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“I’m sorry.” Katsuki said
“For what now?” Izuku asked, lounging on Katsuki’s floor reading some book off his shelf.
“I,” Katsuki paused for a second, “I don’t know. I just feel overwhelmingly sorry about everything I guess.”
Izuku sat up. “Kacchan we’ve been over this. I forgive you. Sure you hurt me a lot as a kid, but we were kids. It feels like lifetimes ago, and I know you’re a better person than that. You have literally sacrificed yourself for me, it’s ok.”
Katsuki looked down at the boy on his floor. It was golden hour, the sun pouring in through his curtains. It drenched Izuku, making him look like he was pulled from a painting. His hair framed his face delicately, each curl careful to not interfere with his other features. A warm glow was on his cheeks, a glow of happiness. Happiness that came from Katsuki.
It was all too much for him at that moment.
Ripping his gaze from the other boy, Katsuki looked down to his lap and swallowed hard.
“Kacchan? Are you ok?” Izuku asked, worry crossing his face at the sudden mood change from the other boy.
Katsuki inhaled hard, a desperate, yet fleeting, attempt at not crying. He felt the bed sink down next to him and a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey now, it’s ok.” Izuku spoke softly. “You can tell me what’s wrong. I mean, if you want to, no pressure, but I’ll listen to whatever you need to say if you want to say it.”
Katsuki swallowed again, refusing to look up or in any direction of Izuku. “Did I,” he began, steadying his voice so as to not break into sobs.
“Did I ever tell you why I turned on you like I did?”
“Some version of not wanting to be with the quirkless kid. Why? Is there more?”
“When we were kids you were so captivating. My best friend. I knew no matter if you had a quirk or not we could be a great team. But of course social pressure from children is very difficult to not succumb to. Thus the light bullying. But I’ve been lying to you about the other reason I disappeared. One day all my friends were talking about these girls. All this hype surrounding these girls and how they wanted to be with them for the rest of their lives. Well naturally I had to know what made them so crazy about these girls and I asked. Do you know how they described their feelings?”
Izuku shook his head.
“Well neither do I, but I remember knowing that that was how I viewed our friendship, no matter how tarnished it had been at that point. I knew a part of me wanted to spend my whole life with you and it was terrifying because I also knew that I had fucked up that part of me for no good reason. But that wasn’t even the worst part of it all. No no, that only made me totally ignore you. No, I had to go through the realization that I would never understand what my friends at the time had been talking about. I would never understand any conversation surrounding women because I am gay. 13 and finding out I am wildly different from what everyone expects of me. And it was because of you. I was so irrevocably in love with you that I had to be the worst to you because I was in a personal hell and blamed it on you. It wasn’t some kind of ‘I like you I’m going to poke fun at you’ thing either, it was so full of hatred. I was so full of hatred.”
Izuku took a deep breath, holding it for a second while Katsuki cried into his arms. “Kacchan,” Izuku began to say softly, but was cut off.
“And I’m not as much anymore, not like I was anyways. But God, I have been in love with you for so long and I'm so, so, sorry about it.”
“Kacchan,” Izuku said at a normal volume this time.
“I didn’t want it to turn out this way. I never wanted to turn something so sweet and precious as love into something so violent as hate. And now I’ve gone and fucked up this new thing by tell you I love you an-“
“Katsuki.” Izuku said, speaking loud enough to get above the other boy’s word vomit.
Katsuki looked at Izuku.
(since when had they gotten so close?)
Izuku grabbed onto Katsuki’s face, holding it firm and at him, but with a gentle touch that made Katsuki want to melt.
“Katsuki I have been in love with you since before I knew what love was. I loved you when we were kids, I tried not to love you during middle school but you made it so difficult the way you would stare at me sometimes without malice, like you were psychoanalyzing me, not a worry in your mind, and always with a blush if I had caught you. I loved you in full once again during the fire UA sports tournament when they had to bring you out in that muzzle because you kept saying your win wasn’t fair. It was the first time in years that I was truly able to see the you I had known for so many years. And during the war when you tried to save me I felt a part of me die because losing you forever would be like losing myself. I have always loved you, Katsuki. I would fear that nothing could change it, but I don’t want anything to change it. I just want you.”
“Izuku…” Katsuki faltered, mouth slightly agape.
Izuku gave a soft smile and swiped his thumbs across Katsuki’s cheeks to rid them of the tears that had been streaking down his face. Once satisfied, Izuku leaned their foreheads together.
“Now,” Izuku began, “are you going to kiss me or are we going to keep living our lives like this conversation never happened?”
Katsuki moved his head forward slightly to close the gap.