kamisero, (self) bondage

denki's very proud of himself, thank you very much. not only did he actually write down what he needs to do today - pick up a package from the post office, get groceries, get new headphones - he also found his winter jacket, the one that's been missing

for like two years, /and/ a pair of gloves so he doesn't freeze his fingers off.

oh, and he tied himself a harness. on his own. on himself.

okay, it looks kinda ugly, and the knots are pretty uneven, but it /feels/ good.

he's got a t-shirt, a hoodie and the jacket on to hide it, and the gloves fit perfectly over the ends at his wrists, and it's like he's walking around with a big secret on display that no one sees. it's exciting.

the ropes dig in nicely and he can already imagine the shapes of them on his skin when he takes it off later. maybe he'll take some pictures, make it last longer.

yeah, that's a good idea, denki thinks as he gets on the bus and slides into an empty seat.

the bus fills up quickly and denki makes himself smaller as someone sits down next to him.

the bus starts moving and the air gets warm and humid like it only gets when you pack a small space full of people in the middle of winter,

and denki soon finds himself squirming. he takes his gloves off, tucks them into his pockets.

the person sitting next to him gets their phone out, and denki has a bad habit of looking,

absently watches as the person clicks through a few internet tabs, scrolls, stops to read something. denki reads, too.

it's-

huh.

that's definitely the schedule of some bdsm event coming up next week. in the area. featuring a /lot/ of bondage seminars. um.

denki glances up, to the side, because now he has to know, and finds himself face to face with a guy. he's got black hair, tied up in a messy bun, an undercut. there's a ring in the middle of his bottom lip and what's visible of his neck is dark with tattoos.

he's smiling - smirking, maybe - and it's laid back, confident, curious.

then, he glances down, and denki looks, and-

oh, right, yeah, /the rope on his wrists/. because he /took his gloves off/.

when he looks back up, the guy is tilting his head, nodding at the event info on the screen.

"you going?" he asks, and his voice is really inviting, like it's already telling denki it'll be alright, trust me, and denki meets his gaze.

"now I am," he declares, heart pounding, and gestures for the guy to hand him his phone. he does, and denki puts his number in before giving it back.

"kaminari," he tells him, points at himself, because he's a doofus.

the guy looks between him and the phone, expression something in between surprise and quiet excitement, humming. then, he types out a text, and when denki checks his phone there's a message telling him 'sero : ) I'll text you the details'.

then the bus stops and sero stands up, waves at him, and gets off at his stop.

denki finds himself smiling into the collar of his jacket for the rest of the ride.

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(no tag changes so far)
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sero texts him the details.

and then they keep texting, because sero sends him the info to all the good panels and seminars and ends it with a meme, so really, who is denki not to pack bond with him immediately?

then, at like two am a few days later, denki is feeling the bravery you only get past midnight and sends sero a meme about having too much rope. that he found while searching for bondage memes. because maybe then he can find out more without asking.

and maybe sero will think he’s funny.

it's a good idea, okay?

he sends it with a 'is this you?' and puts down his phone so he doesn't throw it across the room.

three minutes later, his phone buzzes.

sero sent him a video.

he taps it and gets to see sero's foot kicking a drawer filled to the brim with bundles of rope closed. the camera pans up to his face. he whistles, walks away, tries not to smile. sticks his tongue out, acts cheeky.

denki's heart is racing.

he taps the replay button and watches it again, pauses it at the ropes, at sero' s blurry chest, at his face. he's wearing a yellow t-shirt, hair up in a messy, damp bun, like he just showered, and yup, that's definitely a tongue piercing, /shit/.

sero is /hot/, and funny, and sociable. also, into bondage. owns enough rope to last him a lifetime, probably. has a tongue piercing and tattoos going up and down his arms, on his neck.

sero also sends denki a meme back. it's a picture of someone wrapped entirely in cellophane, looking like some kind of weird halloween mummy with a speech bubble saying 'not again'. denki snorts at the following 'is this you?'

and gets an idea.

he scrambles to get his pile of rope from his desk, hurries to tie his legs together, making sure the sloppy knots are visible, and takes a picture. he crops it, because no one needs to see his ratty pikachu boxers, and. huh.

it kinda looks like he’s not wearing anything in the picture. it’s just his legs, held together by rope, resting on his bed sheets.

if bondage wasn’t already maybe a bit too much, it certainly is now.

denki sends it before he can change his mind and actually throws his phone this time. it bounces on the bed, topples over and lands on the floor with a thud. then it starts buzzing and denki doesn’t know if he’s a genius or an idiot for sending that picture.

he seals his way down the bed and grabs the phone, unlocks it while still hanging halfway to the floor. there’s a keyboard smash, then another one, and a laugh-crying emoji.

denki’s imminent dread turns into relief, because at least sero doesn’t hate him,

and he’s about to reply something funny when his phone buzzes again.

‘hot’, sero tells him.

/hot/.

wait, does he actually think so? or is it a sarcastic ‘hot’? is he making fun of him? nah, sero doesn’t seem like the type. but it could be an ‘a for effort’ kinda thing. a ‘nice, but try again’ thing. a ‘I can tell you’re a beginner’ thing.

denki doesn’t get the chance to ask before sero texts him again.

‘there’s a panel on self bondage, saturday’, he tells him, and denki busts his ass replying before the subject changes.

‘or you could teach me’, he sends, and then chokes attractively, because he put himself on this ride now and he’ll see it through but it’s also terrifying and he can’t believe he /sent that/.

but sero is a perfect person and says ‘I could : )’ and denki has to kick his feet so hard he bounces of the bed because /holy shit he could teach me/.

-----

it’s friday night and denki’s bedroom looks like the wardrobe exploded.

it’s like this because denki doesn’t have a clue what to wear for the event tomorrow and it’s not like he can ask sero about it. that’d be lame.

like, ‘hey, I’m totally nervous and I wanna look good because you’re hot as fuck and I want you to also think that I’m hot as fuck but this is also a pretty semi casual event so it’s not like I can show up wearing rope and fishnet, right?’

yeah, lame.

so he’s stuck deciding between three different colored long sleeved shirts. which he’s been trying to do for the last thirty minutes. and he’s not getting anywhere.

so he grabs his phone, opens the conversation with sero, sends him ‘do you have a favorite color?’

because that’s subtle.

sero texts back ‘depends’, and denki hums as he sends back a row of question marks.

‘well,’ sero writes back, ‘do you mean in general? clothes? rope?’ and denki’s stomach flips a little.

when he thinks about all those bundles he saw in sero’s video, they all seemed to be different colors. probably different materials, too. he wonders if sero really does have a favorite color in ropes.

‘I mean as in what color I should wear tomorrow’ he types, hands sweating, not adding on a ‘when I see you’ because that- yeah, that’s probably way too much. even if it’s true.

‘you’re asking what color I’d have you wear?’ sero says, and denki’s sure his ears are turning bright red, now.

not ‘dress in’. /wear/.

‘yeah’ he replies.

‘black.’

-----

denki wears the black shirt and high waisted jeans. it’s casual and cute and the right color and it’s giving him a severe case of the butterflies whenever he thinks about it.

he’s pretty sure he literally dreamt about sero telling him he’d have him wear black.

it helps a little to cover it all up underneath his winter jacket, but it also means that sero won’t see it when they meet up, and denki can’t decide if it’s a good thing or not.

he texts mina furiously the whole way to the location. she’s generally unsympathetic

because she doesn’t see what there is to panic about, and denki can’t explain to her how sero has a tongue piercing and smiles really wide and ties ropes and is funny and how it’s starting to become a problem.

and it’s surely, definitely, 100% about to become an even bigger problem, denki realizes as he gets to the right building and it dawns on him that he’ll see sero soon.

‘I’m here’, he types out anyway, because he wants to see him just a little bit more than he wants to run away.

there’s no immediate answer so denki makes his way to the wardrobe, checks his jacket in and gets a couple of pamphlets in return. he finds a half empty space underneath a spiral staircase and sets up camp, people watching for a bit.

he feels a little out of place, a bit like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but that’s kind of the thing, isn’t it? he wants to learn more. right?

his phone buzzes.

‘me too : ) where? I’ll find you’, sero says, and denki’s suddenly sweating all over,

has to dry his hands off on his jeans before typing out a response.

‘main hall, huddling by a staircase’ he settles on, keeps his phone in his hand in case sero says anything else.

he doesn’t, and denki’s stomach is doing cartwheels, and then he’s about to have a heart attack because someone makes a ‘psspsspss’ noise from /above him/.

he looks up, confused, and is met by a wide, toothy smile, messy hair bun, neck tattoo, /sero/, halfway up the stairs.

he’s leaning over the railing, and /fucking hell/ he’s wearing a low cut t-shirt that shows that /yes/ he probably has tattoos all over.

“hi,” sero tells him, cuts through his brain fog. denki smiles, raises a hand and waves from like a meter away, because he’s cool like that.

-----

sero is tall.

he gestures with his hands when he talks and denki realizes he has long fingers, too. long arms. legs for days. he towers over him even though he isn’t that big, not /really/, but something about him just makes him seem. bigger.

denki prays he doesn’t sweat through his fucking shirt.

sero also knows a lot of people, apparently, because they keep getting stopped as they make their way through the hall. people wave, or catch him in passing, and some try to make him stay and chat.

sero just smiles that easy smile at them and shakes his head.

“nah, next time. I’m busy today,” he tells them and looks to denki, still smiling, acting like it’s no big deal at all to turn down what’s obviously old friends to show some newbie around.

what a fucking heartthrob.

/shit/.

“this is a bit weird, right?” denki asks as they settle in for the first seminar of the day. there are chairs put out to seat a good chunk of people in the room, some official looking people setting up in the front, people piling in.

sero sinks down in the chair with horrible posture and denki considers if he should start believing in soulmates.

“what is?”

“this,” denki says, gestures between them. sero smiles.

“probably.”

“it’s like, /really/ weird.”

“says you, the guy who wears rope underneath his clothes,” sero counters and then looks denki up and down, and denki is acutely aware of his entire body, whoa. okay.

some of that full body tingle denki’s got going on must show on his face because sero looks to the front of the room and his leg starts bouncing. like he’s stressed out or something.

“listen, kaminari-”

“ah, denki is fine.”

sero ducks his head, glances at him, and denki wants to squeeze something until it pops because /holy hell/ that’s endearing.

“denki, then,” sero says, a little softer, “I didn’t mean to like, ambush you into this or anything. didn’t even /really/ mean to call you out on the bus, before. so I hope you don’t feel like you, I dunno, have to be here or anything.”

denki’s shaking his head halfway through the sentence.

“totally wanna be here, man,” he assures him, wipes his hands on his jeans again because he’s still nervous sweating,

“I mean it’s right up my alley since I don’t really know shit, ya know? and you’re really cool, I’m just being weird because it’s a little intimidating. you’re a little intimidating,” he says, for some fucking reason, and sero tilts his head with something shifting in his eyes.

“I wore black,” denki finishes, because he’s gay panicking.

sero blinks at him for a few seconds, mouth slightly open. then, he snorts, hides his face in his own hands and laughs, and oh god, it’s such an ugly cute laugh, all hiccupy and raspy and /weird/ and denki is gonna /cease to exist now/.

sero catches his breath and when he stops hiding his face, it’s a little red and it’s adorable. then, he looks at him properly again and does the looking-up-and-down thing again and it quickly turns from adorable to /sexy/.

“I noticed,” he tells him, laughter still in his voice and wow, that’s attractive. then sero decides to double whammy him with a fucking /wink/, and then the seminar seems to start, and denki spends at least fifteen minutes calming himself down.

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to the top! https://twitter.com/bbbadmouth/status/1363817158996852742?s=20

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sero is the kind of person that takes notes on bondage practices, apparently. he’s got dark mode on his note app and he types the majority of it without even looking. his thumbs just know where to go. and he has a thumb ring, because he’s literally the coolest person ever.

he’s also the kind of person to go ‘aah’ or hum when he learns something new, like he has to announce to himself that yes, this is new information that I have learned, and that’s kind of really fucking great.

sero also buys his bondage acquaintances snacks, and that definitely does something funny to denki’s stomach. like, flutters and stuff.

so sero buys him a chocolate bar and an energy drink even though he tries to get him to at least grab a water to go with it. denki tells him he doesn’t like the taste of it and sero looks at him with a mix of fondness and exasperation.

they end up huddled on a bench with their respective snacks spread out between them, people watching and chatting to pass the time until the next seminar begins.

at some point, sero gets annoyed by a couple of strands of his hair

getting in his eyes and he decides to end denki then and there by taking that scrunchie out, shaking his hair out. it’s so long. and wavy. and it smells nice whenever denki gets a whiff of it.

and then he has to watch as sero drags his fingers through it to tie it back up, and it looks so messy and the bun ends up crooked, and denki is absolutely not listening to a single word he’s saying right now.

which is a problem, because sero is looking at him like he’s waiting for him to say something back. shit.

“uh, yeah,” denki settles on. sero raises an eyebrow at him. /shit/.

“sorry, I got uh, I mean- I really like your hair.”

sero ducks his god damn head and smiles and denki is just. he’s fucked. he’s so fucked.

“thanks,” sero says and tips his head from side to side, making that awful bun bounce around, and denki has to chug his energy drink to buy himself a few seconds of not being able to talk.

“I was asking how long you’ve been doing this,” sero says, gestures to the room in general, to the event.

“oh, uh, not long,” denki tells him, tries to burp quietly into the collar of his shirt because that’s definitely not the way to

impress the cool rope guy with the tattoos and the ugly laugh and wavy hair. “I’ve just been watching videos and kinda teaching myself, you know?”

“yeah,” sero nods, smiling like he’s remembering something funny. “man, those have fucked me up.”

“yeah?”

“yeah, it was way better to have someone show me for real. like, no one tells you if you’re messing up in a video,” he says, shakes his head, and denki makes a mental note to ask sero about any funny stories at some point in the future. or advice, maybe. instruction.

oh, /right/.

“you said you could teach me,” denki says before that thought goes any further. sero looks a bit surprised, but then he’s grinning and nodding, enthusiastic.

“yeah, I’d love to,” he says, like denki isn’t already nursing the biggest crush of the fucking century, “what do you wanna learn?”

“just, uh,” ugh, he can barely hear himself from how loud his pulse is in his ears, “everything. anything. something easy?”

“cool, yeah,” and then sero pulls out his phone and taps around on it before turning it to show denki a picture of a pair of hands. they’re tied together with a slim, soft looking red rope. it’s a simple but, honestly, beautiful pattern,

the rope making turns in between each finger and connecting the hands by the wrists.

“so, uh,” denki starts, and then he doesn’t know where that sentence is going and just ends up tilting his head in confusion, trying to make sense of the /how/.

“right, so,” and then sero puts his phone down in between them and puts his hand out, crooking his fingers in a ‘come here’ motion, and denki’s dead, right? he’s died and gone to hot rope bunny guy heaven?

he tries not to swallow his own fucking tongue as he puts his hand out. sero scoots closer, and he smells so good, and then turns denki’s hand so it’s palm up, and fucking hell, he’s dragging the pad of a long, calloused finger across denki’s wrist.

sero points to the screen of his phone and then makes some kind of swirl in denki’s palm, and he’s saying something, explaining like denki /asked him to/, and denki can’t hear a word he says.

sero keeps pointing, keeps talking, and all denki can focus on is the way he’s steadying his hand as he draws invisible ropes all over it, and now he’s a little out of breath because god, he can imagine it. he can see the way sero probably goes all focused

and concentrated when he does this. he can imagine sero pulling lengths of pitch black rope through his fingers, can see him wrap it tight and snug and perfectly around his hands and wrists.

“sorry, sero, um,” denki croaks, and he feels as if he’s gonna fall apart or something, “I’m not listening.”

sero stops, looks him in the eyes for the first time in a few minutes, and denki can literally see him taking him in.

fuck, he’s probably flushed and making a weird face and he can feel himself breathing hard, and sero’s gonna /know/.

“oh,” sero says, and why does his voice have to be so damn smooth, “do you wanna stop? take a break?”

denki starts nodding, but then he’s shaking his head because no, he doesn’t, and then he’s nodding again because he really does need a break, and now he just looks dumb, huh?

but sero breathes out through his nose and smiles, and his eyes are warm and heavy lidded and denki is so, so fucked.

“let’s take a break, yeah?” he tells him, and denki nods because okay, that’s one less decision for him and that’s nice.

sero clears his throat and puts denki’s hand down in his lap, strokes his thumb over the back of it before he lets go completely and denki goes even warmer. he turns and grabs something,

and then there’s an unopened water bottle being held out with a cheeky grin, and denki doesn’t know if he should laugh or swoon.

/both/, he decides. holy shit.

-----

they go to two more seminars and a panel before they check their jackets out and end up standing outside the building, talking. it’s getting dark, temperature dropping slowly but surely, and denki still can’t remember the last time he felt so /warm/.

sero is telling him a story and. he’s just. ugh.

denki’s stomach hurts from laughing, and sero gestures with expressive hands - since when are hands expressive, anyway - and the arms on his jacket are too short so they keep sliding up,

and sero’s smile is crooked and his breath comes out in little clouds when he laughs. denki jokes back with him, is brave enough to nudge him with an elbow, and sero grins so big that his tongue piercing glints.

denki knows he’s got heart eyes, knows he’s blushing and giggling and it /shows/ just how cute and interesting and cool and intimidating and funny he thinks sero is. he just- he doesn’t even care. it feels too nice. and he doesn’t want it to end.

it does, though, because time won’t wait for denki to finish having a crush. they realize they’re going in different directions, and sero still offers to walk him to the bus stop,

because he’s secretly evil and wants denki to actually fall in love with a guy that indirectly invited him to a bondage event on a bus.

“we should do this again,” sero tells him when they reach the bus stop. denki grins, full of butterflies and warmth.

“yeah, I’d like that,” and he knows he’s practically reciting lines from a movie, the way they talk at the end of a date, but it feels an awful lot like that,

even if it isn’t.

“they do these things every few months or so, but I’ll text you if something comes up before then.”

denki’s smile turns stale. because. ugh.

that’s not what he meant. damn it.

“yeah, sounds good,” he manages, but it comes out tense and awkward and he can’t stand still, shuffles his feet and fiddles with the zipper on his jacket.

he’s not sure if it’s disappointment or embarrassment. probably both.

they had fun, right? even when they weren’t talking about bondage, they were laughing, or enthusiastically agreeing or disagreeing with each other on the subject of mint ice cream, or telling stories

and being genuinely interested in one another. right? he didn’t just- there’s no way he just made all that up.

he had a really good time, and he thinks sero did, too.

so why does he make it sound like they’re strictly con buddies, now?

“what’s up?”

sero’s suddenly way closer, leaning over to get down to denki’s level, being generally fucking adorable, and denki blinks dumbly at him.

“um. yeah. what’s up?”

sero smiles at him and shrugs.

“you tell me.”

right. okay.

it’s not really fair of him to suddenly go all weird just because sero implied they’ll see each other whenever there’s another event. he should probably. say something. about that.

“well, uh,” he starts, clears his throat, tries to relax his shoulders from where they’ve climbed up towards his ears. “I was thinking that uh- I mean, do you wanna like, come over? hang out?”

sero straightens up to his full height, raises an eyebrow. looks denki up and down so fast that denki almost misses it.

“what, now?”

denki’s entire inside does a gymnastics number, face going red so fast that he physically feels the burn of it, hands shooting out to wave in front of him so fast that the pockets turn inside out.

“no, no no, I- I meant some other- like in a few days? this weekend? oh my god,” he groans, and then he slaps his hands to his face to groan into them, too, and sero starts laughing at him and it’s such a wonderful, ugly sound, and he loves it so much,

and it’s making his ears go red in embarrassment.

“yeah, denki,” sero chuckles, and denki is actually going to fucking die, “sounds good. text me.”

denki makes an affirmative noise, still into his hands, and then sero’s carefully prying at his fingers, pulling his hands away.

“bus is here,” he tells him, and denki can’t look him in the eyes when sero takes his hand and walks around him,

spins him to face the road where the bus is pulling up.

it comes to a stop in front of them, sero physically leads denki to the door, and then he’s stepping on and sero is letting go.

denki turns and looks up just in time to see sero pull the hood of his jacket up, his messy hair bun giving the hood a funny looking bump at the top, and then sero looks at him and winks.

denki is one hundred percent sure sero’s laughing when the bus drives away.

denki gets his phone out and presses the speed dial for mina.

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