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“Are your hands okay?”
Eijirou looked up at Midoriya. “What?”
Midoriya jumped back from where he’d been leaning over Eijirou’s shoulder, waving his hands wildly, and a bright red blush on his face. “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” he stammered. “I-I j-just noticed that you were staring at them a-and rubbing your knuckles. Y-you, you just seemed out of it and l-like you might be in pain!”
“Oh,” Eijirou turned his gaze back to his hands with a frown. “No,” he said expression uncharacteristically blank. “They don’t hurt. It’s…” he hesitated. “It’s the opposite really. I… I can’t feel much of anything in them right now.”
“What?” It was Midoriya’s turn to be confused. Eijirou looked at him again. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was open in slight shock.
It took him a second to realize what he’s said. What he’d just confessed that had Midoriya so shocked. Eijirou hadn’t told anyone about the way that using his Unbreakable form for too long would leave his joints wrecked. Would leave him feeling stiff and rigid. Aching. Or worse yet numb.
It didn’t happen often. Just when he went over his limit. A quirk exhaustion side effect or something like that. It was the worst in his hands. Most times he didn’t even notice it in his other joints; it just felt like he’d slept in a strange position for slightly too long.
But in his hands…
He couldn’t feel anything in his hands today. It had never been this bad before. It had also never lasted his long before.
Maybe it had something to do with holding Unbreakable in them for nearly an hour.
He hadn’t told anyone about the numbness. He didn’t want to worry anyone else. But Midoriya… he was looking at him so earnestly with so much worry in his bright wide eyes. Eijirou couldn’t leave him like that.
“It’s alright man,” Eijirou tried to reassure him. “It’s just something that happens sometimes if I stay Unbreakable for too long. It’s nothing to worry about.”
Eijirou tried to give Midoriya one of his patented manly smiles. Midoriya wasn’t having it.
“It is most certainly not alright!” Midoriya exclaimed, far more worked up about this than Eijirou thought was warranted. His earlier nerves and stuttering were gone now, and in their place came a flood of questions, “How often does it happen? Is it just your hands or any joint that you use Unbreakable in? How long can you use Unbreakable before it sets in? How long does it take to fade? Have you notice your hands being stiffer other times? Like when you wake up? Or try to use your fine motor skills? When did it start? Did anything like this happen before you started using Unbreakable? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Let him talk you stupid nerd!”
Eijirou, who had been staring gob smacked at Midoriya, turned to see Katsuki stalking towards them.
Shit!
Katsuki was the absolute worst person to walk in on them at this moment. Eijirou might not have wanted to tell anyone about the numbness because he didn’t want to worry them over something that probably wasn’t even a big deal, but that went doubly so for Katsuki. He also didn’t want Katsuki to realize how weak he was. Not being able to use his own quirk without getting hurt.
Midoriya… Midoriya had experienced that. He knew what it was like for his body to not withstand the full force of his quirk. He’d broken too many bones at the start of the year before finally getting it under control, and even then, it sometimes happened if he over used the power.
But Katsuki? Katsuki had perfect control of his quirk. It was like science the precision that he used with each blast. It was art the way that he arched and moved through the air with carefully cultivated blasts. His usage of his quirk was flawless. There’s no way that he would understand.
“K-Kacchan!” Midoriya squeaked. “I-I was just asking K-Kirishima a-about his h-hands.” His voice started to quiet, “He said they get numb sometimes.”
Eijirou winced.
“Huh?” Katsuki huffed. “Speak up Deku.”
Eijirou cut in, “It’s nothing man. Don’t worry about it. Midoriya was just asking me about my quirk.” He hoped that his explanation would be answer enough.
“W-What?” Midoriya asked. “I mean,” he thought about it for a second. “I guess that this is related to your quirk, but I was asking why your hands were numb.”
Eijirou winced again. Harder. Violently. They both noticed.
“Does Kacchan not…” Midoriya started in confusion, but he was cut off.
“What the fuck is wrong with your hands, Shitty Hair?” Katsuki bellowed. Loud and angry and menacing, but below the multiple layer of all that laced with immediate concern.
“I-It’s…” now it was Eijirou’s turn to stutter. “It’s nothing. Really. I’m fine. My hands… there just a little numb form holding Unbreakable so long today. I just went a little to far today. Normally they’d be back to normal by now.”
Eijirou looked up from his hands, where his eyes had been down cast, to look at Katsuki, and he say the battle field of his expression, and the exact moment when anger predictably won out.
“The fuck are you talking about, you can’t feel your fucking hands?! Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about it?! I could have been fucking helping you?!”
The anger was expected Eijirou knew that’s what to expect. The offer of help though? That was not expected.
“What do you mean?” Eijirou asked hesitantly. Katsuki might be his best friend, and he might also wish that he was more than his friend, but Katsuki was not a warm and gentle person. He was good, at his heart, below all the anger and bluster that he showed everyone else, Eijirou wouldn’t love him if he weren’t, but he was not kind. He didn’t usually do things without a damn good reason, and this didn’t seem important enough to qualify.
“Dumbass,” Katsuki mumbled under his breath. “The recoil from my explosions makes my shitty hands ache too. I could have given you some fucking stretches to help you.”
“O-oh.” It’s all Eijirou can say. He really wasn’t expecting that.
They all stared at each other in awkward silence for a stretch of time just passing into uncomfortable, when Midoriya spoke up, “Crochet!” he shouted.
Katsuki whirled on him. “The fuck?!”
“Crochet,” Midoriya repeated.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about crochet!” That wasn’t helpful. “After I messed up my hand in the sports festible, I was having some mobility issues too, and my mom recommended that I try crochet. To help improve my dexterity as I healed. She showed me how and it helped so now I work on projects in my free time to keep up with it. I try and do it once or twice a week at least. I can show you both and see if it helps you. I haven’t been getting nearly as much pain in my hands as before, and my range of motion seems to be better.”
Eijirou was all for it, and was about to say as much, when instead he looked at Katsuki. Eijirou would try just about anything once, it was the manly thing to do after all, but Katsuki was unlikely to be so willing to take Midoriya up on his offer. Unwilling to seem weak or injured in front of his rival.
Katsuki stared Midoriya down. Midoriya didn’t flinch. Eijirou watched Katsuki, and when he turned to look at Kirishima something changed in his expression. It became less closed off. More resigned.
Gottcha! Eijirou thought.
If Katsuki really hadn’t wanted to do it, Eijirou would’ve respected that decision and still taken Midoriya up on the offer himself. That was the manly thing to do after all. But this could be good for Katsuki, and if he was hurting like Eijirou was hurting then Katsuki should get help too.
Somehow, Eijirou found it easier to accept that his friend needed help, deserved help, with this more than he did.
“We’re in!” Eijirou said to Midoriya, flashing him a bright smile while Katsuki glared on in annoyance. “When do we start?”
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It had been two weeks since that conversation, just under one and a half weeks since Midoriya had first started teaching them to crochet, when Eijirou burst into Katsuki’s room one evening like an excited puppy. He was beaming from ear to ear, his sharp, shark teeth on full display and his expression open and exhilarated.
“I did it!” he exclaimed pure joy in his voice. “I got the magic circle to work!”
“Really?” Katsuki asked looking up from his own cluster of yarn in his lap. He examined the crocheted circle of yarn in Eijirou’s outstretched hands. It wasn’t very large, smaller than the size of his palm, and the same bright red as Eijirou’s hair left loose around his shoulders after his nightly shower, but it was impressive. “I know that you’ve been really struggling with it.”
Eijirou beamed even brighter, which Katsuki wouldn’t have thought possible. “I’m so excited! Now I can make my own little shark plushie like the ones I keep seeing when I look up crochet animal projects.”
Katsuki shook his head. Of course, Eijirou would want to crochet cutesy little animal plushies and not something useful. Why did he find that so endearing?
“Yeah,” Katsuki said instead.
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By Christmas Eijirou and Katsuki had gotten pretty good at the whole crochet thing if Katsuki did say so himself. If Katsuki crocheted the idiot squad and Deku scarves in the colors of their hero costumes to wear now that the weather was cold then it was just because it was good physical therapy for his hands and not because he actually liked them or anything.
If Katsuki slept with the grenade plushies that Eijirou had made him underneath his pillow, then that was no one else’s business but his own.