The meal wasn't as awkward as Todoroki had feared, mostly because Bakugou kept silent, shooting glares at both Midoriya and Todoroki. Kirishima, seemingly oblivious, asked Midoriya question after question – about the food, the house, the sheep, the crops. He kept the conversation light, and whenever an uncomfortable silence fell over them and threatened the mood, he'd come up with another question and distract them.
He has tact, Todoroki thought in surprise. Kirishima wasn't just asking things thoughtlessly; he was specifically staying away from anything that might remind them about the attack on their village, or the tension that was blooming between Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugou.
Todoroki wasn't sure whether it was safe to bring up Kirishima's selkie-ness or if Bakugou would kill him for doing so, so he just kept his mouth shut, letting Midoriya and Kirishima handle the conversation. With Bakugou silent too, the atmosphere was almost comfortable, and Midoriya seemed happier than Todoroki had seen him yet.
After dinner, Midoriya threw another log onto the fire and then stood up straight, a look of shock on his face. "I don't know where you two will sleep," he said, running a hand through his hair.
"The floor. Outside. Doesn't matter," Kirishima said, stretching out his legs. He had the sealskin draped across his thighs. "Cold doesn't bother me. I'll find room somewhere."
"Are you sure?" Midoriya said. "No, argh, I wish there were enough beds for you all…"
"We can just sleep on the floor," Bakugou said gruffly. "'s not a big deal."
"We'll find something tomorrow," Midoriya said, sitting back down with a thump. "It's only temporary."
What that meant was: Please don't leave tomorrow because you were uncomfortable. He'd only been with him for four days, but Todoroki knew Midoriya well enough to understand that. Everything he did screamed Don't leave me, from his insistence on doing all of the chores himself to the way he would offer his own bed to a traveler he barely knew.
He tried, from the time dinner ended until the time they were ready for bed, to get Kirishima alone, but Bakugou was always at his side, always giving Todoroki dirty looks whenever he got close. Finally Todoroki knew his hints and subtle posturing were not going to work, and he tapped Kirishima on the shoulder, pointedly ignoring Bakugou's glare.
"Yes?" Kirishima said, smiling.
"Can I talk to you? Alone?"
"No, you cannot, who the hell do you think you are?"
That had been Bakugou, of course. Kirishima himself nodded and handed something off to Bakugou – the sealskin. "We can go outside," he said. "I'm sure it will be quick."
"Kirishima –"
"Bakugou," he said in reply, and something in his tone shut Bakugou up immediately.
The night was cold, but Kirishima didn't shiver, even though his arms were bare and his clothing was light. "Everything is so hectic," he said, although Todoroki wasn't sure if that was a sort of apology or just an observation.
"Yeah." Todoroki shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable and unsure of how to begin this conversation. "Look, what you said earlier…"
"Oh! I'm sorry," Kirishima said, speaking quickly. "I wasn't even thinking. I shouldn't have said that out loud. Please don't be mad at me."
Todoroki found himself more puzzled than ever. "But what did you mean?"
"Look, it's fine if you don't want to tell me. I'm just really curious," Kirishima went on. He laughed nervously. "I've never… I have no idea what you are. That's why I asked. Sorry, I –"
"Kirishima!" Todoroki tried to mimic the authoritative tone Kirishima himself had taken with Bakugou, but only ended up sounding petulant. "Slow down. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. What do you mean, you have no idea what I am?"
"Oh. Uhhh." Kirishima shut his jaw with a snap. Suddenly they were both struggling for words.
"What made you ask that question in the first place?"
"Your smell," Kirishima said, without hesitation. "Humans smell different from selkies, and you smell different from either. But… human also. Part human?" He met Todoroki's eyes, seeming both skeptical and curious. "You honestly don't know what you are?"
He was being perfectly serious, and that was what filled Todoroki with trepidation. If it had been Bakugou, Todoroki might have just assumed he was messing around, but Kirishima seemed to completely believe what he was saying. "May I?" he asked. Todoroki nodded before he realized what Kirishima was even asking, and a second later he was being smelled – Kirishima had his face right up to his neck and was inhaling deeply. Then he stepped away, his expression puzzled.
"I don't know," he said with a sigh. "Mostly human. But something else unfamiliar too."
"I thought I was completely human," Todoroki said, shaking his head. He knew this probably should bother him, but maybe the oddness of it hadn't sunken in yet, because it didn't.
The others were probably expecting them inside, but Todoroki found himself enjoying Kirishima's company. Something about his presence made Todoroki feel more at ease than either Midoriya's or (especially) Bakugou's. Maybe it was the lack of baggage he seemed to carry. Todoroki didn't know his story, of course, but (at least to judge from his demeanor) the hardships he'd faced probably weren't as painful and fresh as Midoriya and Bakugou's.
"It was rude of me to bring it up," Kirishima said, stepping towards the door. "I promise I won't mention it again unless you bring it up first."
"I don't mind if you bring it up. Tell me when you figure out what I am," Todoroki said. He could have laughed with the ridiculousness of the statement. How strange his life had become in the last several days.
"Sure!" Kirishima said, and stepped, grinning, back into the house.
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
That night, Kirishima could hardly breathe from the excitement of it all. The worst part of it was that he had to be quiet so as not to disturb the others, who were trying to sleep. The house was too small; there were four people now living in this tiny, tiny place, and it was stuffy and terribly over-full. Kirishima wanted desperately to talk to Bakugou, but they'd had a long day and he was already settling in to sleep. That was probably for the best, since Kirishima wasn't sure he'd be able to stay quiet enough if he got started talking anyways.
He waited until the others all seemed to be asleep before he rose and stepped outside. He was rather used to this after-dark solitude by now, since he definitely needed less sleep than Bakugou did. Nights were the only time he wanted to be alone, because Bakugou sleeping wasn't nearly as interesting as Bakugou awake.
It was dark, but Kirishima could see the outlines of the ruined buildings. They rose jagged and misshapen into the sky like broken teeth, black against the stars. It was Bakugou's home, and Kirishima felt glad to be seeing it, but it was broken and destroyed; he would never know it as Bakugou had.
He was startled out of his thoughts a second later when the door behind him creaked open. It was – well, to be honest, Kirishima wasn't sure what the boy's name was. He had called himself Midoriya, but Bakugou had called him Deku. In any event, he was the one who'd lived in the village with Bakugou before this, the one who had grown up with him.
The idea of someone else knowing things about Bakugou that Kirishima himself did not know gave him a strange feeling; he paused, unable to give it a name. He wanted to know everything, and couldn't, and other people knew things he would never know, and that made him feel –
"Hello, Kirishima," the boy said. "Am I disturbing you?"
"No," he said, trying to push all of those strange thoughts far, far away. There was a time to ponder, and this was not it. "But I have a question."
"Yes?"
"Your name – is it Midoriya, or…?"
"Oh!" Kirishima wished he could see his face; he was only now getting decent at reading human emotions, but it was much harder to do blind like this. "Yes, it's Midoriya. 'Deku' is just a nickname that Bakugou made up for me when we were children. No one else calls me that."
That stirred something strange in Kirishima too – the idea that they were so close they had special nicknames for each other, nicknames only they could use. "I don't think he ever talked about you to me," Kirishima said, realizing it was probably the pettiest thing he had ever said in his life. After a moment, regretting what he'd said, he added, "He didn't talk much about anyone from his village. Because."
Kirishima didn't finish the sentence, thanks to the great wave of self-loathing that filled him. The word for the thing he was feeling was jealousy, and he was jealous, honestly jealous, of someone who had lost literally everyone he knew in a single day. It was disgusting beyond words. What was wrong with him?
Midoriya, for his part, did not seem to notice any of this, or at least his tone did not seem bothered. "How did you two meet?"
"After, you know. Uh, well." What a great start, Kirishima thought. "After that happened, he ran away. He ran east, to the coast. He ran until he reached the ocean."
"Wow," Midoriya said, and Kirishima heard his surprised exhale. "That's a long way. I've never been to the ocean."
"That's where he met me. We lived by the ocean for a little while, then he decided he wanted to go home and see if anyone was here. And here we are."
"You lived by the ocean?" Midoriya said. "What was that like?"
Oh, he was tempted, sorely tempted, to start talking about his life, but Kirishima held himself in check. This isn't Bakugou, he reminded himself. He had no idea if Midoriya would be as interested in what he had to say.
"Lonely," Kirishima said simply, after a pause. "Quiet." Then he laughed, realizing something: Midoriya didn't know he was a selkie. Todoroki had stumbled onto him accidentally, but he probably hadn't mentioned anything to Midoriya. What Bakugou had told him about not trusting strangers obviously did not apply to him, him not being a stranger to Bakugou and all. "Midoriya, do you know what a selkie is?"
"Ummm… Hmm. No, I don't think so."
Kirishima thought back to how he'd explained it to Bakugou, and tried to phrase it in a way that made it clearer. "I have this thing, a sealskin, and when I have it on me, I can transform into a seal. I'm still me, I still think like I do now, I just have the body of a seal. Selkies have a human form and a seal form, see, and we can go between them both as long as we have our sealskin, but if we lose it when we are in our human form, we are stuck there."
"And you're –!" Kirishima did not need much light to tell that Midoriya was excited, practically quivering with surprised pleasure. "That's amazing! Could you tell me more? What does it feel like to transform? Is there a limit to how long you can stay in one form or another? Can you show me sometime? Which form do you prefer? Do selkies live amongst humans, or separate? What is your society like? Does Bakugou know? Do you know any other humans? Oh, Kirishima," he said, his voice bubbly with joy, "I'm so glad you told me this! I hope you don't mind me asking so many questions!"
Kirishima's fears that Midoriya would be uninterested in hearing about his life dissolved instantly. The depth of his interest took Kirishima entirely by surprise, made him laugh a little with nervousness and take a step back. "I don't mind," he said, unable to remember most of the string of questions, "but I can't show you right now, sorry." His sealskin was currently wrapped around a sleeping Bakugou. "I will tomorrow, though, if you want!"
"If I want," Midoriya echoed, incredulous. "Of course I do. I'm so glad you told me."
"You should sleep, though," Kirishima said, forgetting for a moment that he was not, in fact, speaking with Bakugou, but with a human he barely knew – one that might take more offense to being ordered around.
Luckily Midoriya didn't seem to take it personally. "You're right, it's late. I just heard the door close when you went out, and wanted to make sure you were okay. Aren't you tired from traveling?"
"A little," Kirishima admitted, "but selkies need less sleep than humans, I think."
"Oh," Midoriya said. "That's interesting! I wouldn't have guessed!"
"Are there any other, uh, creatures around here? Like selkies, you know. But not selkies." Kirishima wanted to know out of curiosity, but also to try and get a grasp of what Todoroki might be. Whatever that smell on him had been, it hadn't been familiar to Kirishima.
"Any intelligent non-human creatures, you mean?" Midoriya said. "No. I mean, you know, there's rumors and everything. There seem to be werewolf sightings every few years, but they are always just normal wolves. In terms of that sort of thing, this place isn't very interesting." He said that as if he wished there were werewolves running around. "That's why it's so exciting, that you're here."
"Oh, by the way," Kirishima said, "Bakugou does know. Todoroki too." It would be nice, Kirishima knew, to have it out in the open. Keeping anything a secret always made him feel awful. "When you had him fetch us for dinner, he stumbled on me swimming. So you can talk about it in front of them, if you want."
"Oh! That's good to know!" Midoriya did not seem at all put out that he was the last to know. "Thank you!"
"Of course."
It was almost like Midoriya did not want to go back inside, but after a strange awkward pause he said "Goodnight," and stepped back into the house. As soon as he was gone, Kirishima let out a slow exhale.
He still wasn't used to humans, and Midoriya was an incredibly human human, the energy just pouring off him in waves. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was jarring, almost shocking, after so long with only Bakugou to keep him company. Wishing he could go for a swim, Kirishima instead walked from house to house, memorizing the layout of the village and trying to picture it as it must have been before. Only when he was nearly too tired to keep his eyes open did he go back inside, settle in on the floor next to Bakugou, and go to sleep.
xxxxxx
Kirishima was the first one to wake the next morning. The room was chilly, though not cold enough to bother him, and utterly silent. He'd realized on the journey there that he missed the sound of the ocean; it was never too quiet there, with the steady cadence of the breaking waves always at the back of one's mind.
It took him a moment to realize that, probably as a result of the cold morning air, Bakugou's body was lying close to his. Very close – if Kirishima were to try and extricate himself, he would undoubtedly wake the other boy up. He closed his eyes, suddenly very warm, and took in the sensations.
During their journey to the village, Bakugou had been disappointingly distant. It had been great to be with him, of course – Kirishima wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere but with him – but there had been a different atmosphere between them while journeying than there had been on the beach. They hadn't talked as much or slept as close together, and the sheer amount they traveled every day meant Bakugou slept early and woke late. Despite spending every waking moment with him, Kirishima found himself wishing they were closer, although knowing that their journey would not last forever helped.
So this… this was nice. To be able to stay under the covers and relax next to Bakugou, to feel his body so close to Kirishima's own – their skin would be touching now if not for the clothing they both wore – and breathe in his scent and feel at peace, it all felt like a reward he didn't deserve. Kirishima wanted to rub a hand through that sleep-ruffled blonde hair, press his face to the skin of Bakugou's neck and inhale. If they'd been back at the beach he might have tried it, but with two near-strangers so close, he didn't dare. He knew Bakugou well enough to predict his reaction would be negative.
The day before, Bakugou hadn't been happy. Kirishima thought back to how he'd reacted when they'd reached the town. Disappointed that there was only one person left, disappointed that Midoriya didn't know who had died and who had lived. He'd expressed this with anger; the Bakugou Kirishima had seen yesterday was one he hadn't met before. While living on the beach, Kirishima had avoided topics that might bring out that side of him, but he knew he'd have to see Bakugou in pain and grieving sooner or later.
The truth was simply that Kirishima had never experienced grief the way Bakugou and Midoriya were experiencing now. He could not begin to touch it. It scared him, seeing this sadness and not knowing what to do, not knowing what was the right or wrong thing to say. His best choice, as far as he could tell, was caution; wait and see how Bakugou reacted. There was nothing else to do.
Kirishima tried to pull away from Bakugou without waking him, but the boy groaned and opened his eyes, then seemed to tense when he realized their physical closeness. He slid himself almost imperceptibly away from Kirishima, although he did not sit up or move away completely.
"They're still asleep," Kirishima said, tilting his head to indicate the others.
Bakugou nodded, yawned.
"How did you sleep?"
"Mm." Bakugou seemed to be not quite fully conscious. "Fine."
How long are we going to stay here? Kirishima wanted to ask. Bakugou was not awake enough to give a coherent answer, though, if he even knew at this point. They were wanderers now, and had no place they needed to be, so they could stay or go at any time. Kirishima still would follow Bakugou where he wanted to go. But he found himself hoping they'd stay, at least for a little while. He didn't especially like or dislike either of the other boys, but he did want to get to know them better in much the same way he'd felt about Bakugou just a few weeks ago. Humans as individuals were intriguing, and not nearly as frightening as humans in groups.
Not to mention the mystery of Todoroki – that unfamiliar, fascinating scent that Kirishima had caught on him the day before. Midoriya smelled human the same way Bakugou did, but Todoroki's humanness was mixed, transformed into something else… Kirishima wondered if smelling him like that had been out of line, though Todoroki hadn't seemed offended.
Humans were exciting.
Bakugou was staring at him, Kirishima realized. He shot the boy a grin.
"Weirdo," Bakugou said, but the softness in his voice made it almost a term of endearment.