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Shouto isn’t particularly fond of tradition. In his experience, it tends to be a readily-available excuse for people to be vile. Because hey, it’s not your fault if the people before you were also vile and poor excuses for a human being, right? In that case, you slap a pretty word like tradition on it and call it a day because it suits you.
But—
When he finds the ring, his heart beats a little faster anyway. He had reached inside Katsuki’s coat pocket because he was looking for cash to pay the delivery driver with, but then his hand met something that was unmistakably square, unmistakably velvet, unmistakably box-shaped, and—
Well. Katsuki has been acting a little strange lately. Asking what Shouto’s favorite season is and if he has any particularly strong opinions on different shades of white and how he feels about large gatherings. Things he already knows, technically. Spring, and no, not really, and as long as no one makes him hold a speech they’re fine.
This does kind of put everything into perspective. Including Momo calling at five in the morning because she needed to borrow one of Shouto’s rings for unspecified yet urgent reasons.
Shouto places a hand over his mouth to stifle a smile no one is there to see. Katsuki is planning to propose. Katsuki picked out a ring. Katsuki most likely—no, definitely, he’s not the kind of person to do something like this over most likely, never has been—Katsuki definitely wants to spend the rest of his life with Shouto.
Shouto had been the first one to bring up the idea, technically. Two years into moving in together, one year and three months after they (officially) started dating. (Three years since the first of many shower handjobs.) He had taken Katsuki’s hand, lying in bed together, and whispered, “I think I want to live with you like this forever,” into the darkness. “Maybe get a cat too. When we’re home more.”
Predictably, Katsuki had called him an idiot. Flicked him on the forehead for good measure and everything. Said, “Like I’m letting your spoiled pretty boy ass starve to death without me.”
To which Shouto had, obviously, replied, “Mm, you do like my ass.”
And then Katsuki had hit him with a pillow, and, eventually, they had fallen asleep pressed close together.
Shouto likes it. His life with Katsuki. Doesn’t need anything to change for it to be better or perfect or even enough. Certainly doesn’t need the piece of paper or the public show of being arbitrarily happy enough in his relationship to commit. It’s not something you do once. It’s a choice you make each day. Waking up in the morning and getting started on making coffee, pouring Katsuki’s cup before he adds the sugar to his own. Katsuki doing the laundry because he knows Shouto doesn’t like the smell of fabric softener straight from the bottle. Shouto pressing close to Katsuki with his right side when it starts getting too warm. Katsuki picking out the bowl with the cats on it to pour soup in when Shouto gets sick. Shouto reading to him when he’s too tired but still can’t fall asleep. Them both choosing each other over and over and over, with each breath, each exhale.
Shouto didn’t know a lot about love before starting U.A., but he’s pretty sure this is what it’s all about. The persistent beating of his heart against his ribcage in the shape of Katsuki’s name, a choice.
God, Shouto really, really wants to say yes. Might even let Katsuki drag him to one of those needlessly fancy restaurants where the paparazzi are sure to snap a million pictures and adoring fans will scream and beg for autographs. Just because it’s Katsuki.
“Oi, what’s taking you so long in here?”
Shouto freezes. He’s still clutching the box in his palm. He’s still clutching the box he’s supposed to know nothing about, the box Katsuki most likely didn’t hide more carefully only because Shouto is, in his words, a spacey bastard. Katsuki tells him good thing you’re pretty so often in that too gentle to really be mean Shouto-specific tone of his that Shouto actually doesn’t mind looking into the mirror as much as he used to before.
Shouto coughs. “Um,” he says uselessly. “I dropped my watch?”
Katsuki tsks. “You weren’t wearing a watch, Shou.” And then he steps closer and his eyes widen and he presses his lips together and, after a bit, says, “Oh, you found it,” like Shouto just ruined Santa for him.
“I can put it back,” Shouto rushes to say. “I can—we can find someone with a memory quirk and—and we can, uh, fix this. I didn’t mean—I really didn’t mean to ruin it for you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not messing with your brain over a dumb piece of metal, idiot,” Katsuki hisses. “C’mere.”
Shouto does. Of course he does. He has yet to turn down Katsuki’s hands on him. There are bad days. Days he huddles under the blankets and watches funny cat video compilations on YouTube like—again, in Katsuki’s words—a goddamn senior citizen until his brain goes fuzzy and he tires himself out enough to sleep, days where the most he can take is the firm weight of Katsuki’s body next to his, not really touching, days where—
The world is too big and too bright and too much and he doubts that he knows how to breathe. Days where every good thing that has ever happened to him feels unmerited, stolen in the night, and every calamity starts to seem like appropriate punishment. Days where he can’t swallow past the guilt, the shame for being alive, the urge to dissolve into nothingness like sea foam.
(Katsuki hates the original version of the Little Mermaid. Says love isn’t supposed to be a tragedy. Shouto points out it was probably cathartic to write, that humanity is the point of tragedy anyway. At which point Katsuki usually calls him a nerd and tells him something like shut up and let me kiss you.)
Shouto wipes at his face. He doesn’t know when he started crying. God, it’s—it would be embarrassing, like, stupidly so, if it were anyone besides Katsuki. And maybe Momo or Izuku. But they fuss. Katsuki just—looks at him, and asks, “What’s wrong?” Adds, “Is the thought of marrying me that horrible?” like it’s meant to be a joke.
Shouto knows better. Knows Katsuki’s scars. Has traced them with his fingers, his tongue, has pressed his whole face to the larger ones and just. Stayed there. Breathed in and out until everything became a little steadier. “I would love to marry you,” he says. “I think—I want the dumb piece of metal, Katsuki. Please.”
“Shit,” Katsuki says. Then, “Baby, give me the stupid box.”
Wordlessly, Shouto passes it over. Their fingers brush. He feels remarkably like he did when they were still fifteen and he still didn’t have a name for the pressure on his chest, the way his heart would beat differently when Katsuki got too close. This is like that too, except not. Not really, because he already knows this is forever. Already knows they belong to each other, that Katsuki’s his and he’s Katsuki’s and the rest of the world doesn’t matter when it’s just the two of them.
And then—
And then.
Katsuki gets on one knee, opens the box, and clears his throat, says, “You better marry me, Strawberry Shortcake.”
Shouto laughs. It’s more like a wet hiccup. It’s—a lot like falling in love. Sudden and a little uncomfortable but ultimately good, good, good. “Who can say no when you put it like that?”
Katsuki scowls. “Listen,” he says. “I had a fucking speech, okay? I had one. But it got too long and kind of stupid and I just—I’m not good with this shit. I want to be. For you. Because you deserve it. Deserve all the dumb rituals of devotion you want. Deserve everything. Everything I can give you and everything you don’t need me for and, like, the fucking sun if you want it. But—I’m selfish, you know? Because at the end of one of those long shitty days where nothing goes right the thing I most want you to want is—,” he sighs. “It’s me, Shou. I want you to want me. To choose me.”
Shouto blinks. “Why would I want the sun when I already have it?” he asks, looking at Katsuki. Katsuki on one knee for him, holding out a ring. Ruby and diamond. A little flashy for Shouto’s tastes, but that’s probably Momo’s doing.
Katsuki tsks. “Can’t believe you,” he says, but he’s visibly fighting off a smile. One of those big, kind of silly ones that take up his whole face. “Is that a yes, princess?”
Shouto nods. Probably more than he needs to, strictly speaking. His own hair whacks him in the face. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, it’s a yes. Of course it’s a yes. Were you—did you think I wouldn’t accept? I love you. God, Katsuki I—I love you so much.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki says softly. “Yeah, I know. Love you too.”
He slips the ring on Shouto’s finger, hands just barely trembling, and Shouto wants nothing except to kiss him. So he does. Cups Katsuki’s face and leans down until his neck hurts, presses their lips together, says, “You’re never getting rid of me now, I hope you know that.”
Katsuki strokes his cheek. “Clingy bastard,” he says, but it sounds like something else entirely.
(Eventually, they stop kissing for long enough to remember to pay the delivery driver. Shouto sends Momo a selfie with the ring, and she sends, like. Twenty exclamation marks back. Then they eat their food in front of the TV pressed together on the couch even if Katsuki usually hates that. Shouto is definitely in love. It’s a good night. The first of the rest of their lives, hopefully.)