Work Text:
you know the distance never made a difference to me
i'll bite the wire if i need to
i'll spark the night and call it proof
i'm sugar-slick and bullet-sweet
and every pop is aimed at you.
*
The Beginning.
Katsuki is chewing gum when he walks through the gates of U.A. High School alone.
Katsuki is spitting out gum when he realizes he has crossed the courtyard without once looking to his left.
The mint in his mouth is still there.
He chases the feeling with his tongue.
He chases with his hands.
"Bakugou was it?" the red head asks and Katsuki nods.
"Are you any good at cooking?"
Is he any good at cooking?
Katsuki has so much to say to that.
"I'm asking 'cause a bunch of us decided to cook katsudon tonight and we were wondering if you wanted to join."
Katsuki has nothing to say anymore.
The mint snaps sharp against his molars one last time; he swallows the ache it carries, turns on his heel without a word, and walks straight into his room.
Katsudon.
It's all he knew how to cook at one point.
He drops onto the mattress, drags the pillow over his head until the cotton muffles the hallway laughter drifting up like smoke, until the scent of frying oil and soy and memory cannot reach him, and he goes to bed hungry, stomach knotted around a ghost.
The next morning is the same.
He startles when he sees green hair in the hallway, he startles when he sees red shoes flashing against tile.
He is startling all the time now.
He is chewing gum again as he slides into his bed after morning classes, the dorm room dim and airless around him. If he closes his eyes he can picture someone else next to him.
So he keeps them open.
He opens his phone, thumb scrolling through muscle memory until it lands on Facebook, on his mother’s page, on the search bar where he types Midoriya Inko without hesitation.
It’s a little crazy, he thinks, as the profile loads.
Deku has moved away to America and Deku had stopped talking and Deku was no longer his best friend—yet here he exists anyway, folded into this bright little rectangular box, preserved in pixels and captions typed with too many exclamation points.
He swipes.
Deku with his mum at some beach, wind tugging at his curls, freckles darker against summer skin.
Deku with American friends, arms slung around shoulders, mouth open mid-laugh in a diner booth piled with pancakes.
Deku standing under a streetlamp in autumn leaves, scarf looped loose, eyes crinkled at the corners the way they used to when he looked at Katsuki across a classroom or a playground.
He is always smiling.
The mint has gone flat in his mouth, reduced to rubber.
He chews it anyway, chasing the ghost of its first sharpness.
He wonders what Deku is doing when the camera is lowered, what his voice sounds like now, whether he laughs the same way, whether he ever pauses and feels the absence like a missing limb, whether he ever reaches instinctively to his left and finds only air.
He wonders and wonders and wonders.
Yeah.
It’s definitely a little crazy, he decides, staring at that smiling face glowing in the dark, chewing until his jaw aches.
*
He wakes before his alarm.
The ceiling is white and featureless and still somehow full of green.
He hates America now and it's stupid. He hates a whole country because of Deku and it's stupid.
He walks the corridor, boots heavy on polished tile, shoulders brushing past classmates who laugh too loud, who move in packs like they’ve never known what it is to walk alone with a ghost at your side.
He writes down notes in a notebook with empty margins.
Katsuki dreams of wind.
Of stars and stripes.
Of a boy standing just out of reach.
Always just—
…
Oh.
It's so stupid.
*
"Do you have auntie Inko's phone number?"
It's late into the night.
"Yes of course! I haven't talked to her in so long though, and-"
"Give it to me."
"Oh."
Katsuki doesn’t know why he spits the gum into the bin the second the call begins to ring. It isn’t as if she can see him through the line, isn’t as if she will peer through the receiver and click her tongue at the state of his manners, but memory is a tyrant and all he can hear is that gentle, exasperated scolding from years ago—Katsuki, that’s terrible for your teeth, spit it out—and maybe it’s nerves, maybe his hands just need something to do besides shake.
The line clicks.
"Hello?"
"Auntie Inko. This is-"
"Katsuki!"
Her voice floods through him, warm and bright and terribly, terribly familiar, and for a second he is seven again, standing in a cramped kitchen that smells of onions and detergent, scowling at the floor while she fusses over him as if he belongs there.
He grips the phone harder.
“Yes. It’s me.”
"Oh my goodness, it’s been so long! How are you? How is U.A? You must be so busy—your mother told me about your entrance exam score, I was so proud."
"School is good Auntie. It's not that busy yet."
Inko hummed. "You have always been wonderful in school haven't you Katsuki? I'm sure you find this easy too."
"Not as wonderful as De-Izuku Auntie, you know that."
"Ah we'll never know about that. He's been finding american work extremely easy though! They even moved him up a grade!"
Of course they did.
"Can I speak to him?"
"Oh. Oh honey..."
Katsuki’s heart sinks so suddenly it feels physical, like missing the last step on a staircase in the dark, like the ground has shifted half an inch and that is enough to unbalance everything.
"I'll give you his number sweetheart, OK? He might take a bit of time to respond... he's so busy..."
Deku doesn’t want to talk.
Katsuki is sure of it now, the certainty settling in his bones like frost he can’t thaw.
Deku tells his mum everything—always has, from the day he first came home with a split lip and a hero notebook clutched to his chest, to the tear-streaked confessions after every rejection, every dream that felt too big for his small frame; if Inko’s voice carries that careful pause, that tender deflection, it means Deku has said the words out loud somewhere across the ocean.
“Okay,” Katsuki says, because his voice has been trained to obey him even when the rest of him is splintering. “Yeah. Just send it.”
Katsuki feels angry and for a second he's tempted to delete the text Inko had sent.
“Katsuki,” she says, and there is so much in the way she says his name that he almost cannot bear it, “he talks of you all the time.”
That is enough for his anger to dissipate instantly. He holds himself back from asking more.
After the call ends, the room is unbearably quiet. He sits on the edge of his bed with the number staring up at him from the page, twelve small symbols that feel heavier than anything in the world.
What do you say to someone who has decided you are a closed chapter?
hey are you alive? i know you are alive, i've seen you i've seen you in pictures i've seen your smile it hasn't changed, no it hasn't changed at all, yet i cannot recognise it, i don't know the boy i'm looking at i don't know the boy i've known all my life... who are you, who are you? do you miss me?
[12:02]
hey.
it's katsuki.
*
you will always choose the heartbreak you know.¹
[23:10]
hey kacchan.
Katsuki breathes.
He goes about his day with the words looping, looping, looping.
What went through Deku’s mind when he typed that? Did he hesitate? Did his thumb hover the way Katsuki’s had? Did he consider writing Katsuki instead, something colder, something that acknowledged the years and the ocean and the silence?
Maybe he hadn’t changed at all.
He sits in homeroom, back straight against the chair that feels too small for the weight he carries now, listening to Aizawa’s low, gravel-rough voice drone through the day’s lesson on quirk ethics and underground protocol, the words sliding past him like rain on glass until one phrase catches, snags.
The importance of discretion in hero work, especially for those who operate outside the spotlight.
Deku knew him.
Deku was the one who’d told him about the underground hero in the first place—late one summer night when they were twelve, sprawled on Katsuki’s bedroom floor with hero magazines scattered between them like fallen leaves.
[15:29]
eraser-head is my homeroom teacher.
wow. that's so cool.
What kind of fuckass reply was that? Katsuki thought.
he's not though. He sleeps in class.
lol.
Katsuki is frustrated. He spits his gum out and throws his phone across the room. He sits and stares at the blank wall for several minutes before getting up.
He goes back to fetch another pack of gum and fetch his phone and it dings on the way.
my homeroom teacher never sleeps I think
lol.
But because Katsuki has more at stake than Deku he hurriedly types another message.
i never asked... where do you go now?
He knows where. He's seen it on facebook. It's the top Hero school in America.
He wonders how Deku got in.
atlas.
oh congratulations
thanks haha.
isn't it late?
yeah, but I kind of have a lot of work left...
isn't it Saturday for you?
it was due yesterday
idiot.
He wonders if he's overstepping.
shut up! i was busy OK?
He feels better.
there was a shooting in the school next to us
Or maybe not.
shit, are you good?
yes, yes but many students were injured and we were called in to help ://
no one died though thankfully...
does that happen often?
yeah.
oh.
*
Do you know what dead skin looks like when they take off a cast?
That was his life, all that dead skin.
Outside the window the sky was too bright, stretched thin and colorless. He watched a cloud drift and imagined the distance between here and America, tried to measure it in miles, in hours, in the time difference that made his phone glow at inconvenient moments.
Katsuki pressed his thumb into the edge of his notebook until the skin blanched white.
He thought about Izuku on a different continent. Thought about the last time he’d seen him at the airport, how the automatic doors had opened and swallowed him whole. He’d wanted to say something—something sharp, something memorable, something that would anchor itself in Izuku’s bones for the months apart.
Instead he’d said, “Don’t fall behind.”
As if that were possible.
As if Izuku Midoriya had ever been anything but relentless.
The clock ticked. Every second sounded heavier than it should have. Katsuki imagined water instead of air between them, imagined trying to shout through it. The words would come out warped, bubbles rising uselessly to the surface.
He stared at the margin of his page and saw green in the corner of his vision—memory overlaying reality. A mess of curls. A notebook clutched to a chest.
Outside, the sky was too bright. He walked past the training grounds, past the gates, until he found himself at the edge of the campus track.
A stray cat sat on the low wall, staring at him with green eyes.
"Bakugou! We're going to the pool, you want to join?"
Katsuki wondered if Deku knew how to swim. Stupid thought. Of course he did. He could do anything.
When he got back to the dorms, the cat was nowhere. But something had followed him anyway.
*
They were all sprawled around the school pool—Kirishima on his back with his arms folded under his head, Mina half-submerged and shrieking about something ridiculous, Kaminari trying and failing to balance on the edge without slipping in. The air smelled like chlorine and sunscreen and summer break pressing against their shoulders.
Katsuki sat with his knees drawn up, forearms resting on them, chin tilted slightly toward the water.
He wasn’t listening.
Not really.
“Okay but if you had to fight a shark,” Kaminari was saying, deadly serious in the way only he could be, “would you punch it in the nose or try to ride it?”
“You’d die,” Jirou said.
“That’s not the point.”
Someone cannonballed into the deep end. The splash rose high and glittering, droplets suspended midair before gravity claimed them.
He thought of Deku's vacation in Florida.
Katsuki sat on the edge now, feet dangling in the water up to his calves.
He'd seen the photos a couple months ago on facebook.
Katsuki dragged his thumb along the seam of his swim shorts.
A dragonfly skimmed the water, iridescent wings catching the last light. Katsuki watched it dart, hover, dart again. Deku would've pointed it out. Then he would've gotten sad because he remembered how long they lived.
Deku always got sad at the silliest of stuff.
Katsuki pulled his feet out of the water, stood up without a word. Water dripped off his calves onto the warm tiles.
Kirishima looked up. "Heading in?"
"Yeah."
*
[13:46]
my hair is getting long
aren't you hot? it's summer isn't it
the school barber takes a lot of money
maybe i'll do it myself
why not
there's nothing to lose
except maybe my hair
Deku sends laughing emojis.
*
[14:09]
is the snow there different?
it's snow
*
[02:35]
[do you miss me?
*
[08:12]
we're doing virginia wolf
which?
i am not one and simple²
but complex and many²
the waves
i remember you reading it
and thank god i did
the english here is of high standard
oh?
read mrs dalloway
OK.
*
Katsuki's texting constantly after that.
[10:01]
is atlas everything you hoped it would be?
yes.
is U.A everything we hoped it would be?
We.
We.
kind of.
It wasn't. He had never imagined highschool without Deku.
you still take notes like a maniac?
haha yeah. notebooks are full now. i have like six.
During afternoon patrol drills he sneaks glances every time the instructor turns away:
you eat katsudon over there or what
sometimes.
the american version has too much cheese though.
ruins it.
tell them theyre doing it wrong
i tried once.
they laughed at me.
idiot.
shouldve fought them.
no point.
they can't make it like home anyway
oh ew there are ants everywhere on this bench
you still scared of bugs?
no!!! i killed a spider last week all by myself
proof or it didnt happen
ill send a picture next time. gross warning.
do it.
A picture. A picture from Deku. A picture Katsuki didn't stalk on facebook.
He is smiling.
*
Aizawa’s voice cuts through the air. “Bakugo. Focus.”
“Yes, sir.”
He does not.
He texts during lunch.
[16:12]
what are your classmates like
do they suck
lol no
they’re nice
but everyone is so self important here
sounds annoying
you'd fit right in
shut up.
*
The glow of his phone paints his ceiling pale blue while the rest of the dorm lies in silence.
[03:34]
are you going to come back?
how’s your mum
she misses you
she said you sounded “grown up” on the phone
do you miss me too do u miss me? i miss you i miss you so much i cant eat food and i cant breathe do you miss me do you miss me
whatever that means
*
His phone buzzes during break.
[08:12]
[image]
what is this
-_-
it’s food kacchan
it’s a bunch of shit.
i hope you’re eating healthy there
i am!!!
really?
i saw the image again and...
how much cheese is that???
are you fat now
-_-
kacchan
omg deku is fat
i am not!!
He wonders if Deku will take the bait. He wants a picture so bad.
But Deku was always impossible to bait.
deku is my hero name now did you know.
No he didn't.
He doesn't care.
He cares so much
*
[09:16]
great explosion murder god dynamight?
really?
yes
you can't be serious
i am
oh wow.
they won't allow that you know
they can die
i see you haven't changed
and have you?
i dont know.
*
[01:10]
is america hot?
no
its kind of cold actually
its hot here
it's cold here
must be nice
*
[00:00]
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun³
you read it?
yes
He wonders why Deku asked him to read it. It's not a book Katsuki would recommend to someone starting out Virginia Woolf.
*
[10:10]
everybody is loud here
i promise you, they are louder in america
i believe you
you'd go crazy here lol
But Katsuki is going crazy in Japan too.
*
Eventually the one-sidedness of it all stops and Deku finally stops being dry. Katsuki finally stops asking all the questions.
[08:12]
we had rescue simulations this week
it was chaos
i kept thinking about how you’d just blast through the debris instead of carefully moving it
it would be better
sound and fury, signifying nothing⁴
you're doing shakespeare?
no
*
[04:19]
you did so good in the sports festival
you watched?
i lost
so?
shitty icy-hot came first
are you more irritated that todoroki-kun won?
yes
you haven't changed kacchan
he's shitty
everyone is shitty to you
Besides, he's not that bad
i'm friends with shouto
huh
yeah he's been to atlas a couple times
whatever for?
his sister works here
i didnt know he had one
do you even know the names of your classmates kacchan?
what's in a name?⁵
don't you romeo juliet me
Katsuki thinks he'd rather love to Romeo Juliet him.
But Deku always said it was never a love story.
i do know.
there's shitty hair and dunce face
-_-
pinky and
He gives up.
who cares
not you clearly
honestly how do you even remember my name its a miracle
i may forget myself, but you
i could never forget⁶
Deku says nothing to that and Katsuki pops his bubble. The gum is flavourless now.
*
[05:10]
do you want to call?
"Hey."
"Hi Kacchan."
“Kacchan? Hello? Can you hear me?”
Katsuki can't breathe.
The mint floods cold across his tongue but it does nothing to steady the sudden rush in his chest, the way his lungs seize as though the air itself has turned to seawater; he knows this voice, knows it bone-deep the way he knows the shape of his own palms when they spark, the rhythm of his own heartbeat when it’s angry or afraid or both, and yet—he doesn’t.
“Yeah,” Katsuki finally rasps, voice scraped raw, barely above a whisper. “I’m here.”
"Are you okay?"
no i am not i'm hearing you for the first time in years since you left you left you left me you left me and now i can't breathe because you sound so different and i missed it i missed it i missed your voice changing
“You sound… different,” Katsuki says at last, because it’s the only truth he can grab hold of without falling apart.
“So do you,” Deku replies, quiet, wondering and there is something in his voice.
*
The second call happens three days later.
“Kacchan?”
He closes his dorm door at U.A. High School and leans his forehead briefly against the wood before answering.
“Yeah.”
“You called again,” Deku says, and there’s something careful in it, like he doesn’t want to spook him.
"Thought you'd be free."
Outside in the hallway, footsteps slow.
“Bakugo?” someone calls. “You coming to dinner?”
He ignores it.
“Kacchan,” Deku says, amused now, “are you hiding?”
“No.”
“You sound like you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding,” he snaps, lowering his voice instinctively anyway. “Mind your business.”
*
He takes the next call on the training field after hours, sitting on the edge of a concrete ledge while the sky bruises purple.
“How was class?” Deku asks.
“Annoying.”
“What happened?”
“They paired me with an extra who panicked.”
“You yelled at them, didn’t you?”
“I corrected them.”
“You yelled.”
“They needed it.”
Deku hums, thoughtful. “Anger is not strength, my dear — it is only noise¹²”
“Little Dorroit? You are forever coddling people who ought to stand on their own feet.¹³"
“Samuel Butler. I don’t coddle.”
“You absolutely do.”
He spots shitty hair and dunce face walking towards him. They are not so subtly gossiping.
“Is he on the phone again?” Kaminari is asking. “With who?”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
Katsuki stands abruptly and walks further down the field.
“I don’t,” he mutters to Deku.
“You don’t what Kacchan?”
“Nothing.”
Deku’s smile is audible. “You do that a lot.”
“Do what.”
“Answer questions I didn’t ask.”
*
Later that night, after lights-out when the dorm is finally quiet, Katsuki slips onto the fire escape with his phone pressed to his ear, gum long since spit into the wrapper, fresh piece already working between his molars.
Deku picks up on the first ring.
“Kacchan?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay? It’s late there.”
“Couldn’t sleep. What are you doing?”
“Just finished a paper on quirk mutation ethics. My brain’s fried.”
Katsuki exhales smoke from the cold night air. “Tell me about it.”
Deku does—rambling about gene splicing quirks, about how some mutations skip generations, about a case study where a kid grew literal wings overnight and had to learn to fly in a government facility. His voice dips and rises, excited then thoughtful then excited again, the way it used to when he’d talk hero theory until Katsuki pretended to fall asleep just to make him stop (but never really wanted him to).
Katsuki listens, head tipped back against the railing, stars blurred by city light above him.
He wonders if the twinkling stars are really just blinking back the tears the way he is.
*
Deku answers on the second ring, voice low and a little rough around the edges, like he’s been talking all day or maybe just hasn’t used it much.
“Kacchan. Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” Katsuki pops the gum once.
“Are you outside?”
“How do you know?”
“It sounds windy.”
He glances up at the training field, at the empty bleachers, at the lights humming overhead and the storm approaching.
“Maybe I just like dramatic settings.”
Deku laughs softly. “Can you send a picture?”
"Of the training field?"
Katsuki is unsure when Deku doesn't clarify so he sends a picture of the training field. Then one of himself.
His face is half covered in wool and you can only just see his eyes really, but Katsuki was cold and he was comfortable in this position.
"That looks nice."
Katsuki so desperately wants to ask which.
Suddenly, he regrets sending the first image.
*
The others notice.
“Bakugo,” someone says one evening, watching him duck out of the room again. “You’re smiling at your phone.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
He glares until they back off.
Outside, he answers the call.
“Hey Kacchan,” Deku says, and there’s a smile in it already.
“Hey yourself.”
“You sound out of breath.”
“I walked outside.”
“Or you ran because you were excited.”
He scoffs, leaning against the wall.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
A beat.
“Would it be so bad if I did?” Deku asks quietly.
Katsuki's gum pops by itself.
“It wouldn’t,” he replies, trying to keep his voice even.
On the other end of the world, in a dorm room at Atlas, there is a soft intake of breath.
“Okay,” Deku murmurs.
There's an ocean between then but suddenly Deku feels impossibly close.
There was a vast loneliness between then; but in dreams he met him by the sea, and felt his breath upon his face.⁷
*
Katsuki doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know... he doesn't-
"I miss you."
There is silence on the other end of the phone call. For a while he's afraid Deku had hung up.
"I miss you too Kacchan."
*
[16:45]
i did it
?
haircut
yourself???
yeah
show
[image]
beautiful kacchan
*
One day Katsuki calls him when Deku is working out and shuts his eyes as he hears his breathless voice.
At night he bows his head as his hands make their way into his boxers.
*
"You never told me about your quirk."
"Sorry Kacchan."
Deku says it small, the way he used to when he’d broken something of Katsuki’s by accident and waited for the explosion that never quite came.
But this isn’t small.
Deku had been on the news that day. On every screen in Japan that afternoon—live footage of a city bus teetering on the edge of a collapsed overpass, smoke curling thick and black, screams muffled under the roar of buckling metal, and then a green blur rushing in.
He’d commanded the wind.
A sudden, impossible gale had wrapped around the bus like a protective fist, lifting it steady, easing it back onto solid ground while twenty passengers—children, office workers, an elderly woman clutching her grocery bags—stared wide-eyed through the windows as the air itself obeyed him.
"Star and stripes. She was All Might's student. She... she created my quirk."
Katsuki had heard of her before.
"New Order?"
"Yes."
The anchors had called it miraculous. Japan had erupted in cheers; America had thrown parades in his name. Clips of Deku standing on the overpass afterward—hair whipping wild in the aftermath of his own storm, hero suit torn at the shoulder, freckles stark against soot-streaked cheeks, eyes bright and steady—had trended for hours. #DekuSavesAgain. #WindHeroRising.
Now, on the phone, the mint dissolves slow on his tongue like it’s trying to cool the fire licking up his throat.
“You looked good out there,” he mutters, because it’s true and because saying it feels like ripping off a bandage.
"Were you scared?" He asks.
"A little." Deku says.
“You’re still an idiot,” he says finally, softer than he means to. “Getting a god-tier quirk from All Might's student and not even bragging about it once.”
Deku laughs and it sounds relieved. “Would you have believed me if I texted it? ‘Hey Kacchan, Star and Stripe gave me wind powers, lol’?”
“You looked calm,” Katsuki adds gruffly. “On the bridge.”
“I wasn’t.”
“No?”
“No,” Izuku says. “I was thinking—”
He stops.
“Thinking what?”
“…That if I messed up, you’d yell at me.”
Katsuki huffs despite himself. “Damn right.”
“And that I didn’t want you to see me fail.”
The air between them shifts.
“You think I care about that?” Katsuki asks.
“I think,” Izuku says slowly, “if you would but say what you feel, I would not be guessing at shadows.⁸”
Katsuki knows who this is.
He won't say.
“You’re not fat,” he blurts instead.
Izuku laughs and laughs.
Katsuki is so in love
He won't say.
*
[12:12]
my face is all messed up
???
what do you mean
i got into a fight
YOU got into a fight?
:((
what happened?
tried to break up a fight
You are video calling.
[Video call started 12:23]
"Hey."
"Hi Kacchan."
"Where the fuck are you?"
"Sorry, sorry! Here... can you see me now?"
Katsuki stared.
Deku’s camera wobbled as he adjusted his grip, his face briefly dissolving into pixels before sharpening again. There was a cut just under his eye, thin but angry, and a bruise blooming across his cheekbone in deep purples and blues. His lip was split, too.
But it wasn't horrible.
He still looked beautiful.
“It’s not that bad,” he says. “Does it hurt?”
Deku shrugged carelessly. “Not right now.”
Katsuki's eyes narrowed. "Why the hell do you look so damn worried then? This isn't your first scrap."
Deku laughed, short and sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. "No, no, it's not that. I'm heading to Mom's place tomorrow. She's gonna kill me. You know how she gets about fights..."
Katsuki does.
“It’s okay. Just put... make-up on,” Katsuki suggested. He felt a little ridiculous but he'd seen someone do it in a show.
Deku blinked. “Makeup?”
“Yes, idiot. Cover it.”
“I don’t have any makeup.”
Katsuki frowned. “Then go buy makeup.”
Deku huffed out a small laugh. “Okay, okay. I'll go right now actually. You wanna stay on call?”
Katsuki hummed.
The screen jolted as he started moving, grabbing something—his keys, probably. The image bounced with each step as he walked outside.
Katsuki caught glimpses—wide, clean sidewalks, bright shop signs in English, that endless American sky stretching too big and too blue overhead, clouds like they’d been painted on. No cramped alleys, no familiar skyline.
American sky.
It stretched behind Deku in vast, open indifference.
Katsuki watched silently as Deku walked down the sidewalk, his phone angled up at his face, his expression thoughtful.
“Do you know what kind I should get?” Deku asked.
“Concealer,” Katsuki said automatically.
“Oh.”
“And foundation. Probably.”
“What’s the difference?”
Katsuki clicked his tongue. “Just ask someone there.”
Deku nodded.
He pushed open the door to a store, a small bell chiming overhead. The lighting inside was too bright, too white. Rows of products lined the walls behind him.
A woman approached him, saying something in smooth, easy English.
Deku responded back with the same fluency.
His voice softened, polite and warm, the syllables rounding differently than they did in Japanese. His accent shifted just enough and Katsuki understood the words. He understood all of it.
But it still felt like listening to a stranger.
Deku laughed at something she said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. He pointed at his face, explaining. The woman nodded sympathetically, guiding him toward a shelf.
Katsuki watched.
Watched Deku exist in a world that didn’t include him.
Deku smiled at him as he paid.
And Katsuki never felt as alone as he did just then.
*
"Is that your room?"
"Yeah."
He adjusted his phone, angling it carelessly against his pillow so his hands were free. He leaned back against his headboard and watched Deku through the screen.
"Did you not decorate your dorm?"
"Not really."
He can see that Deku did though. His background is an All Might poster and Katsuki can see the edges of the other posters around it.
Some things stay the same.
*
Katsuki hears nothing after the announcement.
Theres an exchange program.
American students are coming here
American students...
He's running to call Deku.
*
[16:02]
I'm home.
*
Katuski is unbelievably nervous as he turns the corner to the house.
Beyond the door...
Beyond the door stands Izuku.
He chews and chews and chews.
The door stops before he can decide what to do and green blinds him.
“Kacchan!”
Izuku is smiling.
Izuku is smiling at him and the air is punched out of him at once.
He is standing there—taller, broader across the shoulders, hair still a wild green mess that caught the afternoon light like sea glass. His freckles lighter than Katsuki remembered, scattered across cheeks gone pale from the weak foreign sun. His eyes were wide and bright, the same impossible green that used to follow him everywhere. He was carrying a bag.
“Izuku.”
i missed you i missed you i missed you
“Come, Katsuki! Make yourself at home!”
Inko is there too, ushering him in, smiling widly.
Belatedly, Katsuki realises he had forgotten to spit the gum out.
*
"How does it feel?"
"To be back home?"
Sure, that's what Katsuki means.
"It's okay."
tell me you missed me too missed me too did you miss me too
*
"U.A is pretty."
"You can stay in my room."
"Ooh!" Izuku exclaimed happily. "Kacchan's room."
*
"Wow. Kacchan's room is so boring."
"Shut up."
*
It was Sunday.
The summer heat clung to everything like a second skin.
Their fingers were sticky, dyed red and orange and purple and green from the dripping treats they'd devoured earlier. Grape for Izuku, cherry for Katsuki. Popsicle sticks lay discarded nearby, forgotten in the grass. Izuku licked at his thumb absentmindedly, trying to catch a stray drop that had trailed down his wrist, but it just smeared the mess further.
Katsuki lay on his back, tracing the shapes of clouds, wishing life were so simple.
"Kacchan," Izuku murmured, voice soft and half-asleep. He turned his head, cheek brushing the blanket, and grinned at Katsuki. "You got some on your chin."
Katsuki attempted to lick it off. Izuku laughed.
Above them, the clouds were beginning to drift apart, revealing more stars. Izuku tilted his head back, watching the shapes shift.
“That one looks like All Might,” he said eventually, pointing.
"All Might teaches us sometimes."
Izuku made a noncommittal noise.
"I've met him too."
Katsuki opened one eye, following Izuku’s finger. “Looks like a dog to me.”
Izuku giggled.
Another cloud drifted by, wide and flat, and Katsuki said it looked like a fish, and Izuku disagreed and said it looked like a shoe, and they argued about it in low voices until Katsuki turned his head and smiled long enough at Izuku for him to turn away, face heating up.
Izuku props himself up on one elbow a while later, closer now, shoulder barely brushing Katsuki’s. “If you were a cloud, what would you be?”
Katsuki scoffs. “Something violent.”
“That narrows it down zero percent.”
“A blast,” Katsuki says. “One of those clouds that looks calm and then—boom. Storm.”
Izuku nods thoughtfully. “Cumulonimbus.”
“Gesundheit.”
Katsuki’s thumb traced lazy circles over Izuku’s sticky knuckles.
“Zuku,” Katsuki pointed at a cloud. "That one looks like a heart. Maybe that one's you."
They watched the sky, letting the clouds tell them what they dared not say.
*
Principal Nezu’s voice had crackled over the intercom earlier: “Please welcome Midoriya Izuku from Atlas Hero Academy. He’ll be joining your class for the remainder of the term as part of our ongoing exchange reciprocity. Treat him as one of your own.”
"Hi. I'm Midoriya Izuku, from Atlas. I'm Japanese by birth and I only went to America for the first time last year. I'm looking forward to being here."
He takes a seat next to Katsuki.
Ashido whispered something to Hagakure that made both of them giggle.
The classroom door clicked shut behind the last stragglers. Afternoon light slanted through the windows, turning dust motes into tiny sparks.
Deku leans slightly closer, eyes scanning the paper Katsuki’s pretending to work on. “So, Ashido, huh? She seems... enthusiastic about pairing with you.”
He slouched at the back table, arms crossed, staring at the pairing list taped crookedly to the wall. The first project had already started.
Katsuki huffs, scratching the pen across the margin. “She’s loud.”
“You’re loud,” Deku counters.
*
"You're Hero Deku! The one on TV from the bus incident!"
Izuku's smile was shy.
Katsuki wants to kiss it.
*
"A play?" Katsuki thundered. "The stupid project is a play?"
Ashido looked amused. "I don't know why you seem so surprised. It's summer after all."
Katsuki stared at the list of books they could choose from and sighed as he read some of the lines.
Storm and Thunderstorm
Setting: A small, overgrown garden at twilight. Broken fences, tangled vines, and a single wooden swing hanging from a tree. It looks abandoned, yet magical.
Ashido nudged him. “Hey. Earth to Bakugou. You gonna help me outline this or brood dramatically all period?”
He wiped his hand on his pants.
He'd been watching Deku make friends with a kind of ease that irritated him.
"Lightning and Bloom?"
"I quite like it. I want to be bloom."
Katsuki didn't really care.
*
"I grow not withstanding. I grow because of thee. I-" Ashido sighs. "I forgot again."
Katsuki is hardly paying attention.
"Ba-ku-gou," Ashido hisses. "Honestly, you know that these add to our grades right?"
"Yes." Bakugou snapped. He looked down at the paper. "Therefore draw nigh, O Storm. Rage as thou wilt."
"Oh yes." Ashido clapped her hands as she remembered. "I shall bend. I shall break a little. But I shall not be borne away. And... and..." She huffed again. "This is so hard."
"And when thy thundering ceaseth..." Bakugou helped.
"Yes! I shall yet be here! Awaiting the stillness after rain!"
"That took you so fucking long."
Ashido dropped into the seat with a dramatic huff. “I’m so over this wildflower. Can it not see that the storm is killing her?"
“That’s the whole point, dumbass,” Bakugou shot back. “She knows and she’s still trying to comfort him.”
She rolled her eyes and groaned. “I hate the Storm too.”
“He doesn’t care,” Bakugou said, shrugging. “As long as Wildflower loves him, that’s enough.”
"She's stupid."
Bakugou shrugs. "She's in love."
Ashido looks at him curiously. "Wow, I didn't know you were such a romantic."
Bakugou had an insult ready to go but Deku chose that moment to appear at his table.
“Kacchan!” he beamed, eyes lighting up with glee when he spotted the papers. “Oh—you guys picked Storm and Thunderstorm too? Which section are you doing?”
“Lightning and Bloom,” Ashido answered. She slid their script closer to him. “We were just debating how completely brain-dead the wildflower is.”
Deku hums as he looks at through their papers.
Katsuki is watching him intently.
"What do you think Midoriya?" Ashido has a glint in her eye that Katsuki doesn't appreciate.
"Of Bloom?"
"Yes. The storm is clearly hurting her right?"
"But he doesn't want to. That's the whole point of the monologue there, he hates that she's getting hurt." He smiles at Katsuki.
"You are such boys." Ashido complains. "You think a man's intentions are all that matters but you know what they say about actions and words don't you?"
Izuku shakes his head. "But he is trying to hold himself back don't you see? He can't because it's in his nature to rage. It's why he's first a storm then a thunderstorm when he loses control. It's poetic."
"There is nothing poetic about abuse." Ashido 's tone is icy.
Izuku raises his hands placatingly.
"You are as american as they come," she snaps.
Katsuki watches Izuku's anger ignite. But his tone is even as he speaks.
"I hope you don't mind me saying this but... you makes no sense. If this is your attempt at ostracizing me because I'm from Atlas it isn't working. Mostly because I've hardly been there a year, and secondly, if I'm American, you're Japanese. And, Ashido-san, the concept of sexism prevails here more than it ever did in America."
Ashido still seems irritated. Izuku smiles at her.
"I get it. But the wildflower isn't gendered in the story Ashido-san. When I'm talking of how beautiful it is that Bloom stays anyway, it's the act of love I'm referring to."
Katsuki swallows his gum on accident at that. "Bloom didn't have much of a life to live anyway, she was growing in-between the cracks of the pavement. They said it at the beginning-- in the split of the stone, defying the gloom; they find their light, they rise, they bloom."
"But think about the life it could've had! Threaded through the locks of a young girl!"
"Not much of a life is it." Katsuki shrugs and Ashido changes the subject.
"What section are you guys doing?"
"Bloom and the Traveller. Uraraka-san is the traveller."
Ashido groans. "That part's even worse. You would think after the Traveller plucked her, she was safe."
Katsuki sits up then. "I didn't read after that, what happens?"
Deku sits down next to him. "The storm comes back to see that the wildflower is gone. He rages and rages and the hut that the traveller lived in is destroyed by the thunderstorm he creates. The wildflower stays trapped under the debris forever."
Katsuki thinks that's a morbid end.
"If only the storm had been patient," Ashido mutters.
"If he had, the Traveller would've taken the wildflower with him to China and he would've never seen her again."
"He'll never see her now anyway."
Katsuki looks away.
If only the storm could've done something before the wildflower was taken to China.
Katsuki suddenly hates the storm.
*
Ashido (Wildflower)
(voice soft, as one who speaks to the wind)
Bakugou (Storm)
(gravel and thunder in his tone, eyes fixed upon her)
Ashido
(a gentle smile, stepping one bare foot nearer)
Bakugou
(sharp breath, fists tight at his sides)
Ashido
(quiet mirth, eyes never leaving his)
Bakugou
(advancing one step, then halting as though chained)
Ashido
(raising her chin, voice clear)
Then howl, I pray thee. I shall listen.
(A long pause. Thunder growls nearer, deep in the belly of the hall.)
Bakugou (Storm – monologue)
(voice breaking open, raw and low, gazing into her eyes before he turns away; his eyes locked into Deku's)
(Silence falls, heavy. Only the crackle of the taper and their breathing.)
Ashido (Wildflower – monologue)
(voice steady, advancing until scarce a hand’s-breadth divides them, eyes never wavering)
(They stand nigh touching now. They don't embrace.)
Bakugou
(whisper, hoarse and near-broken)
Ashido
(smiling through the last quiver of her voice)
Then make it a rue worth the bearing.
(Thunder crashes once more. Darkness claims all.)
Curtain.
*
Katsuki groaned and trudged to the sofa. The others were out swimming. He flopped dramatically onto the couch, arms and legs sprawled like a starfish. “It’s too fucking hot,” he complained, voice muffled by the cushions. “Everything’s melting. Including my brain.”
“I think I just lost a layer of skin.” Izuku complained back. He reaches out blindly. “If I die, tell my story.”
“I will,” Katsuki says. “I’ll say you were brave. You faced the summer with a fan that just moved the hot air around.”
“Remember winter?”
Katsuki laughs softly. “Don’t romanticize it. You complained then too.”
“Yeah, but it was poetic suffering. Scarves. Dramatic sighs. This is just… damp.”
Katsuki nudges Izuku’s foot with theirs. “We could shower again.”
“We showered an hour ago.”
“So?”
"So water's not free Kacchan."
Katsuki lets out a long, suffering exhale through his nose. “Let’s move to the Caribbean.”
“…It’s hotter there, Kacchan.”
“Oh. Shit.” Kacchan squints at the ceiling and groans. “I was only thinking about the water."
"And you thought of Caribbean?"
"It's always advertised with bright blue colours! Fuck off Deku."
"Hm. Venice then?"
“Venice.”
“Yes. Water city. Romantic. Gondolas.”
“You hate crowds.”
“I will learn to love crowds.”
“You hate boats.”
“I hate small boats.”
“Gondolas are small boats.”
“They’re romantic small boats.”
“Let’s just buy more popsicles,” Izuku said, already bouncing up with a sudden burst of energy.
"I have a better idea," Katsuki drawled, “Let’s buy like twenty. We can bathe in them.”
Izuku snorted.
*
"Do you already know Midoriya-kun?" Kirishima sounds curious.
"Yes."
"How?"
Katsuki doesn't answer.
*
They're always at the pool now.
It’s an excuse for the boys to be shirtless, and the girls to wear their bikinis.
Across the pool, Uraraka and Tsuyu are floating on inflatable rings, giggling as they try to splash each other without tipping over. Mina and Jirou are on the shallow steps, legs kicking, passing a phone back and forth to pick the next song. Kirishima’s doing push-ups on the deck just because he can, shirtless back gleaming. Iida’s lecturing someone about proper sunscreen application while simultaneously failing to stop Kaminari from spiking a beach ball into the water too hard.
Deku sits on a towel beneath the shade of a wide umbrella.
He’s wearing a T-shirt, still. Dark green, clinging slightly at the collar where sweat has dampened it. His legs are bare, stretched out in front of him, pale in a way Katsuki doesn’t remember.
He’s not swimming but neither is Katsuki.
That's because Katsuki doesn't know how to swim but Deku does.
But Deku is not swimming and Katsuki doesn't know if that's for his sake, and fuck, maybe almost drowning is better than being baked alive in the sun so he sucks in a breath and sinks down.
Instantly, it’s quiet.
Katsuki is sweating even in water but his quirk doesn't work now.
It’s a nice kind of pressure. The way the air in his lungs fights the water. The way his body resists the urge to float. He can barely hear the music from Mina's bright pink speakers down here.
In the suspension, it feels endless. As if he could swim and swim and emerge in the ocean.
He can’t breathe.
When he emerges back out of the clear water with a choked gasp, Kirishima's shitty club remix and the sun beat down with bright ruthlessness, he sees Deku. Even through the glare, his eyes find Izuku, propped up still on his towel. Even through Izuku’s Ray-Bans, Katsuki knows he’s looking at him.
*
The hallway light cuts off the second the door clicks shut behind them.
It's dark when they enter Katsuki's room. It's dark when Katsuki is staring at Deku and they are both quiet.
A car goes by past their window just then and the room is illuminated temporarily and theres light when Deku steps closer.
"Are we doing this?" Katsuki breathes.
Deku closes the distance.
Katsuki has never felt more alive.
He spits out his gum.
*
The sun drips down the street, and we are too sticky to move properly, too lazy to care. Your laugh, high and looping, bounces between the walls of the alley like it knows a secret I’m not supposed to hear. I smell sunscreen and something sweet, like sugar and grass and maybe your hair.
We walk slow. We walk slower. Then we stop. We walk again. Then we stop again. I think I might touch your hand. You might touch mine. We don’t. Or maybe we do. It doesn’t matter.
The ice cream melts onto the sidewalk before it melts on my tongue. I taste the day in pieces—sun, sweat, salt, something sharp and laughing at me. The air shimmers like it’s breathing, like it wants to hold us here forever, sticky and dizzy, the world looping in the same heat, the same laugh, the same almost-kiss.
Then your lips brush mine, or they almost do, and I forget which, because the summer is all that exists, spilling and spilling, repeating, repeating, repeating.
Salt on lips. Heat on skin. Fingers sliding under hems, palms flat against fever-hot stomachs, tracing scars that told the same story twice.
Deku’s back hit the wall with a soft thud.
He trembled at the touch of his fingers, though Deku had scarcely touched him at all.⁹
*
The kisses taste of sun, of sweat, of ink and stone and mint. They are sticky and alive. Time is a loop of laughter and pages and heat pressing down, and Katsuki has never felt more awake, more on fire, than in these long, endless, repeatable moments.
Late nights, they sit on the fire escape, notebooks on their laps, history spilling into literature spilling into the quiet hum of the city. They make small discoveries: a quote, a footnote, a word that tastes like something they both feel but can’t name. Katsuki leans a little closer, and Izuku tilts his head, a question, a dare, a smile that flickers between the shadows. The city smells like rain that hasn’t come yet and pavement still hot from the day.
They bike through the heat, past fountains and old brick walls, past the smell of grass and sun-baked stone. Katsuki feels the wind catch at his shirt, at his hair, at the edges of his nerves, and it’s dizzying, like summer itself is a loop and he’s stuck in it, and he doesn’t want out. Izuku laughs, high and endless, and Katsuki wants it to repeat forever.
Evenings come slow, folding the city into gold and pink. They write notes to each other on scraps of paper, quotations from history, lines of poetry they pretend to understand, and Katsuki keeps a line of his own, almost hidden, almost a whisper: I can’t stop watching you. He never shows it, not yet. The almost-kisses linger in the air, repeating, repeating, repeating.
Lunches stretch too long, lemonade dripping down fingers that Katsuki wishes he could taste instead of the ice. The library smells of sweat and old wood, of history books stacked too high and the electric hum of a fan that barely moves the air. They sit shoulder to shoulder, literature sprawled between them, and Katsuki tries not to notice the way Izuku’s lips move when he reads aloud, words curling like smoke into the warmth.
When Katsuki takes notes now, it doesn't have empty margins.
*
“Move it,” someone shouts, tossing a pool noodle, and Katsuki curses under his breath, diving in after Izuku. The water is cold, sharp against sun-heated skin, and every stroke feels like it loops, a repetition of the same dizzy, sticky heat and laughter.
They float near the edge, shoulders brushing, chest brushing, and the rest of the group blurs into noise—Mina yelling about a cannonball, Kirishima splashing too hard, Aizawa still unmoving, indifferent, watching. The water drags them together, pulls them closer, and Katsuki’s pulse is a drum he can’t quiet.
Izuku laughs at something small, something that might not even be funny, and the sound curls through the sun like smoke. Katsuki leans closer, almost touching, almost brushing lips, almost—always almost. Summer folds around them, endless and sticky, and the world outside the pool is nothing but distant sunlight and distant shouts.
He watches Izuku.
Izuku moves down the hallway. He moves. It's hypnotic. Pens tucked under one arm, books in the other, shoulders just slightly hunched, hair falling, falling, falling. Katsuki can’t stop watching. He can’t stop. He won’t.
He imagines sitting beside him in class. Every desk, every note, every scribbled margin. Every time Izuku tilts his head. Every time he bites his cheek. Every time his lips twitch in thought. Every day. Every day. Every day.
Katsuki imagines a life stretched like this, endless. Where the glance across the room is ordinary. Where brushing shoulders is ordinary. Where breathing the same air, seeing the same tilt of hair, the same crease of concentration is ordinary. Where nothing is fleeting, nothing vanishes, nothing ends.
But it’s not. Not yet.
He watches. He waits and chews his gum. He imagines. He watches.
I have looked at you in millions of ways and I have loved you in each.¹⁰
*
The first strike lands before anyone else can blink. Izuku spins, lands, and Kirishima goes down, falling like a puppet with its strings cut. Kaminari lunges—gone. So does Iida—gone. One, two, three, all of them vanishing in a blur, their movements eaten by Izuku’s.
Katsuki’s chest hammers. His hands curl. He wants to look away, but he can’t. He cannot. The room is noise, light, projections, holograms, chaos—but Izuku is clean, precise, inevitable. Every dodge, every block, every strike—like watching the sun rise and knowing it will never set.
By the end, the room is empty except for Izuku, standing alone. Sweat glistens at his temples. Breathing steady. Hair plastered to his forehead. His green eyes are alive and shining and perfect.
He controls the wind like he breathes.
He is the wind.
*
Izuku got banned from the pool.
They were racing on the water to see who was the fastest and Izuku had tried to use his wind. He had won but it had resulted in his quirk stirring up the water so fast that the shockwaves had thrown everyone out of the pool and slammed them onto the wall behind.
Mineta broke his bones which Katsuki thought was a lesson long coming.
Still, Aizawa wouldn't see it that way.
*
Katsuki is chewing his gum, watching the way Izuku’s lashes trembled when he laughed, how his mouth tilted when he was embarassed but couldn’t help it, and when he leaned in close, whispering, “Kachhan sugoi!” Katsuki’s breath stuttered, because he wanted to tell Deku he's equally amazing, always was and Katsuki wasn't running anymore, not from this, not from him, not with Izuku’s hand pressed against his shoulder like that, thumb brushing the old scar that had once been a line of anger and now felt like a mark of forgiveness.
And when Deku laughed too loud at lunch the next day, Katsuki looked away before anyone could see the corner of his mouth twitch, and when Deku had spent the whole afternoon hanging out with Uraraka, Katsuki had seethed, seethed so hard his hands itched, chest tight with something he didn’t want to name, until—oh, oh.
And when Deku had shyly reached for his wrist, just barely brushing his fingers there like he wasn’t sure he was allowed, Katsuki had folded, folded, like every wall he’d built, every hard thing he’d told himself about not caring, not needing, had suddenly turned to dust. He didn’t pull away. He couldn’t. He just stood there, heart beating so loud it drowned everything else out, and Deku looked up at him through those lashes, all uncertain and glowing and Katsuki was gone, gone, gone.
*
Afternoon finds them sprawled on the common room couch, limbs tangled, Izuku’s head on Katsuki’s chest while some hero documentary drones in the background neither of them is watching. Katsuki’s fingers comb through green curls slowly, and every time Izuku makes that soft pleased sound in the back of his throat, Katsuki’s heart does a ridiculous little flip.
He thinks about how Izuku’s hair smells like citrus shampoo and grass, how the weight of him is solid and real and here, how the steady thump of Izuku’s heartbeat under his palm is the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. He thinks about the scar on Izuku’s right hand (the one shaped like a starburst) and how he kisses it every summer night without fail, pressing his lips to the raised skin like he can erase the memory of pain with tenderness.
Katsuki wakes before the sun usually, the dorm still wrapped in that bruised-blue hush that happens just before dawn, and the first thing he does, is roll onto his side and watch his Izuku breathe. Not in a creepy way (though he’d die before admitting it out loud), but in the way a dragon guards its hoard, eyes half-lidded and heart thumping slow and heavy against his ribs, because Izuku is curled on his side facing him, one freckled cheek squished against the pillow, lips parted just enough to let out the softest little puffs of air that smell faintly of mint toothpaste and some american strawberry lip balm.
It's chilly now.
Summer is drawing to an end.
*
“I could teach you to swim,” Izuku says as Katsuki refuses to join the others by the pool with the excuse that he can't swim anyway.
Katsuki rolls his eyes, pushes his gum to the other side of his mouth. Another one of Deku's stupid ideas.
“How?” he asks. “You are banned from the pool.”
Izuku's green eyes sharpen and he grins with all his teeth. “Well, breathing’s a big part of it.”
His sweaty fingers extend, brush a line of liquid along the outside of Katsuki's leg, just under the hem of his cotton shorts.
“And I know how we can practise holding our breath.”
Katsuki feels like he’s drowning.
Summer is over before they know it.
*
“When is the flight?” Uraraka asked, even though they all knew.
“Six today,” Izuku said, voice soft but steady. He smiled the way he always did when he was trying not to make anyone else sad.
Kirishima sat up straighter, elbows on his knees. “Midoriya, man, keep in touch, will you? It’s only been a couple months and I already feel like you’re part of us.”
Izuku laughed—bright and genuine, the sound that always made the room feel warmer. “Of course! I have all your numbers, remember?”
Katsuki remembered.
Everyone had crowded around him that first week, shoving phones into Izuku’s hands, spelling out names, arguing over emojis, insisting he save them properly.
“It truly won’t feel like a complete class anymore,” Uraraka said quietly, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. Her eyes were shiny.
Katsuki found it strange. He considered them barely friends due to proximity. Was anyone really building connections?
“Yeah, man,” Kaminari added, grinning but not really. “Bakugou never usually comes out to the pool with us, but even he did.”
Kirishima stares at Katsuki and Katsuki stares back.
“You should just apply here next fall,” Kirishima jokes.
Izuku stole a glance at Katsuki then and Katsuki stills.
Izuku laughed again, lighter this time, like he was brushing the moment away. “Haha. We’ll be graduating soon. We’ll probably end up working together anyway. I plan on working in Japan.”
*
"Bye Midoriya!"
"Bye Izuku!"
"Defy the bloom or whatever you said!" Kirishima yelled.
"Defy the gloom; find your light, rise and bloom." Iida corrects him instantly.
*
[18:09]
i'll miss you.
i miss you already
*
[09:25]
landed. almost home.
What home? Katsuki wonders.
*
Katsuki wakes the next morning and reaches across before realising.
The he reaches for his phone and stares. The screen is blank. No new messages. The time reads 6:12. He stares at it until the numbers blur, until his chest feels tight and unreasonable.
Losing is so much worse than never having. He understands that now.
Before, Izuku had been an idea. A memory. A what-if stretched thin across years. But these past months—these stupid, bright, unbearable hot months—had made him real in a way that refuses to dissolve. The hallways are the same and the training grounds are the same and the air smells the same but everything is different now.
Izuku had brought everything around him alive.
Izuku took it away with him when he left for America.
[06:15]
good morning
*
“Presentation,” Best Jeanist says, adjusting a cuff with surgical precision, “is an extension of intent.”
The first thing he does during break is pull out his phone.
[13:10]
this asshole made me sit still for forty minutes while he “styled” my hair.
i need to see this
[image]
still beautiful kacchan
Katsuki sends him a picture of his hair everyday.
[03:12]
that much gel can't be good for your hair
i dont even care anymore
*
Whenever Deku sends a picture of himself Katsuki finds his hand slip beneath the waistband of his sweatpants at night.
*
Katsuki is told to start journalling.
His peers and teachers have all noticed his moping and he had been sent to the counsellor.
So he finds himself sat at his desk with a notebook infront of him and his phone propped up with Deku on the other end of the call, other end of the world as he tries to write.
He didn't have much of a life, what was he supposed to write about?
Training. Intern shifts. Study sessions. Night runs on the track when he couldn’t sleep. Group chats he muted. Deku's calls. He was busy. Always busy. Maybe his life wasn’t all that interesting, but it was full. It was busy.
Busy didn’t mean happy. He knew that.
But at least he wasn’t bored. Being bored was the worst. Bored meant thinking. Bored meant missing.
He liked having his own money from internships. He liked not dedicating too much time to feeling sorry for himself. Forward momentum. That was enough.
He got invited to dorm parties and usually didn’t go.
Well—he did go to one. Just to please Deku who had insisted. It was too bad Deku was in the group chats now. It meant he knew everything Kacchan missed and decided to update him about it all.
He left right as the music started getting loud, right as everyone loosened up, right as the night threatened to turn into something reckless. And of course that was when Ashido arrived, pink skin glowing under the hallway lights, grin sharp and curious.
“Bakugou!” she called. “You’re leaving? It’s just getting good!”
“I saw what I needed to see,” he muttered.
Ashido narrowed her eyes, walking backward to match his pace. “You’re such a misanthrope. You know that? I bet you’re the only guy in this whole school who’s never kissed anyone.”
He stopped.
“Really,” he said. “And how exactly did you come by that information?”
“Just a hunch,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“You’re trying to get me to tell you things about my life,” he shot back. “It’s not going to work.”
“Ooooh. So there is someone?” she sang. “Who’ve you kissed?”
“Drop it, Pinky.”
“Midoriya?” she guessed, too casually. “I don’t think so. Americans just mess with you.”
Katsuki’s jaw tightened. He kept walking.
Ashido had no sense of self-preservation. She and Kaminari sometimes lingered in the common room near closing hours, waiting for him to finish late-night training. Just to bug him. Just to sit on the couch and ask invasive questions while he grabbed water and tried to ignore them.
She’d flop upside down over the armrest, hair brushing the floor, and announce, “So. Have you kissed him yet?”
Kaminari would gasp like it was premium entertainment.
One night they had contraband sodas from the vending machines and were acting like they’d committed a felony. Ashido offered him one like it was a peace treaty.
He took it. It was fine. It was whatever.
Except she kept asking.
“Who have you kissed?”
And then he got tired of it.
“You know what I think,” he said finally, stepping closer just enough to make her blink. “I think you want me to lean in and give you the kiss of your life.”
Ashido recoiled instantly. “That’s disgusting!”
“Why the interest, then?” he pressed. “You’d love to know what I taste like.”
“You’re vile,” she shot back, face scrunched. “I’d rather have bird crap in my mouth.”
Classes were fine. Aizawa was still pushing them like they were made of steel instead of bone and skin. Present Mic still talked too loud. The writing assignments in English class were tolerable—Katsuki found, to his mild irritation, that he didn’t hate them. He liked putting thoughts somewhere that wasn’t his own head.
Art elective was a disaster but he kept trying.
He knew he didn't have it so bad. He just felt a little...
Empty.
*
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“…Merry Christmas.”
“Did it snow there?”
“No. Just cold. And gray. I mean really cold.”
“Sounds nice.”
“I kind of like it. But I’m tired of the gray days. They say it’ll be worse in January. February too, probably.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, it does suck.”
There was a little silence on the phone.
“So,” Izuku asks gently, “you’re competing again?”
Izuku had heard from Aizawa.
Aizawa.
Katsuki had been so surprised he'd gone to the man himself to ask. The way Izuku makes friends should be studied.
“Yeah.”
Katsuki leans back against his bed in his room staring at the ceiling. “Regional tournament. Then nationals if I qualify which I won't because I'm not eighteen yet. Prize money’s decent though.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“It’s not important. Just fighting.”
Izuku makes a small noise. “It is important.”
Katsuki ignores that.
“Well,” Izuku continues, voice warming, “you’re not going to save that much if you keep buying ridiculously expensive hero-analysis books for your friends.”
Katsuki could tell he was smiling. He felt heat crawl up his neck. He scratched at it like he could scrape the embarrassment away. “So you got the book?”
“I’m holding it in my lap.” Izuku tilted the phone down. There it was: One For All: A History of Symbolism in Hero Costumes by Dr. Emi Hayashi, hardcover, spine still crisp. “It’s a beautiful book, Kacchan.”
Don't cry, Katsuki thinks. Don't cry, don't you dare cry. And it's like Deku heard because he doesn't.
“How many matches did you win to pay for this?” Izuku asks.
“That’s a very Deku question.”
“That’s a very Kacchan answer.”
Izuku laughs, and then Katsuki laughs, and it spills out of them, too loud and too sudden and too much. It stretches over the miles, over the gray skies and the cold dorm room and the competitions and the distance.
They can’t stop.
When the laughter fades, there’s that ache again.
“I should let you sleep,” Izuku said, though he didn’t move to end the call.
“Yeah,” Katsuki agreed, though he didn’t move either.
They stayed like that for another minute—two boys on opposite sides of the world, holding phones like lifelines, pretending the distance wasn’t carving something permanent into both of them.
When the call finally ended, Katsuki let the screen go dark. He sat in the blue-black room for a long time, staring at the place where Izuku’s face had been.
He felt a little sad.
He felt a little happy.
For those few minutes after the screen went black, he wished—fiercely, childishly—that he and Deku still lived in the universe of boys instead of the universe of almost-men. A universe where Christmas was just tangerines and sparklers and sleeping bags on the floor, not prize money and gray Chicago winters and promises that might never quite arrive.
But they didn’t.
So Katsuki lay back on his bed, one arm thrown over his eyes, and let the quiet settle around him like snow that refused to fall.
He exhales slowly.
Then he reaches for his phone again.
There’s another competition next week.
*
Katsuki turns eighteen before anybody else in his year and he wins the next regionals and the nationals and he's kind of making a name for himself here. His name starts circulating beyond school halls and training grounds, turning up in comment sections and sports articles and threads that speculate about his temper, his future, his worth and he doesn't like the attention but he does like the money. He spends it all on Deku.
It is a far, far better thing that he does, than he had ever done.¹⁴
He had considered saving enough for a trip to America but he scratched that idea out when he looked at the ticket prices.
There is only so much one can do at the age of eighteen.
Katsuki wanted to so much more.
He will have to wait.
*
Katsuki celebrates New Year's twice. Once in Deku's time and once in his.
He sits on his bed and watches the seconds tick down on his phone.
Five.
Four.
Three—
There’s a knock at his door.
He scowls. “What.”
The door swings open anyway.
Ashido beams at him from the doorway, cheeks pink from the cold, party hat crooked on her head. “You’re so boring!”
“Get out.”
“It’s midnight, loser!”
She darts in before he can stop her and throws her arms around him.
He doesn’t push her away.
Her arms are warm.
“I have a New Year’s resolution for you,” he says when she lets go.
She plants her hands on her hips and shakes her head pityingly. “Oh, honey... I have a whole list for you.”
*
“And now,” the announcer says, “Izuku Midoriya.”
“Can you see him?” Inko screams into the speaker.
“I can see his stupid hair,” Katsuki mutters while the rest of the class screamed in delight.
Deku was graduating early, the nerd that he was. Katsuki had insisted on 'attending' it.
Kirishima barreled into the room now, phone in his hand “They are LIVE, everyone!”
Everybody scrambled to off to watch it on the big TV. Atlas always broadcasted graduation.
“DEKU!!” Mina shrieked, waving both arms at the screen.
“Hero Deku!!!” Kirishima bellowed, punching the air so hard he almost knocked the phone out of Katsuki's hands.
Izuku on screen looks taller. Broader in the shoulders. The suit actually fits him right now, sharp and clean, green tie wonky. He bows a little too deep when they hand him the certificate.
*
[12:02]
i'm home
Katsuki knows which home this is. He is running, running, running.
*
Izuku makes it in time for Katsuki's graduation.
He is standing there when he recieves his certificate and Katsuki feels like he's flying.
Katsuki is flying through the group of students to find Izuku because he was swarmed by the whole fucking school when they realised he was there but Katsuki needs to see him. Katsuki needs to see him now.
When Izuku's hands finally grasp his Katsuki kisses him in the middle of the crowd and he doesn't care.
He doesn't care.
He would always rather be happy than dignified.¹¹
*
They were planning on opening their own agency when the sky splits over Japan.
*
If highschool was the storm, and adulthood was the thunderstorm, Katsuki doesn't know what War is.
He fought till he died and then he came back and fought again. He fought with all his strength and all his might and he laughed in the face of evil and refused to be broken down.
He refused to be broken down.
Defy the gloom...
Until Izuku stumbled and then Katsuki was falling, falling, falling.
Find the light...
He clawed one hand forward, fingers dragging through rubble, through blood that might have been his or someone else’s or both. The sky above was wrong—too red, too torn, smoke choking the stars. All For One’s laugh rolled across the battlefield and Katsuki feels it in his bones, feels it on the earth under him.
Rise and bloom.
If highschool was the storm and adulthood was the thunderstorm...
He makes it to Izuku barely in time and they are standing.
Shigaraki falls and All-for-One is defeated and the ground crumbles.
War was definitely like an earthquake.
Katsuki breathes life back into his broken hands, and life back into Izuku's eyes and feels proud.
*
The bass from Mina’s end-of-war blowout still thumped in Katsuki’s skull like a second heartbeat as he gripped the wheel of Kirishima’s borrowed truck. The AC was busted—had been since summer started—and the night air pouring through the cracked windows did fuck-all to cut the heat. Sweat prickled at his temples, stuck his black tank to his back, but he didn’t care.
Deku’s in the passenger seat—as he’s been more and more lately, like it’s just understood now—but he’s quiet.
At the red light, Katsuki stops and turns to look at him.
Izuku’s head is tipped back against the seat, throat exposed, freckles dark against flushed skin. His shirt—once neat, a casual green button-down—is wrecked. Half untucked. Sleeves rolled. Someone’s scrawled HERO DEKU across the collar in black marker.
They are two minutes from Deku’s house.
Don't go please.
He’d pull into the driveway, headlights slashing across the garage door like searchlights.
I don’t want you to leave.
Deku smelled like sweat and the cheap fruit punch someone had spiked with too much vodka. Katsuki could feel those green eyes on the side of his face—steady, burning, familiar.
Oh god I need—
“Deku—”
“You’re hot Kacchan.”
Katsuki slams the breaks
“Uh, Kacchan?” Izuku says, eyes open now. “It’s green.”
“I know,” he snapped. “It’s summer. It's supposed to be hot.”
It’s so fucking hot in this truck why the fuck didn’t shitty hair fix the AC fuck—
Izuku shifts in his seat, turning fully toward him. One knee pressing against the console. Close.
“You don’t get it, do ya?”
Katsuki tore his gaze off the road even though they were doing eighty on the empty stretch past the old sports fields. All the air punched out of his lungs at once, replaced by something heavier, wetter, drowning.
He looked back at the road.
“Well we can’t go to my house,” he said, voice scraped raw.
Deku’s grin was audible—slow, bright, dangerous. “The park?”
“Gross. Bugs.”
“The empty lot behind the community centre?”
Katsuki speeds the rest of the way.
*
Summer was here again. Summer, summer, summer.
Katsuki spat his gum out.
Summer had its own rules. It was supposed to mean open windows and loud nights and nothing owed to anyone. It was supposed to mean freedom. No schedules. No uniforms. No bells dictating where you stood and when you moved.
Summer was supposed to mean you chose.
That’s what made him restless.
Because every summer, something chose him first.
He told himself this one would be different because he had Deku now.
If summer was a blank page, he would scorch his name into it. If it was a battlefield, he would win it. If it was a story, he would write it himself.
He just didn’t know what that story was supposed to be.
And already, it was slipping.
Already, it was obligations.
He’d taken full-time shifts at the agency. Forty hours a week. He’d never worked forty hours a week outside of structured training, and this wasn’t training. This was patrols that stretched long and dull under the heat. This was paperwork that stacked higher than it should. This was interns who stared at him like he was already carved into stone.
Summer was a blank page of hope.
That’s exactly why he loved and hated it.
Because summers made him want to believe in something bigger than himself.
He had that old rock song stuck in his head again—something loud and defiant about school’s out forever. He didn’t even like the song that much, but it looped anyway, relentless as the cicadas screaming outside his window.
This time, he decided, this would be his summer.
He smiles as Izuku finishes his routine.
Izuku sat on the bench, legs spread wide, elbows on his knees, breathing hard enough that his shoulders rose and fell in uneven rhythm. Sweat darkened his tank top in a V down the center of his chest, plastered green curls to his forehead, and his throat worked visibly as he tilted the bottle back.
He swallowed Gatorade in long, greedy pulls, blue liquid disappearing down his throat in thick, deliberate gulps. The bottle crinkled under his grip. A single drop escaped the corner of his mouth, slid slow along the line of his jaw, then dropped onto his collarbone and vanished into the soaked fabric.
Katsuki watched.
He knew what it felt like when Izuku swallowed. When Izuku swallowed around him.
*
They open their own agency.
*
When they get married Katsuki calls one last time as Izuku is walking down the aisle. Izuku is in his wedding suit with a boquet of wildflowers and gloved fingers but he answers.
[11:11]
"Hey."
"Hey Kacchan."