Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was annoying how business in the shop only seemed to be really booming the moment he lost most of his servers, but he supposed that was to be expected given his shitty rotten luck.

From the time when he was a bratty middle schooler up to now, life made it known that it was extraordinarily unfair, so it was only a matter of time that he ended up in the shithole that he was in.

He turned his head around, glaring a hole into the massive poster displayed on the glass door, cursing the fact that it had proven itself absolutely useless in recruiting any extras to act as his staff.

But, well, there was no more use dwelling in these dumb things when he had his snug cozy bed once he arrive home, and he sure as hell could use some well deserved fucking rest right now.

With a sigh, Bakugou grabbed his coat out from the rack, wrapping it around his body as he stepped outside the shop, shutting down all of the lights.

Once he finished acting upon his daily task of locking up properly, he began the trek towards his house, speed somewhat hampered by his aching legs.

About only two minutes into his walk, things started going against the routine that now defined his life.

A sneaky arm had reached out, slipping its way to Bakugou’s mouth, and he let out a yelp which had only ended up being muffled as he was then pulled into a dark alley.

At times like these, Bakugou hated the fact that he had lost his touch using his quirk.

Ten years ago, he would have had obliterated and exploded the fuck out of these fuckers, but alas… Now, he was only capable of crackling his palms with the threat of exploding.

Unfortunately, the man was unfettered by the threat as he ushered one of his fellow cronies over, and they both double teamed him, holding him down to the ground.

“This asshole is a stubborn one,” One of the men complained, dodging a headbutt from the persistent blond. “ ‘Guess we gotta use that secret weapon since we have no choice.”

“I’ll fucking kill you bastards! Let me the fuck go-”

Bakugou went from thrashing about to going completely still within the span of only a couple minutes as he felt some needle being injected into his neck, and he was now reduced to fighting just to stay awake.

He wanted nothing more than to sprint over and clobber those bastards for daring to drug him, but even just the meager act of twitching his finger had proven itself impossible for him, rendering him shitty fucking helpless like a fish left to die in a burning pit of sand.

Shit, fucking hell.

With all hopes lost, he resigned himself to the fate of dying to these pathetic scrubs as the two men searched through his backpack, undoubtedly with the goal of looting from his flat out broke ass.

However, all of a sudden, some random person came into the scene, his appearance fuzzy from Bakugou’s perspective as he could only make out the faint shades of red hair.

Just as Bakugou was entertaining the idea of now being triple tagged teamed, the red haired guy came to his rescue like he was one of those ‘heroes’, punching out the two wannabe villains with a stony and admittedly badass looking fist.

In spite of the fact that his vision was as dim as a candle on its last legs, he could still spot the same redhead man approaching him, causing him to flinch as he felt his prone body being picked up from the rough concrete ground.

It was then that the redhead who was carrying him away had said something to him, words that Bakugou couldn’t make out in his current state.

But, apparently, his body had responded well to these words, and he nuzzled into the man’s chest, falling dead asleep to the man who had the power to end him right then and there.

Chapter Text

Pain

Just sheer annoying pain.

From the moment some modicum of consciousness had been knocked back into his system, he could only feel pain wracking his body from head to toe.

Though one particular part of his body throbbed significantly way more than the others, and he laid one of his shaky hands to that area—

His neck.

Before he could act upon the irrational impulse of exploding his neck with a small explosion, an arm shot forward, practically yanking his hand away from his neck.

“Fucking hell, what do you want–”

Bakugou’s voice abruptly died in his throat as he lifted his eyelids open, recognizing the person who was holding one of his arms hostage. “Izuku, why on earth are you here? You have shitty brats to teach.”

“You had me listed as your emergency contact, Kacchan,” Izuku answered plainly, still keeping a firm grip on his childhood friend’s hand. “I got the call that you were ambushed which was why I quickly excused myself from work to visit. More importantly, are you okay? I've heard that they had cornered you in the alley way, even injecting you with a drug that has some special properties and-”

He groaned aloud, casting a glare at the green haired man as well as the shitty hospital equipment surrounding him that he had only just now noticed. “Shut the fuck up, I can't deal with your dumb muttering right now!”

“S-Sorry!” Izuku mumbled, letting go of Bakugou's arm, thankfully now giving the man space. “I was just really worried, Kacchan. When I first found out what happened, I thought that you were-”

“Well, I'm still here, ain't I?” With some difficulty, Bakugou was able to sit up slightly in the hospital bed. “And besides, I've survived though worse which is why you need to stop fucking worrying. I'll be fine, you damn nerd.”

Memories of a green monstrous sludge popped up in his mind, and he gritted his teeth in frustration, recalling just how fucking powerless he was that day, left at the mercy of the villain and with no heroes stepping up to save him until it was too late.

And now, he had a similarly pathetic performance while assaulted by those thieves, the only difference being that he was able to escape a little less fucked up than the last time and someone with red hair–

Wait, red hair??

In his confusion, he ran his brain back on the events which had transpired, verifying that a man with red hair had indeed come to his rescue. “Whatever fucking happened to the redheaded guy?”

“What do you mean?” Izuku cocked his head to the side. “Oh, you mean one of your attackers has red hair?”

“No, you dumbass,” Bakugou explained, attempting to conjure up images of what the said redhead could possibly look like, only to come to a blank. “Some dude with red hair saved my life while those bastards were attacking me, but I don’t see him anywhere? Where the hell is he?”

It took a while for Izuku to answer, but the answer he provided only spurred bewilderment in Bakugou if anything else. “Well, I haven’t heard anything about a redhead, but a man wearing a hood over his head was said to have carried you in here. He said that he found you in an alleyway after all the attackers were all defeated, and then he left soon afterwards.”

“Ugh, enough about the whole redhead shit,” Already feeling his headache worsening from all the contradicting pieces of information, Bakugou changed the subject, realizing that there was one more thing he still needed to know. “What I really wanna know is if those assholes really did steal from me? I swear I’ll lose my shit if they do ‘cuz I just earned enough money for the shop’s rent.”

Fortunately, Izuku came forward with the best news he heard that day. “All your belongings are safe. The man who found you turned them in to the police along with all the attackers.”

“Thank fucking god–ow!”

Bakugou raised a fist in triumph that sent quakes of agony to strike him once more, and his childhood friend decided to all too calmly respond by rushing out of the door, calling for a doctor to help.

Lacking the energy to even make a convincing enough protest from all the writhing pain, all Bakugou could do was silently grumble, and wait for the doctor to provide him the reprieve that he needed .

```

Although it had taken him nearly a week, Bakugou was finally out of the damn hospital, but not without having to sit through all of the doctors’ pesky reminders to take it easy and drink all of his medicines just as scheduled.

Annoyingly, he had to stop over the police force wherein a bunch of policemen had subjected him to an interrogation, asking him questions that he couldn’t even really answer due to the fact that he was drugged and only had fuzzy recollections on the whole thing.

In turn, they only provided him a little information, telling him that they were still conducting an experiment on the thing that the thieves had injected him while also confirming that Izuku was right—

There was no redhead in the scene of the crime, and the person who brought him to the hospital was really said to be a man with a hood.

Apparently, those shitty cowardly thieves had him drugged with an incredibly powerful substance seeing as he had hallucinated a different spin of events entirely, and he let out a tsk in annoyance, knowing that getting drugged was the last thing his already fucked up body needed.

Nonetheless, regardless of anything, what he had already lost in the past couldn’t return, and he had already begrudgingly made peace with it after spending countless days trying to strengthen his explosions back to their usual form.

But, in the present, he at least still had a house and a job to fall back on, and he refused to let them slip away from his hands.

There was no way in hell he was about to demote himself to a failure.

He wasn’t about to make that same mistake twice.

Thus, with a renewed vigor, he resolved himself to concoct a new set of posters, determined to find some new helping hands for his noodle shop.

```

There was now a certain newfound delight flowing through his veins whenever he cooked, and he chalked it up to his body missing the thrill of cooking after taking a long time off due to the alley way incident.

His customers were especially receptive to his noodles today, ordering heaping after heaping as they said that they couldn’t get enough of his supposedly heartier noodles.

And while this had put him in a largely good mood, he didn’t like how his posters had seemingly ended up a failure, attracting a total of zero new applicants so far.

Bakugou brushed the floors with a whole lot more aggressiveness than it needed, unwittingly triggering a slab of ache to shoot up from his knuckles.

Sighing, he reached into his pockets, slipping painkillers into his mouth in order to help soothe the pain.

However, just before he could finish swallowing the pill, a knock reverberated throughout the shop, nearly causing him to choke on his water.

After he had gulped down his water, he walked over to the door, unable to help himself from scowling at the person outside the door.

It was already beyond closing time, after all.

Bakugou pulled the door open, coming face to face with the asshole who was annoying the hell out of him at the moment, and noted that the man was notably plain looking with his shaggy black hair and baggy clothing. “It’s closing time. Come back here tomorrow instead.”

“Haha, well, I’m afraid that I can’t do that,” The man smiled, lifting one of his hands to scratch the back of his neck. “You see, I’m very hungry.”

He scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest as he snarled at the man. “You could go fuckin’ eat somewhere else. I just got everything cleaned up and I’ve mostly run out of food, so I have no means to feed you anyway.”

“I’m fine eating anything that you have left, I swear!” The man pleaded, voice filled with desperation. “Besides, I’ve got to pay you back with what you wanted.”

He found his own interest piqued at that, setting his own irritation aside. “With what?”

“My name is Kurokawa Ryo, and I’m willing to offer my services to you,” The raven proclaimed, fishing an all too familiar looking poster out of his pocket, and holding it up to Bakugou’s eye level. “I’ll be your server if you give me something to eat for today.”

Bakugou flicked his eyes up from the poster being shoved to his face to the man standing before him, and red ruby eyes were now gazing upon him.

He was sure that he had never seen them in his life, but they held a certain warmness to them that was incredibly charming, causing his lips to gain a mind of its own. "Fine."

Chapter Text

Now that his shop was equipped with the addition of one more person, Bakugou could say that his issues with regards to the operations side had somewhat eased up by a smidge.

However, it became apparent after only a couple of hours into their first shift that there was a glaring downside to the whole hiring a new employee thing—

It would appear that the specific person he hired was quite fucking obnoxious with his talkative nature and constant annoying ass smiles.

He found himself wondering if the extra worker was even worth all the added stress, but it was already too late to go back on his agreement with Kurokawa, and people could call Bakugou whatever they wanted, but he was a man of his own word, so he was stuck with Kurokawa until the end of time unless the man would back out from the whole thing unfortunately.

Right on cue, just as he had resolved to begrudgingly tolerate the situation, tickets were suddenly jammed to his face, and he cursed aloud as he snatched them away, glaring at the offender who was none other than the very man annoying him the entire shift so far.

“I get that it's your first day and all that shit,” Bakugou grumbled, getting straight into cooking the Black bean ramen as what was scribbled on the ticket. “But it's damn fucking weird that you don't even know the proper way to hand me tickets.”

Kurokawa at least had the decency to be sheepish about being scolded even though his smile still irked Bakugou. “Sorry about that, I got too carried away since the number of customers were piling up.”

Bakugou sighed, shooing Kurokawa away with the hand not holding his knife. “Whatever, just make sure not to do that again.”

“Hey, those orders sure are a lot to handle,” for some stupid reason that Bakugou couldn't quite fathom, Kurokawa felt the need to state the obvious fact, resting his arms against the serving hatch to peer into the kitchen. “Are you sure that you are gonna be okay-”

Years of therapy had taught him to keep a good control of his temper, and it was certainly doing him wonders as he managed to restrain himself from hurling a spatula at Kurokawa. “I'll be fine. Focus on your own work, and leave me the hell alone!”

Much to Bakugou's relief, it was at that exact moment when a new customer came in, so Kurokawa complied, and left him be, redirecting his attention over to the client instead. “Got it.”

Not even a whole minute later, however, Kurokawa fumbled, tripping over his own feet in his rush to greet the customer.

He recovered from the fall relatively quickly though all things considered, picking himself up from the ground like nothing happened only a few seconds later.

And then, a red faced Kurokawa was smiling widely, giving the onlookers a peace sign like he was posing for a damn commercial. “I'm alright, no need to worry everyone.”

All Bakugou could do was shake his head in exasperation upon witnessing his new employee making a fool of himself as he shifted his focus back into chopping the mushrooms, subsequently drowning out the rest of the noises in the shop

Well, he supposed that klutziness could be added onto the steadily increasing list on why Kurokawa grated on his damn nerves, and he was certain it would only get worse in the future.

```

The number of tables that he always had to clean up after each working day always left him extra drained after every shift, but he still always made sure to keep every nook and cranny of the shop clean regardless of how strenuous the task was.

Today, he had every intention of dedicating himself to that usual routine, only to be bamboozled when Kurokawa seized the cloth from his hands, volunteering to do all the cleaning.

And as much as the man annoyed the hell out of him, it didn't feel right letting him do that chore when it wasn't even part of their deal.

“Idiot, stop that,” Bakugou stood on his tiptoes, attempting to nab the cloth from the other man who had playfully raised it over his head to keep out it out of his reach.“ This ain't even part of the job description, so you're just wasting your damn energy doing this.”

“No, I insist,” Kurokawa said, stubbornly standing his ground. “When I said that I wanna offer my service to you, I didn't just mean helping you as a server. I want to help any way that I can.”

Bakugou blinked, and stared blankly at the raven, not knowing what to think of this secret complicated morse code of a person he found himself dealing with. “I don't get you.”

Kurokawa lowered the cloth that he was holding, seemingly thrown off from being under the blond’s current scrutiny. “Hm?”

“We literally just met, so I don’t get why you would care so much about helping me and all that,” Bakugou pointed out, deciding it was better to confront the man straight up in order to obtain the answers that he wanted. “ Don’t you dare fuckin’ give me the whole ‘I just wanna help people’ bullshit, I want to know the damn truth. Why do you wanna help me so much?”

The resulting silence was simply deafening, devoid of any sounds whatsoever except for the ticking of the wall clock until Kurokawa broke it, his expression solemn, a far cry from all those jolly grins. “I can’t tell you.”

“The fuck?” Bakugou demanded, making sure to clasp his fists tightly so as to not prevent any miniature explosive specks from being set off. “The fuck do you mean that you can’t tell me? Just fucking spit it out already.”

Kurokawa seemed to hesitate for a while, as his panic visibly flitted through his irises before his face turned cheerful, and he winked cheekily, elbowing Bakugou on the arm. “It’s a secret.”

Bakugou frowned, not really enjoying the fact that the man was hiding something from him, but at the same time, he was way too exhausted from the day’s workload to even have the strength of forcing the truth out from someone who wouldn’t even budge.

Therefore, he both literally and figuratively waved the topic away, waving the white flag of surrender. “Tch, fine, you can go ahead and keep your stupid secret, I don’t even care anymore.”

“Thanks for understanding, man,” Kurokawa beamed, wandering off to one of the tables to lay the cloth atop it. “I’ll get started on cleaning this table then.”

Just from watching Kurokawa go about cleaning the table, it was obvious to Bakugou that his employee wasn’t even cleaning efficiently since the raven hadn’t even bothered to spend more than two seconds wiping each part of the table before moving onto the next one beside it.

“There you go!” Kurokawa proclaimed with the clap of his hands, acting all proud about a table that had only been halfway cleaned. “It’s all clean.”

“That ain’t clean,” Taking matters into his own hands, Bakugou stomped over to the table that Kurokawa had deemed ‘all clean’, and snatched the cloth from the raven to show the man just how it was supposed to be done. “Here, do it like this.”

After about nearly a minute into his impromptu tutorial, Bakugou whipped around to see if his employee had understood where he was getting at, only to discover that the raven hadn’t exactly been paying attention.

Instead, Kurokawa had seemingly been eyeing Bakugou’s bandaged neck this entire time with an unreadable expression, possibly the weirdest reaction one might have to a mere neck injury.

“Oi, knock it off,” Bakugou grunted out, one of his arms flying over to provide his neck with cover, ducking his head to avoid the other’s stare. “If you’re just gonna stare at me, you’re on your own.”

“Sorry, man,” Kurokawa apologized, plastering on a smile that anyone could see was fake. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. Are you still um, up for teaching me?”

Bakugou raised his head up at that, some of the tension thankfully withering away off of his shoulders now that the raven was more or less back to ‘normal’. “Yeah, sure.”

```

“Why the fuck are you following me?!” Bakugou growled at his employee who had been tailing him since they both supposedly went their separate ways not even ten minutes ago. “Didn’t we both already say goodbye and all that stuff? Go home, aren’t you fuckin’ exhausted?”

Kurokawa sent the blond an incredulous look, acting as if he was just told that dogs could fly. “But I am walking my way home?”

Bakugou felt the sudden urge of banging his head against a tree upon hearing the dumbass’ response, and was only spared the fate of losing brain cells from such an act when his apartment complex came into view.

But there was a significant detail that stood out like a sore thumb—

Kurokawa's feet had also stopped the moment they reached the building, and Bakugou could feel his face breaking into a cold sweat, silently wondering if the man was stalking him at this point.

“Look, that's my home over there,” Kurokawa nodded his head at the building, stopping Bakugou in his tracks just before he could even try hightailing his way out of there. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, Bakugou. Hmm, is something the matter? You’re awfully pale right now.”

Bakugou gestured over to the building that had been his home for ages now, the puzzle pieces now coming together for this specific ‘mystery’ of why Kurokawa had been stalking him home. “ ‘Cuz that’s my home too, you idiot. Wait, if you’re telling me that you’ve also been living in my apartment complex, does that mean–?”

“Ah, I see!” Kurokawa’s eyes lit up in realization, and he was smiling giddily up at Bakugou. “Yep, it seems that we are neighbors then. Nice to meet you, neighbor!”

Neighbors…

Fuck.

Chapter Text

For all the stupidly horrendous luck he had so far in life, Bakugou thanked all the heavens above for taking pity on him, and not putting him and Kurokawa on the same floor of their shared apartment building.

But still, it was incredibly annoying that his walks from the shop were now significantly less quiet, and he had to deal with a chatterbox tailing him.

Right now, he was dealing with exactly this type of torture, subjected to a nonsensical chatter from Kurokawa that he couldn’t even bother listening.

“Will you shut the fuck up?!” Bakugou swiveled around, having had enough of all the raven’s incessant babbling. “You’ve been running that shitty mouth of yours for nearly fifteen minutes now!”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t m-”

Kurokawa’s sentence ended prematurely, proving for once that he could keep quiet as he broke into a sprint, making a sudden detour from the route leading them to their home.

And though it was his one and only chance to free himself from the nuisance that was Kurokawa Ryo, Bakugou still followed after the other man, knowing that the idiot could possibly put himself in danger with his recklessness at the moment. “Dumbass, where the fuck are you going?! Don’t just fuckin’ run off like that!”

Though it really only had been a short sprint to one of the nearby areas, it had felt almost like an eternity when Kurokawa finally came to a halt upon reaching one of the trees in the neighborhood.

Upon seeing where Kurokawa had inadvertently led them, Bakugou could physically feel his annoyance with his employee grow, resisting the urge of clocking the guy over his head. “You seriously went through all this trouble just to see a bunch of stupid trees?”

His indignant question went unanswered when Kurokawa chose to ignore him in order to climb the tree right in front of them, and everything started to click the moment he spotted a creamsicle cat sitting up on its highest branch.

Kurokawa was seemingly climbing that tree without the use of any quirks, and Bakugou could honestly admit that it was an impressive feat in itself seeing as the tree was super tall, and he was moving really quickly too with little to no ounce of precaution whatsoever.

Had his quirk still been back to normal form, Bakugou would have had exploded his way over to the cat to settle the whole ‘saving the cat’ matter easily, but that was out of the question in his current circumstances. “Get down from there, you idiot! You’re gonna fall!”

It would seem that Kurokawa refused to concede defeat as he continued climbing the tree, even reaching the highest branch, and then he was outstretching one of his arms for the cat to get on. “C’mon, hop on my arm, I’ll get you out of this, I promise”

The cat mewled, appearing to be quite hesitant for a good few seconds until it leapt, taking refuge in Kurokawa’s offered arm.

And then, the raven was scaling his way back to the ground with one arm, his other one holding the cat securely to his chest as he climbed.

Once or twice, the idiot nearly slipped and fell yet he managed to pull through, successfully descending back down.

“Bakugou, did you see that?” Kurokawa approached his boss with a wide grin, petting the cat that he was holding. “I saved the cat!”

“What the hell were you thinking?!” Bakugou could have sworn that he was almost at his wits end with the other man. “You could have tripped and fallen!”

“Well, desperate times call for desperate measures!" The idiot had the audacity to wink at him, brushing off the concerns nonchalantly. “Most heroes are out patrolling right now anyway, and I believe that there's nothing wrong with stepping in to help others while they're not around, so that's that.”

‘The heroes are never around.’ was the truth Kurokawa needed to know and hear, but Bakugou wasn't that much of an asshole to burst the idiot’s bubble…Not when his eyes shone with too much innocence and admiration, so Bakugou elected to keep his opinions to himself, letting the raven believe whatever he wanted.

There would come a time when Kurokawa would discover what the harsh reality of heroes was like his own anyway.

```

Following this little sidequest, they were now making their way home for good now, coupled with the addition of a certain new presence in the form of the cat in Kurokawa's arms who was smiling at them almost creepily.

“So why on earth are you still carrying that cat around?” Bakugou questioned, addressing the elephant in the room. “I thought you were only intending to save it?”

“Oh, about that, I decided to raise this cat as my own,” Kurokawa hugged the cat, burying his face into his fur, and the cat purred happily. “You see, we just are drawn to each other already, and I just couldn't let it go at this point.”

“Tch, I figured,” Bakugou scoffed, half expecting that sort of response from the raven beforehand. “Well, you two fit each other anyway with your annoying identical ass smiles and–”

“Wait, I know!” Kurokawa snapped his fingers in realization of something. “I’ll name it Smiley! It’s just the perfect name for it. Isn’t that right, Smiley?”

The cat—Smiley meowed cheerfully at that, nuzzling its head against Kurokawa’s arm, apparently liking the name a lot.

“That’s settled then!” Kurokawa exclaimed joyfully, looking moments away from throwing Smiley into the air in his glee. “Your name is Smiley.”

And then, the cat and its new owner were now hugging their lives away after such a statement, drawing a lighthearted eye roll from Bakugou who couldn’t even find the heart to make any snarky comments for the undeniably heartwarming moment that he was now witnessing.

Besides, hopefully with the addition of a pet, Kurokawa could get less annoying now.

```

Unfortunately, as Bakugou had soon come to realize, his hopes were dashed almost immediately because it turned out that Kurokawa was now even more annoying now with Smiley in his possession.

For two days straight now, Kurokawa was constantly prattling on and on about the cat, and Bakugou now found himself unrealistically wishing for a customer to come during closing times just to shut the man up.

He counted the numbers down from ten to one in his head, exhaling away some of his irritation as he submerged his hands into the water, scrubbing the plates clean.

Soon, he was in a slightly better mood than before, and it also helped that Kurokawa had stopped talking about the cat for a while, now too preoccupied with collecting the rest of the dirty plates from the tables.

Halfway through rinsing one of the plates, however, his shitty head was throbbing with searing pain, causing him to pause in his task as he reached one of his hands up, massaging his head with it.

Almost as if he had a type of Bakugou distress detector, Kurokawa immediately rushed over to his boss’ side, completely dropping his duties to attend to him.

Kurokawa grabbed Bakugou by the arm, ushering him over to sit at one of the empty seats of the shop. “Hey, easy there, Bakugou, you shouldn’t push yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” Bakugou grumbled, closing his eyes while trying to ignore the ache which had yet to lessen. “Just, um fuck, distract me.”

For all intents and purposes, what he had meant to say was ‘Get back to work’, but his mouth had other ideas, and it was too late to go back on them.

“What do you mean?” Kurokawa asked, laying a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder in an attempt to soothe the pain in his own way. “What kind of distraction?”

“Shit, fuck, I don’t know,” Bakugou mumbled through the pain, swatting blindly at Kurokawa’s hand. “Play some music or somethin’. I just need to forget about this shitty headache right now, and music might help.”

It was obvious that Kurokawa was panicking right now just by the tone of his voice.“Um, shit, I don’t exactly have my phone with me now.”

“Just forget about it then–”

Though it was faint, there was the sound of music which soon entered his ears, prompting Bakugou to lift his eyelids open, and he locked gazes with Kurokawa who appeared to be getting into the tune that he was humming . “Idiot, what are you doing?”

At that, Kurokawa smiled softly, rubbing circles on Bakugou’s shoulder. “I’m humming ‘ Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. Smiley really loved it when I hummed this to him yesterday, and it gave me the idea of trying it with you.”

Bakugou’s eyes fluttered close once more, one of his legs jabbing out to prod at Kurokawa’s foot upon sensing that the other man wasn’t doing anything more than gawk at him at that moment. “Fuckin’ continue then.”

Kurokawa obliged without any question, going back to humming the song, his hold on Bakugou’s shoulder easing up a little but not entirely relinquishing.

And though it was obvious that his humming could use a lot more work in a technical sense, Bakugou still caught himself bobbing his head to the tune, getting lost in the melody, migraine temporarily forgotten.

Well, maybe every once in a while, he supposed that not every type of noise from Kurokawa was all that bad.

Chapter Text

He was always one to hate being indebted to people, so it was only natural for him to try and repay Kurokawa for what he did that other day.

On the next day following the migraine incident, he all but shoved extra money into his unassuming employee’s hands, insisting that he wanted to give him a little ‘bonus’ for all his help.

However, against all expectations, Kurokawa rejected the money under the justification that ‘it didn’t feel right, claiming instead how there were better ways of paying him back than giving him money.

Thus, here they were now, working out together in the gym as per Kurokawa’s proposition.

They only spent thirty minutes in the gym so far, but the idiot had certified himself a spirited gym nut right off the bat, sprinting to the treadmill the moment they exited out of the changing room, practically dragging Bakugou to join him in running along the shitty ass contraptions.

Bakugou had already worked up a sweat just trying to keep up with his employee in spite of the fact that they were still very much on their first round, and the machine was going way too slowly for his taste to begin with.

“This is fuckin’ insulting,” Bakugou huffed, keeping his eyes focused on the treadmill and not on the man who was probably smiling like a damn fool. “Why are we going as slow as a snail?”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with starting slow,” Kurokawa rebutted, the tone of his voice making it clear that he was indeed smiling all stupidly. “And, besides, it wouldn’t do you good if you pushed yourself, so staying at this speed is for the best.”

“The fuck do you mean?!” Bakugou exclaimed, anger swiftly latching onto him before he could even attempt fending it off. “Are you insinuating that I’m some shitty loser who couldn’t handle going at a faster speed?!

“Wait, that’s not what I was—”

Without even giving Kurokawa the chance to explain, Bakugou impulsively cranked up the speed of his treadmill, and the machine reacted accordingly, upgrading from moving like a snail to that of a raccoon.

It took his legs a while to adjust to the change, but he was able to manage albeit with a lot more energy expended than what was ideal.

“Bakugou, what are you doing?!” Kurokawa demanded with such alarm, sounding as if he was moments away from pulling the blond off of the treadmill. “You’re doing too much!”

“Fuck no, I’m not,” Bakugou grunted, tearing his eyes off of the treadmill for a split second to throw Kurokawa a glare. “Now are you fucking with me or not? ‘Cuz I could certainly use some competition right now, and you were the one who wanted to work out to begin with.”

There wasn’t any response from Kurokawa’s end, so Bakugou was just about to leave the man to his own devices, only for the raven to surprise him with his next words—

“You’re on then, bro!”

The promise of a challenge was all Bakugou needed to hear for his heart rate to pick up, and he smirked evilly at Kurokawa. “I’ll fucking destroy you, asshole.”

Kurokawa beamed at him then all sunnily right after he had just turned up the speed of his own treadmill. “Haha, we’ll see about that.”

With his fire now alit more than ever now, Bakugou turned his focus back into running as fast as he could, determined to outrun Kurokawa through the best of his efforts.

```

A handful of runs later, they both ended up with a two-two tie, only really calling it a day when most of the strength in Bakugou’s legs were zapped.

Bakugou massaged all of his throbbing limbs with an ice pack that some worker in the gym had lent him, wincing from all the pain that he had evidently accumulated from all those runs up the treadmill.

The feel of a water bottle connecting to his face still caused him to instinctively jump out of the bench, and he glowered at the offender—-Kurokawa.

“Fuck!”

Embarrassingly, Bakugou fell to a heap on the ground just from the mere act of standing on his own two feet.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, Bakugou,” Kurokawa quickly walked over to assist the blond, helping him up to sit on the bench again before handing him the water bottle. “Here, have a drink.”

He wasn’t aware how parched his body was until he actually had the water up his mouth, resulting in him drinking the liquid greedily as if he had never had any access to water for months.

“It’s all my fault,” Kurokawa looked like a kicked puppy with his head crouched down in front of Bakugou. “I shouldn’t have let you push yourself this hard. Maybe it was a bad idea to head to the gym in the first pla– wahh, Bakugou, what the heck?”

His quirk had activated on its own, small explosions now popping from his wearied palms, attracting some bystanders’ attention who were now unabashedly whispering amongst each other about this new development.

“Stop fuckin’ blaming yourself for this,” Bakugou growled, not paying the bystanders any mind, though he did diffuse his own explosions in order to poke Kurokawa on his forehead. “I was the one responsible for my own body, and I fuckin’ overdid it, so it ain’t your fault. Got it?”

Kurokawa blinked, gawking like a fish before he brightened up from his previous kicked puppy state. “Got it.”

Just as he was about to lean back and relish in the victory of restoring the dumbass back into his happy go lucky self, his body was suddenly scooped up, and he squawked at that, thrashing in Kurokawa’s grip. “W-What the hell, idiot? Put me down!”

“No can do,” Kurokawa stated resolutely, making it clear from his voice and expression that his mind wouldn’t be so easily changed on this. “You couldn’t walk on your own, so I’m helping you. I did offer you my services when we first met, remember? And besides, I can’t allow you to harm your body any further.”

“You corny fucker,” Though it was shameful for him to be carried the way he was, Bakugou knew that the other man had a point, so he relented, ceasing in his squirming. “Fine, do as you wish.”

“Gladly!”

```

After they had both finished getting changed, they were now on their way home, and Bakugou reluctantly gave Kurokawa his consent, allowing the man to carry him to their apartment building.

This time, however, it was piggyback style, and Bakugou was finding it much less mortifying than how Kurokawa had carried him before.

The walk home was quiet, and Bakugou’s thoughts wandered over to the man whose back he was riding on, noting the well toned muscles, and one questioned popped into his mind—

What kind of quirk does Kurokawa have?

“Eh, no, I don’t have a quirk.”

The answer to his question came not even a second later from the man himself, and Bakugou blushed at that, realizing that he had voiced his thoughts aloud.

The blush soon disappeared the more he pondered on the answer that he received, his eyes widening in surprise the more his mind tried catching up to the newfound revelation of Kurokawa being quirkless.

“But you spotted Smiley from afar like you had some superpower bullshit?” Bakugou pressed on, unknowingly fisting onto the back of Kurokawa’s t-shirt. “And you have those sharp ass teeth?”

“Oh, well, the vision thing is um—it’s more of an acquired skill than anything else,” Kurokawa stopped walking to look over his shoulder, making eye contact with a perplexed Bakugou. “And, about my teeth, I know this might be hard to believe, but they’re actually a genetic trait passed down from my parents who are also quirkless.”

In their society, most odd physical changes to their appearance was due to a quirk which was why he had his eyebrow arched in suspicion, but he decided to give the man the benefit of his own doubt.

Kurokawa knew himself the most out of everyone in this universe, after all, and there were stranger anomalies anyway than genetic shark teeth for quirkless people.

“Speaking of which, your quirk is amazing, man,” Kurokawa commented, drawing the blond out of his reverie. “Explosions are always so cool, and it’s awesome that you could make them on your own.”

There were plenty of things that he could call his quirk after all that had happened, but ‘amazing’ was far from it.

Maybe, in the now seemingly distant past, it could be deemed as such, but there was no way in hell it could be that called now especially considering how he couldn’t even make explosions as big as fireballs on most days anymore.

Heck, he would be lucky to even make explosions nowadays.

To put it simply, his glory days were over and behind him.

At that moment, he was never more thankful that Kurokawa couldn’t see his face because just thinking of that sad yet harsh reality had him blinking away tears which threatened to spill, and one stubborn tear did in fact slip, cascading down Bakugou’s cheek like a bee clamoring for honey.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to play along every once in a while for the sake of a childhood dream. “Yeah, it is.”

Chapter Text

Moving around that next day was next to impossible with his legs still being uncooperative as fuck, forcing Bakugou to send a message to Kurokawa beforehand, letting the guy know that he had no intention of opening the noodle shop for today.

The shop was already struggling to stay afloat as it was, so he knew that taking the day off was certainly putting it more at risk of closing down.

After all, the shop’s finances had taken quite a dent from the whole alleyway attack incident wherein he had lost out on over a week’s amount in terms of sales.

But, at the same time, he didn’t exactly have any other choice right now with how he was basically rendered a sitting duck and all that shit.

Bakugou casted a glare down at his useless legs, running an ice pack over them as he cursed his shitty decision making skills, knowing that he should have known better.

Shitty actions were always guaranteed to also come with their corresponding consequences as well, and life made sure that he would know that harsh truth very well.

Thus, it was really dumb of him to have done what he did during that workout session, and he had no one to blame but himself for cranking up the speed of the treadmill so recklessly like that.

The sound of his doorbell going off shook Bakugou out of his self loathing, and he shakily got up to his feet with the full intention of telling whoever it was at that door to fuck off, being in no mood at all to any entertain any guests.

Once he had finished hobbling over to his door, he tore it open forcefully, and rolled his eyes to the back of his head upon finding out who dared to bother him on his day off—

A happy go lucky looking Kurokawa with Smiley in his arms.

“Of fuckin’ course it’s you,” Feeling his knees were now threatening to give out on him, Bakugou leant his weight against the doorframe. “What do you want now? I thought I already told you that there’s no work today, so why do you even need to show up here?”

“Um, well, I just wanted to check up on you, bro,” Kurokawa said, crouching down slightly to set Smiley down from his hold. “Are you sure you’re alright walking around like that? Here, lemme help you.”

He hadn’t even had the time to step out of the way before Kurokawa swept his now trembling legs out from under him, carrying him in his arms bridal style.

“Oi, let me down!” Bakugou looped his arms around Kurokawa’s neck instinctively, unwinding one of them to bonk the other on the head. “Stop making it your habit to just pick me up whenever you want, dumbass!”

Kurokawa stopped walking momentarily to gaze down at him, giving him an innocent look. “Eh, but I like carrying you, though?”

Bakugou huffed, flicking Kurokawa on the forehead before he averted his eyes, not even looking at the man who was holding him. “Well, I don’t, so knock it the fuck off !”

Instead of apologizing sheepishly and adhering to what the blond had said, Kurokawa had a teasing smirk on his face as if he was privy to something Bakugou didn’t know. “Sure ya don’t.”

“S-Shut the fuck up!” Bakugou thundered, but he reluctantly accepted his current position though not without throwing one punch to Kurokawa’s chest. “Just get me to the couch already. I don’t have all day!”

“Aye, aye!”

```

Bakugou had to admit that Kurokawa’s presence in his apartment hadn’t been that bad so far as he kept his annoying antics to a minimum, attention fixated on playing with Smiley throughout the hour that he had shown up unannounced.

At least that was the case until Smiley acted up, hopping out of Kurokawa’s grasp to totter his way to Bakugou’s lap all too abruptly.

Smiley stared up at Bakugou with pleading eyes, so the blond gave in, running his hands through the cat’s fur.

The feline responded in kind, letting out soft mewls to which Bakugou couldn’t help his mouth from breaking out into a small smile, his hands now roaming to pet Smiley behind his ears.

He only remembered that he wasn’t alone when he heard the faint sound of chuckling, and he turned around to see Kurokawa eyeing him in a stupidly sappy manner as if the man was watching some cheesy pet film.

There was something about that expression which made Bakugou feel unnerved, and he raised his free hand up, sending Kurokawa a middle finger. “Quit looking at me like that.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Kurokawa threw his hands up in the air in surrender, bursting into laughter. “It’s just, you’re very being very cute right now that I couldn’t help myself.”

Bakugou found himself basically startled to silence just from hearing what the raven had said, running them over and over in his head.

Cute, what the fuck?

Could it be–

Could it be that Kurokawa was flirting with him?

Just as quickly as that suggestion popped up, Bakugou shoved it away, realizing that he was getting ahead of himself.

After all, he had been nothing but an asshole to the man the whole time since they met, and not to mention…

Nothing about him was even remotely romanceable anyway.

“You’re pushing it, dumbass,” Bakugou hissed, his cheeks burning red at the almost flirtatious remark from his neighbor. “I really oughta fucking kill you.”

Kurokawa propped an arm up, laying his face on it and then he was winking at Bakugou. “Go ahead then.”

Snatching one of the pillows lying around the couch, Bakugou hurled it towards Kurokawa with no remorse. “With fucking pleasure.”

“Ouch, you wound me,” Kurokawa swatted the pillow off with his hand before it could connect. “But then again, I think it’s one of your strong points that I liked.”

Those words only earned him another pillow to the face, and this time, it had hit his intended target without a hitch.

```

Soon afterward, Kurokawa took helm of the kitchen, paying no heed to Bakugou’s protests as he insisted on making lunch for them both.

Though he wasn’t quite sure whether or not to trust the man’s skills in the kitchen, Bakugou was in no shape to take over, so he simply allowed Kurokawa to do whatever his heart desired.

Besides, even if he was in any state to walk, he couldn’t do anything anyway with Smiley keeping him hostage.

The cat had moved from his lap, hugging tightly onto Bakugou’s arm, and not even the noodle chef had it within himself to disrupt it from its perch.

Fuck.

This ain’t good.

He seemed to be becoming really attached to Smiley, and the feline ain’t even his to keep which only made it all the more wrong.

Still, in spite of how wrong it was, Bakugou still made no move to disentangling himself out of Smiley’s grip, letting the cat have his way with him.

“You guys seem to be getting along well, huh?”

Before the blond could even blink, Kurokawa was now standing before him, and he was shoving a plate of omelets into his unoccupied arm. “Here you go, I wasn’t sure what you liked, but my friends always told me that my omelets were always the dish that I make best.”

Bakugou gawked at the plate that he had been presented with, noting the tumultuous whiff emanating from the dish as well as how the eggs looked like they were cooked to perfection.

He was forcibly dragged out of his state of gawking when a spoonful of omelet was suddenly thrusted into his mouth courtesy of an enthusiastic Kurokawa, causing him to nearly choke as he was caught off guard, and he swiftly scrambled to swallow.

Bakugou opened his mouth to tell the bastard off for almost causing him to choke when the flavors of what he had just eaten caught up to him, and he almost fucking died for a different reason this time around.

Because, fuck, the omelet tasted amazing like it was cooked by someone who was a professional chef instead server and wait a damn fucking minute—

“How come you’re just a server when you could cook this goddamn well?” His curiosity won over, and that was when it was really confirmed to him that he knew next to nothing about the raven who was very much a mystery.”Your skills are seriously wasted just being a server.”

“Well, if it helps, I can assure you that I don’t mind being a server,” Kurokawa threw a wink towards his boss’ way. “I got the opportunity to work with you, and it’s been super fun so far.”

A surge of heat shot forward to encompass Bakugou’s face, and he punched the raven lightly on the arm in his flustered state. “Y-You’re so fuckin’ stupid.”

“Hehe, but at least you liked the food,” Kurokawa smiled, unbothered by his neighbor’s violence. “So, I take it that this makes up for the whole treadmill. I still wanna apologize for that by the way.”

“Idiot, like I said, it was never your damn fault,” Bakugou admitted, his blush not tapering even by the slightest bit much to his dismay. “But, yeah… It fucking does, I guess.”

“Ooh, nice, glad to hear!”

Chapter Text

Bakugou stared at his reflection through the mirror of his bathroom, running his hands around the bandage which had been slapped on his neck since the day of the attack.

Enough time had passed for his wound to be healed, and he no longer had any use for any sort of dressing, so he was now about to both literally and metaphorically rip the bandage off of his neck.

He counted down from three to one on the top of his head before he pulled, peeling it off cautiously so as to not cause any unnecessary pain.

And, reflected from the looking-glass, Bakugou saw it crystal clear—

A huge ass pink diagonal scar.

While it was obvious how he wouldn’t come out of the ambush incident completely unscathed, his heart still lurched painfully in repulse just from seeing that nasty scar, unwittingly reaching one of his hands up to scratch at it.

Weak.

He was so fuckin’ inexcusably weak.

Without him even noticing it, tears gathered around the corners of his eyes, dripping down his cheeks, and the skin around the scar was turning red, the pain from the scratches now becoming somewhat apparent as he hissed.

Acting quickly, he dabbed some paper towels with water from the faucet, running it over the fresh wound before he grabbed the soap, cleaning the skin around his scar with it.

Once he deemed it to be cleaned enough, he applied some petroleum jelly into the scratches, covering the spot of his neck with a fresh set of bandages.

Bakugou brightened instantly at that, his tears coming to a still as he realized regardless of how the scratches had stung like hell, he would have an excuse to keep his scar hidden from anyone’s prying eyes just for a while longer.

Thus, with that, he strutted out of the bathroom somewhat contentedly, satisfied with putting the new discovery of his scar to the back of his head at least for now considering that it was once again bandaged up.

```

Upon stepping his way inside his noodle shop, Bakugou was immediately met with a happy looking Kurokawa.

“Morning, Bakugou!” Kurokawa greeted his boss with a beaming smile. “I see that you could now walk around with no issues again?”

“ ‘Must suck for you, huh?” Bakugou sneered, already reading his employee’s mind. “You no longer have an excuse to pick me up like a shitty ass princess all the time.”

Kurokawa pouted at that, predictably disappointed with this newfound revelation, but then he was directing upon a teasing smirk at Bakugou. “Hmm, but I bet that you will miss it too, though.”

“F-Fuck no, I won’t!” Bakugou sputtered, heat rushing over to his cheeks, and he was now only mere seconds away from chucking the scarf that he had just unwound onto Kurokawa’s face. “You’re fucking delusional for even thinking that!”

At that, Kurokawa simply remained smug as he winked at Bakugou, oozing confidence all over. “Sure I am.”

“Fuck you!”

And with that, Bakugou turned around to clumsily hang his scarf on the rack before he stomped off, not even bothering to engage Kurokawa in this pointless conversation.

Because, seriously, all the raven haired guy wanted to do was mess with him with this almost flirting thing, so there wasn’t any use in even entertaining this ‘joke’.

```

It was a busy lunch hour, but so far, they had managed to get all the customers fed without any problems.

There were currently about four orders due to come up at the same time, and Bakugou was working to the best of his ability to keep up.

He was working on slicing the beef for one of the orders when he noticed the increasing number of stares being drilled towards his way, causing him to turn the stove and stop cooking for a while in bewilderment.

Upon further inspection, it would appear that Kurokawa was the main cause of why there was now a ruckus seeing as the man was crouched on the ground next to one of the trash cans, seemingly searching for something there, and not doing his job as the server.

“Idiot, what the fuck are you doing?” Bakugou called out from the kitchen, peering through the open hatch window. “Don’t you have customers to attend to?”

Kurokawa turned his head around to regard the blond with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that, Bakugou, I'll be getting back to them now. I just um….got a little distracted looking for my ring since it was missing, and I had no idea where it could be.”

His eyes flitted over automatically to examine the other’s left hand wherein a silver studded ring normally rests on its ring finger, and a flurry of astonishment crept up within Bakugou at that.

The chances of Kurokawa losing a whole ass ring appeared highly improbable considering how the man wouldn't even go a second without it.

Hell, it annoyed Bakugou to no end that his employee had once stubbornly refused to listen to his advice with regards to waiting tables, choosing to instead wear gloves as opposed to simply just removing the jewelry.

Thus, it was unmistakably clear plain as day that this ring was something that Kurokawa held so dearly in his heart.

Before he knew it, his nosy side was getting the better of him as he started considering the possibility of the jewelry being some sort of heirloom that was passed down by the Kurokawa family.

Loud shrieks of surprise reverberated from the walls of the dining room, pushing him to step out of the kitchen in order to check out the ruckus, and his carmine orbs instantly widened upon seeing Kurokawa soaking wet, raven hair now mussed with what looked to be leftover ramen.

“Oi, leave us the hell alone,” Bakugou commanded the annoying ass people crowding around Kurokawa, and they thankfully listened to the order, giving him the privacy to tend to his now beetroot red employee as he wiped the guy down with the use of some extra napkins. “Dumbass, what the fuck is up with you? It’s not like you to just drop stuff so carelessly, so fucking spill it, what’s the damn problem here?”

Kurokawa winced, brushing away some strands of noodle from his head as he floundered for an answer to Bakugou’s question. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to be so klutzy, I was just um-It’s well, the ring-”

One single mention of the ring was enough to give Bakugou an inkling of why the raven was so distracted, and he groaned at that. “Head home.”

“Eh?”

There wasn’t any use in forcing someone to work when their heart and mind was obviously not in the game, so Bakugou didn’t even have any second thoughts when making his next decision. “Go clean up, and rest at home. I can take it from here just for today.”

“N-No, I can’t do that,” Kurokawa protested, already moving to stand from the puddle of soup he happened to be sitting on. “It’s my job to help–”

“Just fuckin’ let me help you,” Bakugou choked out, glowering at the raven. “You’ve helped me when I was struggling back then, so it should only be fair for me to do the same, you asshole.”

Kurokawa visibly stilled in response, seemingly fighting some type of internal battle within himself before he nodded, smiling shakily at Bakugou. “O-Okay, I guess I’m under your care for today then, Bakugou.”

Pink snaked its way over to decorate Bakugou cheeks, noting the particularly endearing manner in which Kurokawa had been smiling at him. “I-It’s only this once, so you better not get used to it!”

“Got it!”

```

He had forgotten just how stressful it was to handle a shift on his own without any extra assistance, and it was damn fucking exhausting as fuck.

Thankfully, though, he was nearly home, so it was only a matter of time that he could decompress for the night and freshen up.

However, little did he know, the universe had other plans for him as it turned out, and he hadn’t even realized that until he heard a voice murmuring into his ear just as he was walking straight down the back of an abandoned building. “Wow, so you really did make it out of that attack alive, huh?”

Just hearing that one sentence was enough to keep him rooted to the asphalt, and a series of flashy snippets of the said incident played right before his eyes, spurring about chills to course through his veins from head to toe.

Fuck.

Was he about to go through that same shit again?

While keeping him pinned against the stony walls of that building, one of the bastard’s hands moved about sneakily to rip the bandage out of the blond’s neck. “That’s some scar you got there. It’s too bad that I’ll soon be adding another one alongside it.”

The threat successfully knocked the self-induced paralysis off of Bakugou’s system, and he turned around, coming face to face with a man wearing some shitty balaclava mask.

He lunged at the man with the strongest possible explosions that his damaged quirk could muster, striking his perpetrator right on the face.

“Oww, they really are right when they said that you’re one persistent asshole,” The masked bastard clicked his tongue in annoyance, his sadistic eyes now taking on an amused glint. “But this should make everything much more fun.”

Not liking the sound of those words, the blond decided to make a run for it, but before he could even try lifting a foot, the man laid one of his hands against the surface of Bakugou’s scar, unleashing some powdery like substance into it.

At once, drowsiness struck Bakugou like a high speed train, and he realized that was most certainly done for as his brain’s focus was now shot at, leaving him vulnerable to whatever the mask bastard had schemed.

Unfortunately, the noodle chef’s fears were proven to be correct when his perpetrator acted on his next course of action which had involved fishing a knife out from his pants pocket.

Once again just like that time in the alleyway, he was left powerless, but there was really nothing Bakugou could do as he fought against the spell of sleep which had been appeared to be cast onto him, and his vision was giving out on him faster than he could even blink.

Blearily, he could make out the shine of the knife as it inched closer to his neck, failing to make contact when that same stony hardened fist Bakugou thought he saw from the alleyway incident appeared out of nowhere, saving him just as it did before.

Strands of jet black hair were the last thing his eyes had identified before they sealed completely shut, and a sea of darkness had awaited him.

Chapter Text

The obnoxiously searing rays of heat stirred Bakugou awake, tearing light into the sea of darkness that he had been plunged into.

He groggily sat up, lifting a hand to rub the last bits of sleepiness from his eyes as he turned his head around, taking in his surroundings.

From his left, his eyes registered a very familiar desk that he identified as his own, and the recipe books stacked atop it only confirmed his suspicions.

He was in his room

“Ah, you’re awake.”

Bakugou jolted slightly, but his eyes followed the direction of where the voice came from, eventually landing on Kurokawa’s approaching form.

“W-What the fuck is going on?” Bakugou choked out, bits of fogginess still blurring out his memories. “I was walking back home, and then I got attacked. But ugh fuck, I couldn’t remember what happened after that. How the hell did I even escape from that bastard?”

“Hey, take it easy there,” Kurokawa was by his boss’ side within minutes, laying a comforting hand on one of his shoulders. “It wouldn’t do you good to freak out when you just regained consciousness after the whole thing.”

The tension cloaking around Bakugou’s body eased considerably upon hearing Kurokawa’s supportive words before he flicked his head up to the side rapidly, realizing something. “Wait, were you the one who took me home? I mean you’re here right now, and I think I saw someone with black hair before I fuckin’ passed out?”

Kurokawa dropped his hand from Bakugou’s shoulder so quickly as if it were burned, regarding the blond with a look akin to bafflement before he responded, nodding somewhat hesitantly. “Um, yeah, I took you home.”

His jaw dropped stupidly, not believing his own ears for a second there, and then he was looking at Kurokawa with an unrestrained glint of awe shining in his eyes. “You-what…H-how the hell did you learn to fight like that?”

“Oh, I took some self defense classes,” Kurokawa answered with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “Since I’m quirkless, I don’t really have any means of defending myself. It’s why I decided to compensate by learning some forms of martial arts.”

Bakugou could barely even contain his amazement at this point, his eyes glimmering with fascination dancing through his ruby red irises. “That’s fuckin’ amazing!”

“W-What, no, it’s nothing really all that special, I swear!” Red rushed over to Kurokawa painting his face a cherry hue. “There are millions of other people who could do self defense than I did.”

Growing more and more annoyed by the other man’s self-deprecation, one of Bakugou’s hands shot out, punching Kurokawa on his arm. “Dumbass, don’t sell yourself short!”

“Ouch!” Kurokawa rubbed the spot on his arm which Bakugou had hit, leveling the blond a confused look. “I was only telling the truth though. What I did really wasn’t all that special, and–”

“You saved me, you idiot!” Bakugou rebutted, glowering at Kurokawa to make it known that he was standing his ground with his opinion. “That’s fuckin’ worth somethin’ especially since I couldn’t even save myself and fuck-”

“Bakugou, is everything okay?”

At first, Bakugou was bewildered as to why Kurokawa had asked him that question until he realized that his vision was now obscured, and beads of hot salty liquid were cascading down from his eyes.

“F-Fuck, shit, I don’t know what came over me there,” Bakugou dipped his head down, keeping it averted from Kurokawa’s prying eyes which were now swimming with worry. “I guess I’m just tired of how useless I am. This is actually the second time that shitty masked bastard had attacked me, and I couldn’t even do anything to defend myself both times.”

Kurokawa wrapped both of his arms around the blond’s quivering body, bringing him close to his own chest. “Hey, please don’t feel like that, I hate seeing someone so strong being all broken down like that.”

“S-Strong?” Bakugou repeated that word in puzzlement before laughing aloud moments later, finding the mere irony of what Kurokawa was saying to be almost funny. “You could say anything you want about me, but ‘strong’ ain’t even close to what I am.”

“Huh, what, but it’s true,” Kurokawa drew himself back from the embrace a little to frown at Bakugou. “You’re so unbelievably strong, Bakugou. Not everyone could survive two attacks like that, and still have the strength to look forward to tomorrow.”

“What’s the fucking point though?” Bakugou barked out with a scoff. “Sure, you could say that I’m still fuckin’ surviving and whatever, but I am still as useless as an unarmed child at this point. I couldn’t even defend myself, and had to be saved like a damsel both times.”

“Maybe this is just my personal opinion, but I don’t see anything wrong with having to be saved,” Kurokawa stated, reaching one of his thumbs to roam around Bakugou’s tear soaked left cheek, caressing it lightly. “Because no matter what, I’m here for you…. Like I said before, my services are always available, so I will make sure to be there to save you no matter what.”

Bakugou was at a loss for words for what was most likely a long nearly immeasurable amount of time as he took in what Kurokawa had told him before his mouth regained the ability to speak, voicing out a fraction of the wild emotions currently swirling in his mind. “I know you’ve got your own fuckin’ reasons for wanting to provide your service and shit, but I wonder are you really gaining somethin’ out from helping me?”

“I am,” Kurokawa said with the utmost certainty in his tone. “I like seeing people happy, and you’re no exception, so I’m definitely gaining something from it.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes upon hearing Kurokawa’s answer which was so Kurokawa at the same time. “Tch, well if you say so. By the way, how did you even know that I was in trouble anyway?”

“Um, well, about that, I actually decided to go back to the shop after you sent me home,” Kurokawa admitted with a chuckle. “I couldn’t bear to leave that ring behind, so I went back to search for it, and it just so happened that I was on my way to the shop when I saw that guy cornering you.”

“That’s some crazy ass coincidence right there,” Bakugou commented, wiping at his eyes which were now sore from all of that crying. “But thanks, I guess I owe you one again, huh.”

“Nah, you don’t have to worry about that,” Kurokawa shook his head at the blond, shutting down that idea instantly. “You don’t have to feel like you owe me something. I didn’t save you for the goal of you feeling like you’re in my debt, after all.”

Bakugou was once again left silent for a while following Kurokawa’s word until he muttered out silently, staring down into his own hands. “Okay, whatever, that’s good to know I guess. I’d hate to be in the debt of anyone.”

“Hmm, yeah, good for you then,” Kurokawa rose from his spot on the bed, making a move to leave the blond’s room. “I’ll go fix you up something to eat. You need to get something into your stomach, so wait here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bakugou grunted, lying back down on the bed. “Do whatever the hell you want.”

“Cool, I’ll just cook us both something up real quick then!”

```

They were now sharing a meal together down in Bakugou’s living room, eating the fried chicken Kurokawa up made in companionable silence.

But that was until Bakugou allowed the tiny remnants of curiosity to influence him, pushing him to break that silence. “Oi.”

“Hm?” Kurokawa asked, flitting his eyes up from the piece of fried chicken that he was holding in his chopsticks. “What is it?”

“So, whatever happened to that ring you’ve been looking for?” Bakugou questioned, getting straight into the root of his curiosity. “You seemed pretty fucking desperate to find it, so did you find it or what?”

“Oh, yeah, I actually found it while stopping by the shop after the attack,” Kurokawa claimed with visible relief in his voice, rummaging through his pockets for the ring that he held up within Bakugou’s peripheral for the blond to see. “I was lucky that it wasn’t completely lost, I saw it wedged between some floorboards which explained why I didn’t notice it earlier while searching.”

“Well, ain’t that fuckin’ comforting to know,” Bakugou grumbled, choosing to voice out another thing that piqued his interest. “But what I don’t get is why you’re so attached to that ring. Is it an heirloom or somethin’?”

“I wouldn’t call it an heirloom, but I’d say that you’re right though,” Kurokawa responded, his expression turning grave. “This ring is something that’s really important to me, and I can’t afford to lose it.”

By the looks of it, it was blatantly obvious that Kurokawa was concealing the whole truth from him, but Bakugou held himself back from pointing that fact out, knowing that everyone was entitled to their own secrets.

And, who knows, maybe there would come a time Bakugou would eventually discover whatever it was that Kurokawa was hiding.

After all, some people do say that all secrets weren’t meant to be kept hidden….

“Wait, I’ve got an idea.”

The sound of elation in Kurokawa’s tone brought Bakugou out of his thoughts, and he pushed the subject of his employee’s ring to the back of his mind.

“What idea?” Bakugou groused out with an arched brow. “From that face you’ve got there, I’m starting to wonder it’s somethin’ fuckin’ devious, so I’m not sure if I’ll like what you’re about to spout out.”

“It’s nothing too bad, I promise,” Kurokawa held his hands up in defense, promising Bakugou that he meant no harm. “I was just thinking—do you think you’re up for the idea of me teaching you some self defense moves? I mean you were raising some concerns about not being able to defend yourself, so it might be good if I help you train.”

Bakugou considered what Kurokawa had proposed, and quickly came to his decision without any hesitance whatsoever. “Fine, I’m up for some damn training.”

“Thanks for being open to the idea,” Kurokawa gave his boss a thumbs up in approval. “You’ll make great strides in your progress after training with me, so you won’t regret agreeing to this, I promise!”

“We’ll fuckin’ see about that…”