Goodbye Solitude

Chapter 7

Bakugo woke up early for work the next day. His nerves were strung tight, there was a lot on the line. A lot was really uncertain, and too many risks for his liking. It was really tempting to back out, but he was no coward. Instead, he took a shower at the crack of dawn, made himself breakfast, and restlessly paced his apartment until deciding that it wasn't too early to drive to work.

After parking, instead of heading inside the Home Office building he stood and leaned against the side of the building behind a shrub just tall enough to hide himself a little bit, but small enough that he could easily peek around it to monitor everyone who went in the building. He waited so long that his legs started to ache a little from standing stationary, making him shift uncomfortably.

Finally, Kirishima came into view, walking down the sidewalk with a neutral, serious expression on his face. Bakugo crept forward and just before Kirishima could touch the front door, he grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him over to the side of the building. Kirishima's eyes widened as he let himself get pulled behind the shrubs.

"Bakugo? What's going on?" Kirishima asked, bewildered. Bakugo leaned against the brick wall and Kirishima stood across from him, blocking out the morning sunlight.

"I wanted to talk to you before we started work today."

"Okay... Is something wrong?" He looked him up and down, concerned.

"No, no, it's nothing like that. I wanted to talk about yesterday, kind of. Nothing got resolved."

"Except that you like my teeth." Kirishima smiled, the tips of his teeth just barely peeking out between his lips.

Bakugo frowned, touching his bandaged bitemark absentmindedly, before ignoring that comment. "Anyway, I have a proposal for you."

Kirishima looked down at him warily. "Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

"You don't have to fucking accept anything, shithead. Just listen and then decide. Yes, I like your teeth. It's annoying and distracting. Then yesterday it occurred to me that maybe a sort of exposure therapy could kill this weird attraction I have for them."

"Excuse me?"

"Lots of exposure to your teeth until I am just used to them."

"So, you don't want to like my teeth anymore?" he said, frowning.

"Well, not in a weird way," Bakugo admitted.

Kirishima looked less than pleased. "So, what do I get from this proposal?"

Bakugo cocked his head. "You said you wanted to touch me."

Kirishima's eyes widened again. "Wait, wait, wait. Are you..... You're suggesting we become fuck buddies, aren't you?"

"Well, for a lack of a better term, yes.... But with rules."

"What would the rules be?"

"Ok, here's what I was thinking..." Bakugo took a deep breath. "Number One- This situation is very temporary. I feel like if we let it just go indefinitely the riskier this will get, for the both of us. So, after our partnership is over, we go back to being just friends and we don't talk about what happened ever again. Number Two- if either of us aren't comfortable before that time, we can end things earlier. No hard feelings. And I can't fucking stress these two rules enough. We're best friends and we want to stay best friends, right?" Kirishima nodded slowly. "Number Three- No touching each other, biting, or anything sexual during our shifts. Number Four- And I guess this is more of an addendum to the other rules, but we stay strictly professional and respectful of each other's hero work. We were both competent heroes before this proposed arrangement, and that doesn't change during or after this. Number Five- No telling anyone about what's going on between us." He paused and looked up at the redhead. "So, what do you think?"