White Lies, Red Velvet

Four

"Wait...Best Jeanist? We're working with Best Jeanist?!"
"You didn't know?" Amajiki raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Is it a problem?" Taishiro asked.
"No...just...unexpected..." Was Bakugou still working for him, or had he moved on?
"It's not a big job. You'll be working with Best Jeanist's sidekicks to lure out a cat burglar.
"Seems easy enough." Amajiki shrugged.
"Yeah." Kirishima nodded along, reaching into the front pocket of his hoodie where his new phone was. He needed to stop putting his devices in places that got hit a lot. This was the fourth phone this month.
Hardening was a shitty quirk for so many reasons.
"We're going to dump our stuff off at the hotel, and then we're attending a briefing on the mission right after." Taishiro explained. "And after that, we should definitely find a good restaurant or ramen stand and pig out."
"Sounds great, Fatgum." Kirishima admitted. Eating a big meal always made him feel better after a long day...or a long week...maybe even a long couple of years.
Either way, he was looking forward to filling his stomach until he couldn't move anymore.
"I'm thinking we get a variety of foods in Amajiki to prepare for tomorrow." Taishiro continued. "Lots of meat for our growing boy, too."
"I'm twenty one."
"You're our baby until somebody younger and prettier comes along." Taishiro ruffled Kirishima's hair. The redhead huffed.
"I spent forty minutes on this!" He complained.
"This is our hotel." Taishiro announced, ignoring Kirishima's pleads of mercy from his teasing.
"It's huge! Who's paying for this? Surely we're not worthy." Amajiki gaped.
"Sure we are. Don't get so down on yourself, boy. Let's check in." Taishiro stepped into the shining building, his two sidekicks following right behind him.
"Okay, but who IS paying?"
"Best Jeanist's agency."
"Thank god." Kirishima sighed in relief. "This is NOT coming out of my pay check."
"What do you have to save for, Kiri?" Amajiki asked.
"Uhhh basic necessities?"
"But we have the same pay check and I've never had problems."
"That's because your household has TWO incomes, Amajiki." Kirishima rolled his eyes. "You're lucky to have somebody like Mirio in your life."
"I'm too lucky." Amajiki whined. "There's no way I deserve him."
"If you didn't deserve him; you wouldn't be married." Kirishima assured him.
"He's right." Taishiro agreed, looking up from the sheet he was filling out at the hotel desk. "Now let's hurry and get our stuff to the room. We're running late for our meeting."

***

It turned out that Fatgum and his two sidekicks were the early ones to this meeting. Best Jeanist stormed in fashionably late, expression just as unimpressed as he was on TV. Behind him flocked a gaggle of his iconically prim and proper sidekicks, each one stuffed into tight denim pants, hair brushed neatly and faces made up. Kirishima scanned each one, not sure if he was hoping to see a familiar scowl or not.
But then his eyes landed on him, and he wished that they hadn't.
Bakugou looked so different from how Kirishima remembered him. His hair was gelled down so heavily that Kirishima could see an almost waxy coating over it, and his face held an empty expression, bare of the anger and energy he had gotten used to back in high school.
Kirishima ducked his head down and prayed that he wouldn't be noticed.
Although, he doubted his prayers would be answered.