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He sat on a bench outside the U.A. High dorms, the night air cool against his skin. The calmness outside not at all reflecting the way he felt. The sky was clear, bright stars illuminating his face as he glanced at his phone, contemplating the message he had typed out a dozen times but never sent.
The thoughts kept him awake, taunting him whenever he tried to close his eyes and find some sleep. He had hoped that running would help, but it was useless. No matter how exhausted his body was feeling, his mind kept racing, never stopping to give him a break. Finally, he stood up, taking a deep breath. There was no use delaying this any longer.
He found his target in the common room, staring intently at his notebook as usual. He couldn't quite see what the green-haired one was scribbling down, his hunched posture hiding most of the page. Bakugo hesitated at the doorway before stepping inside.
"Deku-" he halts. "Midoriya."
Izuku looked up, surprised. "Kacchan? You're still awake?"
Katsuki stuffs his hands into his pockets and looks away, mumbling something along the lines of "couldn't sleep." Silence falls over the room as the green-haired one waits for him to continue, a soft encouraging smile on his face.
"I... I wanted to talk to you." A rough expression paints his face, not used to talking to him like this, much less about his feelings.
Izuku sets his notebook down and motions for him to sit down with him. The blonde one stayed standing, his eyes flicking nervously around the room.
"I've been thinking," the taller one began, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "About everything that happened between us. How I treated you."
Izuku's eyes widened slightly, but he stayed silent, letting his rival continue.
"I was a real jerk," Katsuki said, his voice growing more strained. "No, worse than that. I bullied you, made your life hell."
The blonde clenched his fists. "I don't know why I was so angry. I didn't really have a reason to. I guess hating you just became a habit at one point and I never really stopped to think about why that is."
Opposed to the loud chatter that usually happened in the common room, it was now dead silent. With all the other students soundly sleeping in their rooms, the only thing you could hear was the slow breathing of the two boys. Katsuki expectantly stared at Izuku, but when the latter didn't say anything he continued his speech.
"It should have stopped in middle school, but then seeing you here made me so angry. You were always the quirkless nobody and somehow you still managed to catch up to me like it was nothing. Everyone here admires you and even All Might paid more attention to you! You! Although you didn't even have a quirk a few months ago you were all he cared about. I was just so jealous."
The shorter boy waited for an apology, but when that didn't occur he sighed. "It's okay Kacchan, really." He glanced up at him, giving him a weak smile.
Not expecting that reaction at all, he tries to avoid eye contact. His red eyes end up focusing on Izuku's arm, where he had left a deep burn mark after he had found out Izuku had made it into his dream school. He hisses at the memory.
This catches the attention of the other and he also glances down at his arm.
"It hurts, you know. Being reminded of what I did to you. The things I said. Every time I see your arm it's like a constant reminder of what a shitty person I was."
Izuku's expression hardened. "Oh. I'm sorry that the wound that I have to look at every day, the wound that you caused, makes you feel so awful."
"No, no c'mon I didn't mean it like that-"
"How do you think I feel, Kacchan?! You told me I was worthless. That I didn't deserve to go to that school. You told me to die. For years, you were the one person who made me doubt myself more than anyone else. This mark was a constant reminder."
Katsuki winced at the raw pain in Izuku's voice. "I know. I know that now. And... I'm.."
"You're what? Say it." The softness in his voice now completely gone.
"I'm.. you know what I mean, I don’t really do shit like this."
" 'shit like this'? You mean apologizing?" He lets out a sound of disbelief. Shaking his head, a laugh escapes his mouth. "I can't believe I actually thought you had changed."
The room was silent for a long moment, the weight of Katsuki's incapability to apologize hanging in the air.
"I have changed! I've been so much nicer to our classmates. I stopped calling you Deku. Kirishima says I'm now actually someone that you can call a friend. I'm trying my best to make up for everything."
"I appreciate that, Kacchan. I really do," Izuku said finally. "That's what you wanted to hear, right?
"I don't expect you to forgive me right away. I just... I needed to say it. To let you know that I regret it. That I'm trying to be better."
Izuku nodded slowly. "I can see that you're trying. I get it, saying 'I am sorry' is really, really difficult. Telling me to jump off a roof must have been so much easier for you, right?"
Before the other gets to defend himself, he continues. " 'You're worthless,' 'You shouldn't have been born in the first place,' 'Life would be so much better if you weren't around.' You burned this into my memory ever since I was little. Every day I train and train, and yet it's never enough. Not once have you acknowledged my efforts. Haven't I given enough? Why do I need to forgive you if you can’t even say those 3 simple words? Why do I always have to be the nice guy? Why are you allowed to just toy with my feelings however you see fit? You know, sometimes I wish you knew how I felt. There's not an ounce of empathy in your body. Sometimes I thought that if, just for one day, you could be in my shoes. If you could feel the pain that this quirk causes me, if you could hear the thoughts in my brain. If you could feel what I felt, would your behavior change? Would you finally be able to treat me like an actual human being?"
During his rant, he had stood up, getting closer and closer towards the short-tempered one. They were standing eye to eye, silence between them.
"Sometimes I think 'why me?'. What did I ever do to you? But I realized it doesn't matter. I think too much. There's no reason, right?" He waited for an answer, a single word, or even a simple head movement. But there's nothing. No apology, no reason, and no excuses. Just a semi-guilty-looking expression.
"Because of you, my mind is a prison I will never be able to escape. Even if you stop calling me Deku, I will never be able to get rid of that name. That reputation. That feeling of being absolutely and entirely useless. You will never be able to understand how I feel, but if you had at least put in the effort to try, then maybe, maybe I could've given you a second chance."
Katsuki nodded, accepting the reality of Izuku's words. "I'll prove it to you. I'll prove that I'm not that same person anymore."
He shakes his head. "It's too late for that now, Bakugo." The blonde winces, hearing his old childhood friend use his actual last name felt weird. It created a distance he didn't know he would come to hate. He looks after him as Izuku goes up the stairs, confused by the smile he shot him before he left.
Oh, how he would come to regret it.
That was the last time they had an actual conversation. Izuku stopped approaching him. Stopped looking at him. Whenever they had to train together, he would respond in limited vocabulary, acting like being near him was a punishment. But that wasn't the worst. What he couldn't handle was the use of his name.
Every time the word "Bakugo" left Izuku's mouth, he flinched, never getting used to the sound of it. It felt cold. He thought he hated the use of his childhood nickname, but now he was wishing for it. Wishing for things to go back to normal. But that was impossible.
He felt overwhelmed with emotions as he watched his classmates praise and admire Izuku, wishing he could be a part of it. For the first time, he realized he wasn't jealous of all the attention he was getting. He couldn't care less about that. All he wanted was to have Izuku look at him the way he used to, the way he's now looking at his classmates.
He was fed up with all of it, tired of feeling like this. He was going to put a stop to this mess.
Later that night, he knocked on Izuku's door. The smile he was wearing when he opened the door quickly disappeared when he looked into Bakugo's face. It stung.
He wasn't greeted nor welcomed in, just stared at with a raised eyebrow. After a few seconds of silence, he blurted it out. "I'm sorry, Midoriya."
The smile he was awaiting never came back; instead, a blank expression was painting his face. "Okay."
"Thank god! I was getting sick and tired of this whole distance thing. Now things can go back to how they were!"
"No."
"No? But I apologized!"
"You did."
"So what is the problem?!"
"It's too late now."
"Too late? What the fuck do you mean? I apologized just like you wanted me to!"
The smaller one shook his head in disbelief at his ignorance. "I wanted you to apologize weeks ago. I’ve been waiting for years and never once heard you say sorry. I'm glad you were finally able to apologize, but I can't forgive you."
Bakugo was at a loss for words, his eyes wide open as he stared at Izuku with a mixture of confusion and anger.
"If this was all, I wish you a good night, Bakugo." He was given no time to react as the green-haired one quickly closed the door.
Seconds passed, then minutes. He doesn’t know how long he spent there waiting. For what, he didn't know. It took a bit for his brain to realize what had happened, to accept that if he had been able to say those 3 words earlier, they could've worked things out.
But he had apologized too late and had to bear the consequences now.