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[endless-oc-creations]

Iryna Oleksandrivna Kovalenko

OC Creator Bingo 2022 ◊ for @supermarine-silvally​​

I hope you enjoy and have an absolute fantastic day!!❤️💕

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[skystrollingstories]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Support Group For Troubled Geniuses CHAPTER 1 : Sober Plans And Troubling Impressions

Rating: T (for now)

Series: Boku No Hero Academia

Pairing: BakuDeku (+ other minor couples)

Summary: 

Bakugou Katsuki is a rising star struggling with the pressure of voicing the character of Ground Zero in the upcoming sequel to a nationally beloved anime. Midoriya Izuku is an assistant comic artist about to release a story all his own for the first time and worrying about being able to engage people with his art and writing.

Ochako senses a pattern and decides to set up a sort of two-person support group. Maybe it won’t crash and burn and they’ll actually help each other not drown in their own heads. Maybe.

[aliceinthewritingrepublic]

Loved-Up, Bitten, and Kissed

Title: Loved-Up, Bitten, and Kissed

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Pairing: Kirishima Eijirou/Reader

Rating: T

Word Count: 978

Eijirou enjoys spoiling you with his attention. You enjoy being spoiled. (Also, there is snow.)

You were addicted to him. Addicted to the feeling of his lips urgently moving against your own. To the feeling of the tip of his tongue teasing yours and making you sigh into his mouth in adoration. Kissing him had quickly become your favorite thing in the world.

And despite the fact that the two of you had been spending a large part of the past week doing just this, the novelty never wore off. You would have thought that there were only so many different ways of pressing lips together, but somehow, each kiss managed to feel new and – and you swore you were not exaggerating – perfect.

Eijirou pulled your bottom lip between both of his, sucking on it softly for a moment before abandoning your mouth entirely. Instead, he opted to leave a kiss on the side of your chin, then another, then another, moving along your jaw and leaving no fraction of your skin unkissed.

You gave another sigh that became his name somewhere halfway through. He knew how weak his attention made you, turning you into a mess of a girl under his fingertips.

Tipping your head back further, you offered your neck to him. He accepted your offering greedily, kissing the skin underneath your ear, the underside of your jaw, the bump of your larynx, kissing you senseless. When he got bored of that, he opened his mouth, licking along your most sensitive spots instead. His tongue was warm and wet, at times caressing you softly, at times pressing into you insistently, writing sweet nothings into your skin in an imaginary script.

You moaned. “If you keep this up, I’m going to melt into a puddle, and then you won’t have a girlfriend anymore,” you promised, voice breathy and mind clouded by pleasure.

He left this uncommented, though you could feel the smile pulling at his mouth’s edges. One of his hands came up to intertwine with your own before pushing it into the mattress, holding your arm pinned next to your head. Then, his teeth became part of the equation.

The sharp points dragged along your skin and you were unable to keep your eyes open in the face of how amazing it felt. He was mindful not to break the skin, always taking care of you, always making sure you knew what you meant to him. He was as addicted to you as you were to him.

You yearned for him with your whole body. It was stupendous how, without even having moved lower than your neck, he already had you strung-up like a bow, ready to snap.

Encouraged by your verbal and non-verbal approval, he lifted his free hand, all of his weight now resting on the arm that kept you pinned to the bed. His hand was large and calloused from training, but gentle and almost reluctant as he placed it on your breast for the first time.

Your eyes had still been closed, but you now opened them, wanting to look him in the eye and see the expression on his face as he touched you. As you did, your gaze first got caught on something else, however. You gasped.

His hand shot back from your chest as if he had been burned. He let go of your other arm, too, lifting his head from the crook of your neck and immediately beginning to apologize. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to pressure you, I promise! I’m gonna ask next time –“

You reached for him and kept him from getting off of you. “No, Ei, look outside!”

When you had opened your eyes, you had caught sight of big, fluffy, white snowflakes blowing around outside the window. It was the first snow of the year.

“It’s snowing!” he echoed your thoughts, the look of worry that had blemished his perfect face for a moment there replaced by a joy mirroring yours.

“It’s so beautiful,” you added, pulling him back down onto you. He rested his head on you, at the very top of your chest, face still turned towards the window to watch the snow falling. You were watching it, too, his weight on top of your body offering comfort.

For a while, that was all you two did. It was enough.

“By the way,” you broke the silence eventually. “I love how careful and considerate you’re being with me. You’re not pressuring me into anything.” You lifted one hand to run it through his hair. You loved that you got to see him like this. The cool, red strands fell through your fingers like a liquid. You ran your fingernails along his scalp, knowing exactly how much he enjoyed that. In response, he purred into your clavicle. You continued. “I want you to touch me, as long as you want to touch me. And I want to touch you, too, as long as you want me to touch you.”

His hand that had been lying on the mattress next to your body found its way to your side then. He rested his fingers along the side of your ribcage. Only his thumb kept moving, softly petting your breast through your shirt and bra. Even from the little stimulation, you could feel your nipple pebbling. So could he. It was what encouraged him to go ahead, palming you properly, squeezing and massaging and marveling at the softness of you. A growing hardness against your thigh left little necessity for you to wonder whether he was enjoying this.

“Now I never want to stop touching you,” he confessed, looking up at you. His eyes told you of the amazement he felt at being allowed to do this. He did not realize that you were the privileged one between the pair of you, simply for having someone as amazing as him want you at all.

“Then don’t,” you suggested.

He didn’t.

[aliceinthewritingrepublic]

Come to Me

Title: Come to Me

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Pairing: Midoriya Izuku/Reader

Rating: T

Word Count: 2211

You were planning to spend your birthday alone. Instead, Izuku invites you to meet his mother for the first time.

Over the past few years, you had found yourself liking your own birthday less and less.

The reason for that was not only that you were by now at an age where you would have preferred to grow younger rather than older. Aside from that problematic, it had also been a while – a few years, truthfully – since you had been able to celebrate your birthday with your family, the way you would have liked to. As such, you were not all that excited.

Your boyfriend, on the other hand, was very excited to celebrate your birthday with you for the first time.

“There’s only three days left until your birthday! Have you decided what you want to do yet?” Izuku asked, smiling at you as brightly and kindly as a person could smile.

“I’m not sure I want to do anything. I think I’ll just stay home and do nothing for a day,” was the well-thought-out plan you shared with him.

It was obvious from the look in his eyes that that would not do. There was no way in hell he was going to let you spend the whole day feeling sorry for yourself instead of celebrating. And he had made sure to bring along a suggestion that would surprise you into foregoing your intended day of sloth.

“My mom offered to make a cake for us,” he announced, scratching the back of his neck before correcting himself. “Well, for you. And I asked her to. Would you like to come over to my mom’s place with me on your birthday? We can spend the day doing nothing while we’re there, if you’d like to.”

A warmth swelled along your cheeks and inside your ribcage at his invitation. He did know you well enough to know that you did not actually want to spend your birthday on your own. You simply had trouble asking for things you wanted. It was something you were working on, but as of now, you still required others to extend invitations to you in order to feel wanted.

“I’d love that.” You were not lying.

When you arrived at Izuku’s childhood home, your heart was beating in your throat. He had promised that his mother was going to love you, but that had done little to alleviate your stress. What were you going to do if she didn’t like you? What if she thought you were not good enough for her son? You wondered whether she knew that she had raised the most perfect man alive.

But you need not have worried at all, you found. The door opened before the two of you, and before you could even finish saying, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Midoriya,” you were enveloped in a warm hug from a small mother with a very mother-like scent about her.

“Call me Inko! I’m so happy you’re finally here! Happy birthday!”

You no longer had to wonder where Izuku got his sweetness from.

In the midst of a lot of ‘Thank you’s and ‘He’s told me so much about you’s (cue a blush on your boyfriend’s face) and ‘I hope you like chocolate’s, you were shushed inside and towards the kitchen table. The apartment was not large by any means, but it was well-furnished and gave the immediate impression of being a home more than anything.

Homemade triple chocolate cake. Things did not get much better than this.

Or, they did. Because it turned out to be one of the nicest days you had had in a long time.

While Inko was telling you how you were the first girlfriend Izuku had ever brought home, you caught the slight redness on his cheeks as he was laughing along with her. You had not realized that he had never taken anyone else to meet his mother, and you felt honored by this special status. You wished you were able to freeze-frame this situation for eternity: the moment you were sitting here, watching your boyfriend who was smiling and blushing and not bothered at all by the slight embarrassment his mother was raining on him. She was telling stories about what he had been like as a child and as a teenager, and you could not get enough of it, smiling and listening while eating your third piece of cake of the afternoon.

It was so simple, and so simply the best birthday you had ever had.

If you had not already felt welcome in this house, in this family, in this life at this point, you surely would have as soon as Inko brought up the offer for you two to stay overnight.

It had become late, and thus, you inevitably realized that she had coincidentally prepared enough dinner for three. After this coincidence was dealt with (in the form of a family dinner), Izuku went to prepare his old bedroom for the night while you and Inko did the dishes together.

Conversation came easy with her. It was obvious how much she loved her son, and perhaps it was this common ground that had made her so willing to welcome you. Never had a boyfriend’s mother made it so simple for you to find a way in.

You had been wondering how much Izuku had told her about the less stellar aspects of your life. The answer came when, after a short lapse in talking, Inko brought up a topic she obviously did not quite know how to approach.

“So, [Name]…” She paused, handing you another clean plate to dry. “Izuku told me about your family situation. I hope you’re not upset with him for it.”

“No, it’s okay.” It was okay. Just because it was not a pretty story did not mean you were ashamed of it, and you knew Izuku only ever had your best interests at heart. He did not have an ill bone in his body.

“I just wanted you to know that if you ever need someone, you know, like, a mother to talk to… you can come to me.”

The tone in her voice was so kind and honest it was difficult to take. You swallowed, unsure whether it would be okay for you to hug her again to let her know how much her words meant to you. Instead, you simply ended up standing there and continuing to dry a long since dry plate.

“Thank you,” you eventually managed to get out. “Just… thank you. For everything. For saying that, and for the cake, and for being so amazing. I’m so glad I came here. It’s been the greatest day.”

The answer you got to that was another genuine smile from her. You were grateful for all of the things you had mentioned, and you were also grateful to know that Izuku had grown up with a good, loving mother. Truth be told, it was that knowledge that made you happiest of all.

When you retreated to Izuku’s childhood bedroom later in the evening, it was simultaneously exactly what you had expected and also not what you had been expecting at all. There was so much All Might paraphernalia. So. Much. The small room’s wallpaper was basically made up of posters.

It was so sweet, you thought, that Inko had kept his room untouched even after he had moved out, rather than to convert it into something else to better utilize the limited space in her small apartment.

“So, you’ve always been a fanboy, huh?” Already, you had stepped in front of a bookcase and begun to run your finger along the spines of the comic books there.

“It’s kind of embarrassing…” He trailed off. “But, yes. I only took the stuff I cherished the most when I moved out, though.”

You took the few steps you needed to get back to him and slung an arm around his waist, leaning into his side. Almost automatically, his arm, too, snaked around your body, holding you to him as if that were the most natural position for your two bodies to be in. (Because it was.)

“I love it.” It was true. You loved how unapologetically excited he could be about things, how pure his passion was when he was into something. You would know – after all, you were one of the things he was into these days.

You spotted something on his desk – an exercise book with a handwritten title on it.

“What’s that?” you wondered out loud, pointing to the object in question.

“Oh, that’s one of the notebooks about heroes I wrote.”

“Don’t you still write them, though?” You could have sworn you had seen him doodling into a similar notebook not that long ago.

“I do! That was the first one, though. It’s ninety percent All Might, to tell the truth.” He laughed, and you laughed along with him.

“Which issue are you on now?”

He hesitated for a moment. You were not sure whether he actually had to think about it or whether the number was simply so high he did not feel comfortable admitting it.

“…number thirty-four,” he eventually confessed in a small, yet amused voice.

So, without further ado, you sat down on his old bed together and started flipping through the pages. He pointed out his favorites, at times criticizing details from his old drawings. You personally thought that they were amazing, especially considering how young he had been when he had made them. Once you were done with one book, you moved onto the next, eventually arriving at number eight. The clock on the wall promised that hours had passed, although it had not felt like it at all.

Thus, the topic of sleeping arrangements became relevant.

Of course there was only a tiny single-person bed. You did not know what else you had been expecting. Izuku had put up a futon on the floor next to it to make room for two sleepers.

“So, you’re planning on making me sleep on the floor, I see?” you joked, knowing perfectly well that he had no such intention.

“No, I’m sleeping on the floor. You can have my bed.”

You, on the other hand, had no such intention, as he would soon find out.

Having prepared to go to bed first, you were already lying down in the bed while he was still in the bathroom. All Might was staring down at you from the ceiling. You nodded at him in a silent acknowledgment. He did not greet you back because he was a poster.

Then, when Izuku came back, planning to get cozy on the futon like the gentleman he was, you prevented him from doing so by reaching for his hand and entwining your fingers with his.

“Come to bed,” you requested.

“But it’s tiny,” he countered, saying nothing more. You knew you had won the second you had asked him.

“That just means we’ll have to cuddle up closer.” Your preferred sleeping position was half on top of him, and it was not a secret.

He did sit down on the edge of the bed, his body already touching one of your legs through the blanket. Of course you were going to get your way.

“But you can’t complain if you end up pushed against the wall.” Success. His barely-existent resolve to sleep on the floor had crumbled like the sham it had been.

“If I feel trapped, I’ll just push you out of bed.” As if.

For now, he lay down next to you. It was a tight fit, as Izuku very definitely did not have the beanstalk body of a teenager anymore. But you were lying halfway on his chest, head resting comfortably in that place between his clavicle and chest that was your favorite. One of your legs was hooked between both of his, and in this position, the mattress just so fit you both, and the blanket just so covered you. (Except, perhaps, for an inch or two of your back. It allowed for a draft of cold air that made for the perfect excuse to crawl into him even further, absorbing his physical warmth as if it were all you needed to survive.)

The lights were off now, and it was silent for a while. From his breathing, you knew that Izuku was still awake, which meant that he would hear you once you spoke.

“Thank you,” you whispered into his collarbone. “This was the perfect birthday.”

And it had been. Peace, and quiet, and a mother and son that wanted you to be a part of their family. It was all you could have wished for and more.

“You’re welcome,” he replied softly, but you were not done speaking.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have you. I catch myself all the time, thinking how perfect you are and how I can’t believe you’re my boyfriend. Just… I love you. I love you so much.”

You did not know what you had done to deserve to be here, to be now, to be with him. But you were, and he, too, was here, and now, and with you. Somewhere along the way, you must have done something right.

“I love you, too. Stupidly much.”

You must have done something very right.

[aliceinthewritingrepublic]

Red

Title: Red

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Pairing: Kirishima Eijirou/Reader

Rating: T

Word Count: 1708

-

You help your friend with dyeing his hair. (The complementary feelings come free of charge.)

“Okay, so the back of the box says to ‘spread it generously in your hair and leave it in for twenty to thirty minutes, depending on your natural hair type and color’,” you read aloud, wrinkling your nose at the strong chemical smell of the bleaching agent Eijirou had prepared in a plastic bowl.

The two of you were in his bathroom with various combs, dye brushes and other hair dyeing equipment strewn around you. Normally, he took care of touching up the fiery red color of his hair by himself. Today, however, you had been around to hang out anyways – and without further ado, he had enlisted your help. Apparently, doing it himself was feasible, but a hassle nonetheless.

“So, thirty it is,” he decided, pointing to his jet-black roots.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to accidentally damage your hair or anything… I mean, what if it falls out and it’s my fault?” You, on the other hand, had never dyed your hair any crazy color. You had never dyed your hair, period.

“Relax,” he laughed, sitting down on the chair he had carried into the bathroom. “I’ve been doing this for ages. Just do as I say, okay?”

It was difficult to argue with his shark-toothed smile. You reached for a hairbrush and began to gently run it through his mane, ridding it of any kinks left by his gratuitous everyday use of gel and hair lacquer.

Right now, though, it was the softest thing you had ever touched. The strands fell through your fingers like cold, red liquid. You rarely saw him like this. Partially because he rarely wore his hair down these days, but mostly because he touched up his roots so meticulously. You were not sure you had ever actually seen any of his natural black hair color.

Your fingernails brushed against his scalp as you parted it on one side, and, against all of your expectations – he purred. Or maybe he did not exactly purr, but a human equivalent that was close enough to beg the comparison.

He seemed just as surprised by the sound he had made as you were, because his head snapped forward a few inches, his eyes shooting open. Scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment, he grinned, rushing to explain himself. “Sorry about that. I’m just not…” He trailed off and began again. “It’s just…”

“…nice to have someone tinkering with your hair?” you finished his sentence, one edge of your mouth lifting in a partial smile. You hoped that your voice was not actually dripping as much fondness for him as you felt in your still-errantly-beating heart. “I get it. I love it when other people play with my hair. No need to be embarrassed.”

It seemed he took your reassurance to heart. While you were finishing your current task, he kept making small and not-so-small noises of obvious approval that had you reconsidering your decision to help him. If you did not pay attention, you may as well have walked into this bathroom with unclear-perhaps-romantic feelings for your friend, but you were going to walk out half in love.

Then came the hydrogen peroxide. A less pleasurable task that involved rubber gloves. Nonetheless, you took great care to spread the purpleish-white matter evenly on his black roots, trying not to get any on the parts that were red already.

Once the promised half hour had begun, you sat down on the edge of the bathtub, facing him. “Let’s hope you made a good call trusting me with this, Ei.” You held your arms out awkwardly, trying hard not to get any of the bleach on your clothes. You probably looked ridiculous.

“I’m sure I did,” he emphasized, radiating positivity as always. You and your heart both swore he must have been brighter than the sun. Not just specifically in this moment, but rather in general.

The time passed quickly while you were talking to each other about anything and everything. When the alarm he had set on his phone rang, you got straight back to work. While Eijirou was leaning over the bathtub, you turned on the showerhead. You let the water run over your hand for a few moments, trying to properly adjust it to a pleasantly warm temperature – a feat that was proving harder than expected with these frustrating gloves.

Finally, you reduced the water pressure a bit and stepped behind him, pointing the stream at the nape of his neck at first. “How’s this for temperature?”

“Perfect,” he sighed. His voice sounded a little contorted, partially from the uncomfortable position he was in with the edge of the tub pressing into his chest, partially from the weird kind-of-echo the tub provided. Still, his answer had seemed quite content to your ears.

“Okay,” you said more to yourself than to him and then turned the pressure back up, rinsing the chemicals from his hair.

While you were concentrating, making sure that you were not missing any bits of bleach, you failed to properly realize that he had yellowish-blond roots now. It was only once you were done and he had gotten back up and dried his hair a little with a towel (littered in stains from past dyeing adventures) that you noticed.

You were staring at him, trying to keep your laughter inside and threatening to fail any second now. “What?” Eijirou asked you, stilling in his movements and dropping the towel to his shoulders.

“You look like a parrot,” you giggled, rushing to pull off the rubber gloves so you could reach into your pocket and pull out your camera phone.

You jumped into the spot next to him, standing on your toes and wrapping an arm around his shoulders to pull him closer. “Smile!” you requested, angling the front camera to focus on the both of you. And because it was what he was best at, of course, he smiled.

Letting go of him, you looked at the picture on the screen. For an unprepared, one-off shot, it was surprisingly nice. The angle was a little off, but both Eijirou and you looked… genuinely happy. A notion that reminded you of the truth it held. You were spending time with your favorite person. Of course you were happy. And it made you happier that he was happy, too.

Looking over your shoulder at the photo, he did not disapprove. “If you promise not to show it to anybody ever, I won’t make you delete it,” he joked.

“No one’s ever gonna see,” you agreed readily with a smile, knowing full well that he never would have made you delete it anyways. Putting your phone down on the edge of the sink, you continued, “So. Onwards?”

“Onwards!” he echoed, pushing a new pair of rubber gloves, a dye brush and a cylindrical container of burgundy liquid in your hands.

This part turned out to be a lot more fun. Covering the blondness with red, strand for strand, felt a little like you were working on a three-dimensional, human coloring book. (If so, he was probably the greatest zen-style adult coloring book out there, you thought to yourself.)

“You sure this color isn’t too dark?” you questioned once you were done, carefully setting down the equipment and reaching for the cotton balls and nail polish remover.

( ”…to remove the excess dye from my skin and anywhere in the bathroom!”

“I was wondering why you had a bright pink bottle of nail polish remover in your bathroom. It’s not very… manly.”

“Anything can be manly! Depending on what you use it for!”

“If you say it loud enough, it becomes true!” )

He reassured you as if it were a second nature to him. “Oh, don’t worry, it always turns out lighter than the dye itself.”

You began at the back of his neck, making sure there were no grave color stains outside his hairline. Then, you moved around him bit by bit. While you were taking care of his forehead, you were not making any eye contact. This whole situation was weirdly intimate. You wondered whether that thought had crossed his mind at some point, as well.

It turned out you need not have been worried about him watching you at all. Once you were finished, you found him with your phone in his hands, sending the photo you had taken earlier to himself.

You expected him to put your phone back down then, but he hesitated for a few moments, simply looking at the picture. You watched him all the while. At first, his face said nothing, but then, you swore there was something in his eyes that had not been there before.

“The first picture of just the two of us, and I look stupid as hell.”

Your heart skipped a beat, because first implied future, and that implied that he wanted there to be pictures of just the two of you.

Swallowing your excitement, you tried your hardest to sound like your most normal of selves. “We can take more whenever we want, you know.”

“Let’s.”

And that was exactly what you did – or what he did, not too long after this conversation.

Later, once the red dye, too, had been rinsed from his hair, he had begun to blow-dry it, excited to look like himself again as soon as possible. You were standing next to him still, admiring your own handiwork. Not bad at all for a first-timer, you decided, as he unplugged the machine, resting it in the sink to let it cool down.

You had thought he was handsome before, but, as you had stupidly predicted, something had changed throughout the ordeal. You felt closer to him, and he looked different to you, taller and older somehow.

While you were following that train of thought to its source, Eijirou made use of your apparent distraction. Before you knew what was happening, he had reached for your wrist and pulled you into his lap, resting his chin on your shoulder and holding his phone in front of the both of you, front camera activated.

“Smile!” he echoed your earlier request. And while it was not what you were best at, of course, for him, you did.

[aliceinthewritingrepublic]

The Spiral on the Edge - VI

Story Title: The Spiral on the Edge

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki/Reader

Rating: MA

Story Tag: tsote

-

When you see an attractive stranger while partying, you decide that it has been too long since you’ve had an adventure. The exact terms of your loose liaison are soon put to the test.

-

Word Count: 2693

Without you asking him to, Katsuki had made room in his life for you. You were not sure whether he had done so intentionally or whether he had even noticed himself doing so – but it was undebatable that you were now a constant in the formula of his everyday life.

From your toiletries in the bathroom to the ever-respawning bottle of your favorite soda in the refrigerator, you had, for all intents and purposes, become the fourth teammate in the guys’ three-men living arrangement.

Today was not the first time you had taken part in mundane activities such as buying groceries, but for the first time, it was only Eijirou and you who were doing so together. And, going against all odds and all of your worries, it was not awkward at all.

“So, we got coffee, milk, bread and bottled water. We still need detergent and hand soap,” you recited, reading off the shopping list you had prepared on your phone.

“Hand soap? We never have hand soap,” Eijirou answered with surprising certainty, turning the shopping cart and heading down the aisle towards household necessities, you following closely behind him.

“Yeah, and I worry about what that says about your relationship with hygiene.” Their apartment was fairly clean, especially in the light of their being three male (barely-still-)teenagers, but you (rightly) attributed that to Katsuki’s neatness more than anything.

“Alright, alright, we are getting hand soap, new queen of the apartment.” His laugh was contagious.

“You don’t actually mind my being around so much, do you?” You were laughing along with him. Still, for a moment there, you were scared he was going to give you an answer you would not like.

“Not at all! You’re friendly, you clean up more of a mess than you make, and Bakugou’s less grumpy when you’re there. If anyone moves out, I vote it’s him.”

You scoffed. “You don’t actually mean that.”

He grinned his brightest of grins. “I really don’t. He’s kind of my best friend.”

Taking two pink bottles of detergent from the shelves and putting them inside the cart, you added onto your statement. “Besides, once he’s gone, I’m gone.”

“Right,” he said without missing a beat. “I forgot you’re a package deal. It’s still kinda hard to believe Bakugou has a girlfriend.”

The reply you had become used to giving to insinuations such as this one came without the need for you to exceed much thought. “I’m not his girlfriend.”

The noise Eijirou gave instead of saying anything in response said more than enough: Sure, if that’s what you want to believe.

“…and this concludes the perspective I wanted to share with you on the topic of secondary characteristics of less common quirks. Thank you for your attention. If you have any remaining questions, now’s the time to ask.”

While it may have sounded rather professional, that was only the case because you had repeated those sentences to yourself again and again last night until you had known them by heart. It was your first time speaking in front of an audience in years. Before you had been forced to press pause on your university career, you had somehow managed to avoid all seminars that required presentations as part of their grading system. Now, you had intentionally fit several of them into your semester schedule as a challenge to yourself. The first one was done with.

You could feel your heart beating in your tongue and you had stumbled over your words a few times. Your hands were clammy and shaking. But, and this was the most important notion to take away from today – you had survived.

The auditorium was too large for the two dozen people sitting in it. Their lack of further questions was almost certainly not due to your presentational skills but rather due to the general loss of enthusiasm students tended to experience at some point between their first and sixth semester.

After receiving some mostly favorable feedback from your professor, you left the building and headed off campus. You could not wait to tell your not-boyfriend about what you had achieved today.

Speaking of secondary characteristics of uncommon quirks – you had realized early on that Katsuki’s skin was flawless. For a while, you had chalked it up to simple great luck or a kind puberty. It was only after you had participated in several sessions of your aforementioned seminar about uncommon quirks that you had begun to entertain the possibility that those two phenomena might be related.

“So, not only do you get an awesome quirk, but it actually clears up your skin at the same time? That’s so unfair!” you complained from where you were sitting next to him on his bed.

“That’s just how glycerin works, woman.” His smirk let you know that although it was pure luck that he had been able to draw from such a good gene pool, he was at least a little proud of it.

“Still, it’s so not fair. Ten years from now, I’ll probably look twenty years older than I do now, and you’ll still be a walking skincare ad.”

“If that bothers you already, you’ll fucking love my mom. She’s almost fifty and looks like she never fucking turned thirty.”

You could have sworn that your heart stopped for about three and a half seconds right there. It was clear to you he had meant nothing by it. So, you decided to smooth it over by saying something by which you meant nothing at all, either.

“What reason would I have to meet my not-boyfriend’s mother? To congratulate her on her clear skin?”

“You could congratulate her on creating me, a.k.a. the greatest fucking thing that’s ever happened to you.” Considering how arrogant he could be and how dry he kept his voice when saying things like these, it could be difficult to mistake his specific brand of humor for serious statements. You, however, knew better.

Still, for a moment, you were inclined to grab a pillow from his bed and hit him over the head with it. Instead, you let yourself fall backwards so you were lying on the mattress. “Well, I guess you do have a handful of good qualities if I’m squinting. Five, maybe, if I were to count.”

He raised an eyebrow at you. You responded – very maturely – by sticking out your tongue at him. He accepted the unspoken challenge. Less than a moment later, he had you pinned underneath his body, straddling your thighs and holding your wrists above your head with both hands.

“Is fucking you until you can’t walk straight on the list?”

You arched your back, trying to push your breasts against his chest and whining when his grasp on you proved too tight for you to do so. “It’s at the very top,” you promised into his mouth, and then he was kissing you.

You had not had any alcohol since that fateful night at the club.

Letting down your guard around strangers made you feel threatened, so Katsuki and you had gone clubbing less and less, as well. Perhaps it was for the best – you were an adult after all, so maybe you could afford to have a lifestyle befitting one.

You also could not bring yourself to wear the clothes from that night again. So you packed them into a carton, along with some books that reminded you of the people that had gifted them to you and that were no longer part of your life. Then, you donated that box to the charity shop down the road from your home.

It was a shame that Katsuki’s room provided no other seating option for two besides his bed. Or maybe it actually was not that much of a shame, since it was your preferred place to be anyways. He had spent good money on the mattress, and your back agreed with you on the decision to spend as little time as possible at your own apartment. Said apartment was becoming more of a storage space than anything at this point.

What did the two of you even do together with all of those joint hours?

All kinds of things, really. A lot of it was sex, or lead-up to sex, or post-coital coexistence. Any time left over after subtracting those pastimes was just the both of you doing your own thing while coincidentally in the same room. You enjoyed it. You liked occupying the same space as him. You appreciated breathing the same air as him.

In all truth, you could probably spend the rest of your life lying next to him like this and simply looking at him.

He had not got dressed yet, but it was not like he had ever minded being nude. Reading the news on his phone, he was not looking in your direction, allowing you to watch him. You were plenty sure he still knew that you were watching him, however. He was more attentive than he would ever admit out loud, and somehow, he tended to simply know things.

Sometimes, you wondered what he saw in you. It was clear to you why you stuck with him. He was gorgeous, from his spiky blond hair to those red eyes you wanted to drown in, from the scar below his collarbone to his long, muscular legs. But beyond his picturesque body, beyond even the sex that was genuinely the best you had ever had, there was the fact that things were easy with him.

When you had told him about your disorder, you had expected it to be the end of your story. But it had not been. Instead, without wasting a lot of pretty words, he had simply accepted it as fact and moved on. It was what he did for everything you did and shared with him. When you had mentioned that you were going back to university, his response had been, “About time.”

(If he were anyone but himself, it would not have come across even nearly as supportive.)

When you had told him about how well your presentation had gone, he had asked, “What else had you expected?”

(And if he were anyone but himself, it would not have sounded nearly as proud.)

But he must have seen something in you, else he would not have kept you around for this long. You did not know what it was, but you were grateful for it nonetheless.

At this point, it was becoming hard to imagine a life without him.

It had always been hard for you to tell the difference between obsession and love. It was even more so now that Katsuki had made himself at home in the greater scheme of your life. But maybe you had been wrong to assume that you could only ever either be obsessed or in love. Maybe you had been so scared of anything that could at all be interpreted as something akin to a symptom of mania that you had never let yourself consider that one did not work without at least a tiny bit of the other.

After all, what was love if not a mild form of insanity?

The fancy-looking cream envelope had been sitting on Katsuki’s desk for weeks now. You had first noticed it when you had sat down there to work on your presentation. It had been in the way, and you had put it to the side without giving it much thought.

The next day, it had been right back in its former place, as if it had never been moved. Still, you gave it little to no thought.

A few days later, you were packing your bag, getting ready to go back to your own place for the first time in a week. (The mail did not check itself.) You set it on the desk chair while you were folding your worn clothes. (Perhaps, a load of laundry would also prove commendable.)

In doing so, you accidentally knocked over the folded card that was sitting upright on the desk, the surrounding envelope now gone. You set it back up, automatically reading the beginning of the first sentence. ‘You are cordially invited to…’

Then you stopped, a little annoyed that you had read anything at all. It was not your invitation, and thus none of your business. You made sure it looked untouched, finished packing and left.

A little while later, you found yourself in a hurry to arrive at university on time. The mornings were becoming colder, and, as these things with indirect proportionality tend to work, Katsuki’s bed was becoming harder to leave with each passing day. While you ran into the stairway with your hair yet unbrushed, your note pad lay on the desk, forgotten about.

It was a long day, which made your lack of note paper all the more jarring. When you came back to Katsuki’s that evening, your note pad was waiting for you. With the fancy invitation somehow having found its way on top of it. It became clear that these were not coincidences at all.

‘You are cordially invited to the 27th annual Heroes’ Gala to celebrate the strides our society has made since the advent of quirks and heroism. We will be accepting donations, all of which are to go into the Official Hero Registry’s fund to compensate and support civilians who have been hurt or who have experienced damage at the hands of villains. Please let us know whether you will be in attendance, and whether you will have someone joining you.’

Beneath the text, there was further information on the date, place and exact time.

You had not even taken your coat off yet, and you did not. Instead, you turned on your heel, walking towards the kitchen with the omnipresent invitation still in your hand.

Inside the kitchen, there was Katsuki in front of the stove, finishing dinner. (He liked to cook. You enjoyed your position as a beneficiary.) He did not even jump a little when you poked his lower back with the card – it seemed he had become so used to your presence that hardly anything surprised him anymore.

Without further greeting, you launched straight into the topic at hand. “So, where am I gonna find this next? Inside the closet, conveniently stored between my underwear?” You were trying hard not to sound as amused as you were. He was so bad at these things, and you loved him for it. It was getting harder not to think that word, love.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” was his reply, was his lie, because he could see the piece of paper in your hand and because he obviously knew what you were talking about.

“I’m talking about this charity gala thing. What is it?”

“It’s stupid, is what it is.” He was refusing to look at you, instead stirring the vegetables inside the pan with a lot more gusto than necessary. “It’s this shitty important hero bullshit. It’s dumb as hell.”

“And also, you really want to go there,” you added, voicing out loud what he was incapable of saying.

A lack of reply was also a reply.

After a moment of silence, you continued. “You know, I’m just gonna put this out there. If you want me to go with you, you might just have to actually ask me.”

As the seconds passed, the distance between you did not change, but your perception of it did. Eventually, you were unable to take both the silence and the distance, so you had to get rid of at least one of them. You stepped behind him, wrapping your arms around his slim waist and resting your cheek between his shoulder blades. He smelled like frying oil and sweat and all-around perfect. The heat from the stove reminded you that you were still wearing your coat. It did not matter.

What mattered was that after a much-too-long silence for a simple question such as this one, he asked, “Would you?”

You had had your fair share of hesitation for one night. For one lifetime. “I would.”

[aliceinthewritingrepublic]

Find What You’re Seeking

Title: Find What You’re Seeking

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Pairing: Kirishima Eijirou/Reader

Rating: T

Word Count: 2516

-

For now, all you were able to register was Eijirou, and yourself, and the negligibly small amount of space between you that seemed wider than the distance between stars.

Unlimited potential for greatness. Unlimited potential for loss.

Somehow, your room felt more like home whenever Eijirou was there with you.

He had originally come over to your dorm room to study for an upcoming exam on biological parameters of quirk heredity together. Now, a few hours later, your books and notes lay all but abandoned on the floor surrounding your bed.

Across said bed, there were your best friend and yourself, sprawled out comfortably among your too-many pillows as outside, an early fall dusk colored the sky. At the foot of the bed, your laptop was set up, another episode of your favorite show just about to start playing.

Looking at the thumbnail in the corner, you remembered the plot of the next episode. “Oh, I love this one!” you declared happily, turning your head to see whether your fellow watcher approved as well.

“So do I. You know that, we’ve seen it, like, five times together.” He grinned, having called you out on the redundancy of your silent query.

Perhaps someone else may have found the idea of watching the same countless seasons of the same old show over and over boring. For the two of you, it was the epitome of comfort.

For you personally, one upside to this shared habit was that you already knew what was going to happen on the screen – so who could fault you for finding something (or someone?) else to focus your gaze and attention on?

You liked watching him like this. It was fairly dark in your room by now, and the small source of light your computer offered gave his complexion an uncharacteristically pale glow. His hair was in spikes, as per usual, though some on the back and side of his head had been flattened after being pushed into one of your pillows. The t-shirt he was wearing had some kind of stupid wrestling pun printed on it, but even that could not distract you from how good he looked in a white shirt. He was a joy to look at, and if looking was all you would ever get to do to him, you would be able to live with it. Probably. Maybe. Possibly.

Recently, you had been forced to admit to yourself that the capacity of the feelings you harbored for him had little to do with platonism anymore. His personality was loud, and present, and positive, and all kinds of good things, and you were drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

You were under the misconception that he did not notice you watching him. This, to your chagrin, was rectified as soon as he spoke again. “Am I seriously that much more interesting than one of your favorite episodes?” His tone was benign; as was his smile. Nonetheless, your heart stopped for a moment at being caught.

You should have been embarrassed, you thought. But different convictions waged a short battle inside you. While you had managed to pinpoint how you felt for him, it was harder to form an idea of how he saw you. There had been occasions when you had entertained the notion that your attraction might just be mutual. In fact, those occasions had become more numerous recently. Hugs that lasted just that tiny bit longer than necessary. Brushes of his arm against yours that could have been easily avoided. The occasional hand at the small of your back while walking together. And, not to be passed over, that one time you had helped him dye his hair, when he had pulled you into his lap to take a selfie together. (Your heart still fluttered at the memory.)

As long as you said nothing, there was unlimited potential for where the story of the both of you might yet go. You decided to limit it right then.

“I just really like looking at you.” This much information was still rather noncommittal, at least compared to how much more you could have said.

He beamed in reply, shuffling a little closer to you. “I like looking at you, too.”

Voices and canned laughter still sounded from the foot of your bed, but that was unimportant. For now, all you were able to register was Eijirou, and yourself, and the negligibly small amount of space between you that seemed wider than the distance between stars.

Unlimited potential for greatness. Unlimited potential for loss.

You wanted to award words to what you were feeling, to tell and ask him everything at once. That you felt so, so much for him, and whether he might ever be able to reciprocate? And that even if he did not, you were never going to not want to be around him, and whether maybe, just maybe, this was the best opportunity you were ever going to get?

If words did not want to work with you, actions would have to do. You shuffled closer to him still and put your head on his chest, just below his clavicle. Never had anything required so much courage.

His reaction came swiftly, and it was a good thing, too. If you had had to fear rejection for even a second longer, you may have burst. His strong arm wrapping around your comparatively narrow shoulders kept you whole.

In this position, you could no longer look into his eyes. You willed yourself to find calmness in that fact. Now, you would be able to keep watching the since-forgotten-about episode of your show, with the added bonus of being held by your favorite person. To want more would have been greedy.

But you were greedy. And how could you not have been? You could hear his heartbeat, incessantly reminding you of the lifeforce pumping through him. You could smell the scent of the detergent he used on his stupid shirt. You could feel his warmth against your cheek, even through the fabric. And you could feel his breath on the crown of your head, softly teasing strands of your hair every time he exhaled. Every new sensation of intimacy left you hungry for more, your heart aching with greed.

Unlimited potential for loving and being loved in return.

Without moving from your position, you placed a hand on his chest, resting it at the bottom of his ribcage. The skin dipped a bit there, connecting the distance between his last rib and the first muscle of his abdomen. You wanted to get to know his body better than your own.

With how positively he had responded to your advances so far, the next step took a little less bravery than the last. You turned your head upwards until you were almost facing him again, resting your cheek on the pillow next to his. Due to the slight height difference of your positions, there was an inch or two of space left between your mouth and his, and you had never been as aware of anything as you were of this.

But if there were a final step to be taken, you needed him to be the one to do it.

His eyes caught on yours and their intensity let you know that he had understood your preposition perfectly. You had been expecting no less. There was no one who knew you better in the world than him.

Your heart was beating in your throat. You were unable to look away from him, trapped in the moment and in the idea of what you desperately wished would happen next. A second felt like an hour and a half as he moved in what must have been slow motion, his arm around your shoulders tightening, fingers pressing into your upper arm.

His lips met yours, warm and soft and everything you could have dreamed of. Your eyes slowly shut on their own accord as you kissed him back, letting all the things you had been and were still unable to voice out loud flow into the movement.

It was not your first kiss, and you knew for a fact that it was not his first kiss, either. Nonetheless, it was the first kiss. The kind of kiss romance novels meandered on and on about, that made you lose your perception of space and time, that pulled the world from beneath your feet and had you falling fast. The kind of first kiss that you had thus far deemed an unrealistic standard and invention of idealistic authors of purple prose.

It was electrical and made you feel like the nerve endings in your lips had tripled in number. Your mouth moved against his in earnest, and he reciprocated the urgency you conveyed. As the kiss deepened, he never became greedier than you needed him to be, giving you exactly as much as you required and never demanding more.

Before long, you had to break away because you may have lost your connection to reality otherwise. Unable to contain your happiness, a smile consumed your face without any conscious decision on your part. Eijirou smiled back at you as you giggled gleefully, wrapping your arms around his neck and hugging him tightly, face against his neck.

Snaking his arms around your waist, he returned your embrace and held you tightly against him, joining in your laughter.

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he admitted into your hair, all necessity for emotional restraint now gone.

“I’m so happy,” you said into his neck, as if that much had not been obvious already. Happy did not quite cut it, in all honesty. Elated. Ecstatic. Exuberant. (And perhaps, a couple more adjectives beginning with E.)

His hold on you relaxed a bit, though he did not let go. Pulling his head back far enough to be able to look at you again, he simply answered, “Me, too.” The blush on his cheeks seemed to stem less from embarrassment than from how diligently and thoroughly he had been kissing you just now.

If anyone had asked you then, you would have been unable to properly describe the pure marvel of knowing that the person you had fallen for had also been falling for you, all this time. You had been so scared of losing him. Now, instead of losing him as a friend, you had gained him as something more. And no matter what shape or form that something more was to take on, he was still going to be your best friend in the whole wide world.

Full of glee at that realization, you pressed your mouth to his once more, already craving his taste again. Again and again and again, the two of you swallowed the other’s breath, unable to resist this newfound favorite pastime of yours.

Every now and then, you took breaks to simply hold onto each other or cuddle, or even, at times, to simply look at each other in disbelief, making sure that this was not a dream, but rather your new reality.

You never wanted to let go of him again. So you did not, even as evening became night.

There were few things Aizawa Shouta hated as much about being a teacher as the night shifts. Ever since Yuuei had built dorms, allowing their students to live on campus, there had to be at least one member of the faculty present at all times, just in case. Night shifts included patrolling the hallways a couple of times per night in order to make sure that all of the students were where they were supposed to be and that no untoward things were going on.

(As if untoward happenings were somehow reserved to the night hours.)

He was almost done with his patrol, having checked up on almost all of the third years’ floors and just about mentally ready to fall back into his sleeping bag in the teachers’ lounge. It was not like the students were going to throw a party on a weekday, after all.

It was then that he spotted something unusual. One of the doors diverging from this hallway was not all the way closed. On closer inspection, Aizawa realized that it was Kirishima Eijirou’s room it led to. He sighed internally. Of course it had to be one of his students. He really could not catch a break, now could he?

After checking whether the room’s inhabitant truly was not there and having this notion confirmed, he purposefully made his way towards the stairwell. It could not be said that he did not know his students well, after all.

Once on the third year girls’ floor, his path led him directly to your door, without any potential detours even crossing his mind.

He knocked once, and when that remained unanswered, he knocked again, louder this time. When the second knock, too, did not garner any reply from beyond your door, he was already trying to think of all kinds of places the two of you may have snuck off to together. Even if he did find you, he then would have to punish you, and that meant thinking of a punishment first, and – sigh – he was way too tired for any of this.

Just to rule out all eventualities, though, he took out his master key, sighing as he unlocked your door. He did not like to impose on his students’ privacy any more than absolutely necessary.

What he did find was his two missing students, sleeping the sleep of the just. Holding onto each other, yes, but very much decent apart from that. The only illumination was a laptop beside the two of you, the video on it paused and asking its audience whether they were still watching. They were not.

Aizawa leaned against the doorframe then, resting his forehead against his fist in annoyance. He really needed to react to this somehow – Kirishima was not only breaking curfew, but breaking curfew inside a girl’s room.

On one hand, both of you were legal adults by now and he could imagine a couple dozens of things on the spot that he would rather be doing than meddling in your personal affairs. On the other hand, you were living on Academy grounds, and that came with certain rules. Despite this current display’s rather tame nature – the theoretical implications were worrying.

But while about ninety percent of what he was feeling was irritation, there was a small voice in him left that supposed that the whole situation was kind of sweet. A bother all in all, but also kind of sweet. (He had been eighteen once, too.)

Eventually, he decided that what was happening right now was harmless, so he simply closed the door and left the two of you to sleep rather than to intervene immediately.

After all, this meant that Kirishima would have to sneak back to his own room in the morning, and that would be as good a time as any to bust him. Then, he was planning to have a stern talk with the both of you, hopefully embarrassing Kirishima and you to no end. Hopefully, that would succeed in getting the two of you to at least be more sneaky.

[aliceinthewritingrepublic]

The Spiral on the Edge - V

Story Title: The Spiral on the Edge

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki/Reader

Rating: MA

Story Tag: tsote

-

When you see an attractive stranger while partying, you decide that it has been too long since you’ve had an adventure. The exact terms of your loose liaison are soon put to the test.

-

Word Count: 4524

When consciousness slowly returned you to this plane of reality, you were unsure whether you had been asleep or unconscious. While you could not remember dreaming, you had a distinct feeling of time having passed, which spoke for the former. Opening your eyes was a chore, but you could already feel your heartbeat speeding up at the uncertainty of where you were going to find yourself.

The familiar ingrain wallpaper on the barely illuminated ceiling coupled with the barely-there weight of the thin blanket covering you brought knowledge of your present location. You were… home. Frantically, you tried to remember how you got here, coming up with nothing but the not-quite-quantifiable feeling that you were missing memories that would explain everything.

Your related attempt to sit up proved more difficult than expected as pain consumed the left side of your head. All in all, it was a little as if there were an invisible weight trying to keep you in a lying position. You felt so, so worn.

“[Name]?” You knew that voice, despite its unusually meek quality. What was Katsuki doing here? He had no business being here, in this place, where there were countless reminders of all the parts of your life you kept separate from him, where there were blister packs in various states of fullness lying on the nightstand, where there –

Thinking hurt.

There was a hand on your shoulder, pulling you back down onto the mattress. You let yourself be pulled, putting up no resistance and closing your eyes again. You felt all kinds of wrong, and trying to keep your eyes open was not helping.

“You’re home. You’re safe.” If you had been able to properly get your thoughts in order, perhaps you would have questioned how unlike him those words were, but thinking was becoming harder by the instant.

For now, your body helped itself to the rest it desperately needed. Already, you were falling back asleep.

This time around, you dreamed vividly, as if your mind were trying to make up for its period of inaction. The meaning of the shapes and colors in your head was already beginning to fade the second you woke up once more.

You felt like half a person again, which was more than could have been said of you earlier.

Still, you were quite weak as you opened your eyes properly. You were in your own bed, but not alone, which was an anomaly of great proportions. Next to your head, sitting against the headboard with crossed legs, was Katsuki. His head was leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. His breathing was quiet and even.

How the fuck had it ever come to this? This was not what you had wanted, at all. Now he had taken a step behind the veil you had so carefully crafted, and that was irreversible. You had a strong premonition that this was going to mean the end of whatever the two of you were.

You slowly untangled yourself from your blanket, that small amount of movement already exhausting you to no end. But you needed to use the bathroom. Placing one shaky foot on the floor, you were almost up when a cramp shot through your calf. Through pure instinct, you pulled your leg back up onto the bed, pressing the heel of your hand against the quivering muscle to alleviate the pain and make this stop.

Katsuki groaned, awoken by the sounds of your pain.

Already, there was a hand on your shoulder again, distracting you from the slowly fading pain and making you turn your head to him. Your gaze was still a little unfocused, but you could still make out the blankness of his expression. You had never seen him expressionless. It almost made you shiver.

“Are you okay?” he asked, voice as devoid of assessable emotion as his mien.

“Kind of,” you tested your voice. Your tongue was too dry and too heavy for your mouth. “Not really. Maybe?” Speaking was harder than thinking, but both were possible again at this point. “Was I…” You swallowed, but it did nothing to make your mouth feel less like a desert. “…awake before? Or did I dream that?”

“For about a minute. Remember anything else?”

You searched your brain, trying to get everything that had become jumbled back into order. (Not an easy feat, considering your mind might best be likened to an M. C. Escher painting, even on the best of days. Today was a particularly bad day.)

“I remember being outside. Then dancing.” You also remembered leaving your drink unsupervised like an idiot, but did not want to put the words out there. You were able to reprehend yourself well enough without saying it out loud. “I think I hit my head?” Reaching up, you could feel a bump near your crest. Touching it stung, making you pull air through your clenched teeth. “But nothing else,” you finished your incomplete retelling of last night’s events.

“You were really fucked up all of a sudden. You fell into a wall at the club. I caught you before you fell again, but I used too much force.” There was still no change in his disturbingly calm tone as he pointed to your right upper arm. You followed the indicated path with your eyes and found bruises that clearly resembled fingers there. Lifting your left hand and putting the pads your fingers on the marks, you silently remarked that he did have big hands.

He had not apologized, but it was implied.

When you said nothing, he kept chronologizing the timeline of what had happened. “You couldn’t fucking walk, and you almost couldn’t fucking talk, so I got you out of there. I was gonna take you to my place, but you kept saying ‘home’ like a broken record.” He paused. You pulled your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around them and resting your chin on top. It was anything from unsettling to downright wrong to be told about things you had experienced without being able to form any coherent memory of them, even now. “I got the address from your ID.”

Your carefully crafted front had been a house of cards, and it had crumbled without you there to maintain it. It was difficult to decide whether to be more upset about this or about the fact that someone had apparently thought you passable enough a victim to spike your drink. Both made you feel incredibly powerless.

“I think someone drugged me.” The words had escaped you before you had had a chance to reconsider them. You did not appreciate the emotional tone your voice had taken on, did not like to be forced into such vulnerability.

Thankfully, your body was willing to remind you that you had a good excuse to flee the scene for just a moment. Once more, you moved to get up, more successful this time, though you were still shaky on your legs. You put one hand against the wall for support as you had to concentrate hard to set one foot in front of the other.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Katsuki asked, his choice of words – as per usual – not a good indicator of whether he was actually angry or not. At some point, he had stood up and was now hovering behind you.

“Bathroom.” You were not so much being curt as you were simply too exhausted to form longer sentences. “I’d like to piss on my own, though.” You were already combusting internally from the embarrassment of having been dependent on him. Anything more, and you would die of shame.

His exasperation was tangible. “Keep the door unlocked, idiot. If you’re not back in ten, I’m coming to get you, and I don’t give a fuck whether you’ve got your pants down or not.”

While going about your business, you held your head in your hands, trying to make sense of everything. Already, you were thinking you had been too abrasive towards him just now. He was always blunt and vulgar, and you knew perfectly well that he was not trying to talk down to you. If anything, he was probably unsettled by last night’s events, maybe even worried. (You hated it when people worried about you. It was even worse to imagine him of all people worrying about you. But he had no way of knowing that.)

You washed your hands and wiped your face with a wet cloth, ridding your skin of the crudest share of ruined make-up. After that, you drank about one liter of cold water straight from the tap. Then, you used some mouthwash, the imagined exertion of using a toothbrush already too much in your current state. Without your allotted ten minutes having passed, you stepped back into the main room of your small apartment.

“Hey,” you said and then paused for a moment because you had caught yourself wanting to call him by a nickname, but all that had come to mind was lover, which was way too intimate to say aloud. You sat down on the side of your bed and habitually reached for your phone, which was exactly where it was supposed to be – plugged into the charger next to your bed. No new messages, a fact you were thankful for right then.

“Thanks for charging my phone.” That was not what you had been wanting to say, but you meant it. “And thank you for getting me home safe.” That was what you had been wanting to say, and you also meant it.

While you began your google search, he answered to only your latter declaration of gratitude. “What the hell was I supposed to do, fuck off and leave you there?”

You were unsure whether he could see your bitter smile from his position. “That’s probably what whoever drugged me was hoping for.”

“But why go for a woman who obviously isn’t alone?”

Discussing the precise parameters of the attempted assault on you made you feel uneasy and very empty inside. “Who the fuck knows. Maybe they thought that you didn’t actually know me, and if I were out of it, you’d leave me there. Or maybe they just thought I seemed easy.”

“I’m gonna find and murder that fucker. And don’t even start with that ‘blaming yourself’ bullshit. You’re not easy.”

“I am, and you should know that better than anyone.” You were headed for a fight, you realized. And despite your head still not feeling quite right, you welcomed it. You preferred a quick and painful ending to a slow fadeout any day.

“Bullshit. Fuck that. And stop telling me I know shit. I know fuck-all about you. I had to check your ID for your address and last name, for fuck’s sake. And we’ve been fucking for seven months! Also, what the fuck are you doing?” He was referring to you still typing on your phone. “At least look at me while we’re talking!”

Since the end had now officially begun, you felt little inclination to keep information confidential anymore. “I’m looking up the most common types of roofies and trying to find out whether there’s a risk of adverse interaction with my antipsychotics.”

He did not know how to properly react to that information, if his silence was any indication.

“Fuck it,” you continued rather than to wait for him to think of something to say. “It’s not like I’m not gonna take my meds.” You’d been there before, and you were not keen on a replay of that spectacle, regardless of whether you were risking adverse effects or not.

One (surprisingly small) yellow pill later, you finally settled in properly next to him, back against the headboard.

“Look, Katsuki. When I went home with you for the first time, I assumed that it’d be a one-time thing. And then, when it wasn’t, I still thought that that… spark, or whatever, between us would eventually flicker out, and that we’d grow bored and stop seeing each other. I wasn’t planning on you becoming a fucking seven-month-stand.”

He made a sound then that was parts snicker and parts derision. Still, he shuffled closer, until his upper arm was pressed against your own. His skin seemed cold, but yours was colder. Fair enough, you thought, before continuing.

“And I don’t really like sharing anything about myself, because, to be frank, I’m not in the greatest place right now. I’m way better than I used to be, but not… good. And since we weren’t together or anything, it was easy to reason with myself that I didn’t need to tell you anything about me. And to be fair, you never really asked.”

He interrupted you then. “Yeah, because I got the message pretty fucking early that I wasn’t supposed to ask. I may be kind of an asshole, but I’m not unobservant enough to miss that you never fucking talk about yourself.” He was annoyed, and he had a right to be.

“I’m not accusing you. I was glad you never asked, because that made it easier for me.” You considered for a moment how to best put it into words he would understand. It was not as easy as it could have been, your general exhaustion blurring into the drowsiness from your medication. “It’s like… there’s all of this bullshit, and it’s not that far below the surface once you disturb the waters. It goes from ‘Hey, I’m [Name], I’m twenty-four,’ to ‘So what do you do for a living?’ to ‘I’m in university,’ to ‘What do you study?’ to ‘Human Quirk Biology,’ to ‘What semester are you in?’ to ‘I’m on a break right now,’ to ‘Why?’ to ‘Oh, I went kind of crazy and spent a while in a mental hospital and now I’m trying to get back on my feet,’ really quickly.”

You paused, giving him time to let that settle.

Against all of your expectations, he put his arm around you. You did not miss the fact that he placed his hand near your elbow rather than further up on your arm, avoiding the bruises from last night.

“You know,” he said, “I knew you were older than me, but I wasn’t expecting five damn years.”

His reply was so out there, you couldn’t help but laugh a little. For a moment there, you had forgotten how much you enjoyed being around him. This also reminded you that less than a day ago, you had been having the time of your life, getting the daylights fucked out of you in a bathroom stall. There must have been a fissure in time with how long ago that felt.

“That’s what you’re focusing on? Not the ‘I’ve been getting it on with a schizo’ part?”

“No, dumbass, I just don’t know what the fuck to say to that. So, does that mean you’re schizophrenic?”

“Schizoaffective. Not sure whether that information gives you something to work with or not.”

He just scoffed, squeezing you to his side. You understood the hint and moved on to explain. “Basically, I go through these manic episodes. They start out pretty nice, I’ll be in a great mood – downright ecstatic – for a while, and all is well. And then I start making all of these plans, and, at first, they’re realistic – maybe after I get my bachelor’s degree, I’ll go for a master’s. And then, they aren’t. Like, screw the master’s, Imma get a doctorate! And on the side, I’ll write a series of novels that will be great and everyone’s gonna read them and know my name! And then, it goes downhill fast. I don’t need sleep because I’m not like normal people! Also, things that hurt others can’t hurt me, because I’m superhuman! And that’s about the time it switches from manic to psychotic. I’m superhuman, but things aren’t working out the way I wanted them to, why is that? It’s because someone out there is scared of what I could do with my powers, and they’re pulling strings to keep me down. It has to be someone close to me, because they somehow know where I am and what I’m doing at all times. What if they implanted me with some kind of device and then erased my memory of it? Hasn’t the back of my neck been itchy for a few days now?”

You paused to catch your breath, because you had been ranting. Then, you decided you might as well go all out to emphasize the gravity of your condition. Maybe that way, he would not feel as bad about leaving when he did.

Reaching up, you lifted your hair from the back of your neck to the side. “That scar? It’s from when I tried to cut out a nonexistent chip with a pocket knife.”

That was when a shiver went through him, strongly enough for you to feel it. “That’s some fucked-up shit,” he pressed through his teeth. Still, he did not actually recoil from you, opting instead to hold onto you tighter.

You knew it was a crass thing to share, but you needed him to understand that your disorder was not some romanticizeable gimmick that bestowed temerity upon you. It was not a thing that would ever pass. It was a life sentence.

“I’m sorry for being graphic. I wish there were prettier words for it. But it was really bad. I was twenty-two at the time. They took me to a hospital, and after a while on medication, I got a lot better. Good enough to return to life as planned, as long as I was taking the antipsychotics. So that’s what I did. But I was taking a different drug then, and I had pretty bad side effects. I was tired basically twenty-four/seven. I felt like someone had wrapped me in bubble-wrap, and everything was dull and muffled. Oh, and guess what?”

“What,” he stated and did not guess.

“You know how I have a pretty big sex drive?”

“You tell me,” he deadpanned, motioning for you to keep talking.

“Well, I lost all of that too. And I wasn’t able to orgasm, no matter what I did.” You kind of wanted to wait for his reaction to that information, but decided that he deserved all of the story, which required you to get on with it. “So, I went off my meds, because everything sucked, and I told myself that my first episode had probably been a one-time thing, because – isn’t there a statistic that one in three people goes crazy at some point in their lives or something? That was about a year ago. Well, guess what, that was a bullshit idea, and I ended up relapsing. It wasn’t quite as bad as the first time, probably because I was admitted to a clinic pretty early on this time around. I started a new type of medication that doesn’t cause me tons of side effects. Been on it ever since.”

Perhaps, to put all of this into perspective, you could end the whole story on a more positive note, it occurred to you. “I’m going back to university once the new semester starts in a few weeks, too. So, I’m not… in as bad a place as I used to be, I guess.”

He made a quiet noise deep in his throat to signal that he realized you were done with your tale.

You felt like you had been talking for hours, although it had more realistically only been ten minutes. Your perception of time was genuinely crooked, and you were unsure whether it was a residuum of whatever had been given to you last night or simply a side effect of this situation that you had been entirely unprepared for.

“So,” he began eventually, the arm he had had around you all this time slowly sliding from around your shoulders. You tried your best to prepare yourself for the rejection that was sure to come. “You never told me about your disorder because, what? You thought I’d tell you to fuck off?”

“Well,” you answered and got up, having trouble looking him in the eye. This was getting dangerously close to the terrain of your feelings for him, a matter you would strongly prefer to leave untouched.

Slowly, and trying not to move your head too much, you took off the leggings and shirt you were still wearing from last night. You even still had your bra on. You appreciated the fact that Katsuki had not undressed you. You felt violated enough in your physical integrity as it was. (You did not mind him seeing you naked, as evidenced by the fact that you were changing in front of him without a second thought right now. But the idea of not being conscious while someone handled you was too unsettling for words.)

“Basically, I figure there’s not a lot of different ways to react to that kind of information. Either you think I’m making it up for attention, or you think it’s creepy, or you think you can save me. One isn’t true, one kind of is, I guess, and the last one’s impossible because it’s not a temporary or conditional thing. But yeah, I kinda assumed that either way, it’d end up with us parting ways, because you shouldn’t have to deal with my mental illness. It’s not like you’re my boyfriend.”

You took off your bra and then pulled on a fresh black top and a pair of plaid pajama bottoms. Looking attractive was not a priority at this point.

“Oh, fuck that, [Name].” You could actually hear him in- and exhaling, the strain of trying to contain himself obviously trying. “I get what you’re saying, but – shit, I’d really fucking appreciate it if you let me decide for myself what the hell I’m thinking or not?!”

He inarguably had a point. Of course it was unfair of you to preemptively ascribe to him one or several ways of thinking. But you had spent so much time considering and reconsidering all of these things in an attempt to avoid unnecessary pain whenever the inevitable rejection came – it was difficult to break out of this circular thought structure now.

He had more to say. “Obviously I’m not your fucking boyfriend. I barely actually know anything about you, we’ve been over this, damn it. And I still don’t fucking get it. I can know all the ways you like to be fucked, I can know that being talked down to during sex gets you off, but I can’t know anything else about you? Not even your fucking last name? And why, because I’m not your stupid boyfriend?”

“I just…” You sat on the bed again, legs crossed, facing him. It would have been easier not to look at him while admitting this, but you could not not look at him now. “I didn’t want to overshare. And it’s easier to say nothing at all than to avoid one specific topic, especially when pretty much any other topic is related to it somehow. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to never see you again.” And, simply because you were already sorely vulnerable at this point and opening yourself further could not do anymore harm, “Am I never gonna see you again?”

This was what scared you. Once more, time seemed to bend and crumble and rise from the ashes in all kinds of unnatural ways until he answered.

He shook his head, still not having moved from his position at the head of your bed. “Shit, woman, you’re barely to stand up straight. You fucking took your medication without knowing whether it’ll interact with what’s still in you from last night. Do you honestly, for even a fucking second, think that I’m about to leave you alone? In that case, you’re way dumber than you seem.”

His one-sided smirk was only partially able to hide the sheer exhaustion on his face, the furrow between his brows deeper than you had ever seen it. Apparently, he was staying.

“And now, lie the fuck back down before you fall against anymore walls.” It was clearly an order, and one you did not mind following.

The rest of the day would feel just as surreal as everything else that had occurred so far.

You caught a few more hours of sleep, divided into several smaller naps. Katsuki never left your side, like a dog guarding you from anything that might aim to do further harm to you.

(Never mind the fact that all that could harm you now were chemicals already inside your body, and… well, your stupid head. Your stupid head, that was already trying to twist last night’s most likely coincidental attack into the idea that someone was trying to harm you individually. But that made no sense. You were able distance yourself from that train of thought well enough, and that was an important realization that calmed you, at least a little bit.)

Appalled by the jarring lack of proper food in your refrigerator, he ended up ordering pizza for the both of you. You ate while streaming the newest season of your favorite animated show on your old, but faithful laptop. Katsuki had never seen it, but complained about it less than he could have.

Already, he seemed to feel more at home at your place than you had done for the first half of a year you had lived here. And you felt more at home with him here.

Lying next to him, head on his chest while fully dressed was a new, but not unpleasant experience. You had had it all twisted, you thought. Was it not more normal to be surprised by how someone’s bare skin felt after only knowing them clothed? Now, it was your turn to be stunned by how intimate it felt to be close him in a situation that was clearly non-sexual. Even his hand under the back of your top, just resting there, felt right. It seemed he simply enjoyed the feeling of your bare skin, be it the leadup to something more basal or not.

The most important development, however, was the agreement he and you found regarding your future. The two of you would simply keep going the way you had been up until so far – but you were not to censor yourself anymore. That way, he would have a chance to finally know you in all the ways he did not, or did not yet. And wherever that would lead you both, it would probably be okay.

“Just so you know, I reserve the right to tell you to fuck off once I know you better.”

You laughed out loud, nuzzling his cheek before kissing him, softly, for the briefest of moments. “You do that. I need a boyfriend like I need a hole in my head.”

If mutual exclusivity was what defined the relationship between two people, you already had a boyfriend in him. But to argue definitions at this point would be to get ahead of yourselves.