Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Woah, you good Bakugou?”

“Huh?” he tilted his head in Kirishima’s direction.

Sero sighed while Kirishima chuckled, “Yep, he’s doing the thing again!”

“Thing? What thing?”

“The Midoriya thing,” replied Sero.

The name shifted Katsuki’s attention back to the green-haired boy across the room but before he could get lost in his thoughts about Izuku again, two fingers appeared in front of his eyes, snapping away a few times and effectively ending his trance for the second time in the span of a few minutes.

Head swivelling back to his friends, he replied, “What Izuku thing? There’s no Izuku thing.”

They both sent him a No one’s buying that look, which Katsuki promptly ignored, before Kaminari, who had been surprisingly quiet so far, popped in, “Dude, not to like…”

They waited while the highlighter blonde found his words.

“Uh- be a downer or anything, but don’t you think you might be scaring Midoribro off a bit by doing the constant staring thing?”

“I don’t- I’m not staring,” he made a point to glue his eyes to the papers on his school desk.

“Tt- okay. Well, I’m only trying to help you, dude. ‘Cause it’s getting kiiiiinda sad and pathetic to watch…”

Brows twitching, he barked out, “What the hell did you just say, Sparky?”

Was he way calmer now in second year, after sorting through all his emotions? Yes. Did he also have to make a constant active effort to remain calm while his heart was still healing? Also yes…

But old habits die hard and all that.

“Don’t shoot the messenger!” Kaminari raised his hands up.

“Eh-ehm,” Katsuki turned to look at the person who had just cleared their voice, thus finding the class rep, “may I remind you that this free period is supposed to be used for preparation for the rest of the day and the upcoming classes?”

Iida slightly pushed his glasses up, “If you do not wish to spend these remaining twenty minutes studying or revising your homework, you may take a break but please do so quietly so as to not disturb those of us who may wish to focus.”

He pointed a stern finger at Katsuki, “And you, especially, need to be still and calm. Your heart is still on the mend and as the class representative it is my duty to take care of everyone in this class so I urge you to remember your doctor’s orders.”

Katsuki pulled a face at that, not liking the coddling nor the singling out, so, sarcastically he talked back, “Yeah, thanks. I completely forgot my own medical history and current situation. Thank you for the reminder.”

“It’s Denki’s fault anyway,” jumped in Sero, casually, making Katsuki snort.

“Hey! What the hell, man?” pouted Kaminari.

“You shouldn’t be riling up Kacchan,” and as Izuku frowned, Katsuki immediately straightened up.

Izuku’s mere voice and presence were captivating enough as is, but having his childhood friend’s attention on him… that always fried Katsuki’s brain a tad in the best way possible, though it often turned him into an idiot like Kaminari when his powers fried his own brain.

“Oh, shit,” Kaminari winced, “yeah, you’re right. Sorry, man.”

He wasn’t sure if the apology was meant for him or for Izuku (not that he cared for it).

Izuku seemed to somewhat accept it, given he nodded back, though his lips were still pressed in a firm line and Katsuki didn’t like that one bit because before he had let out his little outburst, Izuku had been smiling.

He still wasn’t back to his regular full on smiles but it was one of the most genuine smiles he had given as of recently and Katsuki hated that he was the reason for its early disappearance.

Though then again… that had always been the case, hadn’t it? Since they were snot-nosed brats. Izuku always regained his smile eventually, so especially back then it wasn’t a huge deal, but Katsuki had always had a bad habit of putting an end to Izuku’s heartfelt smiles.

So he had to do something to fix that.

Awkwardly, he rubbed the back of his neck, “Hey, Izuku. You were going over that new math problem with the class rep, Zombie-boy and Icy-Hot, right?”

Izuku raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, “Yeah, actually.”

“Great! Cool! I-uh,” he fiddled with some of the papers on his desk, “I was having trouble with that one too but I think I figured it out now, if you wanna…?”

He held the correct papers up in lieu of finishing his sentence.

“Oh. Uh, sure? Yeah,” he gave a small smile, “sure, Kacchan.”

Izuku turned back to Iida, Shinsou and Shouto for a moment, saying something Katsuki couldn’t quite hear, then grabbed some of his materials that he had brought towards the front of the class earlier during their free period and walked over to him.

When the other boy was about to sit by his own desk, behind Katsuki, which made sense, Katsuki would only need to turn his chair and they would be able to manage just fine, Katsuki suddenly got up, startling Izuku.

He used his good arm to drag Izuku’s chair next to his own by Katsuki’s desk instead and then sat back down, pointing with his head at the empty chair.

Izuku, although still a bit surprised looking, quickly regained his composure, sending Katsuki another warm smile as he sat down and carefully deposited his things on Katsuki’s desk.

From the corner of his eye, Katsuki could see Kirishima, Sero and Kaminari - who were still crowded around Sero’s desk - eyeing him weirdly and intensely but he didn’t care so he refocused on Izuku, an incredibly easy feat.

“So, Shouto was initially going for the same approach I was but then Shinsou showed us this other way instead and it does seem kinda similar to what you went thing, although…” he grabbed his chin with one hand as he rambled on, a habit he had had since middle school or perhaps even earlier.

“Yours actually looks a bit more streamlined than his! But of course one has to remember not to skip over the implied parts while using this specific approach and when you’re taking a test maybe it is for the best to go with the longer version not just so you don’t forget t-”

Guiltily, Katsuki did tune out a good chunk of what followed - not really caring about math at the moment, or ever, to be honest - but he was thankful for the opportunity to keep staring at Izuku from so up close for such a prolonged period of time.

And he was thankful Izuku felt well enough to ramble… because some days… you could tell the difference. Sometimes Izuku was… quiet. Eerily quiet.

It never failed to freak Katsuki out.

(Or to sadden him.)

“So I suppose it does just come back to what you prioritise, so maybe for Shinsou his way works best for him and I think Iida would prefer that one too but I feel like Shouto might work pretty well with yours!”

Tuning back in, he smiled, “What about you?”

“Huh?”

“Which one do you prefer?”

“Well, again, it’s not really about preferences but… mm- I think, knowing how anxious I get during exams, Shinsou’s way works best for me. Even though it is a bit more time consuming but then I won’t be wasting more time overthinking and asking myself if I accidentally skipped some steps and whatnot.”

His eyebrows dropped and he knew he was… maybe, slightly, pouting.

(He could also see and hear the three idiots from before snickering at him, he would just have to go and kill them later during combat practice. Forget his bad arm, he would manage more than fine anyway.)

“Great.”

Izuku looked confused for a moment before something dawned on him and then he was laughing.

Katsuki appreciated the view but now he was confused so he raised an eyebrow in question, “What? What’s so funny?”

Izuku kept laughing as he shook his head, “Nothing. Nothing. Just…”

“Just what?” he gently nudged him in the shoulder with his own.

Izuku beamed at him and Katsuki swore his heart grew a heart of his own at that point, he also knew he was for sure blushing like crazy.

“You’re always so you, Kacchan,” he chuckled.

“Eh?”

“In a good way!”

“I’m not even sure what the hell that means,” he mumbled, “but okay?”

Izuku laughed some more and Katsuki felt like he was the protagonist of some lame shoujo with Izuku as the crush that would always have slow-motion moments, edited all in pink and with hearts and other stupid stuff like that.

Yeah, his friends would probably tease him for eternity and sometimes - oftentimes now, actually - he embarrassed himself a bit around Izuku or even to try and cheer Izuku up and yeah, sometimes things were awkward but…

Katsuki’s chest flooded with pride every single time he managed to make Izuku smile and he knew it would always be worth it.