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It was genuinely just a regular night. Over dinner, Eijirou had made some stupid reference to a movie that Katsuki had never seen, and at this discovery, he had yanked him all the way up to his bedroom to watch it together. This was far from the first time, and as much as he wanted to hate it, and talked shit every single time, Katsuki still followed all the way up the stairs and down the hall. It was their own little thing; he had never heard of anyone else who got to experience this with Eijirou. Something about it was always precious, and even with the noise of fellow classmates in their own bedrooms and the worry that someone else would find him and see him like this, he wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Not that he would tell him this.
He always stayed the night too, and noted all of the things that he could only experience when stuck in a room with a singular bed. He already knew the length of Eijirou’s eyelashes and the way that they curled over his eyes. He already knew the feeling of his fingertips on his scalp, ruining his perfect spikes without any care. He already knew the warmth that he held, inside and out, and the ways that he would always make Katsuki laugh, somehow. This shouldn’t have been anything new, and as the movie began to end, he felt them falling into eachothers' arms in the same routine as always, matching his breathing as it evened out and finding the same spot as always to rest his arms.
He looked over to say something -- he couldn’t remember exactly what, probably some stupid comment about the ending -- and found Eijirou looking back. Any thought fell out of his head and right into those eyes. Eijirou’s eyes may have been the same crimson color as his own, but something behind them shone so much brighter than he ever could. He wondered if his hands could make an explosion that would rattle his chest as much as those eyes always did. Could his power and practice ever match up to the light and pure presence of Eijirou Kirishima? It surely would be hard to create something hotter and larger than the sun of his own universe, but with him there, he thought that it just may be possible, blasphemous as it may be. Feeling his surroundings melting away, Katsuki felt his mind float to the best kind of places.
He saw himself ten years in the future, after school was over and Katsuki had always thought he’d tough it out alone. He always thought that he would earn a spot in the top ten right out of the gate and live in the lap of luxury by himself, but something better than any riches sat before him. They would share a small apartment with unmatched, ratty furniture and collections of pictures and pieces of memories keeping the space comfortably crowded. So many things would be handmade and mended with a story of adoration, imperfect and loved anyways. Internships after school would be rough, and tired, aching late-night breakdowns would find a spot in every room, but they’d survive it all together. He could see himself in the kitchen, struggling with a stove that never stays the same temperature on all sides, but cooking for two every night anyways. They would make mistakes, of course, and no story was ever perfect, but with every tie that they would cut, they would knot it back together, twice as strong as before. Nights out and nights in would be just as frequent, and finding new places to explore and be free would be one hell of a lot easier when he knew that he had a home -- a person, not a place -- to return to.
He saw himself twenty years in the future, comfortably sitting in their careers and moving from a flat to a true home. Perhaps they’d rescue some animals, and they could afford to spoil each other much more than before, but the same little wobbly knick-knacks would keep their place on every shelf. Katsuki had always dreamed of a nice, big kitchen to cook whatever he pleased, but having someone to cook for made it seem truly like heaven. He’d have a reason to make something new every single day if he could see Eijirou’s face after the first bite. They’d have a nice television to watch each other succeed every day on the news, and every single time that he would fail -- he wasn’t perfect, and that could be okay -- there would be someone there to stitch up all of his seams and hold him snugly in place until he melded back together. They’d have such a large bed, with way too many pillows for two people, but it wouldn’t matter -- most nights, they would mold into one mass of devotion and leave everything else behind.
He saw himself fifty, sixty, seventy years into the future, watching crows dance on the corners of his eyes and looking in the mirror to see so much less color in his hair than he remembered. Some things would be broken, and some things would be missing. Patches of memories would fade quicker than Katsuki could write them, and things that used to make perfect sense would jumble into static. His sparks would never be as large as they used to, and he would never hear nearly as much of the praise that followed him through his youth. He knew damn well that he would still talk the same way as always, and he would put hell on anyone who called him weak. His youth would fade, though, as all things do, and all that would be left is simply a man. However, maybe there were some things better than explosions and praise and news and staying in shape and any and all of that shit, because if he wasn’t alone -- if he was with Eijirou, even through all of that time -- maybe it would be okay to just be a man. If he lost his stability, he still had someone to lean onto. If he forgot every second of his life when he woke up in the morning, life would be complete if he just got to meet Eijirou for the first time again, every single day. And maybe he didn’t feel sad at the thought of dying if he had loved in every single moment of his life. Maybe he wouldn’t set any records, or even be remembered as a hero, but he would be loved, and that would be worth more than any material thing or title in the world.
And so, as Katsuki came back to the present, he couldn’t find anything to say. Adoration filled his bones with the buzz of a young love, and all that he could do was to hold Eijirou tighter than anything that he had ever held before, as if letting go would cause him to dissolve out of existence. He couldn’t be sure about what the future would be. He could die much sooner than he saw. Eijirou could -- no. He was stopping that thought right there. Beside the harsh light of movie credits scrolling nearby and surrounded with the light music of a story ending, he felt his life finally beginning to bloom into a cluster of primrose dreams, leading to a life that he just couldn’t let go of.
At that moment, Katsuki didn’t care about how much power his hands could hold. It didn’t matter how his body was shaped, or how it could be used to destroy everything in his path. The rage of a young boy who came too close to blood on his hands shrunk until it became weightless, fluttering out the window to leave just a boy. He felt exposed to the air around him and the boy pressing into his back with those warm hands that he knew so well. Katsuki was smaller than he had ever felt, younger than he would ever be again, and of all things, vulnerable. All that he could think was that maybe it was okay to just be Katsuki -- because as he felt Eijirou hold him back twice as hard, he knew that he would be loved just the same.
