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Bakugou and Kirishima had a weird dynamic. Kaminari didn't want to be the one to notice it, but as the most frequent third wheel to their weird flirting, he would have to be an entire dumbass not to see what was right in front of him. And despite what Aizawa-sensei and Jirou and maybe most of the school might have thought, Kaminari was not an entire dumbass.
Bakugou's love language was words of praise, which surprised Kaminari when he first found out, given what an asshole the guy was 90% of the time, but Kirishima insisted that the most heartfelt thing Bakugou could do was compliment you. Kaminari, who had been on the receiving end of a handful of words that could maybe be perceived as compliments from his explosive friend, warmed up to this idea. When Bakugou called him less of a half wit than usual, he was just trying to express his love and care for him. How adorable.
Kirishima's love language, on the other hand, seemed to be acting like an entire dumbass. Which made Kaminari even more upset, considering everyone thought of Kirishima as the brains out of the two of them. He knew it was all an act, but when Kirishima asked Bakugou for help on the same question three times in a row, he had to hold himself from pointing and shouting "THIS IS YOUR BRAINS??? THIS IS HIM???"
He didn't know what he was trying to accomplish either, since asking Bakugou for help was an excruciating endeavor for both parties involved. The one asking could not escape without at least five colorful insults, and Bakugou always looked like he would rather be slowly drowning in tar than help you. Kaminari knew this from personal experience; he had made the mistake of asking Bakugou for tutoring help once - by Kirishima's recommendation, might he add - and had suffered greatly for it, leaving the session less confident about his hair, his clothing style, his beverage of choice, his handwriting, and his entire lineage.
He didn't know if Kirishima was immune to this, or if he simply enjoyed being dragged to filth, but he kept asking for it. And Bakugou, magically enough, kept delivering.
Kaminari was sure today would be the end of it, though. The peak of stupidity that Bakugou would tolerate. The bar that was so low, Kirishima must've tripped on it.
"Can you help me with this?" the dumbass asked, holding out his pencil to Bakugou when he approached.
"Is it broken?" he asked, peering at the plastic pencil. "I'm not a fucking engineer, you know." Kaminari would've laughed at the fact that Bakugou thought fixing a pencil was an engineer's job if he wasn't on the edge of his seat. He had a bad feeling about this one, amplified by Kirishima's wide eyed "I don't know shit" look.
"It's not broken, it's just out of lead," Kirishima said, taking it back and shaking it for good measure.
"So you need more lead? Fucking freeloader," Bakugou said, reaching into his bag to retrieve some.
"No, I have some." He pulled out his lead from his desk, putting it down in front of him.
"So what the fuck do you want from me?"
"Fill it." The two most dangerous words that Kaminari had ever heard. Where were the teachers to prevent such disasters? Hell, where were the pros? If Kirishima really thought that Bakugou would think he was THAT stupid, then he either thought really low of Bakugou or really low of himself.
Bakugou seemed inclined to agree with Kaminari's inner monologue. "You don't know how to fill a lead pencil?" he asked slowly, and his lack of curse words was more scary than if he had seasoned his sentence liberally with them. He meant business.
"Of course I do," Kirishima said, and Kaminari almost threw his hands up in the air with relief. "But it's tricky."
"Tricky?" Bakugou's eye twitched. "How the fuck is it tricky?"
"You know, the lead breaks in the middle, you can't get it in the hole, all of that." He wiggles his fingers in Bakugou's face. "My hands are pretty thick, you know."
Bakugou seemed hypnotized by his fingers for a second before he slapped his hand away. "You're an invalid. An actual child. What the fuck."
"Look, I asked for a favor. If you don't wanna do it, then I'll just ask Kaminari to help me." At this acknowledgment, Kaminari stiffened in his seat. Nope. Don't bring me into whatever the hell you're doing right now. You can't see me if I don't move.
"I'll do it, it's nothing," Bakugou growled, grabbing the pencil and lead from his hand. Slowly, mockingly, he filled the pencil in front of Kirishima, going as far as to ask for the rest of his pencils so he could fill those too. Kaminari was entranced, watching Bakugou Katsuki, the child eater, the god of destruction, filling Kirishima's pencils for him. For fun!
"Thank you," Kirishima said sweetly when he was done, acting as though he hadn't just tiptoed from the precipice. "You're a real one, Bakugou."
"Don't ask me for stupid favors like that ever again, Hair For Brains," he replied shortly. "I barely respect you as it is."
Kaminari waited for Bakugou to be at his seat, buried in his notes, before tiptoeing over to Kirishima's seat.
"Do you, like, get off on being insulted?" he whispered, fingers tapping nervously on his desk. Kirishima, meanwhile was busy putting his freshly filled pencils away. "I don't know if I even want the answer for that, but it's the only logical answer as to why you keep putting yourself in these situations."
"Nah, man," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just like it when he gives me more attention. Plus, he likes being the smart one out of the two of us who knows how to do shit. It's a win-win."
"Kirishima. He thinks that you don't know how to fill a mechanical pencil. I know that this is a weird flirting thing you're doing, but I feel like I need to tell you that you're not doing it right. He doesn't want to take you out, he wants to figure out how you made it through elementary school."
Kirishima had the good sense to look abashed. "I might've overdone the playing dumb thing a bit."
"You think?" He sighed, taking in Kirishima's hangdog look. "It's not all lost, ya know. You can just act like you learned how to do it overnight and now you're an actual person, wowee. Bakugou'll just chalk it up to you being weird, but he thinks everyone's weird, so it won't even stand out."
"You think so?" Kirishima looked hesitant to drop his whole "I can't even feed myself properly" act, but Kaminari wanted what was best for his friend, and what was best for Kirishima was to come off as a normal high school student before Aizawa-sensei caught wind of this and made him take supplementary classes in school supply usage.
"I know so," Kaminari confirmed, and gave him his mechanical pencil with a wink. "Here, for practice."
"Screw off, man," Kirishima said, but he was trying too hard to hold in a smile for it to be effective.
The next day, Kirishima walked into class to find an entire pack of wooden pencils on his desk, freshly sharpened.
"Since you're too hard-headed to figure out the plastic ones," Bakugou grunted when approached about it.
"Aw, thanks man," Kirishima beamed, leaning on his desk looking like the picture of a boy smitten. Bakugou, equally gross in his own emotionally stunted way, shot tiny, harmless sparks at Kirishima, which he blocked easily with his quirk, and elbowed him in the stomach, keeping his arm there for way longer than necessary.
It was his friends' equivalent of making out in the middle of the classroom. Where were the teachers when you really needed them? Or better yet, the League of Villains, so they could kill Kaminari and prevent him from ever having to see this ever again?
He watched the two of them from across the room and shook his head at the state of the world. Forget trying to seem smarter than he was; he needed to start not knowing how to do basic daily life stuff. Pronto.