Goodbye Solitude

Chapter 15

Kirishima's eyes widened. "I have?"

Bakugo wiggled out of Kirishima's arms, his face heating. He fought the cowardly urge to run and hide. "You heard me, shitty hair." There was no point in trying to take back the words now, and he wasn't sure he particularly wanted to anyway.

Kirishima beamed, his face suddenly so radiant with joy that Bakugo had to look away. Away from eyes that sparkled and sharp teeth fully displayed in a grin. An answering smile tugged at his lips and he attempted to frown to cover it up. He could feel the awkward twist of his lips and knew he looked just strange now.

"Are you sure? This is your last chance to take it back," Kirishima warned.

Bakugo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah."

Kirishima crushed Bakugo in another hug, happily burying his face in his blonde hair. "I'm still not sure that I'm not dreaming. Don't wake me up if I am, ok?"

"So dramatic," he grumbled. It was silent in the locker room for a moment. "Well?" Bakugo said, anxiety spiking slightly.

"Well what?"

"You're just going to leave me hanging?"

"Huh? I already told you that I love you. You need me to say it more often? I love you so much Bakugo, I feel like my heart might explode with it." His breath tickled Bakugo's scalp.

"Wait, what? When did you tell me?"

"Uh, at the restaurant. Then you ran out. I was afraid it was your way of telling me that you didn't care about me in the same way, so I was avoiding you because I didn't want to hear what you'd tell me the next time I saw you. The past couple days have been awful," Kirishima admitted. "Then when I saw the bite on your neck I was crushed."

"I didn't hear you. My head was so messed up I couldn't hear much of anything. I'm a huge mess nearly all the time. Are you sure I'm worth it?" Bakugo mumbled into Kirishima's shoulder.

"You're worth it. I'd go through this all over again if it meant it would lead me to this moment."

"Damn," Bakugo breathed, his throat aching with the urge to cry. "That was way too fucking smooth." Kirishima burst into a surprised laugh, his Adam's apple bobbing in this throat. Bakugo pulled Kirishima's head down and bit it gently, freezing the laugh immediately. "You wanna get out of here?" he asked Kirishima silkily.

Kirishima groaned. The world tilted alarmingly as Kirishima picked Bakugo up and threw him over his shoulder. Bakugo swatted Kirishima's butt, which was about at eye level now. "Hey, shitty hair! I still need to drop off my gauntlet!"

Kirishima ignored him, carrying him out of the locker room. Kaminari gawked at them from where he stood guard by the locker room door.

"Hey, Bakugo!" A familiar voice echoed around the Home Office main floor.

Bakugo squinted and craned his neck, a bit disoriented from being upside down. Tetsutetsu was jogging toward them. Kirishima swung around and Bakugo frantically grabbed at his belt, afraid of getting dropped.

"Go away!" Kirishima snarled. "He's my boyfriend, you're lucky I don't snap every one of those teeth out of your mouth for what you did!"

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that, I wasn't in my right mind," Tetsutetsu said soothingly, as if Kirishima was a wild animal that could lash out at him. "I'm not trying to steal him away from you. Bakugo, I was just wanting to check and see how you were, if your neck was okay."

Bakugo sighed, getting more than a bit sick of being upside down. "I'm fine. It'll heal, don't worry about it."

"Oh, and Kirishima, for the record, I'm not really into guys at all. No judgement, of course. I just couldn't resist messing with you a little." Tetsutetsu shrugged sheepishly. "In fact, I have a date that's supposed to be meeting me here any minute."