Mineta One Shots

Loving You (KamiNeta)

Rating: Gen
Pairing: Kaminari/Mineta (one sided), Jirou/Kaminari
Tags: Falling in love, boys in love, one sided attraction, homophobia, internalized homophobia, Mineta Minoru is a good friend, Kaminari is a dork, Kaminari is a ray of sunshine, Mineta Minoru angst, this was so much sadder than I planned.

Summary:

Young people loved with everything they had, and Mineta was no different. The only problem with having one person in your life is that sometimes your heart doesn't get the memo. Sometimes you loved a bit too much.

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There were so many things about being a teenager that they didn't warn you about. They never told you about your emotions and how they threatened to drown you, how the people you knew for years became strangers and you broke hearts as fast as you earned them. They didn't warn you about falling in love.

Teenagers were funny like that. They loved with all they had, threw their souls into partnerships destined to fail, hitching to broken wagons they thought they could fix. With ideals of Romeo and Juliet, of Bonnie & Clyde, of being more than the sum of their parts. Teenagers loved with every piece of their heart, and they would continue to throw their affections at the wall hoping they'd stick, hoping to be loved back with the same ferocity.

And the friends you made, kids learning how to exist together, building something stronger than they were alone. Friends when you're young are strange, but boys become friends in a stranger way. Girls didn't often stay friends forever, but guys? The boys you played video games with in middle school would attend your wedding one day, it just happened that way sometimes.

Minoru never really had friends, and then he met Denki.

Kaminari was perfect, with his abhorrent way of playing Tarcov that made Minoru tear up if he watched too long and his five slipknot shirts that looked the same but were apparently all different, his bright eyes like lightning, wild and untamed, his way of talking about the dumbest things only for Minoru to realize they've been talking for hours. They watched the same anime and loved the same songs, they swapped recommendations and it never felt awkward when there was silence.

Kaminari was his best friend, and despite Sero and him being close, Mineta considered himself Denki's best friend too.

The problem with never having friends before was never knowing the boundaries he was supposed to follow. Guys were just like that with each other, joking around about the boundaries. Minoru just assumed Denki would correct him if he strayed from the stringent social norms that always breathed down their necks.

"I love you, bro." He'd sit on the bed behind his friend's gaming chair, playing with the yellow cat ears of his headphones while he died repeatedly. These were the best nights, after struggling through homework and talking about everything and nothing.

"I love you too." Denki always responded, usually with a pat on the head. (Mineta made a conscious effort to not let any balls stick unless he was feeling like a little shit in the moment. Until then, let him have his false sense of security, it wasn't like Minoru liked the pats.)

Young people loved with all they had, staking everything.

Mineta loved Denki, he was his best friend. His only friend, aside from the classmates that tolerated him. Denki didn't just let him be there, he interacted, he made Mineta feel like a person. Maybe that was where it all went wrong, staking everything on the one person that showed him love back.