so we all know the jump festa mf bkdk coasters yeah
———
45. Their fucking agency was making them pose for 45 different fucking merch lines. They were a goddamn hero duo! They had more important things to do!
Katsuki glared at the email over breakfast while Izuku pattered away in the kitchen, mumbling.
“Oi. Did you see this shit.” Katsuki called out between bites of miso.
“Eh?” Izuku shuffled over and poked his head into Katsuki’s space, skimming the email open on his phone. “Oh, yeah. Lots of costumes! It might be fun,” he tacked on, eyeing Katsuki’s glare.
Katsuki groaned and laid his face on the table, and Izuku stifled a laugh and patted his head in commiseration. “Sorry, Kacchan.”
Their photoshoot was scheduled for the next week, and was projected to take the entire day, maybe more. Katsuki briefly toyed with the idea of quitting his job entirely. He considered it again the day of the shoot, when he and Izuku had to drag themselves out of bed at the crack of dawn and make their way to the studio. Izuku seemed to read his mind (probably from his murderous expression) and smacked him in the arm, the two of them flipping through the binder of mocks while they waited for their stylist teams to arrive.
The shoot director was a bubbly little person, excitable but firm. Katsuki had a begrudging respect for them; he’d done shoots with them before, and they were solid in their role, handling reluctant pro hero models with ease, adaptable to the point of flawless results each time.
Hiro, the director, had Katsuki and Izuku get into their basic hero gear first, probably to ease them into the day. Those photos were easy enough, directed to pose or smize or glare at each other, listening to Hiro chatter between directions about the theme of the shoot, how they were considering the title “RIVAL.” That made Izuku and Katsuki hide matching grins, glancing at each other in amusement. Right. Rivals.
They were posing in so many costumes for a test release of some minor merch, like coasters or the like, reception of each which would then be monitored to decide which line had the most potential. Hiro liked to be thorough, and their method worked, so the agency trusted them.
There were some, frankly, ridiculous get ups they were shoved into, like heavy winter clothes for some reason (really? arctic winter? in Japan?) and some fantasy RPG shit; some deceptively casual ones where they were in formalwear or civvies; and some admittedly fun ones, even though Katsuki still complained on principle. Like when Hiro had the costume team hand them full-on pirate gear, then for some godforsaken reason made Izuku sit in Katsuki’s lap. Katsuki had a feeling they were fucking with him and Izuku at that point, especially when their eyes lit up at Katsuki’s steadying hand on Izuku’s waist to keep the blushing fool from falling over. But something must have turned out well, because a bunch of shots after that also featured Izuku practically in Katsuki’s lap, if not physically.
Most of their shots had been taken separately, but by the hungry look in Hiro’s eyes as they clicked through the images, Katsuki had a feeling they were in for a world of photoshop. And Katsuki was always right, which is why he wasn’t surprised when they got the demos back and found him and Izuku practically on top of each other in half of the coasters. It was kind of funny, actually, because:
“Wh— Kacchan, am I that much smaller than you??”
Katsuki threw his head back and laughed.