Chapter Text
It's strange to think that in the grand scheme of the universe, there is always something new to be discovered.
light.
"Hey, Kacchan, look at this."
There's a strange, alabaster fungus clinging to the side of their spaceship, something they had never seen before.
Katsuki saunters over to have a look. He crouches down next to Izuku, close enough that their shoulders touch and their knees knock together. "What the hell is that stuff, Deku?"
"I don't know. It's not registered in the database."
"Fuck the database." Katsuki stands, lifts his foot and starts to prod at the odd substance with the tip of his boot. To their surprise, the fungus starts to glow, a soft pulse of pale yellow light forming a distorted ring along its edges.
Izuku gasps in delight. "Bioluminescence!"
"Huh. Cool," Katsuki acknowledges, a corner of his lips quirking up. "Guess we'd better take some samples, then."
stone.
The landscape of Planet 4880-B lends itself to something out of a fantasy novel. The golden hills and violet valleys play out in concentric formations, dipping and weaving through pits of opalescent tar and pools of a shimmering liquid. The caves are found tucked away into the geographic folds of the land, out of sight and out of mind.
Izuku can barely contain his excitement when they stumble upon one such cave, and naturally, he insists that they thoroughly scour it for possible life forms.
To Katsuki's own ennui, there's only rocks from top to bottom. "Deku, we'd be better off searching the tar pits than this place."
"Even still," Izuku replies. "If we do some tests, we might find some microorganisms thriving here, if we're lucky!"
"Don't complain to me about lugging rocks back to the ship."
"Sure, Kacchan, whatever you say," says Izuku, his impish smile betraying him. "I'm quite strong, you know."
Katsuki simply flicks him in the forehead without warning. "Yeah, yeah."
"Ugh, Kacchan, stop doing that," Izuku grumbles.
In the end, though, it's Katsuki who ends up lugging the most rocks.
stuck.
"This is your fault," Katsuki hisses. "Fuck you and your curiosity. We're stuck."
"Kacchan," Izuku sighs. "Can you just...scoot over a little?"
"Oh? You want me to scoot over? How about you try to move aside, Deku, for crying out loud—"
Izuku jerks his head, slightly knocking into Katsuki's chin. "You know, you were the one who actually suggested we come down here—"
"Because you said you wanted more moss samples, genius!" Katsuki snidely remarks, willing himself to ignore the way Izuku's eyes glint beneath the stray fractals of light trickling into the crevice.
"Oh," Izuku says. "I see now." He leans his head back, coming face-to-face with Katsuki, the tips of their noses millimeters away from each other. Their proximity makes their breaths mingle, makes their pupils pop—
—and Katsuki hates how soft Izuku's voice comes out, almost affectionate, in a way.
"Kacchan," Izuku continues. "Is that why you insisted on coming down here? Because of some small desire of mine?"
"It was important to you, wasn't it?" Katsuki snaps. "You never shut up about crawling down into the ravines and shit, so I just...fuck. Why are we even talking about this."
"You're sweeter than you realize, Bakugou Katsuki."
Katsuki chokes. "What—what the hell."
Izuku only grins, because of course he does.
forest.
The leaves of this planet are a strange shade of green—the color seems to morph and reflect, constantly changing its gradient.
Izuku thumbs at the foliage of a bush he's kneeling in front of, muttering to himself and scribbling down quick notes in his pocket journal. "Kacchan?"
"Hm?"
"What do you make of this?"
Katsuki drops down into a cross-legged position. "Well, it sure is a weird-ass plant. Maybe the native flora here just have to take in light a different way."
Izuku excitedly jots down even more notes. "Right? It's so utterly fascinating! Maybe it's because the planet is closer to the sun...or, considering the composition of the atmosphere, we can deduce that the evolution of plants like these is based on—"
"Deku. Shut up for a sec."
"Eh? Why—"
"Shh." Katsuki abruptly stands. He points above them. "Look up there, nerd."
Izuku pauses, slowly following Katsuki's line of sight.
It's a bird.
Or at least some kind of winged creature.
"Whoa, look at its feathers! Are you seeing this?"
"Yeah," Katsuki muses. "Yeah, that's pretty fuckin' cool."
The bird has feathers that are spiked at the ends, shining a washed-out marigold whenever it moved just so. "It looks a bit like you, Kacchan."
"Hah? Well, you look like that scraggly bush."
"Hey!"
scent.
"Do you smell that, Deku?"
"Smell what?"
"It's like...rotten eggs and roses."
Izuku raises an eyebrow. "That's...an interesting combination." He sniffs at the air. "Oh, there it is."
Katsuki glares up into the thick canopy covering them. "I think it's those weird fruits up there."
"Oh?" Izuku looks up.
There are gigantic, pear-shaped fruits clinging to the trunks of the trees, odd yellow leaves wrapping over their tips.
"That smell," Katsuki groans. "Let's start heading towards the shore, next. The forests of this place will take forever to make sense of."
Izuku offers him a rag to cover his nose with. "Whatever you say, Kacchan."
jar.
It's difficult to keep track of the samples they've collected, and Katsuki blames it entirely on Izuku's weird labeling system.
"Deku, where are the sandmite wings?"
"They're in Jar 32—"
Katsuki throws his hands up in frustration. "There are nine jars labelled 32!"
"It's done by known and unknown species!" Izuku responds in kind. "I've gone over this with you already! You have to look at the number and the stamp—"
"Okay, okay." Katsuki drags his feet to the next shelf. "Next planet we go to, I'll be the one doing the cataloging."
Katsuki resumes his search, reading and comparing the various labels of each jar.
That's when he comes across a container that, interestingly enough, isn't labelled. He picks it up, cautiously turning it in his hands, then he looks inside of it and sees—
Katsuki stops.
Inside the unlabeled jar is a smooth, perfectly rounded stone, relatively flat, with a marbled pattern coursing over its surface. A vivid memory rips through his mind, then—a cool night, the smell of bay flowers, gentle rushing waves, devastatingly green eyes—
"Deku," he says sharply. "You kept this?"
Izuku looks at him, an inquisitive expression on his face, and when his eyes land on what Katsuki's holding, he suddenly pales.
"O-Oh, did I misplace that?"
"Deku."
Izuku scrambles over to where Katsuki's standing, deftly snatching the jar from Katsuki's grip. "I'm a sentimental person, Kacchan," he murmurs, holding it like it's something more precious than all the gold and diamonds in the world. "Forgive me."
sea.
They reach the planet's ocean in four Earth days' time, and it's stunning. The beach is pearly white sand, the tides glowing turquoise and lilac with each push and pull.
Izuku can barely contain himself at the sight. He rushes ahead of Katsuki, his excitement getting the better of his judgement, before Katsuki roughly grabs him by the bicep. "Deku, don't just run into the water."
Izuku curls his lips into a pout. "Kacchan, I'll be fine. Trust me."
"Wha—do you want to be eaten alive by some alien sea monster?"
But then...Katsuki sees.
He sees how Izuku's cheeks lift with the force of his astonishment, how he arches his back to relish the view, how happy he seems just to exist and discover.
So Katsuki reluctantly lets go, and Izuku pulls his arm away, bounding freely into the oncoming tide with the butterfly touches of Katsuki's gaze lingering behind him. Sand flies up as he runs closer to the shoreline.
Izuku yelps when the sea rushes in to meet him, lapping at his feet, curling around his ankles. "It's really cold!" Izuku shouts over at Katsuki. "It's so refreshing! Come on, Kacchan, it's great!"
"You're going to catch something," Katsuki hollers back. "Some weird alien disease!"
"We're on another planet, Kacchan! Where'd your sense of adventure go?"
Katsuki feels his chest tighten.
Adventure.
With you?
Before he can even think, Katsuki's legs start to move with a purpose. "Oh, you want a sense of adventure? I'll show you a sense of adventure—"
Izuku brightens like a supernova, joy unabashedly bursting forth with full force. "Bring it on!"
Soon, a flurry of water kicks up between them, and it's a battle of childlike ambitions, a time when their world was too small for their big dreams. It's like they're kids again, sneaking off into the hidden cove by the piers, watching the honey blue sky melt into blackberry night.
By the time they finally get out of the water, two moons have already risen and they're soaked to the bone.
memory.
"Kacchan, look!"
Izuku points up at the clusters of stars spanning the night sky above them. The moon emerged from behind the clouds, which sail across the sky like boats.
Katsuki perches himself at the edge of the rock they sit on, eyes wide and intense. "I'm going to go up there one day, Deku. I swear on it!"
"Wow!" Izuku stares at his friend, enchanted by the grandiose notion. "Can I come too, Kacchan?"
Katsuki scoffs. "Only if you can handle it, dumb Deku!"
"That's not very nice, Kacchan—"
"If you come along," Katsuki interrupts. "You gotta keep up. I bet there's a bunch of planets that we can go to, with monsters and stuff! That's what my mama says."
"Cool!" Izuku cries. "Then let's make a promise, okay?"
Katsuki grins wide, showing his teeth. "Let's do the pebble promise, then!"
Katsuki searches the gaps carved into the rock, with Izuku watching him curiously. When Katsuki finds what he's looking for, he yells out in victory and picks it up, showing it to Izuku. "Look!"
It's a smooth, immaculately rounded pebble, stormy gray with a marbled surface. "This'll do it! Now get one for me."
Izuku nods, patting around the rock until he finds his own pebble. This time, it bears a squarer shape, colored a deep copper. Katsuki takes the pebble from Izuku, replacing it with the round pebble. "Okay," Katsuki says. "We swapped them! Don't lose it, Deku, or else we won't go up there together!"
Izuku nods along, bouncing up and down. "I can't wait!"
vision.
They haul themselves onto the sandy beach, effectively worn out and completely soaked. Lying in the sand, heaving breaths and damp hair and skin.
"That was fun, huh?" Izuku suggests.
"Sure," Katsuki mumbles. "Damn. I think I stepped on something slimy."
"Ew, Kacchan," Izuku giggles, shoving Katsuki's shoulder. He moves himself upright into a sitting position, pressing his hands into the ground. "Hey, look."
Katsuki sits up, too, and the sight of the planet's sea is even more otherworldly in the throes of evening. The two moons are hanging in the sky like pale jewels, twin illusions mirrored in the water. The waves are indigo in the shadows of the sky.
"Wow," Izuku whispers, full of wonder.
"Wow," Katsuki faintly agrees.
But his eyes aren't on the sea.