Chapter Text
“I think we should break up.”
Izuku said it so casually.
As if it were some comment on the way his food was spiced.
Katsuki said nothing. Couldn’t think of anything. So he simply sat there like the words hadn’t reached his ears.
Izuku sucked another noodle in his mouth, chewed, and set his chopsticks down on the table.
“Kacchan,” He started again calmly- a grating clamor in Katsuki’s ears.
“I heard ya the first time.”
Still, Katsuki couldn’t seem to move his eyes from his plate.
He heard Izuku clear his throat, saw his hands twitch before settling in his lap. “Right, well, I’ll give you my reasons.”
“Don’t want ‘em.” Katsuki gruffed, rolled his shoulders if only to kick his brain out of the standstill it had gotten caught in, and continued eating.
“Katsuki,” That time it was worse. It wasn’t just loud in his ears, whistling and ringing, it was a sharp jab to his rib. Filled with sadness and what always sounded like pity, it was infuriating to hear his name like that. “Just hear me out.”
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t. It was far from fine. But in a restaurant surrounded by strangers wasn’t the place for an outburst. In presence of anyone, not even Izuku at this point, wasn’t where he was going to show just how far from fine this was.
“You said it yourself when we started,” Katsuki kept his voice steady, impressive considering how tight his muscles had become. “If one of us decided it was over, then that’s it.”
After a pause, Izuku gave a quiet hum and brought his glass to his mouth. “I never thought that’d actually come into play. Or that you would be compelled to follow it.”
“M’not gonna fight you.” Something about that felt like a lie- he couldn’t assure that he wouldn’t eventually snap. “At least not here.” He added it on the end, quieter.
A sigh flittered across the table, falling shaky from Izuku’s mouth before tickling, begging at Katsuki’s ears.
Katsuki gave in to it, looked up to find a hunched ball of nerves staring down at his bowl. Izuku may have sounded indifferent, his words calculated and most likely rehearsed, but his expression, the way he shook in place, was always more telling that what came out of his mouth. It brought a guilty feeling deep from Katsuki’s gut. One that made him regret how short he was being even though none of this was his fault. At least not as far as he knew.
“Just finish eating, Deku.” He tried to sound looser, like he wasn’t about to crack his chopsticks in half.
Izuku regarded him with uncertainty, a fear that maybe Katsuki was just trying to get his guard down before he snapped at him. But he knew better than that by now, and he showed as much in the way he slunk into his chair and did just as he was told.
The rest of the meal was silent save for little clinks here and there and glasses being set back down on the wood of the table.
Katsuki paid for them both without asking, without sparing a glance to Izuku’s worried expression when the waitress posed the question.
They said nothing.
Did not look at each other.
Didn’t even glance at their phones.
Just sat stiffly in the heavy silence until they were both finished and could make their way to Katsuki’s car.
Grip tight on the steering wheel, Katsuki grit his teeth to keep from saying anything. The only thing that could possibly come out were either loud barks of aggression or vulnerable, woeful questions- both of which he refused to let from his mouth.
Izuku stared out the window with his hands balled into fists on his knees. He would shift every now and then. The leather under him would squeak and fill the space between them if only for a second.
Katsuki really should have turned the radio on when they got in, if only so he didn’t have to hear Izuku’s harsh, stuttering breathing every time he tried to say something before deciding against it. But now it was too late, they were halfway to Izuku’s apartment and Katsuki didn’t trust his hand to leave the wheel without the risk of swinging a punch into the shoulder waiting just a foot away.
His hand only broke from its tight hold once he’d pulled into the parking lot beside the tall apartment building and put the car in park. Even then, as soon as the gear was shifted, it went right back to the warm spot it had left and curled around the worn plush of the wheel.
Still, neither of them spoke.
For a while, neither of them moved.
Both of those facts were broken when Izuku unbuckled himself and the seatbelt went whirring up across his chest.
“Will you listen to me now?” He asked softly, keeping his gaze straight ahead into the parking lot lit only by a few dim streetlights.
Katsuki wrung the wheel, let the material pull and dig into his skin. “What’s there to hear?”
Izuku turned to him then, only made him stare harder at the empty car in front of them. “Don’t you want to know why?”
“Not particularly.”
He was only being half honest. A part of him truly didn’t want to be tortured with the emotional words Izuku would spill if he asked him to. He didn’t want to know what he’d done wrong, how he apparently wasn’t good enough, how he’d already failed. It was probably the same part that begged to understand those very questions. To get an explanation for the disgusting churning in his stomach that hadn’t stopped since Izuku had smacked him with six offhanded words.
“I’m leaving-”
“Just go home.” Katsuki shut his eyes, tried to breathe through the desire to yell.
Of course shitty, unrelenting, unbothered Deku would keep pushing at him. “You can’t keep ignoring this.”
Breathe.
Don’t yell.
A rough exhale left through Katsuki’s nose as he cut his eyes to the side. “Get out of the car.”
Izuku stared- lips pursed, nostrils flared. It’s what he always did when he was debating following a command or being the defiant little shit he usually was.
Probably to both their surprise, he pushed the door open and stepped out of the car. Katsuki was ready to rush home as soon as the door was shut. He needed to be far away from this place. But he’d gotten lucky when Izuku got out of the car, of course he wasn’t lucky enough for the idiot to actually leave him alone.
Izuku turned back, gripped the doorframe, and leaned into the car. “I’m moving.”
“Still don’t want to hear it.”
“Listen to me!” Izuku all but yelled as soon as Katsuki had started talking.
It was that authoritative tone that had Katsuki flinching away. He loved that voice, yearned to hear, fell to his knees for it- except for when it was used against him and laced with unbridled frustration.
“I’m moving.” He repeated in the same steady way he’d begun. “You realize that right? It’s not exactly something we can avoid. And yet, you’ve refused to talk about it for months. Every single time I’ve brought it up you brush me off. So now here we are with less than a few weeks before I leave.”
Katsuki ground his teeth and wondered if he could get away with turning to stare out the window. Probably not.
“When I asked how you felt about me possibly working somewhere else, you said you didn’t care. You told me to go and be some big hotshot until I realized how shitty it is anywhere else and came running back.” The second Katsuki opened his mouth to rebut that, Izuku was leaning in closer while his voice rose.
“And don’t you dare tell me it should’ve been obvious you didn’t mean it. Even if it was so painfully clear that you were lying through your teeth, I can’t be responsible for reading into everything you say anymore. I don’t have the time or the energy to pick apart every cryptic phrase you spit or mumble at me just to find the smallest piece of emotion. It thought we’d be over that by now. If you didn’t want me to go you should’ve said something.”
Katsuki scoffed, eyes squinting out the windshield. “Not like it would’ve changed anything.”
“It wouldn’t have.” Izuku agreed easily. “But that’s not the point. The point is at least then you would have showed me that you care.”
“You know I care.” Finally, he snapped and shot his glare over at Izuku. His expression was a lot softer than his tone. There was irritation in his brows and frown that mixed with a sadness, an upset shine to his eyes.
“Yeah, I know. But it’d still be nice to hear it every now and then.”
“So you’re ending this ‘cause I don’t gush enough to you?” Katsuki sounded offended- appalled even. Anything was better than sounding hurt. “You know I don’t do that shit.”
“No-”
“Then it’s because you’re moving? So what?”
“It’s not just one thing.” Izuku sighed and his arm went a little limp as he sagged forward. “We’re so busy now we barely have time to spend together. Most of the time when I see you, we’re both about to pass out from exhaustion. Do you know how hard it’ll be to talk let alone discuss anything important with one another when we’re ten hours apart?” He rubbed his face, pushed his hair back before letting the curls flop back over his forehead. “Shit, you can hardly tell me what you’re feeling when we’re two feet away, do you really expect me to believe you’re suddenly going to learn how to communicate just because there’s thousands of miles between us?”
Katsuki clicked his tongue, let out a quiet tch as he turned his attention back to the steering wheel. “You’re not even giving it a chance, so what does it matter what I think?”
“You didn’t even help me pack, Kacchan.”
He regretted that. He really did. But when the day came to box a lot of Izuku’s shit, Katsuki hadn’t been able to bring himself to show up. He couldn’t allow himself to sulk over and be surrounded by Izuku’s annoying friends while he was simply trying not to panic. They’d all have seen right through him. Probably would have tried to make him feel better. He couldn’t take that kind of pity. Not even from Izuku.
Instead, he’d wandered to Kirishima’s and made up some excuse for being in a foul mood until the two of them fell into the comfortable silence of playing some thoughtless video game.
Izuku didn’t mention it when they saw each other later that night. Didn’t mention it at all in the past week. Katsuki had been thankful for it until this moment when it was obvious everything had been stewing in aggravated gloom behind Izuku’s dopey, plastered on smile.
“Look,” All the anger was gone, leaving behind a distant sadness. Katsuki wondered how long it’d been there without him noticing. “Maybe it was unfair of me to take this job without prying your real opinions out of you, but you didn’t do much to get it through to me either.”
“And just like that it’s over?” The true bitterness was seeping into Katsuki. He hated it. Hated the way he couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from dipping into a deep frown.
“It’s better this way.” Izuku had his soft voice going then. One that made most people feel comfortable and understood. It always just pissed Katsuki off more. “I’d rather do it now than in a few months when we can’t even work through it in person.”
“There’s nothing to work through.” He bit back at him, shaky tone not matching his words in the slightest. “Like I said earlier. We’ve already agreed to do this painlessly. You want to end it- so consider it mutual.”
There was a pause until Izuku sighed again and shook his head. “Seriously? Even now you’re not going to actually talk to me?”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
It was a blatant lie. They both knew it.
He had so much to say, so much to yell. Words he wouldn’t say to anyone else. Pleas, passion filled words of every disgusting little feeling he held for the stupid nerd. Things he only muttered in dark bedrooms when his mouth was pushed into Izuku’s bare shoulder so he didn’t have to look at the pitying, loving expression he’d get in return.
“Do you want to come upstairs?”
It was a last ditch effort to corner Katsuki into opening up. Izuku knew the second he got them inside his apartment there’d be nowhere to run, no way to hide from talking about this. And with hands around his back, hands in his hair, foreheads pushed together Katsuki would comply easily. He’d break apart and let everything flood out like it always did when things became a little too overwhelming.
But here in his car, the cold wind seeping in through the open door, he was safe. Safe and closed off and defensive just how he liked it. He wouldn’t dare move. He wasn’t in the mood to be analyzed or comforted. He wanted to yell and punch. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t mutual. This wasn’t painless.
But he couldn’t show all that. If he did, it would be that much easier for Izuku to drag him out and up the stairs and into his arms.
His hands tightened on the wheel hard enough to make it squeak. If he didn’t hold on now he’d float along with him.
He set his jaw, tried to look impassive- hoped Izuku couldn’t see right through him.
“You should go before you catch a cold.”
Head falling forward, Izuku took a deep breath as he pulled his upper half out of the car and stood. His hand fell from its grip on the frame, smacking against his thigh.
Although Katsuki couldn’t see anything above his chest anymore, just the thought of Izuku’s crumpling expression was enough to make the instinct to flee rise back up. Foot on the break, he shifted the car into reverse and cleared his throat.
“Hey,”
The car door was slammed shut before Katsuki could get another word out. He was almost grateful for it. He had no idea how he was going to finish that sentence and surely nothing would have made any of this better for either of them.
So when the door shut with enough force to shake the car, he clacked his teeth together. It took a few seconds to remember he needed to breathe, but even after that it was a mess of stuttering puffs through his teeth. He blinked, unwelcome and absurd wetness sticking to his lashes and making getting the fuck away from there harder than it needed to be.
When he pulled out, he kept his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. He didn’t glance back, didn’t wonder what Izuku looked like standing there alone in a cold, deserted parking lot. He kept his focus forward. Drove as fast as he could home before he lost all capability to be collected and rational.
Katsuki thought maybe he would break the moment he locked his front door. That the dark silence of his apartment would be comforting enough to swallow him whole until he’d screamed himself into an exhausted apathy.
That didn’t happen.
Not a single sound left his mouth as he pulled himself through the dazed motions of a shower. Water hot enough to burn was ignored. The pain in his jaw from clenching it so hard was ignored. The pressure behind his eyes threatening to wet his cheeks was actively fucking ignored.
He was silent, stiff, dull, vacant, until his face landed in his pillow and every shred of will to keep his eyes open was lost altogether.