Bakugou’s been asking around about what plant people think Kirishima is. Kaminari said a cute cactus. Sero said poppy, large vibrant red growing from a tiny dark. Deku said laceleaf, for happiness and bright beauty.

Bakugou wishes someone would say rose.

#eijiroctober2020

This hadn’t meant to happen, okay. 

On the way back from hero work studies, Bakugou had seen a garden filled to the brim with roses. He blinked, pausing for a moment as he stared, a little awed, a little /impressed/.

There were roses of so many colours, purple, blue, pink, red, and Bakugou reached out to stroke the petal of a sunset one. But then the wind shifted, and pushed a red rose to the side to nudge against his hand instead. Bakugou watched, surprised.

“Kacchan?” Deku asked warily, ahead where he and Icy-Hot had finally noticed that Bakugou wasn’t with them. Bakugou waved a dismissive hand at them and, like he was in some sort of trance, he tugged on the flower.

Slowly, the stem snapped, and the full blood flower fell into his hand as his stubborn tough skin refused to let the thorns piece it.
 
He quickly looked left and right to see if anyone noticed, before he pocketed the flower and moved back to the others.

Wondering since /when/ everything that was red had started to remind him of a certain someone. Because now he couldn’t get him out of his head, as his fingers in his pocket brushed over soft red petals. Like soft red hair.

“If Kirishima was a plant, what would he be?” Bakugou asked out of nowhere, but then Deku said just as out of nowhere, “Laceleaf!” like he’d already put actual thought into it, and Bakugou gave him a look. The fuck was /Deku/ doing thinking about Kirishima so much?

“I have no clue. I can only think of an autumn leaf. Sorry for not being much help,” Todoroki said genuinely, which did make Bakugou’s lips quirk a little because it wasn’t like Icy-Hot was wrong. “Why?” 

“None of your fucking business.” 

“Okay.”

They made their way back to the Alliance. Bakugou had almost forgotten about the rose by then, except not really, because the instant he saw Kirishima at the other side of the room talking excitedly to Sero, it smacked him right back in the gut.

So to the first poor person in the common room that went anywhere near him, he barked in their face, “What plant is Kirishima?” 

Bird Brain blinked at him, eyes wide. Then he composed himself, and washed a dramatically sleek hand over his face. “Nightshade.” 

“/Fuck/ you.”

Round Face was the next one he grabbed and asked, who stared but then burst into giggles, cooing at the question which had Bakugou ready to blast her face off, but just when he was stomping off, she called out, “A sunflower! He’s so bright just like the sun!” 

Oh. Oh?

Cute.

Sunflower was a popular one actually, which was a little surprising since Bakugou thought people would choose more commonly red ones, but he so fucking saw why people thought Kirishima was a sun.

Cactus was also common, and all the reasons why were just ‘spiky and hard!’ and Bakugou wanted to smack them. There was so much more to Kirishima than that and he wanted to scream every little thing to the rooftops and he didn’t know why this was /bothering him so much/.

It wasn’t long before the entire class had gathered around the sofa with Bakugou sitting on an arm-rest, glasses on, pen in hand and notebook resting on his knee as the others shouted flowers and votes at him,

with sunflower at a tally of eight, cactus with five, then miscellaneous ones for the other six. 

Meanwhile Kirishima came back from where he’d gone to the toilet.

“What the hell happened in the space of…two minutes?!” Kirishima yelped, rushing to the couch so he wouldn’t be left out of the new spectacle and Bakugou caught sight of him immediately, making a little spark of panic ignite inside his chest.

And when he saw Kaminari snickering and whispering in Kirishima’s ear, with Kirishima’s eyes growing bigger and bigger with each passing second, Bakugou blurted out into the unbearable quiet, “I think you’re a rose.”

There wasn’t a moment of silence like there probably should have been, a moment for Bakugou and Kirishima to stare at each other as one recoiled in panic and the other unravelled in realisation,

but instead there was instantly a yell of, “ROSE?!” before the class burst into noise, people booing Bakugou with Soy Sauce yelling “HOW CAN BLASTY’S JUDGEMENT OF HIS OWN BEST FRIEND SUCK SO MUCH” and wha- whose side was he on?!

“ALL OF YOU FUCK OFF!” Bakugou yelled, which did make people settle except Kaminari’s boo went on for a bit too long and Ashido had to slap a hand over his mouth.

But Bakugou wasn’t actually angry. He just needed silence to be able to really take in the way Kirishima was looking at him, /only/ him, with wide sparkling eyes and gently flushed skin.

“Lotta these lot think you’re a sunflower,” Bakugou said, eyes never leaving Kirishima as he got up and started weaving his way through the others to make his way over to him. “Which I get. You…you’re, like…”

“Use your words, Blasty!” Sero called out followed by encouraging cheers, and Bakugou’s lips twisted.

“You’re bright, ’n shit like that.”

“Yeah?” Kirishima asked in wonder, starting to make his own way over now like he was going to meet Bakugou halfway since he’d randomly stopped walking. Mostly because Satou was too big of a guy to step over.

“I wasn’t conducting a survey to be weird, okay, fuck, it wasn’t supposed to happen, I just couldn’t get it out of my head because I-”

“Watch out, Satou!” Kirishima yelled as he jumped over the guy, and Satou shrieked as he tried to roll over which just made Kirishima’s foot catch and he was stumbling, right into Bakugou’s arms.

Kirishima looked up, eyes the size of moons as they stared into Bakugou’s ones, their noses brushing. And Bakugou finished as his heart started calming down with Kirishima so close to him, “Because I saw a rose, and thought of you.”

The class erupted into whispers. Bakugou didn’t care for them, but he caught ‘that’s so sweet, is this seriously Bakugou?!’ and honestly, Bakugou didn’t even recognise himself. But Kirishima seemed to.

He didn’t look weirded out, as he smiled all toothy and blindingly happy and pushed even closer, asking, “You did?”

“Yeah. Yeah, here, it’s-” Bakugou let go to root around in his pocket, and pulled the rose out. “I picked it, sorry. Didn’t really realise what I was doing.”

“Don’t be sorry, man, it’s okay,” Kirishima said in awe, as Bakugou pushed the rose into his hand. “It’s so pretty.” 

“You know passion? The passion red roses represent? It’s so you that I ain’t even gonna try explaining it.”

“WHO VOTES THAT BAKUGOU SHOULD TRY EXPLAINING IT?!” Kaminari hollered, and there were whoops of agreement before Bakugou’s fist collided with the side of Kaminari’s head knocking him out in seconds

then he was right on back to standing centimetres apart from Kirishima, who gave him a frown. Bakugou raised a hand in defence. 

“He wouldn’t have felt any pain.”

Kirishima did look a bit happier at that. Bakugou might adore him.

“I’m /not/ gonna explain it. But you’re red because of passion, and vibrance, and courage, and you seem so fucking warm that sometimes I don’t know how I can touch you without burning myself.”

“/I’d/ never burn you, blasty boy,” Kirishima teased pointedly, and Bakugou flicked his forehead, arguing, “You can defend yourself from me, loser! Look, you’re red, you’re a rose, I think about you a lot, that’s fucking it.”

Bakugou could feel his face heating up so hard that he was starting to sweat as he finished his way too loud sentence. And he quickly swallowed an embarrassed noise when Kirishima took hold of his hand because Bakugou seriously might explode Kirishima’s off at this rate,

but he felt calmer when Kirishima squeezed. 

“I’m gonna admit,” Kirishima said, a shy smile twitching at his lips, “I saw a picture of a sunset rose on my phone a few weeks ago and debated for like HOURS over if I should text it to you with the caption ‘us’.”

The class collectively groaned, but Bakugou blurted out a breathy, “Why didn’t you?” 

“I thought it was dumb.” 

“It is dumb.” 

“Wha-” 

“And so was me asking an entire class what plant they think you are hoping someone would say rose.”

Kirishima bit his lip, badly trying to hold back the most unfairly dazzling smile. “Did anyone?” 

“Nah, it’s just me,” Bakugou sighed, but with the words, he made the sudden realisation that he didn’t really mind that. It meant he was somewhat special. Right?

It meant Kirishima was special to /him/, and with the way Kirishima held him now and looked at him with such reverence and fondness, he hoped, hoped to all hell and beyond that he was just as special to Kirishima too.

“Ooh ooh, did you know a /deep/ red rose means you’re ready for commitment? I read that somewhere,” Kirishima said with a proud puff of his chest, and Bakugou snorted. 

“Well duh, Shitty Hair, I ain’t letting you get away from me for the rest of your life.”

Kirishima’s smugness fell apart in an instant as his jaw dropped. “W…was that you just promising me /forever/?” 

Bakugou let himself be coy, tilting his head and humming, “Maybe,” and he burst into laughter when Kirishima waved and threw himself at him,

making them knock over onto Aoyama and Koda as Kirishima embraced him so tight that it was probably hard to breathe but Bakugou couldn’t care enough to tell, his chin hooking over Kirishima’s shoulder as he closed his eyes and let both his arms warmly hug his best friend’s waist.

He did want to be with Kirishima forever. Like hell, he couldn’t imagine life /without/ him and the turning point that made his heart so sure was that he didn’t want to, either.

“I’m /holding/ you to that forever,” Kirishima sobbed, and Bakugou teased through a whisper in his ear, “Then get me a ring,” and Kirishima’s sharp gasp had Bakugou descending into cackles as he pried the rose from Kirishima’s hand and slipped it into red hair. So perfect.

“Is anyone gonna tell them the biggest meaning of red roses is romance?” Ashido hissed to Sero, who snickered, “They can figure that out later.”

—the end! happy kirishimonthhhhhh