"Bro you haven't been home in a few weeks, what's up with that?"

Kaminari looked across at Sero who sat on the floor with him in front of the couch, PS4 controller abandoned in his lap in favour of a bag of chips.

"Five, actually."

Sero spoke through his chewing. "What?"

"Weeks. I haven't been home in five weeks," Kaminari distractedly replied as he scrolled through the list of maps.

Bakugou grunted from behind him on the couch, indicating he was listening to the pair's conversation.

Sero turned to face him properly and swallowed his mouthful. "Bro, why? That's weird for you. Is everything okay at home?"

"Yeah, everything's fine," he said and mumbled, "for now."

Sero definitely had super hearing because he lifted an eyebrow at him. "Dude, spill, what's going on?"

Kaminari laid his controller on the floor in front of him. He released a deep breath and said, "I've been avoiding my parents. They don't know about the whole Shinsou situation. If I go home, they'll know something's up. Then we'll have to have a conversation about how I'm heteroflexi-whatever and then I'll have to explain why and then my 'rents will freak out and it's really just a situation I would rather avoid."

The news must have come as a surprise to Sero because he let out a, "Huh." He guessed referring to his boyfriend as a 'situation' gave away what he was worried about.

Bakugou nudged the back of his head with his foot. "You're worried about coming out to your parents?"

Kaminari turned so he could see him and rubbed the back of his head. "I mean, yeah. I'd prefer to not do it at all."

"So don't," Bakugou grunted.

Kaminari just looked at him in question.

Bakugou shrugged. "I introduced Ei to my old hag and told her he was my boyfriend. Said she could go die if she had a problem with it."

How very Bakugou. He wished he could shrug off the consequences like that but he shook his head. "I can't put Hitoshi through the possibility of her freaking out. He's been rejected too many times by too many people. If she's going to freak I'd prefer her to do it with just me and not him."

Sero nodded in understanding and Bakugou made a, "Tch."

"But you do want to introduce Shinsou to them, yeah?" Sero asked.

Kaminari's face fell. "Of course I do. I really like him and I want them to accept him. And me. But I guess I also owe them time to process it before they meet him. I've only ever talked about girls so I just don't want Mom to be weird about it."

"She won't actually be weird will she? Your mom's cool, she'll be fine. I thought you'd be more worried about you dad." Sero shuddered. "That dude scares me."

Kaminari shook his head. "Dad's more of a 'that's your business' type person. Even if he was weird about it, which I don't think he will be, he'd never let on. He'll nod and that'll be that. That's pretty much the extent of our relationship."

Sero nodded, it did kind of sound like Kaminari's dad. He had a no nonsense aura about him which was the complete opposite of his friend. Sero would never have known they were related if they didn't look exactly the same.

Kaminari continued, now that he'd voiced his thoughts, he felt better talking about it all. "I'm worried about Mom because she doesn't have a filter and even if she doesn't say it, you can see whatever she's thinking written all over her face. I'll be able to see the discomfort and I don't know if I can handle it so I've been avoiding going home. It's not even that I think she's homophobic or whatever, it's just that you guys reacted so well and this is the first time I'm gonna tell someone who could react differently and I guess I'm just not as okay about it all as I first thought I might have been."

Sero nodded in understanding but it was Bakugou who spoke up. "It's gonna be worse the longer you leave it. You'll build it up in your head into something worse than it is. Man up, or whatever inspirational shit Shitty Hair would say."

Kaminari couldn't help but huff a laugh at Bakugou's attempted encouragement but he was right, he needed to do this. "You're right. I'll go home next weekend and tell them. If I don't come to class next week, you know it went badly."

"Dude," Sero admonished with a punch to his shoulder, "Don't say that, it's gonna be fine!"

"Yeah. No, I know. I have to joke about it or else I'm probably gonna have a break down."

"It's fucking bullshit that you have to be stressed about it. Do you think Plain Face had to come out to his parents that he was straight?" Bakugou said, gesturing to the dark haired boy. "Or any of these hetero fucks? I want a world where no one gives a fuck if you wanna suck dick or not. And you shouldn't have to tell anyone shit."

Kaminari was a little speechless. And a little touched. He'd caught a glimpse of how passionate Bakugou was about this when he'd been splayed out on Sero's dorm floor a few weeks ago but this was even more.

Bakugou's outburst had caught the attention of a few of their classmates though and, unfortunately, Aizawa as he shuffled between rooms.

To stop the possibility of an oncoming lecture on dorm etiquette from him or Iida, Kaminari jumped in. "Hey, Mister Aizawa? I need some Dadzawa advice."

Kaminari could almost see the shudder roll through his teacher's body at the name. "What's wrong, Kaminari? Don't you have your own father for that?"

"Well, that's actually kind of the point. Got any tips for coming out to my parents?"

Kaminari saw Mina and Uraraka loitering in the kitchen listening in and he could hear Mina whisper, "Did he just ask Aizawa if he was gay!?"

Aizawa let out a I'm-so-done-with-this-shit-sigh. "Yes, Ashido, I have a husband, but no, he did not ask if I was gay."

Mina and Uraraka audibly gasped as they scrambled to sit on the rug with the others. Kaminari had told her who Shinsou's Dad was but not anything else. "Aww what's he like!?"

Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose. "Annoying." Kaminari hid his smile.

Sero elbowed Mina to get her to be quiet and looked expectantly at their teacher for his words of advice. "Coming out to people is exhausting," he said simply.

When they all kept looking at him he knew he needed to share some of his experience with them. Sometimes he forgot that they were only kids, struggling through the same things as he had. "I came out to my best friend first because I knew it would go well. That was a big step for me. I knew if I needed their support in the future, they'd be there."

He looked pointedly between Kaminari and Sero. Indicating he knew he'd already done that.

"The hardest one was someone I'd been friends with for ever. I'd anticipated him being sceptical because I'd never talked about boys to him. It turned out better than I expected. We build these scenarios up in our head and it makes it harder because you have these preconceived ideas of how they will react whereas the reality can sometimes be very simple. I'm not saying it will always be simple or easy or even positive but you won't know until you do it."

He saw the awe on his student's faces and even the spark of respect he'd come to recognise from Bakugou. "My advice is to do it before you think about it too much."

"So you're telling me not to think too hard? Now there's something I'm good at," Kaminari joked.

Aizawa sighed again as he turned to leave. "Go to bed, problem children."