Chapter Text
Eijirou wakes up from a strange dream. Not a particularly happy one either.
He lost someone special. In his dream. Watched him—the love of his life—walk away forever.
Sunlight peeks through the blackout curtains from the bedroom window. It’s warm so he kicks off some of the blanket and rubs his face, surprised at how damp his cheeks are. Did he cry in his sleep?
“Mornin’,” a soft voice behind him says.
Eijirou’s heart lifts and he rolls over, smiling. “Morning.”
Katsuki leans to press a kiss on his cheek then draws back, worried. “What’s the matter?”
“I had a stupid dream,” Eijirou says, wiping the tears away. “But, it wasn’t real because you actually said yes.” He snatches Katsuki’s wrist and gently kisses the engagement ring on his finger.
“Actually,” Katsuki teases, pinching Eijirou’s cheek, “I said I’ll think about it and then you offered a dowry that I couldn’t refuse.”
Eijirou rolls his eyes, smirking. “Like your family needs a dowry. Besides, I just graduated university, so I’m flat broke. You’re the sugar daddy in this relationship.”
Katsuki gapes at him. “You like choosing death first thing in the morning, don’t you?”
Eijirou chuckles, pulling Katsuki’s arm around his neck so he can press their bodies together. “You might want to think twice about killing me. If I die, you inherit my college loans.”
“We’re not married yet!”
Laughter fills the room as Katsuki descends on him, tickling him in the stomach where Eijirou’s most sensitive and smothering him in kisses. It’s utterly perfect and, honestly, Eijirou isn’t sure how he got so lucky as to dodge fate itself, but he’s grateful that he gets to look Katsuki in the eyes and hear him say,
“Hi, future husband.”
It means everything to him.
“Hi,” Eijirou says, leaning into Katsuki’s touch as he runs his fingers through Eijirou’s hair. “Nice to meet you.”
“You gonna keep it red for the wedding?” Katsuki asks, twirling Eijirou’s hair.
“Oh we’re talking wedding plans already??” Eijirou asks excitedly. “Okay, well, if that’s the case, I want to propose—and don’t shoot my idea down until you hear me out—formal crocs.”
Katsuki pauses. “No.”
“Wait, you misheard me. I said formal crocs.”
“No, I heard you loud and clear and I’m rejecting it. My parents will make our outfits, Mom’s been designing mine since I was four and”— Katsuki runs a hand down Eijirou’s bare chest and muscled midriff—“she would kill to curate something for this body.”
Eijirou narrows his eyes. “Your mom does know I’m gay, right? And taken?”
Before Katsuki can respond, an alarm blares nearby and Katsuki rolls to the other side of the bed, reaching for his phone on the nightstand.
“Oh shit.”
“What?” Eijirou says, pulling the blanket back over him.
“I totally forgot about brunch.” Much to Eijirou’s dismay, Katsuki clambers out of bed and heads across the room, where he starts to dig through their dresser.
“Awwww, babe,” Eijirou whines. “Can’t we cancel?”
“You really wanna tell Mina we can’t make her birthday brunch?” Katsuki asks, tossing Eijirou a graphic tee and a pair of nice joggers.
“It’s Mina’s birthday?!” Eijirou exclaims, putting the shirt on first. “I didn’t get her anything?!”
Katsuki snickers, slipping into a pair of jeans. “Relax, I got her something from us. You never remember anyone’s birthday.”
“I barely remember my own birthday,” Eijirou retorts, rolling out of bed. “April 20.”
“That’s my birthday, you idiot.”
Eijirou flinches. Well, that’s embarrassing. “Shit.”
“Get dressed, you dummy,” Katsuki says, disappearing into their closet. “Besides, I’m kinda looking forward to upstaging Pinky by announcing our engagement.”
“You are such an asshole.”
As soon as they’re dressed, they hop on the train to Mina’s favorite brunch spot, a quaint little place that serves pretty bad coffee, but killer mimosas. They’re only five minutes late, but the whole gang is already there, plus some folks Eijirou’s only met once more.
They take the two vacant seats at the end of the table and when Katsuki very obviously reaches across the table to give Mina her present, Ochako squeals at the top of her lungs.
“OH MY GOSH?! WHEN DID YOU GET ENGAGED?!” she shrieks, snatching Katsuki’s hand and shoving it in her girlfriend’s face. Everyone else’s heads turn to them, showering them with congratulations, and even though Eijirou’s turned red at this point, Katsuki is grinning from ear-to-ear.
“Way to steal my thunder!!” Mina complains, taking Katsuki’s hand next, inspecting the ring closely. “Ugh, I can’t even be mad, you two are so disgustingly cute.”
“How’d you propose?” Izuku asks Eijirou, handing him a champagne flute of mimosa.
“Oh, thanks,” Eijirou says, taking the glass, cheeks still flushed. “I proposed on our hiking trail, at the very top of a mountain. I know, cliche as hell, but I couldn’t help it. The moment called to me.”
“You mean it wasn’t planned?!” Mina exclaims.
Eijirou sees Katsuki chuckling out of the corner of his eye. It really was spontaneous and he supposes Mina is a tad upset that she wasn’t involved. “Uh—no. I mean I’ve been meaning to propose for a while now, I just wasn’t sure how.”
“How did you two meet, if you don’t mind me asking?” Tenya asks, placing a hand over Shouto’s on the table.
“You wanna tell the story?” Eijirou asks, turning to Katsuki.
Katsuki shakes his head, beaming. “Go ahead. You can tell it.”
Eijirou grabs his hand and squeezes before turning back to the group. “Okay, well it’s a weird one and half this table has heard this a thousand times already, but we met when I was seventeen.”
“I thought Katsuki was older?” Tenya asks.
“He is,” Eijirou confirms. “By three years. He was twenty.”
Eijirou remembers it clearly. He was home alone one summer, watching television. His parents were working the night shift at the hospital and a knock came at the door, late at night.
“I should say that at the time, I had a timer anomaly where my timer counted down to my soulmate’s death,” Eijirou says, twisting his wrist, which has been blank for years. “But, it disappeared after I met Katsuki.”
“That’s strange,” Ochako says, tilting her head thoughtfully.
“Yeah, no, it was. I woke up the next day and just poof. Gone.”
“Remember,” Hanta says, leaning back in his chair, “you made the local news.”
“Oh yeah, oh god, I forgot about that!” Eijirou says, laughing. “Yeah, they did a whole feature in the local paper about my death timer mysteriously disappearing. I felt super cool at the time.”
“You were definitely the cool guy at school when term started again,” Denki agrees, sipping his class. “And then you bleached your eyebrows and got demoted real quick.”
The table laughs and of course Mina, Denki, and Hanta start pulling up pictures on their phone and showing them around.
“Anyway,” Eijirou says, trying to redirect the conversation, “Katsuki apparently was visiting the old neighborhood, inviting people to his new restaurant in Hosu, and he knocked on our door, wanting to invite my parents. They weren’t home so obviously I told him to leave his info and I’d pass it on.”
“You work at the Grand Hotel?” Shouto asks Katsuki, who nods. “That’s a nice place.”
“Wait,” Eijirou interrupts because he almost left out the best part of the story, “the funny thing is when I told my parents about him in the morning, they had no idea who he was.”
His parents told him that Katsuki probably had mistaken them for some other family. They’d never even met the Bakugous.
“They probably just don’t remember me,” Katsuki says, waving a hand. “But, a year later, Ei ended up coming to the restaurant anyway.”
“I mean, I had to,” Eijirou says. “My parents weren’t going to and I kinda felt bad. A bunch of us moved here for college. Plus, like…I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I was just drawn to him, I guess.” He feels Katsuki giving his hand a good squeeze and Eijirou turns to him, smiling. “The rest, I guess, is history.”
There’s a collective awweeeeee from the group and Katsuki decides to give Eijirou a peck on the cheek, which elicits an even louder reaction.
“You’re right,” Hitoshi says, swinging an arm around Denki. “They are disgustingly cute.”
“And now you’re getting married,” Mina says, sighing contentedly. “If that isn’t a soulmate love story, I dunno what is.”
Eijirou hums, wrist suddenly tingling. “Yeah, we like to theorize we are. Katsuki’s timer also disappeared at the same time mine did even though there was like two years or so left on it.”
He glances at Katsuki, whose eyes are suddenly glued to the phone on his lap, his thumb rubbing his wrist anxiously. He’s watching the clock on his screen and Eijirou wonders if he forgot something. A deadline or something he forgot to schedule.
“You okay?” Eijirou asks softly, brushing his fingers against Katsuki’s hand.
“Huh?” Katsuki turns to him, expression empty for a split second before he smiles, the color returning in his face. “Sorry, I thought I had missed an appointment. What were you saying?”
“We were talking about your timers,” Midoriya says gently.
“Oh,” Katsuki says. He slips his phone back into his pocket and reaches for Eijirou’s hand. “Honestly, the timers were inconsequential for us. I fell in love with Eijirou and chose to be devoted to him. He’s my one true love. That’s all that matters.”
There’s another round of gushing, but Eijirou can’t really hear it because all he can focus on is Katsuki and his words.
His one true love. Eijirou’s heard Katsuki call him that before and it stuns him every time. And Katsuki’s right. As much as Eijirou dreaded his timer, it ended up being unimportant in the end. He found Katsuki and Katsuki found him. Nothing else matters.
“I love you,” Eijour whispers. “Always.”
“I love you,” Katsuki says, sliding a hand on his cheek, “till the end of time.”