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It was moments like these that made Izuku realise how truly gorgeous his boyfriend was. Sunlight was filtering through the open curtains that lined the window across from their bed, casting a golden glow down upon them both.
He was so beautiful like this– not that he wasn't usually, but the soft light of the morning sun that graced his features so gently, caressing them with kind, feather light touches. The light clung to his eyelashes like dew in the early morning, it sat atop his hair like a halo. Honestly, all he was missing was the wings and he'd be a fully fledged angel.
Izuku yawned, wide but silent, stretching to crack his back from the — obviously horrible — position he'd been sleeping in. His physio would probably kill him for not sleeping in the 'recommended positions' but excuse him if he wanted to cuddle with his boyfriend instead of lying flat on his back with pillows shoved around him. It was much comfier with Kacchan in his arms or at his back anyway, they just couldn't appreciate the truly beautiful things in life, it seemed.
He looked round the room, taking in just how perfect everything looked, how clean. It wasn't like that when they went to bed, wasn't this neat and orderly. Izuku knows he left his shoes by the door, and his shirt hanging from the doorknob of the wardrobe. The mirror was dusty when they went to bed, little bits of… whatever it was, stuck to its surface like magnets to a large slab of metal. And yet none of that was there now. Everything was clean, but it wasn't a 'lived in' sort of clean, it was more like… a clinical clean, a neatness that bordered the sterilisation of hospitals. Even Recovery Girl's infirmary was messier than this, if only slightly, a place he had become intimately familiar with in his time at UA.
Unfortunately, it was a familiar cleanliness, one he had become accustomed to. It used to be nice, to wake up and see a clean room, but now… now it was less of the blessing he thought it was, and more of a curse. Now, he knew why the bedroom was so clean, why the wooden floors looked freshly cut and polished, why the walls seemed freshly painted and the curtains stood straighter. Kacchan was worried. About what, Izuku didn't yet know, and it irked him. How could he not know about his partner, not be able to tell when something had him feeling lower than the dirt of the earth itself.
They were stronger in the past, these feelings of uselessness, almost like an unpleasant nostalgia, a throwback to his younger days when life was simple and cruel. He had dealt with them over time, however, accepted that it wasn't caused by his shortcomings, but that Kacchan simply got caught in his own head sometimes, just like Izuku did. Still, he couldn't help the small wave of self-doubt that crashed against the cliff face of his mind, trying to break him down into fractions.
He rolled over again, looking back towards his boyfriend, the sleeping form of Kacchan lying still beside him. Yellow light was still streaming through the window, but the other man lay fast asleep on the lush pillows of their bed, his face nestled in the pillow covers. His hair was messy, his cheek squished against the pillow and yet… he was still the most beautiful man Izuku had ever seen.
There was not a trace of sorrow on his face, nor anxiety or fear. That was good, at least, Izuku knew from experience that the worst fears, the most difficult conversations, came when Kacchan's face failed to relax, even in sleep. The last time still haunted him…
Izuku woke slowly, blinking his eyes slowly, his head pounding with a headache he'd come to associate with waking after only a few hours of sleep. Something about the situation was wrong, though he couldn't tell what, the notion lost to him as he lay piled under blankets on his bed.
It was late at night, he could tell that from the sheer darkness of his room. Yes, with the way he could only see vague outlines of objects and furniture — just Things in the dark, nothing more and nothing less — it had to be night-time, probably some ridiculous tile like 2:39am. He had a bad habit of waking in the middle of thenjught when he was younger, something he thought he'd outgrown. Apparently he was wrong in assuming that.
He shifted, pulling at the blankets to get comfortable, hoping to sink into his mattress again and fall back to slee–
Something moved against his side.
For a moment, Izuku wanted to leap from his bed, to turn on the thing invading his safest space. He hoped to God it wasn't the League, that they hadn't somehow tracked him down and were suddenly here to kill him.
But the moment passed quickly as he remembered. Kacchan. He'd gone to bed with Kacchan in his arms, cuddling together, still on a high despite having been together for a year. It was strange, but not unwelcome. Everyday just seemed like the honeymoon phase, like the other shoe would drop at some point and they'd slowly devolve into an argument that tore their relationship to shreds. But it never did. He loved Kacchan and Kacchan loved him, it was that simple.
Well, almost that simple. There had to be a reason Kacchan was up at this ungodly hour of the morning. Usually nothing could wake him, he was dead when his head hit the pillow, walking up exactly as his alarm went off. But tonight was a rare exception to that rule.
Why?
Izuku turned on the bed, doing his best to be as silent as possible, but it really wasn't that easy with the amount of heavy muscle he'd packed on in the last 3 years. He managed though, rolling over to stare at– well, where his boyfriend should be. The dark made it difficult to see anything.
They just lay there, in silence, time passing them in unknown quantities, not a clock or watch in sight to time how long they'd been like that. It wasn't even a tense silence, like when something broke in the kitchen and everyone waited for Satou to go feral, or when Todoroki iced Sero so hard in the Sports Festival he had violent body-shivers for weeks after in their first year. No, this was a quiet, gentle silence, not loud like some could be, but soft, like the light caress of a thumb against the back of his hand, a chaste kiss before training or a finger tracing a design on his forearm during breakfast.
Izuku was tempted to reach out, to try and find the planes of Kacchan's face with his hands, worried the other boy had fallen asleep and he was just lying there in the dark like an idiot worried over nothing.
And then, suddenly, the silence was broken.
"Why did you never ask for an apology?" Kacchan's voice floated through the darkness, rough with sleep but no less beautiful than normal.
Izuku was confused though. What did he need an apology for? For what should he have asked for someone's forgiveness?
"What?" He did his best to keep his tone neutral, but confusion still somehow leaked through, had permeated the thick dam he's set up to hold off the lake and fallen into the stream on the other side.
There was silence again for a moment. Izuku recognised it for what it was – hesitation.
"Why did you never ask for an apology?" Kacchan said again, barely a whisper in the quiet. "Why did you never ask All Might for an apology?"
"I–" Izuku paused, closing his mouth around the word he'd only half produced, clamping down on it to stop it escaping.
He'd never asked him that before. It was… it was something he didn't want to think about. He just– he held no anger towards Yagi, how could he when the man had taken him in and so freely given his quirk to someone like him. There was simply… a specific set of emotions Izuku held for the man, a complicated mess of multicoloured strings hr could never seem to unwind.
One string was happiness, for gaining One For All, for earning a father figure. Another was grief, sorrow for the loss of his greatest idol, for being one of the many reasons All Might fell. There was the familiar feeling of disbelief, disbelief that he ever received the quirk, that he ever made it as a hero under his Idol's tutelage.
Under all of these emotions, however, was a sad little string of confusion. It started small, but grew steadily with each new thing Yagi forgot to tell him about the quirk. First it was exploding limbs, then an unknown enemy that struck fear into the heart of even Yagi himself. There were other things omsgter that, even between those two. How Gran Torino was never once brought up until the man inserted himself in Izuku's life by force, how Yagi never spoke of the vestiges until suddenly Izuku began to see them. He didn't blame him for the multiple quirks that came tumbling after, because how could he have known? How could Yagi have realised this would come to be?
But… well, blame was a strong word, one he generally avoided using when it wasn't necessary, like now. Fault, also, was too powerful a word for what Yagi had done. It was more like… negligence? Like simply… forgetting that Izuku, his successor, might benefit from knowing he had a centuries old enemy to defeat in his future, or maybe that Izuku might have… not wanted to take a quirk that was going to shatter his limbs irreparably?
Yagi wasn't to blame for these things, it wasn't his fault… but they happened because of him, they came about… because of him.
Back then, Izuku really didn't know how to feel, the ball of strings inside him always trying to pull itself apart as Yagi harmed and helped him in equal measure. He shouldn't stand for the damage his forgetfulness had done to him, his attempts at protecting him that only ever half-worked, and always left him with some sort of wound in the end. One thing always stood strong in his mind after those interactions.
"I didn't think I deserved one." he said, voice broken and vulnerable he had trained himself out of upon commencing his training with All Might. Heroes needed to be strong, after all, and who would ever be reassured by the sound of someone so weak?
"'Zuku–" Kacchan began, but Izuku didn't let him continue.
"I–" he choked on the air, just slightly, his throat closing for less than a second before opening back up again, letting him speak once more. "I know Kacchan... I know."
"I just," he took a moment to breathe, "I just didn't feel like I deserved that from him. I was his successor, the next Symbol of Peace, something I never would've been without his quirk, his teaching. A– And I know that I should think like that, that it's… flawed, But I couldn't help it in first year. He was my idol Kacchan, I'd already taken so much from him without paying any of it back I just–"
There was a shift in the bed, and suddenly Kacchan was closer, lying right in front of Izuku, easily within arms reach of him. Izuku didn't reach out, but Kacchan did. He pulled him forward and into his chest where Izuku's eyes began to water with tears that were coming surprisingly late, especially when the topic of their early conversation was so sensitive.
They lay in silence for a bit, Kacchan just rocking Izuku slowly as he cried silent tears. It was stupid, such a silly thing making him so upset, keeping Kacchan awake when he should be asleep. He was so stupid.
"Wanna talk about it in the morning?" Kacchan's voice was still quiet, calm and soothing, just what Izuku needed right now.
He nodded into his chest and Katsuki closed his eyes tighter, ensuring they were firmly wrapped up in one another before they drifted off to sleep once again.
Izuku shook the thought from his head, fighting back against the negative emotions that tried to consume him once more, focusing back on the present.
Kacchan was still fast asleep at his side, face scrunched slightly in an adorable little pout. He wanted to stay, to pepper his face in kisses until he woke up groaning and telling him to go back to sleep, that it was too early to deal with his bullshit. The sight of the crystal clear windows opposite him quickly dispelled that thought however. Kacchan was worried about something, something Izuku didn't yet know. He'd have to deal with it when Kacchan woke up… but for now, he could do something to pass the time, something productive.
Slipping out from under the covers, he padded along the wooden floors, trying to be as quiet as possible. Izuku opened the door, headed for the kitchen, recipes already flying through his head.
Food would help, all Izuku needed to do now was to make it. Well, Kacchan would appreciate the effort, even if it tasted terrible. He didn't even like cooking, but Izuku would do anything to help cheer up his boyfriend.
And the reverse was true too. When one of them stumbled, the other was quick to right them. That's just how they worked.