Archive of Our Own ^beta

Izuku wakes up with a cut-off gasp, heart hammering hard and fast inside his ribcage.

He takes a while to recover from the nightmare and grow used to his surroundings – his real surroundings. Not the War, not the hospital-stay afterward, but his real, tangible dorm bedroom at UA.

He’s back. It’s all over. Everyone is fine. Everything is fine.

Kacchan is fine. He’s the subject of Izuku’s dreams and nightmares. And yes, of course he’s fine. Edgeshot and Best Jeanist brought him back, he survived. He didn’t die permanently like Izuku just saw in his subconsciously made-up reality. He’s okay. He’s probably fast asleep on his own dorm floor, his own dorm bedroom, his recovered heart beating steadily inside his chest.

But Izuku can’t know that. Not for sure – not for himself. After all, he is here, and Kacchan is all the way there, in his own room. The distance that separates the two of them feels like kilometers right now, like it had been during the War, even if it’s actually, currently, one simple elevator ride away, one level of stairs away.

Izuku can’t think, he can’t close his eyes, or else unwanted memories of Kacchan – dead Kacchan, Kacchan’s corpse – will flash in his mind’s eye and end up making him puke, like it has happened before a few nights ago, and like it’s bound to happen again if he focuses too much on this. Instead, he finds himself stuck in that state of tender empty-mindedness that often overcomes one upon awakening, frantic with a heart that’s beating so fast it’s verging on panicking, and impulsive like an animal reduced to its most primordial instincts. He’s not thinking straight, he’s not rational at all – and when is he ever rational when it comes to Kacchan? –, which is why he finds himself jumping from his unmade bed after kicking the tangled sheets from his feet and yanking his bedroom door open, barefoot and all.

The chilly night breeze hits him with a vengeance and makes him shiver, but right now Izuku is a man on a mission. He leaves his room, door forgotten open behind him, and beelines his way to the stairs until he finds himself with a lifted fist already knocking on Kacchan’s door.

It’s only when Kacchan opens the door frantically, with a concerned look in his eyes, that Izuku comes to rationalize and realize what he’s doing. What the hell am I doing? I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be bothering – he likes sleeping early, I shouldn’t have woken him up – not over this – this is my own problem –

“Izuku?” Kacchan asks, brow scrunched in evident worry as he takes in Izuku’s state – barefoot, clothes disheveled, hair unkempt, panting like he’s just ran a marathon. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Katsuki immediately pressures for an answer, voice low but urgent.

Izuku swallows dry several times, trying to get ahold of himself. But tears are already climbing to his eyes, fat and heavy, and one of them rolls down his flushed cheek before he quite manages to blink it away. “I – I’m sorry,” he ends up saying, voice choked up. “I shouldn’t have come bother you.” And he turns to leave.

A steady, warm hand – so different from the chill of the night – holds his wrist and keeps him from taking any further steps away. Izuku doesn’t turn his head to look at Kacchan, back turned to him, face downcast.

Kacchan squeezes his wrist, eager for an answer. “Why are you crying?” He asks in a blunt way, a way that sounds demanding and almost pissed off, but that does little to hide away the concern from his voice. Then, as if realizing his tone was too harsh, he adds a bit more softly: “Did you have a bad dream?”

Izuku neither confirms nor denies it. He stays where he is, one arm held back, head down, tears rolling freely until they stop at his chin only to drip to the floor. The more he feels the warmth of Kacchan’s hand seeping into his arm, his body, the harder it becomes to stifle his crying. He shivers and ends up choking on a sob, squeezing his eyes shut from the shame and embarrassment of it, and shrinking on himself from the mortification of letting Kacchan see him cry.

It’s not like Kacchan had never witnessed such a scene before – if anything, no one knows how much of a crybaby Izuku is better than Kacchan –, but right now, it feels different. It feels – off. Humiliating, perhaps. Definitely embarrassing.

“Izuku,” Kacchan says softly, so soft – there’s not a hint of his usual growl when he calls Izuku’s name. “Come here.”

“N-No, I shouldn’t have bothered you, I don’t –” Izuku tries, but Kacchan yanks him back from the arm and all but shoves him inside his room, entering after him and closing the door behind them.

“Stop saying you’re bothering me,” Kacchan orders, crossing his arms above his chest. “I’ll be the one who decides that. If I say it’s okay, then it’s okay. Now tell me what the hell is wrong so I can make it better. You came to me instead of one of the extras for a reason, right?”

Izuku can’t meet his eyes. He simply can’t. So, instead, staring at the floor, he worries at his lower lip and stammers. “I – Y-Yes, I had a bad dream.”

Kacchan sighs, taking pity on him. “War?”

It’s a simple question – a simple word, really –, but the silent weight behind it still makes Izuku flinch, eyes never meeting his friend’s. That, alone, is the answer Katsuki is seeking, so he takes a step forward and sits on the edge of his own unmade bed.

“I have my own share of bad dreams too, you know,” he admits easily.

Izuku frowns. He supposes that makes sense – Kacchan did… die, even if only for a few minutes. If anyone should be having bad dreams, that person was Kacchan, not Izuku. Izuku doesn’t have the right – he shouldn’t have the nerve –

“Izuku,” Kacchan sighs, tired, worried. “What’s that look on your face for? Just because I said the word ‘War’?”

Izuku fails to hold back another sob. More tears roll freely down his face.

“Ya know I hate being babied,” Katsuki admits, a bit vexed. And since he’s too smart for his own good, he adds: “If you had a bad dream and got worried about me, just say it. It’ll be better for both of us. Then you can see I’m fine and get outta my case,” he tries to joke, but it falls flat.

Izuku takes it seriously. “I’ll – I’ll be going,” he says, embarrassed and feeling out of place. “I – I just wanted to make sure –” And he trails off without finishing the sentence, turning his face away from Kacchan.

“That I’m okay?” Kacchan quirks an eyebrow. “Well, you could have just called me or texted me. Why’d you come all the way here?”

Izuku shrinks on himself even further, blushing, hugging himself like he tends to do whenever he’s uncomfortable. He doesn’t really think straight as he plays with the back of his hair and mutters “KacchancanIpleaselistentoyourheart?”

Katsuki blinks. Frowns. “What?”

Izuku stammers, blushes further. “N-Nothing, never mind, I was stupid to ask –” And he starts walking toward the door, but Katsuki basically jumps off the bed and stands in front of him, blocking his way.

“I didn’t mean that in a ‘what the fuck’ way, I meant it in a ‘I didn’t fucking hear your mumbling’ way,” Katsuki explains, sounding eager to understand. “You already woke me up; the least you owe me is an explanation.”

Izuku sniffs and hugs himself for comfort again, but he eventually nods. Kacchan is right – when is he not? –, and Izuku does owe him an explanation after pulling him out of bed at such a late hour. He doesn’t even know what time it is, actually. He should have thought this through before coming here and bothering Kacchan – he should have at least checked the time out of decency – but now was too late for regrets. What is done, was done. He needs to own his actions and his words and his yearnings.

“I said…” Izuku starts hesitantly, still not meeting Kacchan’s eyes. “I asked – can I please listen to your heart?”

Kacchan doesn’t respond or do anything. Izuku finally, finally gathers up the courage to raise his head and look him in the eyes.

Kacchan looks out of his depth. It’s actually kind of cute.

“Like I said –” Izuku hesitates. “I shouldn’t have woken you up over this. I’m sorry, I really am – K-Kacchan?” Izuku stammers when Katsuki suddenly looks determined, reaches out, grabs Izuku’s hand, and places it over his own chest.

“Can you feel it?” Katsuki asks, blinking sternly as if Izuku’s idiotic request was something incredibly serious to him.  

Izuku blinks, eyes wide and still teary. Kacchan’s heart was hammering beneath his hand, his touch. He nods.

Katsuki nods back. Then, he lets go of Izuku’s hand, and Izuku retrieves it and lowers it slowly, hesitantly. Katsuki sits down on the edge of his bed again, and nods at Izuku, signaling that he should sit down beside him as well. Izuku still hesitates, but does as Kacchan tells him.

“How should we do it?” Katsuki asks.

Izuku frowns. “Do what?”

“Do you want to lean over and listen to it or sum’n?”

Izuku offers him a small shaky smile. “You don’t have to bother really –”

“You were crying just now,” Katsuki explains, earnest, stoic. “If doing this will make you feel better, fine by me. Just stop being so fucking hesitant and lean the fuck over already.”

Izuku feels mortified. He hadn’t thought it through – both coming here and requesting this –, and now he was in too deep to be able to back down. The most surprising part, really, was Kacchan tagging along with his request so naturally, without questions or teasing or explosions. Izuku had expected him to be offended, perhaps even disgusted, at the very least weirded out, but he seemed… eager? To help? Apparently because of Izuku’s tears?

“Look, I’m tired and you’re stalling, so I’ll just –” Katsuki says, and instead of completing the sentence he just lies down and settles back on the bed, arms thrown beneath his head. “You help yourself.”

Izuku blinks. “W-Why are you not weirded out?” He ends up blurting out too frankly, despite himself, like he seemed to be doing a lot tonight. He mentally kicked himself for being so blunt and honest again.

Katsuki shrugs. “I don’t want you going around crying over shit I can easily sort out,” he says simply, as if that’s enough of an answer.

Izuku frowns. Blinks. Lowers his head in hesitation. Worries at his lower lip.

Then… “Can I really listen to it?”

Katsuki sighs, growing a bit impatient. “You asked for it and I said it was fine, didn’t I?”

Izuku hums. “O-Okay.”

“You do you.”

“R-Right.”

He slowly turns from where he’s seating so that he’s now facing Kacchan, then he leans over on the bed and slowly, ever so slowly, places his ear atop Kacchan’s chest. He hears it immediately – the steady, if only a bit too fast, rhythm of Kacchan’s heart, thrumming away inside his ribcage and pumping blood into his body. His live body, his breathing body, his warm body. Izuku can’t help but to sigh in relief, a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in, and to relax at the comforting sound. The rhythm of it lulls him right back into easy sleep before he realizes it, all tension dissipating from his body like ice melting away during a summer day.

The next thing Izuku knows, he’s waking up on Kacchan’s bed during early morning to the loud beeping of his alarm clock, finding his legs and arms to be tangled with Kacchan’s own, and his head to still be resting on Kacchan’s chest. As soon as consciousness returns to him and he realizes where he is and what is happening, he jumps back, startled, which results on him falling off the bed.

“Oi! Izuku!” Kacchan calls after him with worry, his head appearing on the edge of the bed, hair disheveled and face sleepy. “You okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Izuku cries, struggling to get to his feet. He’s sure he’ll never live the mortification of what he’s done down. “I didn’t mean to – to overstep your boundaries – or make you – uncomfortable or – or –”

Katsuki gives him the world’s biggest sigh and rolls his eyes so hard he must have been able to see the back of his head. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? If you had overstepped or made me uncomfortable, don’t you think I would have blown you up for it? It’s like you don’t even fucking know me,” he tsks.

Izuku blinks several times, baffled. “B-But you – You don’t like random people getting into your personal space,” he tries to justify, even if the excuse sounds weak to his own ears.

“You’re not random people,” Katsuki frowns, as if offended. “You’re Izuku.”

Izuku swallows dry. What’s happening right now? “K-Kacchan… I don’t…”

“I’m telling you – it’s okay,” Katsuki reinforces. “Stop freaking out over nothing. Or, wait,” he frowns more deeply, blinking up at Izuku with the cutest worried expression ever – okay, Izuku really needs to stop thinking about stuff like that. “Did I make you uncomfortable? You just like, passed out into sleep right away, and I presumed you wanted to stay over, that’s why I didn’t wake you up, but I didn’t mean to –”

“No!” Izuku basically shrieks. “You didn’t – I wasn’t – I was just worried about you! I didn’t want to…”

A pause.

“To…?” Katsuki encourages.

“Ruin things,” Izuku squeezes his eyes shut, not daring to look into Kacchan’s own. “I mean, we worked so hard to get where we are today, as friends, as good friends, and I didn’t want to throw all that hard-earned development into the trash over a silly nightmare and a silly request to listen to your heart beating just because I’m stupid and childish and scared, so scared that – that – And then we ended up –”

“Izuku,” Katsuki interrupts, getting up from the bed and standing directly in front of his friend. “Stop overthinking this. You listened to my heart and fell asleep. That’s all there is to it.”

Izuku opens his eyes to look at Kacchan. “R-Really?”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Katsuki vows. “We don’t have to do it again if you don’t want to. Let’s just pretend this never happened and head over to class before Aizawa sensei kicks us out of UA, okay?”

Izuku blinks. Kacchan wants to pretend it never happened? “O-Okay.”

“Go get dressed, I’ll see you at homeroom,” Katsuki suggests. “Then we can grab lunch later. And forget all about this. Okay?”

“R-Right,” Izuku says, a bit dejected. Then, he turns to leave the room.

“But –” Kacchan adds just as Izuku grabs the doorknob. “If you ever need to talk about your dreams or – just hang out if you have a nightmare,” he says, so, so, so softly Izuku barely recognizes him. “My door is open to you. Always.”

Izuku swallows dry, back still turned to Kacchan. He can’t dare to look him in the eyes right now – he’s sure he would burn like Icarus, flying too close to the sun. “Are you sure?”

He can almost hear the frown in Kacchan’s voice when he responds. “Yes, Izuku. I wouldn’t be offering if I weren’t sure.”

Izuku gulps. Hesitates. One hand on the doorknob, the other tightened into a fist. “Okay. Thanks, Kacchan.”

He leaves without turning to see the unreadable look on Katsuki’s face.

˗ˏˋ ★ ★ ˎˊ˗

It becomes routine.

Izuku has a nightmare? He seeks Kacchan in his room, yearning for the sound of his heart beating. They end up cuddling in Kacchan’s bed, Izuku surrounded by a sweet, caramel-like scent and a furnace-like warmth that keeps him cozy and comfortable during the night. He falls asleep with his head glued to Kacchan’s chest, and Kacchan holds him close with his good arm as they sleep, clinging to Izuku like a lifeline with his good hand. In the morning, they wake up tangled with one another and don’t discuss it, don’t talk about it, act like nothing ever happened the night before.

Their proximity during the nights ends up reflecting a bit on their daily lives. They become closer to each other, in the physical sense of the word, touching more and being more intimate than Katsuki had ever allowed any other friend to be toward him. Neither Izuku nor Katsuki realize that, in reality, it just feels like some sort of natural development for their years-long relationship. After all, they used to be little kids who cuddled together during naptime one day in the past; it only felt right that they got back to it someday.

The more Izuku seeks Katsuki’s heartbeat, the more natural their cuddling sessions feel. They become almost regular, and the stances in which they don’t sleep together become rarer than the stances in which they do. They go as far as exchanging caresses, especially when Kacchan groans in pain over his still-recovering bad arm. Izuku will drop kisses to his scarred hand and forearm, and somehow that will work to ease Katsuki’s pain. In return, Katsuki will caress Izuku’s curls and drop pecks at the crown of his head while the boy listens to his heart beating.

But still, while resting his head against Katsuki’s chest helps soothe Izuku’s aching heart after a nightmare, it doesn’t go to the root of the problem – it doesn’t really fix it. Because Izuku continues to have nightmares, and they grow in size and proportion the more Izuku pretends nothing is happening – the more Izuku pretends they can be solved with cuddles and warmth. The more he goes on without talking about it, like Kacchan had suggested, and internalizing everything.

Until one day, it all becomes too much.

˗ˏˋ ★ ★ ˎˊ˗

Blood. As red as the eyes in front of him, staring dully at nothing, empty and lifeless.

Izuku feels like he’s been punched in the stomach by All Might with over 100% One For All. All his internal organs recoil and revolt as if he’s going to puke. He retches and gags, but all that exits his mouth is Black Whip, tendrils bursting out in waves. He hyperventilates, hearing his sharp breaths coming out loudly through his nose and mouth. Hearing his own heartbeat, overwhelming to his ears. It feels like it’s the wrong heart that’s beating, out of the two possible options.

It should be him. It should be his heart beating.

Then he hears Best Jeanist’s voice wailing, lamenting. We’ve lost him. He’s gone.

I’ve lost him, Izuku realizes with even more shock, even more pain, which quickly dissolves into numbness. I’ve lost him forever this time.

More tendrils come out of his mouth, silencing the guttural wail that he lets out, engulfing his skin and mouth. He falls to his knees on the floor beside Kacchan – Kacchan’s corpse, he corrects himself –, meaning to hold him close to his chest and cradle him in his arms. He still looks beautiful, even in death, even with his arm askew and broken and with blood covering his chin, cheeks, and parted lips. Izuku cherishes him. Izuku loves him.

Realization hits him like another punch, showing him something he’d never really noticed before. He loves Kacchan. He knows as much now.

But Kacchan’s beauty only lasts as long as his life. Because as Izuku gazes upon his pale face and weeps, sobs, hiccups, Kacchan’s face turns from white to grey.

Izuku only has the time to frown in confusion at the sudden change before the skin of Kacchan’s face cracks and dusts up. His body starts to fall apart from the feet up, disintegrating into nothingness, until all that’s left of it is his head on Izuku’s arms. His skull dissolves into grey dust, disappearing.

Kacchan gets decayed and his ashes slip like sand through Izuku’s fingers.

Izuku loses balance at the sudden absence of Kacchan’s body and topples forward, leaning heavily on the floor before he can collapse, his hands pressing hard on the dust that used to be Kacchan’s corpse. The falling rain quickly turns the ashes into mud, and whatever’s left of Kacchan’s body mingles with the dirt on the floor and twirls away, disappearing forever.

Izuku raises his own mud-covered hands and stares at them with wide, bulging eyes. He hears Shigaraki laughing in the distance.

He lets out harsh puffs that can barely be called breaths, a scream caught in his throat. His heart is beating so fast it surely is about to stop. He’s about to die. He’s about to die. He’s about to –

Wake up with a sharp, deaf gasp.

He’s sweating; his covers are intertwined with his legs and clinging to his heated skin. He doesn’t scream as consciousness – and reality – return to him in a sucker punch, only letting out a series of heavy breaths that aren’t loud enough to wake anybody else at the dorm up. A year ago, he would have risen the entirety of the building with his screaming because of such a horrid, vivid nightmare, but nowadays he’s grown a bit more used to keeping his despair at bay.

He lies there for a while, simply trying to regain his bearings. Then, making a sudden decision, breathing heavily and swallowing several times to moisten his dried throat, Izuku turns to his side on the bed to look at his phone and check the hours. He wants to know how much time he has left to go back to sleep before he needs to get up and get ready for class.

However, as he activates his phone’s screen and stares at the big clock numbers facing back at him, he’s unable to ignore the date that he sees displayed right beneath the time. He blinks several times, trying to absorb that information. His stomach sinks even further.

Today marks a whole year since the War ended.

Izuku’s heart continues to hammer painfully inside his chest, almost as painfully as it had happened in his nightmare. He more than ever yearns for the comfort of the sound of Kacchan’s heart beating – for the certainty that he’s still truly, actually alive.

They never really talk about their cuddling sessions, much in a similar way to how Izuku never really talks about what he truly feels over the embers – or over Kacchan. He similarly, probably won’t ever talk about how he’s found that he loves Kacchan, truly loves him – and that his worst fear would be having to lose him for real one day.

This night should definitely be one of those nights in which Izuku chooses to favor his mental health over his pride or his sense of shame and ask Kacchan for some long-due comfort. But at the same time, it isn’t. It can’t be one of those nights.

Tonight is different. Tonight is the… anniversary. Izuku won’t go knocking on Kacchan’s door – it feels… wrong, in a way. The things that happened during the War still weigh heavily on his shoulders, some nights more than others – and tonight, more than any. Despite the yearning he profoundly feels for Kacchan’s lively warmth, for the sound of his heartbeat, for his puffs of breath and the little grunting sounds he makes in his sleep, those tiny proofs that he’s still alive and breathing, Izuku feels like… he doesn’t really deserve that sort of comfort. Not on this day. Not on the anniversary of the day when Izuku…

Took a life. The anniversary of the day when he failed to save.

Izuku won, but he didn’t save. Wasn’t he supposed to conciliate the two? Wasn’t that the burden of a true hero? A burden he had failed to carry?

I don’t deserve Kacchan to comfort me. I almost caused him to permanently die, and it happened twice over, a little voice in the back of Izuku’s brain says. And deep down, he knows it’s true. Shigaraki only ever targeted Kacchan twice because of his proximity to Izuku – because he knew, somehow, how much Kacchan meant to him, before Izuku himself even did.

Izuku’s been playing with his luck these past months, allowing himself to get so close to Kacchan again. Putting Kacchan under risk again. Putting a target on his back by being near him. He can’t keep playing those games and risking to lose him again, permanently, his own peace of mind be damned.

Izuku gives up on trying to sleep, knowing it’s not going to happen anymore – not tonight, anyway. Tiredly, with a sigh, he untangles himself from his covers and gets up from his unkempt bed, urging his heart to stop racing now that he knows there’s no imminent danger. He puts his slippers on, still on his pajamas, and exits his room, leaving his charging phone behind.

He arrives at the cold rooftop of the boy’s dorm pensively, sitting on the ledge and allowing his legs to dangle beneath him. He doesn’t really fear falling off, since he still has Float to protect him – for how long, though, he doesn’t really know, which makes him sigh sadly again.

The night is still dark and only a few stars can be seen above, thanks to the city’s pollution. He stares up at the vast immensity of it all and allows his mind to wander about everything he doesn’t really want to face.

One: He loves Kacchan. He loves Kacchan so much it hurts, and in a different way that he loves his other friends. Kacchan is different from his other friends.

Two: Izuku killed Shigaraki. The blood on his hands isn’t that easy to wash away. It still weighs on him heavily, and Izuku’s pretty sure it will continue to weigh on him for the rest of his life. He’s not sure he can be called a real hero after what he did.

Three: Kacchan had died. For only a while, but he still died. Izuku could have lost him forever.

Four: Izuku can’t afford to lose Kacchan without risking losing himself.

And Izuku… is a trouble magnet. Admittedly so. He’s come to terms with that. He’s fated to lose the embers of One For All one day, but until then, he might attract some other villain who wants to hurt him. Another villain that can figure out that hurting Kacchan is the most efficient way to rile up Izuku. And he can’t keep putting Kacchan in that position. He just can’t.

If he wants to make sure Kacchan’s heart stays beating, pumping up warm blood into his live body, Izuku needs to stay the hell away and keep that target as far from his back as possible. He has a strong feeling that luck won’t be on his side anymore if he puts Kacchan’s life on the line a third time.

He won’t come back next time. I’ll lose him forever next time.

Izuku sits on that rooftop until the sun starts to rise in the horizon, feeling and embracing the piercing cold on his skin in an almost punitive way. His decision is not an easy one and it really breaks his heart to have to put this distance between them, but flashes of Kacchan’s pale corpse and Kacchan’s decayed ashes keep appearing in his mind’s eye.

He needs to follow through with this if he really does love Kacchan. There’s a chance Kacchan will be confused by his decision – perhaps even angry, if Izuku knows anything about him –, but he’d rather have Kacchan hate him than have Kacchan die because of him again. It’s simple math.

He’s spent enough time cuddling with Kacchan and being close to him – endangering him. Now, it’s time to grow up and take responsibility. Fittingly, he makes such a decision on the anniversary of the day he almost lost Kacchan forever.

Once the sun is warm enough, Izuku steps away from the ledge and exits the rooftop, going back inside the building while shivering considerably. He decides to head back down to the common kitchen to find something to eat before he goes back to his room to get dressed and ready for class.

Not to anyone’s surprise, Kacchan is the only one out of Class 2-A who’s already up and about in the kitchen, being the first one to rise as usual, even if he’s definitely not a morning person – as Izuku’s come to learn due to their soon-to-end proximity. Izuku halts when he spots his spiky blond hair in the kitchen, heart climbing up his throat.

Kacchan’s busy cooking himself breakfast, but as soon as he senses someone’s presence in the next room, he lifts his head with curiosity and an annoyed face. He spots Izuku frozen right there in the middle of the hall, staring back at him, and stops what he’s doing, putting his kitchen utensils down. His face softens.

Katsuki stares at him, taking in the sight of Izuku in his pajamas and shivering like crazy with bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair. He frowns.

He’s too smart not to immediately realize Izuku isn’t coming from his bedroom, and slowly, silently, takes in the horrible looks of him from head to toe. He’s not okay – but he didn’t come for me this time?

Dark bags under his eyes, pale face, shuddering body. A wave of deep worry hits Katsuki like a truck, and he leaves the damn breakfast behind to approach and reach for Izuku, meaning to pull him into a warm embrace like he’s often taken to doing – he looks like he needs one.

But Izuku immediately flinches away.

The unexpected reaction sends Katsuki halting into his tracks. Confused. Worried out of his mind.

Tears rise to Izuku’s red-rimmed eyes as he flinches further away from Katsuki after he halts, which makes Katsuki’s heart double in speed. He, of course, doesn’t know anything about Izuku’s renewed guilt and self-blame, and thus assumes the problem is… him. it has to be him, right? He has messed up somehow? What did he do this time?

But while the rejection stings, Katsuki goes for his only option – respecting Izuku’s space. He would never want to force Izuku into doing anything he doesn’t want to, even if something as simple as a hug would ease Katsuki’s aching heart by miles – a surprising thought that emerges in his brain suddenly, hitting him with unexpected realization. He longs for this.

He wants the comfort of having Izuku around, too. This new feeling in his chest whenever he sees Izuku or gets to hang with him is disconcerting, to say the least, but it also makes him feel good. Izuku makes him feel good. Not that he would ever admit it aloud, though. That’d be awkward and embarrassing, and the last think Katsuki wants right now, at this point of his life, is to end up pushing Izuku away again.

He’s spent a lifetime pushing Izuku away, and he’s done with it. He’s so done with it. If anything, he wants Izuku to be as close as possible, but verbalizing that might have an opposite effect right now and make Izuku find him… a weirdo? Creepy? Pathetic?

Fuck it. Katsuki’s not saying shit. He doesn’t want to make things even worse, like he always seems to do when it comes to Izuku.

So, Katsuki takes a step back, not wanting to make Izuku more uncomfortable or to make things even more awkward. I never wanted this to end, I wanted to keep going forever, he grieves in his mind, But I don’t want to push his limits, either. If he doesn’t want this – then I won’t do it.

Izuku, on the other hand, is going down a spiral. I don’t deserve this, I don’t deserve him, I don’t deserve his kindness, he keeps telling himself in his brain. Feeling awkward, embarrassed, guilty, and growing desperate for some space, Izuku gives up on his plan of grabbing breakfast and turns on his heels to go back to his room without a word. Maybe hunger can be as punitive as the cold weather from the rooftop.

“O-Oi,” Katsuki calls after Izuku. Desperate, but not wanting to come off as such, or as clingy. “You… You want a toast or sum’n? I could make you some breakfast.”

Izuku gulps, halts, back turned to Katsuki. He never looks back, still shivering.

“Izuku…?” Katsuki calls hesitantly. He’s confused and a little dejected.

Izuku takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. I can’t do this.

He resumes walking and leaves the common room, heading upstairs to his bedroom and abandoning a stunned-into-silence Katsuki behind.

˗ˏˋ ★ ★ ˎˊ˗

Theoretical classes with Aizawa take place that morning. Izuku doesn’t mutter or try to interact with his homeroom teacher at all during that time span, and Katsuki, sitting in front of him, finds himself to be extremely bothered by that.

He also finds it fucking ironic that he’s bothered by Izuku’s lack of rambling, something he never imagined could happen in his wildest fantasies. Usually, they annoy him more than anything, but today he… misses the ramblings. It’s always a bad sign whenever the nerd gets too quiet – it usually means he’s stuck too deep inside his own head, with who-knows what sort of demons. His silence speaks volumes, always.

Once the final morning class is done (Katsuki didn’t manage to focus at all on what Aizawa taught them that day; he’d been too busy wondering about what could have rendered Izuku so fucking distant), their teacher announces that they’ll do some practical training. The whole class cheers, but Katsuki can’t help but to feel even more annoyed at this – not only because of Izuku’s mysterious silence, but also because he knows he’ll be forced to sit this the practice out.

Ever since the gruesome War injury on his dominant arm – and ever since he’s started physical therapy for it –, he’s been advised to keep away from practical training until he receives official clearance from his doctors. Newsflash: that hasn’t happened yet.

He doesn’t know when that will happen, since he’s been going to rehab for fucking forever and it never seems to end. His arm is doing much better in comparison to when he first started attending these sessions, but still, full mobility remains a faraway dream. Just like his doctor had told him when he first woke up in the hospital after the end of the War.

Grumpy and confused and frustrated and worried about the damn nerd, Katsuki gets up from his seat and gets his things ready to leave for the training. He’ll be forced to just watch, like he’s been downgraded to do, but he’ll take the chance to observe attentively and write down some notes about his extra friends while he’s stuck out of action. With his non-dominant hand, of course.

But one thing at the time. He tries to focus – at least focus more than he’s been doing that entire morning. He can’t really do anything about his arm right now or in the near future, and apart from exercising alone and going to physical rehab, his official clearance is up to his doctors. However, he can try and solve the other pressing issue that’s been nagging at his brain ever since earlier.

Once he’s done packing his things into his bag, he lifts his head and looks over his shoulder, meaning to ask Izuku to talk things through before practical starts. Earlier, he didn’t really get a chance to talk to Izuku – the boy had barged out of the room in a hurry, without giving Katsuki the time of the day. And he had looked terrible while he was at it.

Katsuki wants – needs – to know what’s going on in that troubled brain of his. He needs to dig Izuku out from the depths of his shitty mind before it can ruin him – before it can ruin them. Not that there is a them or anything, though. He means: before it can ruin what they have. N-Not that they have anything, either! Damn it, Katsuki’s thoughts are all jumbled and messy…

He can’t stop thinking back to how Izuku had flinched away from him in the common room, eyes bloodshot. To how he didn’t say a single word, like a deer in the headlights. It makes him so, so worried for the nerd. Why’re you acting like this? What’s gotten into you? Are you okay? Did I do something? Katsuki means to ask once they’re in private.

Before he gets the chance, however, just as he opens his mouth to say I need to talk to you, Izuku walks right past him – seeming purposefully avoidant and not even looking at Katsuki’s general direction, like he doesn’t exist.

Okay, that pisses him off.

Katsuki tries to reach for Izuku silently – he doesn’t want to call the attention of the rest of the nosy class –, but Izuku’s currently closest to Katsuki’s bad arm, and so he isn’t able to fully outstretch the limb in order to grab Izuku’s hand and demand that they just talk it out. It frustrates him to no end when Izuku simply exits the room, and the other students do too. Katsuki curses his own mangled arm and its fucking current uselessness.

“Come on, Bakugou!” Kirishima calls, the last one to walk toward the door, completely oblivious to Katsuki’s inner struggle. “It’ll be fun to watch, even if you can’t participate!”

Katsuki growls, grumpy. “Don’t shove on my face that I can’t participate,” he mumbles under his breath, but Kirishima doesn’t hear it – he’s already out of the room.

With a disappointed and worried sigh, Katsuki exits the room and follows Class 2-A. He goes straight to training grounds, which are still empty, since all the students had to go change into their hero outfits. The only other person already there, other than him, is Aizawa, who eyes Katsuki silently as he strolls to the benches and takes a seat, placing his backpack down beside him.

Katsuki opens the bag to grab his notebook and his pencil – all done with his non-dominant hand, which, despite getting better and more proficient the more Katsuki uses it, still is… non-dominant and awkward.

Katsuki’s so focused on getting everything he needs to take his notes during the class that he doesn’t notice Aizawa approaching him. Sensing a presence looming nearby, he looks up and finds his teacher there, standing in front of him with a stern yet… sympathetic look?

“You look grumpy today,” is all Aizawa says.

Katsuki frowns and blinks, confused. He doesn’t figure he’s anywhere as grumpy as he could be, given the shitty situation he’s found himself in with Izuku and his sudden rejection, added to the humiliation of having to sit the training out because of his arm. “I do?”

Aizawa hums pensively. “Maybe grumpy isn’t the right word. Did something happen?”

Izuku doesn’t want me to touch him anymore, he opens his mouth to say before realizing how stupid and off-putting that sentence would sound – especially to a teacher. Aizawa doesn’t know about their Thing. Nobody does. Maybe that was Izuku’s plan from the beginning – making the Thing unknowledgeable so that no one other than Katsuki would miss it once it ended.

Huh. Why the fuck am I thinking that? Katsuki frowns more deeply. He’s so confused.

Aizawa is still staring at him, waiting for an answer that doesn’t sound completely bonkers. Katsuki averts his eyes. “Just my shitty arm. Wanted to go back to training already, but I…” He trails off with a shrug. His justification is only a half-lie – more of a dodging-the-blame situation, really.

If Aizawa sees through it, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he simply sighs, sounding tired, averting his eyes as well and staring at the distance. He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Pushing yourself into getting better before it’s time will do more harm than good, trouble kid. You’re making nice progress. Don’t ruin it by putting the cart before the horse.”

 Katsuki makes a grumpy (grumpier?) expression. “Yeah,” he nods, not looking at his teacher. And then, an honest: “Thanks.”

Aizawa nods back. If his face ever showed more of his feelings, he would have looked proud of his student’s progress in expressing gratitude. “You’ll be back to training soon enough, I’m sure. As long as you don’t do anything stupid,” he adds in a warning yet playful tone.

Katsuki glares at him, but Aizawa doesn’t scold him for it. He lets Katsuki have this one.

As the first students of 2-A start to arrive at the training grounds, all dressed up and looking ready, Aizawa steps away from Katsuki without another word and walks toward the rest of his class.

Katsuki’s secretly thankful for Aizawa’s support, really. Not that he’d say that out loud or anything. He watches with his notebook on his lap and his pen ready in hands as his classmates line up in front of their teacher.

“All right, listen up,” Aizawa announces. “Today will be simple. You’ll be arranged into pairs and spar each other using your quirks. First one who yields or who is forced out of the delimited space loses. Sports Festival’s rules. As I call the names, move closer to your pair. Let’s see…”

Katsuki searches for Izuku in the crowd and finds him somewhere behind Kouda, almost as if he’s trying to make himself look smaller than he truly is. Which is not like him at all, at least not in the past year, after the confidence he’s built after defeating Shigaraki. Katsuki frowns some more, concerned.

Aizawa starts listing the names while Katsuki watches with only half-attention. As his eyes try to stay fixed on a mop of green curls – that’s all that he can spot from Izuku right now, Move the fuck outta the way, Animal Planet Guy –, his mind starts to wander away from the training session and heads more towards what he could have possibly done wrong to push Izuku, usually the nicest guy in the world, away from him.

Let’s face it: he had spent literal years bullying Izuku and mistreating and humiliating him, and Izuku never left his side before – rarely flinched like he had done today. What did asshole-extraordinaire Katsuki Bakugou do after all those years that was finally Izuku’s drawing line, and only now? And more importantly, what can he do to fix it?

Because usually, Izuku’s brooding sessions are prompted by something, except this time, it seemed to come out of nowhere. So maybe it’s really Katsuki’s fault and it came from something that he did. He just can’t figure out what it was, for the life of him…

An idea clicks in his head. Maybe Izuku had some sort of nightmare that triggered him? These days, whenever he gets too quiet, it’s usually related to a bad dream… So, could this be it? Is he avoiding Katsuki because he had a nightmare? But then, why not seek Katsuki like he always does whenever he struggles with sleep, showing up at his doorstep in the middle of the night and asking to listen to his heart? What could have been so different this time?

Katsuki is so caught up with these thoughts and ponderations that he stops really paying attention at the training session that starts ahead of him. Instead of taking notes about the first pair, which happens to be Izuku himself versus Kirishima, Katsuki starts writing down what he can possibly do to make Izuku like him again – want to cuddle with him again.

Because Katsuki secretly longs for it, even if he would never admit that. He misses it. He hates to think about how hurt he’d been when he found Izuku all upset and teary in that common room that morning. Not just out of worry and compassion for him and his pain, but also from an ugly, jealous fear that He didn’t come for me this time. What if he doesn’t ever come for me anymore?

Katsuki’s always been a selfish person, but this is getting out of hand, now – he needs to admit it. The truth is: this newfound thing with Izuku, this pleasant thing, is something too precious for him to give up so easily. He doesn’t want to give up on it. He yearns for it. He yearns for Izuku. Thus, he should figure out a way to make Izuku forgive him for whatever he did and stay with him. More than that – Izuku needs to want to stay with him.

Should he buy Izuku some rare All Might Golden Era merch? Or maybe that limited-edition All Might-themed box of chocolates that was on the TV the other day? Maybe make him a personalized playlist with songs he thinks they might share a liking for while he’s at it? Izuku is the type of guy to like that sappy, personal shit, and Ears could totally help Katsuki with making a good playlist for them to listen to together. Or maybe… invite Izuku to watch that new All Might doc-series that was launched a week ago? In Katsuki’s bedroom? While cuddling again? Ok, maybe not cuddling, if Izuku is no longer comfortable with that, but –

Fuck. Katsuki’s so screwed.

He gets so busy furiously writing down his Izuku plans in his notebook – and he does need to concentrate so that he can write with his non-dominant hand – that he doesn’t realize that something’s gone wrong at Aizawa’s training session. He hears a commotion, but doesn’t really pay attention to it, since all his asshole class knows to do is scream about meaningless shit all the time.

But this time, he should have listened. Because Izuku is currently sparring Kirishima, and Kirishima is in his hardened form, and suddenly, Izuku lands a blow on their friend so hard, so astonishingly hard, that Kirishima is sent flying at top speed, like a meteor, in the direction of –

“Bakugou, watch out!!” Several voices yell in alarm.

Katsuki barely has the time to lift his head from his annotations before Kirishima collapses with him, hard, the impact immediately sending a hellfire of pain across Katsuki’s recovering arm. He lets out a scream of surprise and agony as his notebook and pen fly in the air and he ends up on his back on the floor, stuck between two benches, squirming beneath Kirishima massive weight.

“Oh, my god!”

“That was ugly.”

“Are they okay? Is Bakugou –?”

“Fuck – I’m sorry, man, holy shit! Are you all right?” Kirishima dizzily tries to ask as he struggles to get up from the top of Katsuki without risking to hurt him further.

“Off – Off – Get the fuck off –” Is what Katsuki says in return, slapping Kirishima’s body and his helping hand away from him with his non-dominant hand once his friend gets to his feet. Katsuki turns on his side on the floor, vision blurry and hazy, swallowing dry and trying to keep his incoming panic at bay.

He can’t help but to feel a cold sensation of fear pooling in his belly that this stupid accident might end up setting back months of his progress with his arm. The arm still had a long way to go before it was fully healed, but it was doing so much better than it had been a year ago. Katsuki doesn’t want it to be set back. He can’t have it be set back. He can’t. He just can’t.

Before he knows, tears are pooling in his eyes, and he coughs a little to pretend he isn’t downright about to sob in despair. He quickly rubs his tears away with his good hand and sniffs before he cradles his bad arm close to his chest. He thinks no one other than Kirishima, the one closest to him, can see the tears – but as he looks up, the damage is already done.

Izuku is staring at him, face pale and horrified, almost as if he thinks – that he’s somehow to blame for this –

Fuck. Katsuki’s all askew on the floor, stuck between two fallen benches, cradling his arm and visibly shaking as he tries not to cry. Of course Izuku would feel guilty, especially after being the very person who launched that asteroid of a man onto Katsuki’s direction.

“Izuku –” Katsuki tries to call from the distance with a voice that ends up sounding choked up, but it’s too late.

Izuku spins on his heels and downright runs away at the call for his name. Everyone from class 2-A opens a path for him to pass through in complete silence – Idiots, someone try to stop him! –, and soon enough he’s gone from the training field.

Silence. Sepulchral.

“Dude, is your arm okay? Can you stand up –?” Kirishima’s still trying to fucking talk to him, oblivious to the current turmoil and internal panic Katsuki’s going through.

Katsuki shoves the disoriented Kirishima away a bit more harshly than he had meant to, immediately trying to run after Izuku. But “trying” is the right word, since as soon as he gets up, he involuntarily groans in (even more) pain and loses balance. He topples to the side, disoriented, and he would have fallen on top of his bad arm if it hadn’t been for Kirishima, who grabs him by the shoulder and aids him to his feet.

Katsuki finally takes a proper look at his disheveled friend, swallowing dry and blinking rapidly. Kirishima looks fucking injured; he’s still in his hardened form but his stomach is literally cracking from what Katsuki can see. Just how hard Izuku had punched him? And why? Is he okay?

“Bakugou,” Aizawa materializes beside the duo – Kirishima is holding Katsuki close, while Katsuki clings to his friend’s arm like a lifeline with his good arm, despite the humiliation. “How are you? Did your arm –?” And Aizawa almost sounds worried, rather than his usual impassive stance, trying to look at Katsuki’s scarred arm that’s being held against his chest.

“F-Fine, but Izuku –” He tries, aware that his teacher will probably scold him for not sorting out his priorities.

“He’ll be fine. I’ll look into it,” Aizawa promises a bit too quickly, almost as if he had expected these precise words from his student. Then, taking one look at Kirishima’s cracked stomach: “Recovery Girl, the two of you. Now.”

Katsuki sniffs, glaring and fighting against tears. “But Izuku –” He tries again, desperate, voice guttural. He’ll blame himself. He’ll hate himself. It’s my fault. I should’ve been paying attention –

“Now, Bakugou,” Aizawa snaps. He sounds impatient, or maybe that’s just how he displays concern. “Don’t make me say it again. Kirishima, take him, and get yourself checked too.”

“Y-Yes, sensei!” Kirishima responds obediently. “Let’s go, man. You can lean on me if you wanna.”

“Fuck, no, you idiot. You’re injured, and I can walk just – fine –” Katsuki huffs, even though he’s already leaning part of his weight on Kirishima. They start to limp away together, but Katsuki keeps sending looks back over his shoulder.

“I’ll be fine, it’s just a scratch,” Kirishima says, but his voice sounds tight and pained. “Though I gotta say, Midoriya really knows how to pack a punch.”

Katsuki clicks his tongue, turning back to his friend. “And I thought you knew how to take one,” he can’t help but to sound judgmental as they walk out of training grounds.

Kirishima hesitates. “Yeah, uh – About that – I mean – He seemed a bit… out of it?”

Katsuki snaps his head toward Kirishima, breathing harder the more his arm aches. “Out of it?”

“Like he wasn’t… really there,” Kirishima comments. “Like, I know he’d never punch me that hard, especially not during a training session. Something must have happened.”

Yeah, tell me about it, Katsuki thinks miserably.

“Bakugou!” A different voice calls from behind them. Katsuki turns to look and finds Todoroki chasing after them, jogging. The pair halts so that Todoroki can catch up, and once he does, he announces: “Aizawa sensei allowed me to see you to the infirmary. In case you need help.”

Katsuki scoffs. Todoroki has become his friend over the years, but he can be really fucking oblivious to what Katsuki needs to hear during moments of crisis, sometimes.

“I don’t need help,” he snaps, offended.

“He also wanted me to ensure you won’t talk Kirishima out of walking you to Recovery Girl so that you can go after Midoriya,” Todoroki states a bit more bluntly.

“Hey!” Kirishima protests, offended. “I wouldn’t do that!”

“Bakugou can be very convincing when he wants to be,” Todoroki points out with a quirked eyebrow.

“Whatever, I don’t fucking care,” Katsuki barks, tired. “Let’s just go get this over with so that I can –”

Go find my best friend turned cuddle-buddy turned regular friend again turned maybe acquaintance forever?

Kirishima and Todoroki stare at him, waiting for him to continue.

“– So that I can go to my room,” he concludes, deflating with a grumpy expression.

God, he really can’t take this anymore. He needs to get his damn arm sorted out, and then he needs to find Izuku and figure things out with him, too. He needs to know what’s going on so that he’s able to help. He can’t do anything useful unless he knows what’s happening inside Izuku’s troubled little mind.

And so, Katsuki allows Kirishima and Todoroki to tag alongside him, not hearing a word they’re saying to each other – and to him – on the way to Recovery Girl’s infirmary. All he can think of is Izuku, a deep sense of worry and dread pooling in his belly.

˗ˏˋ ★ ★ ˎˊ˗

Izuku arrives at the training grounds after changing into his hero gear, followed by a few other boys from his class who keep chattering idly in the background.

From the distance, he sees Kacchan sitting on the front bench closest to the field, holding his notebook on his lap and using his left hand to write. His face is scrunched up in deep concentration, so much so that he doesn’t acknowledge everybody else arriving – Izuku knows from experience that using your non-dominant hand to write is an extremely hard task. He feels sympathy for Kacchan at this, and he hopes, for his own sake, that Kacchan never learns that he feels sympathy toward him, lest he gets his face exploded for it.

Aizawa sensei announces that they’ll train some quirk-sparring and, as he reads up the list of pairs that will be fighting each other, Izuku finds he’ll be up against Kirishima. He thinks this will be nice for them both – Kirishima is extremely good at defense and Izuku needs to learn how to get around that better, while Izuku’s massive strength could be a challenge for the boy’s hardening quirk.

They happen to be sorted as the first pair to start sparring. Izuku, in all honesty, just wants to get this over with so that the day’s classes come to an end and he can go back to his dorm room to brood, since he doesn’t have any patrols scheduled for the day – thankfully. He feels a deep need to be alone and to think, so he’s ready to cut to the chase during the training session.

As Izuku walks slowly into the delimited space selected for the fight, he tries his earnest not to look at Kacchan, who’s only a few meters behind Kirishima. But in the end, he just can’t help himself. It’s like his mere presence is enough to redirect Izuku’s eyesight completely on its own, no matter how much he fights against it. No matter how much he means to distance himself from Kacchan, for Kacchan’s own sake and safety. Just the sight of his distant silhouette is like a magnet to Izuku’s eyes.

So, Izuku side-stares. Kacchan still seems too busy with his left-handed writing; he’s not looking at Izuku or at any of the other students in the field, head hanging low as he writes something down furiously. Izuku wonders what he could be writing about, given that the training hasn’t started yet.

Speaking of which…

“First pair: start!” Aizawa announces once Kirishima steps into the delimited space as well, and Izuku’s thoughts snap back to his current situation. He averts his eyes back to his adversary and leaves Kacchan be for the time being – it’s what he should be doing in the first place.

He activates One For All moderately – he doesn’t want to overdo it and burn through the embers more quickly than necessary –, while Kirishima hardens and assumes a defensive stance. It’s obvious he’ll aim for defense, like Izuku had predicted – and he’ll probably do so until Izuku grows tired of attacking and lets his guard down.

That means Izuku’s strength must be grander than Kirishima’s resilience. It won’t be as easy as he had first thought – not that he doesn’t take Kirishima for a worthy opponent, but they’ve known each other for years now and Izuku knows where to push him. But Kirishima looks determined, and he seems to be nearing his unbreakable form. Izuku isn’t sure he can deal with that accordingly – not today of all days, at least.

Usually, he would have more faith in his own ability to defeat his opponent and win, especially after the War. But today is a bad day, precisely because of the War, and so Izuku feels waves of insecurity and uncertainty flooding his brain. He doesn’t want to hurt Kirishima, but he doesn’t want to let his guard down and lose the fight, either, and he doesn’t want to take too long in this sparring session. He wants to leave. He just wants to not be there right now.

(Maybe he should have spoken to Aizawa, asked to be dismissed. He’s sure the teacher would understand, given the day’s circumstances – the anniversary. But he hadn’t said anything before, and now the sparring has already started – it’s too late for that.)

Izuku can’t really bring himself to concentrate. With each blow that he aims at Kirishima’s hardened form, he remembers the blows he had aimed at Shigaraki exactly a year before, trying to break through him. The memories grow more and more intense inside his head the more blows he delivers, until they become so vivid that, to Izuku, he’s no longer sparring against Kirishima, but against Shigaraki again. It’s like he’s been transported back to the War, all the way back – it’s like he never left. One year before, and he’s still stuck there.

And maybe he never did leave. Maybe everything that happened across that one year was only a dream – the cuddling sessions with Kacchan, the holding each other while Izuku wept on his bed, the caressing of hair, the fingers running down his back. The heartbeats.

Maybe Kacchan didn’t even survive. Maybe Kacchan is not even alive right now. Maybe he died at the War, at Shigaraki’s hands, maybe him being alive and soft and cuddly had just been a dream, a hallucination caused by one of Shigaraki’s quirks, maybe Izuku needs to put an end to this fight and go to find out for himself –

Intense familiar shouting breaks through his manic thoughts and bring him back to reality, but they do so a split moment too late. He comes back to himself just in time to feel his fist hit something hard with all his strength, with more than 100% One For All – Crap, the embers, Izuku! – and then –

“Midoriya!”

“Wait –”

“Dude, he’s gonna –”

Kirishima oofs.

Then Izuku hears Kacchan scream.

He blinks his blank eyes, refocusing them and finding himself to be back in the middle of the training area with his hand still outstretched in front of himself in the form of a fist. Finding that there is a commotion in front of him, he lowers the hand and straightens his posture, sticking his neck out and trying to see what is happening.

The people causing the commotion – his friends, his colleagues – are all surrounding a fallen bench.

“Ow, man.”

“That was ugly.”

“Why did he go so hard…?”

“It’s been a while since we’ve seen something like that.”

“That’s a way to win.”

Izuku approaches the scene further, meekly, managing to see – Kirishima, who looks battered and in pain. Did Izuku make him feel this way? And he’s struggling to get up from atop –

Kacchan?

And Kacchan is – Kacchan is –

C-Crying?

Izuku feels himself grow pale and his breaths starting to come out faster, in shorter puffs of air. Kacchan is cradling his bad arm, his recovering arm, close to his chest, coughing and sniffing and looking like he’s fighting really hard against tears. His arm looks stiff and a bit askew, and Izuku gapes in mortification.

He did this. He hurt Kacchan.

Again.

Not only that, but he’s also hurt Kirishima as well, from the looks of it – from the way he’s cradling his – his midsection with a pained look. Izuku can see cracks on his hardening quirk from where he stands.

This is bad. This is really bad.

Izuku feels like an actual monster. If he had felt guilty about hurting – killing – a villain, how is he supposed to feel about hurting a friend? Hurting someone he l– someone he lo–

He can’t even think about that word. He feels like he doesn’t deserve it. And he doesn’t. He really doesn’t.

His stomach revolts. Before he ends up puking in front of everyone, he turns on his heels and runs away from the training field.

Nobody tries to stop him. His friends even clear the path for him to pass through. They must know. They must see I’m a monster.

“Izuku –” Kacchan calls after him, voice strained, Izuku hears it. But he never stops running. He can’t. He just can’t.

Izuku runs like his life depends on it, hyperventilating and gasping at this point, tears and snot obstructing his vision and his nostrils and making it even harder to see and breathe. He can’t face what he’s done. He’s hurt Kacchan. He can’t be forgiven. Not ever.

He keeps hurting Kacchan. He’s not good for him. They can’t be together. They can’t ever be together. They can’t keep cuddling and snuggling and caressing each other at night like Izuku isn’t a literal war machine capable of killing him – any of them – at any given time. They just can’t.

He’ll end up getting Kacchan killed again, and he won’t ever be able to live with himself if that happens. He needs – he must – stay away.

˗ˏˋ ★ ★ ˎˊ˗

“Kiss!” Recovery Girl groans as she kisses Katsuki’s arm better.

He looks annoyed, grumpier than usual, as the woman finishes healing his recovering limb and puts it on a sling, which gives him an odd, unpleasant sense of déjà vu.

He had spent ages wearing his arm on a damn sling after the War as he recovered from the nearly permanent injury caused by Shigaraki. To have to go back to wearing it now, after so much has passed and gotten better… It sends shivers down his spine. It feels like taking several steps back after struggling so hard to take one forward.

At least he didn’t break his arm this time around. It was more of a sprain, and luckily for him, his recovery will need to be paused by the sudden injury, but it won’t be completely halted or set back like he had feared it would. At least there’s that to ease Katsuki’s mind and make the wearing of the sling feel a little less revolting.

Recovery Girl then goes to heal Kirishima, who’s lying on the cot right next to Katsuki’s and won’t stop hugging his cracked tummy, groaning in pain. Katsuki would almost feel sympathy for him if it weren’t from the fact that he’s almost losing his mind with worry for Izuku. Katsuki knows that what happened wasn’t Kirishima’s fault, but he also knows it wasn’t Izuku’s, either. Something is going on with him today. Something is going on, and Katsuki needs to find out what it is before he ends up hurting himself.

“Kiss!” Recovery Girl says again as she kisses Kirishima better. Kirishima finally stops whimpering and moaning and relaxes now that most of the pain is gone, looking completely worn out.

“Oi!” Katsuki nudges at Kirishima’s side with his good arm, making the boy flinch in surprise and reminiscent pain. “Don’t pass out on me. We need to go back already.”

“The boy is right,” Recovery Girl says, walking past Todoroki to get to her desk and grabbing something off a drawer before going back to their sides. She’s holding one little chocolate in each of her hands. She hands them over to the two boys before turning to Kirishima. “Take the rest of the day off if you’re feeling too tired. But you’re well enough to go rest at your own dorm room,” she shoos him away with the tip of her cane. “Off you go, off you go.”

“I’ll make sure they go back safely,” Todoroki nods at Recovery Girl.

“Atta boy,” she nods back, turning her back to them and taking notes on their charts in a dismissive way.

Todoroki walks up to Katsuki’s cot and offers him his elbow to lean on as he struggles to get up. Katsuki immediately tsks and slaps Todoroki’s elbow away from himself with anger, although he doesn’t do so as strongly as he could have. Todoroki nods to himself – he should have seen that coming – and walks around the cot to get to Kirishima, who immediately laches on and clings to Todoroki’s arm like it’s a lifeline.

“Thanks, man!” Kirishima says in a lamenting tone as he sits up and stands with Todoroki’s help. “Ouch, Midoriya really did a number on me,” he comments offhandedly, hunched over and taking small steps under Todoroki’s guidance.

Kirishima is in too much pain still, so he’s completely oblivious to the way Katsuki’s lips purse at this, or to the even grumpier look that takes over his expression. Todoroki, however, although capable of being very oblivious sometimes, notices the look on Katsuki’s face from the corner of his eyes, even if he doesn’t comment on it.

They walk back in silence to the dorm building, Todoroki taking the lift alongside the two friends to their floor so that they can drop Kirishima to his room first. As he reaches over with a still pained stance and twists the doorknob to his room open, Kirishima turns back to Katsuki, finally meeting his eyes after what happened that day.

“I’m really sorry for what happened, man,” he says sincerely through gritted teeth. “I’m just glad I didn’t set back your arm’s recovery so much.”

Katsuki huffs. “It wasn’t your damn fault,” he says a tad too aggressively.

Kirishima nods. “Yeah, but still. I’m just really, really sorry.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. Like you said, it won’t set me back, so there’s no harm done. Just go and rest some so that you can heal already instead of whimpering nonstop at us,” he teases sharply as always.

Kirishima offers him a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his tired, achy eyes. “Yeah, I’ll – I’ll do that. Thanks, man. And thanks for the support, Todoroki! You’re the best,” He taps Todoroki’s arm before pushing the door to his room more open and stepping inside. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, I guess…” He trails off before disappearing and closing the door behind himself.

Katsuki sighs, finally turning to look at Todoroki in the eye. He doesn’t look happy, even if Todoroki’s not at fault for that. “You ain’t getting a heartfelt thanks from me, so if you’re done here, off you go,” he says, perhaps too harshly. His sour mood from today isn’t really helping his already nasty, usual behavior.

Todoroki hesitates. “Actually,” he starts, “I was wondering if we could talk for a second.”

Katsuki frowns, finding that odd. But all in all, he and Todoroki can be called friends – they have grown close in the past years, Katsuki’s can’t deny that. He could definitely use some time to think and try to help Izuku out today, but maybe that’s what Todoroki wants to talk about after all.

Katsuki gestures for Todoroki to follow him and heads to his own dorm room, opening it and stepping inside unceremoniously. Todoroki follows through slowly and respectfully, aware of the honor he’s being granted. Even now, not many students have been granted permission to enter Katsuki Bakugou’s room. He can definitely be called Katsuki’s friend if he’s allowed in there.

Todoroki closes the door to the room behind himself and stares at Katsuki, who sighs and sits at the rolling chair by his study desk. Katsuki gestures, with his good arm, for Todoroki to sit on the corner of his bed instead of just standing there in the middle of the room awkwardly, which he politely does. Once they’re settled, Katsuki speaks up.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

Todoroki swallows dry and stares at the neatly cleaned floor of the room. “I’m worried about Midoriya,” he admits, which, bingo, Katsuki got it right. Hearing those words does hit him with a bit of an ugly feeling that resembles jealousy, though, because what business does Icy Hot have with Izuku to go around worrying about him like that? That’s Katsuki’s job and his alone.

Before Katsuki can verbalize any of that in a rather impolite manner, Todoroki continues, unaware:

“He didn’t seem very well today, especially after the incident at sparring. I wanted to see if you knew what is going on with him, since the two of you are boyfriends.”

Katsuki stares at him.

He stares.

He just stares.

Todoroki blinks and tilts his head to the side.

Katsuki’s face is blank. “What?”

Todoroki frowns. “What?”

Katsuki feels heat rising slowly to his face all the way up to his ears in the form of a deep blush, and he frowns back at Todoroki. “What in the – What – I mean – What in the goddamn hell are you – I – What are you on about? Boyfriends? Who said that? Who told you that? Why do you think me and – Izuku and I – We – We’re – W-What – What?!”

Todoroki looks profoundly confused. “Are you not boyfriends, then? Sorry for presuming.”

“Presuming?!” Katsuki can’t help but shriek. “Icy Hot, why’re you – Why would you presume that in the first place?!” He demands to know.

Todoroki continues to half-frown, half-blink blankly at Katsuki, trying to understand the course this conversation’s taking. “I’ve caught Midoriya on his way to going to your room in the middle of the night more than once. I’ve also seen the way you look at each other, which reminds me of how my brother Natsuo looks at his fiancée; that’s where I got the assumption from. You’re always hanging out with each other ever since the War, and touching, and caressing each other’s hairs, and holding each other close with…” He hesitates.

“With what?” Katsuki urges.

Todoroki glances away. It’s not like him to look embarrassed, so he looks as close to that as he can get. “With love. Or what I assumed to be love. I don’t – suppose I would know the difference. Like I said, I apologize for presuming – I should have asked first; I see that now.”

Katsuki’s face falls a bit, and he almost feels sorry for Todoroki. Unfortunately, he has more pressing issues at hand.

Katsuki doesn’t really know how to feel about what his friend has just said. At the mention of the world “love”, his stomach twists and turns and leaps and revolts. Not out of fear, he realizes with dread, but out of longing. He’s been trying for so long to put a name into what he feels for Izuku, and yet, the word “love” had never crossed his mind until now. Except that, now that it finally did, it can never seem to leave, glued to his brain like a goddamn parasite.

Love. He loves Izuku. He loves him. That’s why he longs for his nightly visits, for the cuddling, for the lying-his-head-down-on-his-chest thing, for the caresses and even the tiny kisses atop his head every now and then. Katsuki loves him. Katsuki loves him.

And that leads to the million-dollar question: D-Does Izuku… love him too?

Is that why he cuddles Katsuki, and they hold each other, and he caresses Katsuki’s scarred back, and he plants tiny pecks on Katsuki’s cheeks as they sleep? Is that why he still calls him Kacchan, after so many years, and hugs him so gently? Is that why he’s been putting up – has always put up – with Katsuki’s antics and always stayed by his side no matter how horrible Katsuki would get?

But if that’s the case… Why did he run away after accidentally hurting Katsuki’s bad arm? Why didn’t he try to help, why did he refuse his hug earlier that morning? Was it out of guilt? Or was it disgust, maybe? Maybe he realized Katsuki’s feeling before even he did, and that’s why he’s been putting distance –

“Bakugou, you have to breathe!” Todoroki tells him with alarm, his hands reaching out to squeeze Katsuki’s good arm. For the first time, Katsuki realizes he’s hyperventilating.

He stares up at Todoroki with wide, shocked eyes, now painfully aware of the awful, wheezing sounds he’s making as he struggles to suck the air in. Todoroki grabs Katsuki’s good hand with strength and places it atop his own chest, taking a deep breath. “Here. Mimic my rhythm.”

Gulping and trying to take deep breaths under Todoroki’s guidance – something that would have left him mortified if it had happened just a year ago, but that now seems as natural as the development of his friendship with Icy Hot –, Katsuki eventually calms down enough to regain his bearings and think a little bit straighter. Still, he’s panicking. He’s utterly, completely losing his goddamn mind.

He sniffs and pulls back from Todoroki’s hold now that he can more or less breathe normally again. Then, he runs a hand across his flushing face and shakes it. “I – I didn’t know,” he admits to Todoroki, even though he doesn’t have to – even though he doesn’t really know why he’s doing that.

“You didn’t know what?” Todoroki frowns, worried.

“That I was in love with him.”

Todoroki blinks. “That means… You are, then? In love with him?”

Katsuki purses his lips, worries at the lower one. His face scrunches up as if he’s trying his earnest not to cry. He simply nods, without meeting Todoroki’s eyes, glaring at the floor instead as tears pool in his eyes.

“And you aren’t dating?” Todoroki is as blunt as ever.

“No,” Katsuki shakes his head, voice tight and strained. “We’re just – He’s just –”

Todoroki empathizes with him and nods comprehensively. “It’s okay, Bakugou. You don’t have to feel the need to put a name to it.”

Katsuki swallows dry, recognizing he really, really needs to talk to Izuku immediately. He can sort things out with Todoroki later – and possibly thank him for helping him, even if accidentally, to realize what his pent-up feelings were, later too.

“Look, I gotta go,” he stands up from the rolling chair in a hurry, knocking it back by accident but not even stopping to try and set it back up as he rushes to the door to his room. “I gotta – Izuku, he wasn’t okay, I need to – I gotta – I have to –”

“Bakugou, take it easy,” Todoroki reaches out for him, following him out of the room and toward the stairs in a rush. “I understand. I noticed something is off about Midoriya today too. If he didn’t as much as talk to you, of all people, about it, then – we must presume it’s not good.”

“It’s not good, it can’t be good,” Katsuki agrees, nodding and shaking his head at the same time, feeling disoriented and frantic. He needs to figure things out. He needs to help Izuku. He needs to tell him –

“You need to tread carefully, or you might scare him away,” Todoroki suggests, still following Katsuki close. “You know how he gets reclusive when cornered about his feelings.”

Katsuki finally turns around to stare at Todoroki, eyes bloodshot and wet, face now pale and anguished. “Weren’t you supposed to be the oblivious one?”

Todoroki frowns. “I don’t follow.”

“Forget it,” Katsuki scoffs, waving his good hand at Todoroki. “Just – I’ll go after him and figure things out. I’ll – I’ll try to make sure everything’s all right.”

“I’m sure you can do it. Be strong, and take care of him,” Todoroki nods at him, squeezing his shoulder. “Good luck, Bakugou.”

Katsuki swallows dry and nods firmly at Todoroki. “Thanks, Icy Hot,” he says in an unusual display of gratitude, before turning on his heels and fleeing to Izuku’s door room.

˗ˏˋ ★ ★ ˎˊ˗

Katsuki knocks on Izuku’s dorm door, head low, heart hammering. “Hey, Izuku. It’s me. I need to talk to you.”

No answer.

He knocks and knocks and knocks again, reaching the point of almost – just almost – slamming his closed fist on the door.

Nothing.

Katsuki sighs. He knows how Izuku gets, with the brooding and the isolation. But he really needs to talk to him.

He never tries to open the door without permission, though. He wouldn’t invade Izuku’s privacy like that. Except he’s growing more nervous with each second that goes by, because Izuku’s state back in that training session – and before – had been really worrying, and Katsuki feels like a literal ticking bomb. His feelings are building up and are about to explode like a cracked dam any minute now. He feels like his only current choice is to willingly start talking until Izuku decides to open the door for him.

“I didn’t really know how to feel when you started reaching out for me during the nights, you know,” he begins, head hanging low and hand glued to the door. He knows Izuku must be hearing everything in silence, too busy moping about the sparring-gone-wrong to be able to face him. So, he keeps going. “Or when you asked to listen to my heart, or when you cuddled with me by accident, at first, then willingly, later.”

Silence. Katsuki sighs.

“I didn’t really feel a need to name it, either, because what we had, since we were little brats in diapers, had always gone unnamed. People tend to call us ‘childhood friends’ more often than not, but I had always felt that there’s something beyond that, something else between us. Something… unnamable. Something that only we share, only we understand.”

A self-deprecative smile appears in Katsuki’s lips. He scoffs out a humorless laugh and shakes his head. “This is coming out sappy as hell. But, I mean, I think I get to be sappy, just this once, for a change. Because I didn’t even fucking realize I loved you until goddamn Icy Hot spelled it out for me like I’m an idiot,” he scoffs that humorless laugh again, frowning. Some of his tears start to spill. “Shouto Todoroki, oblivious-extraordinaire, realized it before me, and put a name to it, while I was ignorant to my own fucking feelings! What a joke, Izuku. Can you believe that, haah?”

He glues his forehead to the door, next to his left hand.

“But now I know. I understand what I feel now. It’s like I’ve suddenly unlocked a new level on a videogame inside my own brain; everything is bigger, clearer, brighter – but also more difficult. I mean, of course I love you, Izuku, how could I fucking not? You bring the goddamn sun into my life. You make everything feel better. It’s been like that since the War, since I –” He trails off for a moment before huffing out a breath as tears continue to roll down the bridge of his nose and drop to the floor. “I think I just can’t imagine a world without you in it, or a world where we don’t compete with each other and push each other to our limits. I would lay down my life for your sake without thinking twice about it. I would do it again.”

Silence. Absolute, utter, earth-shattering silence. It’s like Izuku’s not even there. Katsuki would have thought Izuku would have at least opened the door to stare at him with those big, green doe eyes of him at the mention of Katsuki’s feelings, but he hasn’t received even that. And yeah, Katsuki would rather have done this whole thing face-to-face, of course, but he’s so desperate to be truthful to his feelings for at least once in his life that he can’t help but to spill everything right then and there at the shitty door.

He doesn’t know what else to say to get Izuku to just talk to him. The tiredness from Recovery Girl’s quirk, which used up his stamina to heal his arm, is starting to catch up with him at this point, so Katsuki turns around and slides down until he’s sitting on the floor, back leaning on Izuku’s closed door.

He decides he’ll wait until Izuku is finally ready to talk. He’ll give him time. He’ll wait for as long as it takes. He’s willing to. It’s worth it.

But as silent minutes of doing nothing tick by, unusual doubt starts to creep into Katsuki’s brain. He’s not one to question himself, but… Maybe Izuku doesn’t love him back and that’s why he hasn’t opened the door? Maybe all the cuddling and cheek-kissing and back-caressing had just been… platonic from his side? And maybe he’s embarrassed that Katsuki’s read something else into it and confessed? Maybe he’s disgusted? Maybe he doesn’t want to be close to Katsuki anymore?

Katsuki thinks back to the way Izuku flinched when he tried to hug him earlier that morning and internally cringes. Maybe he’s overstepping a line, a sacred line here. Maybe he’s on the brink of ruining everything good he’s took so long to build with Izuku. Maybe, maybe, maybe… So many questions and doubts and tiredness is wrapping around him like a cozy, warm blanket…

He eventually falls asleep like that, sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, his slinged arm cradled closely to himself, and the other arm covering his eyes. Waiting for Izuku, always waiting for Izuku, like he had done back at the War and like he’d be willing to do for the rest of his life.

˗ˏˋ ★ ★ ˎˊ˗

Someone’s shaking Katsuki by the shoulder. The motion is slow, gentle, as if not to hassle his recovering arm. He sighs softly, dreamingly, tiredly: “Izuku…”

“Blasty,” someone who’s (obviously) not Izuku says in a low, half-whispered voice, making a frown appear between Katsuki’s eyebrows. “We need your help. It’s – It’s about Midoriya.”

Katsuki’s eyes shoot open right away, head snapping up to stare at whoever’s talking to him.

He finds Mina and Uraraka staring down at him with worried looks, and gets to his feet in haste, which is not easy with only one functional arm – but he still manages it. None of the girls attempt to help because they’re too aware of his pride, and Katsuki is thankful for that. The only person he’d allow to help him is… is...

In need of his help, apparently.

“What happened? Something – Something happened?” He asks hurriedly, frantically, growing desperate at the weird looks on the two girls’ faces and at the off tones of their voices.

Mina reaches out and holds his good hand, while Uraraka places a hand of her own on his shoulder, careful not to place all fingers in contact with him lest she makes him float. That would be inappropriate at that moment.

“Just – tell me, goddamn it!” Katsuki snaps, nervous, eyes darting between the two of them. “What happened to the nerd? What’s wrong?”

Mina swallows dry, trying to find the proper words and the proper way to say what she needs to say as her mouth opens and closes like a fish’s. It’s Uraraka who ends up speaking first, however.

“I… got worried about Deku-kun after the sparring accident,” she starts, hesitant. “Once Aizawa sensei dismissed the class after you and Kirishima-kun left with Todoroki-kun for the infirmary, Aizawa sensei told me to stop by Deku-kun’s room and see how he was faring up – get him some help if he needed it. But as I got there and called for him… he didn’t seem to be there. I tried calling and texting, but it led nowhere. So, I decided to use my quirk to float and have a more panoramic view, and I… I found him.”

Silence. Katsuki scoffs.

“Well?” He gestures at her impatiently. “Where was he?”

Uraraka hesitates. “He was… He is on the rooftop of the boy’s UA dorm.”

Katsuki stares at her with slightly parted lips, blood draining from his face.

Take a swan dive off the roof of the building and pray that you’re born with a quirk on your next life –

No. Could things have gotten that bad? No, they couldn’t. Could they? Could Izuku –?

Uraraka continues, unaware of Katsuki’s thoughts. “He… He seems to have become non-verbal. He’s not responding to any attempts at calling his name or talking to him, at least when I tried. Iida tried as well, along with Mina, Jirou, Yaomomo, Tokoyami-kun, and almost the entirety of our class.”

“We even woke Kiri up and he went up there to tell Midoriya he had nothing to feel guilty for,” Mina jumps in. “But it was useless. It’s like his brain’s gone off-line. All he does is flinch when we try to touch him, so we’ve stopped trying to touch him, obviously. But this – I’ve never seen him like this, Bakugou.”

“We can’t seem to move him away from the rooftop,” Uraraka adds. “Since he’s flinching so much, we don’t want to trigger him into activating his quirk again and end up causing another accident to feel guilty about.”

Mina squeezes Katsuki’s shoulder. “Yes, but it’s getting very, very cold outside, though,” she gives him a knowing look. “Midoriya could get a cold or even become hypothermic if he doesn’t get inside before nightfall.”

“Everyone wanted to go get Aizawa sensei to fix this,” Uraraka says, eyeing Katsuki with the care one would approach a feral animal. “But we all agreed that, despite him being our homeroom teacher, the only person who has any solid chance to convince Deku-kun to come back in to warm up now is…

“You,” Mina fills in the blank.

Katsuki stares at the girls with something akin to gratefulness inside his eyes. He nods solemnly, having heard enough.

He walks right past them and heads to the rooftop.

All the way up there, his heart is his hands. Izuku’s unwell. He’s so unwell he’s gone unresponsive, non-verbal, ignoring their friends’ desperate attempts to just bring him back. He’s so unwell he doesn’t care if he catches a cold, or if he becomes hypothermic. He’s so unwell, he’s putting himself last, like he always fucking does, like it always drives Katsuki crazy with concern.

Plus, if he’d been on the rooftop that entire time, that means Izuku didn’t hear Katsuki’s confession. That means Katsuki would get the chance – he would have to – confess again, face to face like he wanted to. He can’t help but to feel a bit idiotic for having confessed his undying love to a wooden door, but still, he’s glad he’ll get the chance to go over it again. Hopefully more eloquently this time around.

Katsuki’s heart climbs to his throat as he opens the rooftop door and finds Izuku there, lying on a fetal position on the floor, his back turned to the entrance. Todoroki is silent beside him, apparently trying to warm him up using his left side.

He stands up when he sees Katsuki arrive. With a curt, trusting nod, Todoroki walks up to him. “They found you,” he states obviously.

Katsuki nods back. “You did right in sending for me instead of Aizawa sensei. I’ll talk to him.”

Todoroki nods again. “He’s not faring up so well. Be easy, Bakugou.”

“I am fucking wild,” Katsuki scoffs, before walking past Todoroki and toward Izuku on the floor.

Now that Todoroki is behind him and Izuku is ahead of him, with his back turned – now that he’s no longer being observed by anyone –, Katsuki allows his face to fall. He gulps and, being where he is, standing where he’s standing, he can’t quite keep the echo of his past words from his mind. Take a swan dive off the roof of –

Katsuki closes his eyes, chest aching, heart breaking all over again. He still doesn’t really know why he ever said such harsh words to Izuku… How can he ever expect Izuku to love him back after everything he’s done, even if he has been forgiven? Maybe it’s a good thing Izuku didn’t hear his confession back at his dorm door, thinking more rationally about it.

Maybe it’s better if Izuku never learns about Katsuki’s feelings at all. It’ll hurt and it’ll ache for Katsuki, but it’s probably for the best. Maybe his love is not what Izuku really needs to heal from… whatever it is that’s ailing him. Maybe Izuku needs something out of Katsuki’s reach.

But right now, Izuku needs him. None of his other friends could get him inside. Maybe Katsuki is the only one who currently can. For whatever reason…

He takes a deep breath and steps beside Izuku, even if being on the rooftop makes him uncomfortable. He slowly sits down on the cold, hard floor, trying not to lose balance due to his arm being in a sling, and settling down beside Izuku after a few embarrassing moments.

“Oi, nerd,” he calls, voice gruffy and harsh as it always is. “The hell d’ya think you’re doing out here in the cold?”

Izuku flinches, downright flinches and whimpers at the sound of Katsuki’s voice.

Katsuki’s heart is still in his throat, hammering a bit too strongly for someone with a heart condition, but at least that’s a reaction. “Let’s get back inside. It’s cold as shit out here,” he suggests, trying to sound a bit gentler than before.

Silence. No response. No reaction anymore, either.

Katsuki sighs. “We don’t have to talk,” he offers, running out of arguments, and knowing from firsthand experience how Izuku gets when he’s too deep inside his own head – dialogue avoidant, sometimes downright non-verbal. Maybe the promise that he won’t have to engage in conversation might sound attractive to him. “We can just hang out. Or not, if you don’t wanna. I can take you to your room and leave you on your own. Just get outta the damn cold, Izuku.”

Izuku turns his head ever so slightly to look at him from above his shoulder. For some reason, his eyes widen, and his face drops into the world’s most miserable-looking expression. Katsuki frowns, not knowing what could have earned such a reaction.

“It’s on a sling again,” it’s what Izuku says with a small voice that breaks at the end of the phrase.

He sounds utterly miserable. They both know it’s been at least a good half-a-year since Katsuki’s arm was last seen on a sling. Katsuki had thought about that as well back at Recovery Girl’s infirmary. Seeing the sling and putting it on had caused him that dreadful sense of déjà vu, that unpleasant feeling at the bottom of his stomach.

Still, Izuku doesn’t have to know that. Katsuki’s here to comfort him, not to be comforted by him. “It’s just for a day until it finishes healing,” he reassures Izuku easily, patiently.

“It needed healing,” Izuku laments, turning his head back away from Katsuki and shrinking further into himself. The words he means to say but doesn’t hang in the air heavily: I’ve caused this.

“It was just a sprain,” Katsuki reassures him again, sighing. “Recovery Girl healed it already; the sling is just to make sure it stays in place while her quirk finishes doing its job. Everything’s okay, Izuku.”

“It’s really not, though,” Izuku argues in a shaky, strained voice. Like he’s holding back tears.

Katsuki moves closer to him on the floor so that his thigh is almost touching Izuku’s back. He never does touch him without permission, but he stays close enough that some of his body warmth seeps into Izuku’s shivering body.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?”

Izuku hesitates. He ends up staying silent, just as Katsuki had anticipated. Avoidant as usual. Maybe he doesn’t even know how to answer that question.

Katsuki sighs. He’s running out of strategies, here, and even he is starting to shiver now – the damn rooftop is way too cold. How Izuku is handling to stay here for what was probably over an hour… It’s beyond Katsuki. He knows Izuku is resilient, but this is something else.

Something that vaguely resembles masochism.

“I’m not going back in unless you do, too,” Katsuki states suddenly after tense seconds of silence have passed by. He doesn’t know how else to get Izuku to comply, for the sake of Izuku’s own health, and maybe Katsuki having his own safety on the line seems like the only strategy that’ll do it right now. “So, unless you want us both to catch a cold or become hypothermic…”

Izuku flinches again, and he lets out a sound that seems like another cut-off whine. Katsuki’s heart makes a leap at the sound, but he stands his ground, tilting his trembling chin up. Still, Izuku hesitates, and doesn’t really make a move.

“I just want to be alone,” he says in a small voice, the tiniest in the world. It sounds like a request, although it isn’t phrased like one.

Katsuki grits his teeth and purses his lips. “I’ll walk you to your room and get straight outta your case like you want me to,” he promises. “Just – Let’s get out of here, please. I don’t like this place.”

I don’t like seeing you on a rooftop because of me.

Izuku swallows compulsively before eventually nodding almost half a minute later. He finally moves, and so does Katsuki, and soon they’re both standing up in the middle of the cold rooftop. Izuku’s head and eyes are downcast, hands tightened into fists beside his body, as if he can’t really bring himself to look at Katsuki. Katsuki ignores the way his stomach twists at that sight before indicating for Izuku to lead the way out with his good arm.

As they both climb down the stairs all the way to the second floor, Katsuki tries to think of what he can possibly say to make things better without knowing what’s truly wrong. He figures Izuku’s feeling guilty about the training accident, that’s kind of obvious; he always blames himself for shit that ain’t his fault, it’s his modus operandi. But in truth, Izuku’s been off since early morning, when he refused Katsuki’s gentle touch after having sought it for so many nights. Whatever caused him to go off full-strength against Kirishima – a friend – during that training session probably had to do with… whatever caused him to refuse Katsuki for the first time ever.

What could have possibly set him off so badly that he doesn’t want Katsuki, of all people, to touch him, after having sought Katsuki’s touch and Katsuki’s touch alone? What could have set him off so badly that he hurt a friend, even if it was an accident? What would have caused him to come to the roof of the building, a dreaded place for Katsuki to find him at, and stay out in the cold despite several of his friends’ desperate pleas for him to come back inside, into the warmth?

There must have been a reason. There must have been a trigger.

Katsuki has a fair deal of memories and nightmares to set him off to a bad mood, and Izuku has nightmares of his own all the time, as he’s well aware of, but lately, he’s been prone to seeking Katsuki and his heartbeat whenever that happens. Nightmares about the War are pretty common to everyone who was involved – Even if it’s been almost a year –

Katsuki’s thoughts halt. He looks at Izuku’s back, walking in front of him. He seems like he’s trying his best to make himself look as tiny as possible as they arrive at the door of his dorm room.

It hasn’t been “almost” a year. It has been a whole year.

“It’s today,” Katsuki blurts out despite himself, without meaning to. He had promised to drop Izuku off and go away, but now he feels really, really dumb for not having noticed such an important date before. It’s the anniversary of his death too, after all.

“It’s today,” Izuku echoes in a small voice. Sniffs shortly.

They simply stand there at the empty corridor in front of Izuku’s closed door. They’re now facing one another, but Izuku still has his eyes downcast, not meeting Katsuki’s.

Katsuki clicks his tongue and shakes his head in disbelief. This is all so stupid. Why is Izuku so sentimental over this sort of shit? He doesn’t understand. “You don’t have to be like that, Izuku. Everything turned out just fine, didn’t it? I’m here, you’re here, everyone’s here.”

Izuku doesn’t say anything in return, head hanging low.

“I don’t know why you care so much about this,” Katsuki admits, shaking his head again. “It’s over. What’s the use in dwelling on the past so much?”

Izuku purses his lips and suddenly seems offended. He shakes his head too. “Well? What’s the use in you risking catching a cold for me back at that rooftop? Why do you even care about me?”

It’s Katsuki’s turn to feel offended and hurt. He doesn’t know how to say Because I love you, dummy, without sounding like a complete asshole right now, so instead he snaps: “Rack your brains, idiot.”

Izuku laughs humorlessly, hopelessly – which is so unlike his hopeful nature it hurts Katsuki. “I really don’t know,” Izuku admits. “All I do is hurt you. Your sense of self-preservation has always been top-notch, so I really don’t understand why you keep – doing that for me.”

Katsuki thinks back to his decision to give up on telling Izuku how he felt for him. He doesn’t want to do it just because he feels cornered, but at the same time, he feels like he doesn’t have another option if he wants Izuku to – truly – be okay.

“I’m here because you’re my friend. You don’t hurt me, Izuku. I know you, you wouldn’t hurt a fly if you had a say in it. And trust me, I would do way more than just catch a cold for you.”

Silence. Heavy. Charged.

“I would die for you,” he continues. “You know that much. I’m here because I care about you.”

And then, before he can think better about it, before he can think about how odd that might come off to Izuku’s unknowing ears, before he can halt himself, he adds: “I’m here because I love you.”

Izuku slowly, painfully slowly, lifts his head and looks at Katsuki.

With a horrified look.

And then: “What.”

Okay. Cool. Not the response Katsuki had been expecting. But what, in truth, had he been expecting after all? For Izuku to love him back? Hah, what a goddamn joke.

(Still, his mangled heart breaks a little at the horrified look. He didn’t have to look horrified, c’mon. But it’s still better than disgusted, or pitying, if Katsuki thinks about it.)

“It’s – okay that you don’t feel the same way,” Katsuki says, forcing himself to remain uncharacteristically patient – a sentiment that, lately, he’s only been reserving for Izuku. “What matters to me is that you’re okay, that you’re safe. So, I’m glad you came back inside with me. We don’t have to talk about what happened; we don’t have to talk at all. I just didn’t want you to get fucking hypothermic over a stupid accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident, though,” Izuku argues with a self-deprecating scoff.

“Are you saying you hit a 100% Smash on Kirishima’s stomach on purpose?” Katsuki quirks a disbelieving eyebrow.

“I’m saying it wasn’t Kirishima I was fighting,” Izuku huffs out a breath. “Not in my head, at least. I saw – I saw him.”

Silence. Heavier.

“Do you think –” Katsuki starts.

“We should get inside, yeah,” Izuku reaches for the doorknob.

“Hey. We don’t have to talk about this right now if you don’t really want to,” Katsuki points out, not wanting to overstep a boundary or force Izuku into anything.

“Well, now we’ve already – Just – Just come inside,” Izuku gestures at Katsuki, opening the door and stepping into the room. Katsuki follows him, closing the door behind himself.

Izuku stands with his back turned to him in the middle of the room. Katsuki stands by the door in case he needs to make a quick exit. At least Izuku’s safe now, that way he can rest a bit easier – even if the nerd ends up kicking him out of his room eventually.

“I thought I was fighting him again. Shigaraki,” Izuku continues after a moment, never turning to face Katsuki. “That’s what I saw in my head. And that’s why I hit Kirishima-kun so hard. I – I didn’t mean to,” his voice wobbles with emotion and guilt. “I swear I didn’t, I –”

“I know you didn’t,” Katsuki reassures him, feeling like he’s calming down an injured puppy. “Kirishima knows it too. No one blames you for what happened, no one’s mad at you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“But what if it happens again?” Izuku gives off a tiny, shaky sob. “What if you’re the one I hurt next? What if I hurt you again, like I keep doing? What if you get hurt because of me? What if –”

“Those are lots of what ifs,” Katsuki interrupts, frowning and reaching a hand out for the distant Izuku. “Also, you’re talking like I can’t take you – or anyone – on a fight. You’re forgetting that you’re talking to the only guy in history who successfully managed to off All For One.”

“It’s not about that,” Izuku sniffs.

“What is it about, then?” Katsuki allows his hand to drop beside his body.

Izuku scoffs. “I know you can take me on a fight. I know it. I just – I don’t want to hurt you, to keep hurting you,” He explains.

“I know you don’t,” Katsuki’s frown deepens.

“But you don’t know why, do you?” Izuku laughs that humorless laugh of his, which usually would have annoyed Katsuki to no end, but now just makes his chest feel tight.

Katsuki hesitates, uncertain. He has no idea where this conversation is heading, and he doesn’t dare to dream, either. “… Why?”

Izuku chuckles without humor. “It’s you. It’s always been you.”

Katsuki’s not getting it. He feels like the dumbest motherfucker on Earth, too. “It’s always been me what?”

Izuku shakes his head, swallows dry. Lowers his head. “The person I l-love the most,” he explains, voice becoming tight and small. “The person I care about the most, I worry about the most, even if I know that I don’t have to, because I know and everyone knows that you’re strong as hell.”

Katsuki’s at a loss. He doesn’t really know what to say to that. So, instead of responding accordingly or even thinking to do something romantic now that they’ve both confessed to each other, Katsuki ends up blurting out: “Strong as ‘hell’? You curse now?”

Izuku chuckles again, this time with a bit more humor. He doesn’t let Katsuki’s silly behavior stop him from going on. “I never want to lose you. Even if that means I’ll have to stay away from you to keep you safe.”

Katsuki’s face falls, and he worries at his lower lip. He swears, on the life of him, he doesn’t understand. Instead of lashing out like he usually would at Izuku’s annoying and dumb decisions, he decides to make a bit more use of that patience-thing he’d been trying with his friend.

“If you love me, why do you want to stay away from me?” He asks, confused and aching and feeling a bit dizzy. His chest, as well as his bad arm, are aching. He suppresses a shiver from the cold he still feels because of the minutes he had spent at the rooftop.

Izuku shakes his head, conflicted. “Because I don’t want to hurt you, even if it’s by accident. I’d never forgive myself if I caused you more pain.”

Katsuki tentatively, tentatively, takes further steps into the room, until he’s standing directly behind Izuku. He’s basically holding his breath in anticipation as he slowly, carefully, reaches for one of Izuku’s (cold) hands. He holds it into his own warm one, squeezing gently.

Izuku doesn’t flinch away this time, but he does tense up a bit.

Katsuki lowers his head and wets his lips. “You’d cause me more pain by being away from me than you would if you literally punched me square in the face with 100% One For All like you did to Kirishima.”

Izuku sighs, closing his eyes and throwing his head back with impatience. “Kacchan…”

“I mean it, Izuku. More than I’ve ever meant anything.”

Silence. Izuku slowly untangles his hand from Katsuki’s own.

Katsuki sighs in resignation. He feels a bit angry – like he always is –, because of course he would have fallen in love with a bastard who’s way more stubborn than he is. He locks his jaw and lifts his chin up defiantly, annoyed and verging on hurt. “I ain’t gonna beg for you to stay with me. I want us to be together because you want it, because we both want it. But if you put this wall between us – a wall that I’ve put between us for years and that I regret more than anything in my life –, you’ll… hurt me. You’ll really hurt me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Izuku’s voice breaks, and it becomes evident he’s silently weeping while his back is still turned to Katsuki.

“Then stay with me,” Katsuki says, reaching further forward and stepping in front of Izuku, rather than behind him. He takes in the sight of him, and it’s literally heartbreaking. He cups Izuku’s face into his good hand and brushes one of his stray tears away with his thumb. “What about this: I can warm you up and we can watch a movie. Any movie you want. It’s your pick, but don’t get used to it,” he tries to jest.

Izuku smiles softly, leaning his face further into Katsuki’s touch. Then, after a beat, his smile falters, and he pulls away, as if remembering that’s what he’s supposed to do. “I’ll have to face everyone eventually. I know they’re worried after the way I reacted.”

“I’m worried too,” Katsuki points out, going back to cupping Izuku’s downcast face, stubborn. “Does that mean you’ll face me?”

Izuku raises his eyes until they finally, finally meet Katsuki’s. “I know – I know that we need to talk. But can we just…”

“I know,” Katsuki interrupts with a nod. “We don’t have to talk any more just now.”

“Really?” Izuku sounds almost relieved and even hopeful.

“Really,” Katsuki nods again. He knows how Izuku gets, giving him space is better than pushing his buttons. The last thing Katsuki needs is for him to become reclusive and non-verbal again; he’ll take his small victory for the time being.

But then – “You’re really ok with us just… Watching a movie?” Izuku frowns, uncertain.

Katsuki sighs. “I know you don’t really like to talk about shit that upsets ya. You always bottle things up deep inside yourself and never bring them back up until you’re inevitably confronted with them and lose your damn mind, like it happened today. You close up like a clam when people try to force you to talk. I’m not stupid enough to try and hit my head against a brick wall, Izuku. If watching a damn All Might movie is gonna make you feel better, even if it’s for a little while, then I’ll do it with ya. I want you to feel better.”

Izuku’s tears keep rolling freely, and his face scrunches up into a sobbing expression. “Kacchan…”

“You don’t have to say anything. I just want to make sure you’re okay and feeling good.”

“Because you love me,” Izuku sniffs.

“Yeah, and?” Katsuki quirks a defying eyebrow.

“And I love you too,” Izuku smiles wobbly. “I’ll talk about that, at least. If you’d let me, I’d rant for hours.”

“Can’t wait for it,” Katsuki gives Izuku a shit-eating grin. “Ya know how much I love being praised, especially if it’s done by you.”

“And you know how much I love praising you,” Izuku steps closer to him, pulling him into a hug and resting his head on Katsuki’s good shoulder. “Sorry about today. I don’t know what went over me, I – I –”

“It’s okay, Izuku.”

“It’s really not, though,” Izuku chuckles dryly. “I can’t have it happen again. I can’t allow it to happen again. Not if someone I care about gets hurt again.”

“So, talk about it with someone,” Katsuki suggests, holding Izuku close. “It doesn’t have to be me, and it doesn’t have to be now. But you gotta let it all out soon, Izuku; you can’t keep it all inside yourself. Trust me, as the asshole with the years-long pent-up feelings, I would know. It feels better when you speak your truth and let it all out. It felt better when I did it.”

Izuku worries at his lower lip, staring straight ahead with his head still leaning on Katsuki’s good shoulder. “When you said you were sorry for everything?”

“Yeah. It was hard for me. Really fucking hard. Probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, because of my shitty pride that’s more trouble than it’s worth. But it was worth it. It earned me your friendship back. It gave me you.”

Izuku smiles. “I’ve always been yours.”

“Oh, fuck right off,” Katsuki rolls his eyes and nudges him away a little, jokingly.

“I mean it!” Izuku insists.

“You don’t mean it. I was a huge dick to you –”

“And I loved you anyway.”

“You didn’t, Izuku.”

“Always did. I – I do. I love you, Kacchan.”

Katsuki turns his head slightly during the hug and his nose bumps Izuku’s. Izuku smiles at this, and he purposefully bumps Katsuki’s nose again. They start bumping at each other’s noses, until Izuku reaches suddenly forward in a surge of bravery and presses a tentative kiss on the corner of Katsuki’s mouth.

Katsuki stares at him, pupils blown wide and lips parted, short breaths coming out warmly through them.

Izuku’s eyes are half-lidded as he stares up at Katsuki, face flushed and pupils also wide. “C-Can I?” He breathes out, voice barely above a whisper.

“No need to ask twice,” Katsuki closes his eyes and covers the remaining distance between them. Their lips collide, and they kiss.

The kiss is warm and welcoming, like going back home after spending years away from it. As their tongues intertwine and dance around each other, Katsuki pulls Izuku closer by the waist, and Izuku, in return, pulls Katsuki closer to himself as well. They grab and pull at each other madly as they kiss passionately, and Izuku goes as far as biting down on Katsuki’s lip.

Once they part, they smile and chuckle and snuggle their foreheads closer together, closing their eyes in deep relief. The sun is still setting on the horizon, the warmth of the visuals entering through Izuku’s window and painting the room in an orange and yellow glow that makes Katsuki’s hair look golden. However, temperatures are still dropping. Katsuki nudges at Izuku with his good elbow, pulling him closer to his warm body to heat him up.

Izuku’s sure he’s never loved Katsuki more.

They eventually end up on Izuku’s bed, cuddling with Izuku as the small spoon, since he’s the one who needs most comfort right now. Like Katsuki had promised, they’re not talking about what happened, they’re not talking at all – and they’re not doing much else, either, other than the eventual kiss Katsuki drops on Izuku’s neck or shoulder.

“I don’t think I’m okay,” Izuku eventually admits after an eternity of silence, not sure if he’s addressing Katsuki or his own self.

Katsuki nods comprehensively. “I don’t know if I’m the one who can make it okay. But I sure as hell won’t give up trying.”

Izuku smiles sadly and snuggles closer to Katsuki, sighing. “Maybe I need… To talk more about what I feel. What I think. With you, and the others. I know they care about me too.”

“They do,” Katsuki nods, placing a loud kiss on the crown of Izuku’s head. “I do. You can always talk to me, about whatever. We’ve known each other since we were in diapers, loser. I saw you piss your pants in public that one day in the mall, remember? How can we get more intimate than that?”

“Kacchaaan! Don’t bring that up!” Izuku blushes and covers his face with both hands in embarrassment.

“All I’m saying is you can trust me,” Katsuki continues. “You can always count on me. For whatever. This wasn’t always the case, but it is now. I promise.”

A small pause.

“The same goes for you,” Izuku agrees, taking advantage of the fact that Katsuki’s hugging him from behind and grabbing his good hand, squeezing it. He places the hand over his chest, atop his beating heart. “I’ll always be here for you. Promise me you’ll never leave me?”

“Only if you promise me the same,” Katsuki squeezes his hand back. “I never want to lose you. You’re too important.”

Izuku sighs and turns around on the bed so that he’s facing Katsuki. “You’re important to me too.”

Katsuki pecks at his lip. “I can cook us something warm to eat now and then you can get some rest. Watcha think?”

“I can rest? What about you and your arm?” Izuku frowns.

“I’m okay. My arm will be fine, too, I told you. Plus, you look live you haven’t slept a wink tonight, and I can’t go around having a boyfriend that looks unhealthy as shit.”

Izuku gapes at him, looking like he’s not sure which part of Katsuki’s words he should really focus on. Eventually, he settles for: “Boyfriend…” And touches his fingers to his lips. “Kacchan… is my boyfriend…”

“Damn right, and now let’s go and announce it to the extras –”

“Kacchan! Don’t call them extras!”

“– so that they can throw us a party or sum’n like I’m sure they’ll want to do!”

“Kacchan! Do you even want a party? I thought you hated those,” Izuku chuckles with sincerity.

“I’m just joking. We can celebrate properly while we watch that new All Might doc-series on my bed for a change. Okay?”

Izuku’s smile is the brightest it’s ever been. “All right.”

“A’ight. That’s it, I’m making you something delicious to eat – and then off we go to my bed –” Katsuki starts talking to himself as he struggles to get up from the bed with only one arm to lean on.

“Want me to tag along?” Izuku reaches for his good wrist before he can walk away.

“Nah, you don’t really want to confront anyone right now. Is it cool if I tell everyone you’re okay, though? Since they’re worried?” He eyes Izuku questioningly.

“Yeah, sure,” Izuku nods. “I’ll talk to everyone later anyway.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back with your food.”

“So sweet,” Izuku murmurs to himself, falling back on his bed and touching the tips of his fingers to his lips again.

“What was that? I ain’t sweet,” Katsuki protests, frowning.

“Your lips are, though,” Izuku smiles dreamingly. “You taste like caramel…”

“Tch. Stop talking nonsense,” Katsuki rolls his eyes.

“And you smell like it too…” Izuku continues, sighing contently. He sounds dreamy and sleepy.

Katsuki shakes his head in disapproval. “Can’t believe I’ve ended up dating a moron.”

“Hey!” Izuku protests half-heartedly. “I’m just being nice.”

“I’m kidding, idiot,” Katsuki scoffs, grabbing the hand that’s still latching to his forearm and bringing it to his lips. He drops a gentle kiss there, making Izuku blush. “Being hard-to-get and cooking meals is my love language.”

“K-Kacchan!” Izuku stammers, face flushed. Then, he deflates a bit: “I wonder what my love language is…”

“Giving me gray hairs and being purposefully difficult, probably,” Katsuki smirks evilly.

Izuku lowers his gaze, embarrassed. It’s clear the joke went over his head, and he took the words to heart. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Katsuki sits back down at the edge of the bed, sighing. “I’m only teasing you, Izuku. If ya don’t get used to it, we’re probably gonna have a problem in this relationship.”

Izuku hesitates.

“It’s just, I know I worried you today,” he comments, biting at his lower lip. “I wish I didn’t. I mean – I didn’t do it on purpose –”

“I know you didn’t.”

“But I still worried you.”

A pause. Meaningful.

Katsuki sighs. “I won’t lie and say you didn’t worry me. But I know you didn’t mean to do it, okay? It’s all good. I know how you get. You need some space and all when you get too deep into your own head. That’s cool. I need space sometimes too, more often than not – I’m definitely not a people-person. It’s just, when you flinched at me as I was trying to hug you, I…”

Izuku stares up at him with those huge doe eyes of his, looking sad.

Katsuki deflates too. “I felt terrible. I thought you didn’t want to be around me anymore. I thought you didn’t want – us anymore. Not that there was an us yet…” He averts his eyes, mumbling those last words.

Izuku chuckles, although he still looks sad. “Let’s be honest – there’s always been an us. It might not have been romantic at first, but we were always… us.”

Katsuki meets Izuku’s eyes again. “Yeah… I didn’t want to lose that, whatever it was,” he explains. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not losing me,” Izuku vows. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise that, though.”

“Of course I can!”

Izuku’s smiling, but Katsuki has a serious, stern look on his face. “Izuku, with our field… The career we’ve chosen… You can’t promise me to be with me forever.”

Izuku sits up more straight on the bed, staring at Katsuki deeply. He becomes serious as well. “Yes, I can. You know why?”

Katsuki huffs and quirks a disbelieving eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“Because I’m with the best of the best, and I’m sure he won’t let himself be taken down by anyone. He also won’t let anything bad happen to me,” his smile falters. “Even… after I’ve gone back to being quirkless.”

Katsuki’s expression falls. “You never needed me to defend you,” he settles for saying. “Not even when you were quirkless before. Being quirkless again won’t change that.”

Izuku smiles. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Plus, I’m sure I’ll find a way to keep you on the field.”

Izuku lowers his gaze, sighing. “Kacchan… Don’t… I…”

“I’d work my ass off for ten years straight or however longer it took if it meant I could find a way to keep you working as a pro,” Katsuki affirms. “I’d go to the ends of the Earth to keep you happy, Izuku.”

Izuku stares at him with disbelief. “Because you love me,” he repeats again, like he had done before.

“Because I love you,” Katsuki nods and pulls him into a tight hug. “Because you’re my everything. Because I told you, I want us to keep competing and chasing after each other forever.”

Izuku chuckles. “You’re scaring me, you know.”

Katsuki pulls back from the hug, frowning. “Scaring you?” He asks, concerned. That definitely wasn’t his intention.

“You’ve never been this affectionate before,” Izuku comments, smiling at him with love, but sincerity. “I’m afraid I might have broken you for real.”

Katsuki stands up from the bed, blinking, breathing hard. He takes offense at this. “I’m not broken.”

“I – Kacchan, I – That came off wrong –” Izuku stutters, adjusting his legs before getting up too.

“I’m not broken for loving you,” Katsuki snaps. “I’m not someone else for loving you. I’m not trying to be someone else. I’m me, the same me I have always been, and I love you, and – I think I’ve loved you for a long time, now, but I only realized – I mean, fucking Icy Hot had to…” He trails off, shaking his head in embarrassment.

“Kacchan…” Izuku reaches for him, for his good hand, but Katsuki takes a step back.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I know I was a piece of shit in the past. I know that. I hurt you. Badly. I – I fucking traumatized you –”

Izuku frowns, squints. “You didn’t traumatize me.”

“I did, because you’re always breaking yourself and sacrificing yourself and carrying the weight of the world on your damn shoulders all alone, like your burden is only yours to carry, like you can’t trust other people to give you a hand, because I made sure no one ever gave you a hand, and then something bad happens, or something makes you feel bad, and you just – You fucking act like this, you shut down, you go AWOL, you stop talking and responding and next thing I know I find you trying to get yourself hypothermic on a damn rooftop –”

Katsuki’s barely breathing at this point, too busy getting everything out amidst tears that he struggles to keep in. Izuku, noticing this, takes a step forward and embraces Katsuki, tightly. Katsuki lets out a shaky breath at this and half a sob, but he goes silent.

“I’m sorry,” Izuku says, sincerely. “I’m sorry I scared you, I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

“Don’t call me broken,” Katsuki breathes out, voice wet and heavy and strained, arm hanging limply by his side, not hugging Izuku back. “I may not have always loved you, but I do now. I really do. I – I’m not used to being affectionate, and loving, and caring. It’s not my nature. I’m – I’m violent, and vicious, and nasty, and a freaking brat. But I can be nice for you. I swear I can. I know you need me to be nice.”

Izuku chuckles, pulling a bit back so he can stare at Katsuki, but not completely so that they don’t part for good. “Kacchan, I don’t need you to be nice. I never needed you to be nice to me in my life,” he says with sincerity.

“But don’t you want me to be?” Katsuki frowns, out of his depth.

“Only if you want to be so,” Izuku affirms. “I don’t want you to force yourself to do anything. That’s not my Kacchan,” he smiles.

Katsuki lowers his gaze. “I wasn’t forcing myself,” he blinks at the floor. “I was just – saying stuff I meant,” he adds with a frown and a flushed face, clearly embarrassed.

Izuku smiles. “All right. I believe you.”

Katsuki tsks. “Right.”

“I do! Here, what about this –” He reaches to his nightstand and grabs his phone. “I’ll shoot a text to the group chat saying I’m fine, then we’ll wait for a bit until everyone’s read it, and I’ll come down with you to the kitchen so I can watch you cook.”

Katsuki gives him a look etched in suspicion. “You sure about that? I thought you needed some space –”

“I – do need some space,” Izuku nods. “But I don’t want to keep the guys worrying –”

“See, that’s what I meant about the ‘carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders’ thing!” Katsuki protests. “Stop prioritizing literally everyone else! They’ll be fine, worry about your damn self for a change!”

Izuku lowers his head. “You’re right, but I… I…”

“What?”

“I just really wanted to watch you cook,” Izuku shrugs with a kicked-puppy look.

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “You know what,” he sighs. “Promise me this one thing, yeah?”

“Anything,” Izuku nods.

Katsuki grabs his hand. “Take more care of yourself. Starting with this whole shutting down thing. I don’t – I don’t think that’s an okay thing to happen, Izuku. I’m not just saying this because of how worried I feel, this is not about me, I’m talking about you. It’s not… healthy.”

Izuku glances away. “All right,” he says in a small voice.

“I don’t want to push you,” Katsuki clarifies. “I just want you to be okay.”

Izuku smiles softly, nostalgically, before lifting his head to look at Katsuki. “I will be. I’ll look into that, Kacchan. Cross my heart.”

“Good,” Katsuki pulls him to a hug and then lets go. “Now get your ass to my room and wait there for me to come back with your dinner.”

Izuku raises his eyebrows. “You’re letting me stay at your room alone? Without supervision?”

Katsuki scoffs and gives Izuku a deadpanned look. “Why, you’re planning on doing anything weird in there?”

Izuku’s eyes widen and he blushes. “What?! Of course not! I was just – I was just –”

“I’m only teasing you, come on,” Katsuki sighs, heading for the door. “Out of all the extras around this place –”

“Don’t call them extras…” Izuku reprimands with a mumble.

“– you’re the only one who has permission to be alone in my room without me. And with me,” he smirks evilly, opening the door to Izuku’s room. “But be careful or your privileges might get revoked. Just wait for me there and text me if you need anything,” he starts to walk out.

“W-Wait, Kacchan!” Izuku calls after him.

“What?” Katsuki comes back and stares at him.

Izuku hesitates before smiling brightly. “Love you.”

Katsuki smiles back. “Love you too, ya damn nerd.”

He leaves for the kitchen, the smile still etched on his face.

˗ˏˋ ★ ★ ˎˊ˗

The door to Aizawa’s room opens and Izuku steps out with a piece of paper in his hands.

Katsuki stands up from the chair where he’d been waiting, an eager look on his face. “So?”

Izuku smiles at him softly, even if it doesn’t really reach his eyes. “He understood. Referred me to a professional. He thinks it might be PTSD. It’s more common in the pro-hero field than people really talk about.”

Katsuki nods solemnly, stepping closer to his boyfriend. “I know that. And are you… okay with that?”

Izuku shrugs. “I’ll need to have a talk with the therapist and see. Right now, I’m just tired.”

Katsuki hums. “Wanna go hang in my room?”

“We could hang in my room for a change,” Izuku shrugs.

“Ew, again? No. There’s way too much All Might merch hanging around. It makes me uncomfortable.”

Izuku’s eyes widen. “Why?! I thought he was your childhood hero!”

“He is, but that doesn’t give him a free pass to stare at me while I make out with my boyfriend,” he curls the word around his tongue teasingly.

Izuku chuckles. “Don’t be silly, Kacchan.”

“Hard pass to your bedroom. Let’s go to mine, it’s cleaner anyway.”

“My room isn’t dirty!”

“I didn’t say yours was dirty, I said mine was cleaner!”

“Which implies mine is dirtier! Thus, dirty!”

“You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“I’m just repeating what you said!”

“Shut up before I make you!”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Come here, you idiot!”

“Catch me if you can, Kacchan!”

That’s how Aizawa finds them as he steps out of his office room to go grab some coffee – making out passionately in the middle of the hallway, flushed and clinging to each other.

Aizawa clears his throat at the sight, and they part immediately, ashamed, head lowered and faces blushing, incapable of meeting their teacher’s eye. “Kids these days…” Aizawa deadpans before walking away.

Once he’s gone, Izuku and Katsuki exchange a mischievous look and giggle before rushing away to Katsuki’s room.