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“Do you think my love is fragile ? It isn’t.” His hand clutched his chest- right where his heart was in a desperate grasp. But instead of his shoulders caving in like they usually did when Katsuki was worked up enough to cry, this time he stood back, as if he wanted people to see his scars.
To see his wounds.
To see what a year ago he would have considered, his weakness .
“My love isn’t so easily changed or persuaded. It's not destroyable.” Finally, he looked up, red eyes gleaming and burning .
“God knows I’m an asshole” he chuckled with a type of resigned horrid humor. “But I have my reasons.”
He took a step closer, trembling with emotion.
“It’s because I love with everything I have in me. You think my true rage is so horrible and my sadness is overwhelming, but you never stopped to wonder, if every other emotion is so much than what the most consuming emotion feels like.”
He leaned back looking skyward. “I’ll tell you, it’s everything . I love with every part of me, I love like there is no tomorrow or yesterday, there is only now and my only choice is to hand myself completely over to you.”
“And I knew I would. ” He laughed rather hysterically, only serving to make him sound more broken. “Ask my parents, they know how I love and it’s why they never let themselves get too close. They knew I could and I would tear the world apart if only they would ask.”
He looks at the ground now, as if it’s the only place he could look. “So I never had a parent-child bond with my parents, so I ended up not knowing how I loved at all. The first thing that doomed me. Then you came.” His voice breaks and it’s heart-wrenching to hear Katsuki who was so strong come apart like this, enough that the few people there stayed frozen.
“You who loved so easily and kept with me, always with me, but you learned how to read past the anger and fear, the way Deku never did.” He raked his hand through his hair despairingly. “So you worked your way into my heart and you stayed. So I loved you, how could I not.” He made eye-contact that time, unyielding, filled with pain and longing,
“And so I fell for you, but you didn’t fall for me.”
Kirishima made an aborted gesture, already crying, ugly sobs hiccuping out, “Now I can’t stop. Now I am doomed to suffer through the pain of knowing you will never love me as I love you.”
Izuku rushed forward finally just giving in, not able to hold back, tears streaming down his face silently. He was crying the way he had done only once, when he had found out he was quirkless. Katsuki grunted as Izuku crashed into his side but remained largely the same.
“Now I suffer knowing that my love will never waver, never stop either. There is no ‘moving on’ for me.” One hand came up, wrapping around Izuku for support, to keep from collapsing. “How could I? I will love you if you abuse me, I will love if you neglect me- hell I’ll love if you turn out to kill me in the end.” His eyes flash and his frame trembles but his voice . . . It’s strong and unflinching from a man who accepted their fate.
“After all, what could crush my heart more than watching you fall in love with someone else with front row seats. But even then my love remained unchanged. If my love survived that just as strong-“ There’s a small, sad, curve of his lips that’s so, so bitter.
“Then nothing will ever make it crumble.”