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scarlet-traveler · 9 months

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Every time Eijirou arrived at the little coffee shop a couple blocks from campus, the cute blond would be there.

That in and of itself wasn’t strange—it was a coffee shop, Eijirou was bound to see other fellow college students there, looking dead to the world as they got their caffeine fix for the day. What was strange was that the guy was always there when Eijirou got there not long after the cafe opened, when the scent of fresh-baked goods still hung heavy in the air and the rest of the world was still trying to get another hour of sleep.

He’d become part of Eijirou’s morning routine by this point: he’d arrive around 6:30 AM, greet whatever tired-looking college-aged kid was working the counter that day, order a french vanilla cappuccino and whatever pastry caught his eye, and settle at his favorite booth near the back of the shop where he would have peace to draw and a perfect view of the pretty blond as he did his own work.

The other guy always stuck close to the exit, sipping from a travel coffee cup rather than one of the shop’s mugs as he worked on his laptop and the assorted papers scattered across the tabletop, completely in the zone of…whatever he was doing. Something super complicated if the graphs and equations Eijirou had spotted on some of the pages as he came in were anything to go by. He must’ve been majoring in the sciences or something. Pretty and smart.

Eijirou hadn’t initially planned on watching the blond every morning. He hadn’t! Curiosity at the other early-riser had just grown into a few glances as he drew in his sketchbook between bites of breakfast, and soon it had become open (albeit sneaky) staring as he tried to learn as much about him as he could without actually interacting with him.

Pretty Blond (the name Eijirou had decided to give him for the time being) never really paid attention to his surroundings, earbuds in and blocking out everything around him. He also made a lot of faces as he worked. Most of the time he had a concentrated pout on his lips, but sometimes it would scrunch up into a frustrated scowl, his eyebrows angled downward and the barest hint of teeth showing past his lips as he angrily typed, or he’d have a wide triumphant smirk after puzzling through a hard problem that made Eijirou’s heart flutter in his chest the slightest bit. He liked seeing that face.

There was one morning as he’d been sketching that that smirk had grown on the blond’s face, the guy even lightly pumping his fist in triumph, and Eijirou suddenly had the thought to immortalize that look forever.

He stopped the still-life drawing of his croissant he’d been working on, and he flipped to the next page of his sketchbook and started drawing as fast as he could, determined to get as many details down as he could before that smile left his memory. It wasn’t his best work, the face slightly lopsided without his usual guidelines, and he hadn’t bothered erasing where he’d made mistakes, but that proud smirk shined up at him out of the page so he couldn’t hate it.

It became a thing after that, to use Pretty Blond as a drawing model every morning. Eijirou had been wanting to practice drawing people more, so what better way than to reference the guy that had so thoroughly grabbed his attention over the last few weeks?

Which brought him to today.

Eijirou hunched over his sketchbook, taking peeks at the blond every few seconds as he drew. He’d arrived a little later than usual, but the blond was still there at his usual table, and Eijirou had internally breathed a sigh of relief of not missing him.

The blond wasn’t making any faces today, and he wasn’t working on the multitude of papers he usually had either. Only his travel mug and a book sat on the table, and the guy had his head propped up on his elbow, a fist smushed into his cheek as he read. Early morning sunlight filtered in through the window behind him, casting his face in slight shadows while seeming to make his ash blond hair appear like it was on fire.

It was a beautiful sight, and Eijirou was doing his best to capture it in simple graphite.

Glance up, adjust the blond spikes—

Glance up, deepen the shading across soft cheekbones—

Glance up, add the tiny mole on the left side of his mouth he’d just noticed—

Glance up—

Eijirou breath hitched, his pencil freezing.

Pretty Blond was looking back at him.

Time was frozen as they stared at each other across the coffee shop, Eijirou’s eyes wide and the blond’s own unreadable, but it kickstarted back into action when the blond flicked his eyes downward toward Eijirou’s sketchbook before going back to his face, an eyebrow cocking.

Even with several feet between them, Eijirou felt his blood run cold from that gaze. Shit, had he noticed him staring? Did he know Eijirou was drawing him? He had to if his gaze had found the sketchbook so quickly.

Unable to hide it, Eijirou shakily lifted the sketchbook and flipped it around so the half-finished sketch was facing Pretty Blond.

Immediately the blond’s eyebrows rose in surprise, and he even sat up straighter as he looked at the drawing. But…he didn’t look mad. He was just staring, but his intense gaze darting across the page still made Eijirou fidget nervously in his seat.

It’s not until the blond’s gaze met Eijirou’s again that he finally set the journal back down. The eye contact lingered, the other’s gaze scrutinizing, and Eijirou was trying to figure out how to beg for forgiveness for this huge overstep in boundaries when the blond propped his head on his fist again, almost identically to how he was before, and he waved lazily at Eijirou in a ‘go on’ gesture.

Eijirou blinked. He…he was letting him finish the drawing?

As if hearing the question out loud, Pretty Blond glared as if Eijirou had said something stupid before nodding at the sketchbook.

Eijirou scrambled to grab his pencil then, and he could feel heat rising to his cheeks as he got back to work. The light had shifted some as the sun continued to rise, but he could make this work.

As he glanced over at the blond again, he had that smirk on his lips as he watched Eijirou. He quickly dropped his gaze to the sketchbook, his entire face burning.

Damn that smirk.

It was maybe half an hour later when Eijirou finally finished, and he still had another twenty minutes or so before he needed to be at the art studio on campus. Before he could leave though he tore the finished sketch from his journal and stood, crossing the invisible barrier across the coffee shop to approach Pretty Blond’s table. He looked just as surprised to see Eijirou coming, pausing where he had been putting his book back into his backpack.

Eijirou stopped on the other side of the table, and before he could chicken out he thrust the drawing into the other’s hands. “Here. It’s only right that you keep it.” His now free hand then went to the back of his neck, scratching it awkwardly as a sheepish grin pulled at his lips. “I’m really sorry for just drawing you like that, that was probably super creepy and I should’ve asked first.”

Fortunately the blond didn’t look too creeped out, instead taking the drawing and examining it further. Eventually he shrugged, and he dug out a pen from his bag, scribbled something on the corner of the page, and pushed it back across the table toward Eijirou. “Keep it. Just buy me a coffee next time and we’re even.”

Eijirou picked up the sheet to see what he wrote: in a neat scrawl was the name Bakugou Katsuki—Pretty Blond’s name? He liked it—and below it was—

Eijirou’s heart skipped a beat. Was that his phone number?

His eyes jumped up to Bakugou, who was watching him expectantly. Instantly, a wide smile spread across Eijirou’s lips. “Yeah, sure man! Same time tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Bakugou finished putting away his things before standing and slinging his bag over his shoulder, and with a wave over his shoulder he headed for the door. “Later, Shitty Hair.”

“It’s Kirishima, actually!” he called after Bakugou, but he only received a middle finger in response before he was out the door, the little bell over it ringing as it swung closed.

The next morning saw the same schedule: french vanilla cappuccino, a blueberry scone today, and heading to his booth in the back. Only this time, he wasn’t alone.

Bakugou was already sitting in the booth, his laptop and papers out, but there was still room on the tabletop for Eijirou’s own things. He looked up as the redhead approached, and Eijirou had the pleasure of seeing a real smile grace his lips. It was small, but it was there.

“Hey man!” Eijirou returned the smile with a wide one of his own. “Still want that coffee?”

Bakugou nodded and handed over his travel cup. “Black, no cream, two sugars.”

“Got it!” The order was made in less than a minute, and he slid the cup across the table as he slid into the other side of the booth. “So, would you be cool with being my muse again?”

Bakugou smirked over the lid of his cup as he took a sip. “You’re asking this time?”

Eijirou’s face burned. Bakugou may still be pretty, but he was sassier than he expected. “C’mon man, I’m trying to make it right! It wasn’t manly of me to do that and-“

Bakugou was waving him off before he could finish, the smirk still playing at his lips. “I’m just fucking with you. Do what you want. You want me a certain way?”

“Nope!” Eijirou grabbed his sketchbook and flipped it open to the next blank page. “Just stay how you are.”

Fic written for @krbkevents KRBK Month 2023 Day 21: Coffee Shop! Also on AO3, let me know what you think!

#mha #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #kiribaku #krbk #krbk month 2023 #krbk events #mha fanfiction #fanfic #coffee shop #traveler writes #pushing my chem engineer baku agenda #(it's not really an agenda I just like it)

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