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They’d kissed twice.
Once, when they were five, and Izuku had tripped, skinned his knee, exposed bright red blood to the chilly September air. The gravel on the playground crunched as Katsuki sat down next to him, pulling back the hands clutching tightly over the gash.
Green eyes brimmed with tears, and Katsuki didn’t think for a second before pressing a gentle kiss to his knee, lips soft against the scraped skin.
“I heard it helps,” he had chirped, and when Izuku stammered out a “thank—thank you,” he hadn’t even paused. “Sure! That’s what being a hero is, right? Helping people? And I helped you!”
And they’d gone on about their day, and never spoken of it again.
The second time was… different. It was the end of their first month at UA, the days in April counting down to a close. Izuku curled up on the curb, under one of the lush, green-leaved trees that lined the walkway, filling out his hero notebook and muttering his way through the evening’s events before he headed home. A shadow fell across his page, and he glanced up, then froze. Bakugou loomed, his new uniform still creased neatly despite several successive days of rigorous workouts, courtesy of Aizawa-sensei. Despite all instincts to the contrary, Izuku grinned and offered a “hi, Kacchan!” to the glaring boy towering over him. He patted the concrete next to him, and for once, the blond boy slouched to the ground.
Then he’d sniffled loudly.
Izuku started, worry jolting across his senses. Kacchan didn’t cry. He never had, not when they were kids, not when he failed a test for the first time, not when his mom told him he wasn’t going to make it into UA.
“Kacchan?” he’d asked, voice small and soft and delicate.
“Shut up,” came the reply, and then the sobbing started. From sniffling to a tear hitting the pavement between them, and Izuku slipped an arm around him, running exhausted, bruised fingers up his firm side. They hadn’t been this close since primary school, since they were friends. He still smelled the same, the musky sweetness of burnt sugar and the unmistakable harmonic notes of cinnamon entwining just as they always had.
Katsuki’s head of soft spikes settled against his shoulder, and he sniffed hard. A warm, damp spot grew from under his cheek, and Izuku set down his hero notebook to brush away the tears. He grabbed his hand before it could reach his cheekbone, and lifted his head back up to stare into Izuku’s eyes. His were tear-reddened, still watery at the corners, and his hand was warm against Izuku’s own.
Carefully, methodically, he leaned closer, breathing in the warm, familiar scent of his Kacchan. Almost imperceptibly, the blond cocked his head and slid his eyes shut. The kiss lasted all of three seconds before they broke apart, and a memory came rushing back of the same lips, so many years before, on a playground.
Izuku froze, uncertainty scudding new, unfamiliar clouds into his stormy green eyes.
“I have to go,” Katsuki mumbled, dropping Izuku’s hand abruptly. “Tell anyone about this and you’re dead, shitty nerd.”
*•.*•.*•.*•.*•.*•.*•.*•
But that was many years ago, and that didn’t matter now, in the dark chill of the night, standing on top of the dorms. It didn’t matter how they’d gotten here, not really, didn’t matter that the rest of the class hadn’t noticed they stayed.
It did matter that they were alone. And it mattered that despite the darkness, Katsuki’s hair still shone silver in the moonlight.
“Thought you should know, Deku,” Katsuki began, “that I, uh—” he broke off awkwardly, staring at his shoes on the tiles. “I…”
“I’m bisexual, too, Kacchan, if that makes it any easier for you,” he cut in kindly, and the boy standing opposite flinched, stiffened, relaxed, and stiffened in rapid succession.
“Yeah,” he smirked, confidence trickling back into his voice, “it does.”
The third time was slow, was gentle, was warm hands on a narrow waist, was worth the years. And it didn’t matter to Izuku that Katsuki’s rough hands were too tight on his hips, and he didn’t care that any teacher passing through the courtyard below could see them, pressed close against each other in the moonlight.
Katsuki ran one hand up Izuku’s side, tracing the outline of his newly-developed muscles and sending a shiver through his entire body, liquid fire filtering into his veins. “Deku,” he whispered against his lips, and they drew back, breathing unsteadily.
Red eyes twinkled in the dim light, every star in the sky glinting out of their depths. He smiled, a soft, self-conscious smile Izuku hadn’t seen on his lips for as long as he could remember. Izuku slipped one hand up to cup the other boy’s jaw, felt him lean into the touch gently, and suddenly the years didn’t matter. In a moment, all was forgiven.
Everything from the first time, a moment only vaguely present in the back of Izuku’s time-muddled memories, to the second, closed out with a threat and a promise to never mention it again, to every split second in between when their skin had brushed and a spark of something had crackled between them. Everything, insults and curses and all, was lost in the heat of one moment.
The night wind chilled them to the bone, creeping a chill under their clothes and into their skin, but the air between them, now sitting shoulder to shoulder on the edge, remained charged with heat. Katsuki pressed a tiny, chaste kiss to Izuku’s knuckles, and laughed as the boy twitched.
“How long, Kacchan?” He was almost afraid of the answer. After all, this was Katsuki, sharp-edged and hard-hearted and very much the type to kiss him to use as blackmail. Silence settled between them, prickly and uncomfortable, and out of the corner of his eye Izuku watched for the first sign of a response.
When it came, he almost wasn’t ready.
“Since the first time, Deku.”