One Dance

28| Minutes 'til Midnight

Notes: one more week to go lads and then I'll be out your hair

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New Year's Eve rounded the next two weeks before they knew it. They traded garlands and tree for colorful crepe streamers and fool fringes. A cluster of balloons skid across their ceiling with each and every passing underneath them. They exchanged a few of their white bulbs for gaudy ones, magenta, yellow, and lime green being their theme. Denki's dome speaker painted the room in kinetic colors, the golden blond himself perched beside one of Jirou's much larger ones, laptop rested on the tops of his thighs. Jirou herself was in another corner setting up a second speaker, one of her earphone jacks connected to the phone that peeked out of her back pocket.

"What about this song?" Denki inquired, tapping the spacebar on his laptop. Jirou straightened up, fumbling with the wires tangled together in her hands, brow twitching in thought as music pooled through to her. She hummed. "Eh, too old to be a banger."

Denki clicked his tongue, then looked to where Sero and Eijirou sat on the couch inflating more balloons. "The Black Eyed Peas are still cool, right, dudes?"

Sero peeled his lips from the rubber ring of the balloon hole, pinching it together to offset the potential release of air. Eijirou gave him a waiting finger, his face stiffened in concentration on blowing up his balloon. Sero tied his, tossing it over his shoulder with a shrug. "I still think they're pretty cool. They got bops."

Denki cocked his head at his girlfriend. "See?"

"That's just Hanta, though." Sero gasped sharply, sputtering out his words.

"H-hey!"

"Kiri!"

Eijirou hummed and pulled the balloon from his lips. He opened his mouth to speak, attempting to get a firm grip on the bead of the balloon, but the rubber slipped through his fingers and whizzed through the air erratically, the flatulent-like sound of air escaping its body loud and obnoxious until it landed, withered, flaccid, wet, right into Katsuki's mixing bowl. The redhead gasped in shock, and the others quieted themselves as well as deep crimson irises—angry ones at that—bore down on them. Eijirou swallowed, forced a feeble smile on his face. "A-ah... sorry Katsuki," he apologized. Katsuki growled as he reeled the balloon out of his cupcake batter.

"You fucking—" The blond bit his tongue, growled to himself as he forced himself to calm down, to kind of relax. He'd been cooking damn near all day all by himself after banning the rest of his idiot friends (minus Jirou) from the kitchen for this exact reason. The cupcake recipe wasn't his own—it was one passed along to him by Sato, the class deemed Pastry God. It was the last thing on their party menu, and evidently, he was eager to know whether or not he'd surpass his expectations. And now there was probably balloon residue in his batter...

He couldn't—wouldn't—dare yell at Eijirou. Not today. Definitely not now. Things have been off since Christmas, since that conversation. That night ended on a bittersweet note; him and the redhead curiously tested out one of the positions in the playbook gifted to them (admittedly, the pages are stuck together now), but their usual afterglow pillow talk fell lackluster in comparison to the enthusiasm they had prior to the trip—prior to Eijirou discussing his parent problem. Prior to the question of whether or not they should make their relationship public, though as far as the tabloids were concerned, they were practically canon.

That night, Eijirou also confessed to the gang about the events that transpired prior to them moving in together. Katsuki remembers because he was the only one who decided not to get piss-drunk knowing he had work early the next morning. Throughout the week, he'd seen less and less of his boyfriend until eventually, it was just them sliding into their bed or sharing the bathroom in the morning. Half of that was because of work overtime, but the other half? Anyone's guess.