Denki Kaminari | Fantasy AU

The Goddamn Blackened Hearth.

Thick smoke rose in a heavy haze toward the soot-blackened ceiling, pouring off the massive brick fireplace, burning his eyes. No air. Denki buried his face in the edge of his painted vest and hacked out a muffled cough. The tavern was bursting at the seams tonight — right at the bar, some hulking orc had an elf by his lace collar and was shaking the soul out of him, spraying spit over spilled ale.

Ugh.

What if he just... sat with his back to everyone?

Maybe nobody'd spot a bard in gaudy rags in a crowd like this? Nope. Not a chance.

A string whined under his cramped finger. Shit — last thing he needed was for it to snap. If it broke, death by starvation in some reeking back alley would come way before Bakugo ever bothered to remember he existed.

Something hard cracked him in the back of the skull.

"Hey, bard! You gonna play, or just stand there fondling your instrument?"

The gnome's nasty cackle sliced through the noise. Oh, of course. This asshole again. Parked here every damn day. Denki snagged the tossed bone at the lip of the stage. Pork. Picked clean. His stomach knotted at the sight of food, but that mocking, theatrical grin was already sliding into place.

"My dear friend! So good to see you again!"

Someone in the hall howled.

How many times had he sworn he'd never set foot in the Winter Crown again? Hundreds? No — thousands. And still. Back in the kingdom where they hacked off fingers for theft and ripped out tongues for "corrupting public morality." What did that even mean? Those priestesses had looked like they were dying for a good lay.

And now here he was, up on stage like a prancing dickhead.

All because he'd pissed away every coin Katsuki had fronted him for expenses. Three days back, in an alley that reeked worse than a dockside whore, a halfling had jumped him out of nowhere. Poked that little knife right at his junk. Had to hand over the whole stash — gold, silver... even the coppers. Worst part — his marked deck vanished with it. All to save his future children. If he even survived that long.

The lute settled into his hands the way it always did. Gaze slipping past the guards nursing their beers by the entrance — don't stare. His wanted posters papered every inch of Silk Street. Every damn brothel: BANNED in huge letters, and a little note underneath — 100 gold for his head. Good times.

Those scrawls had him with a crooked nose and pig eyes, so maybe he'd squeak by. The artist had clearly been blind. At least the big guy at the far table hadn't twitched — same guy whose window Denki had bailed out of bare-assed a couple years back, boots in one hand, coin purse in the other.

Right.

Attention is money. Money is life.

Fingers ran across the strings out of habit, sending a bright melody through the hall. Someone looked up. First copper coins clinked into the mug at the lip of the stage. Step to the side, a spin, blinding smile. Beads in his hair chimed in rhythm. Perfect. Some village girl in the corner was already turning to mush.

But the target sat at the other end of the hall.

Under dull portraits of knights in plate armor. Sullen as a desert camel, you stared into your mug like every secret of the universe was floating in there. Whatever. Your problems are your problems.

But that Academy robe on your shoulders... oh yeah. Exactly what he needed.

The mission had been shit from day one.

Sero — that sneaky lucky bastard — had, by some unholy fucking miracle , sniffed out that a merchant galleon from another continent was due at Siren's Port in a month. Slaves, rare steel, jewelry. Katsuki practically drooled over the plan — gut the guards, take it all. One problem: the port sat in such a bumfuck corner of the world that the trek on foot would take two months, easy.

No teleportation sphere, no shot.

Yeah, yeah — that same pearlescent piece of orb that looked like dragon shit. Locked up tight behind wards deep inside the Academy of Magical Arts. White spires. Floating platforms. And — damn— those bastard combat golems at the gate.

Their whole future — the ship, mountains of steel, the chance to stop eating sand like rats in the desert — all of it came down to those fucking stone monstrosities. Twenty-three days. That was all they had, and their only half-orc had spent the last week rotting under an apple tree in the Memorial Garden.

Gruumk had been a moron. A mountain of muscle and zero tactics — the perfect recipe for croaking first. "I'll just walk in," he'd said. "Who's gonna stop me?"

The golems stopped him. The stench of scorched meat still hit the back of Denki's throat the second he shut his eyes. That was the one lesson he'd taken away clean: until those white wrought-iron gates swung open for him by invitation, the shitty sphere was staying put — right there, behind the backs of those unkillable stone freaks.

Unless...

His gaze found you across the hall.

Same table as yesterday. Blue robe, silver embroidery, shimmer of enchantments on the fabric. Student? Professor? Didn't matter.

What mattered was the brooch on your chest. A pass.

You were why he played in this snake pit. Tracked your evening routes, barely weaseled his way into a gig with the lute. Well — side cash didn't hurt either...

Three days he'd been working you. Glances from under his lashes — casual ones, except not casual at all, obviously. The perfect blend of charm and pure sex appeal should've flattened you by now.

But the only one blushing was that farm girl in the corner. ...And you hadn't so much as glanced his way.

Not once.

Which was... fine. Probably. For someone else. Shit, he was the best-looking guy in Katsuki's whole crew. The smartest, most resourceful, and— Why the hell won't you look?!

Tonight would be different.

Denki stepped into the center of the hall. Fingers shifted tempo, striking up something bold and playful. The noise dipped — not to silence, but the drunks caught his new piece, and attention swung toward him. His own composition. Two sleepless nights.

A breath. C'mon. Look over here.

And he played.

"I met a lonely heart beneath the evening star, Who whispered, 'Come inside — I'll leave the door ajar.' They pulled me close and said, 'Now use those hands of yours,' So I whipped it out and played until they hit the floors.

'Oh, deeper!' then they moaned, 'Don't stop, don't stop for air!' I plucked and strummed all night — the finest show out there. At dawn they lay there trembling, spent and barely dressed, And sighed, 'Of all the bards... you truly are the best.'"

The last note hung in the smoke-choked air.

Hadn't even realized he'd wound up right next to your table. Producing a wooden mug like he'd just pulled it out of his ass, he clunked it down on the tabletop. The signature grin — lovingly rehearsed on every puddle from here to the Atarak Desert — stretched across his face.

"Spare a coin for the bard?"