Chapter Text
“How you like that, little bitch?!”
Deku squinted up at the vision standing over him, one foot on either side of Deku’s hips. Lake water streamed from little red swim shorts and a set of washboard abs belonging to the magazines Deku had confiscated from beneath Shinsou Hitoshi’s bunk mattress.
Kacchan lorded above him, slicked bronze hair crowned in midday sun, his deep tan sparkling from the swim, and—
Deku, a little bitch, liked it very much.
“When’re you gonna learn, Deku?” Each word drips smug and saccharine off Kacchan as he fists hands on hips and looms over him, eclipsing the too-blue sky with his toothy smile. “Been more ‘n a decade and you still think you can beat me at this shit? I took my swim team to nationals this year. What were you doin’, hah? Whackin’ one off to black hole theories?”
Deku couldn’t help but laugh. Kacchan was ridiculous when he ran his mouth and Deku had known him too many summers to be bothered by it. Instead, he held out a hand expectantly, smile in place.
“I’m not the one who had to shave his legs for swim team,” Deku says, glancing at the faint gold fuzz skimming Kacchan’s damp thighs. “At least I got to keep my body hair all year.”
Kacchan’s face flamed up beneath the tan, but he gripped Deku’s forearm and hauled him up all the same. The raft beneath their feet swayed on the deep green lake, anchored deep and sturdy for the summer. While Kacchan seemed to simmer and sulk from the burn, Deku idly scrunched at his sodden curls with both hands and squinted the half mile back to the sandy shores of Camp Sunfire.
Their kids still loitered where they should be, lounging on the beach and splashing in the water. Deku quickly counted the heads of his boys: Shinsou’s purple was the easiest in the lake, with Shindo and Sero beside him as usual, followed by his three scattered blondes, Mirio, Ojiro, and Monoma.
From the shore, Mirko, one of the teen girls’ counselors, spotted Deku and gave a hearty laugh with two thumbs down for his performance. Deku grimaced and turned away.
“Like you can talk,” Kacchan muttered, drawing Deku’s attention back.
“What?” Deku pointedly did not watch the way Kacchan stretched toward the sun like some vengeful golden god, and instead sat on the edge of the raft with his legs over the side. The lake barely caught the light at this depth, just fathomless green seeping into black, the seaweed tickling the bottom of the little raft ladder.
“About body hair,” Kacchan said, dropping to sit beside him. “You hardly got any. Ain’t you an adult yet?”
The thought of Kacchan even noticing Deku’s body enough to notice his body hair—or lack thereof—sent a sparkle down Deku’s spine. Then, of course, when he remembered that everything ever had always been a contest between them and this was no different, Deku sighed and offered a weak, lopsided smile.
“I’ve got hair where it counts, Kacchan. Thanks for the thought.”
Kacchan made a face like Deku had offered him shit for lunch.
“Whatever,” Kacchan said. “You playin’ soccer after dinner?”
“Do you want me to play soccer after dinner?” Deku asked, kicking his feet in the water. He kept a sharp eye out for any turtles who might float to the surface thinking his toes were a wormy snack.
He’d made that mistake at this same spot when he’d been ten and was scarred for life. Kacchan had laughed so hard that he’d nearly puked mac and cheese over the side of the raft while Deku screamed and flapped his turtle foot around in the air. He could have lost a toe!
“Don’t give a shit,” Kacchan replied quickly, shouldering Deku hard. “Just askin’.”
“Dunno.” Deku said, letting his eyes briefly shut, his face tilting toward the sun. He’d passed the first week of camp unscathed by a sunburn, which meant he was probably safe for the next three months. It was always that first week of endless summer sun that caught him out if he didn’t constantly coat himself in sunscreen. While he was now freckled from head to toe, his skin had warmed up toasty and softly tan. He could sit here in the midday sun without concern for murder burns.
His childhood years at Camp Sunfire had also scarred him for life from that too. Kacchan had towel-whipped his burnt back in the showers one too many times.
“What you got better to do?” Kacchan drawled, reclining back on his splayed hands, his big, golden chest soaking up the sun like he never had to wear a lick of suncream in his life.
Do not think about licking Bakugou Katsuki’s chest.
“The boys wanna gamble for candy, I think,” Deku said. He’d brought bags with him; passed them out as secret rewards for good behavior. Then he held Wednesday night poker games with his own even better candy stash—full-sized chocolate bars and stuff. This lured antisocial teenagers into playing a group game with their own candies, all the while getting them all to spend time with each other without realizing.
This was Deku and Kacchan’s first year as counselors, but they’d both attended from age seven to seventeen. They knew the tricks of the trade; knew how these kids worked, because they’d been them. Deku also knew how hard it was to get teenage boys to hang out and do wholesome things together.
Poker was totally against camp rules, which was why Deku knew it would work so well. Their second game was tonight.
“You’re gonna get caught out doin’ that shit,” Kacchan said, smiling sharply at Deku like he fully hoped it would happen. He was so pretty. Like, violently gorgeous. Every year it got harder to look at him. “Get your ass beat.”
“Who is gonna beat my ass?” Deku asked incredulously, already giggling at the thought.
“Dunno,” Kacchan said, his smile widening, showing off all those perfect teeth. “Chisaki probably.”
“Oh my god, don’t!” Deku screeched through the laughter.
Camp Sunfire’s nurse was honestly the most terrifying person here. Kids were genuinely afraid to bleed on his cabin floor. Deku had once kept a broken toe from everyone and let Kacchan surgically tape it to the toe beside it and they’d hoped for the best. Deku’s fourth toe was wonky and crooked but at least he hadn’t been at the mercy of that guy.
A shrill scream echoed across the lake. Deku hopped to his feet and watched one of Kacchan’s boys, the big athletic guy with the red hair, heft one of the girls over his shoulder and saunter into the water. Even from a distance, his grin of victory was obvious.
Deku briefly recognized the black girl as one of Mirko’s; it was hard to miss the neon pink curls and clouds of candy blush she sported every day. Even as a kid, Deku couldn’t fathom the girls who did full-faces of hair and makeup for sweaty weeks at camp. He admired them, but didn’t understand them. At nineteen, he still didn’t understand.
One thing he knew, though, was the sound of a girl who absolutely did not want to be thrown into the water.
“That one’s yours,” Deku said, but Kacchan was already slicing a clean dive into the lake and swimming off with the speed of a literal water deity.
Sighing to himself, Deku jumped in and followed, slower.
By the time he sloshed toward the shore, Kacchan had the redhead held by the scruff of the neck like a bad dog, muttering something quietly intense in his ear as he walked the slumped teen away from the beach and toward the treeline trail that would take them back to the cabins.
The girl, Mirko’s, stood there with hands on her hips, glaring at the redhead’s back. She didn’t look soaked, anyway. At the last minute, Deku recalled her name—Mina. Mirko and Mina.
“Hey!” Deku called out, smiling with concern as he approached her and Mirko. “You good, Mina? Everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” Mina said, her big, liquid dark eyes narrowed on the other guy’s retreating back. “Eiji’s just being a big idiot. Why are men even?”
“Why are men. . .even. . .what?” Deku asked, unsure what language was being used at this point.
Mirko laughed and slung an arm around Mina’s slim shoulders. They made quite a pair, one all cotton candy curls and the other in bleached white box braids, both of them petite with those big, dark-lashed eyes watching Deku like he was an idiot. Which, he definitely was, when it came to women.
“You’re good, kid,” Mirko said. She didn’t look it, but she was a good ten years older than Deku, maybe past thirty now. She’d been a counselor since Deku was ten or something. Deku would always be ‘kid’ to her. “Why don’t you round up your and Bakugou’s boys for lunch? And give them a little lesson about manners.”
Deku aimed a baleful glance to the beach, where Shindo was currently bench-pressing Shinsou like an absolute meathead.
“Yeah,” he said faintly. “I’ll try.”
Hours later, after a clattering, cacophonous dinner in the canteen. After Deku spoke to a bunch of uninterested dudes about how to treat women and any fellow campers of any gender. After the soccer game Kacchan inevitably goaded Deku and his boys into playing. After showers.
Deku sat on the floor, barricaded by bunk beds and his boys, a poor hand of poker held close to his chest. More than candy had made it into the betting pool. Trashy magazines—Shinsou, for the love of god—cigarettes that Deku was going to confiscate the minute someone won them, snacks sent from home, and, to Deku’s actual horror, condoms.
He was a cool counselor, he reminded himself. He was befriending the boys so they would listen to him, he told himself. This was all part of the plan. He was going to be the best counselor ever. Maybe encouraging safe sex was the best thing, now that he thought of it. The last thing he needed was someone getting fucking herpes in the woods.
Deku was not feeling particularly mentally stable right now.
“Everyone here has too many tells,” Shinsou drawled, his smug smile casting across the lot of them. Even Deku felt like wilting under it, and he was used to Kacchan.
“Literally one one cares,” Monoma said, sounding equally bored as he rearranged his cards like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Your mom cares,” Sero said, grinning sloppy and stoned. Deku pinched at his shut eyes.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Monoma hissed, his pale cheeks firing up. “How much brain have you smoked out of your skull, Sero? Put down a card already!”
“Guys,” Deku began, his voice wavering—
The front door smacked open and Mirio stood there with an expression of abject panic. He wasn’t playing because he treated his body like a temple and had an Instagram or something dedicated to it, but he’d offered to keep watch and now he was—
“Bakugou’s cabin is coming!” Mirio hollered.
They had about thirty seconds to brace themselves, which, what the hell Mirio—did you not see them coming? Anyway, Deku had about two seconds to gape at all the contraband sitting in the middle of the floor before Kacchan bust in with a serial killer smile and those stupidly short red camp shorts.
Everyone wore them, but on Kacchan they were like. Going to give Deku a coronary before the summer was over.
“Hello, boys,” Kacchan said in the same way he used to whisper I’m gonna beat your freckled ass in Deku’s ear before a race, threatening Deku’s own equally short shorts with a boner than inevitably had him losing.
Yes, he was blaming his semi-regular losing streaks on his semi-hardons. He had the right.
“Kacchan!” Deku said, sounding more surprised than he knew he should. “You’re—here. That’s—good? Are you, er, coming to play?”
“I’m coming to win,” Kacchan said, his gaze fixed on the pot in the center of the room. He had the door held wide open, his boys streaming in. How he and Deku ended up in charge of the sixteen-seventeen aged boys was still beyond Deku’s comprehension, but he was sure the owners, Mr Enji and Mr Yagi, were using the experience as some kind of punishment after dealing with The Blunder Duo for ten solid years of summer camp.
“Great,” Deku croaked. “Well, everyone. Make room.”
And that was how every Wednesday night for the next three months became poker night. Deku’s plan worked, but honestly, at what cost?