Runnin' with the Devil

chatper 2

"Bakugou!" Kirishima starts beaming the instant he sees them.

"Just in time!" Uraraka says. The bartender is just pouring them all a row of shots. Bakugou's mouth twists.

"I don't want that cheap shit anywhere near me," he says.

"I know, I know," Kirishima says easily, sliding him a darkly golden, foaming glass of beer, which Bakugou accepts much more readily. "Todoroki, do you know what you want?"

"That cheap shit," Shouto says blandly. Bakugou snorts a laugh into his beer.

Kirishima pushes one of the shot glasses towards him, a smile growing on his face. He looks back and forth between Shouto and Bakugou. "Oh… okay."

Bakugou narrows his eyes. "What?"

"I didn't say anything!"

"You have that fuckin' smile on your face—"

"This is my normal smile!"

"It's not when you say, 'oh, okay,' like some kind of jerk off—"

Shouto looks back and forth between the two of them, forgotten, as Kirishima just shrugs, still grinning.

"It's just cute when you actually laugh at other people's jokes," Kirishima says. Bakugou shoves him so hard he nearly falls into Midoriya.

"Fuck off," he says, though the words are surprisingly lacking in heat. Shouto downs his shot in one go, and coughs. That really is cheap.

"Oh, Todoroki!" Midoriya says, having noticed him after almost being knocked over. He scoots his way around Kirishima and Bakugou, who are now arguing about Bakugou's inability to understand jokes. "Hey, you came! I'm so happy!"

"You are?" Shouto asks. This seems surprising. Midoriya never has a shortage of people to hang out with, at parties. It doesn't seem like he'd have a reason to miss Shouto's awkward reticence, although Midoriya has mentioned before that the whole popularity thing is pretty new to him, as well.

"Of course I am!" Midoriya says. His cheeks are shiny and pink under his freckles, which is… god, it's so cute. "I really like hanging out with you, I feel like we don't enough!"

Shouto can feel his own face getting red. The fact that Midoriya wants him around, just to hang out with, is inordinately pleasing. He's the first real friend Shouto actually made at university in their first semester there, despite Shouto making that pretty difficult at first, and he's the person who got Shouto to start opening up to the rest of their group. Even in the overwhelming new world of college life, Shouto would still be pretty lonely, if Midoriya hadn't stumbled into his path.

"I like hanging out with you, too," he says, and Midoriya's eyes light up like the night is on fire.

"Yeah?" he says. He laughs, almost nervously. "That's… that's so great to hear. I know this isn't really your thing, and I would never want to force you to, like, be sociable or whatever, but sometimes it's not so bad, I think! We all like having you along, and it does seem like you're having fun, and when I think about how things were before I really want to make sure that you know you're always welcome."

"Midoriya…" Shouto starts to say, because Midoriya rambles even when he's not drunk.

"I just wanted to tell you, I like being around you," Midoriya barrels on, and Shouto falls silent. "It's so, so great to see you smile."

Shouto thinks he might be slowly dying inside. Desperately, he searches for something to say.

"It's not as nice as yours, though."