Radio Silence [KiriBaku, Complete]

Finale

Kirishima thought he was done with this whole isolating himself thing, but in the afternoon after the trial he just feels so tired. The idea of discussing it with anyone who wasn't there sounds exhausting. He spends the day on his phone, lounging around and trying to make time pass more quickly – which of course makes it drag.

Around the time he normally grabs dinner, he gets a text from Bakugou. You eaten yet?

Kirishima knows if he doesn't reply, Bakugou will come and knock on his door, but he's still torn. Part of him wants to lie and say he has in order to remain in his quiet little bubble, but part of him knows it's futile – Bakugou will come bursting in whether Kirishima wants him there or not. And, somehow, Kirishima will end up liking it.

No, he texts. You?

There's no reply, but a minute later, he hears the telltale sound of Bakugou kicking his door. "Come on, Shitty Hair, you're so fucking slow!"

He should have known Bakugou wasn't the type to ask annoying personal questions. He rants about classes between mouthfuls of food, and Kirishima realizes with a warmth in his chest that it's Bakugou's way of catching him up on things he missed.

It dawns on him at that exact moment – six-something in the evening on the day of the trial – that his feelings for Bakugou have grown and changed over the past few weeks like they're a living thing, from raw gratitude to simply wanting to near him and being used to his presence. Kirishima likes having Bakugou there. He likes the way Bakugou seems to have his schedule memorized and even likes his weird protective streak.

It's not such a leap for Kirishima to realize (as he steals a glance at Bakugou's face) that maybe, somehow, he doesn't just like these things. Maybe he actually likes Bakugou.

It seems so natural that the thought hardly takes him by surprise, even though it's taken a long time for him to reach this deduction. When he dares to look at Bakugou again, he's staring at Kirishima, eyes narrowed. "Someone shit in your food?" Bakugou asks.

"Huh?"

"You haven't eaten anything."

Kirishima's apparently such a one-track-minded idiot that he literally cannot think and eat at the same time. "Whoops," he says, "just got distracted," and shoves forkfuls of chicken into his mouth, earning a raised eyebrow from Bakugou but thankfully no more questions.

They sit in Kirishima's room after dinner, Bakugou doing homework and using his phone, Kirishima pretending to use his phone but mostly just thinking. He's a slow thinker, unlike Bakugou himself, who always seems to get from Point A to Point B before Kirishima can blink. But he's got time, and it's nice to sit there, just the two of them.

Now he's hyperaware of Bakugou's every movement. Bakugou's on his bed, lying on top of the blankets, his head resting on Kirishima's pillow. It's the same position he always takes when they hang out together, but somehow Kirishima has never noticed how intimate it is. Bakugou's face is resting against Kirishima's own pillow, and when he next sleeps on it, it will be like... a secondhand face touch. That's something, right?

He's got to talk to Ashido about his feelings. She would know what to do, probably without him even having to explain anything. At least he already did talk to her about Bakugou earlier that day. "Tell him you enjoy his company," she'd said, although Kirishima isn't sure how to do that without it seeming really out of the blue and awkward. And of course it's still technically talking about feelings, which he knows Bakugou hates.

But he has to say something. He has to. So Kirishima musters up the courage to say, "I'm really glad you came and got me for dinner. I wasn't paying attention, so I probably would have just missed it if you hadn't."