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Katsuki is in a bad mood. He was uncharacteristically quiet when he walked through the door which is more often than not a sign he was trying his damndest to hold back saying something just a bit too cruel. And you appreciate the effort, truly you do.
On any other day, you would’ve let him be to work through his shit alone. He usually does that by cooking up something far too elaborate for a weekday night, and then after decompressing for a bit, he tends to slink back into whichever room you’re in and lay his head on your lap so you can work your fingers through his hair.
You’ve found over the last two years that that is what tends to work best. Giving him space and letting him come to you.
But today you’re feeling just as raw as he does. You can’t remember the last time you spent quality time together. You can’t remember the last time he didn’t go to bed so exhausted he was out before his head hit the pillow. You can’t remember the last time you didn’t feel this heavy cloud hanging over your head. You can’t remember a moment where there wasn't a timer counting down and down and down while you do nothing but wait for it to hit zero.
It’s selfish, probably, to want to be with him right now when you know he’s so weary, but you won’t even bother him, is what you tell yourself. You just want to be around him for an hour (or two) you want to stand so close to him you can smell the ever clinging scent of caramel and help him with dinner and think of brighter days. Better days.
(You want things to go back to the way they were before. You want to cling to him, just for a short while, stuff your face into the crook of his neck while he tells you everything’s okay. That you guys are okay.
But that’s for another day. It has to be.
How many times have you told yourself that?)
You follow him as he stomps towards the kitchen.
He aggressively grabs the ingredients for whatever he’s making and slams them on the counter, grumbling under his breath the whole time. You stand in the doorway worrying your hands, feeling awkward, and hating that you feel awkward in your own kitchen with your own boyfriend.
It makes that awful nagging voice in your head grow just a bit louder.
You approach him slowly while he sets up a pot filled with water and turns on the stove. He’s still grumbling to himself by the time you place your hand softly on his forearm.
He jerks away immediately and narrows his eyes. You viciously stamp down exactly how awful that makes you feel. How small and unloved.
“What do you want?” he says bluntly (and a little cruelly but a part of you says just ignore it, maybe if you close your eyes and cover your ears you can pretend that everything is fine, that you guys are fine) .
That was part of his charm when you two first started dating. You loved that he was blunt, that he got to the point, there was really no guessing what Katsuki was thinking because he’d simply tell you and if it were any other day perhaps his words wouldn’t have bothered you as much as they did now.
And it’s partly your fault, or maybe even mostly. Because you let it get this bad. You could have told him something was bothering you, that lately, you’ve been feeling a little insecure in this relationship. Katsuki was blunt but very rarely if ever cruel with you or your feelings. He would’ve understood, probably.
But anytime you thought about broaching the subject with him, he always looked so, so tired. Bone tired. And you thought maybe it was selfish, to want him to comfort you over something this dumb. Over something as frivolous as this. He just needs time.
(How much time, you wonder. How much more can you take? you ask yourself.)
“Are you fucking braindead or something,” he snaps, dragging you out of your spiraling.
“I was just wondering if I could help. It’d be nice to cook dinner together.” We use to do it all the time, you almost say. Now you can’t even remember the last time you did.
“You’re a shit cook,” he says.
It’s true, and on another day, a brighter day maybe, you would’ve laughed. Or at least smiled. Because it was true. You are an awful cook, a shit one, as he so eloquently put it, especially compared to him. But that never mattered to Katsuki before.
He always let you cook with him, always wanted you to cook with him, even if the majority of the time you ended up sitting on the counter swinging your legs and watching him do all the work.
To be fair, afterward, you always cleaned the dishes. It was a lovely, simplistic give and take, one you wish you had again so, so dearly.
“Yeah, I am,” you agree. You try to smile, but it feels forced. You’re tired, you realize, bone tired.
You don’t say anything else and he turns away. You know that’s technically a dismissal but you elect to ignore and start unwrapping the vegetables.
Just as you reach for a knife he grabs your wrist.
“What the fuck is up with you right now?” he grounds out.
“I just want to spend some time with you.”
Your voice sounds frail, even to your own ears.
And before he even opens his mouth you know what he’s about to say is going to bring all this to a head. And from the look on his face and the awful, gnawing in your gut, you know you’re not going to like it. You know that more likely than not, it’s going to break your heart.
(A part of you can’t help but wonder if maybe your heart has already been broken. That it’s made up of haphazardly glued together pieces. Perhaps that’s why you feel so fragile. Perhaps the damage is done and you’ve just been waiting for Katsu to bring down the axe. To scatter the pieces. To finish the fucking job.)
“ God,” he spits out. And it’s like a dam has been broken and every hateful thing he’s ever thought about you can’t help but come pouring out.
“You’re so fucking needy, you can’t do a fucking thing by yourself. It’s like all you ever do is breathe down my fucking neck and tell me everything I’m not doing for you.” Distantly, you wonder if that’s true. It might be. Maybe it’s that ugly selfishness you’ve never really been able to hide. You thought you’d done a better job of tucking it away. You were wrong, it seems.
“So I can’t spend every single fucking second of every single day with you, sue me. I’ve got my own shit to deal with, my own problems, or have you forgotten that I have a life outside of you?”
No, you think. I haven’t. Or maybe you have. You’re not really focusing so hard on his words. You tune them out as much as you can. You’re staring at his face, taking in all the details. The deep red of his eyes, the pale blond of his hair, the sharpness of his cheekbones, the slope of his neck, the little scars peppering his face. You used to sit on his lap and kiss each and every one, no matter how faint.
You’re so weird, he’d say as you did it, but the tightness of his arms around you always spoke a different story.
You’re going to miss that, you think. Holding him. Loving him.
It takes you a while to realize he’s still yelling. It’s all hateful and cruel and so sharp. Like he’s taken a knife to your skin to flay you open, exposing every crack, every vein, every shattered piece of heart that makes you. You let it wash over you, like a particularly violent ocean wave.
“Sometimes,” he says, his voice finally quieting to a bearable level, “I wonder why I’m still with you.”
The breath you let out is shaky. No matter how ready you thought you were, there’s simply no amount of time that prepares you to hear those words from him. From the person you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. From the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.
The silence between you two is deafening. And heavy. So heavy it feels as though your chest will cave in from the pressure.
“Yeah,” you say at last, though you have to force the words around the burning iron poker in your throat. And then you laugh, you can’t help it. It’s all so fucked. You hate that it’s come to this bitter monstrous ugliness.
When had this all started to fester, to rot? you wonder. Is this really all that’s left?
“I can’t help but wonder the same thing.” It comes out more bitter than you'd like. A small jab to try to even out the gaping wound he’s torn open in you.
But it’s also true.
You can’t see his reaction through the tears clouding your vision. You don’t really want to anyway. What’s done is done. What’s said is said.
You grab your phone and keys and walk through the front door, closing it softly behind you.
He doesn’t say a word.
You think if there was any part of your heart left unbroken, his silence has shattered it to oblivion.
+
You walk for an hour or two. Until the sun has dipped almost completely below the horizon and it’s surrounded by hazy blood-red waves.
It’s a good place to think. To set your jumbled thoughts in order.
It takes a special kind of selflessness to love a hero, you realize. A type you don’t possess, not even nearly. You’ve always been just a little selfish when it came to love. But there’s no room for that when with people like Bakugou Katsuki.
And that’s okay, you tell yourself.
It’s a lie. It’s not okay. And the hollow aching in your chest that beats in time with your heart agrees.
You look down at your phone.
33 missed calls from Katsu
You look back towards the setting sun just once. You don’t really know why. Perhaps to find some bravery in the beauty of it, to steal yourself a few extra seconds of this limbo you’ve found yourself in. Where everything is hazy and beautiful and hurts so bad you can hardly breathe.
It’s not long before you’re biting the inside of your cheek, turning on your heels, and heading home.
+
You don’t even have your keys fully out of your pocket before the door swings open, with Katuski on the other side looking a bit worse for wear, though you doubt you’re one to talk.
His eyes are bloodshot and his nose is a bit pink. He’s been crying. You can’t remember the last time you saw him cry.
(That’s a lie, you realize. You had gotten in the crosshairs of a particularly brutal villain versus hero showdown. The resulting injuries you suffered were severe. You’d apparently been a bit touch and go for a while. When you opened your eyes for the first time after everything, Katsu was right there, looking like hadn’t slept, showered, or eaten for days. Later you found out it’s because he hadn’t left your bedside since you returned from surgery.
Katsu, you’d croaked out weakly, stretching out a shaking hand toward his face.
He broke down into sobs so violent they wracked his whole body. It took him over an hour to calm down.)
You got about half a foot through the door before he threw himself at you. Wrapping his arms around you so tight it bordered on painful. He sinks down to the floor. You sink with him.
He’s sobbing into your shoulder repeating a mantra of, I’m so sorry and I didn’t mean it.
You think about that old saying. What a person says in anger is how they really feel. You don’t necessarily believe that. You yourself have said things out of anger that you in no way meant, that were purely thrown to hurt the person on the other end.
You want to believe he didn’t mean it, more than anything you do. Because you love him. Because you really do think that Katsu is it for you. That he’s always been it for you.
You pull away about as far as he’ll let you.
“Do you love me, Katsuki?”
The words hang in the air. You feel raw. Like you’re the one who has taken a knife to your own skin and flayed it all open for him.
You don’t quite know vulnerability until you ask someone if they love you. It’s a different sort of weakness.
“Yes,” he responds. His voice rough from his tears. “More than anything.”
You watch one last tear fall from his eye.
You hold his face in your hands and wipe it away. Softly. Gently. Lovingly.
+
You guys are not okay and now that you’ve accepted that you think there’s a chance that one day, you will be.