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Katsuki agrees to a lot of dumb shit for Shouto. Well, if anyone questioned him about it, he’s not going to openly confess that he does it purely because Shouto is the one who asks (the one who pouts and literally tugs on Katsuki’s sleeve and drapes his entire weight over Katsuki’s back like some kind of perpetually-hypothermic, unfairly handsome, empty-brained idiot.) but that’s—that’s usually why.
Shouto’s his fucking main reason for a lot of stuff, because—because Shouto just looks at him, sometimes, and Katsuki wants pathetically and horribly to do everything he can to make him happy. Because Katsuki loves him more than life itself, or whatever.
So. He’d agreed to do a couples’ interview about navigating relationships and hero work. It had sounded like literal hell when Shouto first brought it up, but then he’d done that thing where he started fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt and pulling them up to cover his hands and not looking at Katsuki’s face while he spoke.
For some godless reason, Shouto wanted to do it. To do this. To sit next to Katsuki with their thighs just barely touching while some woman whose name Katsuki couldn’t even remember asked them about wanting to take the next step after being publicly affectionate for such a long time.
“We have been considering getting another cat together,” Shouto says with utter seriousness before Katsuki has even had a chance to open his mouth.
“I don’t think that’s what she meant, sweetheart,” Katsuki says. The endearment just—slips. Because all of Shouto’s little quirks make him feel like his heart has figured out how to crawl out of his ribcage and directly into Shouto’s palms. Katsuki fucking hates it. It’s horrible. (Except he doesn’t and it isn’t. Not really.)
The reporter coughs. “Rumors have been circulating,” she says. “The public has gotten rather invested in your blossoming romance.”
Blossoming romance? What the fuck? What kind of soft-core erotica bullshit is this?
“I’m in a relationship with him,” Katsuki says, putting a hand on Shouto’s thigh and squeezing once, “not the fu—not the public.”
“But,” the reporter continues, seemingly unperturbed, “there are eyewitness accounts of you leaving—”
“Look,” Katsuki hisses, “of course I wanna marry Shouto. Have you seen him? I’d be an idiot not to.”
At his side, Shouto says, very softly, “Oh.”
Immediately, Katsuki panics. “Fuck. Shit, I didn’t—I didn’t fucking mean to say that.”
“You didn’t?”
“Baby,” Katsuki says, because this whole thing just went up in flames spectacularly anyway, and Shouto sounds—he sounds small and hurt and like he’s probably questioning his entire worth as a person.
Over Katsuki being an idiot with horrible timing. Fuck.
“Am I not—do we need to redefine the—the terms of our relationship? Should I start sleeping on the couch?”
“What the fuck? No. You’re not—” Katsuki takes a deep breath. “Shouto,” he says, “I just—I wanted—can we talk about this at home?”
“Is talking a euphemism for you putting my things in boxes and leaving them at the door before asking me for my copy of the keys in this scenario?” Shouto asks. “Can I at least say goodbye to the cat?”
They’re on national television right now, because of course they are. Nothing in Katsuki’s life can ever just be easy. No. Even asking his boyfriend to marry him has to turn into a giant fucking mess.
(He’s got a ring and Shouto favorite kind of chocolate at home and he’s been waiting patiently for the right moment to ask. Katsuki just—wanted that to be theirs. Not a production for a tabloid headline. Just—them. Together.)
“Shouto,” he says, again, taking both of Shouto’s hands into his. “Look at me.”
Shouto turns to face him.
The reporter seems way too happy to sit back and clutch her list of questions and let this—this fucking cataclysm play out to the end.
Katsuki tilts his chin up. “I love you,” he says, tucking a bit of Shouto’s hair behind his ear.
Shouto very pointedly does not stop pouting. “But you didn’t mean to say you want to marry me,” he says. His lower lip might actually be trembling. This is fucking emotional blackmail of the highest order.
“Of course I didn’t mean to say it,” Katsuki hisses. “Who in their goddamn right mind would propose like this?”
“We have actually had quite a number of proposals on the show,” the reporter chimes.
Which is just—perfect timing. Truly—just fucking amazing.
“We’re a little busy here,” Katsuki says through gritted teeth.
“It’s okay if you’re having second thoughts about us,” Shouto says. “I wouldn’t want to push you into anything you’re not comfortable doing.”
Oh, for the love of—
Fully aware there’s at least three different cameras on them forever immortalizing his suffering, Katsuki gets on one knee. “I just want you to know this is your fault,” he tells Shouto, somehow unable to stifle the urge to smile at his wide-eyed stare anyway, “it’s your fucking fault I don’t have a ring on me and that I didn’t make dinner for us beforehand and that we’re—here, doing it like this, but—but I love you, you idiot, so. Fucking marry me.”
Shouto blinks. “That wasn’t a question,” he says. “I can’t—I don’t think I’m allowed to say yes unless you actually ask me.”
“He does have a point,” the reporter says, trying very hard to suppress her laughter based on how strained the words come out.
“Shut up,” Katsuki hisses, only to immediately have to add, “No, not you,” when Shouto goes back to looking down at him like a wounded puppy. He rummages through his pocket for—for something, for anything that could be useful, really, something that could pass for—well, not a meticulously selected and way too fucking expensive ring that he asked both Deku and Yaoyorozu to help pick out, because that’s sitting at home in the pocket of his favorite suit jacket right now, but—
All Katsuki finds is a crumpled-up receipt for buckwheat flour and diet coke and cat food and an old, twisted key ring.
He sighs. “This isn’t what I had in mind, but—whatever. Todoroki Shouto, love of my miserable fucking life, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” Shouto says. “I’d really like to.”
Well. At least he said yes. Yaoyorozu would probably be clapping and handing Deku tissues if she were here. Katsuki would slip the bit of twisted metal on Shouto’s finger just for the stupid tradition of it if he wasn’t worried about blood-borne illnesses. He’s pretty sure he can actually see rust on it.
Katsuki coughs. “Great,” he says. “Glad we sorted that out.”
Shouto stares pointedly at him.
“What?” Katsuki asks.
Shouto taps the corner of his mouth once, twice. “Kiss,” he says. “You’re supposed to kiss me.”
National television, Katsuki thinks once again, at this point painfully resigned to his fate.
“Come here, idiot,” he says, before tugging Shouto down by the tie.
Shouto’s smiling against his mouth when Katsuki kisses him even though this can't be comfortable for his neck, and—what more could Katsuki want, really?
The reporter says something about ratings and keeping it appropriate for all ages, but, quite frankly, Katsuki doesn’t fucking care enough to pay attention.
Shouto is his fiancé now. That feels kind of monumental, keyring proposal or not.
…
It’s only a handful of days later, after Katsuki has given Shouto a proper ring, after Deku cried and hugged everyone, (after Kaminari has gleefully forwarded him every article he could find about their “abrupt announcement” with that stupid cry-laughing emoji attached to each one) that Katsuki remembers to ask.
“Hey,” he says, “why’d you wanna do that stupid interview thing in the first place?”
Shouto looks up from his bowl of cereal. “Oh,” he says. “I just thought it would be fun to do something together.”
“We do stuff together all the time, moron.”
Shouto smiles. Light glints off his engagement ring. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
Katsuki might be in too deep. It’s okay though. This is theirs now. Forever. Doesn’t really matter how they got here.