Work Text:
As the story goes, a banquet was held to celebrate the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. Eris, goddess of discord, was barred from the festivities in fear that she would bring disruption to the other guests. In an outrage, she descended upon the party with a golden apple in hand and flung it into the crowd. Her parting words were, “To the fairest one!”
“So three different goddesses try to claim that it’s for her, okay, and Zeus makes this human guy judge them, and after they bribe him, he gives the apple to the one who promises him a wife and the whole thing starts a war.”
“That’s it?”
Jirou’s words are biting, but do little to stifle the excitement on Kaminari’s face. Her brows furrow and she seems to come to a realization and reaches out, slugging his shoulder.
“Ow!”
“That’s what that apple the other day was about, wasn’t it, Kaminari? What the hell?”
Rubbing at his arm, the blonde teen pretends to be clueless, but Jirou is having none of it and he quickly does away with the facade. Leaning forward, he readjusts how the apple is sitting on the table, first turning it one way, and then the other, before pushing it closer to the center of the table.
“The idea was that you were all supposed to fight over it, maybe someone gets their hair pulled? But of course you all just agreed together that it was for Yao-momo. There wasn’t even a catty remark! You all just split the apple and that was that.”
“Because we’re not savages, Kaminari.”
Making a thoughtful noise, Kaminari lifts his shoulders and then drops them with a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “Well, just because it didn’t work the first time doesn’t mean it’ll never work. I have a plan B. This time it’s bound to work. I’m sure of it.”
Jirou groans with disbelief as her companion fishes a piece of paper out of his pocket and slaps it down on the table, pushing it forward until it’s tucked up under the apple.
“What…” She’s stifled by a hand being waved into her face and quickly slaps it away. Shifting in her seat, she turns her head to follow Kaminari’s line of sight, and manages to just scoot out of the way in time to dodge Ashido as the pink girl dive bombs the seat next to her.
Quick to right herself and cross her legs up under her bottom, Ashido gives them both a conspiratorial smile and slyly asks, “Am I interrupting?”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Jirou replies dryly, looking over at Kaminari, who is still watching the exits, clutching the back of the couch with poorly repressed excitement.
Ashido gives Jirou a silent, questioning look, getting only a shrug in reply.
“Kaminari’s plotting anarchy.”
“Alright! You go Kaminari.”
“Shhh!!”
Voices begin to fill up the common room as several of their classmates trail inside, and Kaminari quickly whips around and hops to his feet, pausing, and then in a very obvious show, drops heavily back down onto the cushions.
“Hey! Someone left an apple here.”
Picking up the note, Kaminari shakes it open with a flourish, only to have it yanked out of his hands a moment later. This is met with a startled yell, fists clenching together tightly as tears spring to his eyes.
Bakugou gives him a sour look before addressing the piece of paper. “It’s just a fuckin’ papercut, dunce face.”
“Whatcha got there, Bakugou?”
Bakugou lifts the note up out of reach as Kirishima leans over his shoulder to read it. Kirishima’s question grabs the attention of the others, and the boys display interest ranging from mild to intense curiosity -- the latter on Midoriya’s part.
“It says, ‘to the strongest guy’,” the blonde dictates, lowering the paper and angling a glare on Kaminari. The other teen is still cradling his hands, flexing his fingers open and closed as he whines quietly about the papercuts across the insides of his fingers. From there Bakugou’s eyes trail to the table, zeroing in on the apple perched dead center of it. His glare lightens up, but only somewhat.
The paper crumples in his fist as he reaches out for the apple with the other hand. “Yeah okay, don’t mind if I do.”
“Whoa, it says for the strongest guy! Not ‘for Bakugou!’”
Bakugou sneers as Sero speaks up, straightening up as he brandishes the fist with the crumples paper inside of it.
“And I’m obviously the strongest guy here, so what difference does it make?”
Iida takes the opportunity to interrupt, sticking his arm out in front of the other teen. “You can’t just assume things like that, Bakugou!”
“Oh that’s rich--keep out of this, Glasses!”
All at once, the boys begin to speak over one another, Kirishima shouting in favor of Bakugou, Sero shouting in favor of Iida who is shouting his idea of taking a calm and rational class-wide vote as to who thought who was the strongest of the boys. Someone suggests Todoroki, who rebuffs them from the fringe of the chaos. Ojiro proposes that it was possibly for Midoriya, and immediately the dam breaks. The shouting only gets louder from there.
Jirou inhales deeply, her eyes fluttering closed as she sits back on the couch. Next to her, Kaminari is still making that stupid whining sound, but it doesn’t sound quite as genuine as it had just a moment ago, even over the increased volume in noise. Cracking an eye open she looks over at him.
He’s laughing.
Fingers curled in and knuckles pressed to his mouth, his shoulders shake with each giggle as he struggles to keep himself quiet. Jirou pops him over the back of the head and lifts her gaze back to the unraveling chaos.
“You wanna go? Is that it? I’ll knock you on your ass in a second!”
“Get him Bakugou!”
Ashido shouts her encouragement from the perch she’s taken over the back of the couch, pumping her fist into the air as Bakugou brandishes his fists at Ojiro, the tailed teenager raising his own hands in supplication. Iida waves his hands in an effort to get their attention.
“I really must insist, if we’re going to fight about this, the only solution is to take a vote!”
Jirou nudges Kaminari, who snorts with glee and turns to her. His eyes are wide, his cheeks flushed red with the effort it takes to keep his laughter as quiet as possible.
“Plan B success,” he chokes out, twisting around just in time to watch as Midoriya gets flipped over the opposite couch, Ashido leaping out of the way as Iida dives after his friend in an attempt to save him. Kaminari wheezes behind his hands.
Kirishima lets out a whooping laugh as he’s shouldered aside into Sero, who pushes him back into Bakugou and extracts himself from the commotion. The red head clutches at his friend's arm to keep him from lunging after the class president, getting a warning shot of fire right into his face. He's quick with his quirk and suffers only the smokey smell as a consequence. His grip doesn't lighten, and he only laughs harder.
“Bakugou I must ask you to refrain from throwing Midoriya around like that in the future!” Iida barks, pulling his friend into an upright position.
“Then maybe the nerd shouldn't be so easy to throw around!”
“Hey, hey, Bakugou, throw me instead, I can take it!”
“Don't throw anybody!” Iida’s shout goes ignored as Bakugou yanks his friend around by the elbows, and with alarming ease hefts him up and uses the turning momentum to fling him forward. It isn't enough to get Kirishima any air time, but it's enough to send him staggering into the nearby cabinets with a yelp of amused surprise. The counter cracks under the assault.
A loud crunch startles the seated spectators, and in unison Kaminari and Jirou turn their heads towards the source. Tokoyami stands next to the couch, apple in hand, and a bite taken out of it. Though he's caught their attention, he's focused on surveying the scene.
Bakugou and Kirishima, now grappling with one another, egged on by Ashido and Sero, Midoriya dusting off his knees as Uraraka and Iida fuss over him, and finally, Kaminari and Jirou staring at him slack jawed and amused, respectively.
“What did I miss?” he asks them as he takes another bite out of the apple. Jirou splutters and lets out a cackling laugh, slapping Kaminari on the back. The blonde stares bug-eyed a moment longer before huffing and crossing arms, though a good natured grin spreads across his face.
“You know what? It's fine! I got what I wanted. Look at that! I think Kirishima broke the counter.”
“Mm technically Bakugou broke it, he just used Kirishima to do it.”
At mention of his name, Bakugou shoots them a look, and then all at once stops wrestling. He disengages quickly, throwing Kirishima off him and nearly toppling his companion over as he marches back to the couch.
“That apple belongs to me you fucking vulture!”
Tokoyami stares on, seeming unimpressed. He's three bites in already. “I'll replace it then,” he concedes. He takes another bite.
The response is a seething hiss of frustration, Bakugou’s hands plunging into his pants pockets as he turns away.
“Fine! Whatever! I didn't want the shitty apple that much anyway.”
Kaminari laughs more openly as Bakugou retreats, not holding back his mirth this time around.
“The apple is what they were fighting over?” Tokoyami questions with disbelief.
“More like what it stood for.” Kaminari shakes his hands out before stretching them up and locking them together behind his head. “Hey Tokoyami, what do you know about the apple of discord?”