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Katsuki’s shit at dealing with crying people. He’s shit at, like, feelings in general. His own feelings specifically. His own feelings about Todoroki Shouto in particular.
Besides, like, wanting to live between those thighs, because that’s a given. He’s (probably) (most likely) (absolutely) a creep for it. For thinking about Shouto’s mouth before bed and glancing at her thighs in the uniform skirt and pointedly not looking away after the Sports Festival Accident.
Katsuki wasn’t even sure boobs did anything for him before that. But—
He’d probably like Shouto no matter what. Even if she was a boy or, like, didn’t make that dumb cute face at cold soba. Like. Really like. Not just want to fuck or want to surpass or even just want.
Like. Like for real.
But now she’s crying, and of fucking course she’s a pretty crier, and of fucking course Katsuki likes it more than he should. More than is probably strictly healthy. Likes her more than he should and more than is probably strictly healthy.
And she’s got her knees hugged to her chest and she probably didn’t get to wear skirts often at home because she doesn’t have a single fucking clue how to sit like a girl and she is a girl and she’s wearing white cotton panties and she probably bites her lip to keep quiet when she presses her fingers inside and makes herself feel good and—
And now Katsuki is actively thinking about fucking her while she cries and—
Fuck.
He clears his throat awkwardly. “You okay there, halfie?”
Shouto jumps. Not used to not being punished for showing weakness, most likely. Not used to differentiating between weakness and plain old humanity either. Not that Katsuki’s that great at the intricacies of vulnerability either. But—
He swallows. He wants to be, a little bit. Wants to be safe in Shouto’s head. Someone to come to. Someone to lean on. Someone to hold hands and go to cutesy overpriced cat cafés with. Someone. Someone important to her.
“Bakugou,” she says, sniffling wetly.
Katsuki scoffs. (He’s bad at this shit.) “It’s Katsuki,” he says. Mostly because he’s selfish and a bastard and kind of in love. If love is even allowed for people like him. If he even deserves it.
“Oh,” she says.
(Katsuki wants to drop to his knees and cup her chin and kiss the salt off her mouth, kiss her breathless.)
God, he’s—
“Stop gaping,” he says. “You look like an idiot.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, hugging her knees tighter to her chest. Her uniform shirt is rumpled. Her lipgloss is smudged. Her hair is slightly messy. Katsuki wants, wants, wants. “Boys are stupid and mean and awful.”
Katsuki’s stomach plummets. She’s—she’s crying over a boy. Over some pathetic, pimple-faced extra who probably slobbers. She’s—
Well. She’s not his, or anything. He knew that. He knew it. Believing it was just a little bit harder.
“Yeah,” he says, throat dry. “They are.”
Shouto laughs at that, surprisingly. “I think I like you,” she says. “I don’t—I don’t think you’d try to kiss me without asking.”
Who the fuck—
Katsuki’s palms spark. “I’m going to kill him,” he blurts. He doesn’t even know who she’s talking about. He’d go through the whole school for her, though. Which is probably the exact display of chauvinism that should get him kicked in the groin, especially when she’s proved herself more powerful than him over and over, but—
It’s not about that, really. It’s just about—
Well. Mushy feelings. Soft, extremely mushy feelings.
“Katsuki,”’she says, voice soft, almost vaguely amused. “I thought you wanted to be a hero.”
“I do,” he says. “Gonna be a damn good one too. You can—you can be my cute number two. How’s that sound, princess?”
Magnanimously, she doesn’t immediately spear him through the stomach with ice for the sheer gall. Instead, she tilts her head at him from her spot on the floor, and says, “Why did you offer to kill somebody for me then?”
And—
Ah. There’s the fuckin’ issue. The giant, mushy feelings issue.
“Because,” Katsuki says pointedly.
She arches an eyebrow at him in question, expectant (and beautiful and perfect and, once again, not his).
“I guess,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I don’t want random assholes to touch you. Especially when you don’t want them to. And it’s not some chivalry bullshit either because—I wanna touch you. Wanna touch you all the damn time. It’s—I’m, uh, sorry.”
“How do you want to touch me?”
Katsuki’s brain does a real life record scratch. “What?” he hisses.
“How do you want to touch me?” Shouto repeats, undeterred. “Because the—this boy from the third year support course said he wanted to—to see if I was half as good in the sack as I was on the field. If—if my old man helped me practice that too. Said if it’d been him he couldn’t have helped himself. And then he tried to kiss me.”
God. That’s fucking vile. “That’s your dad,” Katsuki says helplessly. He’s going to be sick. “I know he was shit, but he didn’t—” What if he did though? Then what? “—right?”
Shouto shakes her head. “Of course he didn’t,” she says. “He was just—angry a lot. Narcissistic and egomaniacal too. You know. All the good hero qualities.”
“You won’t be like him,” Katsuki says. And then he’s dropping to his knees so he can meet her eyes and there’s tears clinging to her eyelashes and even in the middle of all the horribleness he wants, wants, wants. “You’re good.”
“Am I?” she asks. Like she trusts him. Like Katsuki’s opinion means something to her. Like Katsuki is so much better than boys who try to kiss her without asking for permission after saying horrible things.
He shouldn’t touch, he knows. And yet—
He wipes away the drying tears on her cheeks. Her skin is soft, impossibly so, the difference in texture evident when he accidentally brushes her scar. Immediately, he pulls back, hisses, “Shit. Sorry, halfie.”
She’s the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. “Is that how you want to touch me?” she asks. “Or is there more?”
“I shouldn’t,” Katsuki says, barely an excuse. He’s weak. He’s pathetic and mortal and hopelessly fond. Even against his will.
“I want you to,” she whispers. “Please.”
They’re alone. It’s late. Katsuki could—
He could kiss her. Could be horrible and take for himself. But he shouldn’t. Should be better than this. Better than the pathetic urges of the heart. Better than. A hero.
(He’s not though. He’s a boy, and he’s weak.)
“You sure you don’t just wanna—talk to someone? Ponytail? Round Cheeks? That alien freak?”
“Katsuki,” Shouto says evenly. “I think you should kiss me. And don’t call her a freak.”
For a breath or two, Katsuki wonders if he’s hallucinating. Then—
“I really want to,” he whispers. A confession. All that human weakness laid bare. An oxymoron and an unshakable truth. “That’s why I don’t think I—fuck. I shouldn’t.”
“I want you to,” she says, like the world—their world—could ever be simple. “I want you. Is that, um, you know—okay?”
Katsuki kisses her because he can’t not. Because she smells like flowers and smiles so rarely when she should be happy all the damn time and loves cats and seems to tolerate Katsuki too, for some reason beyond his greatest capacity for comprehension. Because she’s kind and good and tastes like sunlight. Because he wants her to be his, selfish as it might be.
And the best part is that she kisses him back. Clumsy like—
“Hey, princess.”
Shouto blinks, cheeks flushed.
“You ever done this before?”
She shakes her head. “No,” she says. Then, “Have you?” Then, “Was it bad?”
“No,” Katsuki says. “I haven’t. But I wanna practice with you. That okay?”
“Better practice a lot in that case,” she says, and she’s smiling just the slightest bit, and— “I know you like being the best.”
Katsuki loves her so much. “Wanna be the best for you,” he admits. “Wanna touch you all over and make you feel good and hear you say my name. Like I’m all you’re ever going to need. That’s—stupid, right?”
Shouto’s face scrunches contemplatively. “Not if I want it too,” she says. “I think that’s the difference. I want you to want to touch me. I want you to touch me.”
“How do you want me to touch you?” Katsuki asks, mostly teasing, but she wraps both hands around his neck to pull him close enough to whisper in his ear and—
“Inside,” she says. “I think I want to feel you inside. Wanna see your face when you come.”
—maybe he’s not the only one who thinks about it. Not the only one who wants. And that makes it okay, right? The reciprocity. Mutual desire. Shared desperation.
(Love, or whatever.)
Maybe it always starts like this. Sitting together on the floor and sharing simple truths, craving the comfort of a wanted touch.
Or maybe, when your name is Bakugou Katsuki, you get lucky. Impossibly so. And maybe you get to princess carry the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen to bed (your bed) and lick the salt off her skin until she complains that it tickles and you’re pressed close enough to tell what all that want smells like. And then you tug her wet underwear off and she’s gasping and clutching at the sheets (your sheets), and you get to make her feel good. To teach her about it, eager, eager, eager.
And the thing is—
It’s simple. (It’s yours. She’s yours. Because she wants to be.)