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The fruit is ripe with sun and promise.
A few coins exchange hands, and he nods his thanks. The skin is soft under his fingers, juice following the gentle press of his thumb as he brings it to his lips to taste. Teeth catch and close, and the nectar drips down his chin, sticky. He lets it dry where it runs in favor of another bite—one of the few indulgences he allows himself on a morning like this. He will not have time for it later.
Even within the bustle of the market, heads turn to follow him. He keeps his gaze low on the light-dappled stone as he walks. The back of his neck prickles with the weight of so many eyes, but he does not let it warm him.
Katsuki knows what they think of him, a young, strong man of age and alone. The Bakugou boy is yet unwed, they whisper, as though he cannot hear them. As though he cares.
It has always been this way.
First, they called him curious. Then, they called him cruel. Daughters and dowries were presented and turned away. His oddities were forgiven for his skill alone, and even so, the shadows of their grudges remained.
Leave him to his loneliness, their voices cried, his arts and his whims.
Some considered him unable to love. Others spoke of an ego challenging that of the gods. Through it all, their words were viscous with jealousy and greed, for he had rendered himself untouchable.
He had chiseled his place in this city with nothing more than his hands and his tools. Made space in the way he made everything else. As for how he himself was made—well. The comfort of a woman never called to him like the hammer against stone. The men here were in excess, but they, too, were not worth his time.
Katsuki had always sought a greater purpose, to be the best, and he is. He will not rest, on his laurels or otherwise. No man alive could understand that. He would not waste his breath explaining it.
His feet follow the well-worn path home, sandals kicking up dust as he works his way down to the fruit’s core. A neighboring auntie waves in greeting, and he nods to return it. She does so every morning out of a kindness he cannot name, while her children push past his legs in their effort to chase each other down. Today, he does not curse them like he once would have. The heat has made him thoughtful. The sugar ferments.
He is not immune, of course. Despite his best efforts, he is still human. He has limitations, dreams, desires, wants. There is an ideal he pursues in every creation—one he has yet to find in life itself. The peach comes close. An apple some days, or figs another. Grapes on the vine. A spill of color against the dull canvas of life, and soft against his tongue. It masks the bitterness that grows in his throat, but bleeds red all the same.
Katsuki tosses the pit aside, the last of its sweetness wetting the dirt. If he tended to it, perhaps it would grow.
Now, there is a thought that he does not let linger. It lies there with the others, dried out and preserved by the Cyprian sun.
—
As he does not allow it, the thought does not linger. It festers, instead. It takes root under his home and grows up and around his ankles until he is bound to it.
Something has overcome him.
Bouts of madness were not unfamiliar to him, nor were days reduced to the singularity of his urge to uncover. He marks the passage of time through the stains on his tunic and residue caked under his nails. The grind of his teeth, the strike of his hand. This work is his purpose, and purpose is a gift. Nothing less than perfection leaves these walls with his name, and perfection is the intention, the means, the end.
He imagines strong shoulders, rough hands, and the weight of rumor swirls in his gut. Eunuch, he is not. Katsuki knows exactly what would please him if pleasure were something he afforded himself.
Companionship.
His heartbeat thrums through his veins, erratic and insistent. An itch crawls up his neck in the shape of a question.
If…
And if, indeed.
With hands like these, he has always been keeper of his own fate. A hammer and chisel allow for the creation of anything. Even a feeling. Even an answer.
The sun sets, rises, and sets again. He works.
His body wrings tight with hunger, thirst. He works.
Katsuki is the best in his craft, renowned for his skill, so this is no exception. He carves perfection from stone and calls it man. Large eyes. Plush lips. Steady in body and unseen mind. Another masterpiece, so remarkable it becomes unmemorable.
And then something happens, rare but real. A slip of the wrist above the brow. An imperfection. He scars the visage he’s so painstakingly created, and in that, he finds something more.
More is more than enough to permit it to stay, to give it a name.
Kirishima.
Kirishima with his wonder. Kirishima with his strength. A mountain to summit. A view worth the effort, and the more he looks, the more he falls in love.
For the first time in his life, Katsuki bends the knee. And then he begins to pray—small devotions whispered over the curve of a leg he unearths from the marble. He wishes for tender mercies and hides them in the jut of a hip. Every so often, he rises to thumb back over the crooked wound he carved in a face softer than anything he deserves.
He imagines a man who will stand by his side at the morning market, with able hands gentle enough to choose the sweetest fruit by touch. Soft but strong. And no muttered words would pierce their joy because Katsuki’s attention would stay true to his smile.
Venus only knows the secrets he pours into Kirishima’s frame. The last stroke of his hand is a confession, and then it is done. The man, idealized. Katsuki’s weakness, preserved.
By now, he has allowed himself to break his fast, though he does not stray far from the room or his creation. The wild feeling has not waned, nor has his hunger. Something tells him that it will not until he sinks his teeth into stone and bites.
This statue, this Kirishima that he has made, is different. Katsuki has given himself to every piece he has made, but this is the first that feels like it could give something back.
Despite himself, he leans down toward its face to press his mouth against the ivory. It is cold and unmoving, and he feels foolish for doing so. This had been a fool’s errand in itself. He knows it in the way he holds the statue closer still.
The surface warms with the heat of his body. The shape molds to his own, like it was made for it, and it had been. With his eyes closed, he can almost pretend. He is an artist after all—his imagination is vivid, and it begins to feel as real as he has wished it. Tides pull under his skin. A gasp. A sigh. A playful nip.
It takes him a moment to realize that he had never carved teeth.
Katsuki stumbles back, fingers rising to press against his lips.
Kirishima blinks slowly, eyes wide and unfocused. He finds Katsuki, and his entire face softens. Stone to skin, and expression just as tender. His hair shines a bright red, a sign of celestial touch.
“Hello,” he says. His voice grates like a chisel on marble. He clears his throat. “Hello.”
It is smoother then. Deep and warm.
Katsuki wonders if he has inhaled stonedust beyond his limits. He must have.
“Who are you?” he demands, though it cannot be anyone else. “How can this be?”
Kirishima shrugs, sheepish and charming and alive. And how would he know? What does he know except that which is in front of him?
“I woke, and I knew you would be waiting,” he says. “The golden goddess showed me your love, and it gave me life.”
Life. Kirishima. Here, now, and—his?
At once, it threatens to overwhelm him. An empty slate had been a comfort in theory. In practice, it looked more like a prison. Katsuki had no interest in being the warden of anyone’s fate but his own.
The rush in his stomach curdles. His wanting has always had consequences.
“Something displeases you,” Kirishima notes. “What is it?”
“I do not—” Katsuki swallows around his rising panic. “I do not understand. You know nothing of this world but me? This room?”
“I was not born yesterday, Bakugou Katsuki. Today? Yes.” Kirishima laughs. “But I know the world and its ways. The gods are not so cruel as to send you someone who cannot challenge you.”
“Who are you, then?” Katsuki asks again. “What is this that I’ve done?”
“I am Kirishima as you’ve made me,” Kirishima says calmly. “And you have done nothing more than ask to be loved.”
It stuns him back into silence. There is so much that he does not understand. So much unanswered. But he is not so much of a fool to question the gods, and they had heard his deepest prayer.
The bile recedes, though it hovers, expectant. His desperation wins out against his pride.
“You are here to love me?”
“I am here to remind you that you are not alone,” Kirishima says. “Loving you is a given. I will know you first, and then I will show you that.”
Realizing then that Kirishima stands before him, beautiful and naked and wanting, Katsuki flushes deep. He shakes his head to dispel it, but there is little he can hide from Kirishima that has not already been revealed. From the way Kirishima’s eyes catch on his ears, he knows his efforts are in vain.
“You must have had a name before this, then,” he deflects. “Anything before this.”
Kirishima tilts his head, considering.
“I had something. I was something. An idea and a feeling. Humans would call it Eijirou.”
Katsuki knows he wants it before the words leave his mouth. This is something of Kirishima’s own. Something he could give to him rather than the other way around.
“And may I?” he asks. “Call you Eijirou as well?”
“You ask so openly?”
“It is all I can ask of you.” Katsuki furrows his brow. “It is all that is yours only. You do not have to share it. Forgive me.”
He is not used to feeling such shame, but Kirishima is gentle in a way Katsuki could not have carved into him. Not with these hands.
“There is nothing to forgive,” he says. “I will keep it for now, and you may learn it with time. I suspect that you enjoy the act of earning your victories.”
“Yes,” Katsuki says faintly, for it is true. “That I do.”
Kirishima grins, then, and his teeth seem sharper than those of a man.
“Good. I will make it worth your while.”
—
Kirishima stays. He is no hallucination borne of inhalation. He is tender flesh and blood and feeling.
Katsuki does not dare kiss him again, but he allows himself to stare unabashedly at the lines of Kirishima’s body, at the dimples at the end of his smile. And that scar—that scar. How it crinkles when Kirishima laughs at the children outside or when his mind is at work. He cannot bear to look away.
Katsuki loves him in a way he thought impossible—not because of who he made him to be, but who he has become beyond it. Kirishima’s bright eyes give the most mundane things importance, and he feels it most deeply when they are looking at him. He wrestles with the idea that his worthiness has not yet been earned, but Kirishima offers it easily.
If ever there was a man named devotion, history would trace him back to here—here, in these days so idyllic they should belong to the life of another. He talks, and Kirishima listens. Better yet, when Kirishima himself finds something to say, and Katsuki can grow quiet to hear him. He takes his arm in his own, and they walk to the market, and the voices crescendo before they break altogether.
He is taken with Kirishima in a way only art has inspired. And art inspires him, still. The pull under his skin to create only grows with the nurture bestowed upon him by Kirishima’s hand. It is ironic that Kirishima has made him this way, made him better, when Katsuki is the maker by name.
Another sign of divine favor. Another confirmation that he is human, in the doubt that inevitably makes itself known.
When Katsuki works, Kirishima rarely watches. The outdoors often has a greater pull than four musty walls, and the world always changes while Katsuki’s work does not. His very own exception to that has grown legs and leaves him to himself. It is not so far off to think that one day he will leave him altogether.
Kirishima senses the shift and says nothing. Katsuki knows this. He knows why. It is an opening more gracious than he is owed, but Kirishima has never kept score where it truly matters. He is understanding incarnate, and every wall Katsuki has built is but a door waiting to be opened. Kirishima has long held the key, but he would not enter unless asked.
Katsuki asks. He invites him in. He opens his home to the one who has made it so, and hopes the reflection does not reveal the mirror.
Kirishima is quiet in the studio, a mindful surrender to the monotony of hammer and chisel. Katsuki should be grateful, for it is how he prefers it, but he finds himself distracted by the silence. He does not know what Kirishima is thinking, of this, of him, and it scares him. How can it not? He cannot sacrifice his art for Kirishima, but to sacrifice Kirishima for his art is near unthinkable.
The thought unbalances him enough to stay his hand. He turns to look at him, and Kirishima meets his gaze from where his eyes were trained on the movement of Katsuki’s wrist.
“Well?”
He feels peeled back from the rind, bitter pith threatening to ruin the delicacy of the moment. Kirishima, as he has always done, holds his tender flesh with care and does not bruise him. Katsuki wants to cry anyway. Hours, days, weeks later, and he is as unfinished as the bust in front of him.
“Tell me about it,” Kirishima says. Whether he means the piece or Katsuki himself does not matter, for the two are intertwined. It is another olive branch, and the opportunity to grow with it.
Through Katsuki’s stilted explanation of technique and expression, Kirishima’s eyes do not stray from his face. They grow darker as he grows more passionate, more personal, turning back the time he has spent honing his craft, his convictions, and the sacrifices worth greatness. It is a path Katsuki seldom wanders, but he does so now with the knowledge that it leads to the man in front of him.
Kirishima is near statue again, with how still he holds himself. In the face of Katsuki’s breathless vulnerability, he seems lost for words.
Then, “I love you.”
It is not what Katsuki expects.
“What?”
He cannot even deny the strangled edge to his question, the heat that rushes to his cheeks. Kirishima seems more assured now, in both sentiment and spoken word.
“I know you now, Bakugou Katsuki, wholly as you are. I see you, and I love you.”
Katsuki falters. “Kirishima.”
“And this—this is what has held your heart all these years. It is your life, your time, your very being. You made me with that same sweat. I will not take you away from it.”
No one had ever sought to understand. Those who claimed to want to were fickle with their intentions and transparent once the reality became clear. All those years of giving himself to his work had made him as stone as the marble he worked with.
Kirishima had freed him, piece by piece, and Katsuki was still unsure how anything worth salvaging existed underneath the surface. Obsessive at best, he did not know his limits until he reached them by force.
“I lose myself often,” he says carefully. It is an ugly thing, but he does not hide from it. “I do not know time or need when I work.”
“If you become lost, I will find you,” Kirishima replies, like it is simple. The look on his face says that it is. “This is a part of you, is it not?”
Katsuki feels his throat thicken with emotion. “It is.”
“Then it is a part of me.”
Kirishima looks around the room, at the pedestal that once held him upright. Something passes over his face, and then he moves. Katsuki can feel his breath on his face when he speaks next.
“I should like to love something this much one day. Something to share with you in return.”
Katsuki is silent. His chest is tight, threatening to burst. He wants for more than the tools in his hands. He wants to touch where it is felt. It is here, now, within reach, and—
You love me?
“Katsuki,” Kirishima says. “You have done well to open your heart to the gods.” Kirishima’s hand passes over his cheek. “And to me.”
When Katsuki leans down to kiss him this time, Kirishima meets him halfway.
—
Katsuki wakes up with Kirishima by his side, the other open-mouthed and still resting. Like this, in the quiet, he looks as he did before. But Katsuki was not so skilled an artist to create the rise and fall of his chest, the redness of life dusting his cheeks. It is a blessing he is reminded of every day.
Moments pass. Morning breaks through the cracks in the walls and lands on their bed, on the sheets draped over them both. Kirishima’s eyelashes flutter against the light.
When he rises, his sleep-mussed hair defies gravity. Katsuki runs a teasing hand through it, ruining it further, and Kirishima leans into the touch with a contented sigh.
“Do you like it like this?” he asks. It erupts from his head like a fountain, an undeniable invitation to stop and stare.
Good, Katsuki thinks. More people should, when it comes to him.
“Yes,” he replies, honest in his adoration. He has never seen such beauty. Kirishima, with his sour breath and tired eyes, is better than he ever could have made him.
Kirishima hums. “I do too. I think I will keep it this way. It makes me feel like—myself.”
“Eijirou.”
He knows what it means now. It tastes like fruit in his mouth, ripe with sun and promise.
“Yes,” Kirishima says. He smiles, and Katsuki thinks that one indulgence in his life is far too little. He wants. He has. He loves. “Like Eijirou.”