kinoko komori, the pretty mushroom girl from class 1-b! her birthday is december 2nd. i don’t know anything about her quirk except that it’s called mushroom. do you like mushrooms?
Note: For @milkbottle8! You said that you wanted something that was full of emotion, so what better way to fulfill that then with a good old pining fic? This is my first time writing kirikami, and Kirishima as a main character in general, so I hope you like it~ Also on ao3
Storge: an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship
Two weeks was too long of a break from school for Kirishima. He had left home ready to crack open the books and get down to learning, willing to endure the looming thoughts of exams on his future if it meant getting to Yuuei sooner. Going out for runs in the morning and doing push ups in the backyard like in middle school didn’t cut it anymore when so many opportunities for growth were blossoming right within these concrete walls every day.
Kirishima jogs up the steps leading to the main school building. He’d already stopped by his dorm to check back in and brush off the pinch of dust from his bed. To think that even with a cleaning staff around to maintain the place while school was out, everything was exactly as he’d left it, messy but perfectly in order. He’d clean up what dirty laundry he had left when he came back.
There’s already a few of his classmates milling about when he comes through the towering door of their classroom. Ojiro and Jirou hang around the back, waving at Kirishima as he enters. To no one’s surprise, Iida is here too, clearly still dedicating himself to being here as early as possible.
The smile he sends to them grows wider when he spots Kaminari lounging in his chair, head nodding to some song coming through his headphones.
Taking his seat, backpack tucked under the table away from where someone could trip, Kirishima leans forward, tapping his shoulder, “What’re you listening to, Kami?” The only way Kirishima could ever get his attention with them on in the past was if he popped up in his vision or touched him.
Kaminari lifts one side of the headphones and looks over. It’s amusing to see how invested can become Kaminari in his music and divested to everything else, eyes widened a fraction like he’d been caught daydreaming, which wasn’t quite a far-fetched possibility, with how everyone in this class has been doing a lot of dreaming and catching up on personal time these past weeks.
Once Kaminari’s gaze falls on Kirishima, he relaxes, the momentary surprise blinked away as he turns in his chair, “Oh, you know, the usual.”
Kirishima never learned what Kaminari meant by “the usual”, but it was safe to assume that it was probably some mainstream musicーalthough it sounded time-consuming for Kaminari to burn the songs onto discs.
“Still got that old CD player?” Kirishima had learned, after being given the permission to borrow items from Kaminari’s hoard of a room, that Kaminari kept many of the CDs that his parents owned, who were also a bunch of music enthusiasts. He was uncannily similar to Jirou in that regard.
Kaminari nods, patting his bag, “You know it. Finally brought it somewhere to get it fixed, and now this baby is good as new.”
“Mind if I have a listen sometime?” It’d be nice to get to know Kaminari through the type of music he listens to. Knowing someone’s favorite songs gives the piece a whole meaning, and the idea of being closer with Kaminari was a pleasant one.
Kirishima watches Kaminari tilt his head in consideration, agreeing after a moment of thought. “Sure, I’ll even have something specially prepared,” Kaminari grins.
He nudges him with an elbow, smiling back, “Aren’t I lucky. Anyways, how was your break?”
“Much more boring without a whole bunch of teens under the same roof,” Kaminari shrugs, reaching up to brush the bangs from his face, which Kirishima watches with tickling fascination, “It was nice to be home, though. Unfortunately, we don’t get a lot of leisure time here to kick back and relax. Next time, let’s plan on meeting up to escape the boredom, yeah?”
And that gives Kirishima an idea, “How about tonight?”
Seeing Kaminari’s eyes light up, it was apparent he wouldn’t be needing any further convincing.
Kaminari wasn’t lying when he said that he’d have something prepared. But he wasn’t about to tell Kirishima that he already had one, in need of a bit of tweaking to sound more like a normal playlist, and less like a terribly sappy playlist that only infatuated teenagers would make for their crush… even though that was exactly what made up Kaminari’s favorite CD labelled “Kirishima” in bold red lettering, slapped messily onto the case with masking tape.
Blood from the murderer’s blade splatters across the screen in classic B-horror movie style, and Kirishima, the most vibrant thing in the room, far brighter than the deep, glowing crimson bouncing off the walls, laughs at the utter hilarity of it all, “I can’t believe you really chose a slasher movie over all the other genuine horror films in my collection!”
Kaminari cracks a smile at how Kirishima holds his face whilst balancing the laptop on his leg, shoulders shaking as a girl gets murdered with all the melodramatic finesse of an eighties actress, “Sometimes you just gotta appreciate a forgotten masterpiece, Kiri.”
But Kirishima shakes his head, hands held up in surrender, “I think I’ve done enough appreciating.” He gets up off the bed, pulling open the drawer where all his movies were stored, “This time I get to choose which movie we watch next.”
“Go right ahead. I’ll be back in a second,” sliding the laptop off to the side, Kaminari stretches, heading over to his bag. Kirishima makes a noise of acknowledgement behind him, busy weighing two DVDs in his hands.
He takes out some snacks, sifting through the all the stuff inside in search for something else. Further in, beyond the leftover snacks and useless objects he still found necessary to keep on his person, Kaminari pops open his player, removing the disc to put back in its case. He didn’t want to run the risk of accidentally switching it on and overheating the whole thing again.
Kaminari gets no further than clicking the container shut before hands clamp down onto his shoulders with shocking firmness, and Kirishima shouting in his ear, “Boo!”
It isn’t that Kaminari is particularly easy to scareーhe’s actually prone to jumpscares and the like, unless it was as obvious as Kirishima’s heavy footsteps approachingーbut maybe it was that he was in Kirishima’s room, alone with him, on the eve of their third scary movie, holding something he’d made with Kirishima in mind, that sends a surprise discharge through his body and outwards, cutting out the lights and all the power on this floor.
Kaminari drops what’s in his hands and rises quickly, batting away the stray electricity dancing along his arms, speaking over the popping in his ears, “Warn a guy when you do that, Kiri!”
“Then that would take away from the whole surprise! Didn’t really think that’d be enough to activate your quirk though…” Somewhere off to Kaminari’s right, Kirishima adds, sounding a bit regretful of his decisions now. After some fumbling, they both take out their phones for light. Kirishima has a sheepish smile on his face, “I’m really sorry ‘bout that.”
Kirishima really wasn’t the kind of guy Kaminari could stay mad at for long. He sighs, making a show of rolling his eyes so Kirishima would know he wasn’t angry, “Just be careful next time, I don’t wanna shock you.”
“You got it, chief! Luckily I was hard when you did that,” Kirishima teases, and Kaminari swats away the elbow in his side. They look down at the mess that had tumbled out from Kaminari’s bag in his rush to stand, and Kirishima bends down to look over spilled contents, “But all joke aside, lemme help you with this.”
In the dark, with only their flashlights as luminescence until the security system rebooted itself and turned everything back onーthis wasn’t the first time Kaminari has been startled into cutting the dormitory’s powerーKaminari can hide the franticness in his reach for the hard plastic of the CD case that had slid under Kirishima’s bed. He stuck it into his bag, zipping that pocket closed before anything else. Picking up his schoolwork and pens weren’t as important as hiding that thin little disc from curious hands, which bumped into his own about as often as Kaminari found himself shying away from them.
Once the last slip of paper is lent over, Kaminari sets his bag over next to Kirishima, “Thanks.”
He takes Kaminari’s hand, helping him up off the floor. “No biggie. Now c'mon, let’s go start a new movie that’s sure to spook you.”
His hands are impossibly warm, or maybe it’s Kaminari’s that are too cold, harshly contrasting the heat crawling up his neck as Kirishima grins playfully, awaiting the rebuke Kaminari has for him.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear you scream earlier,” Kaminari counters. Kirishima was always one for playful banter, even if it was about something that scared both their socks off and left them incapable of emerging from their rooms alone in the late hours of the night.
Kirishima snorts, “Oh yeah, says the guy who just cut power to the whole floor.”
“It came back on!” With a muted flicker, the lightbulbs come back to life, and Kaminari holds an arm out as a show of his timely statement. “See?”
“Whatever you say, Kami.” Kirishima squeezes his hand back in answer, tugging Kaminari along even though guidance through this small dorm wasn’t required anymore. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t welcomed.
Kaminari follows, totally okay with Kirishima’s insistence to keep their hands joined long after the movie was loaded in and each scream left Kaminari clutching it tighter.
Kaminari doesn’t return to his own room until the next morning, nursing a sore neck. He’s sluggishly straightening his tie as he walks past the kitchen, using his free hand to toss out all the empty bags of food from his schoolbag, when his ritual check for the player and disc leaves him coming up empty of a plastic case.
Letting go of his tie, he checks the pocket it’s always in. Much to his surprise, it’s not in there. He had tossed his bag to the floor earlier upon entering his room, so it was possible that he’d left it in there by accident.
“Hey, Kami!” Kaminari looks up at the sound of his name to see Kirsihima running up to him, “Ready to go?”
Well, that was a matter for later. He could just look for it later.
For now, Kaminari plugs his headphones into his phone, sticking close to Kirishima as he holds the door open for the both of them, “Yup, sure am.”
The subject of the missing CD doesn’t come up until they’re back in Kirishima’s dorm again to play the afternoon away with video games.
A healthy dose of roughhousing and a spilled drink puts a damper in the excitement, especially when Kaminari is unable to procure anything to clean it with. He sure was missing a lot of things lately.
“Aw, man.” Kaminari shuts his bag, looking over at Kirishima, “Hey, got any napkins?”
Kirishima nods over at his bag sandwiched between them, eyes never leaving the screen, “Yeah, left pocket.”
“Thanks.”
The school provided standard bags if a student wanted to go with the default choice of wear, but everybody had the freedom to use their own backpacks. And maybe it was coincidence, but he and Kirishima had pretty similar style backpacks.
The napkins were easy to find, a whole crumpled ball of it stuffed into one pouch. If Kaminari hadn’t already spilled his drink, he surely would’ve at the sight of his red CD case sitting pretty in the pocket opposite the one his hand was currently stuffed in.
He freezes, just about to pull his hand out.
“Found what you need?” Kirishima asks, playing away at the game.
There was no way Kaminari could take it back. At least, not yet, not without making it apparent that he was taking out something large and obviously not tissue-shaped. He’d left his own backpack in his room with the knowledge that they were going to get zero homework done together, but now he almost wishes they had stuck to their plan like responsible students.
“U-Uh yeah!” Kaminari pulls out a fistful of napkins, going about dabbing at the wet spot on his shirt.
It really shouldn’t have irked as much as it did, but having his favorite CD in the hands of another friend left Kaminari in quite the predicament.
He couldn’t just ask for the CD, because what if Kirishima didn’t know it was there? What if he got defensive about Kaminari snooping around in his personal belongings? What if he’d ask to listen to it then? Would he connect the dots?
Mina, his company until the rest of the group came back with the rest of the food, snaps him out of his thoughts with, “Kami, you’re talking out loud.”
He pulls his hands out of his hair, now left a tangled disarray thanks to his nervous hair pulling, “Mina, this is terrible!”
She puts down her phone, propping up her arm to look him in the eye. Mina often needed higher or equal ground when she gave someone advice, “It’s really not. Wouldn’t this make telling him how you feel so much easier?”
“Not unless you factor in the whole reason behind that CD!” Kaminari raises his voice a little too much that time, but the all of this was nerve wracking to be happening during the first week back.
“You’re overthinking this, Kami.”
“I know I am!”
When Kaminari catches Kirishima whistling a familiar tune before class one day, he feels ready to crawl in a hole when he recognizes it as a track off the playlist. He settles for hiding his face in his arm instead, knowing that there was no way Aizawa would accept the excuse of feeling sick to his stomach, the butterflies increasing tenfold.
It was going to be impossible to bring this up without making this about his feelings, that’s for sure.
The moment of reckoning, when Kaminari is at last faced with a confrontation by Kirishima, is on the way back to the dorms from another long day of classes.
“Yo, Kami!” Kirishima waves his hand, a sign for Kaminari to wait up for him. He does, watching from his spot in the courtyard as Kirishima comes down the steps, distracted with taking something out of his backpack. Kaminari’s fingers tighten on the leather straps.
“I’ve been meaning to give this back to you!” Kirishima reveals the missing CD case with a flourish, holding it up victoriously while Kaminari tries to hide the dread from his face. Of course he would’ve found it eventually.
Kirishima flips it over this way and that, inspecting the case like he still couldn’t quite believe it was in his possession, “I don’t remember exactly when, but I think I borrowed it off you last week. I mean, it has my name on it, right?”
Kaminari swallows with a nod. “Y.. yeah…”
“Sorry I took so long to return it,” he scratches the back of his head, extending it out for Kaminari to take, “here.”
Kaminari accepts the CD, uncertain of what to do with it now. He’s barely able to read its contents to check and make sure it was still in good condition, when Kirishima clears his throat in seek of his attention.
“So, I was thinking…” Kirishima rocks on his heels, hands tightly laced before him, “do you wanna go out to the movies sometime? We don’t have to watch a scary movie, it can be whatever you want!”
That sounded almost… “Like a date?” Kaminari asks, eyes trained on Kirishima as he laughs, eyes not quite meeting his for a moment, almost as though he was embarrassed.
“Yeah!” There was a pink hue to Kirishima’s cheeks as he smiled brilliantly at Kaminari.
A small, meager part of him was speechless, but it was far outweighed by the joy that was welling up inside of Kaminari’s chest as he sucks in a deep breath. With a tight nod, Kaminari grins back, “I’d like that.”
Kirishima, expressive as he is with his body, lets his shoulders drop in relief, a deep sigh falling from his lips as he pumps his fists in the air, “Awesome! That’s great! Fantastic!” Reenergized by the answer, Kirishima straightens, looking about ready to bolt away out of excitement, “I’m gonna, uh, head out now!”
Kaminari looks over in the direction Kirishima is pointing at, “Aren’t we heading to the dorms like we always do?”
“R-Right!” Kirishima seems to take that as a cue to grab his hand. It was something Kirishima’s been doing impulsively these days, but Kaminari knows there’s solid purpose behind it this time, “Let’s go!”
All it takes is a tug of Kirishima’s arm, and Kaminari keeps pace with him the whole way.
