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Mase doesn’t know how he got stuck with Shimoda Chikao as a “date,” but he’s beginning to seriously regret his decision. Chikao is flitting around talking to everyone, as if they were all friends in middle school.
They weren’t; their little group was simultaneously feared and loved by the rest of their grade and frankly, Mase is sure that the only reason he and Chikao have any friends at all is because high school was missing one crucial thing: Bakugou Katsuki.
Apparently, walking around without a living bomb with a temper to match made them more approachable. Who’d have guessed?
Three years ago, Mase graduated high school with honors. Chikao, well.
He graduated.
Then, a month ago, the inevitable happened. They both got an invitation to a middle school reunion. A little unorthodox, to be sure, but Mase has the sneaking suspicion that it’s because the Explosion Hero, Ground Zero, just made his debut after three years as a sidekick.
In other words, the school wanted to capitalize on the fact that Bakugou Katsuki had finally done the inevitable: he’d gone and become a hero.
On the upside, the whole class was invited, so Deku is going to be here too, Mase thinks, sipping his punch. Should be interesting. At least, it should be if Bakugou decides to grace them with his presence anytime soon. Right now it’s just a lot of awkward small talk.
He walks in the door fifteen seconds later as if Mase summoned him (which is ridiculous; if there’s one thing he remembers from their time as “friends,” it’s that Bakugou Katsuki can’t be summoned). He looks about the way Mase expected him to, sans the hair; it’s that same ash blonde, but the tips are fiery red.
Two other guys come in after him. One is fairly plain-looking, with black hair that’s tinted green and an admittedly impressive build. He seems vaguely familiar in that “has one of those faces” way.
The other one is much more striking—red and white hair pulled back into a bun and bangs hiding most of the left side of his face. He’s taller than the guy with black hair, but seems a bit more uncomfortable. Bakugou must have dragged that one here against his will, Mase reasons.
Chikao waves the three of them over with an incredibly unsubtle, “Yo, Kacchan!”
Mase smacks him upside the head. “We haven’t seen this guy in years, you doofus. Don’t call him that.”
Stupid nickname aside, Chikao has at least gotten his attention. Bakugou’s eyes land on the two of them and he walks over with his… well, they’re probably his friends.
“Remember us?” Chikao asks, and Mase resists the urge to smack him again.
Bakugou squints at them like he’s trying to place names with faces. “Vaguely. Means we were probably friends at some point, right?”
Before either of them have the chance to respond, the guy with black hair elbows him in the side. “Be nice.”
Mase patiently waits for the inevitable explosions that follow when people try to order Bakugou around. For some reason, it never happens. Instead, Bakugou just rolls his eyes.
“Mase and Chikao, right?”
Surprisingly, it’s Chikao that picks his jaw up off the floor. “Yeah man, how’ve you been? I hear you’re a kickass hero now.”
Bakugou smirks and crosses his arms. “You bet your ass.”
The guy with the weird dye job lets out a loud cough that sounds suspiciously like the word overcompensating.
“You wanna fucking go, half and half?” That old, familiar spark returns to Bakugou’s eyes, and Mase can breathe a little easier. This is the guy he grew up with.
“Half and half” shrugs, but there’s a similar spark in his eye despite his cool attitude. “Name calling, really? I know you have the cognitive ability of a ten year old but I thought we were past this.”
Mase inches backward, trying to subtly get out of the danger zone. He has the feeling he knows exactly who “half and half” is, and he definitely doesn’t want to be anywhere near a fight between the two of them if he’s right. Their sparring matches have brought down buildings before. The tension between them isn’t hostile, but it’s charged with a competitive stubbornness that Mase couldn’t be paid to try and diffuse. It’s like lightning.
“Hey Shouto, could you get some punch? It’s a little warm in here.” It’s the other guy. He smiles at the first guy, who apparently is the Hot and Cold Hero Shouto, and Mase has to look away. That smile is like looking directly at the sun.
Shouto stares at Bakugou for another second, then sighs and starts to make his way to the snack table.
“Get me some too!” Bakugou calls.
Shouto flips him off without turning around. Bakugou looks like he’s about three nanoseconds away from lunging after the guy and killing him then and there. It’s not surprising; Bakugou’s ego is massive, but fragile. A guy like Shouto is a threat to that, so Mase backs away even further. He and Bakugou may have been sort of friends once, but he’d have to be stupid not to be afraid of him, just a little.
Then something extraordinary happens.
The dude with black hair steps in front of Bakugou and puts a hand on his chest, and Bakugou Katsuki—an unstoppable force of nature, the most ill-tempered hero in Japan—stops cold.
“Don’t start a fight you can’t win, Kacchan.” The smile is still there, but there’s green lightning crackling in this guy’s eyes and steel in his voice under the playfulness. “To go after my boyfriend, you’ll have to go through me. And we both know that’s not going to happen.”
Bakugou bristles, but doesn’t contest it. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the tension dissipates. There’s no bitterness coming from either of them, though Bakugou seems to be… pouting, holy shit.
“Hey, so, what the fuck?”
Mase can’t even bring himself to chide Chikao for being tactless, because there aren’t actually words for how strange this is. What the fuck sums up the last few minutes pretty perfectly. Back when they were kids, it would be absolutely unheard-of for Bakugou to admit that he couldn’t beat someone, and if the interviews are any indication, that hasn’t changed. But this random dude can make him stand down without even being cursed at?
The dude just laughs, completely unfazed. “He’s just pissy because his boyfriend got caught up in paperwork so he’s not here yet. You know how Kacchan is.”
Somehow the fact that Bakugou isn’t straight is the least surprising thing about the last twenty minutes. Actually, in retrospect, it’s not all that surprising.
“He could have lit that damn paperwork on fire and it wouldn’t have fucking mattered,” Bakugou grumbles. “Fatgum practically worships the ground he walks on.”
“He still has a job though, Kacchan.” The guy’s still grinning, and he pokes Bakugou’s cheek. “You know that.”
Bakugou shoves his hand away violently, but doesn’t retaliate. At this point, Mase is sure that this guy is much more interesting than he looks at first. He must have one hell of a quirk too, to keep Bakugou in line like this.
Shouto picks that moment to come back, handing the guy— his boyfriend? Mase is pretty sure that’s what the guy said –a paper cup and wrapping an arm around his waist.
Before Bakugou has the chance to really look pissed off that Shouto didn’t get him a cup, he’s tackled by what looks like a ball of red spikes.
“Bakubro! Hey babe.”
Wait no, that’s a man. Red hair with a sharp-toothed grin… yeah, he seems like Bakugou’s type. His tone reminds Mase vaguely of Deku. The illusion is ruined pretty quickly though, since Bakugou was never this relaxed around Deku.
“The fuck have I told you about calling me bro?” Bakugou snaps without missing a beat. “It’s weird, Shitty Hair.”
The red-haired dude just bares his teeth in a wide smile. He doesn’t look even remotely threatened. In fact, his arms wrap around Bakugou’s waist and he looks positively content.
“I found Kirishima by the entrance and he followed me like a lost puppy,” Shouto says. “Is your phone on silent or something?”
“Probably!” the guy named Kirishima chirps. He looks over at the guy with black hair. “Hey Midoriya, how’s it going?”
Mase’s brain short circuits and fries his usually impeccable brain to mouth filter.
“What in the ever loving fuck.”
Bakugou bursts out laughing, and it’s loud enough to get the attention of half the room. “Drinks are on you next week, Deku. I fucking won.”
The guy—Mase is having immense trouble connecting cowardly, crybaby Deku to this confident, ripped man in front of him—pouts. “I don’t have your salary yet, Kacchan.”
“It’s fine, Izuku,” Shouto says, seemingly texting someone. “Tsuyu and I won the betting pool, so we can afford it.”
“Et tu, Shouto?”
Shouto shrugs and points at Mase. “You really have no concept of how much you and Katsuki have changed. That doesn’t mean the rest of the world doesn’t. I didn’t even know that one could talk before just now. You shocked a voice out of him.”
It’s only the fact that he’s being directly addressed that snaps Mase out of his shock. “S-So Midoriya, when did you…” Figure out how to not get your ass kicked on a regular basis “Get so close to Bakugou?”
Midoriya flushes. “Wasn’t me at all, actually. It’s amazing what having Kirishima around has done.”
“I wouldn’t date him until he started going to therapy!” Kirishima says, still hanging off of Bakugou. He’s smiling more normally now. “That’s all I really did though. It’s amazing what having good role models and decent friends can do to a guy’s attitude.”
The implications are clear and Mase starts to think that maybe this Kirishima guy is an even better match for Bakugou than he’d originally thought. He can’t bring himself to be offended though; he’s never really considered Bakugou a true friend. He was always more of a shield from the even worse bullies.
Chikao doesn’t look particularly offended either. If anything, he looks more confused. “But Deku can’t beat you in a fight. What was all that about earlier?”
Shouto—whose poker face is as famous as Bakugou’s temper—actually snorts. “On the second day of freshman year, these two blew up a building trying to kill each other. Izuku beats the crap out of him every time they train together—”
Midoriya slaps a hand over Shouto’s mouth, flushing bright red. “They don’t need the details, Shouto! But yeah, Kacchan and I are cool now. It took a lot, but we’re friends.”
Bakugou clicks his tongue. “You only win because you fight dirty, stupid Deku.”
There’s absolutely no bite behind the nickname and honestly, that’s the only other evidence that Mase needs to know that even people like Bakugou Katsuki don’t stay the same forever.