Archive of Our Own

Light shone through his window, cold like the morning. There was a haze over everything, the kind of thing that would shatter if Katsuki moved wrong—if he sat up, got out of bed and turned the light on. He didn’t want to move. There was something sitting in the back of his mind, at the edge of his vision, tugging around his rib. He couldn’t quite remember what it was.

His duvet had slipped down off of his shoulder, leaving his arm bare. Katsuki closed his fingers over his palm. There wasn’t anything in his hand.

“And then we’ll find an even bigger one,” Deku said. In one hand he held a big stick. He had it pointed down under the side of a fallen log, trying to use it for leverage. It wasn’t working very well.

Katsuki crouched down beside him, set a hand on the log and rolled it over.

“Woah!” Deku said, crouching too. “Look at all the ants! And there was a worm there—Kacchan, did you see it?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki said. He’d seen it flick its tail, writhing as it dove back into the ground.

“Do you think there’s bigger beetles in the grass?” Deku said, holding his chin in one hand, “Because I was thinking, maybe there’s not room for a big one under a log.”

Katsuki looked up and around. They stood in an infinite meadow, and an endless blue sky spread above. “Maybe so,” he said, “We’ll look there next.”

Carefully, Katsuki sat up. If he moved slow enough, maybe he wouldn’t snap out of it.

He wasn’t sure what it was.

He padded over to his window, unlocked it and drew it up. It was dawn still, maybe. There were too many buildings to see the horizon, but the sky was a pale gray color. There were birds somewhere, singing.

Deku pushed aside a frond of grass with his stick. “Can you catch beetles in your hand, Kacchan?” he asked. “I forgot to bring a net.”

“Of course,” Katsuki said.

“Oh, here!” Deku said, and he took off his hat, turned it over and held it like a bowl. Then he looked up. “See Kacchan—we can keep him in here.”

“We’ll put some sticks in there,” Katsuki said, “Make it a good house.”

Deku shook his head. The motion came easy, like no one had ever shot him down. “It’s not a house, Kacchan—it’s his hero office. He’s our mascot.”

The bottom story of the house came out a little farther under Katsuki’s room. It was easy to slip out onto the roof, slide across it to the edge and drop down.

The dew lay heavy on the grass, spilling out over his feet, onto the bottom edges of his sweatpants. His parents would be sleeping still. He would have to be back before they woke. But that was easy enough. Katsuki was moving outside of normal time. This wasn’t the real morning yet—it was something liminal that came before.

Katsuki reached the edge of the yard, jumped up and grabbed the top of the wall. He pulled himself up with one hand.

“Do you think they need water?” Deku asked.

Katsuki’s view of him had changed, now that he carried the hat in his hands. Before, looking down, that’s all Katsuki had seen of him while they walked—a circle of yellow, a minor star come down to play in the light. Now Deku was all curls, the same color as the grass.

“We should go check by the river,” Deku continued. Then he started off in a different direction.

Katsuki looked ahead. There was a ribbon running down the meadow, slicing through it like a scar. That was the creek bank. He hadn’t seen it before.

“Hey—Deku!”

Deku stopped, looked back over his shoulder. The grass came up past his waist.

“Let’s not go there,” Katsuki said.

“Why not?” Deku said, tilting his head.

There was something in Katsuki’s throat. He could feel it there, lumping up.

“Come on!” Deku said, and then he took off running.

“Wait—wait!” Katsuki said, racing after him.

Down the street and across it, between two houses and out behind them, Katsuki slipped under a fence and out into an untended place. There was too much city here for anything really wild, like the mountains he’d seen on hikes—but this was the edge of a green space. He’d come here to play, as a kid.

Katsuki slowed down, careful of how he stepped. He was still in the clothes he’d slept in, his shoes still sitting on their shelf by the front door. He walked into a spiderweb, flailed for a moment, then brushed it off.

Up in a tree somewhere, he could hear a dove mourning.

Deku stopped at the bank, staring down at the water.

Katsuki slowed a little. He could catch him now, pull him back and away.

“Look,” Deku said, turning back, pointing down. Then his foot slipped, and he was gone. There was a splash.

Katsuki couldn’t yell. He ran to the edge of the bank.

“Woah!” Deku said, standing up and shaking out his hair. He looked fine. “That was crazy!”

Skidding down the edge of the bank, Katsuki landed in the water. It wasn’t deep.

“Maybe up there!” Deku said, pointing at the grass hanging down over the edge of the bank.

We should get out of here, Katsuki thought, I have to tell you something.

Suddenly, Katsuki was under the water. It wasn’t shallow anymore—it had sprung up and swallowed him in the blink of an eye. It was clear and rushing. The sunlight danced down into it, revealing little streams inside. That was enough to orient himself with. Katsuki kicked off his shoes and swam up to the surface. He felt his hand break free into open air.

The world popped like a bubble, but just before it burst, Katsuki remembered. He’d forgotten to grab Deku.

Katsuki crouched down at the edge of the creek. It was a lot smaller than he remembered it being, and different in other ways. Time and water had worn down its edges, carved it a little deeper.

Faintly, drizzle began to tap down on the trees behind him, poke at his back and neck, splash down circles in the moving water.

He felt for a pocket, but there weren’t any in these pants. And he’d left his phone at home. And if he called Deku, he’d pick up, but he wouldn’t reach him. Not the Deku from his dream, the one from so long ago.

Right here, Katsuki had known that Deku would be a hero. He’d known it as much as he knew anything. And he could tell him that now, but it wouldn’t be the same. All Might had beat him to it—and now everybody thought so, even Auntie Inko. Katsuki had a ten year head start on everybody, and all he’d done was bury the knowledge deep down, try to hide it even from himself.

He could never go back and say it when it mattered. He could never go back and say it first.