Chapter 3: The Rogue Variable
The safe house held its breath in the hours before dawn. Shinsou woke not to an alarm, but to the profound silence of a space where someone was trying not to be heard. He lay still, listening. The faintest creak of a floorboard from the living room. The shallow, controlled rhythm of breathing that wasn’t his own.
He found Bakugou on the sofa, slumped forward with his elbows on his knees. The sickly glow of a single lamp cut his profile into sharp relief, casting deep shadows under his eyes. He was staring at his phone, screen bright in the dimness, his thumb hovering over the surface. He didn’t look up as Shinsou padded in, barefoot on the cold floor.
“He’s not going to wait,” Bakugou said, his voice scraped raw from silence. He turned the phone. On the screen was a single text thread, the last message received an hour ago.
From Ei: I’m coming to find you.
Below it, a cascade of unread, unseen messages from the night before, all variations on a theme of concern spiraling into dread.
“He means it,” Bakugou continued. “He’s not asking. He’s telling. He’ll start at the agency, then our known safe houses. He’ll use every resource. He’ll tear the city apart looking for proof I’m being coerced.” A grim, humorless smile touched his lips. “Stupid, loyal idiot.”
Shinsou took the phone, scanning the text. The finality of it was a stone in his gut. Kirishima wasn’t just a worried friend anymore; he was an active, unpredictable threat vector. “We can’t let him start digging. Not now. Katsuragi’s invitation is for this weekend. If Kirishima kicks up dust, the whole organization will scatter.”
“I know that.” Bakugou finally looked at him, his crimson eyes haunted. “So I stop him. I meet him. I make him believe it.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then the mission fails.” Bakugou said it plainly, a statement of operational fact, but the tension in his shoulders spoke of a more personal catastrophe. He stood, a restless movement that carried him to the window. He didn’t open the curtain, just placed a palm against the cold glass. “I have to do it alone. He’ll see you as the problem. Your presence will just make him more certain something’s wrong.”
Shinsou’s instinct was to argue, to control the variable. But Bakugou was right. This was a wound that predated him, a bond built on years of trust he had no part in. His presence would be a provocation. “Where?”
“There’s a closed-down gym near the old docks. We used to spar there after hours. It’s private. No cameras.” Bakugou turned, his expression hardening into something resolute. “I’ll go now. Get it over with before the sun’s up.”
“What’s the play?” Shinsou asked, crossing his arms. The room felt suddenly colder.
“The truth,” Bakugou said, after a heavy pause. “Or as much of it as he can swallow. That we’re together. That it’s real. That he needs to back the fuck off because his hero complex is going to get people killed.”
“And when he asks why you’re at the Obsidian Club?”
“I’ll tell him I wanted to see the look on the villains’ faces when I walked in with my new boyfriend.” Bakugou’s smirk was brittle, a poor imitation of his usual bravado. “He’ll believe that part, at least. The arrogance.”
Shinsou nodded slowly. It was thin. Dangerously thin. It relied entirely on Kirishima’s desperate need to believe Bakugou was telling him the truth. “What’s your signal if it goes south?”
“If I’m not back by 0700, assume he’s taking me to Aizawa by force.” Bakugou grabbed his jacket from the back of a chair, shrugging it on. He paused at the door, his hand on the knob. He didn’t look back. “Don’t follow me.”
The door clicked shut. The silence that followed was denser, more oppressive. Shinsou stood in the center of the lifeless room, the ghost of that imagined scene from his bed—Kirishima’s hands, Bakugou’s surrender—flaring in his mind with renewed, sickening clarity. This was it. The collision. And he was stuck here, waiting, useless.
The abandoned gym smelled of dust, stale sweat, and rust. Stripes of predawn grey light filtered through grimy skylights, illuminating floating motes and the faded outlines of a wrestling mat. Bakugou stood in the center, his breath misting in the chill. He’d been here five minutes. It felt like an hour.
The side door slammed open.
Kirishima stood silhouetted in the doorway, his broad frame tense. He stepped inside, letting the door swing shut with a cavernous boom that echoed in the hollow space. He was in casual gear—a tight black tank top, sweats, no hero costume—but everything about him screamed readiness. His eyes found Bakugou immediately, scanning him head to toe for injury, for duress.
“Kat,” he said, the single syllable loaded.
“Ei.” Bakugou kept his hands visible at his sides. “You didn’t need to come.”
“The hell I didn’t.” Kirishima took a few steps forward, stopping just outside of easy reach. His usual open face was set in hard lines, his jaw tight. “Start talking. For real this time. No bullshit.”
“I told you on the phone.”
“You gave me a script!” Kirishima’s voice bounced off the distant walls. “You and Shinsou? Since when? How? Why?” He ran a hand through his spiky red hair, the gesture frustrated, agonized. “You hate that guy. You’ve always said his quirk is creepy, that he’s too calculating.”
Bakugou felt the words like little barbs. They were things he’d said, years ago, in a different life. “People change. Situations change.”
“What situation?” Kirishima pressed, stepping closer. His voice dropped, pleading. “Is he blackmailing you? Is this some fucked-up mission? Tell me. I can help. I can get you out.”
“There’s nothing to get out of!” Bakugou snapped, the anger flaring hot and genuine. It was easier than the guilt. “Jesus, do you hear yourself? You can’t fathom that I might just want someone? That it might not be you?”
The words landed like a physical blow. Kirishima actually rocked back a step, his eyes widening. The raw hurt there was instantaneous and devastating. Bakugou immediately wished he could claw the sentence back, but it was out, hanging in the dusty air between them, true in its cruelty.
“That’s what this is about?” Kirishima’s voice was terribly quiet. “You think I’m… what, jealous? That I’m trying to sabotage some romance?” He laughed, a broken sound. “I’m trying to save your life, you stubborn asshole! The Obsidian Club isn’t a date spot, it’s a villain pit! And Shinsou… his whole thing is control. It doesn’t add up.”
“It adds up just fine,” Bakugou fired back, clinging to the script, to the lie, because the alternative was crumbling. “Maybe I like that he’s in control. Maybe I’m tired of being the one who has to make all the decisions, carry all the weight. Did you ever think of that? Maybe with him, I don’t have to think.”
He saw the moment Kirishima remembered. The confession from the private room, the one Bakugou hadn’t meant to make, the one Shinsou had repeated back to him in the alley. ‘Because when he tells me to stop… I can finally stop thinking.’ Kirishima’s face changed, the hard suspicion softening into something worse: a dawning, horrified understanding.
“Oh,” Kirishima breathed. “Oh, Kat.”
“Don’t,” Bakugou warned, heat rising to his face.
“No, I get it now.” Kirishima took another step, his voice achingly gentle. “You’re exhausted. I see it. You’ve been running on fumes for years. And he… he offers you an off switch. A way to just… let go.” He shook his head, his own eyes shining. “But that’s not letting go, man. That’s surrendering. There’s a difference. You can rest without handing someone the remote to your brain.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bakugou’s voice cracked.
“Don’t I?” Kirishima was right in front of him now, well within his space, and Bakugou couldn’t back away. “I’ve known you since we were stupid kids. I know your pride is a prison. I know you’re harder on yourself than anyone else could ever be. The idea of just… stopping… it must sound like heaven.” He reached out, slow, and his hand settled on Bakugou’s shoulder. The touch was solid, warm, real. It felt like an anchor. “But you don’t do it with someone like him. Not like this. Not in the shadows. You do it with people who love you, not people who use you.”
The word ‘love’ echoed in the vast, empty space. Bakugou stared at him, at the fierce, unwavering compassion in his eyes, and the carefully constructed lie shattered. It just fell apart. His breath hitched, a terrible, vulnerable sound. He looked down, away, anywhere but at that face.
“It’s a mission,” he whispered, the words torn from him.
The hand on his shoulder tightened, not in anger, but in a fierce, protective grip. “I knew it,” Kirishima murmured, his relief palpable. “Okay. Okay. So we go to Aizawa right now, we extract—”
“No.” Bakugou’s head snapped up. “We can’t. It’s too deep. The target took the bait. We have an in. This weekend. If we pull out now, the whole network vanishes. Months of work, wasted.”
Kirishima’s eyes searched his. “What’s the objective?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Bullshit. Tell me.”
“I can’t.” Bakugou shoved his hand away, putting space between them. The conflict was a live wire in his chest. “You having plausible deniability is the only thing that might keep you safe if this goes to hell. If you know, and they find out you know…” He trailed off, the implication clear.
Kirishima processed this, his hardened expression returning. “So what’s the play, then? You and Shinsou keep pretending? You go deeper into whatever this ‘couple’ act is?” His voice took on a new, flat tone. “How far does the act go, Bakugou?”
The question was a grenade. Bakugou didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His silence was confirmation enough.
Kirishima nodded slowly, his face closing off. The hurt was still there, but it was being buried under a layer of grim professionalism. “Right. So my role is to be the jealous,
“Right. So my role is to be the jealous, best friend.” Kirishima finished the sentence, his voice hollow. The words didn’t sound like a question. They sounded like a verdict.
Bakugou opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The script was gone. There was only the dusty gym and the wrecked expression on Eijirou’s face.
“Not quite.”
The voice came from the shadows near the stacked mats. Both men spun, postures snapping into combat readiness. Shinsou stepped into a stripe of grey light, hands in his pockets. He looked utterly calm, a stark contrast to the charged air between them. The door he’d used, a fire exit, sighed shut behind him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Bakugou snarled, sparks popping in his palm.
“Mitigating a security breach,” Shinsou said, his tired eyes sliding from Bakugou to Kirishima. “You were followed, Bakugou. Not by him. By one of Katsuragi’s sentry quirks. A shadow-walker. It peeled off when you entered the gym’s perimeter. Standard reconnaissance.”
The blood drained from Bakugou’s face. “You knew?”
“I suspected. I tailed you at a distance.” Shinsou’s gaze was unnervingly steady on Kirishima. “He’s already seen enough to report that you met someone clandestinely. That’s a problem. Your story about us being a couple only works if your world narrows to just me. This,” he gestured at the space between the two friends, “contradicts the narrative we sold at the Obsidian Club.”
Kirishima took a step forward, his body a solid wall of defiance. “So what’s your play, Brainwasher? Wipe my memory?”
“Tempting,” Shinsou said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “But unsustainable. And crude. We need a more integrated solution.” He leaned against a worn punching bag, making it sway. “Katsuragi’s organization doesn’t just fetishize powerful heroes. They fetishize power dynamics. Ownership. Submission. Humiliation.” He let the words hang. “A private, obsessive relationship is one thing. But a relationship with visible, public tension? With a third party who represents everything the ‘dominant’ partner is supposedly leaving behind? That’s a story they’ll devour.”
Bakugou felt a cold dread coil in his stomach. “Get to the point.”
“The point is, Red Riot is already involved. The sentry saw him. So we use it.” Shinsou pushed off the bag, his hands still in his pockets. “We don’t hide your friendship, Bakugou. We weaponize it. We present a fractured, messy dynamic. You, trying to move on to something darker and more controlling with me. Him, the steadfast, loyal hero, unable to let go. Publicly pining. Watching.”
Kirishima’s laugh was sharp, disbelieving. “You want me to be your… what? Your audience?”
“I want you to be proof,” Shinsou corrected, his voice low and analytical. “Proof of Bakugou’s desirability. Proof of my victory. Proof that the great Katsuki Bakugou can be taken away from even his most unshakeable ally. For the people we’re dealing with, that’s a potent cocktail. Your visible hurt isn’t a threat; it’s set dressing. It’s authenticity.”
The gym seemed to shrink, the air growing thicker. Bakugou looked at Kirishima, whose face had shifted from anger to a kind of horrified comprehension.
“You’re talking about making me a cuckold,” Kirishima stated, the clinical word sounding alien in his mouth.
“I’m talking about giving Katsuragi a show he’s genetically incapable of looking away from,” Shinsou replied, utterly devoid of embarrassment. “He invited us to a private gathering this weekend at his villa. He’ll expect a performance. A demonstration of our ‘dynamic.’ Your presence, visibly unraveling on the periphery, would be the ultimate garnish. It would cement our cover more deeply than any staged kiss ever could.”
“No.” Bakugou’s voice was final, absolute. “He’s not part of this. You don’t get to drag him into the filth.”
“He’s already in it!” Shinsou’s calm cracked for a microsecond, a flash of impatience. “He walked into it the moment he sent that text. The sentry has his scent now. If he disappears, or acts normally, it reads as a cover-up. If he plays the role, it reads as compelling, human drama. The kind of drama that makes villains feel like voyeuristic gods.”
He turned fully to Kirishima. “It’s your choice. Walk away now, and you force us to abort. The network disappears. The weapons they’re trafficking go deeper into the underworld. Or you play a part for one night. You help us get the access we need to bring the whole thing down.”
Kirishima looked at Bakugou. Really looked at him. He saw the fatigue, the strain, the deep-buried fear that had nothing to do with villains and everything to do with the terrain of his own heart. He saw the mission, a chainsaw his friend was trying to juggle.
“What does the part involve?” Kirishima asked, his voice gravel.
“You attend as my ‘plus one,’” Shinsou said, as if discussing logistics. “A misguided attempt to confront us, to win him back. You’ll be visibly agitated. You’ll watch. You’ll drink too much. You’ll make one quiet, desperate appeal to him that I will, publicly, shut down. The details will be choreographed. You’ll be in no physical danger. The danger is all reputational, emotional.”
“Emotional,” Kirishima echoed, tasting the word.
“Yeah,” Bakugou whispered, the fight gone out of him. He was backed into a corner engineered by his own best friend’s loyalty. “It’s a shit option, Ei. The shittiest.”
Kirishima was silent for a long moment, staring at the dusty floor. When he looked up, his eyes were clear, resolved in a way that hurt Bakugou more than any anger could. “One night,” he said, pointing a finger at Shinsou. “You get me every detail, every safeguard. And when it’s over, we never speak of it again.”
“Agreed,” Shinsou nodded.
“And you,” Kirishima turned to Bakugou. The affection was still there, but it was guarded now, wrapped in layers of this new, terrible performance. “You don’t hold back. You sell it. You make them believe you want him more than you’ve ever wanted anything. You make me believe it.”
The instruction was a scalpel, precise and cold. Bakugou just nodded, his throat too tight for words.
Shinsou pulled out his phone, the screen illuminating his placid face. “We have forty-eight hours. Let’s go over the villa’s layout. And Kirishima? Start practicing looking like your heart is breaking. It’s the key to the whole thing.”
The dawn began to properly lighten the grimy skylights, exposing the full, bleak room. The three of them stood in a tense triangle, the foundation of their new, terrible arrangement settling into place.
They went over the villa's layout until noon, Kirishima copying coordinates onto his phone with grim efficiency, and then he was gone, out the fire door into the bright morning like a man leaving a funeral. Bakugou didn't speak the whole ride back to the safe house. Shinsou let him have the silence.
It broke in the living room, after Shinsou opened the second encrypted file on the villa.
"There's a protocol addendum," Shinsou said. He turned the tablet toward Bakugou. His voice stayed even, but a muscle in his jaw had gone tight. "Intelligence confirmed through the two agents already embedded. Katsuragi expects a full demonstration on arrival."
Bakugou read it. His face went through three expressions in five seconds, disbelief first, then fury, then something darker that had no name and wouldn't sit still.
"Cockwarming." He said the word like it was an insult. "They want me to sit on your cock. In front of the whole room. For how long?"
"However long he's speaking. His opening address runs forty minutes. You'd be seated at his right hand while he delivers it." Shinsou scrolled down. "It's a status display. The organization's hierarchy is built around it. The owned partner doesn't just kneel. They're filled, held, and still. They don't squirm, don't come, don't speak. The dominant partner talks business with a lap full of him and doesn't react. It's a show of control over your own body and his. That's the currency in there."
"They can go to hell."
"They'll go to hell. After the weekend. After we have the names." Shinsou set the tablet down. He watched Bakugou pace, three steps, pivot, three steps back, the spring in his shoulders wound so tight Shinsou half expected sparks. "You're not going in cold. Not for this."
Bakugou stopped pacing. "What's that supposed to mean."
"It means forty minutes of holding still around something inside you, with strangers watching for the first crack, is a skill. It's trained. If you go in raw, you'll shake, and one flinch in front of forty confirmed killers ends this." Shinsou stood. He kept his voice flat, mission-calm, and only the slight roughness at the end of the sentence betrayed him. "So we train."
The room went very quiet. The lamp hummed. Bakugou stared at him and his ears went red first, then his throat.
"You want to practice now."
"I want you alive and our cover intact." Shinsou crossed the room slowly, stopping inside Bakugou's space, close enough to feel the heat coming off him. "And I refuse to make your first time a performance for Katsuragi's audience. So it isn't. First time is here. Now. Nobody watching. My rules, your limits, safeword set. We build you up tonight and tomorrow, and by Saturday you can sit through that speech without blinking."
Bakugou's jaw worked. His hands were fists at his sides, trembling faintly, and Shinsou could see the whole war behind his eyes, pride and terror and, underneath both, the thing he'd confessed in a velvet room to a man he hated. When he tells me to stop, I can finally stop thinking.
"Safeword," Bakugou said finally, hoarse.
"Pick one."
"Detonate."
"Good." Shinsou cupped the back of his neck, thumb over the hammering pulse. "Say it and everything stops instantly. Nothing in that villa comes close to what we do here. Understood?"
"Yeah." Bakugou's exhale was ragged. "Understood. Just don't baby me. I'm not fragile."
"You're the most stubborn thing I've ever met." Shinsou's mouth almost curved. "Bedroom. Strip. I'll get what we need."
Shinsou took his time. Condoms, lube, a bottle of water set on the nightstand, because he'd read the file twice and knew what holding still cost the body. When he came back into the bedroom, Bakugou was sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but his briefs, spine straight, staring at the wall like it had insulted his mother.
"Last chance to run," Shinsou said, loosening his own belt.
"Shut up and get over here."
Shinsou undressed without hurry, letting him see, because Bakugou's eyes kept flicking over and he'd rather have the watching than the pretending not to. Lean, wiry, harder lines than Bakugou's bulk, his cock already heavy between his thighs from nothing but this, from the anticipation stretched over two days of imagining. Bakugou swallowed visibly at the sight of it.
"Over my lap first," Shinsou said, sitting on the bed's edge. "Fingers before anything. I'm not hurting you on day one."
"This is ridiculous, I've taken hits from building-sized monsters, I can take some damn fingers."
"It's not about pain. It's about your body learning it can hold and still be safe." Shinsou tugged him down across his thighs, chest to the mattress, one hand flat between his shoulder blades. Bakugou went stiff as a plank. "Relax that. Breathe. You're in control of the pace. Always."
The first touch made him hiss. Shinsou slicked him slow, tracing the tight furl of muscle with a fingertip until the tension under his palm started to fray, until Bakugou's breathing lengthened despite himself. When he pressed in, Bakugou cursed into the sheets, low and filthy, and Shinsou felt the clench around his finger like a trap snapping shut.
"Ei, stop," Bakugou rasped.
Shinsou stopped. Immediately, fully, hand going still. "That's my name."
"I know it's your name. It's just what came out. Muscle memory or whatever the hell." His voice was muffled, mortified. "Don't make it weird. Keep going."
Shinsou worked him open one finger at a time, patient, curling, adding lube, watching the line of his back change. By the third finger Bakugou's hips were rocking without permission, a small shameless push onto each thrust, and the curses had gone from angry to breathless. Shinsou pressed down on that spot inside him and Bakugou's whole body jolted, a cracked moan ripped out of his chest.
"There it is," Shinsou murmured.
"Shut up. Shut up, oh fuck, do that again."
"Not yet." He drew his fingers out slow, savoring the wrecked noise Bakugou made at the loss. "Lesson one. The demonstration isn't about you getting off. It's about you holding it. So we do this the hard way. I fill you.
"With my cock. But not today." Shinsou pulled his fingers back out, slow, and Bakugou made an indignant sound into the sheets. "Today is fingers only. Today your body learns to come from nothing but my hand and your own eyes."
"My own eyes?" Bakugou lifted his head, sweat already at his temples. "What the hell does that mean."
Shinsou stood, crossed the room, and dragged the long mirror from the wardrobe wall. He angled it at the foot of the bed, tilted it down, so the whole mattress was in frame. Bakugou on his hands and knees, flushed, slick glistening between his thighs. All of it visible.
"It means you watch," Shinsou said. "Kneel up. Face the mirror."
Bakugou moved into position on autopilot, kneeling upright on the bed, and then he saw himself. Bare chest heaving, cock hard and flushed dark against his stomach, precome already smeared along the shaft, thighs spread with his own lube shining at his hole. His face went scarlet from collarbone to hairline.
"Turn off the mirror. I look like shit."
"You look like exactly what Katsuragi's people are going to inspect." Shinsou knelt behind him, chest not quite touching his back, one arm wrapping around his ribs to hold him steady. "You don't get to hide from it. Eyes up. On the glass. Watch what I do to you."
"You're a sadist."
"I'm a tactician. Look."
The first finger slid back in easy now, and Bakugou watched himself take it. Watched his own mouth fall open in the reflection, watched his hips tip back to meet the push. Shinsou added the second before he could brace, scissoring slow, and in the mirror Bakugou could see everything, the drag of Shinsou's wrist, the wet shine each withdrawal left on his skin.
"Fuck," Bakugou breathed. His eyes couldn't move. It was obscene, watching himself be opened, watching the flush crawl down his own chest.
"Your body is already different." Shinsou's voice was low against his ear. "Yesterday you clenched like a fist. Now you're pulling me in. Watch yourself do it."
"I hate you."
"You're dripping. Say you hate that too."
Bakugou's jaw clenched. Shinsou curled two fingers down, found the spot, and pressed, and in the mirror Bakugou watched his whole body lurch, watched himself groan, watched his cock jerk and leak a fresh bead onto his stomach. The sight of it hit him harder than the touch. His elbows buckled and Shinsou's arm caught him around the chest.
"Stay up. Knees wide." Shinsou adjusted his grip, spreading him further, and worked the spot in slow, deliberate strokes. "Eyes on the mirror. Every time you look away, I stop."
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
Bakugou looked. Kept looking, breathing hard through his nose, hips rocking now in open rhythm with the thrust of Shinsou's fingers. The wet, filthy sound of it filled the room, and the mirror showed him Shinsou's forearm flexing between his legs, his own face gone slack and wrecked, nothing like a hero, nothing like Ground Zero.
"Third finger," Shinsou said, and pressed it in with the others.
Bakugou arched, a moan tearing out of him, high and unguarded. In the mirror he watched his own hole swallow all three, stretched around Shinsou's hand, and his stomach muscles started to tremble.
"There. That face. That's the one you don't let anyone see." Shinsou's thumb dragged up his perineum, pressing from outside while his fingers pressed from within, and Bakugou sobbed a breath. "No cock today. Just this. I want you to come knowing it was only my fingers, and that you watched yourself do it."
"Don't talk, just, ah, right there, don't lose it, don't you dare lose it."
"I never lose it."
Shinsou sped up. His fingers hammered the spot, precise, relentless, curling hard on every stroke, and the mirror gave Bakugou the full view: his own cock bouncing untouched, slapping wet against his belly, his thighs shaking, his face falling apart frame by frame. He couldn't reconcile the man in the glass with anything he recognized, and somehow that was what pushed him over, seeing the surrender with his own eyes.
"Shinsou. Hitoshi, I'm, fuck, I'm coming, I'm coming."
"Watch yourself. Don't close your eyes."
He didn't. He came watching, watching his own cock pulse untouched, thick white stripes shooting up his stomach and chest while his hole clamped down on three fingers and his mouth hung open around a sound he'd deny making for the rest of his life. Shinsou worked him through it, slower, gentler, until the shudders ran out and Bakugou sagged back against him, dazed, dripping, his reflection wrecked and glassy-eyed in the mirror.
"Good," Shinsou murmured, easing his fingers out, and Bakugou shivered at the slick loss. "That's lesson one. You held position, you kept your eyes forward, and you came on command without a hand on your cock."
Bakugou's laugh came out broken. "On command. I came on command. What the hell did you just do to me."
"I showed you what you've been refusing to look at." Shinsou reached for the water bottle, twisted the cap off, and pressed it into his hand. "Drink. All of it. Then we do it again."
"Again?" Bakugou's head snapped up, water running down his chin. "I just came, I can't, my legs don't even work."
"Legs aren't required. Kneel back down." Shinsou was already slicking his fingers again, unhurried, his voice flat as a briefing. "Katsuragi's speech is forty minutes. You'll be oversensitive by minute ten. You need to know what that feels like and still hold still. Drink first. You'll lose more than you think."
Bakugou drained the bottle, glaring at him over the rim. Then he set it down, turned back to the mirror, and looked at his own wrecked, flushed, terrified-and-excited face for a long moment.
"If I safeword, this stops? For real?"
"For real. Instantly."
"Then shut up and put your fingers back in." His voice cracked on the last word, and he hated it, and in the mirror Shinsou watched him decide not to care. "And Hitoshi. Tomorrow we're doing this without the mirror."
"Tomorrow we're doing it with two mirrors."
Bakugou opened his mouth to argue, and Shinsou pushed three fingers back into his soaked, clenching heat and watched the argument die in the glass, replaced by something that had never once crossed Bakugou Katsuki's face in ten years of public heroics.
Relief. Shinsou saw it, catalogued it, and filed it somewhere no mission file would ever reach.