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The first time Izuku finds a loaf of banana bread outside his door, he almost steps on it. He sees the object at the last moment and has to do a sort of hop to get over it, thinking its a package or a stray cat. But when he looks down, it’s a loaf wrapped tightly in saran wrap. There is no note or name.
Izuku looks around to see if there is someone around who could have left it, but the hallway outside his apartment is empty.
Izuku takes the loaf into his apartment and leaves it on the counter for when he gets home later. That evening he spends hours staring at it, wondering how safe it is to eat a mystery loaf that was left on his welcome mat.
As soon as he unwraps it, Izuku can smell the fresh banana and cinnamon. “I’m sure it’s fine ,” he says, breaking off a piece with his fingers and putting it in his mouth.
And it’s more than fine. It’s the best thing Izuku has ever tasted, cinnamon and walnuts and sweet banana all wrapped up in a moist loaf. If this banana bread is poisoned, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go out, he thinks.
It only takes him a few days to eat the entire loaf on his own and by the time he has finished it, there is a new dessert on his doorstep. This time it is a little plate of cupcakes. Half a dozen perfectly frosted lemon blueberry cupcakes. They’re fresh and tart and sweet and so, so good. Izuku eats them shamelessly this time.
Whenever he leaves his apartment, Izuku looks for the person that could be his mystery baker. He tries to chat up neighbors by the mailbox or going on walks or getting home from work. But no one seems interested or even that friendly.
“No bakers here,” he grumbles, throwing a pile of mail onto the counter next to the last cupcake. He dips his finger into the buttercream and sticks it in his mouth.
After he eats dinner, Izuku takes the last cupcake and a cup of coffee out to his patio. The end of autumn had ushered in the kind of cooler, crisper air that made it perfect for evenings outside. Izuku’s patio is on the second story and he watches people below come and go from the apartment complex. A light switches on in the apartment across from him and catches his attention. He doesn’t mean to be nosy, he’s not nosy, but he continues watching as a silhouette moves behind the sheer curtain.
Izuku only looks away, pretending to be enraptured by something on his phone, when the silhouette opens the curtain and light spills out across from him. He feels warm and embarrassed as if he’s been caught staring and the simple light from his neighbor’s apartment is a floodlight directly on him.
But when he dares to look back up, there is no one by the window anymore. He squints–with a completely healthy level of curiosity and not at all nosiness–to try and see who the person behind the silhouette was. And he can see, past a couch, into the kitchen where a blonde man in an apron is cooking or baking something. The man has one hand on top of a mixer and the other holding a spatula, stopping every once in awhile to scrape the sides of the bowl back into the middle.
The blonde man seems completely focused on whatever he’s making. He pours the contents of the mixing bowl into a bundt pan and slides it into the oven. It’s calming, Izuku thinks, watching someone skillfully work in the kitchen. Izuku imagines his mystery baker like this, flour and batter splattered on their apron and arms. Do they think of me while they bake? Or are they just giving baked goods to random strangers?
The next morning there is a covered plate on Izuku’s welcome mat. He excitedly brings it inside and uncovers it. But his stomach twists in his abdomen when he sees it. A bundt cake. A perfect and beautifully baked and glazed bundt cake.
It’s just a coincidence , Izuku thinks as his stomach continues to perform a series of somersaults. He cuts a slice and takes a bite. He can’t put his finger on the flavor–coconut, maybe, and chopped pecans. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. Just as good as the last two.
In a desperate attempt to prove to himself that this week’s baked good was just a coincidence , Izuku spends each evening after dinner on his patio with a piece of bundt cake and cup of coffee. Each evening he watches the light switch on in the apartment across from him, but each evening the curtain stays closed.
It’s not until a week later that the Izuku is sitting out on the patio when the curtain slides open. Izuku’s prays that the blonde man doesn’t see him or at least realize that Izuku’s watching him. Izuku scrolls through something on his phone, not actually paying attention, and occasionally glances up to sneak peaks at the apartment across from him.
He watches the man reach around his back to tie the apron and something hot blooms in Izuku’s chest. Despite the his blonde neighbor being completely clothed, it still feels like something Izuku shouldn’t be seeing.
When he finally looks back up from his phone, the man is piping some kind of batter onto a baking tray. Izuku marvels both at the man’s focus and at how the muscles in his arms push against his shirt as he steadies his hands. He is grateful that the man can’t look over while he completes this task because Izuku doesn’t think he could look away even if he had to. The man carefully places the tray into the oven and turns the dial on a mechanical kitchen timer before walking into another room.
That night, Izuku’s dreams are consumed by his blonde neighbor. He imagines him in Izuku’s own kitchen, the smell of something sweet and warm filling the apartment. He wakes up to a growling stomach and a sweet tooth. It’s a Saturday. He doesn’t exactly have anywhere to go, but he goes to check his welcome mat anyway… just in case.
Butterflies fill his empty stomach as he opens the door to see a little tupperware. Inside are bakery-quality macarons and a note that reads, “Stop staring at me it’s weird”.
The fluttering feeling of butterflies transforms into something violently unpleasant as Izuku realizes two things. One, his hot blonde neighbor is the mystery baker and two, he saw Izuku watching him at some point. Izuku is not usually prone to cursing, but the first and only word that he can find to express his emotions at the moment is, “Fuck.”
Izuku spends the rest of the weekend in bed, trying to figure out a way to never have to show his face in public again. He orders take-out and eats it in front of his laptop while he looks at new apartments. Most importantly, he stays far, far away from the sliding glass doors that lead to his patio and have a direct line of sight into mystery baker’s apartment.
He leaves the macarons, untouched, on his kitchen counter next to the note. They are, more than anything, the most puzzling part of all this. If the man was mad at Izuku for being a creep then why did he still leave the cookies? Izuku watched the man make them, he knows how much care was put into piping each individual cookie out onto the baking tray. So why still give them to him?
When he has to go to work Monday morning, Izuku almost calls in sick. He feels a little better though, after speaking to Shouto, his best friend and voice of reason. As Shouto pointed out, Izuku doesn’t actually know this other man and technically never has to speak to him and his best course of action is to just put the entire embarrassing series of events behind him and move on.
So, Izuku takes a deep breath, hands tight on the strap of his messenger bag, and opens his front door to go to work. Out of habit, he glances down at the welcome mat and his stomach lurches when he sees there is actually something there.
A loaf.
But even more anxiety inducing is the note taped to the top of the loaf.
Izuku bends down to pick it up and before he’s straightened back up he’s read it. “My place @ 7pm” is written in neat handwriting. A wave of nausea surges up through Izuku’s body.
Oh my god, he wants to fight me.
Izuku backs up into his apartment and decides to call in sick afterall. His second call is to Shouto, panic palpable through the phone.
“You don’t have to go,” Shouto says, matter-of-fact.
“What if he shows up here to fight me then?”
“Izuku, he’s been by your apartment, what, like four times now? And he hasn’t tried to fight you yet.”
Izuku looks over at the macarons and loaf on his kitchen counter. “I’m think I’m gonna do it.”
“Fight him?”
“No–well, I don’t know about that part yet–I just meant I’m gonna go to his apartment.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Shouto sounds serious and Izuku knows he is. He would show up at Izuku’s apartment in a heartbeat if Izuku asked.
“No, Sho,” Izuku says through a tired laugh, “I’ll call you if something goes down though.”
“Okay…” Shouto says, still unsure about the whole thing. And Izuku just knows he’s clearing his schedule in case he needs him.
In an attempt at a peace offering, Izuku makes chocolate chip cookies. Each cookie is mishapen and slightly burnt. He can’t help but think of what his mystery baker’s chocolate chip cookies would look like. Perfectly round and soft and golden brown. Izuku tries one of his own cookies and winces. It’s fine, not terrible. It’s good enough. He moves the macarons into a new tupperware and puts his cookies into his neighbor’s tupperware to return to him.
After figuring out which apartment number corresponds to the blonde man’s patio, Izuku knocks on the door. He considers leaving the tupperware and retreating back to his own apartment. He could still get out of it–
The deadbolt clicks and Izuku watches in terror as the doorknob turns and swings in. It’s the same man he watched from across his patio–which isn’t the shocking part. The shocking part is how much bigger than Izuku he is, and how hot he looks with the sides of his blonde hair shaved, and how he smells like vanilla and aftershave.
“Hey neighbor,” the man says, the corner of his lips quirked up into a smile. “I see you got my note.”
“I’m so sorry,” Izuku says, unable to stop the apology from spilling out. He holds the tupperware up awkwardly in between them, avoiding eye contact as best he can. “I, uh, made these in order to apologize.”
The man’s eyebrows scrunch together in confusion, but he takes the tupperware, holding it up to see it’s contents. “Sorry for what exactly?”
Izuku looks up to meet the man’s gaze, intense crimson eyes searing into him. He blushes, his cheeks warm under his freckles. “Being a creep.”
The man breaks out into a laugh. It’s loud and sudden and catches Izuku off guard. “Oh, you mean the first note?”
Izuku nods apprehensively.
“You were very obvious. Even considered giving you a show.” The man winks and Izuku feels a familiar heat unfold in his chest. “It’s okay. I’ve seen you, too. Sitting out on your patio with your little mug. Why do you think I started leaving you baked goods?”
“So, uh-” Izuku stumbles over his words as he tries to piece together what his mystery baker is saying “-you don’t want to fight me?”
“Fight you?” The man laughs again, softer this time, and then tilts his head as he looks at Izuku. “No, I wanted to meet you.”
“Oh.” The muscles in Izuku’s shoulder and back relax. He could do that. “I’m Izuku Midoriya.”
“Katsuki Bakugou.” Katsuki holds the door open wider for Izuku. “Would you like to come in? I made dinner. Enough for two.”
His mystery baker is also a mystery cook. Izuku’s heart races against his chest and below that his stomach growls. He nods, maybe a bit too eagerly. “Yeah, uh, that sounds amazing actually.”
Katsuki smiles victoriously. “Afterwards, I’ll have to try one of your apology cookies.”
Izuku puts his hands up. “Oh, you don’t need to- They’re really not very good.”
“Well, I will be the judge of that. And if they really are that bad then I guess I can give you some baking lessons.” Katsuki smirks and Izuku has never been more grateful for his incompetence in the kitchen.
“Then I hope you’re as good a teacher as you are a baker.”
Izuku watches the fire grow behind Katsuki’s smirk. “Oh, don't worry, I am.”