Chapter Text
“It’s two o’clock, you’re still sleeping
When you wake up, you’ll be in such pain….”
It was quite hard to realize the man you loved was in love with someone else. It was even harder trying to figure out how you had never noticed before. That was what Midorya was puzzling over. How every subtle hint seemed so much bigger now. Every simple touch, every tease, every look was like a large billboard as opposed to a small clue. Every refusal to make their relationship public or even known to their closest of friends was hard evidence against him. Bakugo always had a reason to keep it hidden and if Midorya was honest with himself, he would have made it known he was sick of every reason. Sick of every excuse the other boy used.
Their relationship wore a glamorous mask. One decorated with secrets. Secret sleepovers when one crept into the other's bedroom at midnight, risking the consequences that came with breaking curfew. Secret looks that meant nothing to anyone else around them. Hands held under tables where no one else could see, when no one else was around. Intimacy that would be shared only well after the latest of hours when everyone else would be tucked away into bed and long lost to sleep.
That was how the night had started. Sneaking to Bakugo's room at nearly midnight, one simple, soft kiss leading to almost too rough love making, if he could even call it that. Midorya had always considered sex and love making two very different things. He'd tried discussing it with Bakugo, but he didn't have much of an opinion on the matter and laughed it off, telling Midorya he thought too much.
Now he was laying in Bakugo's bed at the early hours of the morning, watching the other boy's face as he slept, his own sleep stolen from him by his thoughts. He'd told Bakugo twice now that he loved him but had yet to hear the words spoken back to him. Both times he had told Midorya that he wasn't ready to say such important words. Even though he hadn't said it back, it had still made the green haired boy ecstatic that saying "I love you" was that special to Bakugo and he was waiting for the right moment.
Or maybe he had been waiting for the right person.
That's what Midorya's thoughts were now telling him. He was in love with the seemingly perpetually angry boy that so many people stayed away from and only a select few would ever find themselves in his circle of friends; and a small circle of friends it was. Midorya wasn't sure he was even part of said circle most of the time, if ever at all. To the outside world, Bakugo was the childhood friend turned bully that laughed at all his flaws and called him Deku to humiliate him.
"I can't stop, or people will ask questions," he had explained when Midorya had asked him to quit calling him by the embarrassing nickname.
It had made sense considering they were keeping things so hush-hush, but he had tried to reason that it may be fun if people did wonder. Like a question no one had the answer to but them. Bakugo hadn't seen it the same way. The boy had folded though, perhaps too easily, and that part of himself that made excuses for Bakugo stepped in. The part that simply went along with anything the blond wanted.
Thus, he remained Deku, at times even behind closed doors, but he couldn't remember when Bakugo had stopped being Kacchan. Old habits die hard, but a person can still grow out of them. Maybe he had and just hadn't noticed when or why.
He pressed himself closer to the sleeping man, a strongarm tightening around him. Many people had joked that the only time Bakugo looked peaceful was while he was sleeping. No one could really prove it, but it was partly true. In the quiet of his room, he dropped his angry front. He wasn't known to smile, especially not in public, and not even to Midorya. His face was better known as a smirk more than anything if he wasn't scowling, but while they sat in the privacy of his or the other’s room, his dropped his guard.
It hurt to think someone else got to see his smiles; that Bakugo was able to drop his walls for anyone else.
Watching him sleep was when Midorya could see him at peace. He would wonder what the blond would be dreaming about and if the blond would share it with him in the morning. There were so many things he told Bakugo and he'd share every detail if he could. Write them down page after page because he wanted him to know everything...but he wasn't sure the other wanted to listen.
Their relationship was hardly what he expected a relationship to be and maybe that was because it wasn't real. At least it wasn't to Bakugo, or that was what Midorya was figuring out now, with the realization the blond cared for someone else. Midorya could feel the dead end they were steadily heading towards. He had foolishly fell for the young man who had spent so much time torturing him and making fun of him and calling him a name that had unfortunately stuck. It still didn’t make any sense to him and it didn't make sense to any of his friends when he would tell them very plainly that he didn't hate the blond. He couldn't hate him even when so many others told him all the reasons why he should.
Maybe he couldn't hate him because of their personal history and having grown up together as best friends, losing track of when friendship turned into leader and follower. Bakugo had started to treat everyone that way and it was silly for him to think he'd be saved from the same treatment; that he was any way above that.
Then the bullying had started. He should have hated him then, but the image of his best friend was still there. The huffy kid with band aids on both knees like they were a required piece of his dress code. The boy covered in scrapes and bruises that he showed off proudly because he was so tough and never cried when he got hurt. The kid Midorya had met on the sidewalk, drawing hundreds of cats in colorful chalk. He had made a green one right before they had to go home, smiling and telling Midorya, "That kitty is yours."
He couldn't hate him because somewhere deep down was still that kid that had been his best friend, drawing him pictures on the concrete.
Constant bullying had gone to ignoring him completely and in that span of time, Midorya had found himself hopelessly in love. Perhaps his love was created by a vivid imaging of a
person Bakugo hadn't actually become. It was more made up of memories and a way Midorya saw him than the person that existed, but he had convinced himself that who he saw was the real Bakugo Katsuki.
So, after a lot of internal debate, he had pulled on every fiber of strength in his being and told the scowling blond how he felt. Under all the foul-mouthed comments and bad boy persona was a good person. A person he was falling for. Surprisingly, Bakugo hadn't laughed or told him to fuck off. He'd stayed silent and left. Midorya had been terrified until Bakugo had finally told him that the least they could do was give it a shot, but they would keep it a secret until he said otherwise.
"Otherwise" had yet to come and he kept telling himself that it was okay.
But it wasn't and now he was mad over a man that didn't feel the same.
That wasn't okay. He couldn't accuse the other of fooling him, but he couldn't fool himself either. He didn’t know if Bakugo had a malicious motive in all of this and he hoped he didn't, but the more he let his thoughts run rampant, the worse and worse it felt. The worse each thought became. Finally, he could no longer lay in the same bed as his boyfriend, if he could call him that. Something in him questioned why he even came to his room that night in the first place. Perhaps it was to prove a point to himself. He needed to now at the very least that Bakugo would still let him in, that there was still a physical relationship to be had. That only aided in everything coming to surface though. In trying to prove a positive point, he only drove a worse one deeper.
The clock ticked to two a.m. as he carefully pulled himself from the sleeping boy's hold and out from under the warm nest of blankets.
It could be that he was overthinking every detail, something he excelled at, but there were things he just knew deep down he was right about. There was too much evidence staring him down and screaming in his face.
"There's no need to be so terrible when you know I would do anything for you...."