Archive of Our Own

Sometimes, when his joints ache so badly that he spends half the night staring at his wall, he wonders how Kacchan is. It’s not actually sometimes; it’s every night. Izuku wonders about Kacchan every night. There’s a sickness inside of him and it has always been there, independent of everything. It just chooses to fixate on Kacchan. When it’s this late, when he’s pressing his thumbs into his early onset arthritis and shaking so hard he has to grit his teeth or he’ll start weeping, he’s too weak to fend it off. 

So he thinks about how Kacchan is. 

Today, he brought coffee to work. Kacchan never brings coffee to work; he considers caffeine “a crutch.” He brought black coffee. That was all appearances. Kacchan is still terribly insecure about silly things. He doesn’t like black coffee, not unless it’s very good. This was black coffee from the café one block from the agency, which is of incredibly middling quality. He drank it with very small sips, face stiff and conspicuously unbothered. 

Anyways. Kacchan brought coffee to work, which means that he didn’t sleep well. He must have slept terribly. Izuku’s only seen Kacchan bring coffee to work two other times, once after a stakeout and the other after his childhood pet dog died. Both instances were six months ago, though, and even their accumulated stress from proximity didn’t elicit the sort of additional behavior he had been seeing from Kacchan as of late.

He just knows this cup of coffee means something. Something concrete and real. He searches his bedroom wall, eyes tracing a map to salvation, if only he could read.

He had asked him if he was well, earlier. Kacchan brushed him off, like he always does lately. You saying I’m not top of my game, hah? I’m always ready to kick ass. Fuck off. Another time, Izuku would have cataloged this response, measured it against all the obvious tells. But no. He let Kacchan leave him in the hallway, back disappearing into the office. Kacchan would tell him if it was serious. He had to trust that. 

His hands pulse, lighting up in agony. He grasps them together, fingers slotting. Held and holding. 

What was Kacchan thinking, though? Something had clearly been wrong, but he wasn’t giving any other real tells. For example, when Kacchan was sad, he tended to wear more concealing clothing. When he was angry, he insisted on spending extra hours in the gym, pummeling various equipment. When he was sick, he had a more subdued air. When he was—

The list is long. Izuku closes his eyes and tries to push it back. Breathes through it. Tries to ride the urge until it passes. But it is not a single wave; it’s the ocean of his heart. 

Part of him wants to crawl inside of Kacchan. Part of him wants all the ugliness that would entail. It frightens him, that viciousness. The impulse insists it is not violent; the impulse calls itself by another name. He learned, long ago, that normal people ascribe other longings to that name, though—a gentler embrace that does not beg to consume. 

He knows he has a problem. That’s the key to reining himself in; that’s the key to keeping everyone safe. 

Boundaries. At this point, he has a shock collar around his own brain. He’s finally wrangled the thing into submission. Prowl in front of the fence, but never climb over. Toxic thought patterns can’t always be refused, but they can be restrained. Kacchan isn’t well. Kacchan lied. Kacchan—

Izuku muzzles the beast living in his breast. He tries to sleep. 

“Ah, Kacchan. I was wondering if you filed the paperwork related to the collateral on October eighth.”

“Nah.” He doesn’t look up from his computer. “It’s your turn.”

Izuku drums his fingers against his notebook, a nervous tick he’s been unsuccessful in removing for years. He chews on his lip to prevent any stray muttering. “It, um— I took the October first filing, which was our last collateral incident. So it’s your turn.”

“Nope,” Kacchan replies, eyes still on his screen. 

This is intentional behavior. Izuku isn’t sure if he’s trying to get a rise out of him or if it has to do with whatever large thing has been conflicting with his sleep schedule, but Kacchan has been especially difficult, these last few weeks. 

“I… I also took the last week’s worth of patrol paperwork,” Izuku says. “Kacchan, you’ve got to step up. Um. Please.”

“Um. Please,” he sneers back, voice pitched in mockery. 

Okay. He’s definitely trying to get a rise. 

Any attention from Kacchan, even bad attention, causes his skin to buzz with thrill, though. He swallows it back down, along with a more mature irritation. “Is there something you want to talk about, Kacchan?”

His eyes dart up to Izuku, then back to his screen. “With you? No.”

He grinds his teeth. It’s the way he phrases it—with you—that sets him on edge more than the refusal. Who else, then? he wonders bitterly. Who else could you possibly talk to, if not me? What’s their name? Who do I need to fight for the right to be yours?

Hold it back. Calm down. 

He takes a long, shaky breath, and scoops up the rest of the reports on the corner of Kacchan’s desk. “Fine. Be a jerk.”

Even now, he’s amazed by his own capabilities. His junior high dream, a reality in the flesh. A year into his Pro Hero career and as quirkless as he was before All Might ever traded him his quirk, he is a respectable fixture in their agency. He goes on patrols, even. 

You’re tenacious, Best Jeanist had said during his initial offer. You’re inventive. You know what you’re doing. And it doesn’t hurt that you can keep Bakugou-kun in line. 

He doesn’t feel like a success case with that last one, lately. Kacchan has been a real pain, causing unnecessary collateral, chewing him out publicly, taking hits he didn’t need to take. It’s aggravating. Confusing. Makes the wheel of his brain turn faster than he can pump the breaks to off-set. 

Something is wrong. 

He takes out his feelings on the agency gym’s punching bag, which has remained a steadfast companion since he joined. “Kacchan’s being weird,” he mumbles to it, grunting when he lands a right hook. “He’s being— Weird. I can tell he’s upset, but why’s he taking it out like this? ‘S not Kacchan-like. Or, I mean. It’s regression, I guess I mean? He’s acting like…”

Well. Like before.

Is that a bad thing? Does it really matter? Not really. Not to Izuku, anyways. He doesn’t care if Kacchan is nice or mean. What he does care about is the state of Kacchan. This all suggests something being very, very wrong. Kacchan prides himself on flawless victories and he has been aggravatingly sloppy, lately. It isn’t like him. The coffee and the laziness and the sneering all bely something wrong. 

And if something is wrong with Kacchan, something is very wrong with Izuku.

When he was a child, this was all simple. Izuku liked being around his favorite things. Kacchan was one of those, so he liked being around Kacchan. As far as favorites went, he was certainly at the top, too, with good reason. Kacchan was real and brash and so, so cool. 

When they were young enough, they’d play heroes and other games of pretend together. His favorite game—besides heroes, of course—was something he liked to call “Hero Family.” It was pretty similar to playing cooking and other games of house that other children did. 

It wasn’t normal house, though; they pretended they ran an orphanage of would-be hero children. One of them was the mommy and the other was the daddy, because every child needed a mommy and a daddy, even orphan superhero children. Their action figures usually played that role, hero hopefuls with cool powers like telekinesis and fire breath and can’t you come up with other quirks besides your parents, dummy?

Eventually, Kacchan devised himself as the president of the orphanage. Left without a role, he determined that Izuku could be his dog. Dogs had to listen to their owners, so that meant that Izuku was tasked with running errands to keep the orphanage running while Kacchan trained the kids. Izuku gladly slid into lockstep beneath him. Doing things for Kacchan always made him strangely giddy, his stomach fluttering. 

He’d toddle over to Kacchan on all fours with various sticks or rocks in his mouth, depositing them at his feet like tributes before a king. What next? he’d ask, veins humming. What else do we need, Kacchan? What do you want?

Kacchan would look him over with an imperious air, then say, More sticks, dummy or Not enough rocks or We need grass! You can’t have a house without grass, dummy. Our babies are gonna freeze, idiot.

Their babies. Their babies. Izuku would bound off with skinned knees, elated. Kacchan was his king and his president and his owner and his wife and everything was so simple, then. Everything made sense whenever they were together. He liked Kacchan and he liked playing with Kacchan and he liked giving Kacchan exactly what he asked for. It was fun. He was happy. He’d return with more of whatever it was Kacchan wanted cradled carefully in the hollow of his jaws, fingers curling into the dirt.

This was before Kacchan got more friends—better friends. This was when there was just the two of them. Izuku, groveling at Kacchan’s feet, exactly where he belonged.

“Hey, Green.”

He looks up from his desk. “Jirou-san! Um, hi. What’s up?”

She folds her arms over her chest, canting one hip to the side. “I’ll cut to the chase: Do you know what’s up with Bakugou-kun?”

His smile slips off.

“I can’t tell. Is that look a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?”

“He brought coffee to work on Wednesday.”

Jirou gives him a weird look. “Okay…?”

“W-well, he only does that when something is wrong.” He gnaws on his lower lip, fingers tapping at the table. 

Her eyes track the motion before flitting up to his face. “Huh.”

“What? Um, is something else wrong or…?”

“No. Just always impressed by Detective Midoriya.”

He flushes. “W-well, I know Kacchan really well, is all.” Best. He knows Kacchan best.

Jirou nods. “Which is why I asked you. If you don’t know what’s going on, probably nobody does. Maybe not even him.”

“I think he does,” Izuku says, unable to restrain himself. 

She hums, reaching up to fiddle with her earjack. “Yeah. I dunno. Didn’t mean to, but I overheard him talking to Kirishima-kun the other day. Sounded serious.”

He stiffens. 

What the fuck, the monster lurking in his gut seethes. Why the fuck was he talking to him?

He swallows. Takes a deep, steadying breath. Prays for the beast to smother to death. 

Boundaries, he reminds himself. Kacchan can talk to whoever he wants. Kacchan doesn’t need to talk to Izuku about all his problems. He’s allowed to talk to his friends, like Kiri—

“Green?” Jirou asks. “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah.” His voice creaks. He swallows. “Um. I… I’ll talk to him, Jirou-san.”

She frowns. “Okay. I can ask him, too—”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I-I mean! Um. L-let me try first, please? I don’t want Kacchan to be, um, overwhelmed. You know how he gets.” Izuku knows best. 

Her frown deepens, but she says, “Yeah. Good point. If you need back-up, though, just let any of us know.”

“Ah! Thank you, Jirou-san, but I’m sure I’ve got it covered.” The smile he pulls together is sincere enough. 

Kacchan started to get more friends. Izuku never did. This didn’t bother him; he didn’t feel any real desire for more friends. He supposes he should say it didn’t bother him at first. Because Kacchan getting more friends, that was a problem. That was a serious problem.

What started as something simple rapidly became something not so simple at all.

He didn’t like Kacchan’s friends. He was too young to be able to intellectualize an excuse; he knew precisely why he didn’t like them. They took up Kacchan’s time. They took up Kacchan’s attention, his focus, his energy. All things he should have been spending on Izuku. None of these other kids played with Kacchan the proper way; none of them understood what Kacchan needed like Izuku did. Kacchan needed a sidekick who knew all of his cool finisher moves by heart and had the proper versatility to also play a civilian or knocked out villain. Kacchan needed sticks and grass and rocks for their babies, so he could feed them before winter came. Nobody else could do that! Not like Izuku did, not with the appropriate reverence. 

Kacchan was the coolest. Everybody knew it—or should have known it—but Izuku knew it best.

It hit him particularly hard when he had a playdate with Kacchan, their mothers sitting in Kacchan’s family’s kitchen while they rolled around in the dirt. He realized how much rarer these occurrences were becoming, how Kacchan seemed to be spending so much more time with his other friends. Especially now that Izuku’s diagnosis was confirmed with each passing day, anxiety ate away at his stomach until he was left clutching at the increasingly sparser tattered remains of his self-esteem, Kacchan slipping through his fingers despite his best efforts. 

There were only so many sticks and rocks and crying civilians he could provide, it seemed. 

The solution struck him while Kacchan yanked grass out of the ground and sprinkled on him in a mock burial for his dead mate. (“No, it’s sadder for our babies if you’re dead. Play dead, dummy, I gotta mourn you now.”) It was unfortunately obvious.

He’d need to kill them all.

This frightened him because he knew that killing people would send him to jail. Also, it was not very heroic except for when it was. This would be in the latter camp, since removing Kacchan from such lesser friends was, objectively, a noble endeavor. 

Still, Izuku didn’t want to go to jail. That would take him away from Kacchan and make his mom really sad. He’d probably get grounded. His dad would definitely give him a disappointed phone call. He was willing to deal with all of that, though, for Kacchan. That and more. 

“Okay, I’m bored,” Kacchan announced, clapping his hands. “Stop being dead, Deku.”

He sat up, grass tumbling into his lap. “How are our babies?”

Kacchan rolled his eyes. “They’re fine.”

“Ah. Kacchan’s a good mom.”

“Uh huh. Are we done playing this, now? I’m sick of this stupid game you always wanna play.”

Kacchan, slipping right through his fingers. “W-we can play heroes again! Or whatever Kacchan wants!”

But Kacchan just shrugged, kicking at the dirt. “Nah,” he said, after a moment. There was that undercurrent that kept cropping up more, these days—a tense, sort of resentful sound. Kacchan wasn’t finding him sufficient anymore. Not a good friend. Not a good playmate. Not a good anything. “‘Sides, I’m hanging out with Tsubasa-kun soon. I gotta go get ready.”

Izuku’s body locked up. 

“What’s that dumb look for?”

“I—” He swallowed. “Y-you don’t wanna play Hero Family a little more? I can get you stuff, Kacchan. Like more nest stuff—”

“Why do you always wanna play fetch?” Kacchan interrupted. “It’s so weird.”

He blinked. “I like getting you things, Kacchan.”

“But why?”

“I wanna help you,” he said. It always came back to this incredibly simple thing. The weird thing in his body shivered at the thought. Maybe it wasn’t so simple after all.

Kacchan scowled, face darkening. “I don’t need your help, Deku.”

He sniffled. “I know.” His eyes stung. Kacchan had never needed his help, but now he didn’t even want it. He had better friends. Jerks like Tsubasa who didn’t appreciate Kacchan like he did, but that didn’t matter because they got their quirks already and for whatever reason Kacchan didn’t get mad whenever they failed to laugh the right amount at his jokes or they failed to remember incredibly basic Kacchan Facts.

Kacchan stopped in front of him, cocking his head. “Why’re you crying?”

Crying? Was he crying? He reached up to feel his cheeks. They were wet. His eyes stung. He imagined Tsubasa’s mangled body at the bottom of the playground slide and his tummy fluttered with glee. 

“Deku.”

“I don’t like it when you hang out with them,” he admitted, wiping his face. “I wanna hang out with Kacchan.”

“Dummy,” Kacchan scoffed, batting his hand away to take its place. “Just ‘cause I hang out with them doesn’t mean I won’t hang out with you. You tag along all the time.”

“B-but I wanna be the only one.”

Kacchan gave a confused look. “If I was just with you all the time, I’d get bored.”

Izuku flinched. Not true, something in him hissed. I don’t care, something worse growled. I don’t care if you get bored of me; I don’t care what you want.

Kacchan took his hand off Izuku’s face, stepping back. 

He felt a gaping, voracious hunger in its absence. 

“Nerd,” Kacchan says, leaning against the door. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Right. Right! It’s Friday.

Izuku ducks his head, trying to force the grin off his face. It take a few seconds. Friday. He gets dinner with Kacchan every Friday, and it’s just the two of them together. 

(Just them! Just them!)

He pops to his feet, limbs trembling with excitement. “Ready!”

Even if Kacchan has been unwell, at least they still have this. Maybe he’ll talk about things more openly when they’re at Izuku’s apartment. It’s his place, this week. They swap. He cleaned it until his knuckles were raw, two nights ago. Set out those scent nullifiers with the smell that Kacchan prefers. Jasmine. Kacchan’s never once commented on it, but Izuku can tell. 

Besides, the jasmine is nice. Kacchan likes it, so Izuku likes it. Whenever he first sets up the air freshener, he gets a needy, embarrassingly tender feeling for Kacchan. Then he fucks his mattress like a wild animal for an hour. Then he cleans everything to Kacchan’s standards, no less. 

He vibrates beside Kacchan as they walk through the agency. Just the two of them, leaving to spend time together. Plenty of people see them on their way out. That’s right, he purrs internally. Kacchan and me. Yep. Don’t forget it.

“Night, guys!” Kirishima says, waving near reception. 

Izuku straightens his spine, giving a beaming smile. “Bye! Kacchan and I are going home together!”

Kirishima nods, smiling. His eyes dart to Kacchan.

Izuku steps a little quicker, body blocking whatever he can. His smile is a knife. 

“The hell is your problem?” Kacchan grumbles, once they step into the autumn air. 

“Huh?”

“Fucking posturing in there. You were flexing, dumbass. Why?”

“O-oh! Um.” He laughs awkwardly. Shit. “I dunno, was just, ah. I’ve got some excess energy, I think, is all.”

Kacchan grunts, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Whatever. That energy would’ve been better used cleaning your dogshit apartment.”

“It’s clean, Kacchan! I always clean before Kacchan comes over.” Kacchan has to know the significant effort Izuku puts into fulfilling his standards of cleanliness. He saw how his apartment was when Izuku wasn’t expecting him, one time when he’d done a wellness check, finding Izuku passed out in his tub with a back injury. This is a den of depravity, Kacchan had said upon waking him, grim-faced. Your bedroom wall’s so full of shitty photos, it looks like a conspiracy theory jackass lives here. And why the hell do you got a huge bottle of lotion just sitting on the kitchen counter? Actually— Don’t fucking answer that.

Kacchan rolls his eyes. He’ll see, though. He always does. Every other week, he does. Because they eat together every Friday, swapping locations. Kacchan at his and him at Kacchan’s, every single week. Together. 

It’s a compromise. Something that makes the whole situation almost bearable. More importantly, something that helps him keep the beast in line. He’ll have Kacchan in his Jasmine-scented apartment, soaking in Kacchan’s presence, his smell, his warmth whenever their fingers brush. He’ll get to listen to Kacchan bitch about public transit and the weather and his upstairs neighbor, just the two of them secure within the walls of his home, Kacchan’s eyes on him. Only him. 

He gets Kacchan all to himself for the night. That’s enough. It is enough. 

It has to be. 

As he got older and Kacchan pushed him away, everything grew a new set of teeth. Bigger hungers, complicated by social expectations and instincts and, eventually, hormones. Stupid, quirkless Deku, still desperate to be a hanger-on for the ever-aloof Bakugou Katsuki. It would be a lie to say that resentment did not settle in his chest, a heavy stone. 

It wasn’t the worst weight, though. The jealousy he felt toward Kacchan’s other friends metastasized, flooding every other emotion with a seething, wretched bile that rose whenever he saw Kacchan interact with anyone at all. A sickening pitch that dragged him down into a hateful muck that he couldn’t seem to pull himself free from. Get away from him! something in him barked, whether it was someone clapping Kacchan on the back or someone passing him papers in class. It didn’t matter; the emotion was omnipresent. It only fluctuated in intensity. 

By junior high, he was starting to worry something was wrong with him. That the way he felt for Kacchan exceeded the bounds of appropriate pining. It was just that— Well. He didn’t have any of the symptoms of a normal crush, not that he could see. Not even a longterm crush. Because he didn’t want to kiss Kacchan; he wanted to kill everyone around him. 

He…really wanted to kill their class. This was a shameful and disgusting desire, one that he wrote about extensively in one of his notebooks in evasive language, relying on euphemism to avoid self-incrimination. Aoki shook Kacchan’s shoulder today. I wish I could have stopped that. I wish I never had to see Aoki’s stupid fucking face ever again. I wish he’d——go somewhere far away, where he couldn’t be around Kacchan. I wish they’d all just———go away. Then Kacchan and me would be friends again. Kacchan would take me out to ice cream. Kacchan would bring his mouth close to mine and let me crawl inside. 

Close wasn’t close enough. It never would be. 

This feeling terrified him. What terrified him worse, though, was how desperately he clung to it.

“Is there something you want to talk about, Kacchan?”

He grunts, shoving another bite of fried horse mackerel into his mouth. 

Izuku wears a thin smile, fiddling with his chopsticks. 

Kacchan chews. “No.” Then he says, “Not with you.”

“Ah.” He swallows down the writhing beast attempting to crawl up his throat. No, he thinks sharply. No. No, you sick little freak. Shut up.

“How’s your arm?” Kacchan asks.

The question takes him by surprise. “Oh, um. Fine. Why?”

“Seemed kinda sloppy using your left side, last few days.”

His smile strains harder, threatening to snap. “How’s your arm, Kacchan?”

“Fine,” he replies. “Better than yours, clearly.”

Eurgh. Why is Kacchan being like this? It’s maddening. Not because he’s being mean, but because Izuku doesn’t understand why. Izuku is supposed to understand everything about Kacchan. He knows him best.

“You ever gonna change your creepy-ass décor?” 

Izuku blinks. “Huh?”

Kacchan swings his chopsticks around in a lazy circle. “You got four pictures of me in the genkan alone, Izuku.”

He cocks his head. “Yeah…?”

“’S weird.” He chews a mouthful of rice.

A coldness trickles in his stomach, muscles tightening. “Kacchan, you’ve seen my apartment plenty of times.”

“Was weird then, too.”

He sinks in his chair slightly, fingers curling into his pants. “I-I need pictures,” he says, the words too honest, too open. He’s flustered, though. Kacchan has never once commented on the photos in his apartment. “I— The photos are of people important to me. So I can look at them and not miss them so bad when they’re gone.” So he can calm the evil thing in his chest just a little. 

Kacchan gives him an appraising look, something sharp underneath. Frustratingly, Izuku can’t pick it apart. “Four of me in the genkan alone,” he repeats. 

“Kacchan’s very important,” he says softly. 

His expression morphs into something a little more contemplative. 

“Kacchan?” he asks, the name wobbling in his mouth. 

Kacchan takes a large bite from his horse mackerel. “At least stick some pictures of your mom there, too. Damn.”

Izuku cocks his head. “My mom?”

“Yes, your mom, idiot. She’s important too, ain’t she?”

“Oh. Um. Yeah. Ah… Good point, Kacchan.”

“Nobody else ever comments on those pictures all over your apartment? Really?”

Nobody really visits Izuku’s apartment. To be fair, most assume it’s a den of All Might depravity, which it is. There’s just also a lot of pictures of Kacchan. Genkan, living space, kitchenette, bathroom, an entire wall of his bedroom. That last one is his masterpiece. Some nights, when his joints ache so badly that all he can do is stare at his wall, that’s what he stares at. He gets to look at the collage while he snuggles against his pillow in bed, rubbing his cheek against an old t-shirt of Kacchan’s. It doesn’t smell like him anymore, but the memory of him leaving it behind at Izuku’s is still sweet on the back of his tongue. 

“I don’t really have people over,” he says, going for honesty. A lie probably wouldn’t be believable anyways. 

“Probably for the best,” Kacchan says. “People’d think you’re obsessed with me, if they did.”

“Ah.” He lets out a dry, awkward laugh. “Yeah, ha…”

Whenever Kacchan grabbed him around the collar of his uniform, he felt a sick thrill shoot up his spine. Acknowledgement. Kacchan’s eyes on him, where they belonged. Kacchan’s attention. Kacchan.

His heart would sing, a baby bird chirping for its mother to deposit her vomit down its gullet. Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan! That sneering, uncomfortable face would twist sometimes, eyes widening with something close to fear. Not quite fear. Never fear. Not on Kacchan’s face, not ever. But still, it was something close.

Why the fuck are you smiling, you sick freak? Kacchan would bark at him, sometimes. 

He would inevitably reach for his own face, tracing the carved split of his lips. He never noticed it happening. But how could he not have smiled? Kacchan was looking at him. Kacchan was touching him. 

Kacchan would inevitably smack him, shoving him into the dirt or the floor and stomp off. 

Izuku would lie there, curling onto his side. He’d cradle his hot cheek and moan softly.

Kacchan stays for a couple episodes of Heroes United! Fighting Force, the same children’s cartoon they always watch whenever they eat at Izuku’s. They’ve both probably watched the whole thing through at least eight times together. (Izuku used to watch it on repeat every weekend until high school, still turns it on in the background to this day.) The ritual is more important than the content, at this point. Even Kacchan implicitly understands that. He complains when Izuku doesn’t do the dishes immediately after they eat—typical Kacchan gripe—but it never goes beyond that. 

The couch dips as Kacchan shifts, propping one leg over the other and stretching his arm behind the Izuku’s trembling spine. Close, he thinks, elated. If he sat back, Kacchan’s wrist would curl against his nape. 

He does not sit back. 

“We already watched this one,” Kacchan comments. 

Izuku blinks. 

“We should watch something else.”

He stiffens, fingers curling over his knees. “Huh?”

Kacchan gestures at the screen. 

“We always watch this, Kacchan,” he says, unable to quell the tremor of his voice. 

“Well, I wanna watch something else.”

Izuku’s insides chill. Between this and the silence and the unsolicited comments on his pictures, he isn’t sure how to proceed. This is not their agreed upon Friday night. This is not the ritual that quells the beast. “O-okay? Um.”

Kacchan leans past him, grabbing the remote. He pauses for a moment as he lifts it, holding Izuku’s gaze. Almost like he’s waiting for a refusal.

He should know better, though. Izuku never refuses Kacchan.

Hi, Bakugou-kun. Please meet me on the roof, after school, so that I can tell you how I feel.

Izuku’s fingers curled into the paper, tearing it. His knees ached against the classroom floor, hunched over the trash. Kacchan had tossed the confession letter at the end of the day, heading out to juku. This thought comforted Izuku, though not enough. A vile pitch in his throat still surged forth, battering against the dam of his upper palate. 

He shot to his feet, checking the clock. She’d still be there. The letter writer. He could picture her, standing up there on the roof, shivering against the wind with skinny legs, waiting. 

He opened his backpack, fingers searching for something sharp.

Once the door closes behind Kacchan, Izuku waits for four minutes to make sure he doesn’t come back. Dinner had been a wonderful success, as it usually is. And he’d been on good behavior! Despite Kacchan’s troubling actions, as of late, and his unwillingness to discuss it even in the privacy of Izuku’s apartment, he did not pry. Kacchan has a right to privacy, after all. Kacchan is his own person. Et cetera, et cetera. 

The comments on his apartment décor had been lackluster, but he explained himself decently, he thinks. And Kacchan hadn’t brought up all the people snipped out of the photos of him, so it could have been much worse. 

The television time had been less than stellar, but he adapted. Izuku can adapt. Change is fine. If Kacchan doesn’t want to watch Heroes United! Fighting Force with him anymore, that is fine. 

Fine. 

Everything is fine. 

It wasn’t all bad. And clearly Kacchan is dealing with something big. So big that he has to throw a bit of a fit for a little while. If Izuku can serve as his punching bag, he’ll gladly do so, though he admits it’s not his favorite position. Hopefully Kacchan got some of his feelings out tonight with making a mess of Izuku’s Friday. 

At least the rest of his nightly ritual doesn’t need to change. 

Izuku stares at the door, waiting. Nothing. 

He takes Kacchan’s bowl out of the sink and brings it to his eager tongue. 

“Yeah, he’s kind of a huge jerk.”

“That Bakugou kid? Tell me about it.”

Izuku’s feet skittered to a stop, clutching his notebook to his chest. He stared ahead with wide eyes, listening. 

“Like, I get that he has a powerful quirk, but he really has it in his head that he’s better than everybody, doesn’t he?”

Yes, Izuku thought, unblinking. He is.

“Huh? Is somebody there?”

Shit. He lifted a hand to his mouth, grimacing. 

“Were you listening in on us?”

He rounded the corner to the classroom, finding two underclassmen sitting at a desk. “Um, no,” he said awkwardly, cringing internally. “I-I mean. Yes. I was. But, um. Just because you were talking about Kacchan.”

They stared at him blankly. “Kacchan…?” the girl asked.

“Yeah. Ah, Kacchan.” He shifted, legs jelly. “He’s my… I’m his… We’re childhood friends? You were just talking about him.”

“Bakugou Katsuki?” the boy asked, baffled.

“Yes.”

“Kacchan,” the girl whispered, lips quirking. Then she said, louder, “How old are you? Calling him something that juvenile is pretty odd.”

“I’m fourteen,” he supplied. “I’ve always called him Kacchan.”

A smile spread across the boy’s face. “Ohhh, I know who you are. You’re ‘Deku,’ aren’t you?”

“My name’s Midoriya Izuku,” he said, blinking. “Kacchan calls me Deku, though.”

“And everybody in the school,” the boy said. “They say you’re really weird. And you’re quirkless.”

Izuku shrugged. “Don’t say bad things about Kacchan, please. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why do you care?” the girl countered. 

“Because I care about Kacchan.” Understatement of the millennium. 

The boy’s eyes lit up. “Oh. You’re his fanboy, then?”

Izuku nodded. He was this, certainly. He was many things when it came to Kacchan. 

“Then I pity you for being obsessed with such a self-absorbed, overrated asshole.”

The words took his brain a second to process. They took his body no time at all.

“You take that back!” he shrieked, lunging at the boy. “Kacchan is the coolest! Kacchan is the best!”

His mother had cried, when he’d come home with a detention order. “Izuku, this is so unlike you,” she’d said, pressing ice to his face. “So unlike you!”

He hadn’t had the heart to correct her. Something in him was rotten and had always been that way. It clung to Kacchan, so that was how it manifested.  

“Why, Izuku?” she’d asked.

He knew why. But he could only stare back, just as lost.

A week goes by quickly, but not quickly enough. Kacchan has been a terror, all around. Izuku steels his nerves, though; he perseveres. In the face of all other Kacchan meltdowns, this is barely a blip.

It’s just that he won’t talk about it.

It’s the wound that never heals. The hungry, gaping mouth in his body that will never fill. Kacchan is holding back. Kacchan is always holding back. 

Can’t you see that all I want is every single thing you have to offer? 

So that’s frustrating, sure. It’s fine, though, because maybe Kacchan just needs space. If Kacchan needs space, Izuku can be the one who gives it to him. That’s not a problem. It’s totally understandable; they can’t be around each other all the time, after all. He doesn’t want to smother Kacchan if that’s not what Kacchan wants. Boundaries. Kacchan has boundaries. 

Izuku doesn’t have any boundaries, but that’s okay because Kacchan has boundaries. And those boundaries need to be respected. Absolutely. Especially when every shitty Kacchanism that happens this week seems to beg Izuku to start a fight. He isn’t going to fall for that bait, thank you very much. They are adult men and adult men don’t solve their problems with roundhouse kicks to the face. Not unless one of them asks first, at least. 

But he had asked Kacchan and he’d just said, “I don’t want to fight your ass, shitty nerd. Lay off.”

Which is just—! Kacchan always agrees to spar. It’s just another alarm sounding in Izuku’s head. Kacchan is not okay right now, but he won’t talk about it and he won’t fight about it; instead he’s just sloppy on the field and snarky in the office and it’s all just so…

If Kacchan needs help, he needs to ask. Izuku can’t just assume. If he assumes, he’ll just assume Kacchan wants what he wants. Historically, this has not gone well for him. He’s better than that, now. He respects Kacchan’s boundaries.

At least he has Friday to look forward to. Friday, his lighthouse in the dark. He’ll endure any and every Kacchan temptation with a strong heart so long as he gets his Friday night with Kacchan. The two of them, how it should be. 

It’s just scary because it feels like Kacchan is pushing him away, lately. He’s being intentionally mean and he’s staring out the window a lot and he’s doing that thing he does where he chews on the inside of his cheek, which means he’s thinking about something unpleasant but can’t stop. And all of that is fine because Kacchan is allowed to not talk to him, Kacchan is allowed put some distance between them, Kacchan is allowed…

He spends an extra hour with the punching bag, after work. 

“He’s amazing,” he’d said, a bit breathless. He always got winded when it came to his interests, Kacchan most of all. “He’s just the coolest. He’s Kacchan!”

Uraraka’s frown did not move. “It seems like he’s really mean to you, Deku-kun.”

“W-well. He’s a bit of a jerk,” he admitted, sheepish. “And he has a problem with me, yeah. I don’t know why! My feelings for Kacchan have never changed.”

“He speaks very disrespectfully to you,” Iida pointed out. Then he paused. “I suppose he speaks disrespectfully to everyone. But I feel he’s especially crude to you.”

Yes, but when he is, he’s focusing on me. Just on me. 

“It doesn’t really bother me,” he told them. “Kacchan is…yeah. But he’s great. I’m always happy to be around him.”

“Okay,” Uraraka said, “but Iida-kun made a good point. Even if you’re okay with it, I don’t think that makes it okay. I think Kacchan’s a bully.”

He shook his head. They weren’t understanding. “I’m not just okay with it. I like it.”

“You like being bullied,” Iida said blankly.

“I like Kacchan paying attention to me.”

They just looked at him. 

“When Kacchan’s paying attention to me…” He stopped. This was something very honest, which meant he probably wasn’t supposed to share it. But then again, these were his friends. He had friends, now. He was supposed to be able to talk to friends about personal stuff. “I-it’s like a god noticing a mortal, you know? Like the sun shining light on the earth.”

Uraraka’s brow furrowed. 

“When Kacchan looks at me,” he said, “I exist.”

“Please run that by me again,” Best Jeanist says, sounding completely unimpressed. At least someone in this room is calm, Izuku thinks with unfocused eyes. 

“I need more support,” Kacchan repeats. “I’m always with Deku and he’s quirkless.”

Izuku shifts in his chair, swallowing. Is that the problem? Kacchan hadn’t said anything about this. It feels like that would have come up earlier, that it flies in the face of all the encouragement Kacchan had given him in continuing in the hero program after he’d given up All Might’s quirk. Kacchan has always been the first person to rise to his defense, to froth at the mouth at the barest insinuation that there was something wrong with being—

“Quirkless,” Kacchan repeats.

Best Jeanist gives Kacchan a blank look that, the longer it sticks, gains a sharp edge. “Is that all?” 

Kacchan is silent. Izuku doesn’t know what any of this is. 

Best Jeanist shakes his head. “No. You were at fault for three of the last five collateral incidents for your team. I’m not removing Midoriya-kun and I’m not adding to your department. You have the best analyst in the country on your side. If your issue with Midoriya-kun is more interpersonal in nature, you’ll need to take that up outside of work. Communicate like proper adults.”

Izuku blinks. 

Kacchan shoots up from his seat, fists balled at his sides. “Hah?”

Best Jeanist is unmoved. “Crime won’t wait for you to resolve this. Go do your jobs.”

The stalking was and always had been shameful. No question. It felt like the lesser of several evils, though, so he learned to allow it. For a time. He kicked that to the curb eventually, too. The photos helped with that. The photos helped a lot. Locking his door and curling into a ball on his bed, screaming into his pillow, helped more. 

But for a time, he had the stalking. He didn’t call it that, though; he called it observation. A better term would have been compulsion. Keeping tabs on Kacchan felt as necessary as breathing.

He comforted himself by claiming it was just how his brain worked—that whenever he needed to understand something, he did best by observing and taking notes. And he needed to make sure Kacchan was still out there in the world, doing his Kacchan things. It comforted him. 

Plus, it wasn’t just watching him like some creep! He wanted to understand Kacchan. If Kacchan was reading a certain manga, Izuku made sure to read it, too. If Kacchan went to see a movie, Izuku saw it too, sitting six rows behind. If Kacchan listened to a song, Izuku listened to the whole album at least three times through. 

There was no question; Izuku was the absolute authority on everything Kacchan. He was more than just a Kacchan otaku; he was a Kacchan scholar. This was an objective fact that made him giddy whenever he thought of it, barely able to contain his happy, twitching limbs.

He had the occasional close call, of course. And as he grew more aware of his sickness, those close calls felt more terrifying, more incriminating. It all came to a head their first year at Yuuei. Just a month in, he’d been at his usual perch outside the Bakugou house at night, watching Kacchan lie in bed, watching fight reels on his phone. He’d just taken a break to write his observations into his Kacchan notebook, considering the slight furrow in Kacchan’s brow and the vasculature in his arms. When he looked back up, he saw something that made his blood slow to a halt. 

Kacchan, staring straight at him. 

Izuku had scrambled down the tree, face hot, heart beating so fast that he thought he’d vomit as he ran down the street and back to his mother’s apartment. He dove into his own bed, rocking back and forth and groaning with despair.

Disgusting, he thought to himself, miserable. You’re so— So disgusting. The worst. The worst—

He stopped watching Kacchan, after. That’s what he wishes he could say about that night, but no. He didn’t stop. He didn’t stop for a long while.

“Kacchan!” he barks, shoving rubble off of his leg. Great. Looks like they’ll be closing out this week with four instances of Kacchan collateral, now. “Be more careful!”

“Why don’t you be more careful!” Kacchan shoots back. “Fucking slow-ass nerd dragging me down!”

The words hurt. He’s frustrated with himself that they hurt. “Stop arguing; our target’s still in the vicinity—”

“Stop lecturing me, then! Like you’re any fucking better than me!”

I thought we were past this bullshit, he thinks distantly. The hurt flares hotter, pressing against the inside of his skin. 

“I’m not,” he says, strained. “You know that’s not how I feel!”

Kacchan’s boots crunch over the debris, standing over him. “Oh yeah? Then how do you feel?”

Izuku pushes himself to his feet, testing his limbs. “You know how I feel.”

Kacchan scoffs. “Do I?”

“You know,” he repeats a third time. 

Kacchan rolls his eyes.

“Ratchet’s blades can travel up to four-hundred meters, Kacchan. He’s at large and we’re right next to a busy city center. We need to—”

“We’d catch ‘em faster if you stopped fucking yapping at me!” Kacchan shouts. 

Izuku frowns, watching him stomp his foot. He is always watching Kacchan. He is also watching the figure slipping out from behind the blasted out wall. “Kacchan!”

“Fucking what? Don’t give me another damn lecture—”

Sharp metal raises over Kacchan’s head. 

Kacchan is—

His body moves first. It always does. 

He slams the villain into the dirt, chest heaving. Wraps his fingers around his throat, fingers spasming. Tighter. Tighter.

“—eku? Deku!”

Kacchan’s arms drag him back. His legs kick out, flinging debris into the air. It stings his eyes. 

“Izuku!”

He pants, blinking. 

“I’m fine, dumbass,” Kacchan murmurs, lightly bumping his head with his fist. “Shit. Don’t get a demerit for this.”

“Kacchan?” he asks, throat dry. 

“In the flesh. Calm down, Izuku, shit.”

“What about…?”

“He’s down for the count,” Kacchan says. “You got that one covered. Let me handle the rest.”

“Give him back! Givehimbackgivehimback! Give him back !”

Best Jeanist rubs his face, sitting heavily at his desk. 

“If you wanna give him a demerit, give it to me instead.”

“That isn’t how it works.”

“I don’t fuckin’ care.”

“Give it to me,” Izuku says quickly. “It’s my fault.”

“I literally had you two in my office, earlier today,” Best Jeanist says, closing his eyes. “Clearly, I misunderstood the severity of this situation. That’s on me. But most of the weight of this issue rests on you two.”

Izuku frowns. 

“Midoriya-kun.” He points to him. “You’re on desk duty all of next week.” He turns his eyes to Kacchan. “And you are, too.”

“What?” Kacchan sits up. 

“Figure your shit out. Now.”

“The hell do you think I’ve been doing?” Kacchan asks. “I’ve been trying.”

“Well it clearly isn’t working,” Best Jeanist replies, unimpressed. 

“Trying?” Izuku echoes. “Trying to do what?”

Kacchan whips his head around, eyes boring into him. “Are you fucking serious, right now?”

“Huh? Yes!”

“You really don’t know what all this is about?”

“I would if you just talked to me!” escapes him, the beast’s breath heaving in his throat. 

Kacchan’s eyes narrow. 

“You’ve been weird,” Izuku says, a tremor to his voice. “You drank black coffee last week, which you only ever do when you’re really sad or haven’t been sleeping or both, and you haven’t been doing your share of the paperwork and you’ve been producing more collateral so it’s really noticeable and you’ve been doing that thing where you chew your own mouth—you’re doing it right now—and you’ve been meaner than usual and even Jirou-san noticed that something’s wrong and when I asked you about it last week, you just brushed me off and tried to antagonize me a whole bunch, like asking about my picture collection and making me turn off Heroes United. And you won’t talk to me, so what am I supposed to do, Kacchan?”

The office is silent. 

Kacchan just stares at him. He can feel Best Jeanist’s eyes, too. His lower lip tucks under his teeth, his nerves starting to prickle. 

“Alright,” Best Jeanist says. “That decides it.”

“Decides what?” Kacchan asks, not taking his eyes off of Izuku. Something in him preens internally at that, despicably pleased as ever. 

“Paperwork, rest of today. You have the weekends off. When you come in on Monday for your desk shift, Bakugou-kun, I want you in my office first thing.”

“Me?” Kacchan scowls. “Why just me?”

“You know why.”

“Fine,” Kacchan says, eyes still on Izuku, still paying attention to him. Just him. “I’ll fix this shit tonight.”

“I’d say don’t do anything stupid,” Best Jeanist says, “but something tells me it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”

Kacchan doesn’t reply. He stands from his chair, kicking it against the desk, and leaves the room without another word. 

Izuku swallows thickly, heart squeezing in his ribs.

Kacchan heaved above him, pressing him into the dirt. Ground Beta pulsed with their combined breaths, pressing into Izuku’s ringing ears. Kacchan, so close. Closer than anything. Never close enough. 

There’s something I can’t tell you, he thought, miserable. Anyone would think it’s unpleasant, you most of all. This thing inside of me. 

Kacchan’s tears dripped onto his cheeks. 

“Oi. I’m heading out now.”

He looks up from his paperwork. “Huh?”

“I’m leaving. Bye.”

“Oh! Just a second, let me—”

“No. I’m going out. Without you.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, alarmed. “We always have dinner together on Fridays, Kacchan.”

“Going out with Shitty Hair.” Kacchan slides on his jacket. “We’ll meet up next week.”

Izuku stares, stricken. “B-but we have dinner every Friday,” leaves him stupidly. 

“Not this Friday. I’m going out. With Shitty Hair.”

Dinner, though. That’s his Kacchan time. His special Friday Kacchan time. Just the two of them, in each other’s apartments, cooking together, eating together, just them. Together.

He trembles.

“There’s a cool bar Shitty Hair wants to go to,” Kacchan continues, making a show of checking his hair in the mirror by their office door.

“You’re going to a bar with Kirishima-kun,” he says faintly.

“Yup. With Shitty Hair. He invited me.”

“O-oh.”

Kacchan side-eyes him, holding his gaze for a long moment. Izuku’s stomach feels like a tar pit. “So I’m not going to have dinner with you,” Kacchan says, “because I’m going out with Shitty Hair, instead.”

Izuku’s fingers curl over his knees, joints creaking. 

“I’m going out with him instead of you. Do you understand?”

“I…” He swallows, heart throbbing in his head. “Yes.”

“Good.”

The door slams shut, leaving Izuku alone. 

It was all sensation. The strain of his body, muscles and ligaments groaning with each blow. The whipping of wind. The overwhelming heat of fire. Shigaraki’s skin splitting, erupting in a thousand knives. Little brother. Reaching, sharp, too fast for him to move. The brief, terrible thought that even after all of this, he was still the sort of useless person who couldn’t save anyone. 

Kacchan.

Kacchan, propelling himself in front of him. The sharp stench of his blood. Stop trying to win this on your own. The stab of terror into the soft meat of his brain. Kacchan. Kacchan, falling. Kacchan… 

My… That last bit of bloodshed was the most pointless of all.  

The vile pitch writhing in Izuku’s body, squirming until it reached past skin. The stretching of his mouth, teeth sharp.

He breaks, that night. He manages to stay in his apartment, pacing it like a caged animal, for about an hour before he pulls up social media to investigate Kirishima’s account. There is a photo with Kacchan featured very prominently. He’s looking at the camera. He even looks happy. Smug? More smug, Izuku thinks, furrowing his brow. Maybe he won a bet or said something clever. 

With Kirishima. On Friday. Their night. 

They always have dinner together. Every Friday. They swap hosting responsibilities and it is every Friday. Uninterrupted Kacchan time, rationed out in socially respectable portions of three-to-five hours at a time. Just the two of them. 

This week was supposed to be at Kacchan’s place. He was going to get to enter Kacchan’s den and wear the slippers reserved for him and he’d get to rub his face into all of Kacchan’s towels in his linens closet and they’d eat the tuna Kacchan picked up on Wednesday and… And…

He doesn’t remember getting dressed, but he finds himself standing outside a bar by Sorca station. Through the window, the interior matches the website reviews of a bar that, in turn, matches the interior of Kirishima’s photo. He’d gone through forty-one bars during his online search, limiting the location through process of elimination. Kacchan doesn’t like to go too far from his apartment, after all, and this neighborhood is closer to his place than Kirishima’s, but not impolitely skewed in his favor. 

What am I doing? he wonders, blood throbbing in his skull. Hysteria and dissociation war for dominance. What am I even going to do if I go in there? What if he’s there? What then? What am I…?

A flash of red hair slips past the window. His fists curl. 

Oh, he thinks, suddenly very calm. I’m going to kill Kirishima-kun.

Of course. That makes sense. He ruined their Friday; he took Kacchan away from him. That is entirely reasonable and he is absolutely

not going to do that. 

Izuku releases a shuddering breath. “What am I doing?” he asks himself, faint. “What am I doing?”

He’s come too far to let the beast inside him win. Not now, please. Not here. 

Another breath. Release. Let it go. 

Just. Let it. 

Let it go. Please. 

He closes his eyes. Forces his body to unwind. The wind ruffles his hair. Okay. It’s okay. Empty yourself. No thoughts, no wants. Nothing. Not even Ka— Not even him. Nothing. 

Izuku turns, beaten sneakers sliding on the sidewalk.

“Oi!” Kacchan’s voice stops his feet. 

Breath squeals in his ears, wide eyes staring sightlessly into the night as he clenches and unclenches his hands.

“The hell are you doing, skulking around outside?”

His stomach threatens to drop. He swallows. 

“Hey. Izuku.”

“H-hi Kacchan.” He doesn’t look back.

“Answer my fuckin’ question.”

His shoulders raise as he ducks his head. “I…was just going for a walk.”

“A walk.”

“Yeah.”

The night air is quiet, punctuated by the distant sound of cars. 

“Izuku,” Kacchan says.

He squeezes his eyes shut. “Kacchan, I’m on my way out. I’ll… I’ll see you on Monday.”

Kacchan grabs his wrist. 

He quickly rips it away, stumbling back. When he lifts his head, he finds Kacchan’s arm still reaching out. It’s his bad arm, fingers stiff. “I r-really need to go, Kacchan,” he says. 

Kacchan frowns at his own outstretched hand. When he meets Izuku’s eyes, the expression makes his stomach sink.

Kacchan sees a challenge. 

Izuku’ll need to make his exit quickly, then. Rather than continuing on the way he was going, he decides taking Kacchan by surprise is his best chance. He darts past Kacchan, running into the tight alleyway between the bar and a shopfront, his breath scratching his throat. 

This way, he can circle around and get home. He’s faster than Kacchan, but only so long as he doesn’t—

A crackling boom splits the air.

He manages one more step before his face slams into the concrete wall. Kacchan’s fist is smoldering over the fabric of his hoodie, pressing between his shoulder blades. 

Izuku tries and fails miserably to restrain a shudder at the five points of Kacchan’s fingers, the heel of his palm grinding into his spine. Kacchan’s hand on him… 

Kacchan could be in the bar with other people, but no. He’s outside, in this shitty little alley, touching Izuku. Looking at him, too. Focused on him. Just the two of them.

I got my Friday after all, the sick thing inside of him notes, elated. Ah, Kacchan… Kacchan…

He’s wrenched away from the wall and spun around by his shoulders. Kacchan’s glare cuts past the skin. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Nothing!” he says, strangled. “I— I wasn’t gonna do anything, Kacchan! I swear!”

“Wasn’t gonna do anything,” Kacchan echoes. “Sure looks like you were skulking outside the window like a mega-creep, Deku.”

Sweat prickles his temples. “N-no. No, Kacchan. I… I was just…”

“Just what? You got a problem with me hanging out with Shitty Hair?”

“N-no. I— No, Kacchan. That’s not…”

“What? You jealous, Izuku?”

“No!” he snaps. “As if Kirishima could take my place! I know better than that; I’d never let him or anybody do that! I work hard to make sure I’m Kacchan’s—” 

Kacchan’s eyes are lidded, lips quirked in an amused little grin.

He stops, skin cold. 

“You’re my what?” Kacchan prompts. Goads.

“You’ve been trying to get a rise out of me,” he realizes, horrified. 

Kacchan offers a lopsided smirk. He thinks he is the predator in this situation. The sight floods Izuku’s stomach with dread. 

“Kacchan,” he says, urgently, “you have to stop.”

Kacchan’s arm settles on the wall, boxing him in. He shrinks in response, tries to keep his limbs to himself, teeth tucked behind his lips. His breath squeals in his own ears. 

“W-we can’t. I can’t. I’m not supposed to—”

“Fuck what you think you’re supposed to do.” He’s so close, his breath mingles with Izuku’s, miasmic pressure building in the space between his trembling ribs. “What the hell do you want, Izuku?”

What he wants is too disturbing to ever say out loud. He doesn’t even know where to start. I wish we didn’t breathe out of sync, he thinks, throat tight with unshed tears and unspoken filth. I wish our hearts beat to the same rhythm. I wish I could rip you open and climb inside and live there. I wish I were yours, totally, wholly, but I don’t know how to do that without tearing us both apart.

“It’s complicated,” he says lamely. 

Kacchan’s eyes narrow, searching. “Maybe to you,” he says. “But I’m pretty fucking smart.”

His palms twitch, clammy. Does Kacchan know? Does he know that Izuku—? 

His mouth is so close to his face. Hot and wet. 

I want you to eat me, he thinks, dazed. I just want to be inside somehow. Any way I can get more of you. I’ll take it. I want to hollow you out, I want to take anything of you that you’ll allow, I just want—

“Izuku,” Kacchan murmurs, closing the distance. 

A kiss is not enough. It’s repulsive without teeth. Kacchan, he thinks, heart in his throat. Kacchan, I want to squirm inside of you and build a nest there. 

“The fuck?” Kacchan snaps when Izuku twists away with a grimace. 

“Kacchan!” he pants. “No. No, we can’t. We can’t.”

“The hell is your deal? All this ‘we can’t’ shit. We’ve been dancing around each other forever and I’m fucking sick of it, Izuku!”

He sobs, knocking his head against the wall. 

Kacchan stiffens. 

“I don’t want to hurt you.” His eyes sting with fat tears. “I hate that I’m like this, Kacchan; I wish I didn’t feel this way all the time.”

He scoffs. “As if you could hurt me.”

“I’m serious!” His shout echoes tinnily in the narrow space of the alleyway.

Kacchan frowns. He does not pull away. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“Something’s wrong with me, Kacchan; I know you know something is wrong with me.”

“The hell are you…? There’s nothing wrong with you. The fuck?”

“Y-you remember when Aoki-kun suddenly stopped hanging out with you? That was me.” Kacchan gives him a weird look. The deluge of words has started, though, the waves of his heart stormy. “I put a dead rat in his shoe cubby with a note to never talk to you again. I-I said I’d… I said I’d kill him.” He sniffles, voice thickening. “You got a note, second year of junior high from a girl asking to meet you on the roof for a confession. You didn’t go, but I did. Her name was Tanaka Rina. I told her I’d kill her, too. I brought a box cutter. I…”

Kacchan is silent, lips a thin line. 

Izuku blinks, fat tears stinging his eyes. “I’m sorry, Kacchan,” he croaks. 

“Just those two?” Kacchan asks.

“No.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “No, I… No. I-I tried to get better, I did get better, but. B-but it’s always there. It’s hard. I can’t… Kacchan, when you cancelled on me, I was ready to…”

“Ready to what?” There is no curiosity in his voice.

He twists, pressing his cheek against the wall. “It’s our night. I-it’s ours. Just you and me. How it’s supposed to be.” A sob escapes like a burp, rancid. “Just us! Th-that’s all I ever wanted with Kacchan; I want all of Kacchan’s attention all the time! No one else should have Kacchan! It’s awful! I’m fucked up, Kacchan! I’m fucking twisted, I was gonna go in there and—”

Fingers wind into his hair and wrench his head back. He gasps, eyes twitching open. Kacchan’s face is close, brassy from the streetlight. Red eyes a set of twin stars. 

“I wanna make a home inside of Kacchan,” he whispers. “I wanna rip him open and live in him.”

“There you go,” Kacchan says, voice low and rumbling into the marrow of his bones.

His eyes lid, slumping against the wall at the sound. “Huh?”

“Knew you’d come out eventually.”

The fingers in his hair scritch his scalp. He hums, confused. “Kacchan? What are you…?”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to get a rise outta you. No, I’m not as stupid as you think I am, dumbass. You think I don’t hear you sniffing all my shit and rubbing yourself off on my bedroom doorframe when I’m cooking? That I magically don’t care about those fucking creepshots you plaster your walls with of me? You think I somehow didn’t get the hint after years of you acting like my damn dog?”

He blinks. 

“Mask’s off now, though, ain’t it, fucker?” Kacchan grins, a sharp, hooked thing. “You think I’d let you kill Shitty Hair? Fat chance. Would’ve been fun to see you two get into it, though.”

“Kacchan, I don’t understand…”

“What if I let you have me, Izuku? What’d you do?”

“Open you up,” leaves him, automatic. Kacchan is so close, he can smell him. His heart gallops in his chest, gait unsteady. “I— I wanna live inside Kacchan. Warm and wet. Between his ribs. Or cradled in his pelvis. I-inside Kacchan. I wanna…”

A large hand cups his jaw, tilting his head. 

“I wanna kill them,” he confesses. “All of them. Kacchan shouldn’t have anybody but me. Only I know Kacchan best.”

A low laugh. “Fuck, you really are psycho, huh?”

He shudders. 

“Well, I’m paying attention now, shitty nerd. Anything else you wanna say?”

“Please don’t go back in there,” he says, breathless. “Please, Kacchan. It’s Friday. Friday’s my day. I get you, Fridays. I wanna go to Kacchan’s apartment. Please, Kacchan, I don’t know what I’ll do if you go back to him, I don’t know…”

Kacchan’s hand slides down until it circles his throat, shuffling closer. “You mean you’ll try to kill him.”

Kacchan’s thigh presses hard against Izuku’s half-hard cock. He swallows a whimper, rutting against the pressure. It burns in a bad way, but he can’t stop. “Yes,” he hisses, canting his hips. 

Kacchan’s eyes, so red. Lidded and heavy. Center of his solar system.

“Anyone who looks at Kacchan, I— I wanna kill them so bad, want Kacchan’s eyes on me, just on me, just want Kacchan with me, how it’s supposed to be, me inside Kacchan, I wanna—” He shudders, knocking his head against the wall. His heart throbs in his skull, cock aching. “I… I feel so cold whenever your eyes aren’t on me.”

Kacchan’s fingers squeeze against his jugular. Not tight enough to choke, but firm enough to encompass. 

“Like a dead thing,” Izuku murmurs. “Like I’m only alive when you notice me.”

“Well I’m noticing you now,” Kacchan says. “How’s that feel?”

He shudders, grinding harder, rhythm sloppier. “G-good. ’S how it should be. K’chan an’ me. Together. F-forever.”

“You mean that?” Kacchan asks, leaning closer. “‘Cause if that’s the case, you’re never getting away from me ever again, Izuku.”

“I already can’t,” he whimpers, heart heavy and large in his chest. “It’s always been Kacchan. Always. Kacchan. Kacchan.” His pulse is a taiko drum in his temple. Always to the same beat. “Yes. Yes, Kacchan. Shit, Kacchan— Kacchan—”

Kacchan’s large hand cradles the back of his skull, fingers sifting through his hair as it pulls him flush to his body, holding him as he rattles apart.

“Come on, Kacchan! Th-this isn’t like you!” 

Kacchan’s tears, each drop a crystal in the morning light as it fell from his ruddy face. He was crying for him. For Izuku. The concept was genuinely terrifying—Izuku had no vocabulary to understand this, but intellectually knew it must be true. Kacchan was weeping, openly, for him. 

He had always wanted Kacchan’s eyes on him. Always. But it had never been like this. 

He frantically reached for some form of comfort, some way to stem the flood. To reassure Kacchan that it was still them. That he would do what he could, that he would shift the planets to shore up this gap between them. He wanted everything Kacchan had to give him, but this was not their positions as he had always understood them. This was not him groveling at Kacchan’s feet. It made no sense. It terrified him. Kacchan was crying for him and the only way his brain could parse that was with the conclusion that he had done harm to Kacchan. That he needed to reverse this sin in whatever way he possibly could. “I— I still have the embers! I mean. For a bit, probably. And I know we’ve been through a lot and you’ve hit your head a ton—probably! I know I hit my head a ton—so it makes sense to be a bit, um, vulnerable? But I will do everything I can, Kacchan—”

“You’re so stupid,” Kacchan sniffled, scrubbing his face. “So— Stupid.”

The warmth of his arm, wrapping around Izuku’s battered shoulders. His whole body bending over him, encompassing him like the wing of a mother bird.

He snuffles against the thick duvet over his cheek, scrunching his face. His hand flops onto the pillow under his head. Jasmine mixed with stale body odor and a chemical edge that burns his nostrils. He presses his face tighter against the cotton, curling his arms around the rest of the pillowcase. Fuck, it smells so good. Way better than the faded t-shirt. He groans, letting his tongue hang out, lapping at the abrasive weave of cotton.

“You done making out with my bed yet, nerd?”

He lifts his head. Kacchan looks at him from the entrance to his bedroom, arms crossed, in a sleep shirt and boxer briefs. His hip is propped cutely against the doorframe. “Kacchan.”

“Yeah.”

He sits up, hugging the pillow to his stomach. The blankets pool around his bare stomach. “Kacchan.”

“Yes, dumbass.”

“Can I keep this?” he asks, clinging to the pillow.

He rolls his eyes. “You got the real thing, now. You really need a damn pillow?”

“Yes,” he answers honestly. “I need everything Kacchan will give me.”

He steps into the room, sitting on the side of the bed. Izuku’s heart stutters stupidly at the dip in the mattress, scooting closer to him. “Fuck, you’re such a freak.”

He gnaws on his lower lip, squeezing the pillow. 

Kacchan reaches out, cupping his cheek. He sinks into the touch, lashes fluttering. “We gotta have rules about this shit,” Kacchan says lowly. “Can’t have you going psycho mode and killing people or whatever the hell.”

“I won’t,” he answers, voice wavering. “I— Kacchan, you are so important to me. I understand you have boundaries and things you’re not okay with and I respect that. And if you need anything, I’ll provide. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. I—”

“That’s the problem,” Kacchan says, a strangely pained expression crossing his face. “That’s always been the fuckin’ problem with you, you know that?”

He blinks. “What?”

“You matter too, dumbass.”

He doesn’t understand what Kacchan means by that.

An exasperated sigh leaks from Kacchan’s lips. “You’re so fucking stupid.”

He kneads the pillow in his lap. 

“Just— Come here.” He tugs Izuku closer to him, breath fanning across his face. 

Izuku squirms, excitement hitching his breath. The memory of last night still rests on the back of his tongue, heady and real. Kacchan’s skin, his heat, the dip of his clavicles as Izuku breached the last barrier between them. The memory of every night and day he has ever spent with Kacchan, perfect and singing in the hollow of his lungs. Kacchan. Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan…

Kacchan captures his mouth. When his tongue presses against Izuku’s lips, he happily lets him in.