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Eri had spent the entire walk back to Heights Alliance talking about Kota.

Not that Izuku minded. He learned pretty quickly that when Eri got excited about something, the best thing to do was let her run with it. The words came faster and faster the happier she got, her little hands moving almost as much as her mouth as she described, with great seriousness, the letter Kota had sent her.

"And he said the river by the camp is really cold now," Eri told him as Izuku pulled open the front door. "And that one of the kittens keeps sleeping in his shoes, but Mandalay says he can't keep it in his room because it knocked over a lamp, and he said next time I come he'll show me the big tree he found, and—"

She stopped just inside the entrance, and Izuku had to catch himself before he nearly walked into her. Eri turned around with bright, hopeful eyes.

"Deku?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think I'll get to see Kota again soon?"

The question came out a little quieter than the excited story she'd been telling a second ago, and Izuku couldn't help smiling down at her.

"I'm sure your dad will arrange something with the Pussycats for you if you ask him."

Eri's whole face lit up.

"You think so?"

"Definitely. Aizawa-sensei knows you two like seeing each other." Izuku let the door close behind them. "And I'm pretty sure the Pussycats would love to have you visit again, too."

Eri seemed satisfied with that answer.

She resumed walking beside him, apparently already planning the conversation she would have with Aizawa later.

"I could ask him tonight."

"You could."

"After dinner."

"Probably a good time."

"Unless he's tired."

Izuku glanced down at her. "You're allowed to ask him things when he's tired, Eri."

"I know."

The answer came quickly enough that Izuku suspected she did know, at least intellectually.

Before he could say anything else, Eri stopped again, her nose scrunching as she sniffed the air. Izuku caught the scent a second later, something rich and savory drifting down the hall—onions, spices, and something warm and faintly sweet underneath it. His stomach responded embarrassingly fast, reminding him that the snack he'd grabbed earlier hadn't been particularly substantial.

Eri sniffed again, more deliberately this time. "What's that smell?"

Izuku turned toward the common room. It was definitely coming from somewhere nearby, probably the kitchen. "I don't know," he said, offering his hand. "Why don't we find out?"

Eri took it immediately, and together they followed the smell through the common room. It grew stronger with every step until Izuku could finally make out the unmistakable scent of curry beneath the spices and cooked vegetables.

That narrowed down the potential culprits considerably.

Sure enough, the moment they stepped into the kitchen, Izuku spotted a familiar blond standing at the counter and stopped.

"Oh. Hi, Kacchan."

Katsuki glanced over his shoulder and gave a short grunt in acknowledgment before turning back to what he was doing.

He was dressed down in a black T-shirt and gray sweatpants, his hair a little less aggressively spiked than usual, like he'd showered recently and hadn't bothered doing much with it afterward. A cutting board covered in neatly diced vegetables sat in front of him, a pot simmering on the stove at his back as he worked through another carrot.

Izuku lingered in the doorway for a second longer than necessary.

Katsuki must have felt him staring, because the knife stopped.

"What, nerd?"

"Hm?" Izuku blinked. "Nothing."

Katsuki glanced back at him, eyes narrowing. "Then quit standing in the damn doorway."

"Right, right. Sorry, Kacchan."

Izuku started farther into the kitchen, only to feel a slight tug against his hand when Eri didn't follow. He looked back and found her lingering just behind his shoulder, watching Katsuki with an expression that wasn't exactly frightened, but wasn't comfortable either.

He understood why. Eri knew Katsuki, of course. She'd spent enough time around their class by now to be familiar with everyone, but she'd never spent much time with him specifically. And Katsuki tended to make a very particular impression from a distance: loud, sharp, perpetually angry-looking, and prone to solving problems with explosions.

Izuku shifted half a step without really thinking about it, giving Eri a little more room to hide behind him. He was already considering suggesting they go find something else to do when Katsuki's gaze dropped briefly to their joined hands, then to the way Eri had tucked herself behind Izuku.

Something in his expression changed, so subtly Izuku might have missed it if he hadn't spent most of his life learning how to read Kacchan.

Katsuki turned back to the counter and quietly set the knife down.

Instead of continuing to chop, he began gathering the vegetables he'd already cut and dropping them into a bowl. Beside Izuku, Eri slowly peeked around him again, her attention moving from Katsuki to the cutting board and then toward the simmering pot beyond it. Curiosity was beginning to win.

"What are you making?" she finally asked.

Katsuki glanced over at her, then briefly at Izuku before settling his attention back on Eri.

"Curry."

That was it. He simply turned back to what he was doing, but it was enough. After a little hesitation, Eri stepped out from behind Izuku and ventured a little closer to the counter.

"Is it spicy?"

"A little."

Eri considered that seriously. "…Your spicy or normal spicy?"

A sound escaped Izuku before he could stop it. He hastily tried to disguise it as a cough, but the way Katsuki slowly turned his head toward him made it very clear he hadn't fooled anyone.

"Something funny, Deku?"

Izuku covered his mouth, doing his best to school his expression. "Nope."

"Sure as hell sounds like something was funny."

"No, no, just—" Izuku cleared his throat. "Wrong pipe."

Katsuki stared at him. "You weren't eating anything."

"Saliva can go down the wrong pipe, Kacchan."

"Fascinating."

There was enough of a threat in the word that Izuku wisely decided not to push his luck. Beside him, Eri's mouth twitched like she was trying not to smile.

Traitor.

Katsuki turned his attention back to her. "Mild."

Eri blinked. "You made it mild?"

"That's what I said."

"Oh." She looked pleased by the answer, but Izuku found himself glancing toward the pot again.

Mild curry was unusual for Kacchan. Not because he couldn't make it—Katsuki could cook basically anything he set his mind to—but when he was cooking for himself, his preferred spice level tended to fall somewhere between aggressive and attempted murder.

And, now that Izuku was looking, there was an awful lot of food for one person.

His gaze wandered from the simmering pot to the rice cooker, then to the small mountain of vegetables already waiting on the cutting board. There was definitely enough for more than one serving. More than two, probably.

For a moment, Izuku wondered—

No. Katsuki complained often enough about people wandering into the kitchen whenever he cooked. He probably just knew half the class would eventually show up and start begging for some.

That was all.

Obviously.

While Izuku was busy settling that particular question, Eri edged another step closer to the counter. Katsuki picked up his knife again, subtly shifting his stance so that he stood between her and the blade as he went back to work.

Eri watched with open fascination as the carrot beneath his hand became a row of perfectly even pieces. Katsuki swept them aside, reached for another, and started again.

She kept watching.

Eventually, Katsuki sighed.

"What?"

Eri startled slightly. "Nothing."

"You've been staring at me for five minutes."

"I haven't been here five minutes."

Izuku pressed his lips together before a laugh could escape.

Katsuki slowly looked at her.

Eri looked right back, apparently unaware—or perhaps completely aware—that she'd just talked back to Bakugō Katsuki.

After a moment, her attention returned to the cutting board.

"You're really good at that."

The compliment caught Katsuki off guard just enough for his hands to pause. Most people probably wouldn't have noticed, but Izuku had known him far too long to miss the tiny blink of surprise before Katsuki scoffed and resumed chopping.

"Course I am."

The familiar confidence made Izuku smile before he could help himself.

Unfortunately, Katsuki noticed that too. "The hell are you smiling at?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Bullshit. You've got that face."

Izuku blinked. "What face?"

Katsuki gestured vaguely toward him with the carrot he'd just picked up. "That one."

"My—Kacchan, that doesn't explain anything."

"Explains plenty."

"It literally explains nothing."

Eri's gaze moved between them as if she were watching a conversation conducted in a language she didn't quite understand.

Katsuki finally rolled his eyes and returned to chopping, deciding Izuku wasn't worth the effort.

Izuku's smile lingered anyway.

He wasn't entirely sure why.

And judging by the suspicious side-eye Katsuki gave him a moment later, neither was Katsuki.

Once Eri seemed to decide Katsuki wasn't going to object to her being there, her remaining caution gradually gave way to curiosity. She edged closer to the counter, still leaving a comfortable amount of space between them, and began studying the ingredients spread across his workspace with renewed interest.

"What's that?"

Katsuki followed her finger to the small bowl beside the stove. "Ginger."

"And that one?"

"Garlic."

Eri studied the two bowls as though she were committing the difference to memory, then pointed toward the pan. "Why did you put the onions in first?"

"Because they take longer."

"To cook?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

While Katsuki picked up another carrot, Izuku wandered over to the island and leaned back against the counter, resting his palms against the edge behind him. He'd initially planned to stay close in case Eri needed him, but she was already farther into the kitchen on her own and seemed perfectly content where she was.

For the moment, watching felt like enough.

Eri's eyes followed Katsuki's hands as he made a few quick, precise cuts. "Why are they all the same size?"

"So they cook the same."

Her brow furrowed. "What happens if they're different sizes?"

"The smaller pieces cook faster." Katsuki swept the carrot aside with the flat of the knife. "Make some too small and they'll turn to mush before the bigger ones are done."

"Oh."

A smile tugged at Izuku's mouth. He knew that particular oh. Eri wasn't just asking questions for the sake of asking them; she was carefully filing every answer away somewhere important.

Katsuki seemed to figure that out too.

"You want 'em around the same size," he added as he reached for a potato, "but they don't have to be fucking identical. Just don't cut one like this—" He nudged one of the carrot pieces forward with the tip of his knife, then indicated a larger chunk waiting to be chopped. "—and another twice as damn big."

Eri nodded with the solemnity of someone receiving instructions on how to defuse a bomb.

Izuku ducked his head, trying to hide his smile as he folded his arms loosely across his chest.

It was strangely fascinating to watch the two of them.

Katsuki didn't dumb anything down for her. He kept his explanations simple enough for Eri to follow, but he never brushed off a question with because that's how you do it or acted like the actual answer would be too complicated for her to understand. If she wanted to know why something went into the pan first, he told her. When she pointed at the potatoes and asked why those had to wait, he explained that putting them in too early would make them fall apart before everything else was finished.

Then she discovered the spices.

"What are those?"

Katsuki glanced toward the small dishes he'd measured out earlier. "Which ones?"

"Those two." Eri pointed between a pair of spices that, to her, apparently looked identical. "Why do you have both if they're the same?"

"They're not the same."

Eri leaned closer to inspect them, her brow pinching in concentration. "They look the same."

"They still aren't."

Katsuki set down the potato in his hand and reached for one of the little dishes. He could have explained the difference, but instead he held it out toward Eri.

"Smell it."

Eri hesitated for only a second before stepping closer and taking a careful sniff. Her nose immediately wrinkled, and Katsuki switched it for the second dish.

"Now this one."

She sniffed again. This time, her eyes widened as she looked between the two. "Oh. They are different."

"No shit."

"Kacchan," Izuku said automatically.

Katsuki looked over at him, clearly unimpressed by the interruption. "What?"

"Language."

"You say that like she hasn't heard worse."

"That doesn't mean you should be teaching her more!"

"I already know that word," Eri helpfully supplied.

Izuku closed his eyes, hearing Katsuki snort from across the kitchen.

"See?"

"That is not helping your case, Kacchan."

"Wasn't trying to."

With a long-suffering sigh, Izuku opened his eyes again, only to catch the faintest twitch at the corner of Katsuki's mouth before he turned away.

Izuku blinked.

Was Kacchan smiling?

It was gone almost immediately, hidden beneath his usual scowl as Katsuki picked up the two spices again and turned his attention back to Eri.

"This one's cumin," he said, as though he hadn't just been quietly amused at Izuku's expense. "Smell it again."

Eri did, listening with the same intense concentration she brought to Aizawa's lessons as Katsuki explained what each spice would add to the curry.

Izuku stayed leaning against the island, watching them. Or, more specifically, watching the corner of Katsuki's mouth like it might betray him a second time.

It didn't.

Apparently, Izuku's attempt to protect Eri's vocabulary had been both unsuccessful and completely forgotten.

He was a little more distracted by the fact that Kacchan had smiled.

Eri, meanwhile, listened with complete concentration. The more seriously Katsuki treated her curiosity, the more comfortable she seemed to become, until the distance she'd kept between them when she first entered the kitchen had almost disappeared. 

It went on like that for several minutes before Eri fell quiet.

Eri looked between Katsuki's hands and the collection of ingredients spread across the counter. She rocked slightly onto the balls of her feet, opened her mouth, closed it, and then finally asked,

"Can I help?"

Izuku straightened.

"Oh, Eri, Kacchan probably has everything exactly how he wants it, so we probably shouldn't get in his—"

A loud scrape cut him off.

Izuku blinked.

Katsuki had hooked his foot around one of the step stools tucked beneath the island and was dragging it across the floor.

He positioned it beside the counter.

Then, without saying a word, he started rearranging things.

The knife block disappeared toward the back corner first. Katsuki turned the handle of the pan on the stove inward, then shifted his cutting board—knife and all—to the opposite side of his workspace. A bowl moved closer. The spices moved farther away. He glanced at the stool, then at the counter, seeming to calculate where Eri would actually be able to reach once she was standing on it.

The whole process took maybe five seconds, and Izuku noticed every single part of it.

Once he seemed satisfied with the setup, Katsuki looked at Eri and jerked his chin toward the stool. "Up."

Eri glanced at him, then at the stool, before looking back at Izuku as though checking that this was really happening. Izuku was still trying to catch up himself, but he managed an encouraging nod.

That was all Eri needed. She climbed onto the stool, and Katsuki immediately reached out to steady it with one hand. He didn't touch her. He simply kept the stool firmly in place until Eri had both feet planted and seemed comfortable with her balance.

"There. Don't lean over the counter," Katsuki told her. "If you can't reach something, you tell me."

"Okay."

"And if I tell you something's hot, you don't touch it."

"Okay."

"If I tell you to move, you move. Got it?"

Eri nodded with complete seriousness. "Got it."

Katsuki gave the setup one final inspection before grunting in satisfaction.

"Good."

Izuku remained by the island, still trying to catch up with what he'd just seen.

Of course Kacchan had thought of all of that.

It shouldn't have surprised him. Katsuki was meticulous about practically everything he did, and his situational awareness was ridiculous. Give him any environment and he automatically knew where the hazards were, where everyone around him was standing, what could go wrong, and how quickly he could respond if it did.

Izuku knew that.

He'd written pages about it.

He'd fought beside him enough times to trust that awareness without even thinking about it anymore.

But there was something different about watching those same instincts quietly reorient themselves around a seven-year-old girl standing on a step stool.

Something about it knocked a little piece of Izuku's mental furniture sideways.

He decided not to examine that too closely.

"So," Katsuki said, dragging a bowl toward Eri, "you wanna help, you actually help."

Eri immediately stood straighter.

"I will."

"Good. Wash those."

Katsuki slid a bowl of vegetables toward her and nodded toward the sink. Eri accepted the assignment with both hands, looking so serious about it that Izuku had to bite back another smile.

He pushed himself away from the island. "I can—"

"I didn't ask you."

Izuku stopped halfway across the kitchen. "I was going to help her reach the sink."

Katsuki gave him a flat look before pointing toward the stool Eri was already carefully maneuvering along the counter. "She can reach from there."

"Oh."

"Sit down."

"Kacchan, I'm not a dog."

"Could've fooled me."

Eri giggled, and the corner of Katsuki's mouth curled into a small, unbearably smug smile.

Oh, so this one he wasn't going to hide.

Izuku looked between them in betrayal. "Whose side are you on?"

That only made Eri giggle harder, and Katsuki's smirk widened just enough to make it clear he was enjoying this far too much.

"Unbelievable," Izuku muttered. "I'm being bullied in my own dorm."

He retreated to the island and leaned against it again, folding his arms across his chest with as much wounded dignity as he could manage. Katsuki had already turned back to the stove by then, satisfied with his victory.

Once Eri had moved the stool into place at the sink, she reached immediately for the bowl, but Katsuki stopped her with a quick, "Hands first."

She paused. "Oh."

"Soap's there."

Eri set the bowl down and turned on the faucet. Katsuki went back to the stove, though his attention still flicked toward her every few seconds while she washed her hands.

"Twenty seconds," Katsuki said.

Eri looked over at him. "How do I know when it's been twenty seconds?"

"Count."

"Oh."

She began counting under her breath as she scrubbed between her fingers, taking the instruction with the same grave seriousness she'd given everything else Katsuki told her. By fourteen, she was going noticeably slower.

Katsuki glanced over. "That was the longest fifteen I've ever heard."

"I'm counting."

"You're cheating."

"I'm washing really good."

"That's not how numbers work."

Izuku ducked his head to hide his smile.

Eventually, Eri reached twenty to Katsuki's satisfaction, rinsed the soap away, and looked around for somewhere to dry her hands.

"Clean towel," Katsuki said, pointing with his chin. "Not that one. I used it on the counter."

Eri obediently reached for the other towel, dried her hands, and then looked at him expectantly.

Katsuki nodded toward the bowl. "Now wash those."

"Okay."

She immediately got to work.

Katsuki moved between the stove and counter, checking the curry while Eri carefully scrubbed the remaining vegetables. He didn't hover over her shoulder or take over when she was a little slow. He just let her do it, answering when she asked whether something was clean enough and occasionally glancing over to make sure she was still steady on the stool.

When Eri proudly held up a potato for inspection, Katsuki took it, turned it over once, and handed it straight back.

"Missed a spot."

Her face fell into intense concentration. "Where?"

"There." He tapped one muddy patch with his finger.

Eri attacked it with renewed determination.

The second time she presented it to him, Katsuki inspected both sides before giving a small nod. "Good."

Eri smiled and immediately reached for the next one.

For the next several minutes, she became Katsuki's extremely serious little sous-chef. Anything involving a knife remained firmly his job, but everything else he could safely give her, he did. There was no bowl placed in front of her just to keep her occupied, no meaningless task she could complete while the real cooking happened somewhere else. If Katsuki told her to do something, it was because it actually needed doing.

Katsuki pulled a few small dishes closer and set a measuring spoon in front of Eri. "Two of these."

Eri looked from the spoon to the spice, then up at him. "Two whole ones?"

"Two level ones."

Her brow furrowed. "What does level mean?"

Rather than taking the spoon from her, Katsuki picked up another and dipped it into the spice himself. "Watch."

Eri leaned closer as he filled it, then used the flat edge of a second spoon to sweep the excess from the top.

"Like that. Fill it, then level it off. Otherwise you're just guessing."

"Oh." Eri took her own spoon and carefully copied him, moving slowly enough that hardly a grain spilled. When she finished, she held it up for inspection. "Like this?"

Katsuki gave it an assessing look. "Better."

A pleased little smile appeared immediately, and Izuku found himself resting his cheek against his palm as he watched from the other side of the island.

Kacchan, he was beginning to realize, had made a terrible mistake.

Eri had already figured out that praise from him was something you earned. Every small nod and clipped good only seemed to make her more determined to get another one. By the time Katsuki handed her a bowl and told her to mix its contents together, Eri was concentrating so intensely that anyone walking into the kitchen might have assumed the fate of Japan depended on getting the consistency exactly right.

Izuku had to press his lips together to keep from laughing.

Katsuki eventually leaned closer to check her progress. "Not like that. Here."

He started to reach for her hand.

The change in Eri was so small Izuku might not have noticed it if he hadn't already been watching them so closely. Her shoulders hitched, her fingers tightening around the utensil as her whole body went suddenly, instinctively still.

Izuku's smile disappeared.

Katsuki's hand stopped several inches from hers.

For half a second, the kitchen seemed to go quiet beneath the soft bubbling of the curry. Izuku started to straighten from where he was leaning against the island, but before he could decide whether to step in, Katsuki had already changed course.

He reached past Eri instead and picked up another spoon.

"Watch."

Nothing in his voice changed. He didn't ask what was wrong or make Eri explain why she'd flinched. He didn't apologize in a way that might draw attention to it, and he didn't look across the kitchen at Izuku for an explanation.

He simply gave her another way to learn.

Katsuki picked up an empty bowl and demonstrated with the spare spoon. "You're holding it too high. Grab it down here." He shifted his grip so she could see. "Gives you more control. Then use your wrist instead of your whole damn arm or you're gonna throw it everywhere."

Eri's shoulders slowly loosened as she studied his hand. After a moment, she adjusted her own grip to match.

"Here?"

"Lower."

She slid her fingers down a little farther. "There?"

"Yeah. Now try."

Eri began stirring again, cautiously at first. Almost immediately, the mixture moved more easily beneath the spoon, and her eyes widened.

"Oh."

Katsuki watched her for another few turns, his attention moving between her grip and the bowl. Then he gave a small, satisfied nod.

"That's good."

Eri positively beamed.

Izuku lowered his chin into his palm, unable to stop the smile tugging at his mouth as Eri returned to her task with renewed determination.

Kacchan hadn't even made a big deal out of it.

Maybe that was what got to him. Kacchan noticed, adjusted, and moved on without making Eri explain herself or turning the moment into something larger than it needed to be.

After that, Izuku began noticing the smaller adjustments too. Katsuki made sure Eri could see him before he reached past her, asked for the bowl in front of her instead of simply taking it, and tapped the counter beside her when he wanted her to move her foot back rather than grabbing her. None of it felt careful in the way people were sometimes careful around Eri. He wasn't treating her like she might break.

He was treating her like a kid in a kitchen—one who needed rules because kitchens had knives and hot pans and things she couldn't reach yet, but who was perfectly capable of listening, learning, and doing something useful.

And Eri was relaxing because of it.

Her shoulders were relaxed now. She no longer startled every time Katsuki spoke. She'd even started asking questions again while she worked.

At one point, Katsuki glanced over at Eri's workspace and frowned.

"Move the bowl back."

Eri looked down at it. It was sitting close to the edge of the counter, but clearly not close enough to concern her. "It's not going to fall."

"It will when you knock it with your elbow."

"I won't."

"You will."

Eri gave him a stubborn little look. "I won't."

Katsuki stared at her for a second before apparently deciding experience would make his point for him. "Fine."

It took all of three seconds.

Eri reached for one of the spices, her elbow bumped the side of the bowl, and Katsuki's hand shot out before it had moved more than an inch. He caught it without spilling a thing and calmly pushed it several inches farther back from the edge.

Eri stared at the bowl.

Then at Katsuki.

Katsuki stared right back at her, one eyebrow raised in silent, devastating vindication.

From the island, Izuku bit the inside of his cheek so hard it almost hurt. Katsuki's eyes immediately snapped toward him.

"Not," he said slowly, "a damn word."

Izuku raised both hands in surrender, though the smile threatening to break across his face probably undermined the gesture. "Wasn't going to say a thing."

"Bullshit."

"I wasn't!"

"You've got that face again."

"What face?"

"Don't start."

Beside him, Eri's mouth had begun to twitch. She tried to hold it in for another second, but a little giggle escaped anyway.

Katsuki looked back at her.

The smugness in his expression softened almost immediately.

It wasn't dramatic. His mouth didn't quite curve into a smile, and anyone who didn't know him might not have noticed a difference at all. But Izuku did. He saw the way the sharp line between Katsuki's brows eased and the warmth that slipped into his eyes as Eri ducked her head, still giggling over the bowl she'd insisted wouldn't fall.

Katsuki just watched her, the smugness gone from his face.

Then his gaze lifted and met Izuku's across the kitchen.

Izuku was already smiling.

This time, Katsuki didn't scowl at him for it.

Something quiet passed between them instead—a shared, helpless sort of fondness that didn't need explaining. Izuku glanced toward Eri, and when he looked back, the corner of Katsuki's mouth had finally given in to the smallest smile.

It made something warm settle beneath Izuku's ribs.

Then Katsuki seemed to realize they were looking at each other and immediately ruined it. "Quit staring, nerd."

"I wasn't staring."

"You were."

"I was just looking at you."

"That's what staring is."

Eri giggled again, and Katsuki's attention returned to her, his expression softening despite himself.

Izuku stayed leaning against the island, his smile lingering as he watched them.

Kacchan's really good at this.

The thought came easily.

It was true. Katsuki was good at teaching when he had the patience for it. He noticed everything. He was protective without hovering, direct without being patronizing, and completely unwilling to give Eri a meaningless task just because she was little.

Katsuki slid the hot pan farther away before allowing Eri to bring over the bowl she'd mixed.

He'd be really good with kids.

The thought slipped in so naturally that it took Izuku a second to realize he'd had it at all.

Then his brain caught up.

His gaze was still fixed on Katsuki, who had turned back to the stove and was saying something to Eri about the next ingredient. There was nothing strange about the observation itself; it was objectively true. Kacchan was patient in his own very Kacchan way, attentive without hovering, and somehow knew exactly when Eri needed help and when she needed to be left alone to figure something out herself.

So why had the thought made his stomach flutter?

He abruptly looked away and became intensely interested in a spot on the opposite counter.

Nope.

There was absolutely no reason to examine that thought any further. It had been an observation. A completely ordinary, objective observation that meant nothing beyond—

"Deku."

Izuku's head snapped up so quickly that his neck almost protested. Katsuki was watching him from across the kitchen with his brows drawn together, one hand still resting near the cutting board while the other held the spoon he'd been using.

"The hell's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!"

The answer came out far too fast. Izuku heard it, Katsuki heard it, and judging by the way Eri glanced between them, she probably did too.

For a second, Katsuki just stared. Izuku, for reasons he could not explain even to himself, smiled.

That was apparently the wrong move.

Katsuki's eyes narrowed. "Why are you making that face?"

Izuku's smile faltered. "What face? What's wrong with my face?"

"That weird-ass face."

"I'm not making a face."

"You're always making a face."

"That doesn't even make sense, Kacchan."

"It makes perfect sense if you have to look at you all the time."

Izuku opened his mouth, ready with some automatic comeback, then stopped.

If you have to look at me all the time?

The sentence snagged somewhere in his brain with entirely too much force. Something about it brushed against the already displaced little pile of thoughts he had been very deliberately refusing to examine, and Izuku decided he wanted absolutely no part of that.

He looked away so quickly it was probably suspicious and turned his attention toward Eri instead, who was still working at the bowl with intense concentration. Izuku leaned one forearm against the island and fixed his gaze on what she was doing as though the exact angle of her spoon had suddenly become the most important thing in the room.

Across from him, Katsuki remained quiet for a beat.

Izuku could feel him staring.

Eventually, Katsuki muttered, "…Weirdo."

"I'm literally just standing here," Izuku said, keeping his eyes firmly on Eri's bowl.

"Yeah. Weirdly."

That earned a tiny snort from Eri. When Izuku glanced at her, she was very clearly trying not to smile.

"Don't encourage him," he warned.

Her mouth twitched harder.

From the stove came a low, satisfied huff that was dangerously close to a laugh.

Izuku sighed and folded his arms on the island, lowering his chin onto them with exaggerated dignity. "I'm surrounded by terrible people."

"You're being dramatic," Katsuki said.

"I learned from you."

"Bullshit."

Eri giggled again, and Izuku gave up trying to defend himself.

He focused very hard on her bowl after that.

He did not look at Katsuki again.

At least not for the next thirty seconds.

Izuku's resolve lasted, by his own estimation, somewhere around thirty-seven seconds. In his defense, Kacchan and Eri were directly in front of him, and there was only so much determination a person could reasonably be expected to have when the alternative was staring at the kitchen wall.

By then, most of the prep work was finished, and Katsuki had begun moving bowls and ingredients toward the stove. Izuku stayed where he was against the island, one hip resting against the counter and his arms folded loosely over his chest, and it was only because he'd already been paying far too much attention that he noticed something had changed. Somewhere along the way, without any obvious decision on Katsuki's part, he had positioned himself between Eri and the stove. He simply occupied that space now, moving easily from the counter to the heat while Eri remained on the safer side of him.

When he reached for one of the bowls they'd prepared, he glanced down at her and said, "Stay there."

There was no sharpness to it, no warning growl or impatience. It was an automatic instruction tossed over his shoulder as he turned toward the stove, and Eri accepted it just as easily, nodding before returning her attention to whatever she was doing with the measuring spoons.

Katsuki tipped the contents of the bowl into the pan. The ingredients hit hot oil with a loud hiss, followed almost immediately by a sharp pop.

Before Izuku had even finished processing the sound, Katsuki's arm was already in front of Eri.

He didn't touch her or shove her backward. His arm simply stretched across the space between them, blocking her from the stove while his body shifted half a step farther into the gap. The oil settled almost immediately, and Katsuki lowered his arm again without comment, picking up the spatula and continuing to stir as if nothing had happened.

Eri barely seemed to notice. She was already peering around him at the pan again, more interested in what was cooking than the fact that Katsuki had just shielded her from it.

Izuku, unfortunately, noticed everything.

His fingers tightened slightly where they rested against his sleeves. That movement had been completely automatic. Katsuki hadn't checked where Eri was or paused to decide whether the popping oil was actually dangerous; his body had simply reacted, putting itself between her and the potential threat before conscious thought could possibly have caught up.

Izuku knew that instinct. He'd seen it during training, on battlefields, in collapsing buildings and against villains. He knew exactly how quickly Kacchan assessed danger and how frighteningly fast he could move when someone beside him needed protecting. Izuku had trusted that instinct with his own life more times than he could count.

Izuku shifted against the island and folded his arms a little tighter. He was not going to think about Kacchan being good with kids again. The observation itself wasn't the problem. It was the way he kept having to look away afterward.

Seriously, what is wrong with me today?

Fortunately, Eri rescued him before his brain could betray him any further.

"Do you always cook?"

"Yeah." Katsuki scraped the bottom of the pan, unconcerned by the interrogation continuing behind him.

"Every day?"

"Most days."

Eri tipped her head. "Why?"

"Because most of these idiots can't."

"Hey," Izuku protested, pushing himself upright.

Katsuki didn't even bother looking around. "You set noodles on fire."

"That happened once, Kacchan."

"Once was enough."

"The pot was weird."

That finally earned him a glance over Katsuki's shoulder. "The pot was a pot."

Eri's giggle filled the kitchen, bright enough that Izuku's attempt at an offended expression nearly cracked. He pointed accusingly at Katsuki anyway. "There was something wrong with it."

"Yeah. You were using it."

"Kacchan!"

The smug satisfaction that spread across Katsuki's face made it obvious he'd been waiting for that reaction. Worse, Eri was still laughing, one hand curled over her mouth as though that might hide her betrayal.

Izuku looked between the two of them. "Both of you are terrible."

"I didn't say anything," Eri protested, although the giggle still caught in her voice.

"You laughed."

"You were funny."

"I was being bullied."

Her expression turned solemn for all of half a second. "You set noodles on fire."

Izuku's mouth fell open.

A rough bark of laughter burst out of Katsuki before he could stop it. The sound was brief and startled, more genuine because it had clearly escaped without permission, and Izuku's outrage immediately redirected itself.

"Kacchan!"

"Kid learns fast," Katsuki said, still looking entirely too pleased with himself.

Eri straightened at the praise, delighted despite the fact that she was apparently being congratulated for joining in on Izuku's harassment. "This is a terrible influence," Izuku muttered, but neither of them paid him any attention. He let himself slump back against the island with a put-upon sigh, although the smile tugging at his mouth probably ruined the effect.

And, somehow, he ended up watching again.

Watching, not staring. There was a difference, regardless of what Kacchan seemed to think.

After turning down the heat, Katsuki returned to the counter, and Eri immediately refocused on the task he'd given her. She'd been tearing a handful of greens into smaller pieces while they talked, carefully trying to make them roughly the same size after Katsuki's earlier explanation about even cooking. She compared the last piece to the others, pinched off a tiny bit from one end, then held it up toward him.

"Is this right?"

Katsuki bent closer to inspect her work, and Izuku expected the usual grunt or clipped word of approval.

Instead, he smiled.

It wasn't much. Just the slightest curve of his mouth as his eyes moved over the neat little pile she'd made, but Izuku had already spent far too much of the afternoon watching Kacchan's face to miss it. It wasn't the smug curl that appeared whenever he won an argument, or the sharp, exhilarated grin Izuku knew from fights. It wasn't even the tiny smile Katsuki had tried to hide earlier when Eri laughed.

There was no edge to this one at all.

"Yeah," Katsuki told her, his voice quieter than it had been a moment ago. "That's good."

Eri lit up beneath the praise, and Izuku went strangely still.

For half a second, the years seemed to fold strangely over one another, and Izuku could almost see the little blond boy he remembered in the shape of Katsuki's smile: dirty knees and bright red eyes, scraped elbows that never slowed him down, his face split by that huge, fearless grin as he turned around to make sure Izuku was still following. Back then, Kacchan had smiled like the entire world was waiting for him to conquer it, and Izuku had believed he could because Kacchan believed it too.

When they were that young, Izuku had never really imagined there would come a day when he wouldn't be right there beside him. Kacchan would become the greatest hero, and Izuku would follow, and somehow they would keep going like that forever. The details never mattered much to his four-year-old self. Kacchan was simply there whenever Izuku pictured the future, as certain and unquestioned as becoming a hero someday.

Things had gotten complicated after that. Painfully, impossibly complicated for a long time.

Somehow, after everything, Izuku was standing here watching him again.

The memory was so familiar that it carried a small, unexpected ache with it.

But the person standing in front of him wasn't that little boy anymore. Katsuki was older now, broader and scarred from years of training, his hair messier from the heat of the kitchen. The hands Izuku remembered scraped raw from childhood adventures were strong enough now to blast through concrete, hands he had seen bloodied in battle and extended toward him when he needed them.

Those same hands had steadied a step stool this afternoon. They demonstrated how to hold a spoon when Eri didn't want to be touched, caught a falling bowl before it could frighten her, and moved automatically between her and a hot stove.

Now Kacchan was standing in their kitchen while Eri smiled up at him like one quiet that's good had made her entire afternoon.

Izuku was still caught somewhere between the memory and the small ache it had left behind when Katsuki's voice pulled him back into the kitchen.

"Why're you being a creep?"

Izuku blinked. "What?"

Katsuki caught him looking and was wearing a thoroughly obnoxious smirk about it. "You heard me."

"I'm not being a creep!"

"He was," Eri supplied helpfully.

Izuku's head whipped toward her. "Eri!"

She looked entirely unrepentant, and the little twitch at the corner of her mouth suggested she was enjoying this almost as much as Katsuki was.

"I was just watching you two," Izuku insisted, pushing himself away from the island and lifting both hands defensively. "That's not creepy!"

The words had barely left his mouth before he heard them properly.

His hands slowly lowered.

Katsuki stared at him. Eri stared at him. Even the quiet bubbling of the curry seemed judgmental.

Izuku cleared his throat. "That sounded less weird in my head."

"Sure it did."

"I meant because you were cooking," he hurried to explain. "And Eri was learning, and I wanted to make sure everything was going okay, which it obviously is, because you're actually really good with her—not that I thought you wouldn't be, I just hadn't really thought about you being good with kids before today, except apparently I have been thinking about that, which is completely normal because you are good with kids, and Aizawa-sensei asked me to watch Eri, so technically—"

"Deku."

Something about the way Katsuki said it made the rest of Izuku's sentence dissolve on his tongue.

It wasn't exasperated. Or, well, it was—this was Kacchan—but there was something underneath it that sounded almost warm. Fond, even, the rough edges of his voice softened around the nickname in a way that sent a tiny shiver of awareness down Izuku's spine.

Katsuki was looking at him with that same crooked smirk, but his eyes had gone strangely soft.

"Shut up," he said.

That sounded fond too.

Izuku pressed his lips together, mostly because Katsuki had told him to, but partly because he suddenly wasn't sure he trusted anything that might come out of his mouth.

Was that—?

No. Obviously not.

Katsuki had been telling him to shut up for most of his life. Izuku had absolutely no business discovering new tonal variations in it now.

A muffled giggle broke through his thoughts. Eri had both hands over her mouth, her shoulders shaking, and when Izuku looked back at Katsuki, the softness was already gone. He was turning toward the stove with a snort, spatula scraping against the bottom of the pan.

Izuku remained where he was for another second.

Maybe he'd imagined it.

Considering how strangely his brain had been behaving all afternoon, that seemed significantly more likely.

He rubbed a hand over his face and retreated toward the other end of the island. For the next two minutes, he made a concentrated effort to occupy himself with anything that wasn't Kacchan, the warmth of his voice, or the deeply inconvenient possibility that being told to shut up had just made Izuku's stomach flutter.

Seriously.

What was wrong with him today?

His phone provided no help; there were a few messages, but nothing that required an answer. He got himself a glass of water despite not being thirsty, took several unnecessary sips while staring determinedly out the window, then considered going upstairs before remembering that he was technically supposed to be babysitting Eri. Fleeing the room because Katsuki had caught him staring would therefore be both irresponsible and humiliating.

He rested his forearms against the counter this time and told himself he had a perfectly good reason for looking over.

Eri was adorable.

That was an objective fact, and it was also the only reason he reached for his phone a few minutes later.

Katsuki moved her on to mixing the last of the sauce, and she'd apparently decided precision was everything. Her brow was furrowed so deeply that a tiny crease had formed between her eyebrows, her tongue caught between her teeth as she stirred with slow, deliberate movements. Katsuki stood beside her, bent slightly at the waist so he could see into the bowl without crowding her.

"Get the stuff off the sides too," he told her.

Eri carefully dragged the spoon around the edge. "There?"

"Other side."

She twisted to look, shifting her weight with her, and the stool gave a faint scrape against the floor. Katsuki's foot immediately hooked around one of its legs and steadied it.

"Don't turn around like that."

"Sorry."

"You're fine. Just watch your feet."

There was no irritation in the correction. Eri only nodded and returned to her bowl, completely unconcerned, and Izuku felt his mouth curve again.

She really was cute.

That was why he slipped his phone from his pocket and opened the camera. There was no other reason. Certainly none involving the blond standing next to her.

He angled the phone toward them.

Neither had noticed him yet. Eri was still fiercely focused on her bowl while Katsuki leaned in to inspect her progress, his hair even messier now from the heat and from the number of times he'd pushed a hand through it.

"Right there," Katsuki said, pointing into the bowl. "You missed some on the side."

Eri followed his finger. "Oh."

"Yeah. Get that and you're done."

She scraped the spoon carefully along the edge, her tongue poking slightly between her lips with concentration. Through the screen, Izuku watched the tiny smile return to Katsuki's face, the one he was beginning to suspect existed far more often than Kacchan wanted anyone to know about.

Then Katsuki lifted his hand.

Izuku noticed because Eri did. Her eyes flicked toward the movement as his palm came into view beside her instead of descending unexpectedly from above. Katsuki paused there for half a beat—not quite asking, but giving her plenty of time to understand what he was about to do and move away if she wanted.

Eri didn't.

If anything, she tipped her head the tiniest bit toward him.

Only then did Katsuki rest his hand lightly against her hair, his palm settling there without gripping or directing her.

"Good job, kid."

Eri beamed, and Izuku's breath caught on something unexpectedly soft. His thumb moved before he thought better of it.

Click.

Katsuki's head snapped around so quickly that Izuku nearly dropped the phone.

Of course he'd heard it. Why hadn't he put his phone on silent?

For one awkward second, Izuku remained frozen with his phone raised between them, caught so completely that lowering it now somehow felt even more incriminating. Katsuki stared at him from across the kitchen, spatula still in hand and disbelief slowly sharpening his expression.

"Did you just take a picture?"

Izuku lowered the phone by approximately an inch. "…No?"

"Deku."

"Eri looked cute!"

"Delete it."

"But she does look cute."

"I don't give a shit. Delete it."

The word picture immediately captured Eri's attention. She abandoned the sauce and turned toward them, curiosity brightening her face. "Can I see?"

"Yes," Izuku said at exactly the same moment Katsuki said, "No."

Eri's gaze bounced between them, and Izuku found himself doing much the same before his eyes settled on Katsuki. He tried to convey through facial expression alone that denying Eri a cute photograph of herself would be cruel, heartless, and probably unbecoming of a future Pro Hero. Judging by the irritated twitch in Katsuki's eyebrow, the argument came through perfectly clearly.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

"Actually, I was going to show Eri the picture."

"Same difference."

"It really isn't."

Eri settled the argument herself when Izuku came within reach, catching his sleeve between two fingers and giving it a small, hopeful tug. That was more than enough for him. He crouched beside the stool and braced one hand against the counter, turning the screen toward her as she leaned closer.

Her entire face brightened. "That's me!"

A laugh slipped out of Izuku at her obvious delight. "It is."

"I'm cooking."

"You are. You look very serious about it, too."

"I had to mix it right," she explained, as if the photograph might otherwise have given him the wrong impression.

"Obviously. Very important work."

Eri nodded, satisfied that he understood the gravity of her responsibilities, and leaned closer to inspect the screen. After a moment, her finger landed on the blond figure beside her. "And that's Bakugō."

A long, suffering exhale sounded from somewhere above them.

Izuku valiantly kept his eyes on the phone, although his mouth twitched. "Yes. That's Kacchan."

That earned him another irritated noise, but Eri was entirely oblivious to the threat of financial ruin hanging over Izuku. She continued studying the photograph, her finger tracing just above the screen without quite touching it, before looking up at him. "Can you send it to Dad?"

"Sure. I can send it to Aizawa-sensei."

"So he can show me again later?"

"Of course."

"Deku."

The warning threaded through Katsuki's voice finally made Izuku glance up. Katsuki stood over them now with his arms folded across his chest, the spatula abandoned beside the stove looking deeply unimpressed by the fact that his demand had somehow become irrelevant in less than thirty seconds.

"Delete it."

"I can't delete it yet," Izuku pointed out, drawing the phone protectively closer to his chest. "Eri wants Aizawa-sensei to have it."

"Then send it and delete it."

"But what if something goes wrong when I send it?"

Katsuki stared at him. "It's a picture, not classified government data."

"Files can corrupt."

"You're full of shit."

Izuku drew breath, fully prepared to defend the very real existence of file corruption, but Eri spoke first.

"I like the picture."

Whatever Izuku had been about to say vanished. Katsuki went quiet too, his gaze dropping to Eri before flicking toward the phone still clutched in Izuku's hand. Eri only looked back at him with complete sincerity, unaware that she had just deployed the one argument Katsuki had absolutely no defense against.

Izuku had the immense pleasure of watching the fight drain out of him in real time.

With a low grumble in the back of his throat, Katsuki closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. His shoulders rose with a slow breath before falling again. "…Whatever."

A triumphant grin immediately tried to break across Izuku's face, and he fought it. He genuinely did. Unfortunately, Katsuki had known him for far too long, because his eyes opened and immediately narrowed.

"Wipe that look off your face."

"I'm not making a look."

"You're always making a damn look."

"I still don't know what that means."

"Means your face is annoying."

Eri dissolved into another fit of giggles, and Katsuki gave both of them a disgusted look before turning back toward the stove, muttering under his breath as he picked up the spatula again. He carried himself with the air of a man who had been thoroughly betrayed in his own kitchen, which only made Izuku's smile harder to suppress.

He looked down at the photograph once more before saving it.

For Eri, naturally.

It wasn't until a little later, while Katsuki was occupied at the stove and Eri was arranging the measuring spoons into an increasingly elaborate pattern across the counter, that Izuku pulled out his phone again.

He only meant to check the picture before sending it to Aizawa-sensei. Katsuki had moved pretty quickly when he heard the shutter. There was every chance Izuku jerked the phone at the last second.

That was a perfectly reasonable explanation for opening it again.

The photograph filled his screen, crisp and warm beneath the kitchen lights, and Izuku immediately discovered a small problem with his reasoning.

His eyes didn't go to Eri first.

They went straight to Kacchan.

His thumb stilled against the edge of the phone.

It really was a good picture of him, Izuku thought, and then frowned faintly because that hadn't been what he was supposed to be checking.

His attention caught first on Kacchan's hand, resting lightly against Eri's hair.

Izuku stared at it for a second longer than necessary.

He had noticed Kacchan changing the way he moved around Eri after the flinch. Since then, Katsuki made sure she could see his hands before he reached past her, gave her space, and let her decide how close she wanted to be.

Apparently, Eri had noticed too.

Because she hadn't merely tolerated Kacchan's hand on her head.

She'd leaned into it.

Something in Izuku's chest softened at the memory.

His gaze moved over the rest of the photograph, and that was when he noticed something else.

Kacchan looked different here from the way he usually did in pictures. There was no hero costume, no U.A. uniform, no aggressive grin for a victory shot or irritated scowl aimed at whoever had dared point a camera in his direction. He was simply standing in their kitchen in a black T-shirt and gray sweatpants, his hair slightly disheveled from the heat, one hand resting against Eri's hair as he bent toward her.

Izuku's eyes caught on the forearm extended toward the bowl, the muscles defined beneath lightly scarred skin.

His stomach gave an odd little swoop.

He immediately looked somewhere else.

Unfortunately, somewhere else was Kacchan's face.

That was worse.

The camera had caught the smile.

Not all of it. It was barely there, really—a slight curve at one corner of his mouth, a softness around his eyes that most people probably wouldn't even recognize as unusual. Izuku did, though. He'd spent practically his entire life learning Kacchan's expressions. He knew the difference between angry and irritated, between smug and genuinely pleased, between a battle grin and the rarer smiles that slipped out when Katsuki forgot anyone was looking.

This one made him look…

Izuku's brow furrowed as he searched for the right word.

Comfortable was close, but it wasn't quite enough. Relaxed, maybe, except Kacchan was never really relaxed when he was cooking. He was always aware of every pan, every burner, every ingredient and person occupying his space.

No, it was something else.

He looked at home.

The thought landed with surprising weight. Izuku's pulse gave a strange little kick, and his thumb moved almost absently across the screen.

A tiny heart filled in beneath the photograph.

He stared at it.

For a second, he genuinely considered tapping it again. His thumb even hovered over the icon, ready to undo whatever weird impulse had made him favorite it in the first place.

Instead, his gaze drifted back to Katsuki's face, caught once more on that tiny unguarded smile, and his thumb moved away from the icon.

The heart stayed.

Across the kitchen, something clinked as Eri added another spoon to her arrangement, and Katsuki muttered a warning about keeping them away from the edge. Izuku quickly locked his phone and slipped it facedown onto the island.

It was a nice picture of Eri.

That was all.

A nice picture of Eri.

Mostly.

…Probably.

The photograph stayed facedown on the island for all of thirty seconds before Izuku remembered something else he'd apparently forgotten in the general chaos of Kacchan cooking, Eri learning, and his own brain behaving like it had been dropped down a flight of stairs.

"Oh!" He straightened so abruptly that Eri glanced over from the counter. "I almost forgot. I promised I'd show you that notebook."

Earlier, on the walk back to Heights Alliance, Eri asked about the notebooks Izuku used for hero analysis. Somehow that turned into a conversation about whether she could make one too, which reminded him of the little blank notebook upstairs—the green one with tiny hero stickers scattered across the cover, bought months ago because he'd thought it was cute and then immediately decided it was too small for his actual notes. He'd promised she could have it.

Eri's eyes brightened. "The one with the stickers?"

"That one." Izuku pushed away from the island, already half turning toward the door. "Actually, I left it upstairs. Do you want to come with me?"

Eri's hands stopped over the bowl.

Her gaze moved first to Izuku, then down to her painstakingly arranged vegetables, then toward Katsuki at the stove. The curry was beginning to thicken, steam drifting lazily toward the vent while Katsuki stirred with one hand and adjusted the heat with the other. Eri looked back at Izuku.

She didn't say anything.

She didn't have to.

The reluctance on her face was so obvious that Izuku had to bite back a smile.

"Or…" He glanced at the bowl she was clearly not ready to abandon. "I could just be right back."

Eri perked up immediately. "Okay."

Izuku had already taken a step toward the hall before responsibility caught him by the back of the shirt.

Aizawa had asked him to watch Eri.

Technically, he was supposed to be the responsible adult—or near-adult, anyway—in this situation, and leaving her behind while he went upstairs was probably not what Aizawa had meant when he handed her over for the afternoon. It wasn't that Izuku thought she was unsafe. If anything, after the last hour he was fairly certain Eri was safer in a kitchen with Kacchan than she would have been with most professional babysitters.

Still.

He stopped and looked back.

Katsuki was scraping the spoon around the edge of the pot, apparently paying no attention to Izuku's sudden moral crisis.

"Do you mind?"

"Mind what?"

"If I run upstairs for a minute."

The spoon clinked softly against the side of the pot. Katsuki didn't even look around.

"We're fine, nerd. Go do what you need to."

Izuku went very still.

It was ridiculous. Kacchan had said something completely ordinary, something that should have landed in Izuku's ears and disappeared like any other sentence.

Instead, something warm and strange unfurled low in his chest.

We're fine.

Not I'll watch her. Not she'll be fine. Not even one of Kacchan's usual insults about Izuku hovering too much.

We're fine.

Izuku looked at them.

Eri stood on the step stool beside the counter, sleeves pushed carefully away from her wrists and a little crease of concentration still caught between her eyebrows. Katsuki stood beside her, close enough to intervene if she needed him but not crowding her, one hand stirring the curry while steam curled around his forearm. The kitchen smelled like ginger and garlic and warm spices. Somewhere beneath the simmering of the pot, Eri was humming faintly to herself.

It was such an ordinary picture that it caught Izuku completely off guard.

For one fleeting second, his mind supplied another one.

A kitchen years from now.

Katsuki standing at a stove, older but somehow still exactly himself, complaining about somebody cutting vegetables wrong. A child perched at the counter beside him, talking too loudly about something that had happened that day. Dinner simmering. Warm light spilling over the floor.

And Izuku—

Walking through the door.

Coming home.

The image arrived so naturally that for one stunned heartbeat, Izuku simply accepted it.

Then his brain caught up.

Nope.

"Right!" His voice cracked upward. "I'llberightback!"

He turned and fled.

Behind him, there was a beat of silence before Katsuki's voice followed him into the hallway.

"…The hell's wrong with him?"

Eri apparently gave the matter some consideration. "He does that."

For a little while after Izuku disappeared, the kitchen settled into an easy quiet.

Eri returned to her vegetables, and Katsuki returned to the curry. The sound of the spoon dragging through the thickening sauce filled the pauses between the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional hiss from the stove. Katsuki checked the heat, tasted the curry, frowned at it, added something from one of the little bowls Eri had helped measure, then tasted it again.

Eri watched all of this with the solemn attention of someone observing an important scientific process.

After another minute, when the only sounds in the kitchen were the quiet scrape of Eri's spoon against the bowl and the soft bubbling of the curry on the stove, she spoke again.

"Bakugō?"

Katsuki glanced over his shoulder. "What?"

Eri's fingers slowed around the spoon. She didn't look nervous exactly, but there was a little crease between her brows now, like she was trying to decide how to phrase something important. "Are you always angry?"

That stopped him.

Not for long, only long enough for the wooden spoon in his hand to go still above the pot. Then he set it down against the edge of the sink with a small clink and turned toward her properly. "No."

Eri studied his face. "You sound angry."

"That's just my voice."

"Oh."

And that, apparently, was enough.

She accepted the answer with the same calm certainty she had accepted his instructions about knives and hot pans, then turned back to her bowl and resumed stirring. Katsuki remained where he was, watching the side of her head with an expression that bordered on suspicion, as though he'd expected more of a fight and wasn't quite sure what to do with how easily she believed him.

A few quiet seconds passed before Eri spoke again.

"People think I'm angry sometimes too."

Katsuki's hand slowed where it had gone back to the spoon. "Yeah?"

She nodded without looking at him, eyes fixed on the slow circles she was making through the sauce. "Sometimes when I'm scared."

Something in the room softened.

The sentence was simple, offered without any particular expectation that he would do something with it, and Katsuki let it sit for a moment. He didn't ask what scared her. He knew enough about the kid to know there were answers to that question he didn't need to drag into the middle of a kitchen just because she'd trusted him with one small piece of them. He didn't tell her she had nothing to be afraid of anymore, either. Adults said shit like that when they wanted something difficult to have an easy ending.

Instead, he leaned one hip against the counter and watched the curry bubble while steam curled between them. "Makes sense."

Eri's spoon stopped.

She looked up at him then, and there was enough surprise in her face that his brow furrowed.

"What?"

"Nothing." Her gaze dropped back to the bowl, but she didn't start stirring again. "People usually tell me not to be scared."

Katsuki's mouth pulled sideways. "Does it work?"

Eri thought about that with complete seriousness. "No."

"Yeah. Didn't think so."

That earned him the smallest smile.

Her fingers shifted around the handle of the spoon. "Sometimes I know I don't have to be scared, but I still am."

Katsuki understood that better than he wanted to.

There were plenty of things your body figured out before your head did. There were things it remembered after you'd already decided you were done remembering them. He knew what it was like to have a reaction come roaring out of him before he'd worked out what the hell he was reacting to, although his tended to involve yelling and explosions instead of going quiet.

"Knowing something doesn't make your brain stop being stupid about it," he said.

Eri blinked. "My brain is stupid?"

"Everybody's brain is stupid sometimes."

She considered that. "Even yours?"

Katsuki gave her a flat look. "Watch it."

A tiny giggle escaped her, but it faded into a smile rather than disappearing completely. She stirred the sauce once more, slower now, and after a moment she said, "I was scared of you before."

He'd figured.

She'd watched him like a cornered rabbit when she and Deku first walked into the kitchen, tracking every movement he made and edging closer to the nerd whenever Katsuki raised his voice. He didn't take it personally. He was loud, his Quirk was louder, and he knew what he looked like when he was irritated. A kid who'd spent too long learning to pay attention to dangerous people had every reason to keep an eye on him.

Still, hearing her say it landed differently.

Katsuki rested the spoon against the edge of the pot. "Yeah?"

Eri nodded. "A little."

"Fair."

That made her look at him quickly. "You're not mad?"

"Why the hell would I be mad?"

"Because I thought you were scary."

He shrugged one shoulder. "I am scary."

Her nose scrunched. "Not like that."

Katsuki went quiet.

Eri seemed to struggle with the explanation for a moment, her brows drawing together as she searched for the words. "I thought you might be mean because you yell a lot. But you're not mean."

Something uncomfortable shifted behind his ribs.

"I can be."

"Not to me."

The answer came so quickly that Katsuki looked at her.

Eri was still stirring, apparently unaware that she'd said anything particularly significant. "You tell me when things are hot," she continued. "And you moved the knives. And when I did the spoon wrong, you showed me instead."

Katsuki stared at her, then looked away. "That's just the basics."

A tiny smile threatened at the corners of her mouth.

Katsuki turned back to the curry before she could see the expression trying to happen on his face. The kid had been scared of him, and then she watched him. He didn't convince her with some speech or tell her she was wrong. He'd just shown her where the hot things were, kept the knives out of reach, and let her decide the rest for herself.

He didn't know what to do with how good that felt.

"People get shit wrong," he muttered.

Eri's eyes widened just enough for Katsuki to realize what he'd said. His mouth snapped shut, and for one brief, miraculous second he looked genuinely caught.

"…Stuff," he corrected, clearing his throat and turning back toward the stove as if the pot urgently required his full attention. "People get stuff wrong."

A smile began creeping across Eri's face. "You said a bad word."

"No I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

He gave her a sidelong look. "Prove it."

"I heard you."

"That's not proof."

"It is if I heard it."

"Nope."

By then, Eri was openly grinning. She shifted on the stool, spoon still clutched in one hand, clearly delighted that she had caught him at something. "You said—"

"Don't you fucking repeat it."

The words were out before Katsuki could stop them.

Eri's eyes went round, and Katsuki went still as the sentence caught up with him. For one beat, the only sound in the kitchen was the low bubbling of the curry and the faint hum of the vent overhead.

Goddammit.

Since when did he care if the kid heard him swear, anyway? She'd already told Deku she knew the word, and Katsuki had spent half the afternoon arguing that she'd heard worse.

Except Deku wasn't here now. There was nobody hovering at the island to sigh Kacchan, language every time Katsuki forgot himself.

So why the fuck could he still hear the nerd saying it?

Katsuki scowled at the curry. Apparently Deku had annoyed him often enough to become an involuntary part of his internal monologue.

He intended to examine that never.

Beside him, Eri made a tiny, strangled sound.

He glanced over.

Both of her hands had flown over her mouth, but they did absolutely nothing to hide the smile spreading beneath them. Her shoulders gave one little shake, then another, and suddenly she dissolved into helpless giggles.

Katsuki closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ah, shit."

Her laughter immediately doubled.

His eyes opened.

God fucking—

No. Apparently that was the problem.

Eri bent forward over the counter, shoulders shaking so hard that her spoon rattled against the rim of the bowl. The sound only seemed to encourage her, and Katsuki stared at her in growing disbelief as he realized he had somehow managed to swear a third time while internally berating himself for swearing the first two.

"Okay, that one doesn't count."

She was laughing too hard to answer.

"It doesn't," he insisted, because apparently he was arguing about profanity with a seven-year-old now. "I was distracted."

That earned him another helpless burst of giggles.

Katsuki dragged a hand down his face, fighting the completely inappropriate urge to laugh with her. This entire afternoon had gotten away from him somehow. He started out making curry, and now Izuku was upstairs, there was a little kid commandeering half his kitchen, and Katsuki was apparently censoring himself because the nerd had nagged him so many times that his stupid voice was apparently embedded in Katsuki's brain.

His mouth twitched.

Eri noticed.

Her giggles quieted just enough for her to point at him. "You're smiling."

Katsuki immediately scowled. "No I'm not."

"You were."

"Prove it."

"I saw you."

"That's still not proof."

"It was proof when I heard you say the bad word."

"That's not how proof works."

Eri clearly disagreed, because she started laughing all over again.

Katsuki gave up. He turned back toward the stove and stirred the curry with considerably more force than necessary, but the warmth tugging at the corner of his mouth refused to disappear completely.

Eventually Eri's laughter dwindled into the occasional quiet giggle, and the kitchen settled again. She returned to stirring with exaggerated concentration, apparently determined to prove she could behave, while Katsuki checked the curry and adjusted the heat beneath the pot.

Then Eri asked, "Do you think Deku will really help me with my notebook?"

Katsuki snorted as he reached past her for one of the measuring cups. "Course he will. Nerd's been carrying those damn things around since we were kids."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Used to fill whole notebooks with hero sh—" He caught himself and glanced sideways at her. "Stuff. Quirks, costumes, fighting styles, whatever he noticed."

Eri's mouth twitched.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were gonna."

Her smile widened, but she obediently returned her attention to the bowl. "Did he always mutter too?"

"Constantly." Katsuki set the measuring cup aside. "Still does. Gets going about some Quirk interaction or whatever and forgets anybody else is in the damn room."

"Is it annoying?"

"Very."

The answer came automatically, but Katsuki heard the problem with it almost as soon as the word left his mouth. There wasn't much irritation behind it, and judging by the way Eri studied him for a second, she'd noticed too.

"You remember a lot about him."

Katsuki's hand paused briefly on the stove dial before he turned the flame down. "Known the idiot forever," he muttered. "Hard not to."

"Oh."

Something about the way she said it made him glance over, but Eri had already returned to stirring, apparently deeply interested in the sauce. Katsuki narrowed his eyes at the side of her head, waiting for whatever else she'd been about to say, but she gave him nothing.

Whatever.

He turned back to the curry and gave it another slow stir, only realizing a few seconds later that the smile from earlier was still lingering at the corner of his mouth. He immediately flattened his expression, but a tiny sound from beside him told him he was too late.

Eri's shoulders had started shaking again.

"Oh, shut up."

There was no bite behind it whatsoever, and that only made her laugh harder. Katsuki tried to hold onto the scowl for another second before a quiet snort escaped him too, disappearing beneath the sound of her laughter.

Izuku heard the laughter before he reached the kitchen.

He slowed halfway down the hallway with Eri's notebook tucked beneath one arm.

The sound was unmistakably hers—bright, breathless giggles that came in waves, each one followed by an indignant grumble from Kacchan that only seemed to make the next one worse.

Izuku stopped just outside the doorway.

He had no reason to.

He knew that.

He stepped closer anyway and looked inside.

The tiny yellow hair clip Eri had been wearing earlier was no longer tucked near her temple. At some point during Izuku's brief absence, it migrated to Katsuki's hair, where it sat clipped neatly above his left ear.

Izuku stopped in the doorway.

Katsuki was standing at the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, looking as though he had been personally and grievously betrayed by everyone in the room. Eri, meanwhile, was still perched on her stool and laughing so hard that she had one hand braced against the edge of the counter to keep herself steady. The bright little clip looked almost offensively cheerful against Katsuki's blond hair.

A laugh immediately tried to climb up Izuku's throat.

He pressed his lips together and swallowed it. He was not going to laugh. He was going to behave like a mature, respectful person who valued Kacchan's dignity and, perhaps more importantly, his own continued survival. There was absolutely nothing funny about one of the most intimidating students at U.A. standing in the kitchen with a tiny yellow hair clip tucked above his ear while a seven-year-old dissolved into giggles beside him.

Nothing at all.

Unfortunately, Katsuki chose that moment to look toward the doorway.

Their eyes met, and Izuku watched recognition give way almost instantly to suspicion. Katsuki's gaze narrowed as he took in Izuku's tightly pressed lips and the expression he was trying desperately to keep neutral.

"Don't you dare."

Izuku hadn't made a sound. "I didn't say anything."

"Your face is saying it."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Fix it."

That proved considerably more difficult now that Izuku knew Kacchan was fully aware of the tiny yellow clip in his hair. It wasn't as though Eri had managed to sneak it onto him without his noticing; Kacchan had consciously let her put it there and, even more dangerously, left it in.

The thought sent another bubble of laughter into Izuku's chest. His mouth twitched despite his best efforts, and Katsuki's eyes narrowed another fraction.

Izuku quickly covered the betrayal with a cough into his fist. "I brought the notebook."

The distraction worked beautifully on at least one person. Eri immediately turned toward him, her laughter tapering into an excited smile as she spotted what he was carrying beneath his arm.

"The green one."

Izuku crossed the kitchen and held the notebook out to her, still valiantly refusing to acknowledge the tiny yellow clip above Katsuki's ear. "See? I told you it had stickers."

Eri accepted it with both hands, immediately distracted by the little hero emblems scattered across the cover. She traced one of them with her fingertip before looking up. "Can I write in it?"

"It's yours. You can write whatever you want."

"Can I make hero notes like you?"

"Of course." Izuku leaned against the edge of the island beside her. "You don't have to do them exactly like mine, though. You could draw things too, or put more stickers in it, or write down things you want to remember. Whatever you want it to be."

Eri nodded thoughtfully and opened to the first blank page. "I can write down the curry."

"That's a good idea. You could write down what you learned, and then next time—"

"Kacchan taught me how to make it."

The quiet scrape of wood against the bottom of the pot stopped.

Izuku's mouth fell open.

Slowly, he looked toward the stove.

Katsuki had gone completely still.

Eri, apparently unaware that she had just detonated something considerably more dangerous than any of Katsuki's explosions, looked between them. "That's what Deku calls you."

Very slowly, Katsuki turned away from the stove.

His eyes landed on Izuku. A finger rose in accusation. "This is your fault."

"What?" A startled laugh escaped Izuku. "I didn't tell her to call you that!"

"You call me that every five fucking seconds!"

"I've called you Kacchan since we were kids! That doesn't mean I'm running around teaching it to people."

"You don't have to teach it when you say it constantly!"

"I do not say it constantly."

"Bullshit."

"Kacchan, you're exaggerating."

The glare he received could have stripped paint.

Izuku realized his mistake approximately half a second too late.

Eri apparently did too, because her eyes brightened.

"Kacchan," she tried again.

Katsuki's jaw tightened.

Eri tilted her head, studying him with open curiosity before saying it once more, this time with considerably more confidence. "Kacchan."

A muscle jumped beside his eye.

Instead, Katsuki stared at Eri for a long moment, visibly reconsidered several of his life choices, and turned back toward the stove.

"You need to wash your hands again before we eat."

Izuku blinked, waiting for the inevitable correction, but none came. That was it. No demand that Eri stop calling him Kacchan, no grumbled complaint that only Izuku was allowed to get away with it, not even a particularly creative threat. Eri seemed perfectly satisfied with his response and climbed carefully down from the stool, carrying her new notebook to the far end of the counter so it would be safely out of the way while she washed her hands.

Katsuki, meanwhile, picked up the spoon and went back to stirring the curry as though nothing remotely unusual had happened.

Izuku watched him for a few seconds, amusement steadily building in his chest. He could have let it go. A kinder person probably would have let it go.

Unfortunately for Kacchan, Izuku had known him far too long to be that kind.

"What's wrong, Kacchan?" he asked with exaggerated innocence.

The spoon stopped halfway around the pot, and Izuku had to press his lips together before his smile could give him away completely. Katsuki turned just enough to glare at him over one shoulder, which might have been considerably more intimidating if the tiny yellow hair clip weren't still sitting cheerfully above his left ear.

"Nothing."

"Really?"

"Deku."

"You seem tense."

"I'm about to make you tense."

That did it. Izuku's smile broke free despite his best efforts, and he lifted his hands in a show of innocence. "I'm just asking if you're okay."

"I was fucking fantastic until you came back."

"That's strange. Eri seemed to be having a great time when I walked in."

"She was."

The answer came without hesitation, so immediate and matter-of-fact that Izuku's amusement softened around the edges. Something warm tried to settle beneath his ribs again at the realization that Kacchan had apparently been having a good time too, whether he would ever admit it in those exact words or not.

Izuku refused to let himself get distracted by that particular feeling. Teasing Kacchan was much safer.

"So the problem is me."

"The problem is always you."

"That seems unfair."

"Life's unfair."

"Hm." Izuku nodded thoughtfully, as though Katsuki had just imparted some profound wisdom instead of insulting him, and let his gaze drift with deliberate slowness toward the little yellow clip.

Katsuki caught the movement immediately.

"Don't."

Izuku widened his eyes. "I didn't say anything."

"You're about to."

"Well, actually, I was going to say yellow is a nice color on you."

For a moment, Katsuki's face went completely blank.

Izuku lasted approximately two seconds before a laugh escaped him.

"Take it back."

"I can't!" Izuku insisted, laughter creeping into his voice now. "I think it brings out your eyes."

"I will kill you."

The threat was delivered with enough venom that Izuku probably should have been concerned, but Eri chose that moment to return from the sink, drying her freshly washed hands on the towel Katsuki had designated earlier. She had apparently caught only the last part of the conversation, because she looked up at him and announced with complete sincerity, "I think it looks pretty."

Katsuki's mouth opened, an insult clearly ready on his tongue, only to close again when he looked at her. Eri smiled up at him, entirely earnest, and whatever vicious response he had prepared seemed to die on impact.

Izuku saw the exact moment he realized he'd been cornered.

He clapped a hand over his mouth, but it did absolutely nothing to stop his shoulders from beginning to shake.

Katsuki's attention snapped toward him. He pointed the spoon at Izuku like a weapon, droplets of curry threatening to fall from the end. "Not one fucking word."

"I'm not saying anything!"

"You're laughing!"

"That isn't a word."

"Neither is the noise you're gonna make when I throw you out the window."

Eri giggled as she climbed carefully back onto her stool. Once she was settled, she looked at the little yellow clip again and seemed pleased to find it exactly where she had left it. "You can keep it, Kacchan."

For the first time, Katsuki seemed to remember that removing the offending object was an option. He lifted a hand toward his hair, fingertips finding the little plastic clip above his ear, and Eri's smile faltered almost imperceptibly as she realized he was about to take it out.

Katsuki noticed too.

His fingers stayed there for a moment.

Then, with a quiet click, he adjusted the clip where it had shifted slightly out of place and dropped his hand back to his side.

"…Whatever."

Eri's smile returned at once, bright enough that Katsuki promptly turned toward the stove as though he had somewhere much more important to look.

Izuku's smile softened before he could stop it. This time, though, he refused to stand there helplessly dissecting why. He had spent quite enough of the afternoon being ambushed by feelings he didn't understand, and tormenting Kacchan was both more familiar and considerably more fun.

So when he moved past him toward the table, Izuku bumped his hip lightly against Katsuki's.

"You really do look very pretty, Kacchan."

The spoon hit the edge of the pot with a sharp clack.

"Deku."

The warning came low and lethal, rough enough that anyone else might have reconsidered several life choices.

Izuku had been ignoring that exact tone since he was four.

He grinned over his shoulder and continued retreating toward the table, wisely putting the kitchen island between them before Katsuki could decide whether throwing him out the window was worth delaying dinner.

Behind him, Eri apparently decided she had been given a new phrase worth keeping. "Pretty Kacchan."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Katsuki rounded on Izuku. "Don't fucking encourage her!"

"I didn't!" Izuku protested through his laughter. "She said that all by herself!"

"Pretty Kacchan," Eri repeated, giggling now.

"Stop teaching her shit!"

"I'm not teaching her anything!"

"You're a fucking disease!"

By then Izuku was laughing hard enough that he had to brace one hand against the table, and Eri's giggles joined his from the kitchen. Katsuki continued grumbling threats at both of them as he turned back to the curry, but the yellow clip stayed exactly where it was.

When dinner was ready, Eri had decided the curry was at least sixty percent hers.

Izuku privately thought that estimate was generous considering Katsuki had handled all the chopping, the stove, the timing, the seasoning, and essentially every part of the meal that involved actual danger, but he wasn't going to be the one to tell her that. Katsuki apparently wasn't either.

Katsuki declared the curry done a few minutes later and immediately took over serving, batting Izuku's hand away when he reached for the ladle with a sharp, "I've got it." 

Izuku didn't bother arguing. He gathered the abandoned measuring spoons instead while Eri carried her notebook to the table and chose a seat with the solemn importance of someone preparing to eat a meal she had personally created.

When Izuku turned back, Katsuki had already divided the curry between three bowls. Eri's portion was smaller, with more rice tucked alongside it so she could mix everything together if the spice turned out to be too much. Katsuki set hers down first, pointing briefly at the steam rising from the surface.

"Still hot."

"I know."

"Then don't burn your tongue trying to prove it."

"I won't."

Katsuki grunted, apparently satisfied, and reached for the next bowl.

Izuku expected him to take it for himself.

Instead, Katsuki crossed the small space between them and set it down directly in front of Izuku.

For a second, Izuku only looked at it.

There was more rice than Katsuki had given himself and a generous amount of curry spread beside it, exactly the way Izuku usually served his own. No question about whether he wanted some. No are you eating with us? No irritated demand that he grab his own bowl.

Kacchan had simply made three servings.

Izuku's smile came before he could stop it.

He looked up. "You made me one."

Katsuki, already turning back for his own bowl, stopped just enough to throw him an incredulous look over his shoulder. "No shit."

"I know, I just—" Izuku glanced down at the food again, suddenly aware that he was smiling. "You didn't ask if I wanted any."

"Because you always want some."

The answer came so quickly that Izuku's smile faltered.

Katsuki seemed not to notice what he'd said. Or perhaps he noticed and had decided the best strategy was to pretend he hadn't, because he picked up his own bowl and jerked his chin toward the table. "Sit down before it gets cold."

Izuku stayed where he was for another second.

Because you always want some.

It shouldn't have felt remarkable. They'd known each other practically their entire lives and shared more meals than Izuku could count. Of course Kacchan knew what he ate.

Still, his gaze dropped to the bowl again.

The rice was exactly where he liked it.

"Deku."

Izuku looked up.

"Food. Table. Now."

The warmth in his chest loosened into something easier, and a grin tugged at his mouth. "You know, usually people say you're welcome when someone appreciates something they did for them."

"Usually people don't need instructions to sit the fuck down."

"I was getting there."

"You were staring at rice."

"I was appreciating the rice."

"It's fucking rice."

"Your rice."

A long, flat look was his only answer at first, red eyes narrowing before he turned away with a scoff. "I should've let you starve."

"But you didn't."

There was enough satisfaction in Izuku's voice that the shoulders in front of him went slightly rigid. He picked up his bowl and followed Kacchan toward the table, warmth seeping pleasantly into his palms from the ceramic.

"No," came the muttered response. "Unfortunately."

Unable to help himself, Izuku smiled down at the curry as he carried it to the table.

There it was again—that strange, warm little feeling that had been following him around all afternoon. He was beginning to suspect hunger wasn't going to explain it much longer.

Across from them, Eri had been watching the entire exchange with quiet interest.

Izuku noticed that and immediately became suspicious.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Somehow, coming from her, it sounded alarmingly like Kacchan.

Before Izuku could investigate, Katsuki took the seat beside her and pulled his own bowl closer. "Eat."

Eri needed no further encouragement. She sat a little straighter as she picked up her spoon, looking enormously pleased with herself now that all three of them were sitting around the table with the food she had helped make in front of them.

Katsuki pretended not to notice.

Izuku noticed that too.

Eri carefully gathered a little curry and rice onto her spoon. As she lifted it, both boys went quiet and watched her take the first bite.

Her expression turned solemn with concentration as she chewed.

Beside her, Katsuki immediately became very interested in his own bowl. He picked up his spoon and shifted a piece of potato through the curry without eating it, the picture of someone whose opinion of dinner could not possibly be affected by the verdict of one seven-year-old.

Izuku knew better.

He hid his smile behind his spoon as Eri finally swallowed. For someone who spent the last several seconds pretending not to care about the verdict, Kacchan was remarkably still beside her, his attention ostensibly fixed on his own untouched dinner.

"It's good!"

The tension disappeared from his shoulders so quickly that Izuku might have missed it if he hadn't spent most of his life learning how to read him. Kacchan reached for his spoon with an entirely undeserved amount of casualness, stirring the edge of his curry into the rice as though the answer had never been in doubt. "Course it is."

Eri's eyebrows pulled together. "We made it."

The spoon paused against the side of his bowl with a faint scrape. It was barely anything, just a momentary stillness before his gaze shifted toward the little girl sitting beside him, but Izuku saw the change that came over his face. Some of the usual sharpness eased around his eyes, leaving behind something quieter.

"…Yeah."

Apparently satisfied with the correction, Eri returned to her dinner and took another enthusiastic bite. Kacchan watched her for half a second longer before lowering his attention to his own bowl again, the corner of his spoon tracing slowly through the rice.

"We did."

A gentle warmth pressed beneath Izuku's ribs.

There was something almost absurd about how much the sight affected him. It was just dinner: three bowls of curry crowded around a dorm table, spoons clinking softly against ceramic while Eri's feet swung beneath her chair. Kacchan sat beside her in an old black T-shirt, pretending the quiet pride in his voice hadn't been perfectly audible from across the table.

Izuku had spent most of his life imagining Kacchan in extraordinary places—at the top of the hero rankings, in the middle of battles, standing victorious beneath flashing cameras. He'd never spent much time imagining him here.

Apparently ordinary Kacchan was dangerously compelling too.

Thankfully, Eri gave him something else to focus on before that thought could go anywhere inconvenient. She slowed over her next bite, chewing thoughtfully while her eyebrows drew together in the same serious expression she had worn while measuring spices earlier. After considering the matter with appropriate gravity, she swallowed and announced, "It could be more spicy."

Izuku's spoon stopped halfway to his mouth.

Beside her, Kacchan's head came up so quickly that there could be no pretending he hadn't heard. Their eyes met for one suspended second, Izuku already anticipating exactly how insufferable this was going to make him, before a slow, unmistakably delighted smirk spread across Kacchan's face.

"A kid after my own heart." Leaning back in his chair, he regarded Eri with open approval. "We'll make a chef out of you yet."

Izuku nearly inhaled his rice.

Eri, meanwhile, brightened beneath the praise. "Really?"

"Sure. First thing we gotta do is fix your spice tolerance."

"Kacchan, she is seven."

"Best time to start."

"No, it is not!" Izuku lowered his spoon and stared at him. "She has her entire life to build up a spice tolerance without you trying to destroy her taste buds before she reaches middle school."

A dismissive scoff met that perfectly reasonable objection. "You're just weak."

"I am not weak. Your idea of spicy is a biological weapon."

"It tastes good."

"So does food that leaves your taste buds intact."

Eri's gaze moved between them as though she were watching a tennis match. After another bite, she seemed to decide there was an obvious point neither of them had considered. "I like spicy food."

"See?" Kacchan gestured toward her with his spoon, triumphant enough that anyone walking in might have assumed Eri had just conclusively settled a years-long scientific debate. "Kid's got taste."

"She said it could be more spicy. She did not give you permission to start feeding her molten lava."

"I can decide how spicy I want it," Eri informed him.

Izuku opened his mouth to object, only to stop when he considered that. Eri watched him expectantly, waiting to see whether he was going to argue with her too, and after a moment he conceded with a small inclination of his head. "You know what? That's fair."

"Damn right."

"I was agreeing with Eri, Kacchan."

"Still proves I'm right."

"That isn't how that works."

The smugness on Kacchan's face suggested he had no interest whatsoever in how it worked, and Izuku found himself smiling back despite himself. It felt good to bicker like this, he realized—not the brittle arguments they'd had years ago, when every disagreement seemed to catch on something sharp between them, but this. The easy back-and-forth they had somehow grown into, where Izuku could poke just to see Kacchan's eyes light with challenge and know that whatever came back would be part of the game.

Apparently Eri had already learned how to play too.

She took another bite before looking up at her cooking instructor. "Can we make it more spicy next time?"

The smirk softened around the edges, though Kacchan tried to disguise it by scooping up some rice. "Yeah. A little."

Izuku caught the qualification immediately, and affection slipped into his voice before he could think to hide it. "Look at you being responsible."

"Shut up."

"No, really." He expected another insult and had one ready, but looking at Kacchan sitting there beside Eri made the joke lose some of its appeal. Instead, Izuku let the teasing ease out of his expression. "You're a good teacher."

That wiped the smugness away much more effectively than any comeback could have.

"What?"

"You are." Resting an elbow against the table, Izuku turned his spoon absently between his fingers. There were plenty of things he could tease Kacchan about, but this wasn't one of them. He wanted him to know he meant it. "You explain why you're doing things instead of just telling her what to do. You actually let her help, and whenever she doesn't know something, you show her instead of doing it for her." His gaze flicked briefly toward Eri before returning to the boy across from him. "And you notice when she needs something before she has to ask. You're really good at teaching her, Kacchan."

For once, there was no immediate answer.

Red eyes held his, and the longer the silence lasted, the more aware Izuku became of the way Kacchan was looking at him. There was no challenge in it, no familiar exasperation waiting for Izuku to finish rambling. Something quieter had taken its place, and for a strange, suspended moment neither of them seemed particularly interested in looking away.

Heat crept toward Izuku's ears.

Then Kacchan's gaze dropped abruptly to his dinner. He scooped up a needlessly large bite of curry and rice, shoving it into his mouth as though eating could retroactively erase the conversation. "Whatever."

"He is," Eri agreed.

The chewing stopped.

Izuku felt his mouth twitch and bit the inside of his cheek before the smile could escape. Across from him, Eri seemed entirely unaware that she had just reinforced the attack. She nodded with complete seriousness as she added, "Kacchan's a good teacher."

By then, a faint flush was creeping over the tips of Kacchan's ears. Izuku gave himself approximately two seconds to appreciate it before deciding that sincerity had lasted long enough.

"Two against one."

A scowl finally appeared, although there wasn't enough heat behind it to be convincing. "Eat your fucking curry."

Izuku did, mostly because he was hungry and partly because continuing to look at the color spreading across Kacchan's ears seemed likely to result in a smile he wouldn't be able to explain away. The curry really was good—rich and warm, with enough spice to linger pleasantly on his tongue without reaching Kacchan's preferred level of attempted murder—and conversation gradually drifted toward Eri's increasingly ambitious plans for what she wanted to cook next.

The warmth in Izuku's chest stayed.

At some point, while he was reaching for his water, his knee bumped against Kacchan's beneath the table. The contact was solid and warm through the thin fabric of their pants, enough to make him murmur an automatic, "Sorry," as he started to shift.

The only response was a distracted grunt around a mouthful of rice.

Except Kacchan didn't move.

Izuku became aware of that slowly. Their knees were still resting together beneath the table, neither pressing nor pulling away, just touching in a way that should have been completely unremarkable. The table wasn't particularly large. They had been bumping shoulders and elbows and knees since they started at UA. There was no reason for this contact to feel different from any of the thousand accidental touches that had come before it.

And yet, when Izuku could have moved his leg the rest of the way, he didn't.

He took another bite instead, trying to listen as Eri explained that she thought making soba should be next because she knew Shoto liked it. The conversation continued normally. Kacchan argued that noodles were harder than she thought, Eri insisted she could learn, and underneath the table the steady warmth against Izuku's knee remained.

Maybe Kacchan hadn't noticed.

The thought lasted until Izuku glanced sideways and found him already looking back.

Neither of them said anything. Kacchan's eyes flicked briefly downward, toward the space hidden beneath the table, then returned to Izuku's face. Something unreadable passed through his expression before he turned back to Eri and continued explaining why making noodles from scratch was different from boiling the packaged kind.

His leg stayed exactly where it was.

A nervous little flutter moved through Izuku's stomach.

He concentrated very hard on his curry.

A while later, Eri became absorbed in rearranging the spoons beside her bowl, insisting there needed to be three because there were three of them. While Katsuki attempted to explain that spoons did not, in fact, understand the concept of loneliness, Izuku slipped his phone from his pocket beneath the table.

The photograph from earlier filled the screen, the little heart beneath it still exactly where he'd left it. Eri stood at the center of the frame, utterly serious about mixing her sauce correctly, while Kacchan leaned beside her with his hair mussed from the kitchen heat and that tiny, unguarded smile caught on his face.

Earlier, Izuku had nearly unfavorited it out of some vague embarrassment he refused to examine. Now, with the taste of Kacchan's curry still lingering on his tongue and the steady warmth of his knee resting against Izuku's beneath the table, he only looked at the heart and wondered why he had ever considered removing it.

The picture looked like something he wanted to keep.

His thumb drifted toward the options menu before he could overthink that realization. Setting it as his lock screen was perfectly reasonable. Eri looked happy and proud, and the photograph had captured an afternoon Izuku already knew he wanted to remember.

The preview appeared beneath the clock. He adjusted the crop until Eri sat neatly beneath the time—and realized he had also made sure none of Kacchan was cut off.

He could crop him out.

His thumb stopped before he could adjust the crop any farther.

No. The picture wouldn't be the same without him.

His fingers stilled against the screen. There were probably several implications buried in that thought, but for once Izuku didn't go digging for them. He confirmed the lock screen and let himself look for another second. His eyes found Kacchan first.

This time, he let them stay there.

Beneath the table, the real Kacchan's knee was still resting against his. Izuku could have shifted his leg and ended the contact just as easily as he could have cropped him out of the photograph.

He did neither.

"Deku?"

Izuku looked up. "Hm?"

Eri had paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth, studying him thoughtfully. Her gaze flicked once toward Kacchan before returning to him.

"Do you like Kacchan?"

Izuku inhaled sharply.

Unfortunately, he had also just put another bite of curry into his mouth.

The first cough hit hard enough to bend him over the table, followed immediately by another that burned all the way up his throat and brought tears to his eyes. His spoon clattered against the edge of his bowl as he tried to breathe around what felt like half a grain of rice lodged directly in his airway.

"Deku—Jesus Christ."

A glass scraped sharply across the tabletop. Kacchan had shoved his water toward him before Izuku even managed to reach for his own, one hand hovering for an instant near Izuku's shoulder as though he couldn't decide whether hitting him on the back would help or finish killing him.

"I'm fine," Izuku managed after several painful coughs. His voice came out rough and watery, and he accepted the offered glass with a grateful nod. "I'm fine. Sorry."

"You're gonna fucking choke to death eating curry."

"I said I'm fine."

"Yeah, I heard you coughing up a lung. Very convincing."

There was more concern than irritation beneath the words, and under any other circumstances Izuku might have teased him about it. Unfortunately, Eri was still waiting.

Patiently.

That was somehow worse.

Izuku took another drink, buying himself a few precious seconds while the cold water soothed his throat. When he finally lowered the glass, he became aware that Kacchan's knee had shifted beneath the table during the coughing fit. Not away from him, though. If anything, it was pressed a little more firmly against his now, as though Kacchan must have moved toward him on instinct and simply never moved back.

Izuku very deliberately did not think about that.

He cleared his throat and looked at Eri instead. "What did you ask?"

"Do you like Kacchan?"

Across the table, the faint scrape of ceramic stopped.

Izuku didn't need to look to know Kacchan had gone still. He could feel it beside him in the sudden tension of the leg against his own. That awareness made the question feel different than it should have.

Still, this was easy. Of course he liked Kacchan.

"Of course I like Kacchan!"

The answer came out much too quickly and approximately three times louder than necessary.

"I mean, obviously I do," he continued, attempting to repair the situation and somehow making it worse almost immediately. "We've known each other since we were little, and things were complicated for a while, but we're friends now. We train together, and we study together sometimes, and we spend a lot of time together, and I care about him, so of course I like him. I mean, I wouldn't spend this much time with someone I didn't like, and he cooks for me sometimes—not for me specifically, necessarily, although he does apparently already know how I like my curry, which I guess makes sense because we eat together a lot, and—"

"Deku."

The warning was quiet, almost weary, but when Izuku risked a glance sideways he found Kacchan looking at him with an expression that was considerably harder to categorize than simple annoyance.

There was color beginning to gather high across his cheekbones.

That did absolutely nothing helpful to Izuku's train of thought.

"And we've known each other practically our whole lives," he finished weakly.

"No."

Eri's small, matter-of-fact interruption cut cleanly through whatever remained of his explanation.

Izuku blinked. "No?"

She shook her head, apparently deciding he had misunderstood the assignment completely. Her spoon settled back into her bowl while she considered how best to explain something that was clearly very simple to her and inexplicably difficult for him.

"I know you like him like that." She glanced toward Kacchan and then back. "I mean like when people get married."

The kitchen went so quiet that Izuku could hear the low hum of the refrigerator behind him.

Heat rushed across his face in one enormous wave, burning from the collar of his shirt all the way to the tips of his ears. His thoughts, which had been tumbling over one another seconds earlier, simply stopped.

Beside him, Kacchan had frozen too.

The spoon in his hand hovered halfway between his bowl and his mouth. The faint flush Izuku had noticed earlier spread rapidly across his cheekbones, then climbed toward his ears until the tips had turned unmistakably red.

And because Izuku's brain apparently had no instinct for self-preservation whatsoever, his first thought was that Kacchan looked cute.

That was bad enough.

What came next was worse.

Kacchan hadn't said no.

Izuku's gaze snapped toward him before he could stop himself. Red eyes met his for the briefest instant, startled and exposed in a way Izuku almost never saw, before Kacchan looked down at his bowl.

Their knees were still touching.

Neither of them moved.

Izuku's heartbeat picked up as Eri's question hung between them, tangled up with the memory of the photograph he had just made his lock screen. Suddenly, it didn't feel nearly as easy to dismiss as it should have. 

Because Izuku hadn't said no either.

He could say it now.

The answer should have been right there. A laugh, a correction, something easy about how Eri had misunderstood because Kacchan was his childhood friend and of course they cared about each other. Izuku was very good at explaining things. Usually, the difficulty was getting him to stop.

But when he opened his mouth, no denial came.

Instead, his mind offered him Kacchan smiling beside Eri. Kacchan automatically putting a bowl of curry in front of him because you always want some. The warm kitchen briefly transforming into another kitchen years from now. A knee that had been resting against his for most of dinner because neither of them had chosen to move.

"E-Eri—"

"Eat your damn dinner," Kacchan cut in abruptly.

His voice was rougher than usual, and he still wouldn't look at Izuku. The hand wrapped around his spoon had tightened enough to whiten his knuckles, while the flush spread stubbornly from the tips of his ears down the sides of his neck.

It wasn't an answer.

Eri seemed to notice that too.

Instead of returning to her dinner, she looked at Kacchan with the same calm curiosity she had brought to every question that afternoon. Her head tipped slightly to one side as she studied him, apparently trying to reconcile his response with whatever conclusion she had already reached.

"But don't you like Deku like that, Kacchan?"

The spoon slipped from his fingers and struck the edge of his bowl with a sharp clink.

Izuku stopped breathing.

For the first time since Eri had clarified what she meant, Kacchan looked directly at him. The glance lasted barely a second, but it was long enough for Izuku to catch something startled and horribly vulnerable in his eyes before his gaze snapped back to Eri.

"Why the hell are you asking me?"

Eri's expression remained perfectly earnest. "Because you like him."

A strangled sound caught somewhere in Izuku's throat.

Kacchan's entire face had gone red now. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Beside him, Eri apparently found the distinction worth pursuing too. "So you don't?"

Kacchan went completely still.

Izuku's grip tightened around his spoon.

There it was. A perfectly easy opportunity. One word would end the entire conversation, and Izuku had known Kacchan long enough to know that if he wanted to say it, nobody at this table could possibly stop him.

Instead, several long seconds passed.

The refrigerator hummed behind them. Somewhere in the common room, the building settled with a faint creak, and the curry was still warm enough that steam curled lazily from Izuku's bowl. Beneath the table, Kacchan's knee remained pressed against his, suddenly impossible not to feel.

Finally, Kacchan dragged a hand down his face. "Jesus fucking Christ."

Eri waited.

"Can we not do this while I'm fucking eating?"

It still wasn't a no.

That realization landed hard enough to make Izuku's heartbeat stumble. Eri, apparently satisfied that she had extracted all the information she was going to get, simply shrugged and returned to her curry as though she hadn't just detonated the entire table.

For the next few minutes, neither boy looked directly at the other. Kacchan retrieved his spoon and attacked his dinner with unnecessary force, while Izuku concentrated on his own bowl with the kind of focus he usually reserved for combat analysis. Underneath the table, their knees were still touching. Neither of them moved.

Like when people get married.

Izuku tried to dismiss it. Eri was seven. Marriage was an enormous leap from liking someone, and Kacchan's refusal to answer didn't automatically mean anything.

Except Kacchan could have said no.

That thought refused to go away. Kacchan was not exactly known for letting incorrect assumptions stand uncontested, yet Eri had handed him the easiest denial in the world and he hadn't taken it.

Then Izuku's brain supplied the much less convenient thought that he hadn't said no either.

His spoon scraped softly against the bottom of the bowl. He had reasons for that. He'd been surprised, embarrassed, caught completely off guard. That was all.

Probably.

Except when he tried to imagine what he would have said if Eri had given him another chance, his mind offered him the photograph on his lock screen, the bowl Kacchan had made without asking, that brief impossible picture of another kitchen years from now, and the steady warmth of his knee against Izuku's beneath the table.

Izuku took a much too large bite of curry. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kacchan do the same. Their gazes met for half a second before both of them looked away.

Kacchan's ears were still red.

Izuku focused very hard on chewing.

The rest of dinner passed with considerably less emotional devastation, mostly because Eri seemed perfectly content to behave as though she hadn't just forced both boys into a conversation neither had been prepared to have. Izuku ate his curry, helped clear the table, and made a determined effort not to think about the fact that neither of them had actually denied anything.

By the time Aizawa arrived, the leftovers were packed away and most of the mess had migrated into the sink. Eri spent the last several minutes at the table with her new green notebook, filling its first page with a drawing of what appeared to be a bowl of curry beside a large orange explosion. Izuku had decided, for the sake of his own sanity, not to analyze the symbolism.

The front door opened with a familiar click, followed by the quiet shuffle of shoes being removed in the entryway. Aizawa appeared a moment later with his capture scarf hanging loose around his shoulders and the same exhausted expression Izuku sometimes suspected he had been born wearing.

His gaze traveled across the kitchen in a single slow sweep. The dishes piled beside the sink. The step stool still pushed against the counter. The abandoned measuring spoons. Eri sitting happily with her notebook.

Then his eyes landed on Kacchan.

The tiny yellow clip was still fastened above his left ear.

Izuku pressed his lips together.

"Have fun?" Aizawa asked.

"I made curry." Eri immediately lifted her notebook as though the drawing constituted supporting evidence.

There was enough pride in her voice that Izuku felt a smile tug at his mouth. She hadn't said she helped make curry. She'd made it, because Kacchan actually let her.

Aizawa's eyes shifted toward Kacchan, who met the look without so much as blinking. For a moment, neither of them said anything. More importantly, neither of them corrected Eri's claim that she had made the curry herself.

"Kacchan taught me," she added proudly, holding her notebook a little higher.

One of Aizawa's eyebrows rose, and Izuku promptly sank his teeth into the inside of his cheek. He knew that look. Apparently Kacchan did too, because his expression darkened before Aizawa had even opened his mouth.

"Kacchan?" he repeated.

"Don't," Kacchan growled.

The warning did nothing to help. If anything, the faint twitch at the corner of Aizawa's mouth became more obvious as his gaze flicked briefly to the tiny yellow clip still tucked above Kacchan's ear.

"I see."

"You don't see shit."

"Aizawa-sensei," Izuku cut in quickly, because he had already witnessed enough explosions today, metaphorical or otherwise. "Eri did really well. She measured the spices and mixed the sauce herself, and she helped with the vegetables, and Kacchan showed her how to—"

"I can tell," Aizawa interrupted, mercifully before Izuku could provide a complete breakdown of Eri's contributions. His attention returned to her, expression softening in the subtle way it always seemed to around her. "Ready to go, Eri?"

Eri nodded and closed her notebook. Izuku retrieved the little jacket she had left draped over the back of a chair, holding it while she pushed her arms through the sleeves. He finished straightening the fabric where it had bunched at one shoulder just as she glanced back toward the kitchen.

"Kacchan?"

A grunt answered her from beside the sink.

"Can I help you cook again?"

Izuku's hands stilled against Eri's shoulders.

Across the room, Kacchan paused with one hand resting on the counter. For a second Izuku expected the usual deflection—a shrug, a dismissive whatever, maybe an if you're here that would technically agree without requiring him to admit he wanted to do this again.

Instead, he turned toward her.

"If you listen when I tell you something's hot."

"I will."

"And you don't touch my knives."

"Okay."

"And you don't climb on shit without telling me."

Eri's eyebrows drew together. "I didn't."

"I know you didn't. I'm telling you for next time."

Izuku's throat tightened unexpectedly.

Next time.

Eri seemed to hear it too, because her little frown disappeared. She nodded with all the solemnity of someone accepting the terms of a very important contract. "Okay."

Kacchan narrowed his eyes. "And you don't call me Kacchan."

That required considerably more thought.

Her lips pressed together as she considered the final condition, gaze fixed seriously on him. Kacchan waited with his arms folded, apparently under the impression that he had finally found a rule she would respect.

Then Eri smiled.

"Okay, Kacchan."

A sound escaped Izuku before he could stop it, half laugh and half snort, and he slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Goddammit." Kacchan glared past Eri directly at him. "This is your fucking fault."

Izuku lowered his hand, although controlling his expression was considerably harder. "How is this my fault?"

"You taught her."

"I didn't teach her anything!"

"Kacchan," Eri repeated, apparently just to make sure everyone understood the name was permanent.

Kacchan squeezed his eyes shut and tipped his head toward the ceiling with the expression of a man asking a universe he did not believe in why it had chosen to punish him specifically.

Izuku lost the fight with his laughter.

Even Aizawa's mouth twitched.

"Terrible," Kacchan muttered. "All of you."

Eri looked delighted.

Once Izuku managed to get himself under control, he crouched to help her straighten the strap of the little bag she had brought with her. She surprised him by stepping forward as soon as he finished and wrapping both arms around his middle.

"Thanks for today, Deku."

Izuku folded his arms around her and gave her a gentle squeeze. "Anytime. And you have to show me your hero notes once you start them, okay? I want to see what you notice."

"I will."

When she pulled away, she adjusted her bag and took a step toward Aizawa.

Then stopped.

Her eyes had gone back to Kacchan.

The room seemed to quiet around that small hesitation.

He was standing beside the counter with one hand shoved into the pocket of his sweatpants, the ridiculous yellow clip still tucked into his hair. For all the easy confidence he had shown while teaching her that afternoon, there was suddenly something uncertain in the set of his shoulders.

He didn't approach her.

He didn't crouch or open his arms or make the decision easier by making it for her. He simply stood where he was and waited.

Eri watched him for another second before crossing the space between them.

Her arms went around his waist.

Kacchan locked up so completely that Izuku almost heard the gears in his brain grind to a halt.

His eyes widened, and the hand outside his pocket lifted a few inches before stopping awkwardly in midair. Eri didn't seem bothered by the lack of immediate response. She only rested her cheek against his shirt and held on.

Izuku felt something catch in his throat.

Slowly, the tension began to leave Kacchan's shoulders. His hovering hand finally descended, settling with extraordinary care against the top of Eri's head. His palm barely disturbed her hair, thumb resting near her temple as though even now he was making sure she knew exactly where his hand was.

It was the same consideration Kacchan had shown her all afternoon.

Only now Eri had been the one to close the distance.

After a few seconds, Eri released him and stepped back. Kacchan's hand lingered for the briefest moment before falling to his side.

"See you, Kacchan."

Something small and complicated passed across his face. His gaze dropped toward her, and when he answered, his voice had lost nearly all of its usual bite.

"Yeah. See ya, kid."

Eri smiled.

Behind her, Aizawa was watching. His eyes moved from Kacchan to Izuku, paused, and then returned to Kacchan before sliding back once more. Izuku narrowed his eyes at him, but Aizawa's expression remained completely neutral, which only made the look considerably more suspicious.

"Good night," Aizawa said.

"Good night, Aizawa-sensei."

The door closed behind them a few moments later with a soft click, taking Eri's voice and laughter with it.

For the first time all afternoon, the common room was genuinely quiet. No questions came from the counter. No little voice called Kacchan just to see what reaction it would get. Only the low hum of the refrigerator remained, accompanied by the occasional drip of water into the sink and the faint ticking of the cooling stove.

Izuku looked around at what the afternoon had left behind. The step stool was still beside the counter. Eri's towel hung crookedly near the sink. Three used bowls waited among the dishes, and the air still carried the lingering warmth of ginger and curry spices.

The kitchen felt strangely large without her in it. Izuku's gaze drifted toward Kacchan, and suddenly, after Eri's questions over dinner, being alone with him felt very different than it had a few hours ago.

Water was already running at the sink by the time Izuku crossed the kitchen. Of course Kacchan was already cleaning. His sleeves were pushed farther up his forearms to keep them dry, the tiny yellow clip was gone, reclaimed by Eri before she left. Although one stubborn section of hair above his left ear still stuck out where it had been held back.

The sight nearly made Izuku smile again. Instead, he stopped beside him. "Let me help with that."

Katsuki glanced over from the corner of his eye. Izuku expected the usual argument about how he could handle his own damn kitchen, but after a second Katsuki only grunted, grabbed a clean dish towel from the counter, and shoved it against Izuku's chest without ceremony.

Apparently that was permission.

Izuku took the towel with a small smile and moved into place beside him.

They fell into the work without having to discuss who was doing what. Katsuki washed and rinsed while Izuku dried, each clean bowl appearing in his hands almost as soon as he finished with the last. The wooden spoon Eri had wielded so seriously earlier came next, followed by a plate and one of the measuring cups. Their rhythm settled quickly, familiar in a way Izuku didn't really notice until he was already inside it. Water rushed over ceramic, dishes clinked softly when he stacked them, and every so often their fingers brushed as Katsuki passed something across the narrow space between them.

Neither of them mentioned dinner.

More specifically, neither of them mentioned what Eri had asked during dinner, and Izuku was trying very hard not to notice that.

He turned another bowl in his hands, dragging the towel over the last beads of water caught along the rim. They worked for a while before Izuku glanced toward the abandoned step stool. "She really liked being with you today."

Katsuki scrubbed a thumb along the edge of a plate. "Kid's smart."

The immediate answer made Izuku smile. "She is."

"Listens, too. Mostly. Better than you idiots."

"I listen."

"You mutter over people until they give up trying to talk."

"That is not the same thing."

"Sure."

Izuku accepted the plate Katsuki handed him and began drying it, his smile softening as he remembered Eri crossing the kitchen to hug him. "She trusted you."

The next dish remained beneath the water for a second longer than necessary.

"Yeah," Katsuki said eventually.

Quietly, Izuku added, "It was nice to see."

Katsuki shrugged and reached for another bowl. "It was whatever."

Izuku knew what whatever looked like on Kacchan. Today hadn't been whatever.

He decided not to call him on it.

For another minute they worked in comfortable silence, the steady rush of the faucet and the occasional clink of ceramic filling the room. Katsuki washed the last few dishes while Izuku dried and put them away, and it should have been peaceful.

Instead, now that there was nothing else demanding his attention, Eri's voice returned with uncomfortable clarity.

Do you like Kacchan?

And then, after Izuku had answered the wrong question—

Like when people get married.

Izuku swallowed and ran the towel over the same already-dry patch of ceramic for the third time. Kacchan hadn't said no.

Beside him, Katsuki was attacking the bottom of the curry pot with considerably more concentration than the task required.

His heart began beating harder before he had even decided to speak.

"Was she right?"

The sponge stopped.

Izuku immediately wished he could grab the words out of the air and shove them back into his mouth.

Katsuki's hands remained beneath the running water, one gripping the pot and the other holding the sponge motionless against its bottom. For several seconds he gave no indication that he had heard at all, except for the tension that slowly gathered across his shoulders.

Izuku tightened his fingers around the dish towel. "Earlier, I mean."

"I know what you fucking mean."

The answer came rough and low, without any of the usual bite behind it.

"Oh." Izuku's mouth felt strangely dry. "Right."

Water continued rushing into the sink, splashing against Katsuki's wrists and sending droplets against the stainless steel. He still hadn't turned around.

Izuku could have stopped there. Katsuki knew exactly what he was asking, and considering the way Izuku's pulse was hammering, leaving the question unfinished sounded extremely appealing.

But knowing Kacchan understood wasn't the same as hearing the answer.

Izuku drew a careful breath. "When Eri asked you…if you liked me like that. Was she right?"

The tips of Katsuki's ears were turning red again.

Izuku's stomach flipped.

For one awful, hopeful moment, he thought Katsuki might actually answer. His grip shifted against the pot, fingers flexing around its edge, and his jaw tightened visibly in profile. Then whatever had almost made it out seemed to catch behind his teeth.

The sponge started moving again.

Much harder than before.

Izuku watched him scrub the same spot in short, aggressive strokes, the sponge squeaking against metal while water splashed against the sink. Hope tightened painfully beneath his ribs, but Kacchan's shoulders were practically drawn up around his ears. 

Izuku wanted to ask again.

He didn't.

Lowering his eyes, Izuku returned his attention to the bowl in his hands and finished drying it properly this time. The quiet between them felt fragile rather than awkward, filled by the running faucet and the occasional clink of ceramic as he stacked another dish on the counter. There was so much he wanted to ask, but for once in his life, he managed not to fill the silence simply because it frightened him.

Eventually, the scrubbing stopped. Katsuki rinsed the pot, set it heavily into the drying rack, and reached over to shut off the tap. The sudden absence of rushing water left the kitchen almost unnaturally quiet.

"You should get some rest, nerd." His voice had settled closer to normal, although he still didn't look over as he reached for the next dish. "I've got the rest covered."

Izuku's chest sank despite himself. It wasn't a rejection, but it wasn't an answer either, and the dismissal stung more than he wanted it to. He folded the dish towel carefully beside the sink, smoothing one corner down against the counter mostly to give his hands something to do.

There were only a couple of things left anyway. Insisting on staying would be obvious, and Kacchan had given him an out. Maybe that was all he was going to get tonight.

Izuku drew a quiet breath and stepped away from the counter, forcing some of the disappointment out of his voice before he managed a small smile Kacchan wasn't looking at anyway. "Right. Night, then, Kacchan."

"Night."

That sounded final enough.

Izuku turned toward the hall. The kitchen felt strangely quiet behind him without the running water, only the soft scuff of his slippers against the floor as he crossed toward the doorway. He was already trying to convince himself not to replay the conversation all night—already wondering whether he'd pushed too hard, whether tomorrow would be awkward, whether maybe he should just let the whole thing go—when his hand brushed the edge of the doorframe.

"If she was…"

The words caught him mid-step.

Izuku stopped so abruptly that the sole of his slipper squeaked against the floor, the small sound sharp in the quiet. His pulse seemed to jump with it. For a second he stayed exactly where he was, one foot slightly ahead of the other and his fingers still resting against the doorframe, afraid that moving might somehow interrupt whatever Kacchan was trying to force himself to say.

Behind him, Katsuki drew a rough breath.

Izuku turned slowly.

Kacchan hadn't moved from the sink. He stood with his back mostly toward the room, but the dish he'd been reaching for had been abandoned, both hands braced against the counter instead. His head was slightly bowed, damp blond hair shadowing the side of his face and hiding whatever expression he was wearing. The tension Izuku had watched gather in his shoulders earlier was back, pulled tight enough that Izuku could see it from across the kitchen.

Several seconds passed. The refrigerator hummed somewhere behind them, and Izuku could hear his own heartbeat far too clearly in the silence, but he didn't say anything. He didn't dare.

Finally, Katsuki's fingers flexed once against the edge of the sink.

"If she was right about me…" His voice came out rougher this time. He paused, just long enough for Izuku's breath to catch. "Was she right about you too?"

Everything inside Izuku went very quiet.

This time, Izuku didn't answer immediately, but not because he didn't know. Maybe that was what surprised him most.

He thought about Kacchan at four years old, scrambling to the top of a hill and turning around to make sure Izuku was still behind him. He thought about the years when following had hurt, when everything between them became tangled with anger and envy and fear. Then came apologies and hospital rooms, training grounds and late-night conversations, arguments that somehow ended with them sitting beside each other anyway. Meals Kacchan cooked too much of without admitting who the extra portion was for.

A tiny yellow hair clip.

We're fine, nerd.

And that impossible kitchen his mind had built earlier, warm with evening light, where Katsuki stood at the stove and Izuku walked through the door as though he belonged there.

There had never really been anyone else. Not like Kacchan.

The realization should have frightened him more than it did. Instead, something inside his chest settled.

"Yes."

Katsuki drew in a slow breath. His shoulders rose with the breath, then lowered as some of the tension left with the exhale.

Then he nodded once.

Izuku waited, heart beating hard enough that he could feel it in his throat, and briefly wondered if that was really going to be the entire conversation. Maybe they had just confessed mutual feelings in a handful of words and Kacchan was now going to send him upstairs.

Disturbingly, that would have been very on-brand.

"Yes." Katsuki's fingers tightened against the edge of the sink, knuckles pressing pale against the damp metal. He still didn't turn, but after a breath that sounded almost irritated with himself, he forced the rest out. "I like you like that."

The admission sent warmth blooming through Izuku's chest, so sudden and bright that for a second he forgot how to breathe. Kacchan's shoulders were drawn tight, color steadily creeping toward the tips of his ears as he stared determinedly at the sink instead of anywhere near Izuku.

"Happy?" he muttered.

"Very," Izuku admitted softly, unable to keep all of the smile out of his voice. "Actually."

That finally earned him a glance. Katsuki's eyes flicked toward him, quick and wary, and whatever he found on Izuku's face apparently made the flush spread even farther. His mouth tightened as he looked away again. "Don't make a big fucking deal out of it."

Izuku's smile threatened to widen, but he managed to keep it small even as the warmth in his chest refused to settle. "I won't."

For a moment, Katsuki said nothing. His attention dropped to his damp hands, and he rubbed his thumb slowly along the heel of one palm before drawing another breath. When he spoke again, the embarrassment had receded from his voice, leaving something quieter and more serious behind. "We have a lot of history, you and I."

Izuku's smile softened with the shift. "Yeah. We do."

"A lot of it's fucked."

"Some of it," Izuku agreed softly.

That made Katsuki turn toward him properly at last.

There was no anger in his face, and none of the embarrassment he usually disguised with aggression. He only looked serious, red eyes steady despite the faint color that had begun to creep high across his cheekbones. One hand was still resting against the edge of the sink, fingers curled against damp metal.

"I'm not pretending it didn't happen."

The words settled heavily between them.

Izuku understood immediately, and whatever smile remained on his face faded into something quieter. "I don't want you to."

Katsuki searched his expression as though waiting for a catch.

There wasn't one.

Izuku stepped back into the kitchen but stopped on the other side of the island rather than closing the distance completely. "We don't have to pretend any of it was different from what it was. You hurt me, and we both know that. And I know I haven't always understood you either." He made a helpless little motion with one hand. "We spent a really long time being…us, I guess."

"That's a shitty description."

"You know what I mean."

"Unfortunately."

A quiet laugh escaped Izuku, loosening some of the pressure in his chest. "But that's not all our history is," Izuku continued. "We knew each other before everything got bad, and we've had a lot since then too. Training together. Fighting beside each other. Learning how to actually talk instead of assuming we already knew what the other person meant." His smile returned, small but genuine. "Today."

Katsuki's gaze flicked briefly around the kitchen.

"Yeah," he muttered.

Katsuki glanced down at his damp hands. When he spoke again, the admission came so quietly that Izuku almost missed it.

"I don't know how to do this shit."

Izuku had to bite back the instinctive smile that wanted to appear—not because the confession was funny, but because it was so unmistakably Kacchan to reduce an entire terrifying emotional future to this shit.

"I don't either."

That earned him a skeptical glance. "You analyze everything."

"That doesn't mean I know what I'm doing."

"Could've fooled me."

"I spent half of today wondering why watching you cook curry was making my stomach feel weird."

Katsuki stared at him.

Izuku heard his own sentence a second too late.

Heat rushed straight into his face. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and looked away, mortified. "That sounded less embarrassing before I said it."

For the first time since the conversation began, the corner of Katsuki's mouth twitched.

"You're such a fucking nerd."

Izuku ducked his head, smiling helplessly despite himself. "Yeah."

The quiet that followed felt different from the one before. It wasn't empty or uncomfortable anymore. It was simply new, and for once Izuku didn't feel any urgent need to solve it.

Katsuki reached for the dish towel Izuku had left beside the sink, but his fingers stopped against the fabric before he picked it up. He stood there for a second, staring down at it.

His thumb rubbed once against the edge of the fabric.

"We're fine, right, nerd?"

Izuku looked at him.

There was something unexpectedly vulnerable beneath the irritation, enough that Izuku understood what Kacchan was really asking. Whether this changed something they had already fought so hard to rebuild.

Izuku's expression softened. "We're fine, idiot."

Katsuki searched his face for another second, red eyes steady on his as though he needed to be certain. Izuku held his gaze, warmth spreading quietly through his chest as he realized that, for once, fine didn't feel like enough.

"More than fine," he added softly.

Some last bit of tension eased from Katsuki's shoulders. He let out a breath through his nose and glanced away, the corner of his mouth threatening the smallest twitch. "Well, good."

The words settled between them, and for a while neither seemed in any hurry to disturb them. Somewhere beyond the kitchen, the dorm hummed softly around them while Katsuki's attention eventually dropped to the dish towel beneath his fingers, his thumb dragging slowly along its edge while Izuku waited.

After a few seconds, he seemed to come to some kind of decision.

"Saturday."

Izuku blinked. "What about Saturday?"

"We're both free."

"I think so."

That brought Katsuki's head up. "You think so?"

"I'd have to check my calendar."

"Of course you would."

Izuku's smile widened despite the warmth still lingering in his face. "Why?"

For a moment, Katsuki appeared deeply interested in the folded dish towel. His fingers caught the edge of it, tugging once before letting go again.

Then, almost grudgingly, he said, "We could…figure this shit out."

Izuku's heart skipped.

He didn't need to ask what it meant, and he didn't need Kacchan to turn it into something softer or prettier than that.

His smile came slowly. "Okay."

Katsuki looked at him then, really looked, and Izuku held his gaze.

"Saturday," he said.

The flush across Katsuki's cheeks climbed higher toward his ears. He scowled as though that might somehow make the color disappear. "Go to bed, nerd."

A laugh slipped out of Izuku, light enough that some last knot inside his chest finally loosened. "Good night, Kacchan."

"Night, Deku."

Still smiling, Izuku turned toward the hall again. Warmth followed him with every step, spreading through his chest in a way he no longer felt any urgent need to explain away.

He had almost made it around the corner when Katsuki apparently remembered one final piece of unfinished business.

"And delete that fucking picture!"

Izuku's laugh carried back down the hall. He didn't even bother turning around. "Too late! It's already my screensaver!"

Izuku made it another three steps.

"IT'S FUCKING WHAT?"

His laughter burst out all over again, and he quickened his pace before Kacchan could decide the dishes could wait in favor of murder. The new warmth still spreading through his chest made him just reckless enough to glance back toward the kitchen, a grin tugging wider at his mouth.

"What?" he called. "That's my pretty Kacchan."

This time, there was no immediate explosion.

In fact, there was nothing at all.

Not a curse, not an insult, not even an outraged splutter from the kitchen. Izuku slowed halfway to the stairs, his grin turning helpless as the silence stretched. For one glorious second, he wondered if he'd actually managed to break Kacchan.

Something clattered against the kitchen counter.

"YOUR FUCKING WHAT?"

Izuku lost it. He took off toward the stairs with Kacchan's outrage following him down the hall, laughing hard enough that he nearly missed the first step.

"GOOD NIGHT, KACCHAN!"

"GET BACK HERE, DEKU!"

Izuku took the stairs two at a time, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.