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The first time Izuku finds Katsuki on Christmas Eve is when he’s 4 years old.
He pushes aside the curtain, opens his bedroom window wide open, and chucks a handful of little green army men at the glass just a few feet away.
“Kacchan,” he whispers yells into the night. “Kacchan, wake up!”
A dim light illuminates the other room and Izuku watches a shadow slip out of the dark box that is a bed and stumble to the window. The moment Katsuki opens his blinds, Izuku is on, jittering with excitement.
“Wha’ ‘s it, ‘Zuku?” Katsuki rubs at his tired eyes, blinking blearily against the sudden light. He holds a bright, sky-blue blanket in his hand. The blanket he was wrapped in at the hospital when he was born- he can’t fall asleep without it.
Izuku, meanwhile, clutches his teddy tightly to his chest as he bounces on the spot. Up and down and up and down.
“Santa came, Kacchan!”
Katsuki yawns. “Did you catch him?”
“Catch him?” Izuku’s head tilts to the side. “You can’t catch Santa. He’s too fast.”
“Then how do you know he’s there?”
“He left presents!” Izuku almost hollers across the small yard causing Katsuki to wince and bring a single finger to his lips. “Sorry. He left presents, Kacchan. You probably have some too!”
Katsuki yawns again, a pout gracing his puffy face. “I’ll see in the morning. To tired now.”
“But Kacchan,” Izuku presses against the window ledge, his hand resting on the safety screen. “If you go look now than that proves Santa’s real! That Mori was lying!”
“Catch a Santa, then that’ll prove Mori’s a liar.” Katsuki takes the cord of the blinds in his hand. “Goodnight, Izuku.”
Izuku grinned back. “Okay! I’ll catch him, Kacchan, I promise!”
And with that, Katsuki and Izuku close their shades and cuddle back into their beds. One falls back to sleep immediately, the other stays up half the night thinking up the perfect Santa Trap for next year.
The years pass quickly with Izuku falling asleep on the couch with a flashlight through primary school, to setting up rope traps and sticky tape in middle school, and finally investing in a good motion capture camera in the later years of high school. And though his belief wavers and fades, his determination to catch ‘Santa’ absolutely does not.
It’s not until their first year living together as boyfriends that Izuku succeeds.
The date is December 25th, 2am, and Izuku wakes up to an empty bed. The sheets beside him are still warm to the touch and he savours the lingering scent of Katsuki on the linens before pulling back the covers, wrapping his grey fluffy house coat around his naked body, and venturing into the chilly apartment.
If he didn’t know better, he wouldn’t believe his eyes. There, crouched on the floor beside their 3-foot tall faux-pine, is a figure dressed head to toe in red. A floppy cap with a white trim and fluffy bobble sits atop his head. The soft coat and pants cling to his frame in a way that looks almost perfectly tailored. And from a brown tweed sack, pale hands pull multiple wrapped gifts and place them delicately under the branches.
Izuku crosses his arms over his chest with a fond smile and watches him work.
Strong hands stack immaculately wrapped boxes of all shapes and sizes under the tree and when he loses space there, spread them out along the floor by the hearth. There’s such care taken in the placement of each gift. Heavier looking ones on the bottom, the smaller and lighter on top, some flat wrappings (Izuku guesses they’re books) slide in to fill empty spaces.
His heart swells as he thinks about all the gifts he’ll be adding to that pile later in the morning while his boyfriend lays asleep.
If he can get him back to bed that is.
“I knew I’d catch a Santa eventually.” He quips, a shoulder pressed into the doorframe.
Katsuki startles, nearly dropping the empty sack as he stands. Then, his eyes catch Izuku.
“Guess you caught me, Freckles.” He says with a laugh. Katsuki saunters across the room, joining Izuku in the doorway. He leans down, mouth pressed to Izuku’s ear and whispers, “Ho, ho, ho.”
Izuku laughs, an ugly snort leaving him as he tosses his head back in mirth.
“That’s so corny!”
He raises a hand to Katsuki’s chest as Katsuki wraps his own arms around Izuku’s waist and pulls him in until their flush against each other.
“I might be corny,” Katsuki says. “But you’re the one waiting under the mistletoe.”
They both look up and, just as Katsuki says, there hangs a single sprig of mistletoe that hadn’t been there earlier in the evening, green leaves tied above their heads with a red ribbon.
Katsuki looks back first. Izuku is beautiful. Just like he’s always been with his smattering of freckles across his cheeks, and curly hair tousled from sleep. His eyes practically glimmer in the dark as they connect with Katsuki’s.
“Guess I am.” Izuku whispers. A tiny smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Katsuki dips down, brushing their noses together. “Well, I can’t break tradition.”
And with twin giddy smiles, Izuku stands on his top toes, meeting Katsuki halfway, and presses their lips together. It’s chaste, oh so tender. A simple joining of hearts and minds and emotions. Two pieces of a puzzle slotted perfectly together.
Hands brush through tangled hair, and over soft and stubbled cheeks, letting the quiet of the night air capture the moment to memory. It’s simple. And silly. And everything Christmas Eve with his Kacchan is supposed to be. And when they slide under the covers of their shared bed moment later, their legs automatically entwine. Green curls come to rest on Katsuki’s chest. And the night is righted once again.