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Izuku hummed a song he had heard during one of his many ventures among the villages he once visited for his studies. It struck him in the softest ways – the way winds caressed budding bamboo trees, the way water flowed in gentle streams, the way brushes dipped into ink.
His sensei had once told him it was a love song, one created to express the composer’s unconditional love for their beloved.
His heart clenched in a quiet, unfamiliar way. It was beautiful – the song, the love behind it, the story it carried.
He flicked the book he was reading close. Still humming, he started writing his findings. This research would mark his breakthrough, his Sensei believed. So, Izuku persevered through the night, it was getting late, he vaguely notes the last curl of smoke faded as the incense went out hours ago, candles burning low.
“I had presumed the scholars to be at rest by now,” a deep voice halted his humming, “…was I mistaken?”
Izuku continued his writing, soft smile painting his candle-lit face, “You aren’t, tonosama. This scholar is just–different.”
He lightly chuckled as he heard a long-suffering sigh, then he carefully moved the suzuri as heavy gentle arms wrapped around Izuku’s person, a head resting on his shoulder – its breath fanning against his neck.
“Itoshii.” The other murmured, lips moving softly as if tasting his skin. “Come rest with me. Hmm?”
“I am nearly finished,” Izuku sighed as those lips continued marking its way against his unsuspecting neck. “… just a little more time, tonosama.”
“Hm? Did I hear that right?” Larger hand gently held his – effectively prying off the brush – just to intertwine it against his own scarred hand.
“Come rest with me?” The other repeated. Sweetly at that. "It's our last night here, we ought to enjoy it to last." He murmured against Izuku's jaw.
Izuku could only lean against the other’s broad form and sigh, lost in those gentle eyes that seemed to pull him ever deeper into their love.
Soft whispered confession lulled him to sleep that night. Izuku felt full, safe, and loved held in those arms. A smile graced his slumbering face.
"I find myself drawn to you, more than I can resist… I hold you in the deepest affection… I am yours, in ways I scarcely understand… I am, and shall remain, yours… saiai no hito…”
Fastening the hakama in place, he stood and moved around getting the black haori from the rack to complete the other’s clothing. Izuku thinks it fits him well. The other looks perfect, even without the haori. Slicked back hair, showing off their stoic yet oh so handsome face – despite the red scar along his left eye.
Izuku carefully held the haori; standing behind the taller man, waiting for him to move and wear the sleeves. Izuku is somehow grateful to be on the shorter side, he could only stare at the back of the other’s neck, careful not to stray his eyes forward towards the silver mirror. Lest he meet the other’s heterochromatic eyes.
Lest he betray his own feeling.
The other stood rigid as he slipped his arms into the haori. Izuku swallowed past the tightness in his throat, acutely aware of those eyes upon him, his expression carefully schooled into blankness. With practiced hands, he smoothed every errant fold, willing his fingers not to tremble as they passed over the other’s broad shoulders and settled the garment in place.
The silence reigned within the room, sharp, charged with something he can’t name. He carefully released a breath as he held the haorihimo, leaving a brief caress, then he moved back in front of the other man’s form, eyes and hands focused on fastening the cord on the haori.
Izuku forced himself not to think about what had led to this moment. He had expected this. He knew it would be difficult; that their being together could only end in the devastation of one or both of them. And yet, he couldn’t help but continue to bathe in those beautiful – tragic – feelings. He only has himself to blame.
He could only hold his broken pieces to himself.
Izuku stepped back and bowed, eyes focused on his socked feet. “Then, I wish that your union may be blessed with lasting happiness… Todoroki-sama.”
Izuku is a renewed scholar. Blessed with rare intelligence, rumored to be comparable to the brightest scholar – Nezu. Taught by the strict discipline of Nezu-sama’s successor, Aizawa Shouta. Hardened by the harsh life of being a commoner – lower than that, some would say – it is only thanks for Aizawa’s ventures that Izuku was found.
He was a trained and disciplined scholar, he knew when and how to hide what he feels. Yet, in the face of those beseeching eyes, he found himself hiding his trembling hands, hastily turning his back to move out of this large – suffocating – room. Lest he crumble – break. His sensei would be disappointed, then.
“Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgement, Izuku.” Aizawa-sensei murmured, lulling the child to sleep. “If you are ever drawn into the affairs of nobles, rely only on yourself.” He cradled a sniffling Izuku gently – moving back and forth, like how his mother did once upon a time. “In the end, you are the only one who can keep yourself from falling apart.”
Izuku hoped he could run and hide behind his sensei like he did back in the time; when everything was new, when everything was scary. Yet, he could only think of his teachings. He’s a child no more. Not a snotty child who can still run and hide behind him if a child – or a noble – bully him. Izuku’s chest felt like being torn apart. He didn’t even have his sensei anymore.
“Itoshii…” a hand clasped around his, halting Izuku’s retreating form.
His breath shuddered at those familiar – piercing – word. He dared not turn around. Izuku could feel the stinging in his eyes the way the larger hand tremble against his own.
Izuku flinched as familiar, warm, broad chest slumped against his back, arms wrapped around his person. He could almost hear his heart breaking – shattering – as he could feel tremors from the taller man. Izuku stood rigid and taut.
“itoshii hito… I- ask of you–”
“No.” Izuku clenched his jaw painfully.
“S-stop this… at once…” he worked through his tightening throat, “Todoroki-sama.”
The arms around him tightened, almost painfully.
“N-no… please…” Shoto – Todoroki-sama said, voice rough with emotion. “…please, i-itoshii… I beg of you…”
“Stop. You’ll ruin your g-garments.” Izuku tried prying off his arms as he felt his tears fall.
“No, please… Izuku…”
Izuku’s breath hitched as the other’s almost frantic – trembling – hands held him in place as Shoto moved to his front. Izuku could only hide his face behind his already trembling hands, trying – and failing – to wipe his face clean from tears. To hide how weak he truly is.
“We can – we can go… run…” Izuku stared incredulously at the taller man’s desperate – usually stoic – face.
“Wha–”
“We have time. We can run. Run away. Hide.” Shoto’s breath quickened, “I don’t know! Anywhere! Away – away from here. I only need y–”
His voice kept getting louder the more he spoke. They can’t have that. People are milling around the ground, the hallways, rooms. Awaiting for the bride, for the groom. They can’t–
“Shoto!” Izuku hissed lowly, careful of his own voice. “Can you even hear yourself?!”
Shoto stood frozen, face stricken with grief – broken. It hurts Izuku to see his love like that. Dressed in crisp montsuki haori hakama, handsome, ready to be wed – not to him, Izuku had to remind himself – broken. He took a deep breath, calming his raging emotions.
“Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgement, Izuku.”
“Please…” Shoto asked, beseeching, his trembling hands cupped Izuku’s face.
It hurts.
“My heart has chosen you…” Shoto whispered softly, his breath fanning Izuku’s face as Shoto let his forehead rest on his. “…ai.”
Izuku let his tears fall, fall, and fall. Silence reigned for a short while. Letting themselves drown in hurt, in grief.
Grief for the love they’re not allowed to have.
Soft, warm, trembling lips touched his own.
Izuku could vaguely feel the taller man’s damp cheeks.
For the last time, Izuku let himself feel.
“It hurts, sensei.” Izuku whimpered, clutching his paper-cut hand.
Feel Shoto’s lips dance with his. Feel Shoto’s gentle – trembling – hands roam every contour of his body, as if memorizing each lines, each dips. Feel Shoto’s breath fan around his face – neck, in reverence. Feel his love.
“It’s okay to hurt, Izuku.” Aizawa-sensei carefully dab a clean and warm cloth on his hand. “That way, you will feel how and when you heal. There,” he wrapped Izuku’s little hand in a weird small silk-like cloth. “…better?” Izuku nodded and beamed as he saw a tilt on his sensei’s mouth.
Izuku willed himself to push his love away, trembling hands pushed against broad chest.
Shoto’s tears finally – finally – let itself fall like a dam. A soft thud echoed in the deafening silence. Once again, Izuku’s heart crushed, it ached.
His love – Shoto – is kneeling. Izuku’s hands held against his forehead, like having a prayer.
“D-don’t l-eave, i-itoshii.” He whimpered.
Izuku can’t help but sob. Not even forcing himself to stop the tears and calm his aching heart. He could only stand there and watch as his love let himself crumble. He idly wonders if he could heal like how his sensei said before.
Todoroki Shoto. A strong, wise pillar, and the perfect successor of the noble Todoroki Household. Crumbled, kneeling in tears for his unattainable – tragic – love.
Izuku thought – cursed – their time and fate were cruel. Both of them knew what their relationship was, and what it was not allowed to be. Something unspoken, yet constantly seen through the eyes of others. It was looked down upon, judged in silence long before it was ever named. Strange, they called it – strange in all ways but one: in the way it felt undeniably right to them, and wrong to everyone else.
Neither of them had ever pretended ignorance. They had simply learned to live within the tension of it, as if time itself were holding its breath around them, hiding behind the shadows called friendship – brotherhood. It is why Izuku found himself here.
And so, both knew this moment was inevitable – not because they wanted it to end, but because the world had never allowed it to truly begin.
“I beg of you,” Shoto slowly started to get a bit frantic. His eyes swirling with overwhelming emotions, only Izuku could see. “I love you. My heart bleeds for you. Please… please, saiai…”
Izuku shook his head, tasting blood as he bit on his lip enough to break. Shoto’s tearful eyes widened, more crushing words fell out his lips as he himself shook his head. Kneeling closer to Izuku’s form, keeping him close. Holding his beloved close. Pressing his face on Izuku’s stomach.
“W-we don’t have – to c-care about them… please, Izuku. Hear my aching heart. Please… please… please…”
Izuku hurts to see his love beg like this. And yet, “Y-you have duties to-to your–”
“I don’t care! Please, ai… bring me-me with you… please…”
Oh, how Izuku wished he could. How he wished – prayed, for years – he could bring his love and hide behind his sensei’s walls of protection. He found himself cursing inwardly.
How could fate be this cruel?
He should’ve studied about it more.
How – how could Izuku let his love live in hiding, or worse, live in scorn from the people who once admired him. He could never.
Izuku could never. It is why; he forced himself to peel those trembling arms from his person. Shoto kept sobbing, beseeching, begging Izuku not to let go.
“Shoto…” Izuku called to the sobbing man oh so softly, “Anata.”
Shoto finally looked up.
Izuku smiled through his tears. A smile only reserved to those handful he loves.
“Baobei,” Izuku smiled softly as he said that foreign endearment he learned in the recent. Before everything goes downhill.
He crouched in front of the kneeling man, “I had not intended for this to become… what it is – for years,” he confessed quietly, hand reaching for the other’s damp face.
“But intention is a powerless thing, is it not?” he continued, almost to himself. “Even when I told myself to remain distant… even when I reminded myself of what we are allowed to be, and what we are not…”
Izuku swallowed the lump in his throat, grateful, as Shoto let him gather his thoughts and talk.
“The world has already decided the shape of our lives. It does not permit deviation. It does not permit us.” Shoto’s eyes shined with unshed tears. In them, Izuku saw it, however reluctant.
Acceptance. Understanding.
“And still, I find I cannot follow what has been written for me.”
He let out a faint, almost bitter exhale.
“This feeling… it should not exist. It has no right to take root where it has. And yet it remains, as though it has always belonged.” Izuku’s smile turned melancholic.
“Perhaps we – we could’ve been…” his breath shuddered as he felt another crushing wave hit his heart. Izuku tried once again to calm his heart.
Really, how could fate be this cruel, sensei? If you could hear this beseeching student down here.
“If we are bound to one another in some way deeper than this life allows… then perhaps it is not here that we were meant to be together.”
His fingers tightened briefly, then loosened, as if letting go of something unseen.
“Perhaps in another life… when the world is not so unkind with its definitions… we may be permitted to stand beside one another without fear.”
Izuku let himself rest his forehead against his love.
“But for now… we are only what we are allowed to be. We need not to be ashamed of what we truly feel for our heart only ever loved,” He bowed his head slightly—not in rejection, but in restraint. “…but,”
“My heart, I will not ask you to remain where you cannot. I could never let you live in scorn in the face of such fate. So, I beg of you, do not make yourself suffer for what the world refuses to allow.” He took a breath, steadier this time, though it carried something like ache beneath it.
“If there is truly something that binds us beyond this life… then I will find you again. And if there is not…”
A small pause – almost a surrender.
“Then I will still be grateful that, in this one, I was allowed to know – to love you at all. So, I pray; your marriage be blessed with peace and let you find enduring happiness.”
Shoto’s tears fell. Not because of hurt. Not because of grief. But of acceptance, of understanding. Acceptance that they could only reach this far – he could only reach this far. Acceptance, that his dreams of growing old with Izuku was purely, tragically, unattainable.
Shoto could only pray; in their next life, for them to love freely, without the burden of someone’s duties, of social constraints.
Shoto could only pray they could love and give love freely.
“Shoto-sama,” Izuku whispered – almost like a prayer – voice dipping with undying affection.
“I will always hold you in the deepest affection.” He echoed the achingly familiar confession.
“I am, and shall remain, yours. Saiai no hito.”
“Shh… it’s okay, Izuku. There is nothing wrong with you. To hold affection for another… to find your heart drawn where it will – this is not a fault. It is not a failing of character, nor a thing to be corrected. Love does not choose as we are told it should. It simply… comes to rest where it will.”
A faint, almost melancholic smile touched his expression.
“It is only the world that struggles to accept what it does not expect. And the world can be unkind, at times. Not because what you feel is wrong… but because it is different from what it is used to. You need not be ashamed of it.”
His voice softened. “Whether you choose to hold it close… or to let it remain unspoken for your own safety… that choice is yours, and yours alone. But do not ever think that your heart has erred.”
Aizawa gazed upon the clear, blue sky.
“It has only loved.”