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Contrary to what the idiot extras believe, Shouto does cook for him. It’s an alternating thing. Katsuki cooks on the nights when Shouto’s working, and Shouto cooks when Katsuki is.
If they’re both working, they’ll cook together, or get takeout and make a night out of it. Kinda like a fucking date, if all it takes for something to be a date is you and your moron (with the addition of your clingy, devious cats) in one place.
Dinner's their thing. It's gotta be. Those couple of hours when they get to talk and just be normal-ass people for a few hours are what's keeping him sane. He doesn't see Shouto when he's working, so this is when he's gotta get his fill of him.
They figured out ages ago that working the same shifts together was not gonna work. Even though they do great as a unit.
If they’re both out at the same time, every hit Shouto takes in a fight, every bruise that Katsuki stays up late at night bandaging up on his body, it’s Katsuki’s fault. He can’t let it go. And then they fight.
(They always make up afterwards, with Katsuki throwing an arm over Shouto’s waist, or Shouto reaching out to hold his hand under the covers, but it’s not right. Shouto hates fighting in the home, real fighting, like this.
Katsuki figures it reminds him too much of his shitty childhood. It always ruins the ever-present slight smile on his perfect, pretty face, and it can’t be allowed. Whatever hurts Shouto, he’ll obliterate it.)
Sure, Katsuki would throw himself in front of an incoming missile for any one of his friends, but he doesn’t go home with them. Doesn’t sit up in bed with them doing crossword puzzles or shampoo their fucking hair in the shower. Doesn’t let them use his body as a pillow, put on Animal Planet, and fall asleep on him. It’s a whole different thing with Shouto. Always has been.
Then of course there were the inevitable fights that would happen every time Katsuki was in the middle of something and doing fine. And then suddenly a wall of ice would appear and this bastard on the comms would just say. “Sorry, I didn't mean to do that.”
Because only Todoroki Shouto could block out the sun and not mean to do it, reacting that way purely out of raw feeling and instinct. The press called it romantic. He told them to eat shit.
If he's very, deeply honest with himself, hearing the sound of ice forming actually makes him feel...safe. A testament to the number of times his Halfie and frozen spikes have shown up between Katsuki and various nutjobs intent on having it out with him.
He would never say it though, since he doesn't want Shouto to feel the need to protect him and he doesn't need to be protected. He just likes to keep the fact that Shouto can, that he has, time and time again. Pulling it out as a quiet, secret comfort whenever he feels like total shit.
Yeah, anyway, they don’t work together anymore. He’s fine working with the nerd. Even though every break time is All Might trivia hour, and he’s had enough katsudon for five lifetimes. He’s happy even, with Deku everyday like they were kids again chasing bugs with nets, though he would probably rather die than admit it.
So Shouto cooks for him, when he’s out protecting the world from weak-willed idiots and wackjobs. It’s surprisingly decent, given this candy cane's culinary abilities (or lack of) in high school. Though nothing less should be expected of someone who breathes the same apartment air and sleeps in the same bed as Katsuki.
“So you’re saying Todoroki slept with you and that’s how he became a good cook?” the short-circuit bastard had giggled at him, the last time he explained that, that whole exact thing about why Shou can cook now. “That’s pretty magical Kacchan.”
Completely missing the point, of course. He’d clamped a hand over Shouto’s mouth pre-emptively before he could say some shit like ‘my cooking abilities have nothing to do with our sex life.’ (He had to take some precautions.)
Shouto makes a lot of traditional Japanese food, because that’s what he knows, and that’s what he learned from his sister after they graduated. He also learned a handful of techniques and dishes from other regional cuisines, picking out particularly spicy dishes to master—and no, Katsuki did not tear up when he figured this out...he had just bit down on three whole chilis and his eyes were stinging.
They usually send 1-2 pictures of the food as it's being made to each other. Pictures of the food, and then of the cats.
Shouto claims that Soba loves getting her portraits taken but Howl does not. Katsuki maintains that they are cats and do not understand the concept of cellular photography.
There’s barely any text in these messages at all, and Katsuki kind of likes it that way. Likes to see the progress of Shouto’s food, likes calling him out on having a favorite burner on the stovetop, and gets on him about keeping the bad scraps away from both cats. Just a quick back-and-forth exchanged in under a minute so they know just what’s waiting for them at home, and start building up an appetite for it.
They have a rule about not sending selfies during times like this, even when shifts are just about over. They know better now. An incident occurred with a fresh from the shower picture of himself that made Shouto nearly trip over the edge of a building and no one will not let him hear the end of it.
Though sometimes, even if there’s no actual words being sent, Shouto will send emojis. He loves that shit. He once sent Katsuki a heart and a key with complete sincerity and Katsuki probably hasn’t been the same person since.
(The key to Shou’s heart, and the responsibility to protect it is a big fucking deal. He has to do right by it. He will.)
Shouto even got in Katsuki’s phone once and changed his own contact name to a goddamn strawberry shortcake emoji. It’s something Katsuki called him even before they were dating, but now feels pretty stupid about having called someone after a cake of all things and then not having figured that he was into them. Whatever. Got there eventually.
His own contact name in Shouto’s phone is Sweetheart. It’s been like that for a while. At first he thought it was an honest-to-god crime, since it’s not something Shouto even calls him that much, unless he’s very, very upset. Most of the time Shouto just prefers his name.
Every so often though, he’ll call Shouto when they’re not together and hear one of the extras yelling ‘tell sweetheart we say hi’ and Shouto will dutifully tell him that someone said hi, completely genuine. Predictably, the antics make him wanna go over there and knock heads together, until Shouto starts talking. Once that happens any anger he has ready to boil over slowly cools to a more reasonable simmer. What can he say? He loves that voice. Though he is not and will never be sweet.
Shouto also likes to send hearts. It goes like this, typically. 1-2 of the pictures of whatever he’s cooking. A photograph of Soba, primly positioned at the top of the cat tree (usually), or in her place of fucking honor on top of the television set. One of Howl, darting out of the frame, a calico-colored blur that they really weren’t even going to adopt because Katsuki thought they had enough to deal with, having one, and then Shouto looked at him with his big dumb mismatched eyes, and mentioned that he was ‘worried Soba would be lonely without a sibling to play with.’ His resolve crumbled then, they got the cat, and he promised Shouto that no one was ever going to be lonely in their fucking family, ever. Not if he could help it.
Katsuki sends no hearts when he’s the one at home. He does however do the cat pictures. He tells himself he does it because the pouting he would deal with if he didn’t would be outrageous, but he’s honestly quite good at taking the pictures now, and he’s always found it hard not to enjoy the things he’s good at.
Soba’s are easy enough to get, and they play a game sometimes where he sends an older picture off of his camera roll to test Shouto’s memory. He’s better than Shouto at getting Howl’s, mostly because he knows what it’s like to dart away from the camera and behave like a nutcase when someone’s just trying to take your picture.
His mom always used to tell him, when she was mad, that she hoped he would get a kid just like him so he could have a taste of his own medicine. At the time he was torn between saying he hoped so too, because he was fucking awesome and saying he wasn’t going to have kids because fuck that. Now though, well. This fluffball ain’t a kid, but gets up to so much dumb, dangerous shit around the house, and acts like a loon when company’s around, hissing and pawing and obviously playing favorites. He’s heard enough ‘takes after you, huh Bakugou’ comments from their friend group. He explodes in the moment but he sort of, maybe, gets it.
Then of course, after the pictures of the cats he sends pictures of the food.
Honestly, If he wasn’t so sure of his incredible proficiency in other areas, and in Shouto’s genuine, constant love, the way Shouto acts about his cooking might actually give him a complex about why Shouto’s with him. He loves it that much.
Shouto sends lots of hearts in return. Red hearts. Pink hearts. Red hearts with golden sparkles. Pink hearts with a fucking shitty weird stupid bow. Yellow hearts that he isn’t aware represent friendship and instead to commemorate the fact that using the only available data point, Shouto’s decided he has a thing for blondes.
Sometimes, Shouto will add a brief message too. Shouto texts a lot like he talks, because he’s so damn weird. That’s why when the text comes, Katsuki can usually read it in his own head in Shouto’s voice.
If he kinda rushes over whenever it’s the right time to expect it, and he hears a ping from his phone, then no one has to know about it.
He’s not a ‘Shouto simp’, no matter what the hell even Pinky says about him.
But the texts are alright.
‘Home soon.’
‘Soba’s picture was from Wednesday, I expect a new one.’
‘Food looks good.’
‘I’m hungry.’
‘Rain today. I forgot my umbrella. Good that the food looks hot.’
‘Bad day. Miss you.’
‘I’m sleepy.’
They’re all fairly straightforward. To the point. They’re all very Shouto, and they make sense to Katsuki and his brain knows what to do with them (file them away in the growing corner of Shouto things that he plans to keep for a long, long time.)
That said, he doesn’t know what to do when he sends his requisite cat and food pictures and gets back this: ‘I should tell you more often. I love you so much.’
Then seven yellow hearts. ‘Here is one for every year that I have loved you.’
Katsuki’s face burns, because they’ve only been together, officially, for six.
Soba peers at him from her pedestal on the cat tree, and Howl peeks out at him from under one of the side tables they use to balance Shouto’s ever growing collection of fancy biscuits.
They’re judging him. He knows they’re judging him for having gotten this message and looking at it for a whole minute like a lovestruck teenager. Like he was when he first got hit by his feelings for Shouto.
All that time ago.
Back then he wanted to win everything but this. This life with two cats, and a blanket stealing boyfriend who still writes to his mom every single week and once wrote three whole pages about Katsuki and the wonderful time he’s having with him. It’s nothing like he had imagined.
(He only saw them, granted, when he was picking up Howl off the papers on Shouto’s desk. The stinky little proofreader would have made a mess. And—
Katsuki had never seen his own name written down so many, many times. It amazed him. His name, secure in Shouto’s warm, steady hand.)
The cats are judging him.
He needs to text something back. But he’s not used to saying things like this. They’re not big on just words. They don’t mean shit if nothing’s put up behind ‘em.
Katsuki intends to put in a lifetime up behind the words he has said in the past, but right now he has to reply and it has to mean something.
So he takes a deep breath, sits down, and does the cringiest thing that’s ever crossed his mind, all for a man who once referred to mouthwash as ‘teeth detergent’ and can’t parallel park to save his goddamn life.
He opens the emoji section of his keyboard, a place he never goes except to find the middle finger when he’s feeling it. Then he taps through to find a red heart, and then a key. Katsuki waits a moment, just staring down at Shouto’s easy declaration of big, sappy, gooey love, thinks about all the things is always doing to show him that, then types in ‘I’m yours’, and suppresses the very strong urge to add an ‘or whatever’, or ‘congrats, dipshit’, even though he wants to, and there’s a decent chance Shou would find it funny.
Then he sighs and glares at the cats. “See assholes, see what you made me do?! Happy now?”
...They’ll never be happy. Damn brats.
Howl comes out and walks around a bit, then settles on his feet. Katsuki runs warm, so he knows that’s probably why, but he’s okay with the support here. Even though he’s humiliated himself past the point of no return and everything that entails is already making his palms sweat.
Soba, princess that she is, leaves her pedestal to get up on the counter and promptly knocks over a tissue box, because she thinks she knows comedy or something.
Shouto leaves him on read. Tapping on the checkmark below the message causes the words ‘seen’ to briefly pop on the screen, and the rational part of him knows that Shouto could be busy, could be talking to someone, but mostly he feels really fucking dumb. Like he always does when he spins out of control and goes and does something that exposes his squishy insides and he doesn’t immediately have any part of Shouto’s body to bury (read:hide) his face in.
At this point the food’s only on the burners to keep it warm, it’s not really cooking, so he figures it’s fine to sit down and kill time until Shouto gets home, and maybe they can pretend that he never said that and everything will be fine.
He picks up Howl and puts him on his lap for the company, and notes that he still feels like he’s being judged. “Tsch. You shit in a box, don’t fuckin’ look at me like that.”
What he said has no effect at all, and just to be petty Katsuki swears this year he’s not gonna stand up for this dumb floof and prevent Shouto from dressing him up in Santa hats and cat onesies.
“Hear that?! I’m gonna let him do what he wants and make you all festive and shit,” he glares down at the furball who squirms a bit in his hold.
Howl just meows, and some unhinged part of Katsuki’s brain feels like the way it looks at him suggests ‘well, you let Shouto do whatever he wants with you too’ and that’s true, during the holiday season Katsuki can’t escape afternoons making gingerbread houses and baking sugar cookies with red and white sprinkles. Nights spent watching the snowfall from the balcony, cuddled up close, with his head tucked against Shouto’s snow white and rose red hair.
But the cat isn't allowed to call him out on it.
His phone goes off and he opens it expecting it to be Shouto and it almost is. It’s not a message but the news alert he set up to track new mentions of Shouto’s name. It’s mostly a safety thing, and Katsuki likes to know when and where Shouto’s been involved in a fight.
Sometimes he looks at the press coverage, leans back and smirks because it is so stupid fucking sexy to watch him win. To watch news reporters and civilians practically swoon over Shouto’s arrival, and departure, to watch Shouto walk away completely unbothered and at the end of the day come home to him.
This one just reads ‘pro hero Shouto spotted leaving his normal patrol area and using his ice to propel himself across the rooftops - is there a villain involved?’
That’s weird. Being in the business himself, whenever there’s a dangerous target on the move, they usually get an alert on the network so any heroes in the area are aware of a potential threat in their jurisdiction. That way they can coordinate potential evacuations and get civilians out in case something goes down. They get some details on what the villain’s quirk is, and are supposed to use their judgement to avoid casualties.
The direction Shouto left to go in leads right around the area they live in, so Katsuki should have been notified about it. He wasn’t.
Which begs the question - this bastard left him on read and is now ice surfing across the rooftops?! Who does he think he is?
Katsuki doesn’t understand, he doesn’t understand one bit, but isn’t left to wonder long when he hears a thud from the balcony. Howl jumps off of his lap in shock, and Katsuki goes over to open the balcony door and finds the whole thing covered with ice, and Shouto standing there, breathless.
There’s still ice sticking to his left arm, and everytime Shouto breathes out the frost is visible in the air. It shouldn’t be this attractive, especially considering Katsuki is mainly extremely confused. But it is so damn attractive even his brain hasn't quite finished processing it. Even more so when the steam comes off of Shouto, and he flexes his frozen fingers free and the warmth envelops Katsuki’s shivering legs too.
“Oi, we have a fucking door?!” Katsuki exclaims when his faculties have returned to him.
“I know,” Shouto nods hard, looking up from where he’s standing, head down and hands resting on his folded knees, still panting. “Wanted. Faster.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Katsuki rants, and he means that more in a ‘why wouldn’t you use public transit and not strain yourself after an entire day of working' way and did not mean in any shape or form, to be deep or existential.
(He should know by now though, how Shouto will take it.)
“A lot of things,” Shouto beams. “But you’re mine. I saw it. I know it’s hard for you to say it. I didn’t know what to say back. So I came.”
Oh my god. Katsuki is going to die right here right now, on his own damn balcony wearing too thin sleep pants and a raggedy t-shirt faced with pure, blinding adoration from this bastard that’s making him into a deer in fucking headlights.
Fuck. He must have cleared what—Katsuki does some quick math in his head. Shouto patrols an area about twenty-one kilometers away from here. He must have sent the text ten minutes ago. Maybe even less. Is that...faster than Katsuki’s own maximum speed?! It better not—no, that makes him mad, but it’s also—yeah, no that’s pretty hot.
“And?! Now that you’re here you’re not even gonna kiss me or anything?” he frowns. It’s really the minimum he deserves.
He can already hear the sounds of both cats pawing at the glass pane balcony door, excited to see their favorite person. There’s a small window where Katsuki can expect to get the affection he wants before Shouto will go to them, boop them on the head and say ‘tadaima’, and be occupied with them while Katsuki has to watch and control his facial expressions so that when Shouto does come to him he doesn’t do anything embarrassing like hold Katsuki’s face in his hands and tilt his own head to the side and ask ‘are you sulking?’ Because he isn't. He does not sulk.
Shouto does a similar thing now, cupping his face and pulling him into a warm kiss. Katsuki presses up close to Shouto’s body, because he’s freezing his fucking ass off out here and Shouto needs to be as close as possible to him.
“Why are you dressed like this?” Shouto asks, pulling Katsuki against his chest, and because he’s a little extra tall in his hero costume boots, Katsuki leans up a bit to put his arms around him.
He can practically feel the jealousy from the cats as they stare at Katsuki monopolizing their favorite person, but Shouto was his first. That’s having dibs. They can suck it.
“It’s fuckin’ hot in the kitchen,” he grumbles. “...it’s not like I knew you were gonna be an idiot and run home like this.”
Shouto holds him back so tightly, his chin tucked over Katsuki’s shoulder. “They’re putting up quite the protest over there.”
“Little shits like you better,” Katsuki doesn’t even need to turn around to know that Soba is probably perched right by the glass, primly waiting to be given attention and occasionally pawing at the surface, and that Howl is still clawing at it like a maniac, little fucker doesn’t even behave like a cat, allegedly, dogs the ones who are supposed to do shit like this. “You’re the favorite.”
“You’re my favorite,” Shouto says back.
“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki stomps on his foot, knowing it won’t hurt that much with his bare foot to Shouto’s boot. “Embarrassing bastard.”
“Come on,” Katsuki says as he reluctantly lets go. “Can’t keep their royal highnesses waiting.”
Of course, the second he opens the door back-up the two act completely innocent, as if they weren’t just sitting there faces pressed to the glass. They just walk circles around Shouto, who leans down to pet them, and laughs.
God. Even your laugh is sexy.
“Thank you?” Shouto looks up at him curiously.
Oh fuck he said that out loud. Abort. Abort. Abort. “Go change and I’ll have the food out.”
After a moment Shouto emerges wearing the worst combination of clothes known to man. It’s a Pikachu sweater and blue pants. The whole thing clashes outrageously with red and white hair. The worst part though, probably, is that Shouto still manages to look good enough that Katsuki wants to be all over him.
Maybe that’s the long-term relationship talking.
It’s during dinner that Katsuki works up the nerve to ask. “Why’d you feel like saying all of that?”
“When I said a vanilla soy latte is just a three bean soup? It’s just the truth,” Shouto says.
Katsuki hates him. So much.
“No not that!” though Katsuki kinda wants to know how he gets around to having those kinds of observations too. “The other thing. You said something, and then you said you should say it more? Hell was that about?”
He spits it out like an accusation, but it isn’t.
The main reason he wants to know is because rushes of sentimentality happen a lot when bad things happen. People feel like they want to reach out to people they love when they see that the world is shit. He wants to know if Shouto went through anything like that today at work.
(The second reason is that it felt better than he thought it would. Hearing it.)
“...I saw some squirrels,” Shouto explains shyly.
“Hah?!” Katsuki cannot believe this. What could squirrels possibly have to do with this.
“It’s silly,” Shouto takes another bite and leaves Katsuki in a state of total confusion as he chews and swallows, talking his sweet time. “When I was younger I used to wish I could be anywhere else, be anything else. Even a squirrel...so I wouldn’t have to do training.”
“What,” Katsuki says softly, with some limited dawning understanding.
“Today though, I saw one again, and I realized I don’t want to be a squirrel anymore. A squirrel would not get to be with you, Katsuki,” Shouto says.
—then after a pause. “Unless you would want to be squirrels together.”
What the fuck. How could he just say this? How...what. It’s starting to be a little amusing though, in a fond way. And oh shit. That really means this is love, doesn’t it.
“...the cats would eat you—us. It’s an awful idea,” Katsuki laughs. “Let’s stick to being humans together okay?”
“Okay,” Shouto agrees, as if he has a choice in the matter. “As long as we are together, I am fine.”
“You sayin’ you’d live in a box with me?” Katsuki wonders jokingly.
“What kind of box?” Shouto inquires.
“Like, cardboard—I don’t fucking know, you got box housing preferences?” Katsuki says.
“Soba prefers felt-padded boxes,” Shouto answers. “I think Howl considers boxes beneath him.”
“He does, huh,” Katsuki can’t really argue with that, little shit is spoiled.
“Thinking about it, I think I would live with you anywhere. It would be uncomfortable though. I’m glad we have this place,” Shouto smiles.
Katsuki can’t argue with that either, so he nods. “Yeah. Box would fucking suck.”
(He’s glad they have this place, and this life too. The give and take that has him rushing home after a long day. The dinners, the talks.
His hands in Shouto’s warm and cold ones, their idiot cats—
Two hearts. Two keys.)