eyes shut. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled. “This is so dramatic and stupid of me. I need to pull it together-”

“Stop, stop. Okay. Take a deep breath.” Shinsou turned Denki’s body towards him, leaning down until he was directly in his downcast line of sight. “Just calm down, all right? It’s really not that big of a deal.”

Denki nodded, putting his hands over his face. He spoke between his fingers, trying desperately to keep his voice from shaking. “Fuck, I just...can’t talk like a normal person around you. You make my brain go all stupid. Which I know I should be used to, but this is a whole different type of stupid, you know? Like I just want to kiss you so bad that my stomach gets all fuzzy. But maybe you think I’m gross and weird, so I don’t kiss you, but I try to be funny and interesting, but because my brain doesn’t work all my words just come out like garbage.”

Shinsou sighed. “You don’t have to go to all the trouble to try and be funny to get me to like you. You’re funny enough when you’re not trying. And just as likeable when you’re not being funny.”

“I…” Denki swallowed. “Okay. I can do serious, if you want me to be serious.”

Shinsou sat back quietly, and waited for Denki to speak.

“I invited you to Kendou’s party because I wanted to hang out with you. Because I honestly like being around you. You're smart, and really funny, and you always say the right thing no matter who you're talking to. You even manage to throw Bakugou off sometimes, and I don’t know anyone else who’s able to do that besides Midoriya. Plus, I really respect how badly you want to be a hero. Like, you refuse to let anything stand in your way, or let yourself think that you’re not good enough. I can’t imagine being as strong and confident as you are and like, not to sound like an old white lady or anything, but it’s really inspiring to me. I could never be as confident as that. And I guess...like, I was just thinking if we could go somewhere and hang out together, I’d have a chance to maybe get my shit together and be like, kind of cool around you? And maybe sort of funny? Just so that you could maybe see yourself being with someone like me. I just...didn’t want you to think I was some desperate idiot who wasn’t worth your time. And I feel like I’m always at my best when I’m with my friends, and my best is what I wanted you to see. But that...that doesn’t change the fact that I made you uncomfortable, and there’s no excuse for that. Regardless of anything else, I won’t tease you in public like that again. I was only taking my own feelings into account, and that’s my own fuckup. I take full responsibility for that.”

Shinsou put a hand on Denki’s chest. It was warm and solid against his skin, and Denki was sure Shinsou could feel his heart beat faster beneath his fingertips.
“You didn’t...you didn’t totally fuck it up. I never said you didn’t have a chance.”

“Really?”

“I mean, look…”

Shinsou sighed again. His hand contracted into Denki’s shirt, balling up the fabric in his fingers. “if you were just some random guy, I wouldn't give a shit about what you say to me. The only reason it bothered me is because I care about what you think. I care a stupidly large amount.”

Denki didn’t dare say anything; didn’t dare so much as breathe. He could hear the crickets through the window, the muffled buzz of a television from the floor below, and Shinsou’s slow, careful breathing gusting against his cheek.

“Because...maybe I like you. Maybe kinda. Much to my surprise and alarm.”

Denki put a hand over Shinsou’s. Slowly, he pried it from his chest. Shinsou blinked at him in confusion, but Denki was already scrambling off the bed and darting over to the minifridge tucked against the opposite wall. He returned with a large bottle, holding it up in front of Shinsou’s face.

“Here's the thing,” Denki said. “I'm going to tell you that I’m really into you, and that I would be super into kissing you or maybe, possibly even holding hands if that's your thing. And if you’re not into that, then just lemme know, and you can go back to your room and actually get some decent sleep tonight. But, if you do happen to be interested in doing any of that stuff, then I'm going to chug this entire water bottle, cos I wanna sober up and not forget a single second. Sound good?”

He sat there, waiting for Shinsou to smile, or laugh, or do anything to indicate that Denki was going in the right direction. But instead, Shinsou stared down at his own pale hands resting in his lap, his brow furrowed. Denki slowly put the bottle down on the bedspread, trying not to let the hurt show in his face.

“I underst-”

But then there was the sound of a stolen breath, and the mattress shifted beneath Denki as Shinsou surged forward. One hand cupped the side of his face, and the other came to rest on his bare knee, and Shinsou was kissing him, like actually for real kissing him. Nothing out of Denki’s greyscale fantasies could have prepared him for the glorious 4D surround-sound IMAX reality the was Shinsou’s lips against his own. They were warmer than he had expected, and tasted faintly bitter and earthy. Denki realized that Shinsou tasted like coffee grounds in the same moment that he realized that he’d been lying to himself all these years about hating coffee. If it tasted like Shinsou, then it was his favorite flavor on earth. Denki’s skin prickled with static as he leaned closer, angling his face until he could feel his and Shinsou’s tandem breaths warming each other’s cheeks. He placed his own hand over the one cradling his throat, running his thumb along the pale wrist.

Shinsou broke away, letting a quiet gasp fall from his throat. His pupils were round and dark as river pebbles as he stared at Denki, who sat there blinking as his brain began the process of rebooting.

After what felt like the entire life cycle of the known universe, Shinsou reached around Denki and picked up the water bottle from its lopsided seat on top of the comforter. He handed it to him.

“Drink up,” he said.

Wordlessly, Denki yanked the bottle from Shinsou’s hand and began chugging it as fast as he could. Trickles of water dribbled down his chin and neck as he drained the bottle. Shinsou chuckled, reaching out and swiping his thumb through a rivulet running down Denki’s clavicle.

“Slow down, I don’t want you drowning on me.” Shinsou pulled his hand back and sucked the droplets from his thumb, his eyes not leaving the damp spot on Denki’s neck. Denki spluttered at the sight, and water almost came out his nose.

Shinsou didn’t seem to notice him coughing up a lung. He was too focused on tasting his finger, a confused look on his face.

“That’s so weird,” he muttered.

“What is?” Denki asked breathlessly, clutching his chest.

“Why do you taste like a Warhead candy?”

“Do I?” Denki was surprised. “Most people say I taste like batteries. Like, you know how you lick a battery and it tastes sour?”

“...No, I don’t know that. You in the habit of licking batteries, Kaminari?”

“Dude, my friends make me deepthroat their phone chargers on a daily basis. Hell yeah I lick batteries.”

Shinsou blinked. “I...don’t know what to do with that information.”

“How about you kiss me again so you can get another taste?”

Shinsou’s mouth curled, and for a split second Denki really thought he was going to get up and leave. But Shinsou simply raised a hand, shaking his head.

“Wait, wait,” he said. “Before we continue, I have to ask you something. Honestly, I should have brought it up earlier.”

“Oh! Don’t worry, I’m clean. I just got tested last month.”

“I…” Shinsou blinked. “I actually wasn’t going to ask about that, but good call. I am too.”

He stared at Denki thoughtfully, and it was a few moments before he spoke again. “Damn, that was really sweet. Now my question seems especially stupid.”

“What were you going to ask?” Denki tried not to fixate on Shinsou calling him sweet, lest his entire brain fry with joy.

“Why do you have a plain black T-shirt in a frame above your bed?”

Denki glanced up at the frame in question, smiling. “It’s from the first concert Jirou and I went to together! We met the band afterwards, and I guess her dad is friends with them, so they signed the shirts we were wearing. But it’s in black-light pen, so you can only see the signatures under a UV lamp.”

“Huh.” Shinsou raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Okay, carry on. Sorry for interrupting.”

“No worries. It’s cute that you notice stuff like that.”

Shinsou wrinkled his nose. “I’m not cute.”

“Wow, you’re really just gonna lie to my face like that as a guest in my own room? That’s so rude.”

“I’m not-”

“Guess you’re just gonna have to kiss me to make up for it.” Denki spread his arms invitingly, grinning.

He expected Shinsou to slink irritably towards him, or perhaps shove him away and make a break for the door. But instead, he did the unthinkable; he got to his knees and repositioned himself to kneel over Denki’s crossed legs, practically plopping down into his lap. He draped his arms languidly around his neck, and kissed him so deeply that Denki was shocked their skin didn’t fuse together. Shinsou’s lips were dry and cracked from the walk through the crisp, dry winds outside, and Denki reflexively ran his tongue along the skin to soothe it. Shinsou opened his mouth against Denki’s; warm, foreign breaths puffed along his gums. Denki’s toes curled as he wrapped his arms around Shinsou’s waist and pulled him forward, letting him flop on top of him onto the mattress. Shinsou let out a muffled grunt at the impact, and his teeth nipped Denki’s lower lip in revenge. Denki sniggered against his mouth. In response, Shinsou burrowed his hands beneath the hem of Denki’s shirt and began kissing lightly along his throat. Denki gasped as he felt cold fingers traveling up his sides, and he didn’t miss the low chuckle that echoed through Shinsou’s throat as he peppered kisses along his collarbone, traveling closer and closer to the low neckline of his shirt. His heartbeat was probably booming like a subwoofer in Shinsou’s eardrums.

The blood in his body was swirling in a state of utmost confusion, one half travelling to his blushing face, and the other racing downwards so fast that his legs shook against the bedspread. It wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest if Shinsou could feel the erection growing between his legs, but that didn’t stop him from feeling monumentally embarrassed about it. Shinsou cracked an eye open, and sniggered at the sight of Denki’s red face.

“This is way more fun now that I know you get flustered by everything,” he said quietly, a shit-eating grin twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“I do not,” Denki mumbled. Shinsou clearly wasn’t convinced by his slurred response. He nipped at the juncture between his neck and shoulder, and watched casually as Denki’s blush creeped down his body, tingeing his ears and the hollow of his throat with pink. He reached up to run his thumb along the heated skin, and Denki almost burst into flames at the sight. But suddenly, Shinsou’s brow furrowed, and he retracted his hand.

“Wait a second. What do you mean people say you taste like batteries? Do lots of people lick you or something?”

The sudden change of tone startled Denki. It took him a moment of blinking stupidly at Shinsou before he stuttered, “Uh. Well, I mean, Mina told me that one time…”

“Oh.” Shinsou nodded sagely. “You’re mean that time Mina licked Pixy Stix off your nipples?”

Denki gaped. “How do you know about that?”

“Who doesn’t know about that?”

Shinsou smiled as Denki slapped a hand to his face, which was flushed for an entirely different reason now. “Can we just- okay, that’s a super unromantic thing to talk about right now, so we’re just gonna put a pin in that whole clusterfuck and discuss it later.”

“Hmm. Okay, if you say so.” Shinsou shrugged, his hand returning to trace patterns in Denki’s chest. “I was just thinking that the fact that you have sensitive nipples is really sexy.”

The room was silent apart from the dry clicks of Denki’s throat as his mouth hung open in disbelief. His entire brain blue screened as he tried to comprehend the fact that the reality of his life now involved him flat on his back with Shinsou laying between his legs, propped up on his elbows like a sphinx and casually saying things which only had a place in his most fantastical fantasies. Denki pulled his pillow over his face and whined.

“Are you dying?” Shinsou asked. Denki could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Give me a second. I’m literally going to have a stroke.”

“Literally?”

“Okay, I’m symbolically going to have a stroke.” Denki pulled the pillow up his face far enough to reveal his mouth. “You can’t just say hot things like that because I’ll die. I’ll actually die, and then you’ll go to prison for murdering me in cold blood.”

“I didn’t realize you were so embarrassed about having a nipple kink.”

Denki raised a pedantic finger in the air. “I do not have a nipple kink.”

“Hmm…” Shinsou hummed in a tone that made Denki’s blood run cold. He pulled the hem of Denki’s shirt up agonizingly slowly, past his ribcage, past his pecs, up to his underarms. Shinsou’s pale hands dragged up his chest and stopping at the top of his ribs, his fingers dangerously close to the rose gold buds which were already flush and hard against the cool air.

“Thing is,” Shinsou said, “I’m not sure I believe you.”

He ducked down and dragged his tongue along the crease of Denki’s pecs, maintaining dark, confident eye contact.

Denki’s hand flew up to scrabble at Shinsou’s bicep, his mouth dropping open in a silent moan. The energy came before he could stop it, pinging through his muscles and arcing into Shinsou’s skin. It was only a few volts, hardly more than a static shock. But the spark had glowed an alarming citrine in the darkness, and Shinsou had arched away like he’d been burned. A loud gasp fell from his mouth, and Denki scrambled upright as alarm flooded his stomach.

“Sorry! Shit, I’m so sorry! Did I just tase you? Are you gonna die?” He grabbed Shinsou’s shoulder, trying to get a better look at his arm. Shinsou ran a hand comfortingly through his hair, tugging at it to get Denki’s attention.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting it.” Shinsou said. His other hand was pressed against his heaving chest, and he was staring at Denki with something akin to wonderment.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Literally do not be,” Shinsou said emphatically. “Have you done that to anyone else before?”

“Uh, I don’t think so. Just to myself a few times.”

“Are you into it?”

Denki shrugged. “It doesn’t really do a whole lot for me. I mean, I’m so used to the feeling of electricity on my skin that it kinda takes the excitement out of it.”

“Oh, my God. This gift is wasted on you.”

Oh? Oh. Oh. Now it was Denki’s turn to smirk.

“You really like it that much?”

Shinsou glared at him before grabbing Denki’s wrist and planting his hand on his chest. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response. Just do it again.”

Denki bit the inside of his mouth to keep from grinning. He gathered Shinsou’s hands in his own, kissing the knuckles gently before turning him around and pinning him back on the mattress. Shinsou coughed as the air was punched out of his lungs, and Denki waited for him to get his voice back, kneeling imperiously between his legs.

“What’s with the manhandling?” Shinsou finally asked.

“I figured it was my turn to top for a little while. Or are you not into taking turns?”

Shinsou cleared his throat. Denki’s heart thrilled as he watched a dark blush creep over his cheekbones. “It’s fine. Whatever you want to do.”

“Oh sure, whatever I want to do,” Denki sniggered. He let a playful volt arc from his finger into Shinsou’s side. His hips jumped reflexively, and he leveled a glare at Denki over the red cloud of blush fogging across his face. His hair looked even wilder than usual due to the static electricity, sticking up in a vertical lavender haze around his face. Denki tried to maintain focus and not get lost in the ultraviolet eyes staring at him.

He chose to turn his gaze to Shinsou’s torso, which was still cruelly submerged in his shirt. Denki grabbed the bottom hem and rolled it reverently up his body. Although he knew it had been a few years since Shinsou had started his training regime after transferring to their class, he was completely unprepared for how thoroughly Shinsou had bulked up since then. The muscles under his muted skin dipped and curved with statuesque elegance, and Denki would be jealous if that body were not splayed out and pliable beneath his fingers.

He rucked Shinsou’s shirt up to his neck, and Shinsou pulled it off the rest of the way, tossing it to the far corner of the room. Denki set about exploring the canvas beneath him, running his palms along ribs and feeling the telltale thumping of a hummingbird heartbeat underneath his fingers. His hands fanned across Shinsou’s chest, fingers brushing soft as a whisper over two plum-colored nipples, the gossamer skin delicate enough to see rivers of blue veins beneath. He knew what Shinsou wanted, and knew how badly he wanted him to hurry up. But he still moved with deliberate delicacy, nervous of activating his quirk so close to Shinsou’s heart. Finally, Denki pressed down harder, and let a single volt pass between their skin.

Denki had heard Shinsou yell before, obviously. But he had never heard a sound quite as desperate or carnal or delicious as that. Denki shocked him again, hoping to be blessed with an encore of that glorious sound. Shinsou was flushed down to his chest, and his pink mouth sagged open, gasping in mouthfuls of cool air. Denki couldn’t resist leaning down and capturing his lips, letting Shinsou catch his breath as he pressed livewire fingertips into his side. His thumbs smoothed down the arches of Shinsou’s hipbones, and he whined against Denki’s lips. Denki felt something jump against his thigh.

He smiled against Shinsou’s mouth, tracing his tongue languidly across the top row of slightly crooked teeth. One hand reached up to curl into Shinsou’s wild hair, and the other glided down the expanse of his body, fingers pulling needily against the waistband of his jeans.

“Can I take these off?” Denki mumbled quietly. His mouth moved to Shinsou’s ear. He busied himself with nibbling along the shell as he waited for his response.
“Those should have come off yesterday,” Shinsou spat, his own hands darting down to fiddle with the zipper. Denki snorted and leaned back on his heels, reaching down to help him.

Within moments, Shinsou’s jeans were unfastened and hanging low on his hips. Denki gathered the denim in his hands, and after a moment’s hesitation, looped his fingers through the elastic of his underwear as well. His eyes trailed back up to Shinsou’s face, waiting for permission.

“Can you please hurry up before I die?” was his response.

Denki grinned and pulled Shinsou’s clothes off like a magician pulling a tablecloth from underneath a dining set. The legs bunched up and got stuck slightly on Shinsou’s ankles, but it was fine; Denki was already completely distracted by the sight before him.

Look, Denki would be the first one to admit that there were drawbacks to being bisexual. The main one being that dicks were, by definition, kinda gross. Denki had lived with one all his life, and he would be the first to admit that there was no way to think dicks were attractive if you looked at one for too long. But apparently, Shinsou’s dick hadn’t received that memo. Even here, the lines and arcs of his body were dignified and striking, the shade of his skin deepening to a rich pomegranate at the head of his cock, which glistened under the low lighting. It reminded Denki of Baroque scrollwork, of a Corinthian column, and bizarrely, of a stately oak tree amidst a field of sweet, wispy lilacs.

“Whoa,” he said. “So purple really is your natural hair color?”

Shinsou groaned, throwing Denki’s pillow into the wall. “That’s it. I’m leaving.”

“No, wait!” Denki latched onto Shinsou’s knees, preventing him from moving. “Sorry, sorry, I was just surprised! I seriously thought that you dyed it.” He leaned forward and pressed an apologetic kiss onto his hipbone, gazing up at Shinsou through his eyelashes. “I’m really sorry. Please don’t leave.”

Shinsou’s eyes fluttered to the spot on his hip where Denki’s mouth had just been.

“Keep doing what you were doing and maybe I’ll be convinced to stay.”

Denki didn’t need a second invitation. He kissed and sucked at Shinsou’s skin, leaving a trail of pink and purple bruises blossoming across his hips and thighs. Denki’s mouth strayed maddeningly close to his cock, but he intentionally kept his distance. Shinsou’s hips bucked under his arms.

“Stop being a tease,” he whined. In response, Denki bit his inner thigh and trailed a hand across Shinsou’s hips, through the meadow of lilac curls, and up the column of his cock. The familiar slickness and heat was counteracted by the foreign weight and size of it in Denki’s hand. He hoped Shinsou wouldn’t notice how unmatched they were.

Shinsou propped himself up on his elbows, staring at Denki with dark, expectant eyes. Denki expected his was waiting for him to begin moving his hand. But instead, Denki pressed the pad of his thumb against the underside of the head, smearing precum across the skin. It would be more than a suitable conductor. He closed his eyes, and sent a shock through his body.

He knew that he was shaking hands with danger by activating his quirk in such a delicate area, but it was more than worth it to witness Shinsou’s reaction. His pupils were blown wide and pitch black as night. His spine arched like a bowstring, and his legs knotted in his jeans in a desperate attempt to wrap themselves around Denki’s waist and drag him closer. The whine which rang from his mouth was desperate and fortissimo, echoing through the room and no doubt through the hallway. Denki’s own erection throbbed as he imagined how many people could hear Shinsou falling apart because of him.

“Do that again,” Shinsou gasped after his voice had at last returned. Denki complied, fingers arcing with electricity as he traced his hands down Shinsou’s cock. He didn’t bother applying any pressure, too focused on directing the currents safely through Shinsou’s skin. Shinsou was twitching by this point, panting as his extremities twitched from the electricity activating his muscles. Denki could feel the heat radiating in palpable waves off of his skin. He knew without even asking that Shinsou wasn’t going to last much longer. There was one final finishing move that he had been procrastinating on performing, purely because he’d never done it on another person before. Even though it had felt good on his own hand the few times he’d experimented with it, there was no guarantee it would feel good on anyone else. But it was an opportunity to show off, and Denki knew without a shred of doubt that there was no one else he’d rather show off to.

Denki wriggled his way between Shinsou’s thighs and lay on his stomach, letting his legs dangle off the end of the bed as the heels of Shinsou’s feet pressed against his lower back. He lowered his face to hover a few inches away from Shinsou’s cock. His hands remained spread across his skin, small sparks dancing between his fingers. Denki glanced up.

“Let me know if you don’t like this, okay?”

Shinsou nodded. For a moment, Denki relished the fact that he seemed to have rendered Shinsou, of all people, entirely speechless. He took a deep breath, and sank his mouth down on Shinsou’s cock.

His throat tensed up, preventing him from taking more than two thirds, but that didn’t seem to matter to Shinsou, who tossed his head back and groaned low and rumbling in his chest. The vibrations traveled down his body and into Denki’s mouth, who moaned in kind as his hands traveled down, trailing across delicate skin until they settled along the alleyway of his perineum, nestled behind his balls. It took all of his strength not to come undone by the foreign weight on his tongue, and the sweet, silky feeling of untouched skin on his fingertips. This was only going to work if he paid the utmost attention.

The building electricity made Denki’s feet tingle, and he let the sensation build through his body, keeping the power of the current carefully controlled. His head swam with the level of concentration needed, and after only a few moments, he closed his eyes and let go. One shock zinged through his fingertips and into Shinsou’s perineum, and the other arced through the tip of his tongue, pressed against the underside of Shinsou’s cock.

Shinsou came with a howl and white hot heat coursing through him. His body stiffened on the mattress, muscles tightened like springs. Denki stayed anchored to his body, tongue and fingers massaging him through his orgasm even as his nose wrinkled as the biting taste of cum coated his throat. Although becoming a blowjob savant was in the top ten of his life goals, it would take a lot more desensitizing before he could reconcile the unfortunate aftertaste. But it was no matter; he would just have to practice more.

Shinsou’s breathing finally evened out as the tension melted from his body. Denki popped off his cock, and despite his best efforts, he couldn’t resist reaching down for the wastebasket at the foot of the bed and spitting into it. He hoped that Shinsou would be too out of it to notice, but a glance confirmed that he would not be so lucky. Shinsou watched him from beneath heavily-lidded eyes. A drowsy smiled played across his lips.

“Sorry. I promise it’s not you, I just…really don’t like the taste.”

“Hey, you won’t catch me complaining.” Shinsou shrugged. “It’s not for everyone.”

Denki wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, smiling slightly.

“So. How do you feel about a guy in Pikachu boxers making you come?” he asked.

Shinsou licked his lips, eyes traveling down Denki’s body. He pressed his foot against the obvious tent in his shorts, and Denki shivered. “I think it’s a sign that the stupid boxers need to come off.”

Denki grinned before swooping forward to kiss Shinsou sweetly, pressing him back into the pillows. Shinsou hummed, sweeping his hands down Denki’s back before deviously cupping his ass. Denki reflexively ground down on Shinsou’s leg, breaking away to inhale shakily. Shinsou took advantage of his moment of weakness, and before Denki could comprehend what was happening, he’d been flipped over onto his back like a fish. Shinsou hovered over him, grinning, his long fingers already busy dragging his yellow boxers down his body.

“Wait!” Denki reached out and grabbed Shinsou’s wrist. Shinsou froze immediately.

“Before you...I just feel like I should tell you that I don’t, um…have any hair. Down there.”

Shinsou didn’t reply, but his eyes narrowed in confusion. Denki waved his hands defensively. “It’s not on purpose! When I was in middle school I read about electrolysis hair removal, so I screwed around until the hair started to fall out. I thought it was funny at the time, but I didn’t realize it was permanent until, like, three months later. Just don’t freak out or anything, okay?”

Shinsou bit the inside of his cheek. Denki couldn’t tell if it was to hide a smile, or a frown.

“I won’t freak out,” he said. “I promise.”

Denki shifted his hips off the mattress, and allowed his boxers to be fully pulled off and away. Shinsou observed him, eyes tracing his body impassively. Denki resisted the urge to close his legs as the grey moonlight bounced off of his hairless skin.

“Hmm. Actually, you know what? I’m super into it.”

“Really?” Denki asked. A thrill of relief coursed through his heart.

Shinsou reached forward and dragged a finger up the side of Denki’s cock. Denki rolled his lips nervously. Please don’t notice, please don’t notice…

“I was expecting you to be smaller,” Shinsou said. Denki’s mouth fell open.

“Smaller?” he said indignantly.

“You’re so bombastic, I kinda figured you were overcompensating.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Yeah, I know that now.”

Denki had half a mind to shake an indignant finger in Shinsou’s face, but before he could, Shinsou leaned down and placed an experimental, kittenish lick along the head. Thoughts of indignation fled from Denki’s head as any blood needed to keep his brain functioning properly flowed southward. His cock sat heavy and shining in Shinsou’s hand; he’d been focused on Shinsou for so long that he knew that he would be lucky to last another minute. Shinsou licked again, and warm breath and saliva rushed across the delicate, heated skin. Denki bit his tongue to keep from whimpering as the heat and pressure of Shinsou’s mouth grew close to unbearable.
For all of his waffling about expecting Denki to be smaller, Shinsou was still able to fit his cock in its entirety into his mouth with ease. It was clear that this wasn’t anywhere close to Shinsou’s first time, and Denki knew he would have to reflect back on this moment and collect notes and observations once he was capable of cognizant thought again.

As it currently stood, the only thing Denki could think to do was wind his fingers in Shinsou’s hair and roll his hips into that heat, searching desperately for more. Shinsou huffed a sharp breath through his nose, but did nothing to stop Denki from bucking up into his mouth. His tongue swirled around the head, spreading precum along the tip before swallowing him down again. Denki yanked at the thin hair curling between his fingers, pulling Shinsou impossibly closer to him. Heat curled in his stomach, spitting and sparking like a Tesla coil, and all he wanted to do was melt into the warmth of his bed, of Shinsou’s mouth, and of the sweet, comforting conclusion to this bizarre and wonderful evening.

Shinsou reached one slender hand absentmindedly across the bedspread, and without looking, entwined his fingers in Denki’s own.

Denki’s restraint popped apart like opposing magnets, and a wild cry ripped through his throat as his free hand reached behind him, scrabbling frantically for something to ground himself on. Dimly, he could feel Shinsou swallowing around him, nose pressed against the smooth skin at the base of Denki’s cock. Denki’s fingers scraped against the top of the headboard, catching and clinging to the only protruding surface: his phone charger, still plugged into the USB port. His fist clenched in a white-knuckled grip as his arched his neck back and let his orgasm rip through him, turning the inside of his eyelids white and his limbs and brain to jelly.

He was too far gone to realize that Shinsou had popped off of him, eyes widening as he watched the arcs of electricity course along Denki’s body, wrapping around his torso and zinging up his arm. The phone charger in his hand popped with a puff of grey smoke, and with a hiss and a flicker, the lights in the dorm went out.
“Uh…” Shinsou said, looking around fruitlessly in the darkness. In the faint light of the moon streaming through the curtain, he saw Denki give him a shaky thumbs-up.

“Okay!” he slurred.

The emergency lights came on with a whirr, the single lightbulb above the door glowing a dim, fluorescent yellow. From across the street, the other pitch black dorm complexes were dimly illuminated once more.

“Fuck,” Shinsou muttered. “Denki, what did you do?”

In any other circumstance, Denki would have thrilled at the sound of Shinsou using his given name. But his emotions were obscured by the thick fog clogging his brain, and he could do little more than grin and blink stupidly in the darkness. Faintly, he registered Shinsou putting an arm around his shoulders and dragging him up into a sitting position.

“Okay, clothes first,” he muttered, fumbling through the darkness for their clothes. With no small difficulty, he managed to pull his jeans back up his legs and locate his shirt, which had landed beneath Denki’s desk; however, Denki proved to be a much more difficult goal. He was little more than a ragdoll in Shinsou’s hands, flopping uselessly as Shinsou attempted to dress him.

“I’m being an idiot for not just leaving you here,” he muttered as his yanked Denki’s boxers back up over his ankles. “but we’re going to have to evacuate down to the ground floor, and God help me if Dad has to come up here to look for you.”

Finally, the two boys were presentable again. Shinsou looped an arm beneath Denki’s shoulders and hoisted him to his feet. Denki was able to stand relatively well, although he swayed slightly from side to side.

Shinsou approached the door, but paused as he heard another door slam open at the end of the hall.

“What the fuck is going on?” he heard. Shinsou smirked and took a step away from the door. He waited until Bakugou’s voice had faded down the stairs before he clicked the door open, checking that the hallway was deserted before helping Denki across the threshold. Denki’s head was finally beginning to clear slightly; at the very least, his brow was slightly furrowed rather than remaining blissfully unaware.

“Wha…” his tongue felt fat and heavy in his mouth. He was vaguely away of a strong arm shunting him along the hallway, and rushing down the steps at a speed that made his stomach swing up into his throat.

“Hey, quick question. Do you always come hard enough to blow out the dorm’s circuit breakers?”

“Do I…huh?” Denki shook his head groggily. “No, I’ve never done that.”

“Well, you actually did. Just now.” Shinsou gestured with his free hand. “Note the emergency lights.”

Denki gaped at the small blue lights illuminating their way down the stairs. Suddenly, he was real fucking awake. “Are you shitting me right now?” His eyes widened in horror as “Dude, I’m so sorry. The last thing I remember was being on the bed, and you were-”

“You grabbed onto your phone charger. The electricity must have traveled through it and blown a fuse. Although,” Shinsou glanced at him. “If we want to pretend that I’m just so fantastic at giving head that I made you lose control of all your mental faculties, I’d be okay with that.”

“Oh, there’s no pretending about it.” Denki shook his head adamantly. “That’s an indisputable fact.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Shinsou whipped Denki around to face him. “Okay,” he said, adjusting Denki’s hair and shirt. “We’re gonna go out there, and we’re gonna be so chill in front of Aizawa, okay? In the eyes of God and the law, we were studying together.”

“At 3 AM on a Saturday.”

“Look, don’t blow this for me,” Shinsou said, pointing menacingly at Denki. He turned to open the door to the lounge, but Denki grabbed his hand.

“Wait! Why don’t you just go wait in my room for the power to come back on?”

Shinsou shook his head. “Every complex on the campus just went dark. Everyone else is going to have to evacuate their rooms for a headcount, and if none of the teachers are able to find me, they’ll flip a shit.”

Denki couldn’t shake the worried look off his face. Shinsou glanced at him, and his hand slipped from the door handle. Quick as lightning, he leaned forward and kissed Denki’s cheek.

“I’m not mad, all right?” he said.

Denki’s only response was to blink stupidly as his face heated to a lurid pink. Shinsou sighed, and turned back to the door. Denki thought he faintly heard a sigh of “please don’t freak out” before he swung the door open and walked into the lounge.

Denki gave him a few seconds of a head start before sidling in after him. His attempt to casually put his hands in his pockets was thwarted by the fact that his boxers didn’t have pockets. He settled for putting his hands behind his head, his eyes scanning the crowded room.

Most of his classmates had clearly been woken up by the emergency lights. Midoriya was leaning against Todoroki’s chest, whose own head was slumped forward with drowsiness. Ochako and Tsu were both already asleep again, bundled against each other on the couch. Tokoyami sat on the floor, leaning against the couch and illuminated by a white circle of cell phone flashlights.

“Dark Shadow is delighted by the absolute emptiness,” he muttered as Denki approached. “but that means I have to sit here until the lights return, lest he destroy the building.”

“It’s like making a salt circle around a demon, don’tcha think?” Kirishima popped up behind Denki, slinging a heavy arm around Denki’s shoulder and pulling him close. On the other side of the room, Bakugou leaned against the wall, scowling.

“Did the lights wake you up too?” he asked. “Bakugou and I were just about to go to bed when the TV shut off.”

Denki shot him a shaky smile. “Uh, yep! They sure did!” he said.

There was a gasp from the other side of the room, and Denki glanced up to see Jirou and Sero tearing across the room towards him. Alarm bells went off in Denki’s head. If there were any two worse people to run into right now…

“Dude!” Jirou reached him first, slamming into his chest and punching him in the shoulder. “I’ve been trying to text you for hours! We thought you died!”

“I didn’t think you died,” Sero corrected. “I actually trusted Shinsou to be responsible, unlike some people.” He glanced at Jirou, who rolled her eyes.

“Ochako and Aoyama were looking for you,” Jirou said. “They saw what happened at the party and said they had to induct you into their ‘puke squad.’”

Denki face scrunched involuntarily. “Wow, great. I can’t wait to never live that down for the rest of my life.”

“So what happened to you after you left?” Jirou asked. Her eyes flicked across the room to Shinsou’s figure, slumped impassively against the wall.

“I…” Denki hesitated, rolling his lips nervously. Jirou leaned towards him, her eyes narrowed in the darkness. It took Denki a minute before he realized Jirou was analyzing his neck. She reached out and poked a spot beneath his jaw, and Denki flinched as his skin ached. Jirou gaped, slapping his arm.

“You did it! Oh my God, I can’t believe you pulled it off! What was it like? Is he as good as you thought he would be?”

“Wait, you guys actually boned?” Sero asked in disbelief.

“Shh, keep your voices down!” Denki hissed, waving his hands at them.

“Wait, Kaminari did what now?” Kirishima asked.

Before Denki could respond, Jirou pointed at Shinsou. “Our boy literally just got it on with Shinsou! Here he is waltzing around with a neck full of hickies, thinking we wouldn’t notice! It only took you what, like two years?”

“That’s not that long!” Denki spluttered. “Seriously, keep it down! No one knows about this apart from you guys.”

“Well, Mina’s sure as hell gonna know in about three seconds.” Jirou was already pulling her phone out of her back pocket.

“Wait, where is she?” Denki asked. Jirou smirked at him.

“You’re not the only one who got lucky tonight.”

“What?” Denki gasped. “Mina actually hooked up with Shiozaki? How the hell did she manage that?”

“Uh, because guys are gross, and Shiozaki has good taste?”

“Hey, I resent that! I have pretty good taste, I think,” Kirishima said. Denki nodded in agreement. Jirou raised her eyebrows at them skeptically.

“So hey, why aren’t you standing with your boyfriend?” she asked, jerking her head in Shinsou’s direction. “Did you bite his dick too hard or something?”

Kaminari flipped her off. “No, actually I didn’t. Shinsou just told me to be casual in front of-”

There was a bang like a gunshot, and the front door of the dorm slammed open. Aizawa stormed over the threshold. His eyes were even more bloodshot than usual, and his hair was piled in a wild bun at the back of his head. The conversation died down as he came to a stop in the center of the room.

“The fuse box was inspected just last week, so I don’t believe for a second that this was just a coincidence.”

No one spoke. Aizawa arched an eyebrow, scanning the room. Denki sidled behind Kirishima, but he was only partially obscured before Aizawa’s eyes landed on him. His gaze pinned him to the spot, and Denki gulped.

With a rumbling whirr, the lamps on the side tables glowed once more. Tired, bloodshot eyes blinked in the bright light, and before they could reorient themselves, a high voiced boomed through the room, rattling the windows in their frames.

“The breaker box is fixed! Make sure to check in with your homeroom teachers before returning to your rooms!”

Everyone in the room, with the exception of Aizawa and Shinsou, flinched as the echo of Present Mic’s voice rang in their ears. Aizawa let out a long-suffering sigh.

All right,” he said gruffly. “You know the rules.”

The class fell into a close huddle around Aizawa, eager to get their names checked off so they could go back to sleep. Denki hovered at the fringe of the crowd, keeping his eyes on the ground as he inched closer and closer to Aizawa. Normally, the logical part of his brain would be the one to tell him that there was nothing to worry about.

Nope, you’re fucked, the logical part of his brain said.

A familiar figure stepped up beside him, nudging his shoulder.

“Sorry about the hickeys,” Shinsou whispered as their classmates returned upstairs.

“Oh, don’t worry about-...Wait.” Denki slapped a hand across his neck, his face falling as Aizawa turned towards them.

He didn’t look surprised to see Shinsou there; on the contrary, his expression didn’t change at all.

“Hi, I’m alive,” Shinsou said, folding his arms.

Aizawa’s eyes flicked from him, then to Denki. His eyes hovered on the collar of bruises around Denki’s neck.

“If you wanted to tell me that I’ve been a bad influence on you, you could have just said so,” Aizawa said.

“Oh my God,” Shinsou groaned. “We’re not having this conversation right now. I’m going to bed.”

He turned to walk back up the stairs, one hand looping surreptitiously around Denki’s waist.

“Your room’s in a different dorm, Hitoshi.”

Shinsou glared at Aizawa, who raised his eyebrows at him. He huffed and stomped over to the front door, grabbing his shoes from the floor and vanishing from sight. Denki blinked before turning dumbly to Aizawa, who sighed before tilting his head towards the door. The ghost of a smile was hovering over his lips.

“Go talk to him.”

Denki nodded frantically, already darting across the room. He stepped through the door, but before he could take another step forward, a hand reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“I’m really sorry about that,” Shinsou said as he pulled Denki further out into the lawn. The wet grass was frigid against Denki’s bare toes, and he shivered in the crisp air. Although the buzz of alcohol had exited his system an hour ago, he hadn’t fully realized how exhausted he was until that moment. For the sake of his dignity, he resisted leaning into Shinsou’s chest to absorb his warmth.

Shinsou rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I know my dad was just taking the piss, but he shouldn’t have done that in front of you. I promise he didn’t mean anything by it, though. He really does like you, he just thinks embarrassing me is funny.”

Maybe it was just the cold weather, or the remnants of his quirk-induced brain fog, but Denki couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing.

“I’m...what?”

“Ever since I told my dad that I was into you, he keeps joking that you and Hizashi are so similar, and that I can’t invite you over because there’s only room for one loud blonde in the house.”

“I’m so lost right now. Say all that to me a again, but at half the speed.”

Shinsou narrowed his eyes in disbelief. “My dad, Aizawa, and his boyfriend, Hizashi, keep making jokes about me having a crush on you. What part am I not explaining here?”

Denki gaped as though the breath had been punched out of him. “I...I don’t...Aizawa and Present Mic are your parents?”

“Yeah?” Shinsou folded his arms, scowling. “Is that there something wrong with that?”

“Oh my God, Shinsou! Do you have any idea how bad I am in their classes? I can’t date you and be a bad student at the same time! What if I fail and Aizawa says I’m not allowed to see you anymore? You’ll help me study, right?”

Denki grabbed Shinsou’s hand, looking at him pleadingly. A strange look ghosted across Shinsou’s face; one that Denki could almost mistake for fondness. Suddenly, he swooped down and kissed Denki. It was deeper than anything they had shared before, and Denki felt as though he were melting into the grass with heat of Shinsou’s lips on his.

Shinsou parted softly, a small smile twinkling at the corners of his mouth.

“Tell you what. Take me on that date that you promised, and I’ll help you study as much as you want.”

Denki blinked, staring from Shinsou’s face down to their entwined hands, his heart hammering in his ribs. Gingerly, he ran a thumb over Shinsou’s wrist, confirming once more to himself that he really was there and not an elaborate figment of his imagination. If he had been honest with himself mere hours earlier, he never in an eternity would have expected this to have become his life. He never would have expected that there would be any room in Shinsou’s life for someone like him. Someone whose wildest dream was to provide the one thing which Shinsou had never been able to find before; someone willing to stick by him.

Denki wound his fingers tighter in Shinsou’s, and leaned into the warmth of his chest. He could hear the thump of a steady heartbeat pounding beneath the layers of fabric, muscle, and bone. The sound comforted him like a lullaby. He kissed their intertwined hands, and his face lit up in a million-watt grin.

“Sounds like a deal!” he said.