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“I think I need to break up with Eijirou.”
Suffice to say, Katsuki is in distress.
Eijirou is the same person he fell in love with. He’s everything he has always been—kind, and warm, and strong. So, clearly, it’s Katsuki that’s the problem. His stupid, fucked-up brain that can’t seem to ever be satisfied with a good thing once he’s got it.
It had started slowly: a passing thought after a night out together, an itch under his skin. Then the feeling began to linger. It became harder to ignore, hanging around the edges of their time together. A twinge of something decidedly uneasy.
When had the two of them ever been anything but easy?
This had not been part of the plan. Katsuki doesn’t do shit halfway ever, and falling in love had not been immune to that. He had figured out Eijirou was someone special about five minutes into meeting him, and even if he didn’t know what it meant, he was smart enough to wait on it.
Time had proven him correct—the sports festival, Kamino, the wall between their rooms, and unlocked doors at night—and then there was the war.
The war. They had survived a war together. Katsuki had literally died and come back to life, and then the waiting became more of a forced hiatus on acknowledging anything other than the problems in front of them.
So, yeah. The confessing and the dating and everything else took a little bit more time than he would have liked, but he still got there in the end because he knew he would. He’s an all-or-nothing guy. The best at everything he puts his hands on, and he was putting his hands somewhere they couldn’t hurt.
Once he had started dating Eijirou, that was it. He was ready to see it through to the beautiful, beat-villains-up-and-run-off-into-the-sunset-together end.
Katsuki just hadn’t expected the end to be so soon.
He’s been spiraling for days. It’s dire enough that he’s turning to Izuku for advice. That has to count for something, right? Eijirou had gone after the League of Villains to save him, and now Katsuki’s going to Deku to save them. Equal in risk. Hopefully, equal in reward.
He cares that much. He might care too much—which could be the problem.
Katsuki throws himself onto one of the armchairs in the otherwise empty common room, where Izuku is choking on nothing and dissolving into a violent coughing fit. Dramatic.
“Well?” he prompts.
“I’m just a little confused,” Izuku gestures, face still splotched with red. “You were napping on him at breakfast, and now you want to break up with him? Did something happen?”
Did something happen? Why the fuck else would he be here?
“I don’t want to break up with him,” Katsuki stresses. “I think I might have to. This is serious.”
“Okay, okay,” Izuku straightens, brow furrowing. “I’m sorry. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Not that serious,” Katsuki corrects. This is already harder than he thought it was going to be. “I’m just—I’m having a reaction.”
“…an allergic one?”
“No, you dumbass—well. Maybe? I can’t stop thinking about everything he does,” Katsuki says.
“Oh,” Izuku says. “Okay. That’s sweet.”
“No, it is not sweet. None of it is sweet.” He pauses. Inhales. Here it goes. “I think I have the ick.”
And—nothing. Katsuki would’ve appreciated another coughing fit at the very least, but whatever.
Instead, Izuku leans back at him and squints. “I didn’t know you knew that word.”
“I know everything,” Katsuki retorts, not bothering to explain the fact that Mina’s vocabulary has practically engraved itself on his frontal lobe. “Can we get back to my problem now?”
“Yes,” Izuku sighs. Katsuki tries not to take offense at how long-suffering it sounds, given that they’ve only been talking for two minutes. “So what did he do? I can’t imagine it’s anything too bad. He’s not the type to be rude to service workers or do anything particularly unhygienic in front of other people. He is still a teenage boy, but so are you, and actually, when I think about it, Kirishima-kun has always been very charming—”
“Oi,” Katsuki cuts him off. “That’s still my boyfriend.”
“I know that, Kacchan,” Izuku says. “I’m just trying to figure out why—oh! Oh, Kacchan. Could it be because you find some of his behaviors…cringe?”
His silence is answer enough.
“Kacchan.”
“You don’t understand,” Katsuki says desperately. Izuku just looks at him with expectant eyes. “He keeps trying to impress me,” he continues. “In public.”
“Okay? What’s wrong with that?”
This is so humiliating. Katsuki drags his palms down his face. He’s allowed a little melodrama, sue him.
“We went out to the arcade last weekend and he spent about 5000 yen trying to win me a plushie from one of those rigged claw machines.”
Izuku’s lips tilt up. “That sounds like him. You know he’s a romantic.”
“Sure, yes, whatever.” Katsuki allows. “But then he couldn’t win any, so he started bribing children with his tickets for the ones they had. Small children. With their parents with them.”
The smile twitches. “Oh.”
It had worked, too. Katsuki isn’t here to undermine his own case, but the stuffed dragon that now sits on his bed is so soft.
“Or when we played the basketball game,” Katsuki slouches further down into his chair, hands still over his eyes. His ears are burning. “He kept saying this one’s for you, babe, and missing.”
“It kinda sounds like you liked it though.” That's Denki’s voice floating over the back of the couch. “What’s up, Midoriya?”
“Kacchan is gay,” Izuku says, similar to how one might say the sky is blue. “We’re dealing with it.”
Denki seems to consider this an invitation to stay, sliding into the seat next to Izuku.
“Word,” he says. “I know a thing or two about that.”
Through the gaps in his fingers, Katsuki watches as he punctuates that statement with an idiotic wink. Izuku, for some reason, blushes.
“I’m fucked,” Katsuki groans. “Go away.”
“Nah,” Denki says. “This seems fun. Tell me your woes, Kacchan.”
On any other day, Katsuki would rather die. Even today, he still would rather die. But he’s already given up the guise of having standards of care, and he really does just want someone else to tell him how to solve this problem. Who better than Eijirou’s best friend? Denki’s one of the cringiest people he knows, and he apparently still flusters boys with his horrible flirting.
“Well…”
Once he starts, he can’t stop—every instance of it all tumbles out of his mouth like a horrifying cascade of Eijirou-isms.
“Do you remember the other day when we ran into that guy with the magnetizing quirk on patrol? Everything was going fine until he got the slip on us by throwing me into a wall.”
He says the last part very quickly. The details are unimportant, but he’s still pissed about his gauntlets being used against him like that.
“But then,” Katsuki puts his head in his hands, “Eijirou got all Unbreakable and went ‘no more Mister Nice Guy’ and chased after him.”
“Chivalry, babe,” is how Eijirou had justified it. Katsuki could barely look him in the eye as they processed the paperwork afterwards, even if the idea of Eijirou coming to his defense chivalrously was kind of nice.
“Or yesterday at lunch,” Katsuki continues, “he laughed so hard at your lame-ass joke that milk squirted out of his nose,” he shudders. “Strawberry milk. Everywhere.”
Denki snickers at the memory. “Like if Aizawa sensei trapped you with his capture weapon, you wouldn’t think about giving him some Eraser hea—”
Hearing it once was enough, no matter how true it may be. Katsuki bulldozes on.
“He chews with his mouth open and talks with his mouth full. I don’t spend time making him lunch every day just for it to fall out of his face.”
Every day, Denki mouths, elbowing Izuku in the side. Izuku smacks his arm. Idiots.
They both already knew that. Everyone knew that. Hagakure had once spent a week straight begging Katsuki to make her a lunch bento, and he never did. That’s a special privilege for Eijirou. As if he didn’t make the whole class dinner at least once a week.
“And don’t even get me started about his stupid fucking Crocs.”
“Hey! You knew about his Crocs when you agreed to date him. They’re literally a package deal,” Denki says, like he’s Eijirou’s fucking keeper.
Katsuki glowers. He knows this. No one is taking him seriously. “Have you seen him try to run in them? He always forgets to put them in fucking, sports mode, or whatever it’s called. They fell off his feet at the mall, and he just kept going. Bare feet on the floor in public.”
The slap slap slap sound it made still haunts him, even though it was eclipsed by the fact that Eijirou was running towards him.
Katsuki had laughed when they’d flown off, and again at the sheepish way Eijirou went to retrieve them. That was a good day too—brushing their arms against each other as they window-shopped, sneaking kisses in between clothing racks. Eijirou had wiggled his “mall toes” at Katsuki over lunch, and they played footsie in the food court.
Whatever.
“Every time he hears an ambulance siren, he goes, ‘That’s my ride!’”
“He once squatted down next to an old Nomu crash site and loudly apologized to the city of Musutafu for falling on his ass there.”
“He washes his face with hand soap because it’s more convenient.”
“There was that one time he got stuck in a wall because he forgot he could just turn his quirk off.”
“He makes puns about the menu every time we go out to eat.” Katsuki’s a little out of breath at this point, in a cathartic, light-headed sort of way. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard him say ‘I like this a latte’ to a barista? It was cute the first time, but do you know how many times—”
“Hey, not too much on puns,” Denki says. “I happen to love a pun. Everyone loves a pun.”
“Some are clever,” Izuku agrees, because he’s abandoned Katsuki entirely. “It’s just his sense of humor.”
“His sense of humor is atrocious,” Katsuki snipes. “That’s why he thinks it’s so funny. He’s worse than you, and you are terrible,” he directs this at Denki, who deserves it for the crime of being there.
“I’m texting Sero,” Denki says. “This is blasphemy. I’m kicking you out of the Bakusquad.”
“It’s my name. You can’t just—”
“Like what?” Izuku interjects. “It can’t just be the puns. I feel like there’s something else.”
There is. Of course there is. The memory alone makes Katsuki wince.
“That means yes,” Izuku says. “Come on. It really can’t be that bad.”
It can. It is.
“One time,” Katsuki whispers, in disbelief that he’s even sharing this, “I told him I was horny, and he went, ‘Hi, horny, I’m Eijirou.’”
There’s a pause. Denki snorts.
Izuku sucks in a breath. Katsuki can’t tell if it’s sympathetic or if he’s trying not to laugh, which pisses him off more. “Kacchan, maybe you should talk with him about this.”
“I don’t even know why I'm talking to you about this,” he grouses. “Get the fuck out of my face.”
“I was sitting here first,” Izuku reminds him, instead of pissing all over himself in fear. Stupid Deku, he thinks. There used to be an order to things. Now, everyone thinks they can get away with some nonsense because Eijirou turned him soft.
“I’ll show you soft,” he mutters under his breath.
Now Izuku looks scared for all the wrong reasons. “What was that?”
Katsuki shakes his head roughly.
“He’s just—he doesn’t have an ounce of shame,” he explodes. “Doesn’t care at all about what other people think.”
Izuku just looks at him like he’s waiting for him to catch up. “I think I know someone like that.”
Katsuki briefly wonders if it would be okay to start bullying him again.
“Don’t even start,” he says instead, because he refuses to let Izuku get a rise out of him. “Ei and I are nothing alike.”
He’s too damn open, and he’s too damn nice, and he wears basketball shorts in the winter.
“So what?” Denki says. “You had to take a breather and remind yourself why you’re dating him? Let me guess, you did exactly that and were overwhelmed by how many reasons you had, but you’re so emotionally constipated that you think you have to break up over it.”
All neat perception. Katsuki blinks. Izuku blinks.
Denki looks up from his phone at them. “What? I pay attention.”
“Yeah,” Izuku says faintly, and that’s disgusting. “You do.”
Denki smiles at him. Izuku smiles back. It’s all very sweet and unhelpful.
“Are you guys done?” Katsuki motions with his hand. “Hello? Not like I’m having a crisis here.”
Izuku rolls his eyes, which is insane. “Kacchan, relax.”
“Relax? I’ll beat your ass.”
“You know he’s obsessed with you, right?” Denki says. “You have to know. He’s practically yelling it from the rooftops like he’s coming for Mic’s job.”
Izuku is definitely laughing at him now, the little shit. “I heard him in the locker room yesterday when you took your shirt off.”
“AWOOOOOOOOOGA,” Denki mimics with enthusiasm. “Ah. Young love is a gift.”
Katsuki gives him a cutting look. The memory makes him feel warm under the collar, but that’s not the business of anyone in the room. Denki throws his hands up in the air and swivels away.
“All I’m saying is that you can’t fault him for how he shows it. Love languages, dude.”
“I’m not faulting him,” Katsuki mutters, even though he’s been faulting him for the last twenty minutes. “I’m—I’m just coping.”
Izuku gets an odd shine in his eyes. “You don’t waste your time, do you, Kacchan?” he says. “Not unless you’re avoiding something you already know the answer to.”
And isn’t that just the damn thing about being known—Izuku, who’s been acquainted with every wrinkle in his brain since they were in diapers, proving it out loud with time-stopping nonchalance.
“In fact,” he continues delicately. “All of these things about Kirishima-kun were true before you started dating him. I think you knew exactly what you were getting yourself into.”
A few horrifying realizations begin to dawn on him.
One: Izuku is right. Just thinking it makes his skin crawl.
Two: Kirishima Eijirou is cringe as fuck, and Katsuki is in love with him anyway.
You’re obsessed with him, too!!! the voice in his head sings. You’re obsessed with him, too, and everybody can tell!!!
Right on time, Izuku chimes in. “You’re not embarrassed by him. You’re embarrassed by yourself. How much you like him. How much you love him, aw, Kacchan—”
Katsuki finally gives in to the impulse and swats him.
“He tags me in every social media giveaway he sees,” Katsuki grumbles, already aware that it’s a flailing attempt to stand his ground. “And he always stops on patrol to talk to kids. Takes twice as long.”
Izuku doesn’t even grace that with a response, but one comes anyway.
“Hey, Katsuki?”
Fuck. Denki and Izuku are suddenly very invested in staring into each other's eyes, looking anywhere but at him, fucking traitors.
Eijirou’s voice is small. “You noticed all of that…about me?”
How long have you been here? he wants to scream. What did you hear???
“Well, yeah,” Katsuki says. He suddenly feels as if the conversation has turned on its head, like a predator that’s become prey to a much larger beast. “You’re ruining my street cred,” he grumbles. “How is anyone supposed to fear the Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight when his boyfriend is such a…such a…” he gestures feelingly to all of Eijirou’s person.
Eijirou, for some fucking reason, glows. “Bro, it’s so manly that you like me enough to sacrifice your street cred.”
Katsuki sours. “You know how I feel about you calling me that.”
Eijirou smiles, all teeth, as he always does, and he doesn’t look the least bit offended. His eyelids crinkle in the way they do whenever he thinks Katsuki is being cute.
“Sorry, baby,” he amends. Katsuki doesn’t dare look at Izuku or Denki, both of whom are vibrating with glee on the couch beside him. “It’s so manly that you like me enough to sacrifice your street cred.”
“I do,” he admits, because he does, and maybe he was overreacting a little bit. “God, this is so fucking embarrassing.”
“I am cringe, but I am free,” Kirishima says solemnly. Denki nods in apparent solidarity behind him.
“Shut the fuck up, Dunce Face,” Bakugou says, although Denki hasn’t said anything. “I know what you did.”
Denki’s hand flies to his chest in faux outrage, and he stands, yanking Izuku up with him. “Whatever. I’m leaving. Kirishima, your boyfriend is such a bitch.”
“Such a bitch,” Eijirou agrees, although he looks a little starry-eyed about it. Gross, Katsuki thinks, but it also makes him want to squish his cheeks together until his lips push out like a fish. Kiss him, maybe. Kiss him, definitely.
After the peanut gallery finally clears out, he faces his boyfriend and takes a deep breath.
“Eijirou,” he says, careful but firm. “You kinda give me the ick sometimes.”
Eijirou laughs. Cackles until he’s thumping himself on the chest because he can’t catch his breath, and it’s so embarrassing. So embarrassing. Katsuki knows he’s smiling. He can’t look away.
“Oh man,” Eijirou says after he’s finally calmed down enough to be intelligible. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over hearing you use slang like that. Was that all?”
Katsuki can only offer half a shrug, because—yeah.
“I hate to break it to you, Kats…but sometimes you wear your pants so low, we all can see your underwear.”
That is not at all where he thought this was going.
“Excuse me?” Katsuki splutters.
“You fall asleep in the middle of every movie. You spit when you talk,” Eijirou continues. “Media training sticks with you like an oil spill in the ocean. You handle your emotions like a hungry toddler—you’ve gotten way better about that, by the way. Also, when you smile in pictures, it looks like you’re being held hostage.”
“Okay?” Katsuki asks, mildly incensed by the direction this has taken. Eijirou reaches for him, pulls him in close. He smells like Axe body spray and also like home.
“And I love you. But damn if you don’t give me the ick sometimes too.”
~
“I noticed you didn’t have anything to say about my hair,” Eijirou says, later. “Does that mean you finally admit how much you like it?"
Red is probably his favorite color now, but Katsuki would rather die than say that out loud. Instead, he reaches into his boyfriend’s stupid, shitty hair, yanks him down, and lets him know exactly what he thinks.