Ch. 10
They hadn't even been halfway through the first day of their in-city training before Katsuki had been entirely over it. Working with the group had thoroughly pushed him to his limit and over the edge before 4 hours had even passed, having been brought to it by the overwhelming energy his team had collectively.
Their group of four currently tags along behind Fatgum and Mirko, Ami laughing with the latter and Kirishima reminiscing with the former. Though the two pros belonged to entirely different agencies originally, Fatgum was currently working with Mirko's since Japan was still divided on opinions about their suspended #1 hero's agency. Hawks was currently holding the #1 hero spot and had been since the end of the battle against All For One and Shigaraki had ended. Now that All For One was dead and Shigaraki had been rewinded, they could finally all focus on rebuilding Japan, along with its trust in its pro heroes. It had been over a year since then, and things were slowly but surely falling into place.
For a while, the class had assisted their teacher, Mirio, and Eri with "rehabilitating" the newly rewinded Tenko Shimura. The decision had been the only thing truly kept from the world, and their class -along with the pro heroes who'd fought with them- were the only ones who knew Tenko was still alive. As far as the world knew, Tomura Shigaraki was dead, and in a sense they were right.
Shigaraki had died the day Deku faced him head on in the battle against All For One. Then, with help from Eri whose quirk had been mastered, she rewinded the villian back to the age of 5, before his decay had ever shown itself. Tenko was currently living with their teacher, under close watch for whenever his quirk revealed itself again. Thankfully, Eri had managed to restore their teacher's eyesight through her quirk, bringing Eraserhead out of an early retirement and giving him back use of his own quirk. Tenko, on the other hand, had gained blissful ignorance of the atrocities and deaths he had caused as an adult, and was being given the ability to live out his childhood the way he should have the first time around.
The hope was that he'd join the pros' ranks one day as the hero he'd dreamt of being as a kid. Deku had seen to it that he was on the path to do so, having felt like fixing him was what he was meant to do in the end.
"Bakugo?"
Katsuki looks up, pulling himself from his thoughts, "Eh?"
Mina frowns at him, halfway in the doorway of Mirko's agency that he hadn't realized they'd reached. "Are you coming in?" She asks, confusion in her tone. "You've been zoned out for the entire walk back."
He turns his attention to the darkening sky and blinks hard. He hadn't even realized it was time for them to give their daily reports and head back to campus. "Yeah." He says gruffly, crossing his arms over his chest before walking past her. Normally he didn't "zone out", and the confusion in his classmate's face was enough to show that even she knew it too.
Mina sighs from behind him, walking quickly to catch up to him and match his pace. "I know I'm probably going to regret asking but... Are you ok?" She asks, making it the second time she's felt the need to check on him.
Great, now people were feeling bad for him.
Katsuki scoffs under his breath and looks ahead to where Ami stands, now talking to Mirko. "I'm fine." He mumbles.
"It doesn't seem that way though." Mina's tone softens, making his eyes cut to her. She'd followed his line of sight to where Ami stood and traced it back to him, meeting his eyes. "Are you two fighting again?"
Grinding his teeth, Katsuki turns away abruptly, "No. I said I was fine."
Mina's mouth purses to the side in doubt but she, again, doesn't push it further.
When they get back to the dorms the class meets up in the common room to share stories about their first days of training. Katsuki, however, couldn't give a shit less, so he heads up to his room for some peace.
Ami and Kirishima had been practically glued to the other's side the whole time they were patrolling. Katsuki told himself that it didn't bother him, but every time her hand or arm had brushed against Eijiro's he'd felt himself grimace openly against his will. Even now, walking alone, he still couldn't shake his irritation. He had finally come to accept and understand what his feelings were, and now it was all for fucking nothing. Sure, they could continue to be friends, but it made him feel... slimy, thinking about who was now his best friend's girlfriend the way that he did. Lusting after her as badly as he was.
It made him fucking sick. Even more so because as hard as he tried, he couldn't make the longing go away. Awake or asleep, she stayed on his mind, the nightly dreams turning into vivid day dreams that had him staring off into space more often than not. The worst part was probably the fact that they left him wondering, too, if she did those kinds of things with Kirishima. He'd finally noticed how often she was in and out of his dorm room and it never failed to leave him unreasonably angry.
But he'd be damned if he was going to let that drive him to asking about it. Even if he debated on blaming it on "guy talk" he didn't think he actually wanted to know the truth in reality. He'd been busy trying to convince himself that he was wrong about them. On one hand yeah, they were super touchy and shit around each other, but on the other hand Kirishima didn't seem mad or upset when Katsuki had brought up the incident at the hot springs. Even if he wasn't one to get mad, he would've at least showed some kind of emotion when the line of questioning turned suggestive from Mineta and Kaminari.
Right?
Katsuki sighs and rolls over on his side, picking at the loose threads on his blanket. This was new to him. All these... feelings. He wasn't really sure how to handle them and it wasn't like he had anyone he could ask. His parents would blow everything out of proportion and inevitably embarrass him, and he couldn't exactly go to Kirishima about it either. Or Kaminari, because he ran his mouth too much. Deku wasn't an option because he couldn't even solve his own girl problems for the longest.
A sudden knock on his door makes him grimace. "Go away." He yells, annoyed even more now. He couldn't get a moment of peace around these fucking people.
It's silent for a moment before a tentative voice speaks up, "...It's me."
Ami.
Katsuki shoots straight up in bed and walks quickly to the door before he can stop himself. He pulls the door open and looks down, meeting her eyes briefly before she looks away. "What do you want, Shortstack?" He mumbles. "It's been a long day."
"I just wanted to talk to you is all..."
His eyebrow quirks up, "About?"
"You seemed... off today..."
Katsuki snorts softly under his breath and crosses his arms. "And?" he pushes.
She's silent for a long moment, fussing with the strings on her hoodie. Her clothes from earlier are slung over her shoulder, droplets of water still clinging to the soft curls along her hairline. She looked like she'd come up here straight after showering.
"Fujiwara."
"I'm sorry," she blurts out, looking up to once again meet his eyes. "If I did anything to upset you today."
Awesome, he'd made her develop some kind of fucking complex now. Him being in a bad mood around her and not talking = her fault in her mind. "You didn't do anything wrong." He sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. "I haven't been feeling too great these last few days." Which wasn't exactly a lie.
"Are you sure...?"
Against his better judgement, he places his hand on the top of her head and musses her hair gently. "Everytime I'm in a shit mood isn't because of you, Shortstack." He says, trying to muster up a small but honest half smile. "I promise."
Ami's eyes widen slightly for a second, her cheeks darkening, then she looks down at the floor with a pout and holds her pinky up to him. "... pinky promise?"
Oh fuck, she's so cute.
Katsuki dismisses the thought violently before linking his pinky with her tiny one. "Pinky promise. Now go the hell back to your room before you get in trouble or something." He says huskily. He clears his throat and releases her pinky, ducking his head in embarrassment. "Goodnight."
Pull it together.
Ami gives him a happy smile and lightly punches his arm, "Goodnight." And then she's walking back down the hall, soon disappearing as quickly as she'd arrived.
He watches her until she's completely out of sight before sighing and shutting his door. But it doesn't click all the way, making Katsuki look down to see a crumpled mound of black fabric on the floor between the door and the frame. He bends down and picks it up, shaking it straight to see it's her T-shirt from earlier. Great, guess this means I have to go give it to her. But he didn't even know where she was going back to, her dorm or Kirishima's since it was still relatively early. And he really didn't feel like tracking her down over a T-shirt. Especially not if it meant getting spoken to by anyone else along the way, since his social battery for the day was beyond drained.
"You dropped your shirt." He begins to text her once he gets back to his bed. "Do you need me to bring it to you?"
Had he not been watching her as she left he would've noticed it sooner, but he doesn't include that.
As he sits there and waits for a reply, he gently turns her shirt over in his hands. Then, on an overwhelmingly strong impulse, he brings her shirt to his face and takes a deep breath.
Fuck.
His head swims as he takes another deep breath. The scent of berries and something sugary clings to the shirt, and it takes a second to put a name to it. It's... caramel or vanilla. Or both. It was the same thing he'd catch whiffs of in class whenever he got too close to her, but he'd never smelt it like this.
His phone dings, shaking him out of his thoughts. With a grimace he tosses her shirt to the foot of his bed and buries his face in his hands. What the fuck was he doing? Smelling her fucking shirt?
Get a fucking grip man.
"Oh shit. No it's ok! You can just give it to me tomorrow when we meet up for training again c: "
"Got it." A small part of him was secretly relieved she didn't need it immediately, but he was telling himself it was solely because he didn't feel like leaving his room.
Katsuki gives the shirt one last wary glance before sighing. Fuck it. He reaches down and grabs it, laying on his back and laying the shirt over his face. He could already feel his cheeks and the tips of his ears burning in shame and embarrassment. Was this what all... crushes, were like? An annoying and inconvenient infatuation that made you make a fucking idiot out of yourself? It's not like he would fucking know since he'd never had one before.
He barely liked people enough to be friends with them, so crushes weren't even a possibility before now. But the place he was in right now, starting to fall asleep with Ami's smell everywhere, he honestly would have rather never found out. Especially when it was this strong. It was irrational and unfair to allow himself to give in to the impulse decisions he'd been making recently. From angrily texting Kirishima when he'd seen them together to now, with this fucking shirt. Impulse decisions of course weren't new to him, but these kind were something else entirely.
Katsuki groans when feels the gentle pull of a daydream start, spurred on by the sweet smell of Ami's perfume mixed with the warm scent of her. He reaches up and clutches the soft fabric, imagining what it would be like to have her skin pressed against his instead. It had been so soft the day he'd held her against him at the hot springs after she'd slipped. More times than he could count his mind had wandered back to that moment and started finding all the ways it could've gone instead.
What if she had kissed him?
What if he had kissed her?
Where would that have gone? And would he have had the strength to keep from getting them caught when he inevitably lost control?
He imagined pulling her away, behind the rocks and trees, and laying her down on their towels in the grass. Would she be bashful and shy like she sometimes was when she was unsure about something? Or would she take control from him like she did when she was determined to win? Katsuki wanted to cover ever single inch of her skin in kisses and tiny bites, hard enough to get a reaction out of her but not enough to leave noticeable marks behind. Even if that's exactly what he wanted to do. Fuck whoever saw and had something to say about it. He'd want them to know she was his.
He wondered what fucking her would be like. What tasting her would be like. What kinds of sounds she would make? Would she melt underneath him or would she fuck back? Would she fight him for dominance or would she let him have it?
Katsuki groans softly, gently palming the hardness in his boxers with his free hand. He didn't want to just wonder. He wanted to know. He wanted to go to her room and knock on her door, pick her up by her ass and take her to her bed so he could find out the answer to every single fucking question he'd been asking himself for months. He wanted to bury his face in her hair, breathing in her scent while he pushed himself inside of her from behind. What he wouldn't give just to take all these frustrations out on her, turn her into just as much of a mess as she had reduced him to. It was unbearable.
He doesn't even try to stop the moan that slips past his lips, pushing his hand beneath the fabric to wrap his hand around his erection. Breathing in deeply, he rolls on his stomach and shamelessly grinds against his bed, his face buried even more into her shirt. Katsuki's breath hitches, thrusting messily into his hand as he pictures every hot and filthy thing he would do to her if she let him.
Her hands pinned above her head, moans and whimpers forced out of her with every thrust. Her half-lidded eyes meeting his as she moans his name in ecstasy, begging him not to stop. Her skin covered in love bites with space for more. The air heavy with the scent of cum and sweat, the wet smack of him slamming into her again and again as he pushes her over the edge and fills her.
Katsuki grips the shirt tight, cool air hitting his flushed face as he cums all over his hand. "Ami, fuck-" The words slip from his lips before he can stop them, trailing off into a moan louder than the last. He covers his mouth, gripping his softening dick as the last spurts start to drip down his fist.
He's only given a few short moments of bliss before reality slams back into him, reminding him that she wasn't his. She was his best friend's. While he was fucking himself to the thought of her, she was probably having her same needs fulfilled that very moment. But he didn't want to think about that. He told himself he was wrong, that she was in bed as he was right now, just asleep. Like he should be.
"This is so fucking stupid." He mutters to himself, rolling out of bed to go clean his hands. "I need this shit to stop."
Because if it didn't, he didn't know what else he would do.
Bakugo had been acting weird all day.
Ami had been sure she'd done something to cause it because he hadn't spoken to her at all the day prior, instead choosing to tail the group or go off on his own. When she visited him last night it was to make sure it hadn't been her he had a problem with, but he'd put those worries to rest with a small but rare smile and a display of affection she never would've expected from him of all people.
All that had done was made her crush even harder.
He was... pretty when he smiled, his eyes going gentle from their usual glaring hardness. Even the way he'd tousled her hair had been gentle, almost like he'd been afraid to touch her. Which was a far cry from how he'd throw her around during any training session when he'd gotten too close. But the change was nice. Obviously a little too nice, because now she was damn near full-on breaking the promise she'd made her uncle.
Her uncle, Snipe to her classmates, had called her for help and to come talk about how school had been. She'd re-twisted his locs while she prattled on about her classes and how things were being at a new school, overall good things that had happened. That had gone on for about an hour before he asked her what he had really wanted to ask.
"And you're not getting tangled up in any more trouble, right?"
She sighs and wipes her hands dry on the towel around his neck. "Right. Things are good." And I'm currently infatuated with the worst person in my class that I possibly could be. "I'm focusing on my studies and training often."
He hums thoughtfully, "Aizawa did say you stayed at the training ground a lot."
Ami freezes for a moment, only clearing her throat and moving once her uncle turns to meet her eyes. She hadn't even thought that he'd be checking in with her teacher for updates. That possibility had completely slipped her mind.
"It's who you were training with that had me concerned, though." He continues. "Bakugo's improved a lot from where he was but he's still got some growing to do and I don't want you to start picking up any bad habits from him. Being one of the school's Big Three doesn't make him exempt from my personal judgement."
"Bakugo isn't going to rub off on me." Ami scoffs, trying to hide how nervous she felt.
"Be that as it might, watch yourself." It was more of a threat than a warning. His lavender eyes then lock with Ami's own, a look of understanding passing between them.
The message is clear: Even one big mistake would prove fatal.
"Amiiii."
Ami looks up and directly into the expectant eyes of her best friend. "I'm sorry... what?"
Mina huffs and points down the adjacent street, "We're splitting up. Kirishima and Bakugo are going that way and we're going this way."
Ami turns to see the guys walking together down the opposite street. "Oh. Ok. Sorry, I've been... absent, recently." she apologizes.
"Well I need you to be here with me just in case something happens." The pink girl huffs. "Everyone's being so weird."
"I am now, I promise."
The rest of the day passes mostly uneventfully, with Mina and Ami arriving on a scene after everything had been resolved. Bakugo had taken down a robber only a few feet from the shop he'd just burglarized. According to Kirishima, he'd done it in seconds without even giving him a warning as to what he was flying towards. Crime had been practically non-existent recently, but there were still criminals that tried to take advantage of the fact that the number of active heroes was still low from all the early retirements and untimely deaths.They had another 4 days of training until they were back in class so they still had time to get some action in, but the chances of that were low considering Bakugo was more of an "act first, think later" hero.
"Doing great as always," Fatgum complements, patting Bakugo in the back. "I never expect anything less."
Bakugo nods at the acknowledgement before turning to watch the police haul the petty thief away. He'd been so quiet recently it made the group almost miss his loud anger. "Quiet" was never a word anyone would use to describe Bakugo Katsuki, and yet here he was, being it.
"Something's wrong with him." Ami says to Kirishima, walking up beside him. She'd been sticking to him recently because she knew she'd have a hard time fully focusing if she stood too close to Bakugo. Despite the intensity of the talk the two had had days prior the topic from that day hadn't been brought up again, and that much she was thankful for. She could balance her personal and hero life fine, but going into the latter with a distracted mind was only an ingredient in the recipe for disaster.
"Yeah I know," Kirishima sighs. "I tried to talk to him as we walked but he was all super weird with me. Normally he'd tell me what's on his mind."
"I talked to him last night because I was wondering if it was aimed at me, but I was so worried I'd messed up that I didn't notice he's been being weird with everyone. Not just me."
"It'll pass. Bakugo is just like that sometimes. If he has something to say then he'll say it when he's ready." Kirishima shrugs and the two start walking as the rest of the group continues forward. "Don't sweat it."
Ami thinks back to the night prior and relaxes a little. If it was something bad, he wouldn't have shooed her off so lightly. Or so she hoped, being as how Bakugo was notoriously stubborn. As all things go, however, she chose to take Kirishima's word and wait until the blond opened up.
And she couldn't help but to hope it was her that he came to when he was ready.