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In hindsight, perhaps Denki should not have chugged that last shot of suspicious-looking orange liquid.
“Bro!” said Kirishima, clapping him on the shoulder, and Denki almost fell over. His natural clumsiness coupled with alcohol was never a good combination.
“Dude,” replied Denki, grabbing the table for balance, and then he gave up the fight and let himself topple. Kirishima, like a good bro, caught him before he slammed head-first onto the hardwood floor. Denki gurgled as Kirishima hoisted him upright.
Kirishima just looked amused. His cheeks were bright red; not from his own sips of alcohol, but from the blush that Denki had painted on them thirty minutes? an hour ago? some time in the past. He patted Denki on the back and then hoisted him over his shoulder. It was a very well-muscled shoulder, but Denki’s stomach did not appreciate the movement.
“I think it’s time for bed,” Kirishima said cheerfully. He was hatefully sober. It was entirely unfair; it wasn’t as though either of them drank a lot, but Denki was somehow much more of a lightweight.
“Ugh,” moaned Denki. His eyes crossed at the dark fabric of Kirishima’s shirt that was swaying in front of his nose as Kirishima walked. There was also something else swaying. “Thicc,” Denki whispered reverently as he eyed the ass cheeks just out of reach.
“Is he okay?” came a distant, familiar voice. The person sounded concerned. Denki couldn’t remember why he liked that.
Kirishima laughed. “He’s fine! I’m just taking him to his room now. He forgot how to stand up.”
The person moved closed, and then nimble fingers slipped a piece of paper into one of Denki’s tight pockets. Denki caught a whiff of something delightfully sharp and spicy before they moved away again. “He wanted my number, so…”
“I’m sure he’ll text you!” Kirishima chirped, and then they were moving again. Denki groaned and closed his eyes, his stomach roiling enough that he couldn’t even appreciate Kirishima’s assets so close to him. Usually, he’d be flirting with his bro as much as he could. Damn this alcohol.
Sounds and scents blurred around him, and then suddenly he was being lowered into his bed, the blankets enveloping him comfortingly. His shoes were tugged off and then his favourite stuffed rabbit placed into his arms. Denki blinked blearily up at Kirishima, whose hair was drooping from its usual spikes.
“Thanks,” he said, or thought he said, and Kirishima grinned at him.
“I’m going to put a bucket, painkiller, and water by your bed,” said Kirishima. “Good night!”
Denki distantly remembered something about Bakugou and how Kirishima had texted him earlier that night. “Have fun with Bakugou,” he tried to joke, although his eyes desperately wanted to close, and was pleased when Kirishima’s face dusted red.
“Shut up,” grumbled Kirishima, and slapped a pillow over Denki’s face. Denki laughed, despite the darkness. “Go to sleep! You’d better be glad it’s a Sunday tomorrow.”
“Ugh,” said Denki again, and finally closed his eyes. He heard his door clicking shut somewhere, and then he drifted off to sleep, head and thoughts whirling as he clutched his stuffed animal to his chest.
Denki woke up with a start, eyes crossed and mouth parched. His stomach wasn’t protesting, thankfully, but his head still pounded as he stared up unblinkingly at the ceiling. Memories from last night swirled confusingly in his mind, and it was hard to focus on any certain one.
He stumbled from bed and forced himself to drain the water on his bed, then he dragged off his shirt and too-tight jeans and fell back into bed. It was only as he was wrapping himself back up in his blankets that he caught sight of the slip of paper on the floor that had fallen from his pocket when he’d struggled out of his jeans.
His head spun sickeningly when he leaned over the side of the bed to snag it, but he’d gotten worse in training, so he persevered, and finally, his fingers caught on the paper.
Unfolding it, he could only blink uncomprehendingly.
Text me. 4359-2348.
No name or identifier of any kind. He was still too drunk to properly investigate the type of handwriting, so he tossed the paper in the general direction of his desk and hoped it landed somewhere he could find it later.
The party last night had just consisted of Class 1-A, so that would narrow it down a little. Well, it would narrow it down a lot; Denki already had the numbers of most of the class. He was in group chats with almost all of them.
Who could it be, then?
“Does Iida know?” Sero whispered harshly as Ashido carefully tipped a slender bottle over the bowl of punch on the kitchen counter. Clear liquid chugged forth, and she quickly stirred it into the red punch.
“Shh,” Ashido demanded. Bottle emptied, she handed it to Hagakure, who stuffed it into her book bag. “Of course he doesn’t know, he’d be over here yelling at me. Uraraka and Kirishima are distracting him.”
Denki rubbed his hands together gleefully, eyeing the now-spiked bowl of punch. “This is good, this is very good. We just can’t let him drink any of it.”
It had been Ashido’s plan from the beginning, but it hadn’t been hard to convince the others. She knew who to target, after all, and had easily roped in Hagakure, Sero, Denki, Uraraka, Kirishima, and a few others. Denki was pretty sure that everyone knew at this point, with the way that the gossip spread here.
“This is such a good idea,” said Ashido, stirring once more and then leaning back on her heels with hands propped triumphantly on her hips. She surveyed the class, various people scattered throughout the common area and doing their own things. “Alright, let’s get this party started! Jirou, you’re our music! Aoyama and Kaminari, hit the lights. Sero, start up the TV so we can get some games going.”
They scattered, ready and able to do her bidding. Ashido was, after all, the queen of parties.
“Do you think she actually meant to hit the lights?” Denki asked Aoyama as they headed for the array of switches that controlled the common area’s lighting.
“Non,” Aoyama said, tapping a finger against his chin thoughtfully. “I believe it was a metaphor, mon ami. Let us just turn off the switches.”
They did so. Cries of protest echoed throughout the room, mostly from the few people who were actually doing their homework.
“We’re having a party!” Ashido called over everyone. “Come on, it’s time to relax a little! It’s Friday night and we deserve it! You have two more entire days to do homework.”
Although Denki very much doubted that he would use those two days to do anything other than his English assignments.
“Wait, Kami,” said Kirishima, appearing beside him with a handful of chip bags. Denki eyed the potato chips and determined to get them, one way or another. “What time is it?”
Denki yanked his phone from his pocket and eyed the time. “It’s almost eight.” He swiped at his dozens of notifications, electing to ignore them for the time. “Why?”
“Aww.” Kirishima slumped. “Means Bakubro’s not going to party with us.”
Snorting, Denki shoved his phone back into his pocket and stole the bag of potato chips from Kirishima. “As if he’d do it anyway. He probably doesn’t even drink alcohol.”
“He doesn’t,” Kirishima said morosely. “And he doesn’t like parties.”
Denki patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck with that, bro. I’m gonna go help Jirou set up her aux cords.” He winked and finger-gunned at Kirishima. “Wish me luck.”
Kirishima just laughed at him. Rude.
“How much alcohol did you bring?” Denki asked Hagakure sometime later, eyeing the bottles piled in her bag.
She might have shrugged, but he couldn’t be sure. She was wearing a strapless shirt, so it was hard to tell. “My parents don’t really keep track of our drinks, so when I went home last weekend, I just grabbed whatever they wouldn’t miss. How much have you had?”
Denki couldn’t quite remember. “I had some punch…and a shot of that red cinnamon stuff…and some more punch?”
“Do you feel drunk?” Uraraka questioned him curiously. She was sitting on the other side of him on the couch, cheeks even brighter than normal from the drink she was sipping.
Denki poked himself in the cheek. His finger sparked against his face and it buzzed pleasantly. “Huh. Not too much, I think.”
An uproar came from the general vicinity of the kitchen. Sero and Kirishima were cheering on Satou, who was spreading frosting across cupcakes with the speed of a master baker. The faster he went, the louder Sero and Kirishima got. Satou was clearly flustered from the attention, but he was grinning helplessly, hands a blur over the purple confectionaries.
“Oh my god, cupcakes,” Denki breathed. He hauled himself to his feet, almost tripping over Hagakure’s legs, and navigated through the group - Tsuyu, Shoji, and Ojirou - sitting in a circle playing some sort of card game. Ojirou was turning out to be quite the player, with his stack of winnings before him.
He almost tripped again when Jirou, who was leaning up against the wall, earphones in and head bent over her phone as she queued up the next song to play in the speakers distributed around the room, glanced up at him. She almost smiled, Denki swore. Almost.
He grinned back at her, but his attention was drawn abruptly away when someone yanked on his arm.
“Kaminari,” Ashido hissed urgently. “It worked!”
“Wha - ?”
She tugged on Denki’s arm and he stumbled, but then he recovered his feet and followed her. She dragged him around the other couch and near the table where Iida, Midoriya, Todoroki, and Tokoyami were discussing something too quiet for him to hear. Then, she pointed.
Denki followed her line of sight and he blinked, uncomprehending for a moment, and then he had to blink again because he did comprehend. “Ashido,” he hissed in the next instant, feeling soberer than he had even before he’d downed any alcohol.
Ashido cackled. “I invited him!”
“I can see that.” Denki eyed the newcomer, all long legs and crossed arms and tired eyes as he leaned against the doorframe and talked quietly to Yaoyorozu. Denki bolstered his courage. “I’m gonna go talk to him,” he declared.
Ashido patted his shoulder. “Go for it, lover-boy!” she encouraged, a little too loudly for Denki’s taste. Iida glanced over at them, eyes narrowed. He had been getting very suspicious indeed with the way everyone had been becoming loose and sometimes wobbly with the alcohol for the past hour, but so far he hadn’t checked the punch. Midoriya and Todoroki were doing an excellent job distracting him.
Denki started confidently across the floor toward their visitor, eyes locked on him. So maybe he had a thing for purple. Who could blame him? It was a superior colour - next to yellow, of course.
Denki tripped over a bottle that had somehow escaped Hagakure’s bag and went sprawling. He landed heavily and groaned, then rolled over after a moment. Staring up at the ceiling, he reconsidered his life.
Ashido was howling with laughter somewhere in the background. She was the worst friend, even if she had invited Shinsou.
Over the speakers, another song started playing. Falling For You.
Aww, not Jirou, too. Denki let his head flop sideways and cast her a betrayed stare. She smiled back, waving an earphone jack in acknowledgement. Traitor.
Ugh, but she was so cute, too.
Denki decided just to lie there for a little longer.
“Want a cupcake?” Kirishima asked maybe twenty minutes later, rescuing Denki from the card game that he’d just been dragged into. Denki gratefully dropped his shitty hand of cards and leapt to his feet.
“Good luck!” he told Uraraka, who had also been roped into playing but looked far more determined than Denki. She nodded but didn’t look up from her cards, eyes narrowed in determination. She had a disturbingly good poker face. Denki did not.
Denki followed Kirishima to the kitchen. “What kind of cupcakes?” he asked and then remembered that he had seen Satou icing them earlier. “Ooh, those purple ones? Hell yeah.”
“Yeah!” Kirishima agreed. He sidestepped Tsuyu as she carried two overfilled cups of the punch into the common area. “Satou made them with cream filling. They’re really good! Not as good as Bakugou’s,” he added hastily and looked around as if the blond was anywhere within hearing distance. He wasn’t; Denki hadn’t seen Bakugou once since this fiasco started. He was probably asleep.
Denki patted Kirishima on the shoulder. Well, he tried to; he missed and slapped Kirishima on the side of the head instead. Kirishima didn’t even seem to notice. “Bro, you need to go get your man,” he encouraged.
Kirishima didn’t reply. He took a cupcake from the platter on the kitchen counter and handed it to Denki. “Eat,” he ordered.
“Ooh, yum,” said Denki in delight, tugging the cupcake liner off. His mouth watered as he eyed it. Satou’s sweets were truly a marvel. He turned, gaze skimming the common area as he lifted the cupcake to his mouth, and then he stopped abruptly.
Jirou and Shinsou were sitting together on the couch, both heads bent over the iPod that Jirou held in one hand. Jirou said something and Shinsou nodded.
Denki whimpered. This wasn’t fair. His heart couldn’t take this anymore. Or, well, other parts of his body either.
“Kaminari!” Sero shouted from one of the other couches, where he was starting up a racing game. “Come play!”
In unison, Jirou and Shinsou glanced up and their gazes found Denki’s where he stood, halfway between the kitchen and the common area.
Pinned in their gazes, Denki lifted the cupcake to his mouth. His lips parted and his tongue swept across the rich purple frosting, but he was unable to look away from either of his purple-haired crushes. Jirou rolled her eyes and went back to her iPod. Shinsou’s eyes darkened.
“Hey bro, wanna go play Mario Kart?” Kirishima slapped him on the back.
Denki choked, spluttered, and dropped his cupcake. He made a noise that sounded something like, “HhhsfgAKJHGS.” He had not thought himself that drunk, but he was perhaps a lot drunker than he had considered if he was actually fellating a cupcake.
“You okay?” Kirishima asked, like a truly worried bro would.
Denki was too busy dying to actually appreciate his concern. “Hurghl,” he said, and threw himself behind the counter to avoid Shinsou’s now-amused stare.
The distant strains of music and raucous singing drifted over the counter where Denki, Kirishima, and Sero sat cross-legged on the smooth floor of the kitchen. They were surrounded by emptied cups, abandoned cupcake liners, and scattered makeup items and brushes.
“This isn’t going very well,” said Sero, thoughtfully tapping the end of a bronzer brush against his chin. He leaned forward the next instant and swept it across one of Kirishima’s cheeks. Sero had been convinced, after a win against Aoyama, to leave the racing game and hide in the kitchen with Denki and Kirishima.
They weren’t hiding very well; people were coming in and out of the kitchen on occasion to get more alcohol or cupcakes, but neither Shinsou nor Jirou had approached, so Denki was overall counting it as a win.
“I think it looks great,” Denki retorted, wielding his own mascara stick like a weapon. Kirishima obediently held still as Denki swayed toward his eyes, although if Denki had imbibed less alcohol he might have noticed the crystalline sheen to Kirishima’s eyes as he hardened them in anticipation.
“Oops,” said Denki the next instant when he stabbed Kirishima in the eye. Kirishima didn’t even blink.
“I’m good,” he said encouragingly. “Go ahead.” He looked a little like a clown, maybe, Denki considered, but a very cute clown. A very manly and impressive clown.
He told Kirishima as such. Kirishima laughed. “Thanks, bro.”
“Mina!” Sero yelled, and fluffy pink hair and yellow horns appeared over the counter a moment later. Sero held up another brush, confusion wrinkling his forehead. “What does this do?”
“That’s the eyeshadow brush.” Ashido pointed at him and then at Denki. “If you lose any of my pieces or mix anything up, then I’m going to do something terrible to you. Holes in all your clothes. Acid toothpaste.” With that, she vanished again, calling for the next karaoke song to be started. It sounded like Tsuyu was going to be singing this one.
It was unfair, Denki thought, that everyone else could hold their liquor so much better than he could.
“Has Bakugou said anything?” he asked Kirishima.
Kirishima swiped at his phone, bringing up a text conversation where he’d sent a few messages, urged on by Denki and Sero in the past ten or so minutes. “No,” he said, lips downturned. “But he’s…probably asleep, anyway.”
Denki dug in Ashido’s makeup bag until he found bright red lipstick. “Here,” he said, offering it to Kirishima. “This will make you feel better.”
As he’d hoped, Kirishima brightened. “Red!”
“I can put it on,” Sero volunteered.
Denki snatched the lipstick case back from Kirishima. “No, you do his eyes. Not the mascara. I already did that. I’ll do lips.”
Sero agreed readily, and they were off again. Sero poked at Kirishima’s eyelids with a liquid eyeliner pen. Denki generously applied lipstick to Kirishima’s mouth, smearing it a bit more than was probably necessary. A little of it somehow ended up on Kirishima’s elbow. It was fine.
Kirishima slumped back down, gaze still pinned to the dark screen of his phone, and let them decorate his face.
“Do you think Aizawa-sensei knows what’s going on?” Sero wondered.
Denki set down his lipstick for a moment to chug from a half-drained cup of something suspiciously orange that tasted like grapefruit. Hagakure had crafted the concoction earlier and handed him a cup as she left with the pitcher. “Nah, dude,” he said, wiping his mouth. “He’s - ”
“He totally knows,” Kirishima interrupted. “I saw him walking past earlier. He just glared at everyone and then left.”
“Whoa,” said Sero. “D’you think it means…?”
“I doubt he knows about the alcohol,” a voice from above interjected, and they all looked up to see an amused Yaoyorozu leaning over the counter. She picked up a cup, tilting some punch into it - the bowl holding the punch was nearly empty - and lifting it to her lips. “He wouldn’t condone this, I’m sure. I wouldn’t either, but Jirou convinced me. We need to let loose sometimes, and I’d rather be here supervising than letting everyone run free.”
“Does Iida know?” Denki whispered, or tried to whisper, though it probably came out at normal volume. His vocal cords weren’t quite cooperating.
Yaoyorozu shook her head hastily. “Oh no, never him.”
“He texted!” Kirishima said suddenly and threw his phone in the air accidentally in his excitement. It landed on Denki’s leg and then crackled in an array of sparks.
“Aww, phone,” Denki said mournfully. He patted away the sparks on his jeans and handed Kirishima’s phone to him. It was either completely ruined or completely charged now. Judging by Kirishima’s delighted expression when he swiped at the screen, the latter had occurred.
“He just said ‘Stop texting me, shitty hair,’ and sent a skull emoji,” Kirishima said, shoulders slumping, but then his eyes lit up. “He texted me, though! That means he’s awake.”
“Or does it?” Sero said enigmatically. The effect wasn’t nearly as mysterious as it would have been if someone like Tokoyami had said it, and even less so since Sero was currently plastered and swiping eyeliner across Kirishima’s face like he was trying to paint the next Guernica.
Kirishima looked determined. “I should go talk to him.”
Denki reconsidered his thoughts that Kirishima held his liquor well. “No,” he said firmly and cast his gaze over Kirishima from head to toe. “Looking like this? Please. We haven’t even finished your makeup.”
This was about the point where Denki remembered nothing but bits and pieces of the night.
Finishing Kirishima’s makeup before Sero got challenged by Uraraka to a dance battle, judged by Ashido and Aoyama.
Helping Kirishima try to find his crocs that he’d kicked off somewhere in the room. Iida recovered them a few minutes later, shoved beneath one of the couches. Iida definitely knew what was going on at this point, but by now, most of the alcohol had been downed, so there wasn’t much he could do. He did rant, but being drunk gave Denki the great advantage of tuning out pretty much everything he said.
Eating three more cupcakes. Maybe four. Almost a tube of chapstick before Ashido plucked it from his hand.
Offering texting advice to Todoroki, who was huddled with Midoriya in the corner and both vainly attempting to decide what rude reply to text to Todoroki’s dad. Denki wasn’t sure if they’d taken his suggestion of sending a picture of a very inappropriate finger gesture, but in any case, he wished them luck.
Denki was also relatively certain that he’d had a conversation with Shinsou at some point, sprawled across the couch with his head dangerously near Shinsou’s thighs as the other student stared down in amusement at him, but he couldn’t quite recall what the topic had been. Cats, maybe? Coffee? The last purple cupcake that Denki had had to wrestle out of Uraraka’s hands in order to bring it to Shinsou and attempt to hand-feed it to him?
Oh, so that had happened as well, apparently.
Denki never wanted to drink alcohol ever again.
Denki’s head pounded in rhythm with the beat of his fist against Kirishima’s dorm room door. He had grabbed the clothes nearest to his bed and struggled into them, made his room even more of a mess while he tried to find that tiny paper slip with the phone number on it, and had almost given himself a concussion when he tried to open the door and instead fell face-first into it.
Mornings were not Denki’s favourite part of the day.
“Dude!” he called, banging again for emphasis. “Open up!”
More loud pounding did not result in anything. Denki would be baffled if he wasn’t still nursing a headache that didn’t quite let him think properly. Kirishima, even if he was a heavy sleeper, never took this long to open the door.
A door clicked open and Denki perked up, but it wasn’t the door beneath his beating fist. It was Shoji’s bedroom door, and his bloodshot eyes looked extremely unimpressed as he poked his head out of the cracked door and stared down Denki.
“Hi?” Denki finally tried. “Good morning?”
“He’s not in there,” Shoji finally said, and then retreated back into his room. The sound of the door closing sounded like a hammer to Denki’s ears.
Denki whined and rubbed his forehead. He wanted to go back to sleep. Finding Kirishima and discovering who gave Denki this slip of paper was more important, though!
A bolt of sheer genius struck Denki and he whirled towards the dorm that was on the other side of Kirishima’s.
It only took a few seconds of banging on this door before it was yanked open and he was met with a furious glare.
“The fuck you want?” demanded Bakugou. He looked annoyingly awake, already dressed with glasses shoved up on the top of his spiky hair. He’d probably been studying. Gross.
Denki stood on his toes to try to look past Bakugou’s shoulder. “Is Kirishima here? I need to ask him something.”
“Fuck off,” snapped Bakugou, which wasn’t much of an answer, but it was if one understood Bakugou-speak.
Encouraged, Denki tried to finagle his way past. He attempted to duck beneath Bakugou’s arm that was propped against the doorframe, but it only resulted in an explosion that was far too close to his pounding head. The movement gave him a tiny glimpse of Bakugou’s bed, though, and there was definitely a Kirishima-sized lump beneath his blankets.
“Kiri!” Denki called, dodging the next sparking palm aimed toward his face. “Bro, wake up!”
“I’m gonna murder you,” Bakugou growled, sparks popping between his fingers, but he very noticeably didn’t move away from the door.
A loud yawn sounded from inside the room, and then, when Denki bounced to see over Bakugou’s head, he could see a bleary Kirishima sitting upright and stretching. He was still dressed, which was disappointing. Denki had had faith in him last night. Oh well.
Denki yelped as Bakugou kicked him in the knee. “Ow! Abuse! Kiri, come rescue me from your boyfriend!”
Bakugou snarled something incoherent about boyfriends and not fucking dating and then slammed the door in Denki’s face.
It was quiet for another minute or so, other than the slowly-dwindling growls and grumbles from Bakugou behind the closed door. While Denki waited, he dug the paper from his pocket and studied it again. It was a slip of torn notebook paper, which didn’t give away much. The ink was black, blurred in a few places where Denki might have drooled on it during the night. The kanji was careful, not elegant like some of the girls’ handwriting or angry and specific like Bakugou’s.
Finally, the door opened, but this time Kirishima stood there. He glanced back over his shoulder and said something to Bakugou, who was standing by his desk and glowering. Then he shut the door, and Denki jumped on his chance.
“Bro, where’s your phone?”
Kirishima’s forehead wrinkled, patting his pockets as he considered it. “Not on me, I guess.”
Denki grabbed his arm and yanked him back toward his room. “Okay, let’s check by your bed. I need it.”
Kirishima laughed sheepishly. “Um, it wouldn’t be in there.”
“What? Why not?” Denki stopped for a moment and looked Kirishima up and down, and he felt his jaw drop. This outfit looked very familiar; in fact, Kirishima had been wearing it last night. “You didn’t even go back to your room last night, did you?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Kirishima tried, “Look, Bakugou was still awake when I brought you to bed so I just - ”
“Did you get any?” Denki demanded, but he started moving again, hauling Kirishima with him. If Kirishima’s phone wasn’t on him, then he’d probably left it down in the common area last night. “You’re still wearing clothes. Oh my god, did you get dressed again after?”
Kirishima spluttered. “What - no! We didn’t do anything.”
Denki recalled a very specific detail from last night’s drunken escapades. “Wait, didn’t Sero and I put makeup on you? Where’d it go?”
The hand went up to the back of Kirishima’s neck again. He almost stumbled as Denki dragged him into the lift. “Bakugou wouldn’t let me go to sleep until it was all off, and he has makeup wipes so we just…”
“He cleaned your face for you!” Denki crowed. All thoughts of a hangover were gone. “That’s adorable! And you still think he isn’t head-over-heels for you?”
Kirishima’s face was as red as his hair by the time they emerged from the lift into the common area. Denki was delighted. There was nothing better than teasing his bro - actually, scratch that; there was nothing better than teasing his bro about something that he was being purposefully oblivious over.
“I’m telling you,” Denki promised. “You just gotta man up and ask him out!” He paused as he scanned the common area. A few people were still down here; Yaoyorozu was quietly making tea in the kitchen, while Todoroki, Iida, and Midoriya were piled on top of each other on the couch and Ashido was snoring loudly as she gripped the microphone from last night’s karaoke.
No Jirou or Shinsou in sight. No Sero either, now that Denki thought about it, and he was a little disappointed. He should have woken Sero up before he got Kirishima. Sero would love to know the current Bakugou and Kirishima gossip.
“Where’d you leave your phone?” Denki demanded.
“Dunno,” said Kirishima. “The kitchen, maybe?”
They headed to the kitchen and began hunting through the piles of empty cups, discarded cupcake liners, and makeup items that they had abandoned last night. Someone was going to have to clean this up at some point, but Denki was content to ignore it until Iida woke up.
“Wait, why do you need my phone anyway?” Kirishima asked as he poked his head into the cabinet beneath the sink.
“Oh, yeah!” Denki brightened. He’d almost forgotten about his paper with the new Kirishima drama. “So last night, someone gave me a paper with their number and said to text, but I don’t remember who it was. You have everyone’s phone numbers because you talk to literally everyone, so I’m just going to compare it to your contacts until I find out who it is.”
Kirishima paused, eyebrows wrinkled. “Why don’t you just…text them and ask who they are?”
Denki sighed. Oh, to be as straight-forward as Kirishima. “I can’t just do that. They’ll be offended that I don’t remember who they are. It’s not my fault that I have no memory, whether drunk or sober.”
Yaoyorozu finished her tea and quietly left the kitchen. Kirishima waved goodbye to her.
“Wait, a person that gave you a slip of paper?” Kirishima recalled. “That was right before I brought you back to your room? I think I - ”
A loud, obnoxious noise interrupted him.
“Oh!” said Kirishima. “My phone!” He followed the sound until he uncovered the phone beneath the overturned punch bowl. He swiped at it and answered. “Hello?”
Denki waited impatiently, hauling himself to his feet and leaning on the counter.
Kirishima laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t have your name stored in my contacts. Did you get a new phone number?”
Denki waited even more impatiently. A quiet shuffling noise drew his attention and he glanced over the counter to find a previously-unseen, rumpled figure rising from behind the couch. He was wrapped in a dark grey sleeping bag, and his violet gaze met Denki’s as he gained his feet and yawned.
“Why am I such a disaster,” Denki whispered to himself.
“Hey, Kaminari,” said Shinsou.
Denki may have swooned a little.
“Yeah, we’re downstairs!” said Kirishima. Denki’s attention was finally drawn back to him.
“Who is it?” he asked.
The door that led to the showers opened and Jirou stepped out, a towel slung over her shoulders and hair damp around her shoulders. She smiled at Denki as she saw him, something small and beautiful and made Denki want to punch himself in the face.
“See you!” said Kirishima, and hung up. “Oh, it was Sero,” he told Denki. “He got a new number, I guess.”
Denki’s mind spun. He didn’t have Jirou’s number because she said she wouldn’t give it to him until he deserved it. He hadn’t known Shinsou long enough to get his number from him. And now Sero had changed his number.
His brain hurt. He wanted to date all of them.
“Anyway,” said Kirishima, sliding his phone into his pocket. Then he told Denki who had given him the paper last night.
Denki carefully bent over and rested his forehead on the counter. Well. Now he needed to text.