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when the storms leveled tokyo, it became clear the city would never be the same.
it’s history had been the first to go, sacred spots and wishing wells swallowed by the mouth of the sea.
the pretty things went next - the boutiques and their glass windows, reflecting the figure of the passerby envisioning herself adorned in silken threads and shiny baubles. the gardens of cherry blossom trees, whose branches kissed the sky, blushes of pink that clung desperately to their roots without avail and floated away in the ocean tide.
the skyscrapers, promises for a future that was still being built, lasted the longest. their fragile panels and steel beams glimmered, glittered, gleamed in the afternoon sun, swearing they could not be ruined. but the waters that had taken all else had begun to rise, and eventually the skyscrapers, too, were crushed from the inside out.
when the storms leveled tokyo, there was nothing left resembling the city that had once stood so proudly in its place.
like a love story unfulfilled, Izuku thinks, staring over the seemingly endless expanse of blue, fragments of the skyline still visible, breaking through the pulling waves.
and he supposes it’s all a bit like when Katsuki left him.
when the harsh words slung no longer coaxed heat into his cock and the periods of silence that stretched between felt foreign and unwelcome.
when the brutality of competition sank its fangs into his flesh and poisoned his blood and the trophies he possessed gathered rust in the aftermath, ugly sculptures drenched in blood collecting dust on his shelves.
when the joys of loving someone he knew so well, became the burdens too.
so when Katsuki left, Izuku didn’t stop him.
the storm that leveled tokyo, one fateful night in the spring, was silent in the end.
it would be easier if the fucking skyline didn’t slice through the sleeping waters, like the dents in the coffee table from where Katsuki would kick up the steel of his boots, or the crack in the sink he had always promised to fix. there was a box of cds that Izuku would never listen to, curated childhood mementos that pumped nostalgia and fury through Katsuki’s veins, and it was all Izuku could do to not burn the goddamn box and breathe in the smoke and the swallow the ash and beg for one more lick of gunpowder. an old t-shirt, worn and stretched past its wearability, balled up and stuffed under the bathroom sink, its scent so explicitly Katsuki, Izuku couldn’t, in good conscience, keep it in his bedroom.
the tired structures of the city they had built together, eaten by disasters outside of their control, were still beautiful under the surface of the sea.
and he longed to unearth it, revive its secrets one last time, revel in the press of flesh against flesh, mouths nipping to break skin, sucking to soothe wounds and torment sensitivities, sharing a language they had invented themselves, designed for two, that one and another would only ever speak.
but Katsuki left and Izuku let him go.
so what was left, but the shadowy visage of old tokyo cutting across the horizon, a hopeless reminder of everything that was gone?
“this city is like us,” Izuku will say, years later, when the past no longer stings like a dagger in his lungs, “did you ever think about that?”
“that we broke up and tokyo sank into the sea?” Katsuki will reply with a dry smile, “all the fucking time, actually.”
“talk about a bad sign.”
“no kidding.”
and he’ll wait for it, the biting reminder of everything that was lost and everything that wasn’t, while they’ll sit and sift through the wreckage to find something to hold onto. broken glass will catch their padded gloves, chunks of cement with narrow stems of steel stretching out will dare slice across the kneepads of their suits.
but the bite will never come. not even when Katsuki will remove his left glove to wipe across his forehead, and Izuku’s eyes will narrow on the silver band wrapped around his ring finger. if Katsuki notices this, he will never say. And Izuku will go home and kiss his wife and tuck his children into their beds and sleep without the whisper of a what-if lingering in the air.
he sees it all so clearly, what he might be and who he might share it with someday. someone else to bear the weight of his heart and shoulder the knowledge that they were never his first. what else is there but hope for his future and the words he chants to himself night after night - a blow that is meant to kill cannot break what is already dead.
one day, when he sees the ring on Katsuki’s finger that isn’t his, he won’t feel a thing.
but the very thought of such a sight makes him feel like he’s swimming through old tokyo with a half-empty oxygen tank, and the deeper he goes the less he can breathe. the history that once kept the city grounded has up and floated away, red wooden slats and strings of wishes made follow the ebb and flow of the tides. the pretty things that kept the city so richly celebrated are the same as any other rock beneath the sea. and the skyscrapers, branches towards the future everyone had wanted to see, still stubbornly cut through the surface of the water, though their resolve is weaker than before.
there are no tourists in old tokyo. no one brave enough to swim the haunts that they once walked.
so Izuku does it alone.
and it’s like he’s drifting through a secret, full of half-lies and truths and things he should’ve noticed sooner, like the tiredness in Katsuki’s eyes or the gap of space neither of them crossed while they slept. the bars Izuku had begun to frequent alone on weekends while Katsuki was out sparring with his other friends. the way they slowly untangled themselves, reclaiming limbs they had long since given to the other, thinking they would never have need of it again.
Izuku still sees their ghosts in the kitchen.
I think we should break up.
Okay.
Izuku never stops washing dishes, his gloved hand working sudsy circles on plate after plate over the sink. Katsuki stares at him for a moment more and shrugs, before taking a seat at the table.
You’re serious then.
You think I’d bring it up otherwise?
I don’t know what to think anymore.
it’s all so passive, controlled, indifferent, like the reality hasn’t yet sunk in.
Should we talk about this?
What’s there to talk about? You said we should break up. There’s nothing else to be done.
Yeah but...you don’t want to fight over it?
even more foreign, the feeling of sitting across from someone you bled for but can no longer touch. Izuku wants to kiss his knuckles, bury his fingers through thick peaks of ashy blonde hair, twist his legs around Katsuki’s waist and lock their hips together. touches they would kill to receive, now forbidden. rituals and prayers made daily at the altar they declared at the base of each other’s spines, now outlawed by the kingdom neither of them has sworn allegiance to.
I don’t think you would ask to break up without a reason, Kacchan, so I don’t see a point in fighting over it.
But you’re not even asking me why - dammit, Deku, look at me.
I’m looking at you, Kacchan. And there’s not an answer you can give me that would make this feel okay. So what’s left? Picking a fight? Fucking one last time? Breaking some dishes? Or should we do what we usually do, where I try to power off my quirk long enough to get trashed at a bar while you take a beating from strangers in illegal cage matches, that, by the way, are going to be busted by the police this weekend thanks to an insider tip.
I knew that you fucking knew about those matches.
You think I don’t know the difference between sparring injuries and ring fighting? You’re such an asshole, Kacchan.
You never said anything! You’d go out every weekend and drink your weight in alcohol, come home and cry because you couldn’t get drunk and you hated your life and your home and the fucking nightmares that wouldn’t stop, and then I was the shitty partner who would rather get his ass beat than be company to misery for another goddamn second.
their words fly and the storm brews and Izuku can feel it, that this isn’t a fight to salvage something fragmented, but a tempest of their own design, an escape from the feelings they felt too much and not enough and in between, the monster of their making with one objective - to ruin the greatest city in the world.
I never asked you to take on my burdens.
That’s what couples fucking do, Deku. But you, with your self-sacrificing bullshit, and your need to put yourself in the fucking ground, probably wouldn’t know that.
Tell me what the fuck I was supposed to do? My partner, the one person I’ve ever loved, starts pulling away from me, and he’s also the one person I can’t win back by crowding his life, so what’s left? Letting him have his space. Hiding my issues so that when he comes back - if he comes back - he’s not scared to handle everything at once. I never meant to be a problem for you to deal with and somehow I still was. And that’s why I’m not fighting you on this. If you want to leave, then leave. If you want to break up, let’s break up.
Do you even love me?
Would it be enough to make you stay if I said yes?
and Izuku knows, without needing to ask, that the answer is no. that love was never the issue. that it would never be the reason for their break up. because even when Katsuki came home, bleeding sluggishly from wounds he’d taken while fighting, he would tuck Izuku into bed and drop a kiss on his cheek before dressing his injuries. when he’d open the fridge, there was always something wrapped up and set aside for him, coupled with a cheeky note of some kind even when they were fighting. Izuku washed the dishes immediately after he ate, knowing it was comforting for Katsuki to have a clean kitchen. Katsuki warmed their bedsheets in the dryer on the nights when he would be absent, knowing Izuku would sleep better if he felt like Katsuki’s warmth was still beside him.
things that could not be erased or changed or made ugly in the dim lighting of their fight. forms of worship that had sunk into their bones, habits they would never kill.
but Izuku knows, without needing to ask, that love cannot save them now.
and Katsuki knows it too.
the storm that leveled tokyo arrives in the weeks that follow, and moving on from Katsuki becomes a slow agony Izuku thought he had avoided.
they evacuate millions from the city together, trudging back to the temporary housing they’re forced to share every evening, bone-tired and bitter from the work they’re drowning in. it’s a curse of some kind, that locks both of them in memories they can’t bear to hold onto. they’re still broken up. they haven’t had enough time to cultivate a friendship that might grow in between their still shattered hearts. there’s no barrier to dull the shock that runs up Izuku’s spine whenever he so much as brushes against Katsuki.
the phenomenon of suddenly becoming strangers to each other hurts the most. and the space they used to fill for each other, the lazy weekends and coffee shop dates, dinner parties they attended if only to steal away to a corner of the room and kiss like they were the only two people around. combative training where the winner was rewarded with whatever prize they chose. now, their futons, a mere few feet apart, banish the kisses that were once so welcome. there’s no invitation for touch in the dead, empty space between them. there’s no whisper of ‘i love you’ to fill the silence that hangs heavy in the air.
when the city has been cleared for all signs of life, the heroes are allowed to go home. many of them have already relocated to new agencies across the country, while others choose to stay near old tokyo, in hopes of advancing the clean-up efforts once the water levels stop rising.
Katsuki is among those who choose to leave. without a goodbye, Izuku notes, though admittedly they’ve already said goodbye. they’ve said goodbye so many times, he never wants to hear it again.
Izuku stays. their old apartment was just outside the ring of the storm when it initially hit, and it feels like a sign of the times. this is home to him. it always will be.
he can see the worn skyline from the balcony he once shared with Katsuki, its hard lines spiking through the stilled waters below. a glimpse of the future that old tokyo would never see, shiny promises that escape his grasp.
like a love story unfulfilled.