After being called "shitty hair" for the billionth time, Kirishima shaves off his hair in an attempt to get Bakugou to ease up on his insults.

Imagine his shock to find Bakugou knocking at his door in the middle of the night with three perfectly grilled streaks and teary eyed.

"I loved your hair, I'm so sorry I made you feel like I didn't," he says, sounding sincere, sounding soft in a way Kirishima has never heard before.

It's all a bit too much, and not enough at the same time.

"I loved it too, but you know, you made me feel like shit all the time."

Bakugou swallows, but nods, eyes looking everywhere but at him. He lifts up the plate of meat, gesturing for Kirishima to take it. Kirishima does, sighing softly as his other hand opening his door wider.

"Well? You coming in, even I can't eat this much bro."

Bakugou is wide eyed when he looks up at him. "Y-y-you still want to be my friend?"

"Duh stupid," Kirishima laughs.

It’s quiet in Kirishima’s room, the only sound is the knife scraping along the plate. The two of them are sitting across from each other, Kirishima perched on his bed and Bakugou on the desk chair that got dragged across the room, neither of them speaking.

There is only one set of silverware and Bakugou watches the way the skin flexes over Kirishima’s knuckles as he cuts into the meat, unable or unwilling to look anywhere else. He jumps when Kirishima quickly jabs at one of the pieces of steak he’d cut and extends it to Bakugou.

“Here, you can have the first bite.”

The move is so charastically Kirishima, so unbelievably and ridiculously kind, that Bakugou scoffs. “No,” Bakugou says to him, gently pushing the other man's wrist away from him. “I made it for you dummy, you eat it.”

“And you only made it for me because you feel bad. I’m not going to eat this pity steak alone, dude.”

“Pity steak? What the fuck does that mean?”

Kirishima sets the fork back down onto the plate with a huff. “A pity steak,” he says again, more firm like it would suddenly somehow make Bakugou understand.

When Bakugou raises a single eyebrow up at him in question, Kirishima shoves the plate off his lap and sets it down on his nightstand with a huff. “You know?" He starts.
"Like… you only made me this because you feel sorry for me.

You feel bad that I felt bad and now you’re trying to make it up to me. It’s sweet, but like, I don’t know. It’s not the same as if you cooked this for me just for fun. So, it’s a pity steak.”

Logically, Bakugou knows blowing up at Kirishima, especially when he is in the middle of trying to apologize is not a smart move. Still, it doesn’t stop him from breathing heavily through his nose as he slams his eyes shut.

“A pity steak?” Bakugou parrots back to him, voice as even as he can make it.

“Okay fine, a ‘sorry steak’ then? That sound better?”

Opening his eyes, Bakugou fixes him with a glare.

Reaching over, Kirishima picks the plate back up, sets it down on his lap and grabs for the fork, extending it to Bakugou for the second time. “Well, c’mon then, take a bite of your apology before it gets cold.”

“Why are you making this so hard? I’m trying to say fucking sorry,” Bakugou snaps.

“I shaved my hair off, Bakugou,” Kirishima quips back. “Excuse me if I am not jumping for joy at you thinking a hunk of meat will magically make us cool again.”

“But you lov—”

“Meat? Yeah, I know, but like a good meal isn’t going to just fix this dude.” Setting back down the fork, Kirishima looks up towards the ceiling for a second before he squares his shoulders and directs his eyes back to Bakugou.

“Look, I appreciate you trying. I do. It’s a nice gesture. But let’s be real, this was more for you than it was for me. We both know tomorrow you are going to find something else to give me shit about and then we are just going to go through this process all over again.”

“What the fuck, Kirishima. I’m not going to do that, I /don’t/ do that.”

Kirishima levels him with a single, utterly exhausted looking stare.

Bakugou blanches. “....do I?”

“Yeah, you do. A lot. And it fucking sucks.”

“I’m not serious though, you know? I’m just jok—”

Kirishima cuts him off. “Your ‘jokes’ aren’t funny. Not when it’s all the time. Not when it hurts. Not when it makes me feel bad about myself. Ugh, I don’t even know why I’m trying to explain this.

You’re not going to get it and you aren’t going to change. Just…” Kirishima trails off, then stands to his feet, setting down the plate again. “Yeah, just uh, thanks for the food dude. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s a dismissal, an end to the conversation.

Bakugou would rather drop dead before he’d let Kirishima kick him out of the room after that. Confrontation is in his blood, down to the core of his very being and Kirishima is a fool to think otherwise.

“Fuck tomorrow, Kirishima. We are doing this now. You say I hurt you? All the time? Where? When?”

He doesn’t mean for it to come off so aggressively, he really doesn’t, but he’s standing up too now, crowding Kirishima, as if trying to force the answers out of his mouth with his proximity alone.

Crossing his arms, Kirishima scoffs. “You want a fucking list? How much time do we have? If I start now maybe I can finish it before we graduate.”

Without his permission, Bakugou takes a step back, recoiling as if he had been slapped. When he meets Kirishima’s hard gaze, he wishes he had been instead.

He’d hurt Kirishima. Enough times that he had a /list./

“You look shocked,” Kirishima tells him, eyes rolling, sarcasm edging his voice like a knife.

Silent, Bakugou lowers his eyes to the floor, his mind picking through his most recent interactions with Kirishima.

It doesn’t take long for him to realize that he can’t think of a /single/ time he was just nice to him to be nice.

Even in their study sessions he was an asshole. Calling Kirishima names, mocking his intelligence, making fun of the way he looks. When he piles them all together, it doesn’t seem very funny to him either.

Truth was, he’d always been kind of terrible. Even as a kid, that much, he knew. A bully, his school had called him, plain unloveable according to his mother. Bakugou had a list of his own only his was filled with people who thought the worst of him.

Even when he did well, made the Dean's list or some other type of academic achievement, most people's opinions of him never changed. Good on paper, bad in person.

And yet, until this moment, Kirishima never seemed to be a person who would make it on that list.

Well, he was wrong and it was all his fault.

“I…” Bakugou doesn’t really know where to start. A simple sorry won’t cut it, and the cooling steaks on the nightstand seem like such a stupid apology in comparison to his major fuck up at being a friend. Is he even a friend? Can he call himself that?

A hand claps against his shoulder, pulling him out of his mind. “Hey,” Kirishima says softly. “Don’t worry about it alright. I’m being too mean an—”

“No!” Bakugou shouts out. “You’re being too nice! You’re always so fucking nice to me! Why? I treat you like shit!” When he says it out loud, the truth of it is enough to knock him on his ass.

For a second, he almost moves to sit back down on the chair before he does, only changing his mind when Kirishima grips his shoulder a little tighter. Reassuring him when he doesn’t deserve it, typical Kirishima.

“I know it probably means shit to you, I’m sure, but Kirishima...no, /Eijiro/, I’m sorry. Fucking, really. I-I...I know I fucked up, have /been/ fucking up but shit, don’t…”

“Hey,” Kirishima says, sounding alarmed. “Bakugou, hey hey hey, stop that, dude don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying!” Bakugou sniffs, hastily wiping his hands on his cheeks. “Shut the fuck up, liar.”

“Ah, there he is,” Kirishima chuckles, taking his hand off of Bakugou’s shoulder to swipe a tear off of his cheek with his thumb. “My little terror.”

“Why the fuck are you even friends with me?” Bakugou asks, his voice smaller than he intends.

“Why do you put up with me? I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah,” Kirishima says easily, “you really are.”

Bakugou sniffles again.

“But, not all the time. Sometimes you are kind of the best.”

“I’m always the best,” Bakugou grumbles.

“Ah, and so humble too.”

They both share a small chuckle at that, the tension easing out of the room just a bit. Just enough that Bakugou can breathe a little easier. “I really am sorry,” Bakugou tells him, nudging Kirishima’s foot with his own. “You know, for everything.”

“Kinda vague, but thank you.”

“Don’t be a dick, I mean it alright? I’m gonna…. Fuck, I don’t know, make it up to you and shit.”

Sitting back down on his bed, Kirishima looks up at Bakugou, his eyes wary.

“We’ve kind of been here before dude. You say something a too mean then you give a half assed sorry like, /“wow, didn’t know you were gonna be such a bitch about it, my bad”/ and we carry on like always.I want to, but it’s hard to actually believe this shit is going to stop.

Like, I love you bro, probably too much,” he pauses for a second, turning a bit red before pushing forward, “I really fucking do, but I can’t keep on having you treat me like trash as a joke. Like I know I suck, but c’mon, let me live. I don’t deserve it.”

Gently, Bakugou eases himself next to Kirishima on the bed. “You don’t suck, I suck.”

Kirishima snorts.

“I’m serious,” Bakugou says, making an impulse decision to grab one of Kirishima’s hands. It’s big and soft in his, he squeezes it.

“You’re like the least sucky person I know. I’m just shit at showing it. Like, look, I never really was good at making friends.”

“Oh?” Kirishima cuts in. “You don’t say? You? No way. I don’t believe it.”

“Don’t be a shithead, I’m trying to do that feelings crap you’re into.”

Kirishima grins, and gives his hand a small squeeze back, a silent gesture for him to continue.

“I guess I am just bad at this shit? I don’t /mean/ the shit I say, and I really wouldn’t have been saying it to you if I didn’t know you took it seriously. I thought you knew I was joking, I swear. Wish you would have told me sooner, you know, before you went all Britney on me.”

He was trying to lighten up the mood, but when Kirishima takes his hand back, and tucks it under his arm, it’s clear that he didn’t think Bakugou was being funny.

“Shit,” Bakugou curses. “I fucked up huh? I’m sorry Eijiro, please let me fix it. Tell me what I did wrong.”

“You didn’t really do anything wrong? Just. Uh, I don’t really have the greatest self esteem you know? I’m sensitive and you reminded me I’m freaking bald now. Also, for the record, Britney one hundred percent was justified in her actions, so leave her alone or I’ll fight you.”

Kirishima is quiet for a second, before very slowly he begins to undo the strings on his hood.

The entire time Bakugou has been here, Kirishima had had the strings to his red sweater pulled up tight around his face.

Bakugou was trying and failing miserably to not think he kind of looked adorable like that.

“You know,” Kirishima says softly as the knot falls and the strings fall to rest on his chest, “I haven’t really seen it until right after I did it. How bad is it?”

Gently, Kirishima pushes back his hood and looks at Bakugou expectantly.

He’s buzzed, so close to his scalp he might as well be bald, but it’s not bad. Definitely not bad. His old hair, the mane Bakugou secretly came up with stupid reasons to touch, had been what Bakugou originally noticed about him.

Obnoxious in its aggressive flamboyancy, you couldn’t not miss Kirishima with that hair. But this, the lack thereof, was somehow even more demanding. Without the distraction of red, Bakugou’s eyes were forced to center on his face. And goddamn, what a fucking face.

Bakugou finds himself blushing before he can answer Kirishima’s question.

“That bad? Fuck.”
“You look good,” Bakugou chokes out. “Really fucking good.”

Kirishima groans. “Ha, I fucking bet.” He moves to put the hood back on, but Bakugou reaches out a hand to stop him.

“Really,” Bakugou admits, voice shaking slightly. “I liked your old hair a lot, but this way, I can see /you/ better. It’s pretty.”

Kirishima blinks. “You think my bald head is...pretty?”

“Ugh, no /you’re/ pretty you dumb asshole, all of you, god.”

Kirishima stops blinking all together, his face turning scarlett.

It suddenly dawns on him what he said, and Bakugou quickly jumps to his feet.

“Fuck. Okay, it’s ha, super later. Alright so I’m going to go, you enjoy your dinner and I’m going to fuck off forever. Yep. Okay, good talk. See you later, bro. Buddy, pal. Ha, yep. Night!”

As Bakugou makes a beeline for the door, Kirishima grabs a hold of the back of his shirt and yanks him back.

“Katsuki Bakugou you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Bakugou tries to scramble out of his hold, his arms reaching pitifully for the door that is getting farther and farther away with each one of Kirishima’s forceful tugs.

“You are telling me, for real, that you LIKE ME?”

Bakugou says nothing, fuck his shirt, he can buy a new one. Who cares if this one rips?

“This entire time you’ve been a dick to me, it’s because you have a CRUSH ON ME? WHAT ARE YOU? NINE?”

God in Heaven or Devil in Hell Bakugou doesn’t care who he just prays for either of one of them to take him away, anything to escape his current life ending predicament.

With the almost cruel force, Kirishima kicks Bakugou’s feet out from under him and bodily throws him onto his bed. When Bakugou looks up, Kirishima is glaring at him, chest heaving as he points a finger at him.

“Even cavemen are capable of showing more emotional range than you. A simple “/Oh me like/” would have sufficed, you absolute moron. Holy shit, Katsuki, you owe me so fucking big for /everything./”

“I’m sorry!” Bakugou squeaks out. “I’ll try to stop liking you! I didn’t mean to, I know we’re just friends okay fuck! Can you let me go now?”

“Let you go? Katsuki, no no no. That’s not happening. After all the goddamn emotional turmoil of me pining for your rude ass like an idiot only to just now find out you like me back? Please.

I am calculating that you’ve got to oh, say, just spend the rest of your stupid life to make this up to me.”

Breathing seems difficult, all the air seemingly has left his entire body as he looks up at Kirishima wide eyed and slack jawed.

Kirishima, who had just admitted to what did he say? /Pining/ for him? Bakugou was braindead.

Finally, Bakugou’s brain works just enough that he remembers how to breathe and gasps in a huge lungful of air.

“Excuse me, WHAT?”

“No, excuse YOU. I’ve CRIED about how you don’t like me, and then you whip this shit out. Fuck you, Bakugou. Honestly, I don’t have the energy tonight, I swear. Get out of my room, we will go over your actions as well as your consequences tomorrow when I can think properly.”

Completely dazed, Bakugou gets to his feet only to blink owlishly at Kirishima, trying to process what in the fuck was going on.

Kirishima was still glaring at him, but there was a soft smile tugging on the corners of his mouth. “Go on, get. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Gently, he pushes Bakugou towards his door, even opening it for him as he shoves him over the threshold.

Just before he closes it in Bakugou’s face, Kirishima shakes his head as he rolls his eyes then ever so slowly he leans in and presses his lips to Bakugou’s stunned cheek in a simple kiss.

“Thanks for the sorry steaks again, sleep well you’re going to need it. Tomorrow, you have hell to pay.”

Air rushes out of Bakugou’s lungs in a soft of strangled laugh, as Kirishima, the man who despite everything, likes him back, closes the door.

In the morning, Kirishima is more than true to his word and presents Bakugou with a list of his crimes and punishments, but he also kisses him stupid before Bakugou has a chance to read any of it.

And a few hours later, when Bakugou is just as bald as his boyfriend and his lips kiss swollen and red, he can’t help but hope that Kirishima was serious about needing him to make up for everything for his entire life.

If anything, forever didn’t seem long enough to make up for all that he put him through, but with a future with Kirishima to look forward to, he couldn’t wait to start trying and for Kirishima, he'd more than make the time.