Chapter Text
It was the morning after Katsuki regressed under Kirishima's watch. The two of them had a short debrief that began with, ‘why are you sleeping on my floor? ’, and ended with the both of them realizing that they should probably start getting ready for the day. It was only Sunday, but the both of them had their own things to do. So, after Kirishima waved his goodbye and told Katsuki that he’d see him later at the gym, the blond got himself ready for his own day, which started out when he went out for his morning run. But, not without sending his friend a short and brief,
Btw.. thanks ig.
for last night.
Which was swiftly replied with,
ur welcome dude ( ´∀｀)b
But, that was almost two weeks ago, and now Kirishima was at a convenience store looking for a couple snacks. He thought it’d be cool to plan ahead of time even though he wasn’t exactly sure when Katsuki was ready to regress again, and this thinking rewarded him when he got a sudden text from the blond-in-question himself,
Somethin felt kinda off today
You got anything planned?
Kirishima gave himself a mental pat on the back as he responded,
Nothin planned!
ur in luck too, i just got some snacks n stuff
abt to head back now
It didn’t take too long after sending that for Katsuki to read and respond to his message, letting him know that he’d be waiting for him and his snacks in his room. With that set in stone, red-head continued strolling around the store for a couple of other things ( that was in his ¥3000 budget ) and left with a decent amount of snacks and juice boxes.
After a lengthy walk back to the dorms, he was almost surprised to see the lounge room a little more packed than usual. It took him a moment to remember that Mina had asked the class to have a little game night together, and it seemed like a few of them actually accepted the invite and turned up. Iida was already setting up the Monopoly board game on the floor with Jirou.
“Dammit! I totally forgot about game night. Sorry, Mina.” Kirishima apologized as he went up to her.
She just lightly fanned her hand in hasty forgiveness, “Chill out, it’s fine!” and then she gazed down at the filled bag in his hand. “I’ll give you a pass this one time if… you gimme whatever's in your bag.”
“No can do.” He smirked as he pulled the bag away once Mina tried reaching for it.
“Aww, why not?” She sulked, crossing her arms.
“Because it’s for, uh, something else.” His eyes glance away for a moment.
Mina rolls her eyes and puts up her hands in surrender. “Okay fine. You’re lucky Todoroki and Jirou were able to pitch in on our own stash of snacks..”
Kirishima starts walking past her towards the elevator, “That's great.” he chuckles, “Let’s hope you don’t toss the game board over this time!”
“Damn you Kirishima, that was a one-time thing!” She shouts as the elevator dings and he steps in.
“Sure it was!” Kirishima teases as the doors come to a close.
Katsuki stares up at the ceiling from his bed, his phone lying beside his head. His math homework had been finished and filed away shortly after Kirishima let him know that he was on his way back from the store, so now all he had to do was wait .
It wasn’t too long before he heard a knock at the door, so he got up from his bed and sighs. “It’s about time..”
Once he opens the door, he sees Kirishima dressed in his usual basketball shorts and t-shirt, a bag in one hand and the shark plushie in the other. They both agreed that they can keep it in his room instead of Katsuki’s.
“Sorry, Mina stopped me one the way in.” He apologized as he stepped inside, setting his bag and the plushie on the sheets of the bed. “Pretty sure I got everything we need, though.”
Katsuki just hummed, almost grunted, closing the door behind him.
Kirishima stretches his arms out as he lets a yawn find its way out of his mouth. “So, what was that text about earlier..? You said something felt off ?”
“..Yeah,” He rubs the side of his neck and slightly turns away, “I don’t know. There was this weird feeling yesterday, almost kinda floaty? I only wanna do this so I don’t embarrass myself by waiting too long to do—whatever we decide to call this.” He gestured vaguely to the room.
“We’ve been over this dude, it’s just age regression. And that’s fine by me. I just might not be super energized today because I may have accidentally stayed up too late last night..” He bashfully averted his eyes down to his lap.
“Dumbass.” Katsuki flicks Kirishima’s forehead and goes to sit down on the bed, leaning back until he’s lying down on his sheets. After a moment, he decides to bring something up, something he’s been meaning to ask.
“..Hey.”
Kirishima shifts to look down at him, “Huh?”
“You never told me what happened the first time we did this.”
“Oh yeah. You never asked, so I thought you just didn’t wanna know.”
That was only partially true, but still, “Nah. I wanna know about it.” Katsuki nudged Kirishima in his side. “So hurry up and tell me already.”
Kirishima smirked before he began, “I mean..it was pretty chill. I just watched you while you drew some pictures and ate some snacks and…,” a small fond smile finds its way on the red-heads face, “when you were drawing you got mad at me ‘cuz I wasn’t paying attention to you. Who knew you could be so clingy?”
Katsuki jabs Kirishima in the side when he lets out a laugh at his friend’s embarrassment.
“Hey, don’t get mad at me! ” Kirishima tries to cover his mouth to hide his growing smile. “It was, I dunno, cute?!”
That earns him a harder jab in his side. “I’m not fucking ‘cute’! ” Katsuki shouts in disgust, now kicking his friend with the heel of his foot. “I should kick your ass out right now!”
“No, please! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t kick me out, please .” Kirishima’s laughter finally dies down as he wipes a tear from his eye.
Katsuki glares at him for a few more moments before he settles down and relaxes his crossed arms against his chest. His mouth quivers into a sneer as he looks up at the ceiling. “Thanks.”
Kirishima raises an eyebrow, “For what?”
“What do you think? For—this,” He gestures towards them both, the bag of snacks and even his plushie. “For you know.. helping me with all this. Don’t know a lot of guys who’d help a friend out with this kind of shit.”
He smiles at him again. “Yeah man, it’s cool. And hey,” He shrugs. “Maybe somewhere down the line you won’t have to keep this whole thing a secret. Mina, Sero, Denki, and the others are our friends, y’know? I know they’d care–”
“No.” Katsuki cuts him off. “And don’t you even think about telling them yourself either. I don’t know how long we have to keep this going, but they can’t know. Any of them, ever, you hear me?”
“Yeah, alright, I hear you..” His smile died down a little, feeling kind of sad hearing that. “That’s cool too.”
Katsuki gives him some kind of hum in reply, then finally sits up to stretch. “Let’s get this started already.”
“Oh yeah, right!” Kirishima sits up as well and pulls a DVD case from the bottom of his bag–one of the same ones from the first night Katsuki regressed–then goes ahead and pops it into the DVD player on the television stand.
A cartoon plays on the screen while the red-head takes the time to head back to his room to get some sheets of paper, crayons and even a coloring book for Katsuki to draw in. It only took about another twenty minutes or so of Katsuki engrossing himself in the exploding cartoon on the screen and realizing that he immediately needed to draw something for him to regress.
His eyebrows furrowed as he looked down at his jaded, red crayon. “‘S too small..” He’d been drawing with it so much that it was practically a nub.
Kirishima frowned just a little. “Really? It’s all good, I’ll get you a new one some other time.” He stuck his hand into the little crayon box and handed him an orange crayon. “You can do this for now, if you want?”
Katsuki looked at the crayon for a moment before he snatched it out of Kirishima’s hand and started drawing with it, his face relaxing itself soon after. “Okay..only ‘cuz orange is my favorite color.”
“Right.” Kirishima nods as he picks up the coloring book he bought and looks inside. “I got you this too. You wanna try coloring stuff in instead of drawing for today?”
Katsuki looks up from his drawing to look at the coloring book. It either takes him ages or seconds to make a decision for himself, there’s no in-between. But this time, he chooses to forgo drawing in favor of the coloring book. “Sure, I guess.” He shrugs.
The red-head smiles as he hands it to him and then grabs some of his own crayons. No, he isn’t one to do stereotypically childish things, but he doesn’t mind it if Katsuki’s little, who calmly lets him join in, albeit on his own separate page. They continue to color beside each other for a while.
“..Hey!” Katsuki suddenly calls out.
Kirishima smirks, “What?”
He points at the redhead’s page, eyebrows furrowing. “You’re not coloring inside the lines! You’re doing it all wrong!”
“Hm..” Kirishima feigns ignorance. “Nah, I don’t think so..”
Katsuki growls, balling up his fists. “Noo, you’re not doing it right! You’re supposed to do it like this,” He colors in a small section of his page to demonstrate. “See? ”
Kirishima smacks his palm on his forehead, “Ooohh, I get it now! Man, you’re so smart..”
The blond is only barely able to contain his proud smirk as he continues coloring in his page. “Yeah, I know.”
He lets Kirishima watch him color and it doesn’t take long for him to color the entire page, even the background. Not even five minutes later, somehow he’s gone through three more pages, and just like that he suddenly wants to jump to another activity.
“Hey,” Katsuki shoves Kirishma a little bit, “I wanna do something else.”
He just nods, “Alright, what’d you have in mind?”
“I wanna play!” Katsuki exclaims with his arms in the air.
The red-head chuckles and goes to dig in his bag. “Okay, I got—uh..” He pulls out a board game from the bottom, “Candyland!”
Katsuki tilts his head in confusion. “That looks boring..”
“Nah it’s gonna be so fun, you’ll see! Look,” Kirishima opens up the box and moves the coloring book and crayons aside so he can lie the board on the ground. “You play on this and you use all these game pieces so you can get to the end and win.”
Hearing that he could win made his ears perk up a bit. “What’re these cards for? They have colors on them.” He picks up a purple one.
“So, those help you move up in the game. You get your little pawn guy,” Kirishima picks up a gingerbread game piece. “And then you pick up a card. And whatever color you get on it, you move yourself onto that color!”
“Oooh..” Katsuki’s eyes light up with recognition. Then looks down at his card and moves his pawn immediately to the end of the game, where the last square is purple. “Ha! I won!”
Kirishima smiles sheepishly and rubs the side of his neck. “Not quite, big guy. You’re supposed to land on the nearest color at the beginning ‘cause that’s where we start from.”
“Wh…no! That’s no fair, you didn’t say that!” Katsuki shakes his head, “You’re cheating!”
“Nope, not cheating, I promise. “ Kirishima picks up the rule booklet and opens it up. “It’s in the rules.”
The blond takes the booklet and tries to read through it, only to find that he can’t understand anything in it. Then, he ends up crossing his arms with a pout. “These rules are dumb..”
“Hey c’mon dude, don’t pout..” Kirishima rubs Katsuki’s shoulder consolingly. “Don’t you wanna beat me at this? Huh?” He shakes Katsuki a little bit to cheer him up.
The thought of beating Kirishima excites him, “..Maybe .”
“Then pick up your pawn and let’s get this started! I’ll read the rules for you as we go so you can properly kick my butt.”
The blond smiles as he picks up a candy cane looking pawn and somewhat listens to Kirishima tell him the instructions as they begin the game. At some point, Kirishima decides ‘ screw it, new rules ’ and just wings the rest. Luckily, Katsuki is able to win without them and he looks to be enjoying it.
As he’s picking up his next card, Katsuki’s eyebrows furrow as he hopes to get the color he wants. “I got..” he flips over an orange card, his eyes light up. “I got an orange! In your face !”
“Not so fast! ‘Cause I’m about to pick up a..” He quickly picks up a card, “A green! ” and then moves his pawn ahead of Katsuki’s, to his frustration.
He gasps, clearly shocked before he growls, “That’s not fair!”
“Uh–uh, it’s totally fair. You’re just throwin’ a fit ‘cause you’re starting to lose.” Kirishima pokes fun at him, but it backfires a little bit.
The first time Katsuki voluntarily regressed, he’d forgotten to eat much that evening which led him to eating more snacks than both of them anticipated. He remembered to eat beforehand this time, but of course it was only a matter of time before he got hungry again. So that, in addition to losing at a game of Candyland understandably made him a little cranky.
“Shut up! I hate this game and its dumb rules!” Katsuki complained, “This game is stupid!”
Kirishima responds calmly, “It’s okay, nothing to get upset about.”
He lets out a huff and crosses his arms. “I’m not upset!”
“Uh-huh..” Kirishima isn’t convinced. Then he thinks to himself ‘oh, duh, he’s probably just hungry ’ and takes a plastic wrapped triangle cut sandwich out of his bag. “Y’know, when I went to the store I thought I’d get you some actual food since last time it was just junk food. You wanna take a break and eat a sandwich real quick?”
Being the stubborn kid he is, he shakes his head. “No! I don’t wanna eat!”
It’s quickly becoming apparent to Kirishima that Katsuki doesn’t like being told what to do. What a shock.
“Okay, how about this…you take a couple bites and if you still don’t wanna eat, we can keep playing. How’s that?”
Katsuki looks at the sandwich for a moment, suddenly realizing how empty his stomach is. He growls before he takes it from Kirishima’s hand. “Fine! But I’m not even hungry…”
Kirishima just nodded and took another plastic wrapped sandwich from the bag and unwrapped it as he saw the little take a bite out of his own. He watches Katsuki’s face twist for a moment as he thinks about the taste before he goes to take another bite, and then another. He knows Katsuki is a bit of a messy eater as a little, so he lays out his plastic wrap in front of him so it can catch the crumbs.
Once he sees that Katsuki’s enjoying the snack, he continues eating his own before he lets out yet another yawn. The exhaustion of the night before is starting to catch up to him and he’s getting a little weary.
“There’s some juice boxes in here in case you get thirsty. Here, help yourself.” Kirishima pushes the bag closer to Katsuski who peeks inside.
A majority of his sandwich is gone at this point as he pulls out a purple juice box—which Kirishima has to kinda fight him to let him help put a straw inside the respective hole—and then takes a sip from. Before he abruptly rips the straw from his mouth and complains, “This isn’t grape, It tastes gross!”
Kirishima blinks at him in bewilderment. “Huh..?” he mutters as he looks down at the front of the juice box and sees that it’s elderberry flavored. Not grape. “Elderberry? Why would they even make that flavor for kids..”
Katsuki crosses his arms. “I don’t want that. I want grape.”
He hates to say it, but there aren’t many other options. “Sorry little dude, but that’s all the juice I got.”
“But I want grape..” He whines, “How come we can’t go get some?”
Kirishima’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, “You mean go downstairs? And have a ton of people see you? No way, we gotta stay in here.”
“But—” Something about that put that tell-tale lump in Katsuki’s throat. “But that’s not fair! I can go wherever I wanna go, you can’t tell me what to do!”
“I know it’s not fair.” Kirishima’s heart softens for him. “I promise next time I’ll get you grape juice, a whole bunch. But for right now you gotta stay here, okay?”
For a few moments, Katsuki stares at him with round, wavering eyes as he struggles to find the words for what he’s feeling right at that moment. It’s weird to him, how he can’t say what’s almost on the tip of his tongue. So he pushes it down and stares down at his lap, lip quivering.
“This isn’t fair…everyone else gets to have fun down there..” Katsuki rubs his eyes with balled fists, “But I can’t have what I want.”
“I know.” Kirishima goes to rub his arm to calm him down and starts gently trying to help him stand up from the floor. “I’d run down there and give you some right now if I could. But I can’t if it means I’d be leaving you in here by yourself.”
Kirishima has him sit on the bed. “Besides, right now I think you need to nap for a little bit. Could help you feel better.” He highly doubts Katsuki’s feeling this way just because he’s tired, but kids need their sleep anyway.
Katsuki’s running on autopilot as he wanders through his thoughts, allowing Kirishima to lay the covers over him as he lies down on the bed. Of course, he reaches for his plushie and holds it close.
“Kiri..”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t..” His feelings bubble up in his chest and he pushes his face into his plushie, “I don’t wanna be by myself.”
Kirishima’s heart swells as he rests his hand on Katsuki’s back. “You won’t be, I promise.”
Katsuki shuts his eyes closed to keep himself from saying anything else. Kirishima has so much he wants to say to him to make him feel better. To tell him that his dumb friend is too scared to let everyone see him when he’s vulnerable and little.
But Kirishima knows he isn’t gonna understand—he’s five years old and he doesn’t know any better. So as much as he wants so badly to hold this little kid close and make all of his bad feelings go away, he lets his wariness take over and lie down on the opposite side of the bed so he can rest.
But Katsuki can’t sleep. He doesn’t want to either. He can’t wrap his naive head around why he can’t leave his room at all while he’s little. He sees his friends a bunch of other times, so what’s the problem?
Katsuki slowly sits up and peeks from the covers to see if Kirishima is still awake. Once he sees he isn't, he completely sits himself up and gently places his plushie on the sheets so he can slip out of bed.
He’ll show Kirishima. He’s gonna do this all by himself.
Kirishima’s body turns in the bed sheets as he starts to wake up. He’s not sure how long he’d slept, but it was long enough that he didn’t feel fatigued anymore. He slowly turns himself around to look to see if Katsuki is still asleep,
Only to see the bed left empty.
Immediately, he’s sitting up and looking around the room. “Bakugo?” He calls out in a panic, getting out of bed to search the room, even though there’s not many places to look. He even peeks under the bed, hoping Katsuki’s playing hide and seek with him or something.
“Little dude, this really isn’t funny..” He mutters before he finally leaves the room and looks up and down the hallway of the dorms. “C’mon..”
Shit, this must be about the juice thing from earlier. Did he really leave the room just for that?
He resists the urge to slap his forehead in idiocy, regretting letting himself fall asleep and leaving Katsuki unattended. That hardly matters now, he needs to find him before something bad happens.
Kirishima heads to the elevator and his hand moves to push the button for the first floor, but he stops just short of it.
The buttons in the elevator aren’t ordered. In fact, the first floor isn’t on the bottom row of the button panel. And of course he knows Katsuki can hardly read, so there’s a chance he’s probably on some other floor.
He frowns as he clicks on the bottom nearest button, the 2nd floor. He really hopes Katsuki is on this floor.
He anxiously taps his foot on the floor as he waits for the elevator to drop and the doors to open. “Bakugo?” He calls out as he steps out and looks up and down the hallway. No Katsuki.
But, Tokoyami is there, and he’s looking pretty confused. Kirishima almost heads back inside the elevator before Tokoyami calls out to him. “Kirishima?”
“Not right now dude, I gotta find Bakugo.”
“I just ran into him.”
Kirishima stops in his tracks and looks at him in surprise. “You did? ”
Tokoyami nods. “Yes, he was here a moment ago. But he was acting really strange.”
“Oh no.. ” Kirishima sighs as he rests his face in his palms. “Strange like how..?”
“Well, he seemed lost. And when I saw him he acted skittish and surprised. We’ve resided in these dorms for a while now, you’d think he’d know his way around here.” He sees the look of worry on Kirishima's face. “You’re closer to him than I am, do you know what’s wrong?” He asks.
“I know exactly what’s wrong..” He rubs the stress away from his face, “But he’s fine, I promise I got everything under control. Did you see which button he pressed before he left?”
“He told me he was looking for the kitchen, so I told him to press the highest button on the panel. You’ll find him there.”
Kirishima lets out a sigh of relief that Tokoyami helped him out and Katsuki isn’t wandering around the dorms lost and confused. “Phew, okay.” He goes back inside the elevator and presses the first floor button. “Thanks so much, man, you’ve been a huge help!” He tells him before the doors close on him.
Knowing Katsuki is on the first floor eases his worry a little. But only a little. He’s not just worried about Katsuki, he’s worried about how all their other friends are gonna react when they see he’s little. Looking back on that night at the festival when they were both on their way to the bus, Kirishima pieced together that he was probably still little, but he was masking it somehow.
He never confirmed it with Katsuki because he barely remembered the second half of that night, but it was easy to figure out at this point. But, now he’s not sure if Katsuki’s gonna let himself loose, or mask his littlespace so no one will know.
His thoughts are interrupted when the elevator doors finally open and he steps out, head turning to find Katsuki. He immediately spots him in the kitchen and his worry is lifted for a moment until his heart sinks in fear when he sees he’s in a heated, very one-sided argument with Todoroki.
“That’s my cup! You can’t drink from it!” He shouts with clenched fists as Todoroki drinks from an orange tinted glass cup.
“This isn’t yours.” Todoroki plainly states. “No dishes in the kitchen belong to anyone, they’re here for all of us to use.”
“No!” He exclaims as he stomps his foot on the floor, clenching his fists tighter. “That’s mine! Orange is my color, it belongs to me! ”
The board game the others were playing over in the lounge area had long since ended and Iida, Jirou, and Mina were watching them argue from the sidelines.
Kirishima hurriedly walks up to them to stop this before it can get any worse, to Katsuki’s surprise. Kirishima gently grabs onto his wrist and starts pulling him away. “Super sorry for all this!” He apologizes to Todoroki.
“..Is he alright?” Todoroki points in Katsuki’s direction.
“Oh yeah, he’s totally fine and me and him were just about to— “
Katsuki snatched his wrist away from Kirishima as he stomped his foot once again. He shouts at Todoroki again, “Don’t point at me! Give me my cup!”
“No..”
Katsuki growls and he tries to lunge at Todoroki to snatch the cup from him before Kirishima wraps his arms around his waist and tugs him back.
“Dude, calm down!” He shouts as he struggles to hold back Katsuki who’s trying to get away from him.
“Let me go!” Katsuki flails his legs and tries to push Kirishima’s arms from around him.
Iida finally enters the kitchen area, his leadership nature compelling him to step in. “Excuse me! That’s no way to speak or act towards other students!” He says in a stern voice.
“Iida..! ” Kirishima whisper-yells to caution him, but he’s interrupted.
Mina trails behind Iida eventually, visibly confused. “Hey, what’s going on? Why’s everyone yelling?”
“He stole my cup! It’s mine and he stole it!” Katsuki shouts as he slams his fists on Kirishima’ arms.
“I’m..not really sure.” Todoroki went to stand beside Mina. “A few minutes ago Bakugo came into the kitchen as I was getting a cup of water and started pouring himself something to drink but he kind of..spilled it.”
Kirishima looks down to notice a puddle of juice spilled onto the floor.
“And..I saw he started to cry, so I came over to help him clean it up. But then he noticed the cup in my hand and then demanded he have it. And now we’re here.” He finishes explaining to a still very confused Mina, whose eyes haven’t left Katsuki.
“Uhm, yeah okay..” She mutters, “But he seems like he’s..”
Iida opens his mouth to say something, but slowly closes it as his eyes focus more on Katsuki. Really focus. He starts to realize that this isn’t the anger that Katsuki normally displays. In fact, his entire attitude right now isn’t how he normally acts either. He blows up a lot of the time but not over something so trivial like a cup.
“Come on, we have to go back upstairs, we can’t stay down here..” Kirishima tries to whisper to Katsuki.
“I don’t wanna!” Katsuki shouts as he continues to try and pry himself out of Kirishima’s arms. “This isn’t fair, why can’t I be here like everyone else!”
Kirishima freezes for a moment. The arms around his waist lose their grip as he frowns at Katsuki’s words. “I know it’s not fair. We can talk all about it later I promise but right now we need to leave.”
But he isn’t hearing any of it. Mina watches as he keeps trying to get away before she nudges Todoroki and holds her hand out. “Can I see that for a second?” She asks.
After Todoroki hands it over, she calmly makes her way around the kitchen island where they were standing and warily steps in front of the two of them with a hopeful smile.
“Hey..” She begins. The two boys finally stop moving as she extends the cup out to Katsuki. “I don’t know why you’re so upset over a cup, but..you can have it. And then you can maybe stay down here with us? And play games?”
Katsuki finally eases up and takes a look at Mina’s eyes. He’s almost scared to, but he does it anyway. It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking based on just looking at her face. He glances down at the orange cup in her hand and knows that she’s trying to help though. When he takes into account Kirishima’s arms around him and how they aren’t holding him back anymore, just embracing him gently, he realizes that Kirishima is trying to help too.
Then he becomes aware of the fact that this is the first time he’s been little in front of someone other than Kirishima and suddenly his face starts to feel a little hot. All the anger is replaced with embarrassment and he doesn’t want Mina to see his face anymore.
“I-I don’t want the cup anymore, I wanna go..” Katsuki complains as he stirs in Kirishima’s arms.
Kirishima blinks, “Huh? Wait, I thought you wanted to..?”
“I spilled it! I made a mess and everyone saw, just let me go already!” He yelled as he started struggling to get out of Kirishima’s arms again.
“Hey, it’s fine, it’s just juice..” Mina tried, bringing herself and the cup closer to him. “Here, you can still—”
“No! ” Katsuki shouts, hitting the glass cup with the back of his hand and sending it flying to the ground. As soon as it hits the floor, it shatters, sending little glass shards all across that corner of the kitchen. With a yelp, Katsuki pushes himself against Kirishima, started by a loud noise.
Iida lets out a short gasp in surprise and a moment of silence passes before he turns to Todoroki. “Todoroki, do you think you could quickly grab a broom and dust pan?”
Todoroki nods and leaves to go find it. Iida continues, “I’d like everyone to disperse from the kitchen immediately! Please be careful so that you don’t step on any glass.”
As Kirishima slowly backs away from the shards of glass, he starts to feel Katsuki trembling in his arms and his shoulders begin to shake.
“It’s okay, you’re gonna be fine.” Kirishima gently tells him, “Todoroki’s gonna sweep up the glass, we’ll clean up the spill and then—”
Katsuki finally escapes from Kirishima’s arms, hurriedly making his way to the elevator while wiping at his eyes to get rid of fresh tears coming from them. Both Iida and Mina watch him get away with wide eyes, just as Kirishima runs after him. For a moment though, he stops and looks back at them with sorrowful eyes. He sees their confusion and wants so badly to explain to them the situation to relieve the worry he can clearly see in their eyes.
But for now, Kirishima follows after Katsuki. Just before the elevator closes, he hurries inside and stops when he sees that Katsuki is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall.
Katsuki doesn’t bother to look up from the ground with his glassy eyes, instead his breath falters as he mutters out. “I’m sorry..” He sniffles and wipes his tears away with the back of his hand. “I just wanted them to see me..”
Kirishima’s eyes widened, completely stunned. “You do..?”
Katsuki nods. “Yeah, but..” His eyes filled up with fresh tears, “I couldn’t pour my own juice and everyone was looking at me weird..I looked stupid.”
“What? No, dude, listen..” Kirishima crouched down in front of Katsuki. “I shouldn’t have been asleep while you were little. This isn’t your fault, it’s all mine, okay?”
Katsuki peeks up to see Kirishima trying to hold back a frown. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand once again, “But I’m the one who did it..”
“And I’m the one who’s supposed to be watching you and I wasn’t, so don’t feel bad.” Kirishima reaches out to rub Katsuki’s shoulder to console him. He hears a ding sound behind him and looks to see the elevator doors open on the fourth floor. Their floor.
“Woah! You were able to tell which button to press? All by yourself?” Kirishima looked at Katsuki in astonishment.
“Mhm..” He nodded, a smile creeping on his face.
He smiles back at Katsuki and helps him stand up so they can leave the elevator. It’s a swift and silent walk back to Katsuki’s room.
“Shoot, I didn’t even realize I left the door cracked..sorry.” He apologized as he opened the door to let both of them inside.
“‘S okay..” Katsuki muttered as he rubbed his eyes with balled fists. He was suddenly feeling a little sleepy and now all he wanted to do was lie in his bed.
Kirishima cracks a grin, thinking about how Katsuki wouldn’t even be tired if he’d just slept earlier, but he doesn't say anything about it. Instead, he sits on the edge of the bed as he watches Katsuki settle under the covers.
“Not so fast, little buddy.” Kirishika jostles his shoulder a little bit when he sees the other’s eyes start to fall.
Katsuki whines in annoyance before he glares at him from his sheets. “Huh..?”
“Before you go to sleep, we gotta talk about what you said earlier. In the kitchen?”
His frown slowly deepens and he looks away from Kirishima. “I don’t wanna talk about it..”
“Just for a little bit, okay?”
Katsuki thinks for a moment before he finally nods.
Kirishima smiles. “Cool. So..earlier you said that it wasn’t fair that you couldn’t be downstairs like everyone else. I think we need to talk more about that.”
“..Well,” He fiddles with the fabric of his shark plushie. “It’s ‘cuz it isn’t. When I went downstairs, I saw they were all playing games. And laughing together. But..I couldn’t be with them ‘cuz I had to nap. And I couldn’t even drink any juice! It wasn’t fair!”
Kirishima just nods and lets him continue.
“And when I’m little I can’t do anything..I like playing games with you too and laughing with you. ‘Cuz you’re my best friend.” He finally gathers the courage to sit up and look Kirishima in his eyes, “But..how come I can’t play with my other friends?”
Hearing that, Kirishima has to gather all of his manliness so that he doesn’t jump up and hug him. Right now, he needs to explain to this poor kid why things are the way they are.
“Little buddy..” He inches closer to him. “I’d love if we could all play together and not have you cooped up in this room. When you’re little, I want you to be happy! But..for right now, uhm..big you doesn’t want people to know that you’re little.”
“Yeah, but..” Katsuki stares down sadly at his lap.
Kirishima can see that he’s holding back his tears. He moves even closer to reach out and hold Katsuki’s hand and squeeze it gently.
“Everything’s gonna be okay. I don’t know how soon but soon , we’re gonna find a way to fix this so than we can all have fun together.”
“We will..?” He looks at Kirishima with hopeful eyes.
“Yeah, dude.” He slips his hand out of Katsuki’s and ruffles his blond hair.
Katsuki jolts in surprise before he smacks Kirishima’s hand away with his own, flustered. “Hey! ”
Kirishima lets out a laugh as he takes away his hand, looking at Katsuki with a smile. “Now hurry up and go to sleep, alright?”
Katsuki lies back down eventually and pouts into the sheets. “How come I gotta go to sleep?”
“Because it’s almost your bedtime, plus I gotta have a super important conversation with you after you wake up.”
“What?” He sits up a little, “Am I in trouble..?”
“No! No, you’re totally fine! I just gotta talk to you when you’re awake and you’re big again.” Kirishima clumsily eases his worry. “And you know what? Next time you’re little I’ll get you a whole bunch of grape juice, and I’ll let you kick my butt in Candyland. It’ll be so much fun, I promise!”
Katsuki smiles and settles back into the sheets. “..You pinky promise?”
“Heck yeah!” He grins back at him, “Pinky promise..” and then reaches his pinky out to him.
The blond giggles and bends his pinky around Kirishima’s. Not too long after that, he slowly starts closing his eyes.
Kirishima waits for just a few minutes before he can tell that Katsuki is sound asleep before he wraps the covers around him and tucks his shark plushie into his arms before he moves himself away from him. His smile starts to become a frown and he finally curls in on himself and puts his face into his hands.
“..I’m in so much trouble.”
The next morning, Katsuki opens his eyes and realizes his cheek is pressed up against his plushie before he sits up and rubs at his face. He jolts up in surprise when he sees that Kirishima’s asleep at the edge of his bed.
“What the hell..” Katsuki utters under his breath and goes to shake him awake. “Hey, wake up.”
It takes a moment but the red head finally wakes up and looks up at Katsuki with sleepy eyes. “Huh..?”
“Yeah, why are you in my bed?”
“..Uh.” Kirishima slowly sits up. “Yeah, I..I kinda fell asleep I guess. That’s my bad.”
“Whatever, just remember to sleep in your own bed next time, dumbass.” Katsuki says as he gets up from his bed. It was Monday morning now and he needed to get ready for school.
“Wait.”
He huffs and looks over at Kirishima who’s sitting up completely now. “What. ”
“There’s..there’s something I gotta tell you.”
“..Okay.” Katsuki stops what he’s doing to give his attention to Kirishima. “What is it?”
He hesitates for a moment before he takes a breath. “So..yesterday, when you were little..well, everything was fine in the beginning. I gave you a snack and we played a game and it was pretty good for a little bit, but..”
“..But..?”
“..But. Then I kinda fell asleep and—and you left the room without me. Then you went downstairs and kinda blew up at Todoroki and Iida and Mina were uhm, downstairs playing some board games so they saw..? And..yeah.”
A stillness fell over the two of them for a few moments as Kirishima was waiting for him to just say something. In that silence, Katsuki felt his heart drop into his stomach as the memory of him regressed in front of his classmates started to flood his mind. He remembered leaving the room, shouting at Todoroki, breaking glass onto the floor and running away afterwards.
“Kirishima..”
“Before you say anything! I-I just wanted to say I’m sorry..I’m really, really sorry that this happened. I mean, I’m supposed to be your caregiver, I’m supposed to be the one watching you and I blew it! You were probably so lost and confused without me and I wasn’t there and this is all my fault and—”
“Kirishima! ”
He jolted at Katsuki’s sudden shout.
“Calm down.” Katsuki rests his hand on Kirishima’s shoulder to soothe him, slowly feeling his body relax under his palm.
A part of Katsuki still felt scared. Really scared. Afraid from thinking about what his classmates thought when he supposedly went downstairs last night while little. Having to get ready for school now that some of them have seen the side of him that he didn’t want them to see.
But what felt even worse was seeing his best friend worrying about him like this. He knew Kirishima sometimes kicked himself when he was already down because of some of his self esteem issues, but his anxiety right now was because of him now. This is all his fault.
“Listen..this thing we do..” Katsuki sighed. “I don’t need it. I get you wanna help me out and that’s cool and all but this shit shouldn’t stress you out, y’know? You worry about me while I just sit back and let it happen? Nah, not gonna let that happen.”
“Huh?” Kirishima frowned. “But I don’t want you to stop regressing, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.. I know I messed up but I’m not gonna stop helping you.”
“You didn’t ‘mess up’ ..” Katsuki groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Alright, you know what? We’ll meet in the middle. I’ll keep regressing..” He holds a look of disgust on his face, “But we’re taking a break. Besides, I don’t wanna risk any of them seeing me like that again. I can’t.”
Kirishima’s frown deepens a little more as a memory of last night plays in his head.
‘I just wanted them to see me.. ’
His lips twist as he holds back what he really wants to say, not wanting to push against Katsuki. Especially when they’ve reached this compromise.
“..Okay. We’ll take a break. Just promise me that you’ll let me know when you’re ready to regress again, alright? You gotta promise.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes at him. “Yeah, yeah, I promise.”
Kirishima lets out a sigh of relief as the corners of his mouth lift into a small smile, “Good.”
“Now hurry up and get the hell out of my room so I can put on my uniform, you’re out of your goddamn mind if you think I'll still let you stay in my room while I’m changing like last time.” He says as he narrows his eyes at Kirishima.
“Hey, that’s not fair, you told me stay!”
Katsuki starts pushing Kirishima out of his room. “Out! ” He shouts before he finally shuts the door on him.
He waits until he hears Kirishima’s footsteps head to his own dorm room before he lets out a deep sigh and puts his back against the door.
Kirishima’s not the only one who’s stressed out.