Archive of Our Own ^beta

Katsuki spends the first four days of the loop figuring out how to get the fuck out of said loop.

On day one, Katsuki wakes up in the late morning. 

He had spent the day before (or, the day before the day before; or, the day before the day before the loop; or, well, fuck it, the day before) pulling a late night shift well into the early mornings. That means on day one, his shift starts in the late afternoon. Except, Katsuki doesn’t know it’s day one of a loop, and instead thinks he’s onto the actual next day, where his shift begins bright and early at seven in the morning. 

When he first wakes up, he thinks he’s late for work. He barely registers the date on his phone still showing October 11 and rushes through his morning routine at breakneck speed; brush teeth, toilet, shower, put on clothes, and off he goes out the door. It’s only when he’s catching his breath on the train when he finally realises that something’s off. 

The day before, Katsuki hadn’t been on the trains at this hour. He had still been at home, sorting out day-old laundry in his living room, television tuned into one of the morning news channels.

On the morning of the first October 11, the trains in the line he frequents had been out of order due to a disturbance on the tracks. What precisely the disturbance was, Katsuki had no clue. All he remembered was hoping that the trains were up and running by the time he had to leave for work (they were not), or he would have to take one of the other lines, which would be a half-hour extra worth of stops that he very much did not want to sit through.

Five minutes after boarding the train, it pulls to a stop at the next station and the voice over the PA system announces that there’s been a disturbance on the tracks further down the line.

Katsuki barely conceals his irritation, nearby passengers moving out of his way as they all alight the train while grumbling their own annoyances. Fucking again, he thinks, making his way out of the station.

He has no time to continue cursing his shit luck however, the fact that he’s late for work so deeply ingrained into his mind that any other thought only gets a few seconds to run through. 

Sprinting through the maze of walkways that make up the underground stations, he briefly considers running to work. Can he outrun a train? He bets if he tried his fucking best, he could. 

But there isn’t time left for trying, so instead he slows down his pace, causing a few people behind to shoot daggers at him as they pass. He makes his way to the side to stand by the wall and pulls out his phone, scrolling through his contacts for his manager’s number.

The line rings for a few seconds before it clicks and a man’s gruff voice speaks, “Tanaka speaking.”

“Hey, it’s Dynamight,” whispers Katsuki, attempting at long last to attract as little attention to himself as possible. His quietened voice does nothing to stop the curious stares thrown his way by passers-by though.

“Oh, hero Dynamight,” Tanaka says. “You’re up early.”

Katsuki doesn’t register the comment for what it really is, taking it as sarcasm at the fact that he’s at least four hours late for his shift. Why the fuck hadn’t anyone tried to reach out to him at all?

“Ha-ha,” Katsuki deadpans. “Look, is there anyone ‘round that can cover my shift? Alarm didn’t go off for some reason, and I’m not gonna be there ‘til after lunch.”

The line is silent for a few moments. Katsuki wonders if he lost connection due to the shitty signal down here before Tanaka finally speaks up again, sounding a bit bemused. “Well, I’m assuming your alarm didn’t go off because your shift starts at two and it’s currently,” a pause, some rustling as he looks for the time, “ten-forty.” 

This time it’s Katsuki’s turn to be silent. He pulls his phone away from his ear, the call screen flashing at him. The time at the top middle of the screen reads ten-forty like Tanaka said. He squints down at his phone for a second, then looks to the date displayed right below the time: October 11.

He allows himself a second to be stumped, before he snaps out of it and returns his phone to his ear. “Right. Thanks, Tanaka.”

After that, it’s only a matter of sorting out the logistics. In times when Katsuki is sucked into some unexpected ploy by unexpected means done by unexpected persons, he likes to go through the big W’s: When the hell, Where the hell, Who the hell, Why the hell, and hoW the hell.

When is clearly October 11. Something had happened the day before to trigger this shitstorm that he’s caught himself in. But the precise when still remains a question. The morning of the first October 11 he had spent mostly in bed, then mostly in his living room folding laundry. The early afternoon he had been on the trains, on the other, longer line, pissed off at the inconvenience caused by the stupid disturbance on the tracks. The late afternoon he had been on patrol, stopped and apprehended a thief from breaking into an important vault, then had a quick bite at the sandwich place near his agency. The rest of the day had been even more remarkably uneventful; patrolling, patrolling, more patrolling, and a quick shower at his agency before making his way back home, where he had proceeded to immediately fall asleep after dinner.

Was it an accident? An accidental brush of arms with a time-related quirk user that’s caused him to loop October 11? All he knows of time-related quirks is that they’re rare and a pain-in-the-ass to deal with if on the wrong side. Would a powerful quirk like that have such a flimsy mode of activation via unconscious touch? That’d be fucking ridiculous, and if so, Katsuki just might be one of the unluckiest motherfuckers in town at the moment. 

He immediately brushes that line of thought away, not wanting to even go down that road. The only lead he can possibly follow is that thief who he had apprehended, except Katsuki had taken him down with his own two hands, watched him bound and escorted to a police car with his own two eyes. Unless the fucker had somehow escaped overnight to enact revenge on Katsuki, he can’t see how he might have pulled it off.

Though an unsure start is still a start, so he hops onto a train on the other line and makes his way to his agency. 

By the time late afternoon rolls around, Katsuki is already standing in front of the building housing the infamous vault. Owned by one of the largest trading companies in Japan, the vault not only consists of a hell of a lotta money, but also rumoured secrets that could make or break Japan as a whole. Katsuki always figured it was a load of bull. The money? Sure. But what sort of idiot keeps secrets that big physically in a vault with rumours about it circling all around? 

However, not everyone shares his opinions. The building reports an attempted break-in at least once every two months. The pro heroes patrolling Katsuki’s area have almost all arrested one person at that very location; Katsuki himself has arrested a total of two, including yesterday’s.

He spends quite a long time standing around the building. He doesn’t mind, knowing for a fact that if it’s the same October 11, then the rest of his patrol area remains relatively peaceful all around. A few people try to talk to him, what with him standing guard on the sidewalk in all his Dynamight glory. An old woman insists on selling him flowers; Katsuki remembers her from the day before, where she had asked him to buy some flowers right after he had watched the thief get carted into the police car. She hadn’t been this annoying yesterday, but then again, everyone else had also been less annoying yesterday. For one, way too many people try to approach him, which typically does not happen given that he glares into space every few seconds. Maybe now he looks more confused than angry, considering that he is confused and so therefore less angry.

He eventually has enough and gives up post by the sidewalk and goes to stand by the side of the building, where there’s lesser people passing by. 

When the time of the break-in rolls around, Katsuki waits with bated breath for the same alarm from yesterday to go off, loud and blaring down the street as if an announcement to all pro heroes in the area. Except it doesn’t go off. No alarm. No break-in. Just a regular day for the vault in the building.

That pretty much confirms it for Katsuki. There’s still the very complicated possibility of alternate realities, but he’ll go down that road once the time loop theory goes to shit. For now, he completely puts that aside and solves the rest of his big W’s.

When: October 11, around four in the afternoon. Where: outside the building housing the vault. Who: the thief from the day before. Why: though not certain, Katsuki figures that the motive has to do with successfully breaking into the vault. How: Katsuki’s hands had been all over the thief yesterday. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary; no weird scents of smell, no sight-related oddities, barely any conversation or eye-contact between the two of them. He can only conclude that the quirk had been activated through purposeful touch. Then again, quirks these days tend to have some unique triggers that even Katsuki can never predict. 

For now, Katsuki has his theory. Here comes the fun part of figuring shit out. 

There’s a few unspoken rules when it comes to dealing with time-related quirks. One, it’s best to let as little people as possible know about time fuckups, lest it fucks more shit up and collapses the universe in the process. Katsuki plans to let no one know. Two, if he can help it, he’ll do shit the same way he did them on the very first October 11. Who knows what type of shit he’ll have to deal with if he deviates too much from the original day. Although he’s already mixed a few things up today and everything still appears to be fine. Three, and really this is Katsuki’s own personal unspoken rule, to give anyone who ever dares to put Katsuki into any kind of time-related dilemma a beating they’ll never fucking forget. 

So far, Katsuku would say he’s killing it. 

Now onto actually figuring this shit out.

The rest of day one Katsuki spends observing the surrounding area of the vault building. There’s nothing in particular that stands out to him, everything seems exactly like how it had been on the first October 11, bar the thief not appearing to attempt the break-in this time ‘round. 

He stands there waiting until the sun goes down.

On day two, Katsuki tries to follow the schedule of the first October 11. He’s awake before the sun is up, but he stays laying in bed until his alarm goes off at ten. Then he gets up and goes through his morning routine before finding himself sitting on his living room floor, folding the same laundry he’d folded two days ago and listening to the news announce that the trains in his usual line have stopped running due to a disturbance on the tracks.

He follows his October 11 schedule to a tee; arriving at his agency at around one-forty for his two-pm shift, goes through the first half of his patrol route before making his way to the vault building area once four rolls around. Again, there are no blaring alarms sounding at the time of the break-in, but Katsuki makes his way to the building anyway.

He cracks and deviates from his schedule from here. He figures the lack of a break-in has already fucked with the schedule so what’s an hour or two more of deviation. He lingers on the premises, keeping a watchful eye for anything out of the ordinary. Everything appears the same, but Katsuki is only human so there must be something he’s missing out on. Another anomaly besides him and the missing vault thief hidden somewhere.

Two hours pass by with nothing of note happening and Katsuki’s ready to head on over to the sandwich place by his agency when he gets a tap on the back. 

Katsuki jumps a little, not expecting anyone at all to approach him. When he turns, he comes face to face with a kid half his height.

“Dynamight!” The kid exclaims, all wide-eyed admiration.

“That’ll be me,” Katsuki says, with as much enthusiasm as a dead fish. He crouches down until he’s eye-level with the kid and extends one hand out, palm facing up. The kid only blinks down at it. “You want an autograph or what, kid?” 

The kid blinks again, then flushes red with excitement. “Yes! Yes.” She pats the outsides of her pants pockets frantically, and when she comes up with nothing, goes to dig around her backpack. Eventually she produces a torn piece of paper and a ballpoint pen with barely any ink left. 

Katsuki holds the piece of paper against the side of the building and attempts to sign his autograph. The first two attempts yield only inkless scratches on the paper. On his third attempt, he manages the lightest of blues as he signs the paper. The kid still seems satisfied enough, thanks him politely and leaves, which is far less annoying than the average adult who always tries to start up a conversation like they’re suddenly friends.

It’s as the kid is skipping towards the sidewalk where her mother is waiting for her that Katsuki abruptly realises that this hadn’t happened on the first October 11. But then again, he hadn’t been here, by the side of the building, that first time too. And on day one, he’d been bombarded with the many passers-by while he’d been out in the open on the sidewalk. Which again, hadn’t happened on the original iteration. 

Are these considered anomalies? Something Katsuki would also need to take note of in trying to figure his way out?

Fuck. Deviating from his schedule was bad.

He pulls himself together, pushing out all unnecessary thoughts to focus on what he does know. He at least has to make it through today and collect his thoughts once more. One step at a time, or so he tries to soothe himself by saying.

The old lady stops him as he walks by and offers him the flowers to buy, just like yesterday and the day before. He declines and this time she doesn’t insist.

-

On the morning of day three, it rains.

It’s no big deviation. It’s the fucking weather, for fuck’s sake. It’s unpredictable. It does what it wants. Not even the weather app can capture it right half the time.

But it’s October 11. And on October 11, the first three times at least, it hadn’t rained. It had been decidedly sunny; the weather had been cool at best, paired with the almost-cloudless skies, it could have been what some would call the perfect weather for outdoor activities.

For a second after Katsuki wakes up and hears the light pitter-patter of the pouring rain from outside, he thinks the loop has broken. That, in some miraculous way which did not at all involve himself, it’s now October 12.

The first thing he does, of course, is to feel for his phone on his night stand. Pulling it out from its charging port, Katsuki’s heart already begins to drop. Because on day two, he hadn’t connected his phone to its charger, knowing that his phone will still be charged regardless when the day loops. When the too-bright screen of his phone flashes on, it blinds him, and after his eyes have adjusted to the brightness, he sees the disappointing white font of ‘October 11’ on his lockscreen.

But it’s raining, he thinks, sullenly.

He goes about his morning routine much the same as before, eventually finding himself on his living room floor folding the same goddamn laundry and hearing the same news anchor announce that the train line he normally took to work was now closed due to a disturbance on the tracks. 

This time, when Katsuki leaves for work, he grabs the umbrella he keeps in his entryway, right beside his shoe rack by the front door.

Most of his coworkers on the same shift don’t go on patrol today. The rain only grows heavier as the day progresses, sky now a dark grey contrast compared to the other iterations before, clouds looming menacingly as they slowly drift by.

Katsuki still goes on patrol because some determined part of him is convinced that he still has to follow his original schedule, although the weather alone has changed so much of this day already that it seems quite pointless to do so.

As he’s leaving the front doors of his agency, the new half-cat receptionist, who he hasn’t yet learned the name of, tilts her head in awe and asks, “You’re going out in this weather?”

Katsuki doesn’t respond. She hadn’t spoken to him before, during the other October 11’s. He doesn’t know if he should respond at all. He doesn’t know if he should have given that kid his autograph the day before.

Again, nothing of note happens, besides the rain pouring and pouring down relentlessly, as if taunting Katsuki for not making it out of the loop in the first two days. As if mother nature herself is at odds with him for making her relive the same day over and over so now she’s defying the laws of space and time to spite him and make his job of trying to figure shit out much harder than it needs to be.

Around four in the afternoon, he makes his way to the vault building. There’s no one out roaming around the building this time, but that’s a given because of the shitty weather. His heart feels like it’s going to shoot out of his chest and his brain attempts to stay as rational as it can.

Nothing is the same today and he’s growing a bit paranoid.

The alarm in the building doesn’t go off, so the idiot of a thief is once again missing in action. Not even the heavy rain and the lack of security surrounding the building has lured him out of wherever he’s hiding. All Katsuki wants to do is grab him by the fronts of his shirt and shake him senselessly. If only he would just show up and let Katsuki do just that. That fucking coward.

Katsuki seethes under his umbrella, glaring a bit erratically at the building. The rain is so heavy that it muffles everything around him. Every sound feels thicker and less pronounced; the rainfall pelting onto the ground and his umbrella feel like they’re so far and distant, like he’s still stuck on the first three iterations of October 11 where it’s sunny and rainless and that this rain-filled October 11 is simply his mind descending into madness and conjuring up a reality that doesn’t exist at all.

And it’s only day three of the loop.

It’s as he’s deep inside his thoughts, trying not to let panic bubble over, trying to stay rational, that the old lady sneaks up behind him.

Katsuki almost can’t hear her over the sound of the rain.

“– flowers?” He catches the end of her sentence; one she’s already asked him three times before now.

When he turns, the same old lady is there standing before him. She’s far shorter than he is, has a bit of a hunchback. The previous times he’s seen her, she had looked just like any other old Japanese lady you usually encountered. Short, whole head of grey hair fitted neatly into a bun, clothes dated and dull. Today, she looks a bit more pitiful. She’s clutching onto an umbrella in one hand, but it’s far too small, with patches in some places on the tops, letting the rain through. Her hair’s not as neat as it normally looks, drenched and dripping onto her clothes.

“What?” Katsuki asks through the rain. 

She reaches out with her other hand, clutching onto a single red flower. Katsuki’s no good with plants. He can’t tell one from the other, if they aren’t a rose or a sunflower.

“Would you like to buy some flowers?” She asks. Her voice is soft and frail and Katsuki really has to strain his ears to be able to hear her. 

Katsuki isn’t concerned about fucking flowers. He’s concerned about the loop. He’s concerned about how things are deviating far too much from the original October 11. And he’s concerned about why this old lady always insists on selling him stupid flowers he doesn’t know the name of even during rainfall this harsh.

He takes the flower and tucks it into the sleeve of her blouse, then shoves his umbrella into her now-free hand before taking away her old, holey umbrella. 

“No!” Katsuki shouts over the rain. “I don’t want your flowers!”

Stop trying to sell me your flowers, he wants to add but doesn’t. 

Instead he turns the old lady around and starts ushering her towards the nearby underground trains where they can both stay dry and warm. He grabs the rest of her flowers she’s left to soak in the rain by the steps leading towards the building and they head down the escalators towards the station. 

By the time they’re both down in the station basking in the warmth of the heaters, the old lady turns to him. Her voice is much clearer now that the rain isn’t there to muffle it. It sounds less soft and less frail now as she says, “Are you sure you don’t want a flower?” 

Katsuki thinks about snatching his now-folded umbrella from her hands. He doesn’t, just folds her ratty old one up and dumps it in the bin nearby. “I’m real fucking sure.”

She doesn’t stop him as he heads for the trains, exhausted from the day already when he’s done nothing at all.

He doesn’t get a sandwich at the place near his agency today.

-

On day four, it also rains, except it’s far less chaotic than the day before.

For one, Katsuki doesn’t wake up confused and slightly hopeful. He wakes up in a calm that he hasn’t felt for the past few days. And most importantly, he wakes up rational. 

He lays in bed, waiting for his ten-thirty alarm to ring. The rain is so much quieter today; probably more of a drizzle that’ll die out by the time he leaves for work than the disastrous onslaught from yesterday. He checks his phone first upon waking, and ‘October 11’ still shows up tauntingly on his screen.

But enough obsessing over October 11. And enough panicking over the many deviations throughout the many iterations. He needs to fucking think. 

It’s as he’s on his bed, feeling unnaturally calm, that something snaps into place.

It’s still October 11, but it’s not the same. The weather doesn’t stay the same and the people won’t do the same things. If he thinks about it for more than a second, all the fundamental things will stay the same. Like the fact that it’s October 11. The fact that it’s a Tuesday. The fact that everyone except Katsuki will wake up with the same minds and thoughts and plans for the day as the first October 11. 

Except they’ll deviate – maybe choose to do things differently throughout the day. Like how the new half-cat receptionist at his agency had chosen to speak to Katsuki when he had looked like a lunatic trying to go on patrol in the rain. Like how the kid had spotted Katsuki by the vault building, probably on her way home from school with her mother, and decided that she wanted to go up to him. Like how it had rained yesterday and everyone had decided to stay indoors. Like how Katsuki had felt in a mood yesterday and decided he didn’t want to stop by for a sandwich after all.

All changes were insignificant, not glaringly important that it’ll set off a series of events with immediate obvious effect. Maybe in the future it will, when they go on to October 12, October 13, October 14, November, December, next year, next decade. But not immediate, not now, not October 11, so Katsuki can, rationally, for now, not give a shit about it.

He can focus on the now – October 11 – and what he does know about it. 

So far three things have remained constant: the trains on his line will stop due to a disturbance on the tracks, the thief will not attempt to break into the vault, and the old lady will come up to him to ask him if he’d like to buy her flowers.

When his alarm sounds at ten-thirty, Katsuki gets up to go do the one obvious thing he should try doing first.

He forgoes the routine entirely and sprints towards the vault building still in the clothes he slept in. It’s much faster to get there by foot than it is by train. It’s closer to his apartment than it is to his agency, and the trains will stop at a million stops before getting to the one near the building.

So he sprints there, realises halfway through sprinting that he forgot to get his umbrella and the rain, though small, is gradually drenching his whole body. That doesn’t matter however, not when he’s this close to solving this time loop shit.

Katsuki’s so close to the building, only two streets away, all he has to do is get through this crossing then sprint for at least five more minutes before he makes it to the building. 

The pedestrian light glows bright red in the haze of the rain. The cars and trucks on the main road pass by, tires dipping into the puddle in the middle of the crosswalk and kicking up a spray of dirty rainwater. Katsuki is thankfully not in the splashzone, stopping at the very edge of the street, so close to the crosswalk, catching his breath.

Shouto, however, is in the splashzone. 

Katsuki hadn’t seen him when he first arrived at the crosswalk. He was so focussed on making it to his destination that every inch of his surroundings had blurred far beyond recognition. He could make out the shapes and silhouettes of objects and buildings, knew vaguely that there were people around him wondering why the fuck he was sprinting in the rain, but nothing much had really registered. Not with his mind so focussed on the loop and the building just two streets away.

But then a car goes particularly fast past the crosswalk, tire dipping into the puddle like every other vehicle before it, except it’s so fast that the spray is significantly bigger than it was before, and Shouto takes a face full of dirty rainwater.

Shouto says, “Fuck.”

And Katsuki instantly freezes. Shouto rarely cussed. If he did, it was always done so involuntarily; accidentally nipping his finger while peeling potatoes, accidentally knocking his big toe on the edge of his sofa, or in this case, unfortunately being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting dirty rainwater all over his person.

Shouto’s tone of voice is so distinct to Katsuki – slightly toneless, deep like it’s coming from the very bottom of his chest, and softly gentle in a way that only Shouto can sound. When Katsuki turns his head to the left, to where he had heard Shouto swear, there he is in all his glory.

He’s holding onto a black umbrella. It wouldn’t be all that significant because it is raining. Except the umbrella is Katsuki’s, one that he had left behind maybe months ago at Shouto’s apartment. And that’s significant.

Shouto lifts an arm and wipes his drenched face onto the dry sleeve of his shirt. He’s so occupied with that that he doesn’t even notice Katsuki staring. 

The pedestrian light is still red and the cars are still driving past the crosswalk and really Katsuki can’t help it. Just yesterday he was standing in the pouring rain, feeling a little insane. Nothing had felt real. Today feels better, feels more real, except now that he’s standing just a metre away from Shouto, it feels less real and more like he’s imagining the whole fucking thing. 

And maybe it’s the hopelessness that he had felt yesterday amongst all the insanity that makes it feel like Shouto is some beacon of comfort covered in dirty rainwater. So all rationality seems to seep out of Katsuki at this moment and he steps closer to Shouto.

Shouto notices the movement, someone coming to stand beside him, so he stops trying to dry his face with the tiny fabric of one sleeve. When he looks up, Katsuki sees Shouto’s inquiring eyes for just a second, before they turn cold.

“What,” asks Shouto, but it’s less a question and more a statement that drips with annoyance.

A bit of rationality comes back to Katsuki. Right. Officially, they were on a break, decided a little over two weeks ago. Or, to Katsuki who’s been stuck for an extra four days now, a little over two and a half weeks ago. Hence, the annoyance from Shouto.

“I,” says Katsuki. Because, really, what the fuck are you supposed to say in this situation. I know you said we were on a break almost two weeks ago and talking to me is the last thing you would want to do right now but you’re the only good thing that’s happened to me in the past few days? Please let me talk to you?

When Katsuki can’t come up with anything more, Shouto frowns. Proper frowns, all downturned corners of his mouth and crease between his brows and everything. “‘I’ what?” Shouto asks again.

The pedestrian light turns green, and for some odd, irrational reason, Shouto and Katsuki stay put while everyone else starts crossing the street. Now Katsuki knows why he hasn’t crossed the street. He’s here standing, facing Shouto, who he’s kinda missed in the past two weeks they haven’t seen each other. But why the fuck isn’t Shouto crossing the street?

I miss you, Katsuki doesn’t stupidly say. Instead he says, maybe more stupidly, “Where are you going?”

Shouto blinks. Really, he just blinks. His frown is gone, now replaced by a much more punchable expression, in Katsuki’s opinion. He looks unimpressed, almost like he wants to roll his eyes at Katsuki but he also can’t be bothered to. “Really.” Again, it’s said as less of a question and more of a statement of aloofness. “That’s what you have to say to me?”

Whatever melancholy Katsuki had been feeling before is now long gone and replaced with a bit of irritation. Irritated at this time loop situation. Irritated at how he hadn’t crossed the road when he had the chance. Irritated at how Shouto is a bit irritated.

“Well, what the fuck did you want me to say?” 

Shouto seems to consider Katsuki’s choice of response, and by the purse of his lips, Katsuki hadn’t passed whatever test Shouto had decided to put Katsuki in.

“Many things, really,” Shouto simply says.

“God,” Katsuki seethes. The rain continues pouring, and Katsuki kinda wishes that he wasn’t the only one getting rained on, almost wanting to knock his own umbrella out of Shouto’s hands like he’s regressed to his immature middle-school self. “You’re insufferable.”

Shouto’s lips purse even more, if that’s even possible. “Okay,” and that seems to be the final word had. He can’t cross the street anymore. The pedestrian light is back to glowing bright red, so he decides to abandon crossing the street entirely to go back down the other way.

Katsuki watches Shouto’s retreating back with disdain. “Yeah, fuck off!” He yells into the rain. A few other pedestrians turn to look curiously, but Katsuki doesn’t give a fuck at this point. Shouto doesn’t turn around at all, only continues down the street to wherever the hell he so pleases. Katsuki refocuses his attention to crossing the street only when Shouto is finally out of sight.

At the lack of Shouto in his face, his anger also dissipates almost immediately, emotions settling into something bitter and regretful. Why the fuck had he gotten irritated? That wasn’t how he wanted the conversation to go at all. But really, how else did he expect it to go? Though he guesses that he probably shouldn’t have gotten angry. Maybe he should have told Shouto he missed him after all.

No, that wasn’t what he wanted to say either. And he doubts Shouto would appreciate an ‘I miss you’. 

The pedestrian light eventually blinks green again. Katsuki crosses the street, and walks the rest of the way instead of sprinting like he had before. It takes him five minutes longer before he reaches the building.

But when he gets there, he doesn’t do what he had originally planned to do. He stands in the rain in front of the building and simply stares up at it.

He could’ve done that better, he decides. They didn’t have to both end up angry. And if Katsuki’s theory is right and what he had originally planned to do here ends up actually freeing him from the time loop, then that god awful conversation from before will be real. Will be part of his and Shouto’s history for the days beyond October 11. And that sounds like bullshit to Katsuki.

He could’ve done that better.

The old lady approaches him, again clutching onto her ratty old umbrella. “Hello young man, would you like to buy some flowers?” This time she holds out a yellow flower, petals small and bunched, stem thin and long. 

Katsuki breathes in, thinks about how only Shouto could make him do stupid things like what he’s planning to do now, and says, “No.”

-

The weather is sunny once more on day five.

Katsuki is up and out of bed before his alarm rings at ten-thirty. 

He doesn’t watch the news, doesn’t fold his laundry, puts on a decent outfit that isn’t the clothes he wears to sleep, and is out the door in record time. 

There’s no game plan for Katsuki at this point. As much as he likes to be prepared and ready for whatever life throws at him, Shouto has always been the one thing that he could never prepare for. For one, much like the weather, Shouto is unpredictable. His mood is entirely dependent on varying factors. Is the temperature too low, has he spoken to his father lately, is he hungry, did the cat that lives in his neighbourhood reject his treats again? And if so, what combination of answers to these questions will lead to Shouto being more receptive to Katsuki randomly starting a conversation with him on a random street after they’ve been on a break for around two weeks?

So no, Katsuki does not have a game plan. He isn’t even sure if Shouto will show up at that same crosswalk again or not. It had been raining yesterday and today there is no rain. Who knows how much that will change Shouto’s behaviour for day five of October 11?

Katsuki goes to grab a coffee at a nearby coffee shop then lingers around the crosswalk until Shouto eventually shows up. And he does show up, to Katsuki’s surprise. Maybe he does have somewhere specific to go today, so he’ll always show up. If that’s the case, then Katsuki’s life is at least that much easier.

The pedestrian light is red and Shouto is at the crosswalk. Katsuki steps up right beside him and says, “Hey.”

Not the best opener, he thinks, but it’s at least leagues better than either of them throwing a punch at first sight.

Shouto startles, no doubt recognising Katsuki’s voice immediately. He turns his gaze to Katsuki, eyeing him critically, gaze shifting up and down before lingering on Katsuki’s face.

“What,” Shouto finally says, just as he did yesterday. And oh, Katsuki realises, maybe Shouto can be predictable.

Katsuki is a bit predictable too, because once again, he finds himself speechless. This time he doesn’t start at all, not even a stilted “I” beyond the brief parting of his lips. 

Shouto looks unimpressed, the firm press of his mouth saying all. “Nothing to say?”

“I’m sorry,” blurts Katsuki, when he really hadn’t wanted to. 

The words have been in the forefront of his mind all morning, convinced that that was what the Shouto of yesterday had wanted to hear out of Katsuki. Katsuki hadn’t wanted to say it though, and even now, he hadn’t wanted to. Regretted the words as soon as he spoke them.

But he’s already said them, so might as well.

“What for?” Asks Shouto. This time he properly turns to regard Katsuki.

Katsuki stares back, bravely. “You know what for.”

“No, I really don’t.” Shouto tilts his head to one side, waiting.

The pedestrian light blinks green. Everyone crosses the street, save for Katsuki and Shouto. 

Katsuki realises that he doesn’t know exactly what he’s sorry for either. 

That day in Shouto’s apartment, when Shouto had suggested they take a break, Katsuki had said a lot of things. But that was how he felt and he meant every word he said. Was he sorry for saying them? Not necessarily. But maybe he could be sorry for the way he said them. He could’ve been nicer, gentler. Less agitated and caged-up, more vulnerable. That was Katsuki’s modus operandi though. Everything he felt always came up harsher when they made it out of his mouth. If he felt vulnerable in some way, all that he could show was anger and irritation, words loud instead of soft, cutting instead of sensible. 

That’s something he will always be sorry about.

“See?” Shouto whispers. “You don’t even know what you’re sorry for.”

Katsuki’s gaze shifts away from Shouto and towards the other end of the road, watches as the green light begins to stutter out before finally turning red. 

“But you want me to say sorry.” 

“Not at all,” says Shouto. Out of the corner of his eye, Katsuki can see Shouto shift to face forward too. “If you’re not sorry, then you’re not obligated to feel sorry and apologise.” 

Katsuki heaves out a sigh – sounding tired or frustrated, he doesn’t know. “Then what do you want from me?”

It’s Shouto’s turn to sigh now. “I don’t want anything from you, Katsuki.” A pause, then, “What do you want from me?”

I want you back, Katsuki thinks desperately. But at this moment, Katsuki starts feeling a bit too much, and in turn, he starts feeling angry. “I don’t want anything from you either,” he hisses stubbornly. 

Shouto sighs again, this time longer and sounding more disappointed. “Why did you come up to me?”

Katsuki drains the rest of his coffee, crushes his coffee cup in his hand, and turns to walk away. “I really don’t know,” he mumbles, even though Shouto’s already too far to even hear him.

-

Katsuki’s too much of a person, really.

He’s too loud. He’s too brash. He’s too straightforward. And he’s too easily agitated. But these are not characteristics that he counts as flaws. These are simply part of who he is. 

He can definitely stand to be quieter at times, maybe more tactful and understanding, less provoked. But again, these are not obstacles that he tells himself that he needs to face.

What he needs to do is a variety of many other things. He needs to be a hero. He needs to be number one. He needs to win. He needs to save and protect others. He needs to be the best. These are the things that he needs to do. These are the things that he needs to overcome and simply be.

Then comes Shouto.

In the list of things that Katsuki needs, Shouto is decidedly not one of them. Or was decidedly not one of them. Love, whether it be romantic, platonic, or familial, has never been a need. It’s something that exists, sure. Like how he knows his parents love him, or how when Izuku texts him clips of his own fights analysing the hell out of them, it’s some weird form of admiration, or how Eijirou’s insistence that they meet up at least once a month is a result of another form of love. It exists around him, and he allows it to exist around him. It’s nice, even if he’d die before admitting it. But it wasn’t a need. 

Except, it very well could be. 

Katsuki didn’t need to cook Shouto meals whenever Shouto was too tired after a shift. But he did. Katsuki didn’t need to stay over at Shouto’s apartment on occasion. But he did. Katsuki didn’t need to share his day with Shouto. But he did. 

So when Shouto had asked Katsuki to move in with him, Katsuki had felt confused, then panicked, then agitated, all in the space of a minute.

Sensibly, Katsuki knew he didn’t need to move in with Shouto. It was simply a question Shouto had probably thrown out, expecting a simple yes or no, before he moved on with his day. 

Katsuki, in his convoluted, emotion-filled mind, felt that he needed to move in with Shouto, if he asked. Because this felt like something he had to overcome. Because somewhere along the way, Shouto had become part of the list of things that Katsuki needed to do. And Katsuki, deep down, didn’t want to move in with Shouto, at least not yet, out of the fear that he was too much of a person.

Rather than saying “no, I’m not ready”, Katsuki sneered and said, “Sure.”

-

On the morning of day six, Katsuki watches Shouto cross the street.

He had thought of going up to Shouto again. Start the same conversation. Go through the same emotions. Reach the same ending. Set off his own loop within the already existing loop.

He makes it as far as the crosswalk, sees Shouto, and immediately hides in one of the coffee shops nearby. Sitting in one of the window seats, where his view of Shouto and the crosswalk is unobstructed, save for the occasional passer-by. 

Katsuki hadn’t noticed it the other two times, but Shouto doesn’t cross the street for quite some time. He stands by the crosswalk, fiddling with the ends of his jacket. It’s sunny again today, so he doesn’t have an umbrella to keep his hands busy. When the light turns green, Shouto still stays rooted on the sidewalk as other people push past him to cross the street.

It’s fucking odd. At this moment however, Katsuki doesn’t think it odd. All he can think about while staring at Shouto’s back is how much he wants to go up and talk to him. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t quite figured out how to go about any sort of conversation with Shouto, all that matters is how he wants so badly to talk to Shouto and how Shouto’s right there standing only a few metres away. And how maybe even a bad conversation is worth it if it means he gets to hear Shouto’s voice, see his face emote.

Shouto must have spent at least fifteen minutes lingering. Katsuki’s coffee has turned cold in the process, left to sit on the table as he tries to figure out what Shouto is up to. Eventually, Shouto seems to get over himself and makes his way towards the street opposite. Katsuki watches him as far as he can, Shouto’s silhouette growing smaller and smaller until he’s merely a smidge of colour in the distance, before disappearing fully.

Katsuki debates going after Shouto, see what he’s really up to on October 11, but that idea seems bad in hindsight.

Katsuki ends up going about his day like he had the other five times. Patrol, patrol, patrol, see if the thief ends up trying to break into the vault, eat his sandwich that he’s steadily getting tired of, patrol some more, then go home.

Or so he thinks, until he sees Shouto on his train.

Katsuki blinks, turning his phone up to check the time: 18:01. One hour earlier than he had gone home compared to the other days. 

On the first October 11, he clocked out the latest, having to go through the paperwork for the vault thief arrest before managing to go home for the day. The first two loops he had made it home around seven in the evening, spending most of his time loitering around the vault building for any sort of clue. The third loop it had been raining so bad he hadn’t bothered sticking around. The fourth he had gone about his usual routine after speaking to Shouto and made it home right before seven. Yesterday, he had been so pissed at himself, at Shouto, at everything really, that staying out longer than necessary seemed fucking pointless, making it home the earliest, at four in the evening.

Time’s a funny thing. You go to places a few hours earlier and there the bane of your existence is, waiting. In the original October 11, Shouto hadn’t been part of his day at all; now the more times he goes through October 11, the more Shouto-filled it becomes.

And really, Katsuki can’t help it.

He goes to sit down right beside Shouto.

Shouto’s so glued to his phone that he doesn’t notice at first that Katsuki’s sat down right beside him, much like the very first time Katsuki had seen him on the street on October 11.

“Hey,” says Katsuki.

Again, Shouto recognises Katsuki’s voice before he sees his face. His expression darkens, brows instantly pulling together into the beginnings of a frown. Putting his phone down onto his lap, he shifts his gaze up and to the right, where Katsuki is attempting to school his expression into something less pathetic.

What, Katsuki says in his mind, an echo of the Shouto from the previous two days.

“What,” Shouto says out loud. Katsuki almost laughs at the ridiculousness of it all.

“Been wanting to talk to you.”

Katsuki doesn’t mean to say that, or at least, he doesn’t mean to say it like that. If he’s going to admit something stupid, he means to build up to it, give more context, not blurt it out after letting it marinate in him for almost the whole day.

But really, who gives a shit? This isn’t real. He can do this as many times as he wants. He’ll get it right eventually. 

He has to get it right eventually.

“What about?” Shouto asks casually. 

Katsuki sighs, looks away from Shouto, and leans back in his seat. His head knocks against the windowpane of the train and he lets it stay there, feeling the cool glass on his scalp. He doesn’t realise how exhausted he is from the past six days until now. 

And maybe that’s why he breaks the first unspoken rule about time-related quirks.

“I’m stuck in a time loop, I think,” he starts, just as casually as Shouto had sounded.

Shouto is silent beside him, but Katsuki doesn’t bother prompting him for a response or looking to see if he’s heard him. He knows Shouto had heard him and needs the time to formulate a proper response. Katsuki knows he’d probably need about a minute if Shouto ever came up to him and abruptly announced the same.

After a beat or two more of silence, Shouto leans back in his seat too, mirroring Katsuki. Their shoulders touch, just barely, and Shouto makes no move to pull away, so neither does Katsuki.

“That’s definitely a problem,” is what Shouto decides to say to that.

This time, Katsuki does laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. “You think?” What Katsuki doesn’t say is that it isn’t a problem at all. Because he’s about ninety percent certain he’s already got a way out. What the problem actually is is that he doesn’t want to get out.

Shouto nods, Katsuki can feel his body move through their joined shoulders. “Yeah, that’s not good. Do you have any leads so far?” 

“Couple of ‘em,” lies Katsuki. 

“And?” Shouto prompts. “Did you want to talk to me because you thought I could help?” 

Katsuki lets himself think for a bit, before, “No, not really. Just felt like talking to you.”

Shouto’s shoulder goes still against Katsuki’s, but he still doesn’t pull away. 

There’s awkward lulls in conversations and there’s comfortable silences between two people who understand each other, then there’s Shouto and Katsuki and their never-ending efforts of trying to figure one another out. Katsuki can tell it’s one of those times, where Shouto will rather let the conversation die out just so he can get some time to himself to use his brain. It’s not often that Katsuki stumps Shouto speechless. Most of the time it’s the other way ‘round, with Katsuki sputtering out nonsense to try to fill the gap between conversations while he gets a hold of the situation. In the rare times with Shouto, it’s always quiet, nothing there to fill the gap.

In those times, Katsuki lets himself think too. In this instance though, he doesn’t think at all. Only because he can’t be bothered to, and he’s been thinking so much for the past few days that he allows himself to relax at this moment. It’s okay; Katsuki trusts Shouto to think for the both of them for now.

“Do we always talk?” Asks Shouto once he’s finished with his thinking.

“No.”

“Is this the first time we’ve talked?”

“No. First time I’ve told you about the loop though.”

Shouto hums in understanding. “So it’s only been a few days then.”

Katsuki jerks away at that, pulling away enough so he can angle his entire body towards Shouto. He stares at the side of Shouto’s face, sharp angles and uncaring features. When Katsuki stares for too long, Shouto turns to stare back, eyebrows raised.

“I’d probably find you on the first day,” explains Shouto. “You’re more practical though. So you probably tried to figure the loop out first. And – well, not to sound self-deprecating, but I’m most definitely not your first pick if you wanted a second opinion on your theories,” he says, rather self-deprecatingly. “There’s no way you’d go through the loops for more than three days. If you haven’t figured it out yourself, you’d have gone to Midoriya by now. But you’re here talking to me, so you have figured it out. And now I’m wondering why you’re still here, telling me about the loop.”

The train crawls to a stop; Katsuki and Shouto slide towards the right as it does so. That only brings Katsuki closer to Shouto, the proximity between their faces a dangerous one. Shouto’s not even really looking at Katsuki, only in his general direction, but Katsuki’s looking straight at Shouto; at his eyes, down the slope of his nose, at his mouth. 

The train doors open, more passengers board, carrying with them the muted sounds of shoes on linoleum. Someone sits beside Katsuki, forcing him to crowd into Shouto’s space even more. If he has to be any closer to Shouto, he might cave, so he pulls back, settles into his seat once more and resolutely faces forward.

“Why are you still here, Katsuki?” Shouto remains turned towards Katsuki, his breath ghosting against the shell of Katsuki’s ear. 

“Probably for the same reason you’d find me on the first day,” Katsuki says.

“Ah,” Shouto whispers, so softly it almost feels like a secret. “I’m not so sure about that.”

The train starts moving again, and Katsuki looks out the opposite window, at the darkness of the tunnel walls. Maybe he should’ve walked home.

“If I find you again tomorrow, what should I say?” Katsuki can’t help but ask.

Shouto scoffs. “That’s cheating. And by ‘tomorrow’, do you mean today? Or do you really mean tomorrow?”

“You know what I mean.”

“In that case, why don’t you try figuring it out on your own?” 

Katsuki makes a sound of frustration. “I,” he stalls; takes in a breath or two to stop himself from begging. Fuck, he really is exhausted. “I keep fucking saying the wrong thing. I can’t tell what you want from me.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

Groaning, Katsuki lets his head hit the cool glass of the window behind him again as he buries his face into the palms of his hands. Feels the smear of sweat on his skin. “You already said that.”

“Then why do you still think I want something from you?” Shouto asks. There’s an edge to his voice now, as if he’s also getting frustrated by the situation. What exactly he’s getting frustrated at is lost on Katsuki.

“There has to be something you’re looking for,” mumbles Katsuki into his hands. His words are probably muffled when they come out but the train is quiet enough and they’re close enough that he trusts that Shouto can make his words out fine.

The train comes to a stop again and Katsuki can feel Shouto pull away. When he lowers his hands, he sees Shouto already standing up. He’s not looking at Katsuki as he says, “Get some rest today. Then, come find me again tomorrow, Katsuki.” He finally gives Katsuki a small smile. “I trust you know where to find me.”

And just like that, Katsuki is alone again.

-

What a fucking asshole, Katsuki thinks as he’s getting out of bed on day seven.

It’s a thunderstorm outside; his walls feel like they’re shivering every time lightning strikes. Regardless, Katsuki gets dressed, grabs the umbrella waiting in his entryway, and makes his way to the same stupid crosswalk.

Shouto finds it amusing. He’s finding it amusing that Katsuki would rather trap himself in a damn time loop just so he can figure out how to talk to Shouto again. And even though Katsuki is now aware of that, knowing that “come find me again tomorrow” is some sort of challenge – a taunt, if you will – Katsuki will still try to figure it out even if it kills him.

The weather is impossible. Katsuki can barely find his way to the train station, despite already knowing his way there. With the rain bearing down unforgivingly, he can’t keep his eyes open for long lest he loses his sight completely. He ends up squinting at everything, vision blurred not only from the way his eyes have to be held almost shut, but also from the heavy downpour that doesn’t look like it’s going to let up any time soon.

By the time he gets to the crosswalk, it’s empty. To be fair, he’s early, not wanting to miss Shouto at all, if Shouto even bothers attempting to walk in this goddamn weather. 

Sighing at the barren streets, he pushes into the coffee shop facing the crosswalk. 

Katsuki drips all over the mat by the entrance; his umbrella has proven to be useless against the monstrosity that is the weather today, wind hurling the rain at him from all sides. He folds it up and leaves it leaning against the wall by the front entrance.

Looking down at the gradually dampening entrance mat, the lone barista behind the counter appears a little sheepish as she says, “Do you mind taking one of the window seats? I’ll come get your order in just a minute.”

In other words: don’t step into the main section of my shop and track mud all over. Please.

Katsuki takes the hint. He had already planned to take a window seat anyway. What’s the point of getting here early if he missed Shouto just because he hadn’t been looking.

He settles in and tries, for the sake of the barista, to not get too much of his mud-covered shoes all over the floor. His damp clothes make him uncomfortable, squirming in his seat as the barista takes his order of a regular black coffee. 

He’d never been to this particular coffee place before the time loop, but it serves decent coffee and with how often he’s ended up coming here in the past few days alone, it’s beginning to grow on him. It might just become one of his favourites.

The time on his phone shows 9:57, still a little early for Shouto to show up. If he even does show up at all. Katsuki tries to wile his time away on his phone. There isn’t much to do this early in the morning. Social media’s boring because he’s been seeing much of the same thing over and over; sometimes there’s slight deviations, but they’re never too far off from each other. Maybe he could catch up on comics he’s been missing out on in the past few years, or do things that he’s always felt like doing but didn’t have the time for. Though how much little changes like that would affect the future still weighs on his mind. If he sits and really thinks about it, seeking out Shouto time and time again can’t be doing much good either.

So he doesn’t think about it at all.

As Katsuki sifts through Instagram stories he’s already seen before, the door to the coffee shop opens and closes. The sound of damp shoes squelching on the mat by the entrance filter in amongst the rain still clambering down outside.

“Oh, good morning! Do you mind sitting by the window seats today? I’ll bring your usual over in a few minutes,” the barista says in a more casual tone of voice compared to when she was addressing Katsuki a few minutes prior.

“Of course. Thank you.” 

Katsuki nearly drops his phone, turning around in time to see Shouto drag a chair out right beside him and take a seat. 

Shouto is drenched all over, much worse than how Katsuki had been after coming into the shop earlier. His hair looks as if he’s just stepped out of the shower, strands flat and sticking onto his forehead, red and white overlapping with one another. He shifts a little in his chair, water dripping onto the floor, beginning to pool around him.

In the background where Katsuki can see the entrance to the shop, his forgotten black umbrella lies next to the one that he’d brought along with him today.

“Hi Katsuki,” Shouto says for the very first time.

“Hi…,” is all that comes out of Katsuki in a whisper. Because Shouto is looking directly at him. Not in his general direction. Not out at the opposite end of the street. Not with a glare. Not disappointed. 

Shouto smiles – actually smiles, albeit small and barely noticeable, one corner of his mouth lifting just the slightest bit. As if he doesn’t mean to smile but can’t help but to. With Katsuki’s mind slowly deteriorating from the amount of times he’s seen Shouto on October 11, this is like walking miles in the desert before coming across a puddle of water.

“I didn’t know you knew about this place,” Shouto continues on conversationally, not minding the fact that Katsuki’s just staring at him weirdly.

“I,” comes out of Katsuki before he can help it – before he has the time to even process his words and the fact that the barista had addressed Shouto earlier very much like he was a regular at this place. And only now does Katsuki find out about it.

It seems like no matter how Shouto reacts to him or what Shouto ends up saying, Katsuki will always be rendered speechless for a bit, his brain gone to mush.

“I just came into the first shop open.” Katsuki gestures vaguely at the scenery outside, at the unforgiving rain and slip-prone streets. “Can’t walk in that shit.”

Shouto smiles a bit more at that, expression light and easy, and Katsuki has to take a moment to wonder what was so difficult about this yesterday or the past three days before that. 

“The coffee’s good here,” says Shouto, nodding towards the cup of black coffee Katsuki had ordered. “You should try their cappuccino next time. It’s especially good.”

Next time. Katsuki has never been so satisfied hearing words coming out of anyone’s mouth before.

“You come here often?”

“Almost every day, yeah. They make my favourite coffee.”

Katsuki blinks. “You never mentioned it before.”

The smile on Shouto’s face wavers a bit, tapering into a more contained one. Katsuki immediately regrets bringing that up, wishing to go back in time so that he can take it back. 

A beat later, Katsuki realises he can – there’s still tomorrow, not tomorrow tomorrow, but the loop-tomorrow, where he can most definitely pretend that that thought never crossed his mind.

Tomorrow, when or if Shouto brings up this coffee shop, Katsuki won’t say that. He’ll come up with something else to say.

“Well,” Shouto stalls, looking away and out at the glistening streets. A lone car or two passes by, kicks up water that splatters onto the window. “I figured you would have known eventually.” Then he looks back at Katsuki. “And I was right.”

Katsuki finds himself at a loss of words again. He’s said the wrong thing, made the wrong thought known, and now he’s got Shouto looking like he would rather brave a walk in the rain than continue to sit next to Katsuki. 

He gets up abruptly, just as the barista’s coming over to bring Shouto his usual order. The same barista who’s known about Shouto and this very coffee shop. Knows enough about Shouto to know his usual order. Knows something that even Katsuki hadn’t known. 

She startles, jostling the cup as she’s halfway through placing it down onto the table. A bit of coffee spills down the side and she immediately mouths off an apology, Shouto assuring her that everything is fine as she does so. 

Katsuki’s already by the entrance, his still-wet soles squeaking on the floor. This time, he doesn’t bother with being careful, tracking mud all over in his haste. He grabs his umbrella, knocking down his-slash-Shouto’s black one in the process, not bothering to pick it up. 

“Where are you going?” Shouto calls out just as Katsuki has one hand on the door, ready to leave.

The barista is back behind the counter, pretending like she isn’t all ears for this conversation playing out before her.

“I’ll find you tomorrow. I can’t –” Katsuki breathes in. “I need to go.”

Katsuki almost stays because of the way Shouto looks at him, not quite pleading but nearly there. It’s a first, and it strikes something deep in Katsuki’s chest. 

Eventually, Shouto mumbles something, then realises that Katsuki can’t hear him from that distance so he speaks up. “Okay,” he repeats, louder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And Katsuki’s out the door, back in the pouring rain. 

-

On days eight to sixteen, everything blurs into one another in the haze of Katsuki’s mind. The only thing that seems clearer than ever is that he has to get it right one of these days. That he can get it right. He just needs a bit of time.

Katsuki makes it to the coffee shop with Shouto on days eight, ten, and twelve. Each time Shouto tells Katsuki to order the cappuccino the next time he comes around the coffee shop. However, it’s only on day ten that he tells Katsuki that it’s because he thinks Katsuki would like it. 

Katsuki spends day eleven trying to figure out if there was something in particular that he had done to get Shouto to admit something like that. Or maybe, day-ten-Shouto had just felt like saying it, completely unprompted. Maybe he’d woken up that day feeling in better spirits than he did the other days. When day twelve rolls around and Katsuki finds Shouto in the same coffee shop, he doesn’t suggest that Katsuki might like the cappuccino. It throws Katsuki off so much that he leaves early even though he hadn’t yet said anything wrong that day.

On days nine, eleven, thirteen, and fourteen, Katsuki sees Shouto on the trains. Day eleven he’s so focussed on thinking about how he should have tried to catch Shouto at the coffee shop again that he can’t keep up with their conversation. Shouto leaves the train looking a bit pissed off at that. In fact, on day nine and thirteen, Shouto leaves Katsuki much the same – not quite ready to punch Katsuki across the face, but nearly there. Katsuki’s convinced that trying to have a civil conversation with Todoroki Shouto on the train is impossible.

Until day fourteen, when he meets Shouto on the train. In the morning.

Katsuki wakes up earlier on day fourteen, and decides that, fuck it, he’ll go loiter around the coffee shop in hopes that Shouto will turn up eventually. Shouto always does anyway – day-seven-Shouto wasn’t lying, he probably did come to the shop for coffee almost everyday.

Shouto’s on the train disgustingly early in the morning. Katsuki’s still trying to blink the bleariness of sleep away. He almost thinks the Shouto he sees on the train is some sort-of fucked up hallucination that his desperate mind has conjured.

The carriage isn’t empty; it’s far too early for it to be packed with passengers starting their day. There’s only a few stragglers scattered around, sitting sparsely throughout the carriage, leaving Shouto seated alone in one end of the carriage.

Unprepared for any Shouto-type engagements this early in the morning, Katsuki begins moving to the other end of the carriage, hoping that he can pretend that he hadn’t spotted the endearingly familiar red-and-white instantly upon boarding the train. He can still catch him at the coffee shop later, after all.

“Katsuki,” Shouto calls out from his little corner of the carriage. It’s soft, but Katsuki figures that Shouto could probably whisper in a crowd and he’d still pick up the timbre of his voice among the many going around.

Begrudgingly, Katsuki stops to turn toward where Shouto is. And though he feels the uncharacteristic urge to be cowardly and pretend he can’t see Shouto, he forces himself to make his way over.

He can’t for the life of him figure Shouto out. Whenever he calls out to Shouto first, the idiot looks like he can’t stand to have a simple conversation with Katsuki. But when he’s determined to avoid Shouto, Shouto always calls out to him. Regardless of who speaks first, as long as they’re in vicinity to one another, they’ll have a conversation.

Katsuki doesn’t know what to do with his face. He’s seen Shouto so many times the past few days that he no longer knows what expression he’s supposed to make; can barely remember how he felt the first time he saw Shouto at the crosswalk.

He settles for something neutral. When he sits down beside Shouto, he doesn’t smile, nor does he glare or frown. He addresses him as nonchalantly as he can, even though the mere brush of their arms through two layers of clothing makes his heart pick up, causes goosebumps to spread all over his skin.

“What are you doing here so early?” Asks Katsuki, deciding that he should pretend that everything is fine, like he doesn’t know that in this Shouto’s head, the memory of their last fight still remains fresh and raw. 

Shouto seems a bit pleased that Katsuki hadn’t immediately dove into dissecting their problems first thing in the morning. Katsuki tries not to get too excited at that, though he does note that observation down for future use. “I was actually going to look for you.”

Katsuki hears more than feels the crack in his neck when his head snaps to look at Shouto. Shouto’s already looking at him, eyes soft and the most forgiving Katsuki has seen him over the many iterations of October 11. At this point, his heart’s jackhammering in his chest; it’s so loud in the quietude of the train that he’s real fucking sure that every other passenger can hear how he feels, much less Shouto, who’s sat right beside him.

“You were?” Katsuki breathes out. He knows he’s making a stupid face; can tell by the way Shouto’s mouth pulls up into something of an amused smile. “Why?”

The forgiveness falls from Shouto’s face, amusement wiped clean off his smile. Katsuki wants to eat his words back up. “Didn’t you think of seeing me too?” Shouto asks back.

“Of course I –” and realising that he’s shouted and garnered the attention of every half-asleep passenger in his carriage, he lowers his voice into almost a whisper, just for him and Shouto only, “Of course I did – do . I just… I thought you – aren’t you mad at me?”

Shouto sighs, and he looks away from Katsuki to stare at the space across from them, where it’s unoccupied, void of the tension over on their side. “Is that what you think I am? Angry at you?”

It’s been a month, Katsuki says to himself internally. A month and he still doesn’t understand how he should go about this. A month and he still doesn’t know what Shouto wants. A month and he still doesn’t know how to talk to Shouto.

What if it didn’t matter how many tries he got? What if this was it, they simply weren’t meant to understand one another?

Katsuki grits his teeth, feeling the top and bottom rows grind against each other. He doesn’t realise he’s got his hands balled up tightly until he feels the gentle tug on them. Shouto’s hand is so warm, Katsuki almost forgot how they felt until now. The pads of Shouto’s fingers are soft, his touches feather-light as he pries Katsuki’s hand open.

Katsuki lets Shouto do whatever. He figures that Shouto could push him off the platform and he wouldn’t even fucking care at this point, as long as he can feel Shouto’s touch on him; bare.

The meat of his palm has crescent indents all over, a testament of how hard he’d been balling his fists that his blunt nails somehow managed to do that.

Shouto runs a thumb down Katsuki’s palm, like he wants to smoothen out the indents so that they’re no longer there. Katsuki knows his palms are sweaty, they always fucking are, but with Shouto’s fingers gently grazing his hand, they feel all the more disgusting. He wants to pull away, yet he doesn’t, and the self-deprecating haze in his mind clears a little. 

“I’m not angry at you,” Shouto eventually says. His hand is still on Katsuki’s, thumbs hooked on one another, as if afraid that if he let go Katsuki will go back to the unyielding hold from before. “I don’t really know what I am, Katsuki. But angry’s definitely not it. After all, I called out to you, didn’t I?”

And if you hadn’t, I’d probably call out to you.  

They sit the rest of the journey in silence, hands now properly holding one another. When Shouto’s stop comes, it’s the one by the vault building, near the coffee shop and the crosswalk. Katsuki lets Shouto go, fingers lingering onto Shouto’s for a bit with the urge to hold on. 

“I’ll find you tomorrow instead,” Shouto says just before he alights. 

Katsuki, however, still doesn’t let tomorrow come.

On day fifteen, in the morning, around the same time as day fourteen, Katsuki boards the train, but Shouto isn’t there. 

On day sixteen, Shouto isn’t there again.

-

“You don’t have to move in with me, you know.”

The curtains were drawn in the living room, sunlight filtering in, painting the space in a warmth that Katsuki hadn’t experienced in his own apartment. Shouto had gotten lucky, snagging a unit facing directly where the sun rose, on one of the higher floors in a high-rise apartment building. Katsuki’s own apartment wasn’t half bad. It had a floor-to-ceiling window much the same as Shouto’s did, yet it faced a much taller office building that blocked the sun out entirely.

It almost seemed unfair. When Katsuki had first walked into Shouto’s apartment all those years ago during his housewarming party, this was the very first thing he had noticed. How the sunlight streaming through the windows had bathed the apartment in an atmosphere that was almost the complete opposite of his own shaded apartment. How it had been one of the coldest winters that day, yet it hadn’t felt all that cold once Katsuki had stepped into Shouto’s apartment. How, from the very first day, that slight difference in something as miniscule as how the sun shone through one’s living room window had changed his entire view of Shouto’s home.

Now, the sunlight came through the same way it did all those years ago, casting shadows all over the furniture. But it was summer, and this time, it all just felt a little bit suffocating.

Katsuki was sweating all over the place. He’d been moving box after box of his own personal belongings from the ground floor up to Shouto’s apartment since the early mornings. Shouto did insist on them hiring movers to help out, but Katsuki was adamant on doing this on his own.

He placed his last box onto another, three whole boxes stacked right beside Shouto’s couch. The rest of the living room appeared much the same, boxes of all kinds of sizes scattered throughout. It’s this sight, paired with Katsuki’s exhaustion and the heat and the sweat, that caused him to spin around at Shouto’s sentence, feeling incredulous.

“Huh?” Katsuki managed to get out over the deep breaths he was taking. God was he fucking exhausted. And sweaty. And so over everything.

Shouto didn’t look all too perturbed at the glare that was gradually forming on Katsuki’s face. “You don’t have to –”

“I heard what you said,” Katsuki cut in. Wiping his sweaty palms against the fronts of his joggers, he took a step closer to Shouto; all up in his face, just so his bafflement could be seen better. “What do you mean? That,” and he pointed towards the box he had only seconds ago placed down, “That’s the last one. The last of my things. All thirty of my damn boxes are up here now.”

Shouto blinked. “Well, I know that.”

“Then why,” Katsuki made a point to emphasise on the ‘why’, “are you trying to get me to not move in with you?”

“I’m not trying to do that at all,” said Shouto. “I’m glad you’re moving in. I’ve been glad since you agreed. It’s just…” He casted his eyes all around the living room, at the many boxes that contained Katsuki’s belongings, surrounded by all of Shouto’s own belongings. “I don’t want you to feel like it’s something you have to do.”

Katsuki baulked, immediately making a face that suggested that Shouto wasn’t making any sense. Shouto wasn’t looking at him, however, so he made the thought known instead. “You’re being ridiculous. ‘Course this is something I have to do.”

That got Shouto’s eyes to make their way back to Katsuki. He looked upset, with his brows nearly stitched together at the inner corners. Katsuki wanted to wipe that expression off his face.

“No. No, it isn’t,” Shouto insisted. “I mean, you’re moving in with me because you want to.” When Katsuki hadn’t immediately agreed, he prompted, “Right?”

Katsuki heaved out a breath. “I’m moving in with you because you asked me to.”

“I don’t think you understand,” said Shouto, uncertainty drenched in every word.

“What?”

“I’m asking you if you want to move in with me.”

Stretching an arm out towards the living room space and gesturing all over, Katsuki said, “I’m already moved in. What the fuck are you trying to say?”

Shouto fell silent, eyes casting over the boxes scattered about. The longer he remained quiet, the more Katsuki felt as if he’d said something wrong somehow.

Eventually Shouto’s gaze made its way back to Katsuki, and if Katsuki really squinted, he could swear that Shouto had looked hurt. Like Katsuki had said something hurtful.

“You don’t want to move in with me,” Shouto said in a murmur. It wasn’t a question, even though Katsuki felt like it also was somehow. “Why are you moving in with me?”

It was so fucking hot. All Katsuki could feel was an overwhelming urge to leave; to run out the door, to not have this conversation. He was no coward, but cowardice felt a bit like temptation at this point. 

His belongings felt so out of place in this apartment. Even the colour of his boxes stood in stark contrast compared to the glow of Shouto’s apartment, all white walls and sleek black furniture. All Shouto-like, not ready for Katsuki in the slightest.

It felt wrong.

Katsuki knew this wasn’t something he could say. There were better words, better descriptors, better everything to explain why precisely he didn’t want to move in with Shouto – and none of the reasons had anything to do with Shouto at all.

“It was about time,” he said instead, not at all untruthfully. “Figured ‘why not?’”

Shouto breathed in, a loud and exhaustive thing, and when he let out his next breath, Katsuki could feel the slight shudder that came out of him. Katsuki thought that was something he found familiar – something he himself sometimes did in hopes of grounding himself. Seeing that on Shouto seemed out of place, because Shouto always appeared grounded to Katsuki.

“I may not be the most experienced about these things, but even I know that there’s no timeline to it. You don’t have to move in with me simply because you feel like it’s time to. Or because I asked you to. And when have you done things just because someone’s asked you to?” 

God, it really was so humid in this apartment all of a sudden. Katsuki wanted to be back in his own apartment, where the sun didn’t glare through his windows at him. Didn’t make the sweat drip off him angrily. Where Shouto wasn’t there to look at him like that.

“There’s a timeline to everything,” Katsuki eventually said, in a tone so insistent that he was close to shouting out his sentences. He wasn’t fucking angry, just so damn frustrated that they were having this conversation now, in the living room where it felt like everything was burning, heat radiating off any available surface. “I have to – it’s like making the top ten within the next two years. Or nailing that one manoeuvre I’ve been working on for the past few months by the end of the year. This is just,” he scrambled for a proper way to articulate his point, “one of those things,” which admittedly, was a pretty shit way to say it.

Shouto seemed to consider it, his eyes shifting away from Katsuki to track the many boxes scattered around. “So, this is some sort of… goal to you?” 

No, thought Katsuki, yet his voice had said, “Maybe,” because he wasn’t all too sure whether he did think of it as a goal, or if this was just how he thought of everything in his life. And when Shouto immediately looked back at him with accusatory eyes, he stubbornly continued with, “Is that wrong?” 

“No,” Shouto answered after a beat of silence, then seemingly unsatisfied with his own answer, he amended, “I don’t know. I don’t want to be a goal. I just wanted you to move in with me. Don’t you think it’d be good?”

Katsuki didn’t know if it would be good. There were still so many things Shouto didn’t know about him yet. What if he fucking hated living with Katsuki?

“I see,” Shouto muttered, so quiet Katsuki wasn’t sure if he had actually said it. “I think you should leave.”

“Huh?” Katsuki said for the second time that day. “I just –”

“I know,” Shouto cut in. His gaze passed through the entirety of the living room. “I’ll ship them back to your place. This isn’t –” He tried to say, but one look at Katsuki and he instantly faltered, voice wavering at the end. Katsuki desperately wanted to know how he looked to Shouto then. Did he look as crestfallen as he felt? “Katsuki, you should think about what you want,” said Shouto, very seriously. “I don’t want the things we do to be goals that you have to hit. If I’d known…,” and he made a point to sweep his gaze through the many boxes of Katsuki’s things again.

“What?” Katsuki’s voice felt tight and it certainly sounded that way too, the single word feeling like it was forced out of his throat, scratchy and harsh. “I don’t fucking get it. I’m okay with moving in. I’m here.” He knew how he looked right now, having seen it multiple times in clips of him in hero uniform where he’d lose his temper after a bad rescue. Face red and blotchy, eyes watery, brows pulled tight at the inner corners. 

He looked pathetic. 

“But do you want to be here?” Shouto asked. 

It was so hot in this apartment. The sun was up high, not a cloud in sight to offer some sort of comforting shield from the glare in the sky. The sweat was sticky in Katsuki’s palms. His breathing was coming up uneven. 

And Katsuki couldn’t figure out if he did want to be there or not.

-

On day seventeen, the sun is terribly unforgiving, but Katsuki’s in the safety of his own apartment, where his window faces the back of an office building, tucking him safely away from the sun’s harsh glares.

Today, he takes it easy. Doesn’t immediately get up and out the door in search of Shouto. In his living room, he folds his laundry, falling back to the routine that he swore he had to stick to all those days ago, though now it seems kinda pointless. 

In front of him, his TV shows the news and the same announcement about the trains closing is broadcasted; still no specific reason other than that there had been a disturbance on the tracks.

Scattered throughout his living room are the unpacked boxes he had brought over to Shouto’s apartment. Most of his things still remain in them, leaving his apartment feeling empty and gutted. Lifeless in a way that it hasn’t been since he moved in a year ago. The day his boxes arrived at his apartment again, after Shouto had done what he said he would do and shipped them back for him, Katsuki couldn’t be bothered to unpack them all, only taking out the bare necessities that he really needed.

He doesn’t dwell on them for too long, nor does he dwell on the memories of that conversation from a little over a month ago now. After all, tomorrow the boxes will still be here, unpacked, and Shouto will forget whatever attempt at a civil conversation Katsuki will try to have today.

After he finishes up with his laundry, he gets dressed and heads out to look for Shouto. There’s a rational part of him that nags at him, telling him to stick to the schedule and to clock in to work. But everything else feels so aimless now that he’s set on doing and saying the right things to Shouto. 

Katsuki checks the usual spots; the crosswalk, the street that goes past the building housing the vault, the coffee shop, his eyes even try to find Shouto amidst the crowded train again. But he ends up finding Shouto somewhere new, right outside the vault building, talking to the old lady that sells the flowers.

Shouto’s holding onto the stem of a flower. This one’s orange in its petals, big and rounded, stem long and covered almost entirely by its bulky leaves. Katsuki’s got no fucking clue what they’re called at all. 

The old lady is saying something and Shouto’s nodding along like he’s some sort of flower connoisseur. He rolls the stem against his thumb and index finger, peering down at the flower very seriously. Katsuki almost doesn’t want to interrupt this – whatever this is.

Until Shouto looks up from the flower and locks eyes with him.

Almost like a moth to a flame, Katsuki walks over to Shouto, eyes never straying from the hold of Shouto’s gaze, as if entranced. 

“Katsuki,” Shouto says first, handing the flower back to the old lady.

“Hey.” And in an effort to not appear like he doesn’t know what to say next, he immediately asks, “Flowers?”

The old lady answers instead of Shouto. “Oh yes. I grew them myself in my garden. Would you like one?” 

Katsuki almost says yes, then remembers himself; where he is, what’s actually happening. “Uh, no,” he manages to get out, all under Shouto’s watchful gaze. He wonders what Shouto is thinking, whether he finds it odd that he’d find Katsuki randomly on the street like this. “We should get coffee,” he addresses Shouto before the old lady can start her persistent sales pitch of the flowers she has all around her.

Sensing that she’s no longer part of the conversation, the old lady grumbles a bit, sauntering back to the steps where all her flowers lie.

Shouto stays put where he stands, but he’s squinting at Katsuki, assessing. “Why?” He eventually asks.

And though Katsuki feels like a fucking cheat for saying it, he answers with, “Because I’ve spent all day looking for you.” He almost tacks on a “please”, desperate, but he’s not to the point of begging. Close, but not quite fucking yet.

After a while, Shouto says, “Okay,” and now it feels like victory.

Katsuki brings him back to the coffee shop by the crosswalk. When he pushes the doors open, the same barista from every other iteration is behind the counter. This time she doesn’t ask them to take the window seats, offering them a bright, customer-service welcome and gesturing to the array of empty tables spread out in the shop. Shouto chooses a table at one of the corners, far from the windows.

When the barista comes over to take their order, Shouto cuts in to tell Katsuki to order the cappuccino. This time, just like on day ten, he adds on, “I think you’ll like it,” and Katsuki immediately orders the goddamn cappuccino; large.

The barista leaves to go make their coffee. Katsuki doesn’t waste a second more, as soon as the barista is out of earshot, he faces Shouto head-on, determined. 

Today is the first time they’re directly opposite one another, where they have to look each other in the eyes. Katsuki won’t look away because he doesn’t want to. Shouto won’t look away because he’s as much the stubborn bastard that Katsuki is and won’t be the first to back down.

“I don’t understand what we’re arguing about,” admits Katsuki into the quiet of the coffee shop. There are other patrons around them, but no one else is having a conversation, all content with drinking their coffees in silence. It’s so quiet in here that it makes Katsuki’s need to talk to Shouto feel that much desperate.

Shouto’s lips purse, the straight line of his mouth telling all for Katsuki; he’d said something wrong. “We’re not arguing,” says Shouto, and at the angry frown Katsuki’s definitely got on his face, he insists, “We’re not. We’re taking a break, so you can figure out what you want.”

“I know what I want – it’s you. I want you.” It’s a testament to how despairing this entire fucking time loop thing has made Katsuki feel that he’s willing to finally admit that to Shouto. Admit the one thing he’s wanted to say to Shouto since he saw him standing at the crosswalk that first time.

Katsuki swears he sees Shouto soften a little, but only just. Shouto’s shoulders sag slightly, his posture loosening to something less tense, though not as relaxed as how he normally would be. “That, I know. But what about everything else?”

“What about everything else?” Katsuki nearly shouts.

He thinks of Shouto on the train on day fourteen, lightly holding onto Katsuki’s hand. His hand burns with the memory now, with the urge to reach across the table to take Shouto’s hand in his. The fact that Shouto hadn’t been on the trains in the morning on day fifteen and sixteen rolls around in Katsuki’s mind. He can only come up with one plausible answer – that on those two days, Shouto hadn’t woken up and thought of looking for Katsuki. That this was one of those things that was malleable, that changed with each iteration, like the goddamn weather. Sometimes it rained, sometimes the sun blinded everyone on earth, and sometimes Shouto felt like looking for Katsuki just as much as Katsuki looked for him. 

But that also meant that sometimes, on October 11, Katsuki doesn’t cross Shouto’s mind at all. 

Katsuki ignores the pinch he feels at that thought and stares resolutely at Shouto seated across from him. Whether or not this Shouto had thought of him before, now he surely is thinking of him.

“You don’t want to live with me!” Shouto hisses. It’s nearly a shout, which catches Katsuki off guard. Usually he’d be the one shouting. “You don’t want to live with me, Katsuki. I don’t –”

“I was going to!” Katsuki counters, palms laid flat on the surface of the table to stop himself from throwing his arms up in the air incredulously. “I moved thirty – thirty fucking boxes from the ground up to your apartment. I was already moved in, for fuck’s sake.”

Shouto sighs, just as the barista comes over with their drinks. There’s a taut suspension in the air as she places their drinks onto the table with care before she tells them to enjoy and leaves them to it. Katsuki’s cappuccino is steaming hot in ceramic, while Shouto’s latte is served cold, condensation dripping down the sides of the glass cup.

Shouto stirs his drink with the straw, ice cubes clinking against the glass as he does so. “You don’t get it,” he says, very softly. 

“I don’t,” Katsuki agrees, watching the steam from his coffee instead of Shouto.

“It’s a little stupid.” Shouto sighs again, and it’s the first time that he’s admitting that. “I know you can’t possibly want everything I want. I have my own wants while you have your own. But it still – it’s still disappointing when I realise that we don’t want the same things. Katsuki, I’ve wanted you to move in with me two months into dating.”

“That’s…,” Katsuki starts, but doesn’t quite know how to end. “Quick,” he finishes, lamely.

Shouto huffs out a laugh, and begins stirring his drink again, almost like he’s attempting to soothe his own nerves. “That’s why I waited two years. I thought… I only asked because I thought you felt the same. And then you agreed, so I figured I was right.” He takes a breath, pinching and un-pinching his straw between his thumb and index finger. “But you renewed the lease to your apartment and it hit me. You didn’t really want to move in with me, I was getting excited on my own. And not only that, the fact that you kept your apartment meant that you probably thought it wasn’t going to work out.”

Katsuki bites onto his lower lip, trying to suppress the urge to snarl. “I…” 

“Well, I know I’m right. I’m no expert on you, but I can tell that much.” Shouto shrugs, as if resigned, and he finally takes a sip of his drink, eyes boring into Katsuki. When he places his drink back down, he seems determined. “I know we can’t possibly want the same things,” he repeats. “I thought about it a lot after you left, you know. About how two people can want different things yet still be together. And I think it boils down to understanding. Now, I understand that you don’t want to live with me – that you think this is… some goal couples are supposed to tick off after a certain period of time. That your motivations are not the same as mine. But I don’t understand everything else about you. Why don’t you want to live with me? You stay over more often than not. It’s closer to your agency. You said yourself that you preferred my apartment to yours.” He goes back to stirring his drink. “So why?”

Katsuki can’t fucking say why. Isn’t sure he can put it into words sophisticatedly like Shouto just had. Isn’t sure that he won’t tick himself off in the process and accidentally rip Shouto a new one. 

Shouto takes another sip of his latte, as if already expecting that Katsuki would be at a loss for words. “That’s why I thought we needed a break. I figured you’d be able to answer me after a bit of thought. And I thought today was the day I’d get my answers. But maybe it’s still too early.”

“How long?” Is all Katsuki can say because hell if he’ll ever admit it but Shouto was right. “How long are you going to wait?” 

Shouto tilts his head to one side, thumbing the side of his coffee cup, considering. “As long as it takes.” He looks like he wants to laugh. “Is that stupid?” 

Katsuki gulps down his drink. Shouto’s right again, he does like the cappuccino.

“I’d probably do the same for you.”

-

On day eighteen, Katsuki thinks.

For once, he thinks. He hasn’t been doing a lot of that, or at least not productively. He’d been so focussed on the wrong thing, focussed on getting the present right, but not considering anything about the past at all. 

For most of the morning, he stays in bed, staring up at his ceiling in the dimness of his bedroom. It’s raining again this time; dark clouds looming outside the window, the rain crashing down from above unforgivingly.

Katsuki thinks about staying in, but not even an hour later, he finds himself changing out of his home clothes to head out, the itch to look for Shouto practically clawing its way out of his skin. He can think about what Shouto said on day seventeen while he talks to the Shouto of today.

Shouto is at the crosswalk with Katsuki’s umbrella. No one’s around at all, streets barren once more thanks to the rain. 

Katsuki sidles up to Shouto, edges of their umbrellas bumping into one another. He feels the spray of rainwater on his face, watches a few drops hit Shouto’s cheek in the aftermath.

When Shouto turns to face him, Katsuki really nearly begs. 

“Oh,” Shouto says, registering Katsuki’s presence as his features melt into the familiar irritation of day four. “What?”

All Katsuki hears for the next few seconds is the thud, thud, thud of the rain on their umbrellas; dull and barely there but still very much present all around them. He fucking hates feeling like this, all cheesy and love-dumb, like the entire world revolves solely on him fixing this with Shouto. The only thing that he’s been doing for nearly three weeks now is look for Shouto. All he can think about is how he can fix this, how he can do better, how he can try to understand. 

Like Shouto had said, it is a little stupid. And a bit incomprehensible. Because what were the fucking chances that he’d randomly bump into Shouto the moment he figured this time loop shit out? If he’d figure it out on day three, would Shouto have been here at this crosswalk? What about day five? What about any other day?

“Where are you going?” He asks, not unlike day four, though this time, he’s asking because he genuinely wants to know.

“Really,” says Shouto, unimpressed again. “That’s what you have to say to me?”

Ignoring the beginnings of Shouto’s disappointed hostility, Katsuki presses, “Yeah, I want to know.” Then, quite literally at his wit’s end, he finally succumbs to the desperation he feels whenever Shouto’s of concern. “Were you going to look for me?”

He was, Katsuki realises, watching the emotions sift through Shouto’s features. His eyes widen for the briefest of fucking moments, a tell-all that negates whatever dumb excuse Shouto might try to dish out in an effort to distract Katsuki.

Katsuki tries to step closer to Shouto, but the edges of their umbrellas bump into one another once more, droplets of rainwater sprinkling down onto their faces. He swings his own umbrella down, nearly knocking Shouto’s out of his hand in the process. His umbrella drops onto the ground, dredging up a spray of dirty rainwater onto their shins.  The rain pelts down onto Katsuki for a moment before he steps under Shouto’s umbrella. They’re so close to one another Shouto has to tilt his head down a little to adjust to their new positions.

“I’m so –” stupid, he doesn’t say as he looks across the street, towards where the vault building is. And if Katsuki was smarter, or if he could read Shouto a little better, he’d realise that his agency is just a few more streets further away. He’d register Shouto’s day four antagonism for what it really was – a deflection at being caught doing something he really shouldn’t be doing, trying to seek Katsuki out when he himself had said they needed a break for Katsuki to be alone to think. 

But on the original October 11, Katsuki wouldn’t have been at his agency in the morning anyway. He would have been at home, in front of his TV, doing his laundry and seething at the fact that his train line would be down for the day. 

“You were looking for me,” Katsuki manages to say when he looks back. The proximity’s fucking killing him, with the way he can see the smallest change in Shouto’s expression, the way he can feel his breathing quicken a little. “You were looking for me the day before, too. And that day on the train. What about the other days? Were you trying to look for me too? Did you just take another route? How many other ways could you possibly take to get to my agency? Why do you constantly wake up and decide to get there a different way? You’re fucking killing me, you know that? You never end up finding me anyway, I’m always the one finding you.”

“Katsuki, I have no idea what you’re going on about,” Shouto admits quietly. He doesn’t step away, doesn’t even deny looking for Katsuki, only stands there holding onto his umbrella with the thudding of the rain all around them.

“‘Course you don’t,” whispers Katsuki, body moving a little closer. He can feel the heat that typically comes with standing near Shouto and the slight edge of cold permeating around him as an after-effect; right now in the rain, it almost feels like how he felt when he’d visited Shouto’s apartment for the very first time, dead in the winter, his apartment enveloping him in a warmth he instantly melted into. “Listen,” he cuts in just as Shouto opens his mouth to reply. “It’s not a goal, moving in with you – or fuck, it is, but not in the way you’re thinking about it. It’s like, in my mind, everything important is mapped out from beginning ‘til the end. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a hero so fucking bad I planned my entire life ‘round it. It’s not goals that I have to achieve, it’s goals that I wanna achieve. And with you it’s the same damn thing. You’re not just a goal to me. You’re so much more that I end up planning out everything I want to do with you.”

“Okay,” Shouto breathes out after a while, ghosting against Katsuki’s face. He doesn’t look at all prepared for a truthful Katsuki, yet he stays rooted where he stands. “Okay. But right now you still don’t want to –”

“I do want to move in with you,” Katsuki says, now confident with this fact. Then, he stalls for entirely too long, wracking his mind for a way to put what he wants to say in nicer words. Peel back the harshness of it, minimise it so that it softens the blow to Shouto. He’s trying so hard to understand, after all, it’s the least he fucking deserves. “I don’t like that you leave your dishes out to dry,” he eventually says, not all that certain that he’ll be able to convey his feelings, but fuck if he doesn’t at least try.

Shouto blinks, then blinks again, and again, and once more, before the incredulousness of Katsuki’s admittance finally settles in. “What?” 

“You always leave them there, on the dish rack. Why have all that cupboard space then?”

“That’s what dish racks are for,” counters Shouto. “For your dishes to dry on.”

“And once they’re dry?” Katsuki prompts, hoping that Shouto is following along.

Shouto still looks confused, but he concedes. “I suppose I could put them back into the cupboards. Once they’re completely dry, I mean.”

“I also don’t like how you leave your laundry on your couch for weeks at a time.”

“Are you just pointing out that I’m sloppy in different ways?”

Katsuki shoots Shouto with a pointed look.

“Right.” Shouto smiles down at Katsuki, like he can’t help it after all. “I guess I could keep my laundry more often.”

Katsuki feels his confidence grow. “And where the hell am I meant to keep my limited edition All Mights?”

Shouto actually laughs at that one. “Your limited edition All Mights?”

“You think I’d have thirty boxes full of my own shit only?” 

Shouto steps closer, if that’s even possible with how close they’d already been. The tips of their noses almost graze one another, and all the tension has long left Shouto, replaced with amusement and slight incomprehension. When he speaks, it’s soft and confused and a bit kind. “I could make space in the living room. Next to the TV?”

“In the living room?” Katsuki mutters back, but the conversation is nearly lost on him, now more focussed on how close they are to one another – that this is the closest he’s been to Shouto in a month. “Next to the TV? Are you insane?” 

Shouto’s no longer holding his umbrella upright, wedging it at his side, between his arm and his torso. It tilts to the one end at an awkward angle, leaving their entire side exposed to the rain, their sleeves soaking. Katsuki doesn’t care though, not when Shouto has his hands cupping the side of his face, his thumbs tracing along his jaw.

“You know, I don’t like it when you cook pasta.”

“Huh?!” Katsuki splutters, still slightly distracted by Shouto’s warmth against his cheeks. Not distracted enough to take an insult to his cooking however. “My pasta’s the fucking best.”

Shouto huffs out a laugh. “Yes, it is. But it’s too spicy. Feels like it’s burning my tongue off.”

Katsuki scoffs. “Fine. I’ll make it when it’s only me eating.”

“Or,” Shouto starts to say, closing the distance between their faces. “We could just eat separate meals when you’re feeling pasta.”

“We could,” agrees Katsuki. But really, Shouto could be saying whatever at this moment and Katsuki just might agree. “Sometimes,” and he dredges up what little sanity he has left to at least get this out, “I just have to be alone.”

Shouto nods slowly, and Katsuki feels his movement more than sees it, with how near both their faces have gotten to one another. “Okay. I have two guest bedrooms. You can use them whenever you need,” says Shouto. “It can work. All of this – it’ll work.”

“You don’t know that,” Katsuki says just to be contrary, because even he feels like it could work. The fact that Katsuki has stayed in this time loop for almost three weeks. The fact that Shouto will look for him every iteration. They’d probably make it work.

“You’re right, I don’t know that,” answers Shouto very seriously, not privy to Katsuki’s thoughts and his insight into October 11. “What I do know is that I’ll try my best.”

Katsuki bumps his forehead against Shouto’s, feeling the uneven temperature spread throughout his skull. It’s a little comforting with how familiar it feels, so right in ways that Katsuki shouldn’t let himself get used to. “I knew all of your bad habits and still agreed to move in. You barely have to even try, ya know. Could leave your dishes out until they grow mould. Could make a mess of your laundry all over. I’m drawing a line at my All Might figures though – we’re gonna have to go look for a display case. The one back at my place is too big to fit in your apartment.”

“And why have I never seen them before? These figures?” 

“You think I’m insane? What if you knocked one over?” 

Shouto huffs out a laugh, fingers tight against Katsuki’s face. 

Katsuki wants to close the gap between them, feel Shouto’s mouth on his. It’s been too damn long, over a misunderstanding that could have been resolved in a day had Katsuki just thought about it a little, but he holds back a minute longer, just to lay everything out in the open.

“You don’t stay over at mine at all, so you don’t really know.” Katsuki’s tongue darts out to trace his bottom lip, Shouto’s gaze dipping down to watch the movement. “All my bad habits.”

“Hm?” Shouto sounds out, eyes lingering for a moment longer before they find their way back to Katsuki’s again. “Did I hear that right? Did you just admit to having bad habits?” 

Katsuki scoffs, eyes rolling. “I’m dead serious.”

“Okay, well,” Shouto says, “I’d just tell you then. You’ll understand, right?” 

“I – yeah, but –”

“Katsuki,” and Shouto’s grip on his face tightens, a bit impatient. “I was trying to be polite. Letting you say your piece. But we’re talking circles at this point, and I’ve been wanting to kiss you since you said you wanted to move in with me.” He takes a breath. “I understand what you’re saying. You’re afraid. You know so much about me and you’re not coming in blind when we move in together, but I don’t know as much about you. I might get annoyed, I might not – whatever happens, it’ll be much better than you just staying here wondering if I might or not. And besides, there’s not much you could do that could make me not want to live with you. I was pretty angry about the whole thing, you know? But here I was, trying to walk in this weather to see you. Do you feel better –”

Katsuki moves before Shouto can finish, surging forward to finally – finally – close the gap between them. He feels the rain, the umbrella no doubt knocked clean off of Shouto’s arm in his haste, and he feels it again when his hands find their way to Shouto’s hair. The slowly-dampening-strands still feel so soft between his fingers as he threads deeper, trying to remember what it was like to have him. The past three weeks have felt maddening, with how much holding back Katsuki has been doing to not freak Shouto out, with how much they’ve talked and talked and talked and still Katsuki wasn’t able to say fuck it and kiss him.

Now he can.

When their mouths meet, Katsuki can practically taste how much Shouto wants it too. Can tell how much he was holding back as Katsuki was trying to sort his feelings out earlier, with the ferocity he kisses Katsuki back. Katsuki is dizzy with it, his heart feeling like it might just give out at this point.

They kiss for long minutes; Katsuki because he desperately needs to get it out of his fucking system and Shouto simply being Shouto. When Katsuki nips at Shouto’s bottom lip and tastes the rain, some sanity snaps back into him and he pulls back. For a while, they trade shuddering breaths between them, both their hands tangled in each other’s hair. 

“We should go to your apartment now,” Shouto decides.

“What?” Images of Shouto on his bed, on his couch, on any fucking flat surface in his apartment flash through Katsuki’s mind.

Shouto bends down to pick his umbrella back up, shielding them from the rain, though it’s entirely useless now that they’re both drenched to the point of no saving. “You should move your things to my place right now.”

Katsuki only has a few seconds to feel a bit bad that he’d completely forgotten about that part of the conversation, the ghost of Shouto’s hands in his hair and the taste of him on his tongue, before he remembers that they’re still in this goddamn time loop. “Ah, fuck,” he curses, Shouto raising his brows in turn. “I have a shift soon,” he says and instantly crosses the street once he sees that the pedestrian light is green.

Shouto follows along, not before dipping down to pick up Katsuki’s own umbrella, trying to keep Katsuki shielded from the rain. “Okay. Then after your shift? When do you get off?”

“Evening,” answers Katsuki. “Come by around seven?” He accepts his umbrella from Shouto and sprints the rest of the way to the vault building, careful to avoid any puddles. 

When he’s right in front of the building, there’s virtually no one around, everyone trying to keep out of the rain if they can help it. He makes a quick scan of the place before his eyes finally land on the familiar silhouette of the old lady selling flowers. 

“Hey!” He shouts, crossing the distance in a few quick steps. 

The old lady’s holding the same ratty old umbrella with the holes and Katsuki hands her his without thinking. She blinks, confused, then says, “Thank you.” Katsuki waits. “Oh!” She gestures to the drenched flowers on the ground. “Would you like to buy some flowers?”

Katsuki sighs, something relieved rather than tired. He hears Shouto’s footsteps behind him, squelchy with the way his soles graze the wet concrete with each step. 

“I’ll buy all of ‘em.”