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On the fifth of January, Kirishima and Bakugou had a date, not their first and not their last. On the fifth of January, Kirishima told Bakugou he loved him.
“Hey, Katsuki. I love you.”
“Uh.”
On the fifth of January, Bakugou couldn’t say it back.
“Kiri!” someone cries from behind him, Eijirou turns just in time to see a blur of pink slam into him and wrap its arms tightly around him.
Laughing, he returns the hug. “Woah, haha. Ashido, what’s with the 100mph hug?”
“Can’t I hug my best friend?” she giggles and hops back after one more quick squeeze. She pulls the backpack off her back and begins digging inside of it. “Aha!” she holds her hand out to him, presenting a pink bag tied by a red ribbon. “Here!”
He takes it from her, staring at it quizzically.
“It’s chocolate!” she exclaims. “You know. For Valentine’s Day!”
He beams, his sharp teeth on full display. A girl had never given him chocolates on Valentine’s Day before, not counting his Moms and sisters. After all, he never really had any female friends before UA, he supposed that was different now though. “Thanks!”
He catches a glimpse inside her bag. “Woah! Your bag’s full of chocolate!”
“Duh! Gotta give something to all my boys!” she takes another pink bag from her backpack, this one with a yellow ribbon. “This one’s for Kaminari! Yaomomo helped me with the bags and separating the chocolates into each of ‘em!”
“Separating them?”
“Yeah, had to make sure you all got your favourite chocolates!”
“Wow, you really did all that? Going that far with just Giri chocolate is awesome! Super manly!”
“Yeah, yeah. Enough about Giri chocolate. Valentine’s Day is a day for love and romance! So, Kirishima,” she grins.
Oh no. He knew where this was going.
“Have any plans with your man? Get him anything?”
Eijirou grimaces, face flushing. “Don’t call him that.”
“Well did you?” she asked, impatient.
He scratches the back of his neck, eyes away from her, “no, I didn’t.” He looked back at her, “I mean, Valentine’s Day is a day for girls to give chocolates and stuff. And I’m sure you’ve noticed, but uh, me and Katsuki are both guys,” he laughs.
“But Kiri! The romance! Are you really not going to do anything?” she pouts.
“Don’t need to. I mean, we’ll probably end up cuddling anyway, so that’s something.”
“Ugh. You’re hopeless.”
“Why’s Kiri hopeless?” a new voice asks. Kaminari coming up with Sero.
“I’m not hopeless! I’ve planned romantic dates with him before!” Eijirou interjects.
“Oh!” Ashido squeaks, momentarily distracted. She hugs Kaminari and Sero and presents them each with their own pink bag of chocolate. Eijirou could swear the hug between her and Sero lasted just that little bit longer.
“Oh, thanks!” Kaminari says. “Valentine's Day's the best!”
“Yeah, thanks,” Sero smiles.
“It's nothing!” she chirps.
“So, why's Kiri useless?” Kaminari repeats.
“He's not doing anything romantic with Bakugou!”
“Huh? What are you talking about? They're always together though! It's a miracle that Blasty's not here holding his hand right now!”
“She means not doing anything special,” says Sero, rolling his eyes. He turns to Eijirou, “seriously, you’re doing nothing?”
“No! I’m sure Katsuki doesn’t care about sappy things like Valentine’s Day anyway,” he sighs with a wave of his hand. “Besides, not like we need a holiday to know we- for him to know I love him.”
Sero shrugs, “hm. Can’t fight you on that one.”
Ashido slid open the door to the classroom, the three boys following behind her. She paused just in front of the doorway. Eijirou walks into her. “Huh? Ashido?”
The girl giggled quietly, before raising its volume as it morphed into something like an evil cackle. Uh oh. He didn’t like the sound of that.
She turns to face him, a wide grin stretched across her lips, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Uh?”
“You sure he doesn’t care, Kiri?” she says, pointing over to his desk.
“Huh?”
What he saw made his heart stutter and his breath catch in his throat. He could feel his face heating up.
On his desk are several red and pink boxes. He looks around the room to find that most of the boys had a few small similar boxes, however, there was definitely more on his desk compared to the rest. Propped up against the largest of the boxes was a red envelope. Watching over the boxes was a small, fuzzy brown teddy bear, wearing a miniature version of Crimson Riot’s costume. The bear held a red plush heart between its paws.
He investigates the smaller boxes on the desk and sure enough, there was one from every girl in class. However, there are still three larger boxes stacked on top of each other, one of which was shaped like a heart. Upon closer inspection, he realizes that there is swirly golden writing on the heart the bear held, reading 'A Manly Heart’ in English. After a moment spent translating the words into Japanese, a smile cracks onto his face.
He was in love.
He picks up the envelope that was simply labelled ‘Ei’ in neat handwriting. Slicing it open with a hardened finger, he pulls out a red card with a simple heart design on it. Eijirou opens the card and reads the message inside.
‘Eijirou,
You know I'm no good with words, so I thought instead of talking about my feelings for you, I'd write about them. Turns out that's just as f***ing hard.
Anyway, I'm about to get real sappy and s*** so you better be ready.
You’re amazing. You’re stupidly strong and I’m glad I have someone like you to spar with. Your hair’s not as s****y as I always say it is, it’s actually kinda cool. Have I ever told you how pretty your eyes are? Hell, how pretty YOU are. ‘Cause you are. You’re even prettier when you smile, I can’t exactly tell you to do it more ‘cause you already do it all the f***ing time. Just take a moment to think of the effect that has on my heart, f***er.
You make me ridiculously happy, you moron.
I have one more thing I want to tell you, but that can wait,
Katsuki.
P.S please don’t cry.’
Too bad, Katsuki! Eijirou’s crying and there’s nothing you can do to stop him!
Oh my god, he was so in love!
“And you said he doesn’t care,” Kaminari teases, lightly elbowing him.
“Wow! Bakugou got you all that?” Uraraka exclaims.
“How sweet!” Yaoyorozu chimes in from the back of the classroom. In the front, Jirou turns around.
“Who knew Bakugou could be so sweet?” she smirks.
A slight crackle comes from the other side of the room that goes mostly unnoticed by everyone else, but Eijirou turns to its source and sees Katsuki with his chair turned so it’s facing the wall, his shoulders tensed. There’s a pink tint to his ears.
Cute.
He’s about to walk over to his boyfriend when Aizawa enters the room.
“Alright, everyone calm down and in your seats.” He eyes Eijirou’s desk. “Kirishima, put those away and sit down.”
“Yessir!” He piles the gifts into his cupboard at the back of the class and quickly returns to his seat.
Eijirou finally has a chance to talk to Katsuki once lunch starts. He barrels into him, holding him in a tight hug before he has a chance to finish packing up his things.
“F***ing hell,” Katsuki curses but attempts to return the bone-crushing hug. He can’t. “Oi. You’re crushing me, idiot,” he wheezes.
Eijirou loosens his grip, allowing Katsuki to move his arms so they sit around his waist. “Sorry,” he laughs softly. “I’m just happy!” He steps back, a grin on his face, tears in his eyes. “I wasn’t expecting anything! Thanks, Katsuki! I love you so much!”
For a second Katsuki looks panicked before the blush from earlier returns in full force and he’s averting his gaze, a hand coming up to the back of his neck. “Yeah. Whatever…”
Eijirou smiles at him. He wipes the tears away and grabs Katuski’s hand, “come on, let’s go get some food!”
They end up sat with the rest of their friends. Kaminari’s lamenting the fact that no one’s given him any Honmei chocolate while Sero places a reassuring hand on his shoulder and Ashido giggles.
“Oh joy, the happy couple’s here to rub it in my face that I’m forever single,” Kaminari deadpans, eliciting laughs from everyone except Katsuki who just scowls like usual.
It’s Ashido’s turn to lay a hand on his shoulder, “don’t worry, sweetie. One day there’ll be a girl that likes you and you’ll get all the Honmei chocolate there is!”
Katsuki rolls his eyes. “Or you could just stop being a little b**** and tell Earphones that you like her.”
“There’s that too,” Eijirou agrees.
Kaminari lets out a dramatic gasp. “Kirishima! You’re supposed to be my best friend!” He points at Bakugou, “you! You’ve tainted him!”
“My sweet baby boy! Soon he’ll start swearing! My poor heart can’t take it!” Ashido cries, placing the back of her hand to her forehead and tipping back slightly. Her facade is quickly lost as she erupts into a fit of giggles.
Eijirou snorts and shakes his head.
“Anyway, Bakugou, when’d you become the master of romance?” she leans over the table.
“F*** off.”
She huffs and sits back. “So rude!”
“Aw, c’mon Katsuki, there’s no need for that.”
Katsuki crosses his arms, “whatever…”
“Seriously, what’d you write in that card? Kirishima started crying,” Sero says.
“Idiot, I told you not to cry,” he looks at Eijirou.
“It was nice!” He thinks back to the contents of the card and smiles.
‘ I have one more thing I want to tell you, but that can wait’
“Hey, what was the thing you wanted to say?”
Katsuki flushes again and looks away. “Later,” he grumbles.
“Huh?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Aw,” Eijirou pouts.
“And don’t open any of the s*** I gave you until later too.”
“It’s not ‘s***’, Katsuki. But fine,” he sighs.
Thankfully, the day doesn’t seem to drag on as long as he expected and he finds himself sat in Katsuki’s room in the evening, the three boxes on the floor.
They sit on the bed and Katsuki tells him he can open the two rectangular boxes. “They’re pretty much the same.”
Eijirou picks up the bigger of the two boxes and opens it, finding that it’s lined with chocolate, as expected. “This what you were doing last night?”
Katsuki nods.
“You made so much!” He takes one of the chocolates from the box and pops it in his mouth. “It tastes so good!”
“Course it does, I made it!”
Eijirou laughs and eats another one, then presses a kiss to Katsuki’s cheek. “I know I already said it, but thanks.”
A little later, they’re leant against each other, a movie playing on the laptop that Katsuki has on his lap. Eijirou’s holding onto the Crimson Riot bear, eating chocolates from the box. He rests his head on Katsuki’s shoulder and releases a content sigh. Katsuki’s arm around his waist tightens.
He looks at his boyfriend's face and catches him wearing a small smile of his own. God, he loves that he gets to see this side of Katsuki.
“This is nice,” he says, his eyes sliding shut.
“Hm.” Katsuki looks away from the screen to take a look at Eijirou. “You even watching?”
“I can hear it.”
“You better not fall asleep.”
“And what if I do?”
“I’ll wake you the f*** up ‘cause I’m not done with you yet.”
Eijirou sits up and laughs, looking at him. “How romantic.”
“I’m plenty romantic, didn’t you hear Raccoon Eyes earlier? ‘Master of romance,’” he scoffs.
“Yeah, you are.” And because he can’t help himself, “I love you.”
Katsuki pauses the movie and looks up at the ceiling, a frown on his face. Eijirou takes his hand, “‘Tsuki? Ah. Sorry, I said it again, didn’t I? You didn’t seem to mind earlier so I-”
“You can open the last one now,” he says quietly.
“Huh?”
“The last box. Open it.”
“Oh!” Eijirou grins, excitement replacing the concern as he finally gets to open the last gift of the day. He picks up the heart-shaped box from the floor and settles next to Katsuki, who won’t look at him for some reason. He frowns, “you sure?”
“Just open it.”
“Alright,” he slowly pulls the lid off of the box and peers inside.
Lining the box are… strawberries?
Now, don’t get him wrong, Eijirou loves strawberries, they’re great. But it seems like an odd thing for Katsuki to be giving him? There’s not even any chocolate on them.
He turns his head to look at Katsuki curiously, whose face is turning pink and still not looking back at Eijirou.
“Strawberries?”
“F***.”
“Katsuki?”
“I gotta… tell you that thing now,” his eyes quickly look into Eijirou’s, then looks back at his own hands.
“Oh?”
Katsuki holds Eijirou’s hand in his, takes in a deep breath and looks back into his eyes, his face now completely red, giving the strawberries some serious competition. He looks nervous. It’s an expression Eijirou’s only seen a handful of times. It must be pretty important.
“I- f*** this is hard.”
Eijirou smiles and squeezes his hand, “take your time.”
Katsuki takes another breath. “I’m not good at this kind of thing.”
“That’s fine, you don’t have to be good at everything, you know?”
“Well, I want to be. I hate being bad at this s*** ‘cause you deserve better.”
Eijirou opens his mouth to reply, but Katsuki continues, apparently unable to stop. “You deserve so much. You deserve all those things I got you. You deserve getting into UA. You deserve getting every good thing that’s ever happened to you! What you didn’t deserve was me being dishonest and not letting you know that I-” he cuts himself off, shakes his head and restarts.
“About a month ago, we had a date. It wasn’t anything special, but at the end of it, you told me that you… That you-”
“That I love you…” Eijirou quietly says, feeling a blush rising on his own face. “Aw, Katsuki, you remembered?”
“Of course I f***ing did! It was important!” he shouts, before returning to the quiet, soft tone he had previously to continue. “It was on the fifth of January.”
Eyes widening in realization, Eijirou looks to the box of strawberries then back a Katsuki. “Strawberry day…”
“Yeah. When you said it, I couldn’t say anything. And that sucked! You didn’t deserve that. You deserve to know that I love you!” He stares at Eijirou, eyes wide, mouth clamped shut in a wobbly line, his hands sweatier than usual, unsure, nervous at the admission.
Eijirou leaps forward, a huge smile on his face, and knocks the pair of them down on the bed, holding Katsuki in another tight hug. He’s lying on top of him, burying his face into his neck. He pulls back for a second, only to lean back down and press kisses all over Katsuki’s face and Katsuki thankfully relaxes, letting him do so. Katsuki closes his eyes and wraps his arms around Eijirou’s waist as he continues to kiss him. He kisses his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids and finally on the lips, finally giving Katsuki a chance to kiss him back.
Eijirou eventually pulls away and slides off of Katsuki, lying at his side instead. “I love you.”
“I know,” Katsuki groans, “you say it all the god damn time.”
“‘Cause it’s true.”
He pulls him closer. “I love you too,” he whispers back.
Eijirou hums. “Today was good. There is just one problem though…”
“Hah?! What?!” Katsuki sits up and glares at his boyfriend.
Eijirou just laughs, “how am I supposed to top this on White Day?”