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Katsuki is just making dinner for himself when a hand sneaks around him, clearly intending to steal something straight off his cutting board.
He reacts on instinct, slaps the sneaking hand away from his ingredients and only then does he turn around, glaring at the offender.
Who is—of course—Hitoshi.
Because who else would dare to even attempt to try this?
"The fuck do you think you're doing?" Katsuki snaps out, protectively positioning himself in front of the cutting board and he doesn't soften when Hitoshi gives him the most pathetic look he can muster.
It's incredibly effective, but Katsuki refuses to share his as of yet uncooked food.
"Getting some food?" Hitoshi gives back, blinking his eyes at him and for a moment it feels as if Katsuki is choking on nothing before he gets a grip again.
"Getting raw ingredients, more like," he grumbles and shoves Hitoshi away from him and the counter. "Go sit, like a good boy, and wait until it's done."
Hitoshi's face lights up in a way that could be weaponised and Katsuki stumbles slightly when his heart does something funny in his chest.
Cold dread trickles through him because heart problems are a very serious problem for him and he's not ready to have to go to the doctor again. His poker face must not be as good as he hoped, because the smile slides off Hitoshi's face in an instant and is replaced by a frown.
"You okay?" he asks, hands hovering between them as if he needs to catch Katsuki when he collapses and Katsuki scoffs at him.
"Peachy," he snaps out and turns around, figuring that concentrating back on his normal routine is going to make his heart behave.
He still keeps an ear out for Hitoshi, who sits down at the table just like Katsuki told him to and again, there's a pressure in Katsuki's chest he came to associate with heart problems.
Fuck, he'll really have to book a new appointment, won't he?
He mulls that fact over, cooking on auto-pilot, and he only managed to shove his worries away when he puts a plate in front of Hitoshi and sits down as well.
"You're the best, angel," Hitoshi honestly says as he digs in and Katsuki promptly chokes on his bite.
He's too busy not dying to wonder why he even cooked for two in the first place.
~*~*~
It keeps happening.
Katsuki will go about his daily life as usual and out of nowhere his breath catches in his chest or his heart stumbles and on one very memorable occasion—movie night with the squad, with Hitoshi inexplicably cuddled up to him—his stomach made somersault after somersault, making Katsuki squeezy enough to not even eat his own food.
It happens during lessons, it happens during training, it happens during sparring, while he cooks, in the common room, when he's out with the squad.
It happens often enough that Katsuki very much fears for his own health but he's not quite desperate enough to go see his cardiologist.
He figures Recovery Girl will have to do for now—surely she'll be able to determine if it's something more serious or something stupid like—an allergy.
Because it could be.
Katsuki isn't quite stupid enough to go to Recovery Girl empty handed though, so he took meticulous notes; when and where it happened, the symptoms, the surrounding circumstances.
And never let it be said that he's stupid, because Katsuki realises after the third incident he notes down that Hitoshi plays a part in all of them, so it must have to do with him.
Maybe he's allergic to his shampoo or detergent or something.
Maybe it can be as innocent as that and it doesn't actually have to mean he's dying and his heart is giving out on him quicker than anyone predicted.
Edgeshot did good work—the doctors all agreed that he'll barely have any lasting symptoms and Katsuki refuses to believe that they are all this wrong.
So he makes his way over to Recovery Girl, list with notes in his hand and to her credit she hears him out before she applies an EKG and takes his pulse and oxygen levels.
Him telling her 'I can't breathe' probably didn't help his case, even though it only happens every so often.
"Now, while we wait for the readings, why don't you tell me what you think is happening?" Recovery Girl asks him, as kind and low-key annoyed as ever and Katsuki presses his lips together.
"I'm having—symptoms."
"Where could they be coming from? Any common denominator? Does it always happen when you physically exert yourself?"
"No, not at all, actually," Katsuki gives back because not once has training in itself caused the symptoms.
Sparring with Hitoshi, however—
"It always happens when Hitoshi is there. I think I might be allergic or something. Could be his detergent or his perfume, what the hell do I know," he grumbles out and clutches the sheet with notes in his hand.
It has to be Hitoshi; he's the only recurring theme in all these incidents, so something he uses or consumes must make Katsuki react like that.
Recovery Girl stares at him, long and hard.
"Recount your symptoms for me, dear?" she finally says and Katsuki rattles it all off again.
Heart stumbling over itself, tightness in his chest, inability to breathe normally, shaky and sweaty hands—more than normal, stomach doing funny things and making him skip meals.
It certainly sounds as if he's dying, all things considered, but he refuses to let that be the diagnosis.
Surely there has to be a different explanation for this.
Recovery Girls stare some more at him, before she finally lets out a deep, long sigh.
"I am not paid enough to deal with this. I'm calling Aizawa."
It makes cold fear trickle down Katsuki's spine because what could possibly be so bad that they need Aizawa for this?
Is he being poisoned? Is this a targeted attack they need a fully fledged hero for?
"Why?" Katsuki asks and he hates how his voice comes out shaky and weak and it doesn't help when Recovery Girl simply pats his hand.
"Because this is not something a doctor can heal," she then tells him and hobbles away, presumably to call Aizawa and if no doctor can help him then maybe she's calling him in so he can break the news to Katsuki that he can no longer be in the hero course?
Surely it can't be that bad yet, surely Katsuki will be allowed to finish his studies here?
The minutes until Aizawa arrives are the worst of Katsuki's life—and that includes those hours int he war—and it feels as if he's going to vibrate out of his skin.
When Aizawa finally, finally steps into the room, Recovery Girl immediately pulls him to the side and explains some things to him and Katsuki fiddles with his hands, straining his ears to listen in to their conversation but it turns out he doesn't have to try very hard.
"And why the hell are we assuming I'm being paid for this?" Aizawa bites out after Recovery Girl's explanation and she lets out the same long, deep sigh she did before, before she pats Aizawa's hand.
"Because that's your problem child. And your son. No one here is getting paid more to deal with them," she tells him and then promptly leaves the room.
"Son?" Katsuki blurts out, because sure, he's one of Aizawa's problem children, they established that long ago and Katsuki takes a certain amount of pride in that but—son?
"For fuck's sake," Aizawa says as he drags a hand over his face and then he comes over to sit next to Katsuki. "That is knowledge not everyone in this school is privy to, and I fear you're not either, but—Mic and I adopted Hitoshi a while back," Aizawa grits out and Katsuki blinks at him.
He doesn't know which piece of information he struggles with more—the fact that Aizawa is gay, that he's married, that he's married to Present Mic or that they adopted Hitoshi.
In the end, he decides to file it all away to freak out over later, because right now his greatest worry is still his health and he needs an explanation.
Preferably yesterday.
"So? I'm not reacting to your detergent, so it can't be that. His shampoo maybe?" Katsuki muses and Aizawa heaves out a sigh that makes Katsuki fear he's expelling his entire soul with it and suddenly Aizawa looks more tired than Katsuki has ever seen him.
"Bakugo, you're not having an allergic reaction."
"Well, I sure as fuck am not dying either, so what the hell is it then?" Katsuki snaps out because he refuses to believe that his body is failing him in this way, and so there must be a different explanation for it.
And if it's not allergies, then what could it possibly be?
"I am not getting paid enough for this," Aizawa grumbles under his breath before he fixes Katsuki with a look. "You're in love."
The words ring in Katsuki's ears and for a moment he fears his hearing aids have given out.
"Ex-fucking-cuse me, what?" he demands to know when Aizawa doesn't elaborate or laugh or call this a logical ruse and again, he's met with a sigh.
He's going to deck the next person who sighs at him like that in the face, he decides, because he's getting real tired of this.
"You're in love. You have feelings. Romantic ones."
"For who?"
Aizawa looks up at the ceiling as if he's praying for—patience or a different life or whatever but Katsuki stares him down until he answers.
"Hitoshi."
"That's impossible," Katsuki blurts out because it is.
He doesn't do feelings. He's too busy becoming a hero to do stupid shit like fall in love.
"And yet here we are," Aizawa grumbles out, clearly not too pleased by it either and Katsuki flushes bright red when the full implications of it hits him.
He's in love. With Hitoshi. Who is Aizawa's son.
Oh gods, this is way too awkward to ever live through, he desperately thinks and slaps his hands over his face.
"This can't be happening," he mutters, because it can't, he doesn't have time for this, this is not something he planned for in his life.
He was totally content to simply listen to his friends lose it over their stupid crushes and watch their relationship drama from the sidelines.
That would have been totally fine with him.
"I swear to the gods, there's something to be said about loud blondes, but—it is," Aizawa almost gently tells him. "I didn't want to admit or accept it either, way back when, but your symptoms and what causes them is a dead giveaway. You're in love with him."
Katsuki wants to argue, already has his mouth open to do so, but then he remembers the very first time it happened, the way Hitoshi gave him those puppy dog eyes and then it all just crashes over him.
He's in love with Hitoshi. He has honest to the gods romantic feelings for that fucking gremlin.
It's going to ruin his life, Katsuki can already tell.
"What do I do?" he breathes out because surely there has to be a cure for it, right?
It didn't kill Aizawa and it didn't hinder his career, so there must be something to be done.
"You either accept that it's going to happen again and again, or you confess," Aizawa tells him, almost mercilessly and Katsuki remembers with dawning horror that he admitted to being married.
Katsuki allows himself ten seconds of absolute panic before he squashes it all away and focuses.
"You're married. And a hero. And you have a kid. It can work."
Because clearly it can. If Aizawa managed to do it, with one of the spotlight heroes no less, then surely Katsuki can do the same.
"It can. It definitely can. It won't always be easy, especially not if Hitoshi goes underground like he wants to, but it can work. We made it work, and we're only half as stubborn as you two are."
"Rude," Katsuki mutters, but he's already thinking.
It can work. Hitoshi is almost as dedicated to becoming a hero as Katsuki is and he's definitely training twice as hard, so surely anything between them wouldn't ever take precedence over their work.
"Bakugo, did you really not realise what was happening?" Aizawa asks after a moment because clearly something about that strikes him as weird but Katsuki only shrugs.
"Never thought about it before, never hoped for it. I never had a crush to begin with, that shit just isn't important to me. Wasn't, whatever."
"Hizashi can never know how alike we are," Aizawa mutters as he drags a hand over his face. "You talk to him about this and you're dead," he then said, louder this time, before he gets up. "And now excuse me, I do not want to discuss this with you further."
He's already halfway out of the door when Katsuki calls him back.
"Aizawa!" Aizawa doesn't turn around but he does hover in the doorway, so Katsuki asks what he really wants to know. "Do I have your blessing?"
He doesn't ask if he has a chance because anyone would be lucky to be with him and that includes Hitoshi, too, but if Aizawa opposes this—
"I like seeing my son happy," is the only answer Katsuki gets before Aizawa vanishes down the hallway, but Katsuki supposes it's as good an answer as any.
If this is going to work then he's going to make Hitoshi so happy.
(And he does. He might not have realised on his own what his feelings are but Katsuki is nothing if not good at rolling with the punches, so he comes around to it rather quickly.
So quickly in fact that he marches right up to Hitoshi's room once he's back in the dorms, knocks, and then, as soon as Hitoshi opens the door, says "I have romantic feelings for you that made me think I'm dying so go out with me."
Hitoshi blinks at him a few times before a slow smile spreads over his face that steals Katsuki's breath right out of his lungs and makes his heart stumble over itself and okay, if that is the power Hitoshi has over him, Katsuki would really rather know.
"Sure," Hitoshi gives back as if it means nothing, but that smile is still there and when Katsuki narrows his eyes at him that smile only gets bigger and Katsuki figures that's a very good start to the whole 'making Hitoshi happy' thing.
He's going to keep that smile right where it is.)