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It wasn’t the fact that Deku chose something different to hyperfix every single month. (He had been doing that since they were like three and Katsuki was already used to it). It also wasn’t the fact that he would hear him mumble endlessly about whatever the fuck he was obsessed at that moment. No, it was the fact that in every single show, book, movie, manga, or anime, Deku always ended up shipping whatever presented an Enemies/Rivals to Lovers dynamic. Katsuki couldn’t freaking stand it.
And this time around it had started out because of Shitty Hair.
Shitty Hair, who was a Harry Potter nerd and he had been shocked to hear that Deku hadn’t read the books or even watched the movies. ‘I’m telling you, Midoriya, it’s addictive’ Kirishima had told him and then shoved the entire goddamn saga into Deku's hands. And don’t get him wrong, Katsuki had been absolutely expecting for Deku to be quoting lines, comparing the books with the movies, and whatever the fuck else; he just hadn't been expecting this.
“You ship Harry with Hermione?” Deku asked, his tone indicating that it was some kind of personal offense or something.
“They’re sweet to each other!”
“They're boring, that's what they are.”
Katsuki just kept eating, trying to ignore them. Lunch would be over soon and they still had two more classes to get to.
(And he’d heard enough Harry Potter talk for a goddamn lifetime after that weekend where Eijiro forced him to sit throughout all the eight movies.)
“That’s even more boring than Harry with Ginny-“
“Oh my god bro, you hate Hinny? What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t hate it! I just don’t see it-“
“Nah, man, you’re just saying that because it fucks up your ship. Same as Harry and Hermione.”
“Who do you ship?” Mina asked, interrupting whatever Deku was about to respond to Kirishima.
The freckled boy looked at Katsuki for a brief moment before he lowered his eyes, fork in hand, playing with his food.
“I don’t wanna say.” He replied with a soft red adorning his cheeks. And maybe if it weren’t for the fact that the only problem Deku had with answering was the fact that Katsuki was there, he would’ve thought it was cute.
“It’s not Dramione, is it?”
Deku limited himself to taking another sip of water to avoid the question.
“Close,” Kirishima said. “but make it gay.”
“It’s absolutely not the same thing-“
“Oh my God, it’s Drarry!”
Here’s the thing, over the years Katsuki had become a somewhat Deku-expert whether he wanted to or not. It’s just something that tends to happen when you’re trying to surpass someone and be better than them. So this? What he was witnessing? Was definetely Deku trying to hide an upcoming blush before it gets really bad.
So it was a pretty solid clue that whatever this shit was it was, at least, problematic to the general public.
“Maybe.”
Raccoon eyes shrugged.
“Not my cup of tea but I can see that.”
“ Dude. No.” Shitty hair scrunched up his face in distaste.
"I'm just saying, It's not that crazy, the ' what if ' of them it's almost the entire plot of the sixth book-"
"And the whole thing with their meeting in Madam Malkin's," Deku added. "He was clearly trying to impress him, come on."
“What’s that shit?” Katsuki asked because even though he had been listening to their conversation since the beginning, he has to pretend to not give a fuck to keep his reputation, of course.
“What?”
“Drarry or whatever.”
“Uh, it's a ship, you won't like them so just-”
“It’s Draco and Harry, bro.” Katsuki just looked at him, waiting for clarification. “The blond asshole and the protagonist.”
He blinked. The blond- No. No-
“ Harry Potter and his bully? What the fuck, Deku-“
“Hey, they have their moments-“
“No they don’t, he treats him like shit, makes fun of him for being an orphan, and then calls his best friend a mudblood. In which part of that do you see a goddamn moment between them?.”
“This is literally why I didn’t want to have this conversation.” And without further ado Deku stood up, claiming that he wasn’t hungry anymore.
Katsuki turned his head to the rest of (and god forgive him for using the stupid nickname that Kaminari had assigned them) the Bakusquad only to find them looking at him with a tired expression on their faces.
“Why you lookin’ at me like that, huh? It’s true, it’s creepy, even Shitty hair said so.”
“Baku. I love you, honey, okay? But you always manage to scare Midoriya away.” Mina said and just when Katsuki was about to defend himself she continued. “I like him, he’s nice, and I know you also like to have him around, so, just- I don’t know, take a chill pill when he says something that annoys you or something.”
“Everything he says annoys me,” He mumbled, rolling his eyes.
“Bro.” Kirishima’s bored voice interrupted him.
“It does.”
“Bro.”
“Yeah, Kacchan, we all know that’s not true.” Pikachu intervened.
A beat. He turned to Sero, simply because he was the only one that was left to end the ‘make fun of Bakugo’ round.
“I’m not going down that rabbit hole, man. It’s useless to talk to you when it involves Midoriya."
He huffed and shoved another bit of food into his mouth. Fucking assholes.
A beat.
"... You could go and apologize to him, though..." Sero commented.
Katsuki raised an eyebrow at him. "The fuck would I apologize for? It was my opinion. It's his fucking problem if he takes it personal."
Mina, being the bitch that she is (and no, doesn't matter that Katsuki actually likes that about her) , just sighed and rolled her eyes. "Can we skip the part where you act all emotionally constipated with us, and just get to the part where you drop the tough-guy act and go talk to Mido?"
Katsuki felt the heat of his face increasing, the blush taking over it. And yeah, he huffed and cursed under his breath, but ended up standing up and marching off to go look for Deku. Fucking assholes. Sometimes Katsuki hated having friends. (Just sometimes because it was kind of awesome some other times, you know?)
______________________________________________________________________
He found Deku alone, outside, sitting on a bench, one of the books in his hands. Probably the last one considering he’d said he was almost done with them and about to start the movies.
"Hey,"
"Hey," He answered, eyes still on the pages.
Katsuki sat down beside him, Deku still won't even look at him. He sighed.
" Fine. I'm sorry I insulted your toxic ship of the month-"
Deku slapped the book closed, green eyes turning to him, annoyed as hell. "You're so fucking judmental-"
"The fuck, I'm not, I said I was goddamn sorry-"
"But you're not, Kacchan. You just can't just let me enjoy things-"
" You can do what you want, don’t mean I won’t tell you when I think they're stupid-"
"Oh, okay. Fine. Fine. Let's talk about that then. What's so stupid about me shipping two characters that clearly have a storyline traced around each other? Please, do tell-"
" 'Cause it's fucking toxic, Deku!"
"It's just fiction, for fuck's sake-"
" You always end up rooting for the ones that, at some point, almost killed each other-"
"Jackie and Hyde did not-"
"But Damon and Elena did-"
"Just like- twice-"
" Why? Just why would you see any love there-"
"Because they remind me of us, you stupid moron!"
Whatever Katsuki was about to say died in his mouth. And he stayed like that, mouth hanging open, confused eyes-
And Deku wasn’t any better either, he looked like he was about to die right on the spot. Red face, his eyes so big they look they're gonna jump off his face; completely frozen in place.
"Did you just- I mean-" Katsuki tried, almost stuttering.
"Yep. Yep, I think I did." He replied, his eyes spaced out. "Yeah. I'm- I'm going to go lock myself in my room forever now. Tell Aizawa I won't make it to class-" Deku said, grabbing the book, almost tripping as he stood and just bolted out of there before Katsuki could formulate a grammatically coherent question like this one:
“What the fuck did just happen?”
And asking himself that very same question he forced himself to get to their next class, he offered a somewhat excuse for Izuku to Aizawa, and dropped himself at his usual seat; still confused as hell.
“You alright there, dude?” Kaminari asked him.
To be honest, Katsuki didn’t have the slightest idea.
“I think I annoyed Deku so much he just confessed to me.”
Sero almost choked with the pencil he was chewing. “What did you just say?”
“Bro, are you for real right now?” Kirishima asked, a gigantic smile forming on his face. “Go Midoriya-”
“No, Baku! It had to be you!”
“You’re just mad I won the pool, pay up, babe”
“Wait a second. What are you doing here?”
Katsuki turned to Sero again, blinking. “What?”
“What. are. you. doing. here?” He asked again, his patience running thin. “Shouldn’t you two be making out right now?”
Katsuki’s face colored scarlet. “He ran away.” he said to them, as if it were some kind of explanation.
But to be honest, Katsuki had absolutely no fucking idea as to why he wasn’t making out with Deku right now.
“And you didn’t run after him??” Denki scolded him and started to drag him towards the door.
“Excuse you two, we’re in the middle of the class-”
“I’m sorry, Sir, but my friend’s an idiot. Midoriya confessed to him-”
“Dunce Face!”
“And he just let him run away and didn’t even give him an answer-”
“What??” And that was Round Cheeks. Great.
“Can you shut the fuck up, Pikachu? It’s a secret-” He hissed at him.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s not a secret at all. You two are the only ones who don’t know. Even Aizawa knows”
“It’s true, I do.”
“See?” The blond asked and then gave him a last push out the classroom.
“Oi-”
“If you ask Midoriya to marry you I call best man-”
“BRO. You can’t just call it!”
“Sure can.” Kaminari said to him before turning to Katsuki again. “Advise: try not to insult him while confessing-”
“Yeah, use his actual name for once-”
“Oh shut it, Cheeks, you nickname thief-”
“Bakugo, either you leave my classroom at once or you get back in.”
And that was all that Katsuki needed to march off of there.
_________________________________________________________________
When Deku opened the door the first thing that he noticed was that he’d been crying. Probably for about the last half hour that it took for Katsuki to get his head out of his ass and knock on his door.
“K-Kacchan,” Deku stuttered before rushing to clean the remaining tears with his sleeve. “What- What are you doing here? Thought you’d be in class. Did you let Aizawa know that I wasn’t going? Or did you forget? Oh god, you forgot, didn’t you? You always do this. I asked you one little stupid thing and you just-”
“Why do they remind you of us?” Katsuki asked him, ignoring his rant.
Deku shifted his weight between his feet “Who?”
“All those couples. Take your pick.”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Because my answer to what you said to me outside depends on what’s the goddamn reasoning behind it-”
“I don’t-” A Sigh. “I don’t wanna say.” He concluded; arms crossed over his chest, avoiding Katsuki’s eyes, cheeks puffed out, maybe a cute little pout there-
Focus, Katsuki.
“See? It’s because there’s always one that’s an asshole to the other. You justify the shit they do. And let me tell you, I don’t know which one is worse, if it’s Delena or this new one you got with Malfoy in it-”
“It’s not that. Jesus it’s like you want us to fight over fictional characters! I still remember when we were twelve and you wouldn’t talk to me when I said that Sam and Freddie were cute together-”
“She bullied him, Deku-”
“Would you just shut up? Just don’t say anything for two minutes and then you can yell at me all that you want to. Okay? Can I talk?”
Katsuki kept his mouth shut, indicating him to go on.
“Great. You know what all those couples have in common? The rival, the enemy, the asshole as you say, every single time takes the other person really seriously. Most of the time, opposed to this other person that idolizes them, thinks they’re angels from heaven, weak, that need to be protected, the rival or enemy sees this other person as a threat and that’s something that no one else does. You thought I made it through the entrance exam quirklessly, and you know what? Sometimes I wish I had because it would've made you so proud, and I don’t even need you to confirm it because I already know it would have.”
Katsuki just shrugged. It’s not like it mattered. He’d be proud of him either way. Quik or no quirk. But, well, he wasn’t wrong, so.
“And there’s also this weird connection that they have. And unconventional friendships, bonds, that people don’t understand. Ways of communicating that don’t fall under the ‘norm’ if you will. We have that. Doesn’t matter how much you act like we don't, because there are times in a fight where I can just know what you expect me to do to help you and you didn’t even say a word.”
Katsuki was pretty sure that his face was the same color of his eyes right now.
“... Maybe.”
“So yeah. I like enemies to lovers. Or rivals to lovers. And they remind me of us. Sue me. There’s not much content for childhood friends to enemies to rivals to lovers out there, so I’m sorry if they don’t suit us perfectly or whatever. ” He ended up saying before huffing and kicking the door closed.
A beat.
Katsuki took some steps forward to meet him in the middle of the room.
“So… It’s not because the asshole hurts the other then,”
Now Izuku looked up to meet his eyes, an annoyed expression, so Izuku that made his stupid heart start to race, like the simp it is. (Yes, his heart was the simp. Katsuki refused to call himself one).
“No, Katsuki, believe it or not I don’t spend my free time seeing people hurting people and think ‘Oh that’s just like, Kacchan’ or whatever it is that you have in mind. You think very high of yourself, by the way, you don’t even hit that hard.”
And you know what the best part was?
It was that, on any other day, where Katsuki didn’t have a goddamn clue that Deku liked him, he would’ve challenged him, asked him to spar or some shit like that. Just to get some sort of contact… Now, with the information he has, with his heart beating like crazy, with Izuku’s stupid smirk right on place; he just took another step forward and took his face in his hands.
“You’re lucky you’re cute ‘cause I’d love to kick your ass just to show how wrong you are, Izuku” He told him, face very inches away from each other, squeezing his cheeks a little, enjoying the way that his lovely mouth looked like this.
“We can do both though. How about you kiss me and then we spar, mmm? Winner pays the first date.”
“Oh, you’re on-” He started saying but Deku cut him off by throwing his arms around his neck and putting his mouth on his.
Finally.
It goes without saying that from that moment on, Katsuki didn’t complain one bit about Izuku liking Enemies to lovers. He even proposed to go as Jackie and Hyde for halloween, only if he was Hyde, of course.
Although, if his noisy friends ask: no, he did not want to do couples costumes ‘cause they’re lame but Izuku asked him to,so.
What else could he do? He’s in love with the dork.