ON THE TOPIC OF BAKUGOU STUDYING SERO,

he discovers that sero has a dimple. just one on his left cheek when he smiles a specific, goofy little grin he usually only sports during movie days or dinners or arcade trips with the rest of the idiot brigade.

it’s making him crazy.

it seems like nobody else has noticed it- and these fuckers notice /everything/. mina never hesitates to press her thumb to the ‘obvious’ wrinkles in his forehead.

sero’s dimple hasn’t been pointed out even once, not even after they playfully teased jirou for hers.

so at the mall, watching sero tell a story about his family or some shit (something about paper mache, whatever), he’s staring at sero’s face.

it’s clear he loves his brother because he hasn’t stopped smiling this entire time, meaning that damn dimple is on full display.

suddenly he’s up to get drinks or fries or- /whatever the fuck/, bakugou hasn’t been paying attention because he can’t- and he finds his eyes following sero across the food court.

jirou nudges him, the other three members of their party distracted. “you’ve got it bad, babe.”

bakugou can’t help it. he bristles at her, glaring at pink, red, and electric yellow just to be sure they aren’t listening.

“you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hisses.

“you wouldn’t be eavesdrop-checking if i didn’t know what i was talking about.” she quips back.

they bicker quietly about what jirou perceives to be his ‘super obvious stupid huge plus ultra crush’ (she’s spending entirely TOO MUCH time with kaminari) until mina starts stage whispering.

“who’s that girl sero’s talking to?”

and sure enough, in the time bakugou wasted defending his complete and utter disinterest in sero, it seems sero had caught the interest of somebody else.

they both look nervous, and the dark haired girl must say something that catches him off guard because of the way he blinks.

then he’s setting the tray with kaminari’s peach and honey smoothie and kirishima’s fries slathered in ketchup down to pull out his phone, and then he- oh.

he hands her his phone.

kaminari whistles, a bit too loud, and sero subtly flips him off.

“check him outtt!” he says, grinning. “wins for sero and mina today.”

bakugou blinks.

right, mina had gotten a girl’s number today too. huh.

he blanks out as sero approaches, only coming back when he hears sero’s voice.

“-craziest thing. she told me i had a dimple.”

he sounds confused. bakugou’s eye twitches.

“a dimple?” mina asks, head tilted.

yes a fucking dimple, bakugou thinks.

“dude, i totally never noticed- smile real quick,” kirishima says, and then they’re all fawning over the newly discovered dimple on his left cheek that bakugou has been staring at for weeks.

“huh,” kaminari says. “who knew?”

i did, bakugou thinks.

“blasty? did /you/ know about sero’s secret dimple?”

bakugou may be a lot of things, but unguarded is not one of them yet.

“like i was paying attention to tapeface enough to see a dimple.” he scoffs.

they laugh him off like always, and when sero goes into detail about what transpired, bakugou tunes out.

jirou squeezes his thigh, and he pretends he can’t identify what he’s feeling.

later, walking back to the dorms, sero slows his step to walk in tune with bakugou, who’s admittedly been sulking in the back the whole time. they trail behind everyone else.

they talk because it’s impossible to not want to talk to sero- he actually enjoys it.

until sero mentions the girl just before they make it to the doors.

and bakugou is a /good friend/ now damnit, his therapist said so.

so he listens this time about how pretty she was, how sweet and how nice.

“you gonna call her?” bakugou manages, trying to be neutral.

sero just smiles. “nah, not my type.”

should bakugou feel bad that he’s relieved?

“type? what type?” he asks with a raised brow, and sero shrugs.

“i like angry,” he grins, dimple showing, “and blond.”

then he winks, disappears into heights alliance, leaving bakugou to stand outside alone and blinking like an idiot until he can kickstart his legs to move again.

he’s gonna have a shit time telling jirou she was right.