Chapter Text
By the time they ask him the question, the stage lights are blinding, he’s sweaty under his palms, and Eijirou’s about done with this whole ordeal.
“Kirishima, the public wants to know if you’ve heard Bakugou’s latest single? We know that you two had a very close relationship these past few years, given that you’ve collaborated in the past.”
Something within Eijirou drops at the mention of his name, although he supposes he should’ve seen this coming. Something about Katsuki is that he’d always be at the forefront of Eijirou’s mind, even when he’s actively trying not to put him there.
Eijirou has genuinely gone months without much thought about him - and okay, yes, he is maybe smoking more than he should be and is already on his third coffee of the day, but it’s something he firmly believes Mina would be proud of.
So, with all the media training that’d been bashed into his head for the past ten years, he squares his shoulders, and puts on an electric smile. “Yes! I got a chance to hear it a couple of days ago. What can I say about Katsuki that hasn’t already been said?”
Eijirou chuckles, because a billion things come to mind that he’s sure only he knows - things that the media would have a field day with, and those that Katsuki would personally kill him for breathing to another soul.
“He’s amazing, just incredible. He puts in a lot of hard work into everything he does. I’m very proud of him, and excited to see where he plans to take his career next.”
The interviewer looks at him with that annoyingly analytical gaze that he doesn’t like, like he is being pulled open and prodded by a stranger for the sole reason of extracting all his secrets. He schools his face into an excitable grin, like everything’s completely under control. Like he’s just having a normal conversation, promoting his newly released international collab, talking about an old friend’s latest single.
Like he had actually been brave enough to listen to Katsuki’s new single, and hadn’t deleted the music app right off his phone at the notification.
Like he hadn’t seen the billboards on his drive here, his ex’s beautiful face stretched right over the largest ad space money could buy, looming over him as he scattered past on full throttle.
The interviewer doesn’t get to find all that out from him. They don’t get to turn over his reactions, or make Katsuki’s new music about his ex’s apparent disdain for it.
Eijirou won’t let them.
He and Katsuki may not be talking right now, Eijirou’s doesn’t know when or if that will ever be happening - but that doesn’t mean that the unsaid rules between them go unheard.
He supposes, unfortunately, that they understand each other more now than they did two years ago.
“Oh, that’s interesting - I have to ask, what did you think of the song? People are saying that it is quite a turn from the kind of music Bakugou usually writes, with his usual messaging being focused on political activism. Perhaps it’s a new era for Dynamight?”
Eijirou wishes he knew the first thing about the song before he was wrapped into this discussion. He also wishes he had listened to his assistant when they’d prepped him on what he’d be asked about before walking into this never-ending interview. Most of all, he wishes something had run him over on his way to the studio so he wouldn’t have to stick around for this interrogation.
“Yeah!” Eijirou exclaims. “It’s definitely a turn, one that he was super excited to plunge into. I think his fans need to watch his space ‘cause he has a lot more exciting stuff coming on. Super hip, super upbeat, super fun stuff. That’s Katsuki for you.”
The interviewer looks at him quizzically, like he is missing a crucial point. Not for the first time in his life, and certainly not for the first time regarding Bakugou, Eijirou hates the feeling of being left out of things. Hates feeling like there was something going on with the man that he simply doesn’t understand.
“Oh, wow,” the interviewer responds, shifting the conversation. Eijirou isn’t sure if he sees some hesitation or nervousness in her demeanor, but he’s too thankful for the change to question it. “Well, I definitely think the fans are eagerly waiting for him to take an upbeat turn sometime soon.”
Not for the first time, Eijirou finds himself wanting to message Katsuki to ask him about what’s going on, or to ask him how’s his day going, or to simply reach out to see if he’d respond.
Maybe send him a stupid joke he found on the internet, see which concoction of crude remarks Katsuki decides to grace him with.
At the end, Eijirou simply pockets his phone and smiles, because there isn’t much else to be said.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Eijirou is rudely awakened by a call shortly after returning home from the interviews. He’d just gone to sleep, and had a soundcheck at asscrack-of-dawn o’ clock the next morning - so he’d appreciate not being interrupted, thank you very much.
But Mina Ashido was on the other line, and one does not say no to Mina Ashido.
“Hey, Min, what’s up?” Eijirou says in greeting, groggily getting up to turn the lights on. The harsh lighting does nothing to ease the dull throb behind his eyes.
“Did you see Twitter?”
Something in Eijirou’s stomach drops, for the second time in twenty-four hours. Those are four words he never hopes to hear, certainly not at near-midnight from his best friend, and certainly not after a long-winded interview he gave about his ex-boyfriend.
“No, I did not fucking see Twitter,” he replies, putting Mina on loudspeaker and immediately logging into his burner. Okay, yeah, he has a burner. That shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s mapped the edges of social media like his life depends on it, because guess what - it does. It helps to be in the know of what people are saying, even if he has a publicist and a marketing team. Being a mildly famous singer around other famous singers would do that to anyone.
His timeline is immediately flooded with tweets, news headlines by entertainment news outlets, all echoing similar things.
TOP ENTERTAINMENT HEADLINES TODAY
BREAKING: Kirishima Eijirou calls Bakugou Katsuki’s latest single “a turn” from his usual music. Are creative differences the reason for the two’s dwindling public sightings in the press off-late?
BREAKING: Kirishima Eijirou describes Bakugou Katsuki’s upcoming album as “super hip, upbeat, fun stuff.” Could Red Riot be involved as a feature in Dynamight’s upcoming record?
BREAKING: Examining Red Riot and Dynamight’s close professional-and-personal relationship: a Timeline. Just Bromance, or an Epic Romance?
TAG: #DYNARIOT | TOP TWEETS
Shady Kaminari Facts @kamifacts
EIJIROU TALKING ABOUT KATSUKI IN PUBLIC WE HAVE DREAMED FOR TIMES LIKE THESEEEE TELL US TELL US TELL US #DYNARIOT
kirishima gooner oomf @THEredriott
only ei can see those lyrics and be like yeah. katsuki’s songs are so upbeat. so fun. so hip. the boyfriends ever #dynariot
kakabakasha @0TAKUH0TGIRL
red riot and dynamight double feature on GEMGD4 NOW I AM CALLING ITTTTT this is all A RUSE PEOPLE. u are under SPELLS #dynariot
nina @kiyuribaku
guys do u think riot even heard the song and why did he lowk look sad as fuck when asked :( #dynariot
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
“Mina, what the hell is going on?”
“Apparently, everyone’s either thinking you’re featured on Katsuki’s album, or you’re fucking, or you’ve broken up. Which is funny, since last I checked, that happened-”
“Yeah, I know. Old news. Well, two truths and a lie, right?” Eijirou laughs, despite himself. He scrolls through more tweets, people pulling years and years of “proofs” and speculations and making little threads out of them to get their points across - whichever side of the apparent argument they were on. If it weren’t about him and his relationship with Katsuki, he’d be in the right mind to call the work impressive, if not at least a little invasive and perhaps illegal.
“Oh, my god,” Eijirou says suddenly, as he stops scrolling through the social media tags to sort through his notifications. There’s a few from his publicist, a few screenshots from the funniest tweets Denki and Hanta found, even a call from his mother. He’ll deal with them later, though, because one stands out from all the rest.
“Wait, I just got a text from Katsuki.”
Mina makes a sound that he’s only heard a few times - a high-pitched squeal that tells him she’s half parts excited, half apprehensive. “Well, what did he say? Ei, tell me!” She shouts immediately, the anticipation buzzing off her in waves, even through the phone. Eijirou barely has time to process the fact that he’s apparently made internet news, castaway by the fact that it’s led to Bakugou Katsuki finding himself in Eijirou’s message box.
“I don’t know, I’m seeing it now,” Eijirou replies. “He just asked me if I’ve even heard the song,”
He stares at the way Katsuki’s contact info lights up on his phone a little too familiarly. His contact is still saved by the silly nickname Eijirou had given him all the way back in high school, Blasty, with a little explosion next to it. His photo is set as the one that Eijirou took of him four years ago, when they were in Thailand together for Katsuki’s music video shoot and had decided to stay a couple extra days to explore the diving caves in Phuket. In it, Katsuki’s grinning ear-to-ear, his hair wet from the dive he just took. Eijirou’s arm is draped around him, his own face nuzzled into Katsuki’s shoulder, a slight blush on both their faces.
They look happy. They were happy. Deliriously so.
Cut to four years later, when Eijirou finds himself waking up in cold sweat to an empty bed and the love of his life only in grasp through the inescapable internet vine.
“Oh, that’s snarky,” Mina replies, though Eijirou barely hears her. He’s too lost staring at the photo, at the last conversation they had before. He doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to dwell on the dwindling number of messages the further he scrolls up.
“Well, that’s Katsuki, isn’t it?” Eijirou replies, a half-chuckle struggling out of him.
“Reply to him, oh my god,” Mina says, exasperated in her voice. She’s sat through far too many “crashout sessions” (her words, not Eijirou’s) with him and his lyrics sprawled across them to have much patience for this, especially in the middle of the night. Mina’s always been a woman of actions, not deliberation - one to dive in head first, and deal with the consequences as they come. “You didn’t listen to the song, did you?”
So, Eijirou knows what to say - only the truth will do. “No, I didn’t. You know that. I could barely click on his photo, Mina, let alone sit through a four minute recording of his voice singing about whatever fun he’s having in his life now.”
“Y’know,” she starts, “this might work much better if you actually sit down and hear it. Maybe he’s got something to say. Maybe it’s about you, even.”
And okay, it’s not that Eijirou hadn’t considered the possibility that it might be. This was Katsuki’s first album release since their breakup, and not to say that Eijirou had been monitoring the headlines pretty closely, but he hadn’t seen any news about Katsuki dating anyone else. If that were the case, he'd know by now. Things rarely stayed under wraps in the entertainment world, especially not with lives are intertwined as theirs.
Just look at Eijirou’s own notebooks, the number of pages he’s littered with ink and then scraped in turn for better words, better expressions, a better way to express his feelings. A way that comes off as honest, but not so that he may not have a way out of it.
So far, he hadn’t found it - so those words remained carefully woven in the seams of his heart, and nowhere else.
“Yeah, well, even if it was,” Eijirou sighs, because he’s truly thought about it for far too long, and come up with no answer. “I can’t bear to hear what he has to say. I don’t know what answer I want from him, and I don’t know how I’ll handle it being anything but."
Mina sighs, one heavy with understanding and maybe even a little pity. Eijirou gets it. He would hate to see his friends in the position he was in, too, knowing he couldn’t do anything to help it.
“Okay, breathe,” she starts, “you don’t need to figure it all out right now. Just respond to him. See where that takes you. And I’ll be here for you for whatever happens, okay?”
“Thanks, Mina,” he replies, once again reminded of how eternally grateful he is for having friends like his. “Yeah, let me talk to him. Wish me luck.”
“Luck, always,” she replies, a smile in her voice. Somehow, it already makes him feel a little lighter.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
12.15 AM
Bakugou Katsuki:
did you even listen to the song
Kirishima Eijirou:
did i have to?
Bakugou Katsuki:
?
Kirishima Eijirou:
? :D
Bakugou Katsuki:
Listen to the song before running your mouth in the media, idiot
Kirishima Eijirou:
now its my turn to be confused, i think
i just said i liked the song and that ur awesome
you dont think i should like your song?
Bakugou Katsuki:
I dont think youre going to
when you hear it
And there Katsuki goes again - making decisions about them, thinking he knows better about what’s there to feel and what’s not. Katsuki releasing a mystery song that Eijirou’s supposed to hear but not like, or supposed to ignore altogether, or supposed to not know about
Something ugly rears its head from years past, something angry and even a little sad - a small, coiled ball burning heavily in the pits of Eijirou’s heart. It’s been years since they ended things, since they had that fight they’d been avoiding for months and since Eijirou got up and left - and yet, it all lives somewhere in him, locked in a lead box and littered in a corner of his being.
Years later, it still comes running back - waiting, festering, breathing down his neck.
Only this time, he feels tired, and he feels worn. He doesn’t want to argue with Katsuki, he doesn’t think he could bear it a second time. He doesn’t even know if he has any right to, not with the knowledge that he doesn’t hold the same space that he once did in Katsuki’s life.
So he does what he once believed he’d never have to do, and lies to the man he loves.
They’ve all grown up now, after all, and in Katsuki’s old words - life’s not the fantasy he’d like to believe it is.
Kirishima Eijirou:
yeah well i heard it. it was great
Bakugou Katsuki:
okay. cool
Kirishima Eijirou:
is it?
Bakugou Katsuki:
Yes it is. Goodnight, Ei.
Kirishima Eijirou:
okay?
goodnight kats
i hope your album launch goes well
Bakugou Katsuki:
Yeah, yours too
The collab was cool
Kirishima Eijirou:
thanks :)
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
And things move as they always do in the entertainment world - fast. By next week, people have more-or-less forgotten about his interview, and the trend to speculate every exchange they’ve ever had has died down. He's getting less mentions by the minute asking him if he’s featuring on Katsuki’s album, which in turn makes him less nauseous by the day.
For the next few months, he throws himself into his music, into his press tour, into preparing for awards season starting next month. He’s going to be in France, in Milan, in Sydney, and then back home in Tokyo for their biggest night. He has people to meet, a new collaboration song to promote, and hopefully, a few acceptance speeches to write.
He thinks of Katsuki buying him his favorite perfume when he toured Paris a couple years ago, and doesn’t move to grab it from the back of his closet. He thinks of the pair of leather shoes he brought home for Katsuki from Milan for his 22nd birthday, right at the beginning of it all - a lifetime ago, now - and doesn’t wonder if Katsuki still wears them. Eijirou’s sure they’ve been neatly discarded or donated to a close-by charity by now, and doesn’t let that fact sting him as he goes on with his day.
There’s too much to do - and simply no time or reason to think of the Dynamight billboard that follows him everywhere he goes, or the promotional materials that appear first on his social media, or the pair of red eyes that have etched themselves in the back of his eyelids, haunting him when he finally tries to sleep.
Come out and haunt me, I know you want me.
The lyrics of old songs rattle around his brain like the chain tied to an anchor with only one way down, and he almost laughs at their inaccuracy. If only. If only.