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Chapter Text

The flash of the paparazzi's cameras was a constant, strobing heartbeat. Katsuki Bakugou leaned against the sleek hood of his sports car, a scowl etched onto his face that the media interpreted as brooding sex appeal rather than profound irritation.

"Dynamight! Over here! Give us a smile with your lady!"

"Lizardy! How does it feel to be dating the most explosive hero in Japan?"

Setsuna Tokage, ever the performer, laughed—a bright, chiming sound that carried over the noise. She looped her arm through Katsuki's and leaned into his side, tilting her face up toward his. 

"Oh, you know," she purred, her voice pitched for the reporters, "he keeps me on my toes! Never a dull moment!"

It was their cue. Katsuki looked down at her, and for the benefit of the lenses pointed at them, his scowl softened into something approximating smoldering affection. He dipped his head, capturing her lips in a kiss that was all showmanship—a calculated angle, just the right amount of passion, held for exactly three seconds before pulling back.

The camera shutters went into a frenzy. The crowd of fans behind the barriers screamed their approval.

DYNAMIGHT AND LIZARDY: FIRE AND SCALES! THE HOTTEST NEW HERO COUPLE! 

The headline practically wrote itself.

Katsuki didn't look at the crowd. He opened the car door for her, a chivalrous gesture that was part of the script, and slid into the driver's seat. The moment the doors were closed, the performance ended.

The silence inside the soundproofed car was a vacuum.

Setsuna let out a soft sigh, pulling down the visor to check her lipstick in the mirror. 

"Well, that should keep them fed for a week," she said, her tone now flat and businesslike. "Your 'brooding rebel' thing is really working for them. Lean into it harder next time."

"Tch. Whatever," Katsuki grunted, pulling away from the curb with more force than necessary. He didn't need her notes on his acting.

They drove in silence for a few blocks before she spoke again. 

"My ranking jumped two spots this month. The 'Dynamight bump' is very real." A note of genuine satisfaction colored her voice. "My merch sales are up thirty percent."

"Good for you," he muttered, eyes fixed on the road.

"It's good for us," she corrected smoothly. "Your Q-score is through the roof. The 'tamed bad boy' narrative is a goldmine. The Commission loves it. They're talking about giving you that solo international mission you wanted."

He didn't respond. The rewards—the higher rankings, the prime missions, the public adoration—were supposed to be the point. They were the consolation prize for the gaping hole in his chest. Most days, they felt like ashes.

Twenty minutes later, they were in a private booth at a high-end cocktail bar, the kind with dim lighting and prices that ensured no paparazzi would ever get in. Two glasses of expensive whiskey sat between them, untouched.

This was the real ritual. The debrief.

"The narrative is solid," Setsuna said, swirling the amber liquid in her glass. "We're passionate but competitive. We keep each other sharp. It's a good look. Better than the..." she waved a hand, searching for the word, "...the melancholy lone wolf thing you were doing before."

"I wasn't melancholy," he snapped.

"You were moping," she said bluntly, taking a sip. "And it was terrible for brand synergy. This..." 

She gestured between them.

"This is clean. It's easy. People get it."

He knew what she meant. People didn't get them. What they had was... complicated. A history so tangled it was impossible to unravel. A partnership so seamless it felt like a single mind in two bodies. A love so all-consuming it had terrified him into self-sabotage.

This—the arrangement with Setsuna—was simple. Transactional. It asked for nothing he wasn't willing to give: his time, his image, a few staged kisses.

It worked for him. It had to.

She studied him over the rim of her glass, her sharp eyes missing nothing. 

"You know, for a guy who's supposedly dating the most interesting woman in the top twenty, you're incredibly boring company."

"You're not paying me to be interesting," he shot back. "You're paying me to be your damn boyfriend prop."

"Touché." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. She leaned forward slightly. "You never talk about him, you know."

The air in the booth went cold. Katsuki froze, his glass halfway to his lips. 

"Who?"

"Don't be dense, Bakugo. Deku." She said the name like it was a curiosity. "The great 'Power Duo.' The childhood friend. The one you can't stop looking at during press conferences when you think no one's watching."

Katsuki's grip on the glass tightened. 

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Isn't there?" she pressed, her voice dropping, not with malice, but with a journalist's curiosity. "The way you two were... it wasn't normal. Even for rivals. It was..."

"It was nothing," he interrupted, his voice a low, dangerous warning. He slammed the whiskey back in one burning gulp and stood up, throwing a wad of cash on the table. "We're done here."

He didn't wait for her response. He turned and walked out, leaving her alone in the booth.

He stood on the sidewalk, the cool night air doing little to cool the sudden, hot shame that had erupted inside him. The mask was supposed to keep those questions out. The lie was supposed to be airtight.

But Setsuna was too clever. She saw the cracks.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking, the image of the staged kiss already fading, replaced by the memory of a different kiss—one in the rain, born from vulnerability and salvation, that had tasted like truth.

A truth he had traded for a lie that was starting to feel tighter every day.

Chapter Text

The villain was a teleporter, a slippery, chaotic nuisance who'd been hitting high-security banks across three prefectures. He called himself "Skip," and he was currently giving a dozen top-tier heroes the runaround in the middle of Shinjuku.

Chaos was Katsuki's element. But today, the chaos felt different. It was grating, unfocused. He was off his game, his reactions a split-second too slow, his explosions a decibel too loud.

"Dynamight! He's vectoring toward the east exit! I need a concussive blast to herd him back!" The voice in his comms was calm, analytical, and felt like a physical blow to Katsuki's sternum.

Deku.

Of course it was Deku. The universe had a sick sense of humor. The one mission, the one villain, that required the precise, brutal synergy that only they possessed.

"I KNOW!" Katsuki roared back, already blasting himself into the prescribed airspace. He didn't need the nerd to tell him his job. He could see the same tactical layout, could predict the same moves. Their minds, even now, worked in the same terrifying, perfect tandem.

He unleashed a Howitzer Impact variation, not to destroy, but to displace. The air shuddered, creating a concussive wall that forced the teleporting villain to abort his jump and rematerialize right where Izuku had predicted.

Blackwhip lashed out from a nearby rooftop, snagging the villain's ankle for a crucial half-second.

"Now, Kacchan!"

The old name, the familiar command, spoken with the same unwavering trust as always. It was a gut-punch.

Katsuki moved on pure instinct. A pinpoint AP Shot, fired without a moment's hesitation, struck the device on the villain's wrist—the source of his teleportation quirk. It sparked and died.

The fight was over in the next instant. Police swarmed in.

On the ground, amidst the settling dust and the wail of sirens, the aftermath began. Katsuki landed roughly, his boots crunching on debris. His heart was hammering, not from the fight, but from the jarring, painful familiarity of it all.

He saw Izuku land a dozen yards away, already giving calm, efficient orders to the police. He was the picture of professional competence. The Symbol of Hope, in control.

Their eyes met across the chaos.

For a single, heart-stopping second, the world narrowed again. The noise faded. It was just them, standing in the wreckage of a battle they had won together, as they always did. The air crackled with a thousand unsaid things—the memory of the last time they'd stood like this, the press conference, the empty apartment, the devastating silence.

Katsuki's throat went dry. His mouth opened. An apology? An excuse? A plea? He didn't know what would come out, only that he had to say something to bridge the chasm he had created.

But before a single sound could escape, Izuku's gaze flickered away. The connection severed. The professional mask of Deku slid back into place, smooth and impenetrable.

He gave a short, curt nod in Katsuki's general direction, a gesture of professional courtesy so cold it was worse than a slap.

"Good work, Dynamight," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth, any history. It was the voice he used for strangers.

Then he turned his back and walked away, seamlessly integrating into the huddle of police and sidekicks, leaving Katsuki standing alone.

The dismissal was absolute. Final.

Katsuki stood frozen, the words he'd almost spoken turning to ash on his tongue. The adrenaline of the fight curdled into a sick, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He felt... dismissed. Erased.

A medic approached him. 

"Dynamight, sir, you've got some shrapnel in your arm. Let me take a look."

Katsuki jerked his arm away, a snarl forming on his lips. 

"Don't touch me," he hissed, the words laced with a venom meant for someone else entirely.

He stormed off, pushing past startled responders, needing to get away from the scene, from the lingering ghost of their partnership, from the crushing weight of Izuku's indifference.

The mission was a success. The villain was captured. The Power Duo was unstoppable.

But off-duty, in the silent space between them, the distance had never been greater. And the ache to cross it was a physical pain, sharper than any shrapnel.

Chapter Text

The first bell of the day hadn't even rung, and Gym Gamma was already a whirlwind of controlled chaos and earnest effort. The air hummed with the thwack of projectiles, the grunts of exertion, and the sharp, focused voice of Midoriya-sensei.

"Yumi! Don't fight the recoil, guide it! Your quirk is part of you, not something separate you have to wrestle into submission!"

"That's it, Kenji! Hold that frequency! You're in control!"

Izuku moved through the groups of students, a steady, calming presence. His eyes missed nothing, catching a flawed stance here, a flicker of doubt there. He offered a correcting touch on a shoulder, a word of encouragement, a demonstration of a better form.

This was his anchor. His sanctuary.

In the weeks since the... separation, his life had found a new rhythm, one built not around another person's volatile moods, but around his own sense of purpose.

The mornings were for training, for pouring everything he had into these kids. He saw their struggles—the fear of their own power, the pressure to live up to impossible standards—and he saw himself in them. He knew how to guide them because he remembered every misstep, every moment of encouragement that had saved him.

"Think of it like this," he said to a first-year who was struggling to control a sonic scream. "You're not shouting at the world. You're directing your voice. You're having a conversation. Be precise."

The boy's next attempt was quieter, more focused. The beam of sound hit the target dead center. His face lit up with stunned pride.

Izuku's answering smile was genuine, reaching his eyes. 

"Amazing! See? You've got this."

The word didn't taste like ash anymore. Here, with them, it was just true. It was a gift he could give freely, without conditions, without it being used as fuel for someone else's ego.

Later, in the classroom, the questions were different but his purpose was the same.

"Sensei, how do you balance offensive power with rescue protocols in an urban environment?"

"Sensei, what if your quirk is better for support than direct combat? Does that make you less of a hero?"

He answered them all with patience and deep thought, often using his own past failures as teaching moments. He was building them up, helping them forge their own identities, free from the shadows he himself had struggled under.

At lunch, he sat with Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki in the teachers' lounge. The atmosphere was easy, light.

"You should have seen him, Ochaco," he said, laughing around a bite of rice as he recounted Kenji's breakthrough with his vibration quirk. "The look on his face—pure shock! It was great."

Uraraka smiled, but her eyes, as always, were a little too perceptive. 

"You're really in your element with them, Deku. It's good to see."

It was a gentle probe. They'd all noticed the change. The slight easing of the tension in his shoulders. The return of a light behind his eyes that hadn't been there during the last, strained months of secrecy.

He was lighter. The constant, low-grade anxiety of managing another person's emotional state, of walking on eggshells, of feeding a bottomless need for praise—it was gone. The silence in his apartment was no longer a waiting, aching thing; it was peaceful. It was his.

"I am," he agreed, his smile softening. "They remind me why we do this. It's simple, with them."

It wasn't that he wasn't sad. The love for Kacchan was a deep, old scar that would always ache when it rained. The memory of what they'd had, and the brutal way it had ended, was a permanent fixture in his heart.

But the constant, draining pain of it was receding. It was being replaced by something else: a steady sense of self, rebuilt piece by piece in the sunlight of his students' admiration and his friends' unwavering support.

He wasn't defined by the relationship anymore. He was defined by his work, his principles, his ability to nurture the next generation.

He was Izuku Midoriya. He was Deku, the Symbol of Hope.

And for the first time in a very long time, that felt like enough.

As the afternoon sun streamed through the windows of his classroom, illuminating the eager faces of his students, he knew he was on the right path. It was a path of his own choosing, built on truth and purpose, not secrecy and fear.

He was healing. Not by forgetting, but by building a future so full of light that the shadows of the past could no longer reach him.

Chapter Text

The restaurant was the kind of place where the lighting was low enough to hide secrets and the prices were high enough to ensure no one would overhear them. Katsuki pushed a piece of expertly seared wagyu around his plate, the rich flavor turning to ash in his mouth.

Across the table, Setsuna Tokage took a delicate sip of wine, her eyes scanning the room with a predator's casual assessment. This was their version of a date night: a public appearance followed by a private debrief, dissecting their performance like directors reviewing dailies.

"The shoot with Hero Weekly is next Tuesday," she said, setting her glass down with a precise click. "They want a 'domestic' vibe. Maybe you cooking, me sneaking up to taste it. Playful. The fans eat that 'I can tame the beast' trope up."

Katsuki grunted, not looking up from his plate. He lied.

"I don't cook."

"You boil water for ramen. That's enough. We'll get a stylist to make it look gourmet." She waved a dismissive hand. "The metrics from the last interview are stellar. My engagement is up forty percent. I'm projecting a jump into the top twenty after the gala next month."

There was a naked, gleaming ambition in her voice. It was the one thing about her he could respect. It was honest.

"Congratulations," he muttered, the word utterly devoid of feeling.

"It's congratulations for us, Bakugo," she corrected, her tone sharpening slightly. "This 'Power Couple' brand is a synergistic goldmine. Your 'unapproachable bad boy' image gets softened by my presence, making you more marketable. My 'clever strategist' persona gets a boost from your raw power and fame. We're a perfect... business proposition."

She said it so plainly, so without artifice. A perfect business proposition. That's all they were.

He finally looked up at her. She was watching him, her head tilted, a curious, almost analytical look on her face. She was dissecting him, too.

"You know," she said, her voice dropping from its performative pitch to something more genuine, "for a guy who's supposedly dating the woman every magazine is calling 'the catch of the decade,' you have the emotional range of a brick. Most men would at least pretend to be having a good time."

"I'm not most men."

"No," she agreed, a slow smile playing on her lips. "You're not. You're a man who spends his free time staring into the middle distance like a tragic romance novel hero." 

She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. 

"You never talk about him, you know."

The air left the room. The casual clatter of cutlery, the low murmur of other conversations—it all faded into a dull roar in his ears. He didn't need to ask who. The pronoun was a knife.

"There's nothing to talk about," he ground out, his fist clenching around his fork.

"Isn't there?" she pressed, undeterred. Her eyes were sharp, missing nothing. "The great Dynamight and Deku. The story of the century. Childhood rivals, partners, the 'Power Duo'... and then... radio silence. Now you're here with me, playing house for the cameras. It doesn't add up."

He could feel the walls slamming down, the familiar, defensive anger surging up. 

"It's none of your damn business."

"It became my business the moment you signed on to be my fake boyfriend," she shot back, her voice cool. "My brand is tied to yours. Your mysteries become my problems. So, what was it? A falling out? A professional dispute? Did you finally have it out and he won?"

The assumption was so off-base, so laughably innocent, that it almost hurt more than the truth. She saw a professional rivalry, not a heart he'd personally carved out of his own chest.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't sit here and reduce what they had—what he'd had—to industry gossip.

He threw his napkin on the table. 

"We're done here."

He stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. A few heads turned at the sound.

Setsuna didn't flinch. She just leaned back in her chair, swirling her wine, a knowing, almost pitying look in her eyes. She hadn't gotten her answer, but she'd gotten a reaction. And for someone like her, a reaction was an answer in itself.

"Fine," she said lightly. "Run away. But the bill is yours this time. Consider it a consulting fee for my emotional labor."

He didn't dignify that with a response. He turned on his heel and walked out, leaving her sitting there, the perfectly composed master of a game he was losing badly.

The cool night air did nothing to calm the furious, humiliated pounding of his heart. She saw right through him. She saw the cracks in the facade, the ghost haunting his every step.

And her utterly wrong, painfully simplistic guesses only highlighted the profound, isolating truth of what he'd lost.

It wasn't a professional dispute.

It was a death. And he was the one who had pulled the trigger, only to realize he couldn't live with the silence that followed.

Chapter Text

The izakaya was their sanctuary. The familiar, noisy chaos of sizzling skewers, clinking glasses, and overlapping voices had always been the backdrop to their camaraderie. Tonight, it felt like a stage for a particularly awkward play.

The Bakusquad had claimed their usual large table in the back. The energy was forced. Katsuki was there, a dark cloud at the head of the table, with Setsuna tucked possessively against his side. She was playing her part to perfection, laughing a little too loudly at Kaminari's dumb jokes, her fingers tracing idle patterns on Katsuki's arm.

He was tolerating it. His arm was a tense bar under her touch, his responses to the group's chatter little more than grunts. He was performing, but the effort was palpable.

"Come on, man, you're not even drinking!" Kaminari whined, sloshing beer as he tried to refill Katsuki's glass. "This is a celebration! You and Lizardy are, like, trending nationwide!"

"Yeah, babe," Setsuna purred, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Loosen up. We're among friends." 

The endearment sounded like a brand name.

Kirishima, sitting across from them, didn't join in the ribbing. He was watching Katsuki, his red eyes narrowed in quiet concern. He saw the rigid set of his best friend's shoulders, the way his smile was more of a baring of teeth. This wasn't the happy, bragging Katsuki of a new relationship. This was a man wearing a straitjacket at a party.

The door to the private room slid open with a familiar rattle.

The Dekusquad had arrived.

The noise at the table died instantly.

Izuku stood in the doorway, flanked by Uraraka and Iida. He was mid-laugh at something Todoroki had said, his face open and relaxed. Then his eyes found the table. Found them.

The smile on his face didn't vanish, but it underwent a subtle, terrifying shift. It cooled from genuine warmth to the polite, professional mask of the Number Four Hero. It was the same mask he'd worn at the charity gala.

"Oh!" Uraraka said, her voice a little too bright. "We didn't know you guys would be here!"

"The more the merrier!" Mina chirped, though her eyes were wide with panic. She desperately waved them over. "Squeeze in! We'll get more chairs!"

It was the most excruciating social negotiation of all time. Chairs were scraped, bodies were shifted. Izuku, Uraraka, and Iida ended up on the opposite side of the table, a gulf of Formica and unspoken history between them.

The two groups stared at each other, the air thick enough to chew.

Katsuki's whole body went rigid. Setsuna, sensing the shift, leaned into him even more, a living, breathing claim. 

"Well, this is a surprise!" she said, her voice cutting through the silence. "The whole gang's here."

"Indeed!" Iida said, his robotic chopping motion a little too forceful. "A most unexpected but pleasant confluence!"

No one else spoke.

Kaminari, the eternal peacemaker, tried to break the tension. 

"So, uh, Deku! Heard you took down that hydro-thief in Koto Ward! Pretty manly!"

"It was a team effort," Izuku said smoothly, his gaze fixed firmly on Kaminari, never once drifting to the other side of the table. "Uraraka's zero gravity was the key to containing the flood."

"Oh, it was nothing!" Uraraka said, her smile strained.

Another silence descended.

From across the table, Katsuki watched Izuku. He watched the easy way he interacted with his friends, the genuine warmth that returned to his eyes when he talked to them. He was fine. More than fine. He was thriving.

A bitter, acidic jealousy curdled in Katsuki's stomach. He needed a reaction. A flinch. A sign that this—he and Setsuna—meant something. That it hurt.

He played his part. He leaned over and muttered something in Setsuna's ear. She threw her head back and laughed, a sharp, performative sound, and swatted his chest playfully.

The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet room.

Izuku's mask didn't slip. He didn't even look over. He simply took a sip of his water, his hand perfectly steady.

But next to him, Uraraka's smile tightened. Todoroki's eyes, usually so placid, flicked between Katsuki and Izuku with dawning, cold understanding. Kirishima looked down at his hands, a deep frown on his face.

They all saw it. The desperate, pathetic performance. And they all saw Izuku's absolute, impenetrable indifference.

It was the most humiliating moment of Katsuki's life.

The rest of the evening was a special kind of torture. The conversation was stilted, divided along squad lines. The Bakusquad tried to keep up their boisterous energy, but it rang hollow. The Dekusquad kept to themselves, talking in low, polite tones.

They were two planets that had once shared an orbit, now shattered into separate, distant systems.

When the bills were finally paid and coats were gathered, the two groups spilled out onto the street together, the silence between them louder than the city traffic.

"Well, that was... fun," Setsuna said, her voice dripping with false cheer. She latched onto Katsuki's arm again. "Ready to go, babe?"

Katsuki couldn't speak. His eyes were locked on Izuku, who was already turning away, saying a quiet goodbye to Kirishima.

Just like after the mission. A dismissal. A void.

As Izuku walked away without a backward glance, surrounded by his real friends, Katsuki was left standing on the sidewalk, arm in arm with a stranger, playing a part in a play everyone had seen through.

And he had never felt more alone.

Chapter Text

The silence of the penthouse was a living thing after the forced noise of the izakaya. It pressed in on Katsuki from all sides, a heavy, suffocating weight. The door clicked shut behind him, sealing him in his curated, sterile tomb.

He didn't turn on the lights. He stood in the entryway, the ghost of Setsuna's perfume clinging to his jacket, a sickly-sweet reminder of the performance. The memory of the night played on a loop behind his eyes: Izuku's calm, polite mask. His own pathetic, desperate attempts to get a rise out of him. The pity in Kirishima's eyes.

He didn't even look at you.

The thought was a shard of ice in his chest. He shrugged off the jacket and let it fall to the floor, a small act of rebellion against the perfection of the place.

He moved through the dark apartment like a ghost, drawn to the one thing he'd tried to banish. A sleek, silver data terminal built into the wall. With a few gruff voice commands, he bypassed the security and pulled up a private, encrypted server. UA's alumni archives.

His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. This was a form of self-flagellation, and he knew it.

The photos loaded. A flood of sunlight and brighter days.

There they were. First year. A class photo, everyone looking so young and unscarred. Izuku was standing a few people away from him, beaming that impossibly bright, optimistic smile, his eyes shining with a hero worship that was, back then, still directed solely at Katsuki.

He swiped. Second year. A shot after a joint training exercise. They were both grimy and exhausted, leaning against each other for support, a rare, unguarded moment of truce. Katsuki's arm was slung around Izuku's shoulders, his own expression not a scowl, but a look of fierce, proud satisfaction. We did that. Together.

His throat tightened.

Third year. The famous shot. The one the press had dubbed the dawn of the "Power Duo." Back-to-back after taking down a villain that had given the pros trouble, silhouetted against the rising sun. They weren't looking at the camera. They were looking at each other, grins splitting their faces, a world of unspoken understanding passing between them.

It was all there. In every picture. The story he had been so terrified to tell was written plain as day in the curve of his own mouth, in the easy way their bodies gravitated towards one another. The trust. The pride. The... love.

He hadn't imagined it. It had been real.

And he had thrown it away.

A sound escaped him, a ragged, broken thing. He slammed his hand on the terminal's interface.

"Delete," he snarled, his voice cracking.

The screen asked for confirmation.

DO YOU WISH TO PERMANENTLY DELETE SELECTED FILES?

"YES!" he roared at the empty room, his palm sparking with barely contained fury. "DELETE THEM ALL!"

The screen flickered. The images vanished one by one. The class photo. The training exercise. The sunrise. Each deletion felt like a amputation. A deliberate, violent erasure of his own history.

The terminal screen went blank, reflecting his own distorted, haunted face back at him.

The silence that followed was deafening. The void he had just created was somehow louder, more profound, than the silence before.

What had he done?

The anger vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a cold, crushing wave of regret. He'd just destroyed the only evidence of the best parts of his life. The only proof that he had ever been truly happy.

He stumbled back from the terminal, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He felt untethered. Erased. He had become the hollowed-out doll he'd been pretending to be.

He looked around the dark, empty apartment—the expensive furniture, the awards on the shelves, the perfect, soulless view of the city. This was everything he was supposed to want. This was the victory he'd chosen.

It was nothing. It was all absolutely fucking nothing.

He was the Number Five Hero. He was dating the woman every magazine called a "catch." He had it all.

And he was standing alone in the dark, silently screaming, because he had just set fire to the only thing that had ever truly mattered.

The performance was over. The audience was gone.

There was no one left to lie to but himself.

Chapter Text

The ensuite bathroom was a temple of cold, minimalist luxury. Polished chrome, white marble, recessed lighting that offered illumination without warmth. It was a place for function, not reflection.

Yet, that's all Katsuki could do.

He stood before the vast mirror above the double sinks, his hands braced on the cool marble countertop. The events of the night played on a loop behind his eyes, a silent movie of his own humiliation.

The izakaya. Izuku's indifferent back. The deleted photos. The screaming void that followed.

His own face stared back at him from the glass. Pale. Shadows pooling under his eyes like bruises. His hair, usually spiked with aggressive purpose, was disheveled from him running his hands through it. He looked... hollowed out.

The face of the Number Five Hero.

A lie.

The words started as a low rumble in his chest, a desperate incantation meant to rebuild the shattered walls.

"I don't care."

His voice was a hoarse whisper in the sterile silence. The face in the mirror didn't blink.

"I don't care," he said again, louder, forcing conviction into the words. "It's better this way. Clean. No distractions. No weaknesses."

The man in the mirror stared back, his expression gaunt, unconvinced.

Anger flared, hot and familiar. A defense mechanism.

"He was holding me back!" he snarled at his reflection, his fingers tightening on the counter's edge. "All that... feelings shit. That weakness! I'm stronger now! I'm focused!"

The reflection's eyes—his eyes—held a deep, weary sadness that his furious words couldn't touch.

The anger evaporated as quickly as it ignited, leaving him deflated. The fight was gone. The performance was over. There was no one here to convince.

Just him. And the truth.

His shoulders slumped. The carefully constructed narrative, the "Lone Wolf" philosophy he sold to the press and himself, crumbled into dust there in the silent bathroom.

The words that came out next were not a roar. They were a broken confession, whispered to the only person who would ever hear it.

"I miss him."

The admission hung in the air, stark and devastating. It was the most honest thing he'd said in months.

The face in the mirror seemed to soften, the hard lines of defiance finally melting away to reveal the raw pain beneath. This was who he was without the armor. Not strong. Not invincible. Just a man who had been so terrified of needing someone that he'd destroyed the best thing in his life.

He was Dynamight. He was a top-tier hero. He had a beautiful, powerful woman on his arm and the adoration of millions.

And he was so, so lonely.

He leaned forward until his forehead pressed against the cold glass. His breath fogged a small circle on the surface.

"I'm fine," he whispered, a final, pathetic plea to his reflection.

But the eyes staring back at him—wide, haunted, and utterly lost—told the real story.

He wasn't fine. He was falling. And the person who had always been there to catch him was gone, because he'd personally pushed them away.

He stayed like that for a long time, forehead against the cool glass, staring into the eyes of a stranger, waiting for a feeling of strength that didn't come.

The only thing that answered was the profound, echoing silence of his empty apartment.

Chapter Text

The sun was warm on Izuku's back, a pleasant contrast to the cool spring air. Patrol had been quiet, the kind of peaceful day that allowed for casual conversations with shop owners and grateful nods from citizens. It was on his way back to the agency, cutting through a small park, that he heard it.

A familiar, cheerful whistle, followed by a boy's laughter.

He turned. And there he was.

Rody Soul. He was a little older, a little more filled out, but the same mop of unruly brown hair and the same easygoing grin. He was kneeling on the grass, demonstrating how to properly hold a wrench to a wide-eyed pair of teens, the boy watching him as the girl tried to braid the hair of a small, pink bird perched on his shoulder.

"—no, no, like this, see? You don't force it. You let the tool do the work," Rody was saying, his voice patient and warm.

"Rody?" Izuku called out, a surprised smile breaking across his face.

Rody's head snapped up. His eyes widened in recognition, and his grin widened into something brilliant. 

"No way! Izuku!"

He stood up, brushing grass from his knees, and the little boy immediately latched onto his leg. 

"Hey, heroes! Remember my friend, Izuku! He's a real big-shot hero back in Japan!" Rody announced to the kids, as if introducing a celebrity.

The boy stared up at Izuku with awe. The girl waved shyly.

"As you must remember, these are my siblings, Lala and Roro," Rody said, pride evident in his voice. "I'm just visiting for a few weeks. Showing them the sights, fixing up a few things for the old community center." 

He jerked a thumb towards a beat-up toolbox sitting on a bench.

"It's great to see you," Izuku said, and he meant it. The encounter was so normal, so uncomplicated. It was a balm after the strained tension of the izakaya. "How have you been?"

"Good! Busy! The delivery business is booming." Rody's eyes crinkled at the corners. "And look at you! Number Four Hero! I see you on the news sometimes. Still breaking all your bones for justice?"

Izuku laughed, a real, genuine sound that felt good. 

"Trying to avoid that these days. I'm a teacher now, too."

"A teacher? Seriously?" Rody shook his head, still grinning. "Wow. The kids must love you."

They fell into easy step together as Rody packed up his tools, his siblings trailing behind them. The conversation was effortless. They talked about Otheon, about hero work, about Rody's plans to expand his business. There was no history, no unspoken tension, no careful parsing of every word. It was just... nice.

Later, after Rody had wrangled his siblings and promised to call, Izuku found himself at a casual street-side café with Uraraka and Iida.

"So, you ran into that guy from Otheon?" Uraraka asked, sipping her bubble tea with interest.

"Rody, yeah," Izuku said, stirring his own drink. "It was really good to see him. He's just so... genuine."

Iida adjusted his glasses. 

"His actions during the Humarise incident were commendable! A true civilian hero!"

"He asked me to grab lunch tomorrow to catch up properly," Izuku added, a slight, unconscious blush warming his cheeks.

Uraraka's eyes lit up. She leaned forward, a playful smirk on her face. 

"Oho? Lunch? Just to 'catch up'? Deku, is this a date?"

Izuku's blush deepened. 

"What? No! It's not like that!" he stammered, waving his hands. "We're just friends! It's just lunch!"

"Sure, sure," Uraraka singsonged, nudging him with her elbow. "Just lunch with the handsome, charming, international delivery guy who helped you save the world."

"Uraraka-san!" Iida chastised, though he was smiling. "We should not presume!"

Izuku laughed again, shaking his head at their teasing. But underneath the embarrassment, he felt a lightness. The attention was flattering, not demanding. The teasing was warm, not laced with hidden barbs. The possibility of... something... with someone new was no longer a terrifying concept. It was just a maybe. A pleasant, undemanding maybe.

It was a world away from secret apartments and hidden toothbrushes. From explosive arguments and desperate, silent pleas in crowded rooms.

It was simple. And after years of complexity, simple felt like a gift.

As he walked home that evening, the playful accusations of his friends echoing in his mind, he realized he was actually looking forward to lunch. Not with the weight of expectation, but with the simple, easy anticipation of seeing a friend.

It was a small step. But it was a step forward. And for the first time in a long time, he was walking it in the sunlight.

Chapter Text

The restaurant was nothing fancy. A small, family-run Italian place with checkered tablecloths and the smell of garlic and baking bread hanging thick in the air. It was the kind of place you went for privacy, not prestige.

Izuku laughed, wiping a spot of tomato sauce from his chin. 

"So he just... left the entire engine disassembled on the floor?"

Rody threw his hands up in animated exasperation, Pino chirping in agreement from his shoulder. 

"Completely! And then he had the nerve to ask me when it would be ready! I told him, 'When the parts decide to put themselves back together, Paolo!'"

It was easy. So effortlessly easy. The conversation flowed without pretense. They talked about stupid clients, about hero work, about the weirdest things they'd ever eaten. There was no performance, no careful calculation of words. Just two young men sharing a meal and a laugh.

For a few precious moments, Izuku forgot he was Deku, the Number Four Hero. He was just Izuku, having lunch with a friend.

The illusion shattered with the violent flash of a camera.

Izuku flinched, the familiar, unwelcome light blinding him for a second. Then another. And another.

The paparazzi descended like vultures, materializing from the street to swarm the small restaurant's entrance. Their voices crashed over the peaceful atmosphere in a wave of shouted questions.

"Deku! Who's your friend?"

"Is this a date?"

"Is this why you and Dynamight had a falling out?"

"Are you dating this guy?"

The owner, a kind-faced elderly man, started yelling in Italian, waving a dish towel at them to shoo them away. Rody's easy smile vanished, replaced by a look of stunned confusion, his hand instinctively coming up to shield his face. Pino ducked under his collar with a frightened squeak.

Izuku's heart plummeted. This was exactly what he'd always feared. This invasive, ugly spectacle. His private life, however innocent, torn open for public consumption.

He saw the headlines already writing themselves. The speculation. The whispers. The inevitable, toxic comparisons to a certain explosive hero.

Across the city, in his silent apartment, Katsuki was scrolling through mission reports on his tablet when a news alert buzzed across the screen.

DEKU SPOTTED WITH MYSTERIOUS MAN IN INTIMATE LUNCH DATE!

He clicked on it without thinking. The video was grainy, shot from outside the restaurant window. But it was clear enough. He saw Izuku. Laughing. Relaxed. His face open and happy in a way it hadn't been for... for a long time. And across from him, a guy with stupid hair, making him laugh.

A hot, possessive jealousy, vicious and immediate, lanced through him. His grip on the tablet tightened, the screen threatening to crack.

"What the fuck is this?" he snarled at the empty room.

On the screen, the scene escalated. The cameras pushed closer. Izuku's smile was gone, replaced by a tight, protective expression as he subtly moved to put himself between the cameras and his lunch companion.

The reporter's voice was shrill, piercing through the audio. 

"Come on, Deku! Give us something! Is he your new boyfriend?"

Katsuki watched, his jaw clenched so tight it ached. He wanted to blast the tablet to pieces. He wanted to blast the entire paparazzi squad into oblivion. He wanted to be the one sitting across from Izuku, making him laugh like that.

Setsuna, who was lounging on his sofa going over her social media metrics, glanced over at the screen and let out a low, mocking whistle. 

"Ouch. Looks like someone's moving on. And here I thought you were the only one allowed to play that game." She smirked. "He's cute, too. Good for him."

Her words were like gasoline on the fire of his jealousy. 

"Shut up," he growled, his voice dangerously low.

"What? Can't handle a little competition?" she taunted, enjoying his reaction. "You're the one who insisted on this whole 'I'm so straight' charade. You don't get to be jealous now. It's a bad look, Bakugo. Really ruins our brand."

He didn't have a retort. She was right, and that made the fury burn even hotter. He was trapped in his own lie, forced to watch from the sidelines as the world speculated about the man who had moved on from him.

On the screen, the cameras pressed in further. Izuku's face, initially startled, was now hardening into something else. Something determined.

Katsuki stopped breathing. He knew that look.

It was the look Izuku got right before he did something incredibly stupid, or incredibly brave.

Chapter Text

The camera flashes were blinding. The shouted questions were a jarring, overlapping roar, shredding the quiet intimacy of the restaurant. The owner was still yelling, Rody was looking increasingly alarmed, and Pino had vanished completely under his shirt.

Izuku's first instinct was to shield Rody, to create a path and escape. To protect this new, fragile connection from the ugliness of the spotlight. It was the old habit, the instinct born from years of protecting a secret.

But as he looked at the leering, hungry faces of the reporters, their microphones thrust forward like weapons, something in him shifted.

The fear didn't vanish, but it was met by a sudden, towering wave of anger. And beneath the anger, a profound, solid certainty.

He was tired.

Tired of hiding. Tired of letting fear dictate his life. Tired of seeing his private moments twisted into someone else's narrative. He had spent years in the shadows of someone else's shame. He would not do it anymore.

He held up a hand. Not in surrender, but in a request for silence. To his own surprise, and the reporters', the cacophony died down slightly, replaced by a buzzing, expectant hush. They sensed a soundbite coming.

Rody grabbed his arm, his voice a low, worried whisper. 

"Izuku, what are you doing? Let's just go."

Izuku turned to him, offering a small, reassuring smile. 

"It's okay," he said, his voice calm. "I'm done running."

He turned back to the sea of microphones. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but his hands were steady. He looked directly into the closest camera lens, imagining not the millions of viewers, but one person. One terrified, closeted person watching who needed to hear this.

He took a deep, steadying breath. The Symbol of Peace didn't just smile for cameras; he told the truth.

"My name is Izuku Midoriya," he began, his voice clear and firm, carrying over the silent street. "I am the pro hero Deku. And I am a proudly bisexual man."

The silence that followed was absolute. You could have heard a pin drop. Even the paparazzi were stunned into stillness.

He continued, his voice gaining strength, the words coming from a place of deep, hard-won conviction. 

"Who I have lunch with, who I love... that is my business. But my identity is not a secret. It is not a rumor for you to speculate about. It is a part of me that I am proud of."

He looked around at the reporters, his gaze sweeping over them, no longer seeing predators, but a platform. 

"I love who I am. And I hope that anyone out there who is watching, anyone who is hiding, or scared, or feels like they have to be something they're not... I hope you can find it in yourself to free yourselves from that fear. To embrace who you are, fully and without apology. Because you are amazing, just as you are."

He didn't shout. He didn't need to. The quiet, powerful sincerity of his words landed with the force of a tectonic shift.

For a second, there was nothing. Then, a single reporter started clapping. Then another. And then the street erupted not in shouted questions, but in applause. The cameras flashed again, but this time, it felt different. It felt like respect.

Izuku felt a hand on his shoulder. Rody was standing beside him, his earlier fear replaced by a look of stunned admiration. 

"Whoa," he mouthed, a slow grin spreading across his face.

Izuku gave the crowd a final, small nod, then gently guided Rody back inside the restaurant, away from the stunned, cheering press.

Across the city, the tablet clattered from Katsuki's numb fingers onto the floor.

He stood frozen, the echo of Izuku's words ringing in his ears.

I am a proudly bisexual man.

Free yourselves from that fear.

You are amazing, just as you are.

The words were a bomb detonating in the center of his soul. He saw the conviction on Izuku's face. The lack of shame. The sheer, unadulterated strength it took to stand there and say that to the entire world.

It wasn't showboating. It wasn't fake.

It was the most heroic thing Katsuki had ever seen.

And as the applause from the video washed over him, he was hit by a wave of emotion so violent it stole the air from his lungs. Awe. A crushing, debilitating jealousy. And a shame so profound it felt like he was dissolving into nothing.

Izuku had just done the one thing Katsuki was too terrified to do. He had chosen truth over image. And the world wasn't destroying him for it.

The world was applauding.

And Katsuki was left standing alone in his empty, silent apartment, watching the man he love become a symbol of a courage he would never, ever have.

Chapter Text

The izakaya was roaring. But tonight, the noise was a symphony of celebration, not a tense, awkward performance.

"A toast!" Mina yelled, standing on her chair and hoisting her glass so high some of the beer sloshed onto the floor. "To Deku! For being the bravest, most authentic, most absolutely badass hero in all of Japan!"

"HERE HERE!" The cheer erupted from their table, a mix of the Dekusquad, the Bakusquad, and a few other pro-hero friends. Glasses clinked together, laughter ringing out, genuine and unforced.

Izuku sat in the center of it all, his face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and happiness. Uraraka had her arm linked through his, beaming with pride. Iida was meticulously organizing a platter of yakitori for maximum sharing efficiency, a sure sign he was emotionally moved. Todoroki offered a rare, small smile and a solid thumbs-up.

Even Kirishima was there, clapping Izuku on the back with enough force to rattle his teeth. 

"That was so manly, dude! Seriously! Telling your truth like that? That's the kind of strength people need to see!"

It was a mirror of the night they'd all been here together weeks ago, but the energy was inverted. Then, it had been a divided, painful affair. Now, the room was united in its support for him.

His phone had been blowing up for hours. Texts from All Might ("So proud of you, my boy."), from Aizawa ("Don't let this distract from your lesson plans."), from Endeavor ("A commendable display of resolve."). The UA faculty chat was a waterfall of heart emojis and congratulations.

The media coverage was overwhelmingly positive. News channels were running segments with titles like "Deku's Declaration: A New Era of Heroic Authenticity" and "Why Deku's Bisexual Revelation is his Most Powerful Move Yet." Social media was flooded with fanart, messages of thanks from LGBTQ+ youth, and his approval ratings were skyrocketing in real-time.

He was being praised not in spite of who he was, but because of it.

"No, really," Jirou said, leaning over from the next table. "My little cousin saw your speech. She called me crying. Said she's gonna come out to our parents now because 'if Deku can do it, I can do it.'" 

She gave him a soft punch on the arm. 

"You did that."

The warmth that spread through Izuku's chest at those words was more potent than any alcohol. This was why he'd done it. This was what mattered.

Across the city, the scene was starkly different.

Katsuki's apartment was a tomb. The only light came from the massive television screen, where a panel of talking heads was dissecting Izuku's every word, praising his courage, his timing, his message.

"—a masterclass in public relations, really. He's taken control of the narrative completely—"

"—it's more than PR, it's a cultural moment! He's using his platform for genuine good—"

"—we're projecting a significant rise in the next rankings. This could easily put him in the number two spot—"

Katsuki stood in the middle of the dark room, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand, watching it all. Each word of praise was a needle under his skin. Each clip of Izuku's calm, confident face was a twist of the knife.

He saw the videos of the celebration at the izakaya playing in a side window on the screen. He saw Kirishima, his best friend, laughing and celebrating with him. He saw the easy camaraderie, the unconditional support.

He was alone. And Izuku was surrounded by light and love.

A corrosive, sickening jealousy burned in his gut. It was so unfair. Izuku got to be the brave one, the beloved one, the one who was "so amazing." He got to have his cake and eat it too—live his truth and be praised to the heavens for it.

What did Katsuki get? A fake girlfriend, a hollow apartment, and a secret that was starting to feel like a bomb strapped to his chest.

He took a long, burning swallow from the bottle. The whiskey did nothing to dull the ache. It only fed the angry, bitter voice in his head.

It's just a show. He's just doing it for the ratings. He's not that brave. He's just... lucky.

But he knew it was a lie. He'd seen the look in Izuku's eyes. It was the same look he had when he was saving people. It was real.

The chasm between them, which he had thought was just about their broken relationship, suddenly felt infinitely wider. It was a chasm of character. Of courage.

Izuku was over there, in the light, becoming a better, truer version of himself.

And Katsuki was over here, in the dark, getting drunk and watching it happen on TV, too much of a coward to even send a text that said 'good job.'

The applause from the television felt like it was mocking him. He couldn't take it anymore.

With a roar of pure frustration, he hurled the whiskey bottle at the screen. It connected with a satisfying crash of glass and sparks, plunging the room into silence and darkness.

But the images—of Izuku's pride, his friends' joy, his own pathetic isolation—continued to play on a relentless loop behind his eyes.

He had never felt smaller. Or more alone.

Chapter Text

The darkness of his apartment was absolute. The acrid scent of ozone and spilled whiskey hung in the air, a testament to his earlier outburst. The shattered television screen was a gaping, black wound in the wall.

Katsuki paced like a caged animal, the silence pressing in on him, each second stretching into an eternity. His mind was a riot of unwanted images.

Izuku's face, calm and sure on the screen. 

"I am a proudly bisexual man."

The stupid, grinning face of that delivery guy. Who did he think he was?

His friends, his friends, clapping Izuku on the back. Celebrating him. Abandoning him.

The talking heads. 

"A significant rise in the rankings... number two spot..."

The jealousy was a physical sickness, a hot, twisting knot in his gut. It was unbearable. He needed to externalize it, to turn it into something he could fight. Something he could blame.

He grabbed his still-functional personal tablet from the charging dock, his movements jerky with anger. He navigated to a hero news site, the headlines screaming Izuku's praise.

DEKU'S HEROIC HONESTY INSPIRES A GENERATION

WHY DEKU'S RANKING SKYROCKET IS DESERVED

ANALYSIS: HOW MIDORIYA IZUKU IS REDEFINING STRENGTH

Each headline was a fresh punch. He clicked on a video clip from the press conference Izuku had given after the restaurant incident. There he was, standing at a podium, looking... regal. At ease. The Symbol of Hope, comfortable in his own skin.

A reporter asked a question. 

"Deku, your message of self-acceptance has resonated globally. What would you say to other heroes who might be struggling with similar fears?"

Izuku smiled, a gentle, understanding thing that made Katsuki want to scream. 

"I'd say that a hero's strength comes from their heart. And you can't be strong if you're living in fear of who you are. True strength is being honest, so you can fight for others with your whole self, not just a part of it."

The crowd erupted in applause.

Katsuki slammed the tablet down on the kitchen counter. 

"Bullshit!" he snarled at the empty room. "Absolute fucking bullshit!"

He started pacing again, the words boiling out of him, a toxic litany meant to poison the admiration festering inside him.

"True strength? Don't make me laugh. It's a calculated play! A PR stunt! He saw an opportunity to play the brave little victim and he took it! He's always been a damn show-off!"

He was breathing heavily, the lies tasting like ash on his tongue, but he couldn't stop. He had to believe them.

"And that guy? That 'Rody'? Probably hired for the photo op! Make it look more believable! It's all so... so fucking perfect! Saint Deku, the brave bisexual hero! Meanwhile, I'm over here doing the real work, and I'm the bad guy for playing the game smarter?"

He was spiraling, the narrative constructing itself in his head, a fortress of paranoia and spite to protect his shattered ego.

"He's not brave. He's just... lucky. The world's just soft on him. Always has been. They love a good sob story." He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots. "He gets to be 'authentic' and get a parade. If I did that..."

He trailed off, the unspoken truth hanging in the smoky air.

If he did that, he wouldn't get a parade. He'd get torn apart. The world would call him weak. A fraud. They'd say everything he'd ever built was a lie. They'd laugh at him.

The injustice of it was a white-hot brand. Why did Izuku get the easy path? Why did he get to have everything—the respect, the love, the freedom—while Katsuki was stuck in this gilded cage of his own making?

The anger was easier than the shame. The jealousy was easier than the grief. So he fed them both, stoking the fire until it burned away everything else.

He saw Izuku's face again in his mind, not from the news, but from the past. Smiling at him after a won fight. Whispering "amazing" in the dark. Looking at him with so much love it was terrifying.

The memory was a splash of water on the inferno of his anger. For a second, it sputtered.

But Katsuki couldn't afford that. He couldn't afford to miss him. To admire him. To love him.

So he did what he did best. He exploded.

He swept his arm across the kitchen counter, sending the tablet, a stack of mail, and a fruit bowl crashing to the floor. The sound of shattering ceramic was satisfying. It was a sound he could control.

"JUST SHUT UP!" he roared at the phantom in his head.

He stood there, chest heaving, surrounded by the wreckage. The jealousy still burned, but it was now mixed with a self-loathing so profound it made him dizzy.

He knew it was all a lie. He knew Izuku was genuinely brave. He knew he was genuinely a coward.

And that was the most painful truth of all.

The man he loved was a better hero than he could ever hope to be. And he had driven him away.

The anger died, leaving only the bitter, acrid smoke of regret.

He was the bad guy. Not in the cool, edgy way the media portrayed Dynamight. But in the real, pathetic way that meant he had lost everything that mattered because he was too much of a coward to be honest.

He slid down the cabinet onto the floor, sitting amidst the shattered pieces of his fruit bowl and his own composure.

The jealousy was gone. All that was left was the hollow, aching realization that he had no one to blame but himself.

Chapter Text

The mission was a success. A simple, clean takedown of a quirk-enhanced smuggling ring at the docks. The air still smelled of saltwater, fish, and the faint, metallic tang of Katsuki's lingering sweat.

The police were processing the scene, loading subdued criminals into transports. Sidekicks and other heroes were conducting final sweeps. The professional, post-mission buzz was settling in.

Katsuki should have felt the familiar thrum of satisfaction. Instead, he felt raw, scraped clean from the inside out. The lingering hangover from his jealous rage, the memory of the shattered fruit bowl on his floor—it all sat like a lead weight in his stomach.

And then he saw him.

Izuku was across the pier, finishing giving his statement to a police captain. He looked... focused. Professional. The kind of calm that comes from a solid center, from not having your entire life balanced on a foundation of lies.

The words from the video echoed in Katsuki's head. 

"True strength is being honest."

A fresh wave of that toxic, desperate jealousy mixed with a shame so profound it made him feel nauseous. He couldn't let him just walk away. Not after that. Not after seeing him so... perfect.

He moved before he could talk himself out of it, his boots echoing on the weathered wood of the pier. He ignored the curious glances from the other pros, his vision tunneling on the green-haired hero.

"Deku."

The name came out rougher than he intended, more a challenge than a greeting.

Izuku finished shaking the captain's hand and turned. His expression, which had been open and engaged, cooled the instant his eyes landed on Katsuki. It wasn't anger. It was... nothing. A polite, professional blankness. The Symbol of Peace's public mask.

"Dynamight," he acknowledged, his voice even. "Good work on the south containment. Efficient."

The praise, once the very oxygen he breathed, now felt like a clinical assessment. An insult.

The carefully rehearsed accusations—"Was it a stunt?" "Did you plan it?"—died in Katsuki's throat. They sounded pathetic, even to him. Instead, something raw and desperate clawed its way out.

"I saw your... speech." The words were gruff, forced.

Izuku's gaze didn't waver. 

"I know. It was on every channel."

The flat response threw Katsuki off balance. He floundered, searching for a foothold in this new, unnervingly calm dynamic. 

"So that's it? You just... drop a bomb like that and that's it?"

"What would you like me to say, Kacchan?" Izuku asked, and the use of the old childhood name held no warmth, only a weary finality. "It's the truth. I said it. There's nothing more to discuss."

The dismissal was a physical blow. Katsuki took a half-step forward, his voice dropping, losing its aggressive edge and gaining a frantic, pleading quality he would have hated himself for if he'd been in his right mind.

"Deku, just... wait."

For a second, Izuku's mask slipped. A flicker of something—impatience? pity?—crossed his features. He let out a soft sigh, the sound carrying the weight of years of exhaustion.

"No, Kacchan. I'm done waiting."

He looked at him then, really looked at him, and his eyes were filled with a sadness so deep it was like looking into a still, bottomless lake.

"You'll always have a place in my heart," he said, his voice so quiet only Katsuki could hear it. The words should have been a comfort. They were a death sentence. "You were my first friend. You were... everything."

He took a small, steadying breath, his gaze unwavering.

"But I want nothing to do with you."

The world stopped. The sounds of the docks—the lapping water, the distant sirens, the chatter of police—faded into a dull, roaring silence. Those seven words landed with the force of a Howitzer Impact directly to his chest, obliterating everything in their path.

All the anger, the jealousy, the posturing—it was all vaporized, leaving behind a scorched, barren wasteland.

Izuku didn't say it with malice. He said it with a simple, devastating certainty. It was a fact of the universe. The sky is blue. Water is wet. And I want nothing to do with you.

He held Katsuki's shattered gaze for one more second, a look of quiet, resolute finality. Then he turned and walked away, just as he had on the pier after the last mission. Just as he had at the izakaya.

This time, it was different. This time, there was no ambiguity. No room for misinterpretation.

The connection was severed. Not cut, not frayed. Annihilated.

Katsuki stood frozen on the pier, the chill from the ocean air seeping through his costume and into his bones. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.

He had gotten his reaction. And it had destroyed him.

Izuku had finally stopped fighting for him. And in the absolute, ringing silence that followed, Katsuki understood, with a clarity that was more terrifying than any villain, that he had truly, irrevocably, lost.

Chapter Text

The penthouse felt less like a sanctuary and more like a crime scene. Katsuki hadn't moved the shattered fruit bowl. The glittering shards of ceramic and the rotting, bruised fruit were a monument to his breakdown. He stood amidst the wreckage, still in his hero gear, the salt from the pier drying on his skin, Izuku's words echoing on a loop in his skull.

I want nothing to do with you.

The lock on his front door disengaged with a soft click. He didn't need to turn around. Only one person had the access code besides him.

Setsuna Tokage stepped inside, her heels clicking on the polished concrete. She stopped short, taking in the scene: the destroyed television, the whiskey smell, the shattered bowl on the kitchen floor. Her sharp eyes scanned the room before landing on him.

"Rough night?" she asked, her voice devoid of its usual performative teasing. It was flat. Clinical.

Katsuki didn't answer. He just stared at the wall, seeing nothing.

She walked further in, carefully avoiding the debris. She was still in her Lizardy costume, having likely come straight from the same dockside cleanup. She didn't sit. She just looked at him, arms crossed.

"I saw the news," she said. "The whole world saw it. Your little heart-to-heart on the pier. Very dramatic."

He flinched. The words were like needles.

"What do you want, Tokage?" he growled, the sound raspy and weak.

"I want to know what the hell is going on with my investment," she said, her tone turning sharp. "Our Q-scores are intertwined. Your public meltdowns are my business."

"It wasn't a meltdown," he snarled, finally turning to face her, a flicker of the old anger igniting.

"Really?" She raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Because from where I'm standing, it looked like you got your heart handed to you on a plate by the one guy you can't stop obsessing over." 

She took a step closer, her gaze piercing. 

"You think I don't see it? It's pathetic. He's in your head every damn second. You look at him during press conferences like a kicked puppy. You nearly short-circuited when the press ambushed him with that delivery guy."

Every word was a direct hit, stripping away another layer of his carefully constructed denial. His anger sputtered, defenseless against her brutal accuracy.

"It's not— We're rivals—" he tried, the excuse sounding hollow even to his own ears.

"Don't insult my intelligence, Bakugo," she cut him off, her voice cold. "I'm not one of your fanclub idiots. This isn't about rivalry. This is about you being so desperately in love with him you're making yourself sick with it."

The word hung in the air between them, vast and terrifying.

Love.

He opened his mouth to deny it, to yell, to explode. But no sound came out. What was the point? She saw it. Everyone probably saw it. He was the last one to know.

His silence was all the confirmation she needed. She let out a short, humorless laugh. 

"Wow. And here I thought we were just two professionals using each other for a leg up. But you... you're just using me to hide from him." She shook her head, a look of genuine disgust on her face. "This deal was supposed to be business. You're making it pathetic."

The truth of it was a physical blow. She was right. He'd taken a mutually beneficial arrangement and poisoned it with his own unresolved tragedy. He'd made himself pathetic.

He had no defense. No retort. He just stood there, exposed and crumbling.

Setsuna watched him for a long moment, the disgust on her face softening into something closer to weary contempt. 

"Look," she said, her voice losing its edge. "Figure your shit out. This..." 

She gestured around the destroyed apartment. 

"...this isn't sustainable. You're a liability to yourself and, by extension, to me."

She turned to leave, but paused at the door, looking back at him one last time.

"The 'brooding, heartbroken hero' might work for a week, but eventually, people just get bored. They move on." Her gaze was pointed. "He clearly has."

The door clicked shut behind her, leaving him alone once more.

Her final words echoed Izuku's, a one-two punch that left him reeling.

He clearly has.

He was alone. Truly alone. His fake girlfriend saw through him. His real friends were celebrating the man he'd lost. And the man himself wanted nothing to do with him.

There was no one left to perform for. No one left to lie to.

Setsuna hadn't just called him out. She'd handed him a mirror and forced him to look at the reflection he'd been avoiding.

And the man staring back was a hollow, pathetic liar, standing in the ruins of his own making.

Chapter Text

The silence after Setsuna left was heavier than before. It was a judgment. A verdict.

Pathetic.

He clearly has.

The words echoed, merging with the ones from the pier into a single, devastating chorus.

I want nothing to do with you.

He was alone. Not just in the apartment, but in the universe. The last person playing along with his game had walked out, seeing right through him. The person he'd built the game for had permanently left the table.

A strange, detached calm settled over him. He looked around at the wreckage of his home—the shattered TV, the broken bowl, the spilled whiskey. It was a perfect external representation of his internal state. Destroyed. Uninhabitable.

He walked—not with purpose, but with a hollow, mechanical gait—to his bedroom. He ignored the bed and went straight to the ensuite bathroom. He didn't look in the mirror this time. He couldn't bear to see the pathetic liar staring back.

Instead, he braced his hands on the pristine marble sink, head hanging down, and waited for the feeling to hit.

It started as a tremor in his hands. A fine, uncontrollable shaking that traveled up his arms, into his shoulders. His breath hitched, coming in short, sharp gasps that didn't seem to bring any oxygen.

The dam broke.

It wasn't a sob. It was a raw, guttural sound ripped from the deepest part of him, a wordless scream of pure agony. It was followed by another. And another.

He slammed a fist into the marble countertop. A sharp, satisfying crack echoed in the small room. A spiderweb of fractures spread from the point of impact. He did it again. And again. The skin over his knuckles split, smearing blood against the white stone.

The pain was good. It was something real. Something he could focus on outside the hurricane of grief tearing him apart inside.

"STUPID!" he roared at himself, his voice cracking, echoing off the tiles. "SO FUCKING STUPID!"

He turned from the sink and drove his fist into the drywall next to the shower. The plaster crunched, dust puffing into the air. He hit it again. And again, until his arm was buried to the elbow in the wall.

Tears were streaming down his face now, hot and shameful, mixing with the sweat and blood. He couldn't stop them. He didn't even try.

"I'M SORRY!" he screamed into the hollow space he'd created in the wall, the words meant for someone who would never hear them. "I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!"

He collapsed to his knees on the cold tile, great, heaving sobs wracking his entire body. He curled in on himself, forehead pressed to the floor, arms wrapped around his head as if to hold himself together.

The images flashed behind his closed eyelids. Izuku's smile. Izuku's tears. The rain-soaked kiss. The locked bathroom door. The empty closet. The indifferent back walking away.

He had it all. He had everything. And he had thrown it away because he was afraid. Because he was weak. Because he was a coward.

He had chosen the lie. He had chosen the empty apartment, the fake girlfriend, the hollow praise. And for what? To protect an image that was now in ruins anyway? To preserve a strength that was proven to be the weakest part of him?

He had lost him. He had really, truly lost him. Not to a villain, not to a accident. To his own fucking pride and fear.

The sobs turned into ragged, broken gasps. He cried for the boy he'd been, so terrified of being weak that he'd become cruel. He cried for the man he'd become, so trapped in his own lie that he'd destroyed the only real thing in his life. He cried for the future they would never have.

He cried until there was nothing left. Until his throat was raw and his body was drained. Until the violent storm of grief had passed, leaving behind a flat, numb emptiness.

He lay there on the bathroom floor for a long time, surrounded by the wreckage, his breathing slowly evening out into shallow, exhausted hiccups.

The anger was gone. The jealousy was gone. The performative pride was gone.

All that was left was the truth, stark and unbearable.

He was alone. And it was nobody's fault but his own.

The breaking was complete. There was nothing left to break.

Chapter Text

The days after the breakdown bled into a gray, numb haze. Katsuki moved through them like a ghost. He'd cleaned up the apartment with a detached, mechanical efficiency, erasing the physical evidence of his collapse. The shattered TV was replaced. The hole in the wall was patched and painted over. The blood was scrubbed from the marble.

But the silence remained. Deeper. Heavier.

The only thing that cut through the numbness was work. He threw himself into it with a terrifying, single-minded focus. But it wasn't the calculated aggression of before. This was different. This was reckless. This was... careless.

The raid was supposed to be a coordinated takedown. A group of thieves with hardening quirks had holed up in a warehouse. The plan was to contain, to use precision strikes to disable their quirks one by one.

Katsuki didn't wait for the plan.

He blew the main doors off their hinges with a blast that was three times more powerful than necessary, announcing their presence with the subtlety of a meteor strike.

"DYNAMIGHT, HOLD!" the mission lead's voice screamed in his comms. "WE DON'T HAVE VISUAL ON ALL HOSTILES!"

He ignored it. He was already inside, a whirlwind of indiscriminate explosions. He wasn't aiming to disable. He was aiming to destroy. To feel the concussive thump in his bones, to let the roar in his ears drown out the thoughts in his head.

A chunk of concrete, thrown by one of the thieves, caught him in the side—the same side that had been gouged by shrapnel weeks before. He grunted, stumbling, but didn't stop. He just pivoted and unleashed a blast that vaporized the concrete and sent the thief flying into a wall with a sickening crunch.

"TARGET NEUTRALIZED," he growled into the comm, his voice flat.

He could hear the panic in the command channel. 

"He's off the rails! Someone get in there and back him up before he brings the whole building down!"

He didn't care. He welcomed the chaos. It was easier than the silence. The pain in his side was a familiar anchor. It was what he deserved.

By the time the rest of the team flooded in, the warehouse was a smoldering ruin, and all four thieves were unconscious—or worse. Katsuki stood in the center of the devastation, chest heaving, smoke curling from his palms. The look on his face wasn't triumph. It was empty exhaustion.

No one approached him. The other heroes and sidekicks just stared, a mixture of awe and fear on their faces.

Later, in the agency's infirmary, a medic was carefully stitching up the gash on his side—a combination of the thrown concrete and his own poorly controlled blasts having torn his costume and skin.

"You're lucky it's not deeper," the medic murmured, not meeting his eyes. "You need to be more careful, Dynamight."

The door to the infirmary slid open. Kirishima stood there, still in his own battle gear, a deep frown on his face. He dismissed the medic with a quiet nod.

The room was silent except for the soft snip of the medic finishing up and gathering his things. The door clicked shut, leaving the two of them alone.

Kirishima didn't say anything at first. He just looked at Katsuki—at the fresh stitches, the bruised knuckles, the utterly vacant look in his eyes.

The silence stretched. It wasn't the angry silence from the izakaya. This was heavier. Sad.

Finally, Kirishima spoke, his voice low and quiet, devoid of its usual booming energy.

"You don't have to keep doing this, you know."

Katsuki didn't look at him. 

"Doing what? My job?"

"This," Kirishima said, gesturing vaguely at Katsuki's stitched-up side, at the air around him. "Trying to... I don't know... prove something by getting yourself killed."

Katsuki flinched, the words hitting too close to the truth he'd realized on the bathroom floor.

"I'm not—" he started, the denial automatic but weak.

"I'm not stupid, man," Kirishima interrupted, his voice still soft but firm. "And I'm not blind. I see you." 

He took a step closer. 

"Whatever this is... whatever you're fighting... you don't have to fight it alone. And you sure as hell don't have to keep killing yourself to prove you're strong."

He let the words hang in the antiseptic air.

"Real strength..." Kirishima said, his voice barely a whisper, "...isn't about hiding. It's about facing the scary shit head-on. Even when it sucks."

It was the most profound thing Katsuki had ever heard him say. It wasn't a pep talk. It wasn't a judgment. It was a simple, painful truth offered by his best friend.

And for the first time, Katsuki had no snarling retort. No defensive explosion. No wall to put up.

Because the wall was already gone. It was dust on his bathroom floor.

He just sat there on the edge of the medical cot, head bowed, staring at his bloodied, stitched hands. The fight had gone out of him. All that was left was the truth Kirishima had spoken, and the hollow, aching space where his pride used to be.

He was tired. So damn tired.

He didn't answer. He didn't have to. His silence was answer enough.

Kirishima placed a heavy, comforting hand on his shoulder, squeezed once, and then left him alone with the echo of his words.

You don't have to keep killing yourself to prove you're strong.

For the first time, Katsuki Bakugou considered that maybe, just maybe, he didn't know what strength was at all.

Chapter Text

The Bakusquad's usual haunt, a private karaoke room they rented for their chaos, was silent. The colorful disco lights were off. The microphones lay unused on the table. The only sound was the low hum of the air conditioner and the tense breathing of its occupants.

Katsuki stood near the door, arms crossed, a scowl etched on his face. He'd been summoned via a text from Kirishima that was uncharacteristically direct: 

"We need to talk. The usual place. Now."

He knew what this was. Another stupid intervention. He was ready to blast his way out the second it got annoying.

But the energy in the room was different. There was no laughter. No silly banner. Mina wasn't grinning. Kaminari wasn't fidgeting with his phone. Sero's usual laid-back slouch was gone, replaced by a stiff posture. Kirishima stood in the center of the room, his expression grave.

This wasn't going to be a joke.

"Alright," Katsuki bit out, breaking the silence. "What's this about? I don't have all night."

Mina was the first to speak. Her voice was quiet, devoid of its usual playful lilt. 

"We're worried about you, Bakugou."

"We're past worried, man," Kaminari added, uncharacteristically serious. "We're... scared."

Katsuki's scowl deepened. 

"Scared of what? I'm fine."

"You're not fine!" Sero's voice cut through, sharper than his tape. "You're a mess! You've been a mess for months! You blew up at us for a stupid joke, you've been ignoring us, you got yourself stabbed, and now you're trying to get yourself killed on raids! That's not fine!"

The directness was a shock. Sero never got angry.

"It's called doing my job," Katsuki retorted, but the defense sounded weak, even to him.

"It's called self-destruction," Mina shot back, her pink eyes glistening. "We've watched you change. And not for the better. You're... closed off. Angry all the time. And not your usual, fun angry. A sad, scary angry."

Kaminari nodded, his usual goofiness replaced by a somber maturity. 

"It's like you're not even in there anymore. You're just... going through the motions. And the motions are really, really dangerous."

They were all looking at him, their faces a mosaic of fear, frustration, and unwavering care. They weren't attacking him. They were describing him. And the picture they painted was undeniably true.

Kirishima finally stepped forward, his voice the calmest of all, but carrying the most weight. 

"We're your friends, Bakugo. We've always had your back. Through everything. But we can't watch you do this to yourself. We can't stand by and watch you tear yourself apart and pretend everything's okay."

He took a breath, his red eyes earnest. 

"Whatever is going on... whatever you're dealing with... you have to stop trying to fight it alone. We're here. We're always here. But you have to let us in. Just... talk to us."

The offer hung in the air. It was everything he'd ever wanted to hear from them. A promise of unconditional support. No judgment. Just help.

But the habit of a lifetime was too strong. The fear of vulnerability was a reflex.

He looked at their concerned faces—Mina's tear-filled eyes, Kaminari's worried frown, Sero's tense posture, Kirishima's open, pleading expression—and he felt a surge of something hot and panicked.

They saw too much. They were getting too close.

He shoved it down. He built the walls back up with sheer force of will, brick by mental brick.

"There's nothing to talk about," he snarled, the words coming out harsher than he intended, fueled by his own fear. "I'm dealing with it. I don't need a bunch of extras psychoanalyzing me. I'm the strongest. I can handle my own shit."

The words were a lie. They all knew it. He knew it.

The disappointment that settled over the room was a physical weight. Mina looked down, a tear finally escaping down her cheek. Kaminari sighed, shaking his head. Sero's shoulders slumped in defeat.

Kirishima just looked at him, the hope in his eyes slowly dying, replaced by a deep, weary sadness. He'd thrown his best punch. And for the second time, it had hit a wall.

"Okay," Kirishima said softly, the word full of finality. "Okay, Bakugo."

There was no fight left in them. They had laid their hearts on the table, and he had stomped on them.

Without another word, Katsuki turned and shoved his way out of the room, leaving his friends standing in the silent, dimly lit karaoke bar, the chasm between them wider and deeper than ever before.

He had won. He had pushed them away. Again.

And the victory felt like the most profound defeat of his life.

Chapter Text

The silence in Katsuki's apartment was no longer a comfort; it was an accusation. The failed intervention with his friends played on a loop in his head, their disappointed faces a fresh gallery of guilt. He'd pushed them away. He'd chosen the lie over them, again.

He was sitting in the dark, not drinking, not breaking anything. Just... sitting. The numbness from his breakdown was wearing off, leaving behind a raw, aching sensitivity. Every thought, every memory, felt like a live wire.

His phone buzzed on the coffee table. Then buzzed again. And again. A relentless, insistent rhythm that cut through the stillness.

It was his publicist. Then his agent. Then Kirishima. Then his publicist again.

A cold dread, different from the hot panic of before, began to trickle down his spine. This wasn't normal. Something was wrong.

He finally picked up the phone. There were over twenty missed calls and a string of texts. He ignored the calls and opened the messages.

The first was from his publicist: BAKUGOU. CALL ME. NOW.
The second: The media is all over the "ScaleBomb breakup." Where are you? What's your statement?
The third, from a gossip news alert he'd never disabled: TROUBLE IN PARADISE? Lizardy Spotted Solo at Club, "Too Busy" to Comment on Dynamight's Whereabouts.

His blood ran cold. Breakup?

He fumbled with the phone, pulling up a hero gossip site. The headline was a punch to the gut.

IS SCALEBOMB SCUTTLED? INSIDERS HINT DYNAMIGHT AND LIZARDY ON THE ROCKS

The article was full of speculative, poisonous nonsense, but it was peppered with terrifyingly accurate details.

"A source close to the couple says they've been 'distant for weeks.'"

"Lizardy was recently seen leaving a high-end restaurant alone, looking 'upset.'" (The night he'd walked out on her).

"Dynamight has been increasingly withdrawn from public events, a stark contrast to his usually abrasive public persona."

"The pair have not been photographed together in over two weeks, a significant deviation from their previously very public romance."

They were connecting dots. The media vultures were circling, smelling blood in the water.

His phone rang again. It was Setsuna.

He answered, his throat tight. 

"What the hell is this, Tokage?"

Her voice on the other end was cool, calculated. No trace of the anger from her last visit. This was business. 

"The jig is up, Bakugo. The narrative is falling apart. They're getting too close."

"What did you do?" he accused, a sick feeling in his stomach.

"Me? I'm saving my investment," she said smoothly. "I gave a few 'no comments' to the press that sounded suitably mysterious. Leaked a few hints about 'complicated schedules' and 'needing space.' It's called controlling the story. If the ship is going down, I'm getting on a lifeboat first."

She was proactively spinning the breakup narrative to protect her own brand. Of course she was.

"You're throwing me to the wolves," he growled.

"I'm giving us both an exit strategy," she corrected. "A mutual, amicable split due to demanding careers. It's clean. It's professional. It's a hell of a lot better than them figuring out the truth." 

Her voice sharpened. 

"And they are figuring it out, Bakugo. They're asking questions about why you've been so reckless. Why you're so miserable. They're one step away from connecting it all back to him."

The threat was implicit. Your secret is about to be exposed.

"So figure your shit out," she said, her tone final. "The Commission is getting nervous. Your brand is becoming 'unstable.' Either you get a handle on this, or you're going to sink. And I'm not going down with you."

The line went dead.

Katsuki stood there, the phone clutched in his hand, the screen glowing with the damning headlines.

The walls were closing in. The lie was no longer sustainable. The media was sniffing around the edges of his life, and Setsuna was ready to cut him loose to save herself.

He was alone. His relationship was a publicly crumbling facade. His friends were done with him. His career was on the line.

And the only thing standing between him and total ruin was the truth he was too terrified to tell.

The pressure was immense. It felt like a physical weight on his chest, making it hard to breathe.

He had to do something. He had to regain control.

But the old ways—the anger, the aggression, the lies—weren't working anymore. They were just digging the hole deeper.

He looked around his empty, silent apartment, the walls he'd once seen as a fortress now feeling like a prison.

The door was closing. He was running out of time.

And for the first time, the idea of telling the truth didn't seem like a death sentence.

It seemed like the only way out.

Chapter Text

The new Hero Billboard Chart JP rankings were always a media circus. This year, the frenzy was unprecedented. Katsuki had ignored the official gala invitation, opting to watch the broadcast from the same spot on his sofa where he'd watched Izuku's declaration.

He told himself it was because he didn't want to deal with the press hounding him about the "breakup" rumors. The truth was, he couldn't bear the thought of being in the same room, of having to watch it all happen live.

The broadcast was slick and glamorous. The top ten heroes were introduced one by one, walking the stage to thunderous applause. Katsuki's own name was called at Number Five. The camera cut to an empty seat at the Number Five table. The announcer made a weak joke about Dynamight's "predictable unpredictability." The applause was polite. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Then it was time for the Number Two spot. The air in the studio seemed to change, crackling with anticipation.

"And now," the announcer's voice boomed, filled with genuine reverence, "rising with unprecedented speed, a hero who has shown us that true strength lies in courage, integrity, and the power of living one's truth... please welcome the new Number Two Hero... DEKU!"

The roar from the crowd was deafening. A standing ovation.

And there he was.

Izuku walked onto the stage, not in a flashy tuxedo, but in a sharp, modern-cut green suit that echoed his hero costume. He looked... radiant. He smiled, a little shyly, waving at the crowd, his eyes shining with a humility that was somehow more powerful than any boastful strut.

He accepted the award, holding it up as the crowd continued to cheer. When the noise finally died down, he stepped to the microphone.

"Thank you," he said, his voice clear and steady, carrying through the speakers in Katsuki's silent apartment. "This... isn't just for me. This is for everyone who believes that a hero's heart is their greatest weapon. This is for every person who is fighting to be their authentic self."

He wasn't just giving an acceptance speech. He was preaching. And the world was his congregation.

"Growth isn't always easy," he continued, his gaze sweeping the audience. "It means facing things that scare you. It means being honest, especially with yourself. But on the other side of that fear... is this."

He gestured around him—at the adoring crowd, at the award in his hand, at the very stage he stood on. 

"On the other side is the chance to be a better hero. A better person. Thank you for believing in that message."

The crowd erupted again. Izuku bowed deeply, a single tear of gratitude tracing a path down his cheek before he wiped it away with a smile.

It was perfect. It was genuine. It was the most devastating thing Katsuki had ever seen.

The camera panned to the audience, catching Uraraka crying happy tears, Iida chopping the air with pride, Todoroki offering a rare, full smile. His friends. Celebrating his victory.

Katsuki sat frozen on his sofa, the image of Izuku—successful, beloved, free—burned onto his retinas.

The jealousy was there, a familiar, acidic burn in his gut. But it was overshadowed by a much larger, more terrifying feeling: a yawning, absolute sense of distance.

Izuku was Number Two. He was a cultural icon. He was a symbol of hope and courage.

Katsuki was Number Five. He was a subject of breakup rumors. He was a reckless liability hiding in a dark apartment.

Izuku was soaring into the stratosphere, and Katsuki was anchored to the ground by the weight of his own lies.

The chasm between them wasn't just emotional anymore. It was professional. It was societal. It was vast and insurmountable.

He had been so focused on protecting his spot, on maintaining his image, that he hadn't noticed Izuku lapping him. He hadn't just lost the man; he'd lost the rivalry. He'd lost any footing he'd ever had to stand on.

The broadcast cut to a commercial, but Katsuki didn't see it. He was still staring at the spot where Izuku had been standing.

The pressure from the media, the abandonment from Setsuna, the disappointment of his friends—it all coalesced into a single, crushing weight.

Izuku had done everything right. He had faced his fear. He had been honest. And he had been rewarded with everything—love, respect, success.

Katsuki had done everything wrong. He had chosen fear. He had chosen lies. And he had been left with nothing.

The path was clear. It had always been clear. He'd just been too much of a coward to take it.

He looked around his dark, empty apartment, the silence now screaming his failures at him.

He had hit rock bottom. And from the bottom, there was only one way left to look.

Up.

At the man he'd lost. At the man he could never hope to equal, not like this.

The decision, which had been a nebulous, terrifying concept, suddenly crystallized into something hard and sharp and inevitable.

He had to try. Even if it ruined him. Even if it was too late.

He had to try.