Coming and Going (Out)

The music was pounding as Katsuki headed for the kitchen, internally debating whether or not it was safe to take painkillers with a shot of tequila. He was going to have an awful headache in the morning, if not before – and he was fairly certain his ears were going to ring for at least three days. He wasn’t sure why he’d let his stupid friends talk him into making an appearance, but apparently he had a stupid soft spot for them and their begging, somewhere deep down.

Never again.

As a girl squeezed through the crowd ahead of him, he saw something drop, and he hurried after her. He bent over to scoop up the bright-blue wallet before anyone could step on it, nudging his way through the crowd to catch up with the girl, mumbling excuse me a couple of times and giving up on bothering when it went unheard. The house was full of strangers, and he’d been trying to be nice and calm or whatever, but the idiots were really testing his patience.

He didn’t recognise the girl, didn’t know her name to call after her. Presumably she was some friend of Kaminari’s, or maybe somebody’s date for the night, although honestly he wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she’d just heard the music from miles away and decided to come nab some free drinks. With how many people had ended up crammed into the house, he was sure Kaminari couldn’t have known all of them. So instead of calling after her, stopping the stupid situation right off the bat, he just had to keep his eyes locked on the back of her head, hoping she wouldn’t vanish behind someone tall and leave him out of luck. Honestly, he should have just left the damn thing on the floor.

When he finally got close, he tapped her on the shoulder, and she gave him the biggest look of disdain he’d ever seen in his life. He froze for a moment, blinking at her stupidly, somehow unable to find any words in his surprise, or even a scowl to shoot back at her.

"I, uh—” he choked out.

"I'm not interested."

Katsuki froze again, mouth hanging open a little as his voice ceased to work. He’d always been terrible at talking to strangers, let alone when he was trying to do a good thing and she just thought he was an asshole for it. It would be one thing if he’d actually been an asshole to her, but to just assume it right off the bat? That pissed him off.

"What the fuck? No, I mean—"

"I said I'm not interested," she said, loudly and stubbornly, turning away to leave.

"Don’t fucking walk away, let me finish my—"

"Dude, leave me alone."

Eyes were starting to turn their way now, and Katsuki felt weirdly embarrassed by the misunderstanding, his eye twitching with the effort it took to not just scream at her. He knew how bad that would look.

"I wasn't trying to—"

"Back off!" she insisted, and a few more dirty looks turned his way. "I have a boyfriend!"

"Yeah, so do I," Katsuki shot right back, without bothering to lower his voice. "But you dropped your wallet."

People started to laugh, the crowd quickly filling with it, and the girl burned bright red, finally realising her mistake. About time. Katsuki tossed the wallet to her feet lightly, his patience for the night all used up, and pulled a face as he glanced her over. He could hear plenty of jeering and teasing directed at her as he turned away, and he couldn't help but be a little pleased by it, after the amount of awkwardness she had put him through for trying to do a good thing.

"Last time I'm nice to anyone," Katsuki muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets as Kirishima grinned at him.

"She was kinda cute though, I can see where it comes from. Probably a lot of drunk, pushy guys hanging around."

Katsuki scowled, shoving past someone to reach a corner to press himself into, to make himself feel a little less exposed.

"I’ve hardly even started drinking yet, I was trying to get a damn drink."

"She doesn't know that, though."

"That’s no reason to be a prick about it."

"Granted."

Katsuki glanced back at the crowd again, still erupting with laughter over it all – at least someone was getting some enjoyment from it, he supposed.

"You really think she's cute?" Katsuki asked sceptically, glancing back toward the crowd. "I don't see it."

"Yeah,” Kirishima said, with a knowing smile. “You wouldn't."

He realised his mistake when he saw the mob of classmates heading his direction, Ashido and Kaminari at the helm, pointing matching accusatory fingers at him.

“You have a boyfriend?!”

Katsuki felt every muscle in his body go rigid. The words had slipped out of him without thinking, but he hadn’t stopped to think about the consequences, until that moment. He slowly turned his head to look at Kirishima, at the sheepish smile on his face as he shrugged it off.

“I wasn’t gonna make a big deal out of it,” he said softly. “If you didn’t want to share, you weren’t obligated to.”

“Fuck,” Katsuki hissed, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “I did not think that shit through.”

“You don’t have to tell us anything!” Kirishima assured him. “I mean, we’d love to hear about it, if you want to tell us, but if you’re not ready, that’s totally okay too!”

“Stop with the greeting card shit,” Katsuki huffed. “Just... get it over with.”

Sure enough, Ashido and Kaminari pounced on him immediately, squawking indignantly and demanding to know details. Katsuki just grimaced, shrugging them off repeatedly, but giving them a minute to get it all – hopefully – out of their systems.

“You didn’t even tell me you were gay!” Ashido lamented. “Didn’t you trust me?!”

“First of all, I’m not,” Katsuki objected. “I’m Ace, and so is he, so don’t start the shitty jokes.”

“Oh.” Ashido fell still, blinking at him. “That... tracks, actually.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re too dedicated to be Allo!” she explained – poorly, Katsuki thought. “You’ve seen some of the boys in our class, if a villain took their shirt off they’d suddenly forget they had a quirk. But you’re always so focused and stuff, you never sneak a dirty magazine inside a textbook or wake people up because you’re jerking off too loudly.”

“Who the fuck is doing that shit in a hero class?”

“You’d be surprised, bro,” Kirishima said sadly. “It’s a mess, some days.”

“Jesus Christ.”

On the bright side, Katsuki thought, at least his friends knew what the fuck he was talking about. Well, Ashido did, at least. The others might have just been following her lead, ready to ask her later when Katsuki wasn’t listening, but the effect was the same, really.

“Do you want us to keep it quiet?” Kaminari asked. “I mean, I don’t know how many people here know you and are likely to spread it, but we can at least keep our own mouths shut, if you want.”

Katsuki looked up at the group hovering behind them, hanging on their every word, and with a sigh, he shook his head.

“Half the class is here,” he said, defeated. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Kirishima slung an arm around Katsuki’s shoulders, beaming at him, and Ashido reached out to ruffle his hair, despite him swiping at her for it.

“I’m really happy we learned more about you,” Kirishima said, with a painful amount of sincerity. “I know you didn’t really intend it to happen, but thanks for sharing anyway.”

“Fuck off,” Katsuki said, though he knew there was no bite to it.

“We love you too, Bakugou,” Ashido said fondly. “Thanks for coming out tonight.”

“I hate you so much.”


———

Katsuki rolled his eyes as Kirishima relayed the story for the hundredth time, hanging back to watch him entertain the group from behind. His retelling made it far more entertaining than it really was, so Katsuki couldn't bring himself to tell him to quit it, given the amount of laughter he had spread throughout the school in just one day. He didn’t feel like it was at his expense so much as at the asshole girl’s, and it seemed to have been an effective way of spreading the boyfriend-news on his own terms, rather than letting people whisper about it. He’d quickly learned that the best way to deal with it was to just pretend everyone had known already – most people were too embarrassed to admit they hadn’t realised he’d had a boyfriend, when faced with it being common knowledge.

When they reached the dorms, people began to split off, and Katsuki couldn't bring himself to look at Izuku, when he saw him in the living room. He knew Izuku’s face would be full of questions for him, after hearing all the whispers that never quite made it to his ears, and he wasn’t ready to face it yet. So instead of dealing with it, he slid past the group and headed for the stairs, jogging up to his floor and escaping into the confines of his dorm room. He pulled his shirt off as he entered, tossing it toward his hamper, but the little chuckle behind him made him freeze in his tracks.

“Looking good,” Izuku teased. “Can I come in?”

Katsuki nodded faintly – it wasn’t like he could really say no when Izuku was already halfway through the door anyway – and prayed that Izuku couldn’t hear how hard his heart was pounding.

"You done?” Katsuki asked, in a feeble attempt to deflect. “Can I put my hoodie on now?"

"Nah." Izuku grinned. "This is good, stick with this."

Katsuki shook his head fondly, but he didn’t say a word about it, and didn’t reach for his hoodie right away – even though he knew he’d get cold before long. He could suffer a few minutes to let Izuku perv at him, he’d cope.

"I heard you guys drank a bunch last night?" Izuku asked. “You feeling okay?”

"I’m okay.”

"Was there a reason behind it?”

"You mean Kirishima hasn't already told you the story a thousand times?" Katsuki said, pulling a face. “It was nothing, really.”

Izuku chuckled at him, dropping onto Katsuki’s mattress and kicking off his socks. Izuku hated socks, had hated them ever since he was a toddler and used to tear them off whenever his mother looked away for a second. He’d grown out of that, but it was still the first thing he did when he got home for the night, and Katsuki was quietly a little pleased that Izuku considered Katsuki’s dorm room home.

"Go on, then," Izuku said.

"It's nothing special," Katsuki said dismissively. "He makes it funny when he tells it, but it wasn't really, it was stupid."

"Is that what was going on all day?" Izuku asked. "I figured it was just Kirishima being Kirishima, I didn't know something had happened."

"It was stupid," Katsuki repeated. "I just tried to do a good thing and it quickly dissolved."

"You don't want to talk about it?" Izuku asked.

"It's dumb," Katsuki said.

Izuku planted a kiss on the top of Katsuki's head when he sat down, opening up his backpack to reveal drinks and snacks for them both.

"Quiet night, then?" he asked. “I got your favourites, I thought we could snuggle and watch a movie or something, if you want?”

"You don't have to be so passive, it's not like I'm traumatized," Katsuki said, grimacing again.

"I wouldn't know,” Izuku shrugged. “Doing my best here.”

Katsuki sighed, shaking his head faintly, but he squared his shoulders all the same, bracing himself for the impact of it all.

"This random girl dropped her wallet at the party. I guess she was pretty, apparently, but I didn't notice," Katsuki said. "I tried to get her attention to tell her, and she thought I was hitting on her, so the whole conversation was a mess."

"Is that all?" Izuku asked. “Did you think I’d be upset that you were supposedly hitting on a girl?”

"She told me she had a boyfriend, to get rid of me,” Katsuki explained reluctantly. “So I said 'so do I' and apparently that's the funniest thing any of them have ever heard.”

Izuku failed to hide his smirk, and Katsuki elbowed him in the ribs, despite cracking a tiny smile himself at Izuku’s amusement.

"Shut up, I was trying to do a good thing," Katsuki said.

"You're adorable," Izuku said, and Katsuki's face burned with embarrassment.

"Shut up," Katsuki repeated. "Why do you like to see me suffer?"

"Because you're cute when you’re suffering," Izuku replied, pulling Katsuki up against him. “I’ve gotta torment you a little to see that cute face you make.”

Katsuki didn't bother to argue, relaxing instead into his embrace and finding a comfortable spot to lean. He’d been infuriated at first, when Izuku had gotten broader and more visibly muscular than him, but he’d grown to like the way he could just snuggle into him and not worry about being too heavy or anything. Even if he’d never admit to it.

“I don’t mind telling people,” Izuku said quietly. “If you want to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Izuku said. “It’s been what, a year? It’s probably safe now, to assume it’s not gonna just end suddenly and make things awkward for everyone.”

“Damn well better not,” Katsuki snorted, tipping his head to rest on Izuku’s shoulder. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Izuku assured him, grinning. “You’re so cute when you get clingy.”

“Shut up, I’m not cute.”

“The cutest.”

Izuku took his phone from his pocket, pulling up his camera, and Katsuki scowled when he held it out to take a selfie, flipping the camera off. Izuku just giggled, turning his head to plant another cheesy kiss on Katsuki’s hair, snapping a photo of them right as Katsuki’s face began to turn pink.

“Perfect,” he said, when he opened the photo to take a look. “It’s us in a nutshell.”

Katsuki finally caught on when Izuku opened up their class group chat, pausing for a second to give Katsuki a chance to stop him, then hitting send when Katsuki didn’t protest.

“Apparently you guys didn’t know?” he typed out. “My bad!”

A dozen names immediately popped up with the little typing icon, and Izuku just smiled as he muted his phone, setting it aside on Katsuki’s nightstand and reaching for a bag of popcorn instead.

“So, I was thinking that new horror movie?” he suggested. “Then I can sleep over and snuggle with you so I don’t lose sleep over it?”

“You don’t give a shit about horror movies,” Katsuki argued, grabbing his laptop all the same. “If you want to stay, just say you wanna stay. I don’t need stupid excuses.”

“Okay,” Izuku grinned. “Can I stay over tonight?”

“Damn right you can.”