Chapter Text
"Him?"
"Him."
Katsuki let his current situation roll over in his head. He hated to admit it, but he had allowed himself to be dragged to yet another nasty ass frat party. He couldn't pass up an opportunity at free alcohol. Well, that's what he'd say if you asked why he was there, but what he really couldn't pass up was the chance to see his childhood best friend. As someone who tried to be honest more often than not, he couldn't say that he was always the best friend a guy could have. In fact he turned into the opposite without really meaning to.
His best friend, who was nothing but kind and loving, was somehow always the butt of some horrible "joke", or "prank", or just straight up relentless bullying. He was honestly always a bit of a nerd, and maybe even kind of weird. He talked funny, waved his hands around too much, and liked weird things. He was always talking Katsuki's ear off about a new comic book hero, or some play his mom let him see. The kids at his middle school were downright mean, and Katsuki was no different. When those kids somehow got a look at his birth name in a school computer, it wasn't hard to figure out that he wasn't born a male. He always knew, and so did his angel of a mother, who seemed to be his only real supporter, but that didn't mean he wanted anyone else knowing. Other than Katsuki, of course. Up until middle school, he absolutely worshipped the ground Katsuki walked on; he even gave him his own nickname: Kacchan. To Izuku, Kacchan was the only thing that mattered. He wanted to tell Kacchan everything, wanted to show him everything he liked, wanted Kacchan to be intertwined in everything in his life. That's why, when he started writing poetry, nearly all of his work was about his beloved Kacchan.
Until his notebook was stolen.
He came to school one day to find everyone looking at him: giving him looks of either disgust or sympathy. Up until this point, Katsuki had mostly just been ignoring Izuku to avoid being picked on as well, but that was about to change. Of course, when Izuku felt nervous about the looks he was getting, the first person he went to was Katsuki. Who else to save him but his brave and strong best friend, right? But when he finally found him, he was in a circle with other guys, all laughing at something in Katsuki's hand. When Izuku finally reached them, his stomach dropped all the way down to his shoes when he saw that Katsuki- his Kacchan- was holding his notebook. His notebook that held his very personal and most emotionally driven words, all strung together to mean something so deeply important to Izuku, that no one was ever meant to see. He looked at Katsuki's face, and all he saw were red eyes completely devoid of any feeling. At Katsuki's glance, the other guys looked up and nothing but chaos followed. They grabbed at Izuku, pulled at his clothes and hair, shouted his own words at his face, spat on him, laughed at him. He was used to occasionally getting tripped or pushed in a hallway, or maybe even a few insults thrown at him here and there, but this? This was on another level. They were hurting him, really hurting him. Not just physically, but their words were like hundreds of knives stabbing him in the chest all at the same time.
Finally, they let him fall to the ground, surrounded by the pages of his precious words that had been ripped from his notebook. His feelings, his secrets, they all sat in a puddle made from paper all around him. He was stuck there, tears in his eyes as he sat frozen, too shocked to even move or wipe his eyes or bloody nose. When he looked up, he saw Katsuki standing there, a look on his face that Izuku couldn't place. He knelt down to Izuku's level, looked him in the eyes, and only said one word:
"Useless."
It wasn't even a month later that Izuku stopped coming to school. No one was surprised. Since the fiasco with his notebook, every single day was filled with torture. From milk being poured over his head, to having the ever loving shit beat out of him. His new nickname became Deku; another word for Katsuki's reaction to his feelings about him. He was only ever referred to as such, even after he left school. On his last day, Katsuki had told him something about taking a swan dive off of the roof. The next day, Izuku's mother found him in the bathtub covered in his own blood. Years later, Izuku started going to school again at the start of their freshman year. Of course Katsuki had seen him in passing since middle school, but Izuku was always quick to avoid him at all costs. He hadn't heard about Izuku's attempt at his own life until he overheard his mom talking to Izuku's on the phone; it was hard to understand over Inko's sobbing, but he made out the words, "I almost lost my sweet boy," and he wouldn't leave his mother alone until she explained the situation to him. He tried going to the Midoriya's house to bring some food his mom made and apologize to Izuku in person, but when Inko opened the door and he took in her exhausted eyes and tear stains on her face, he just handed the tupperware to Inko and left. High school wasn't much different from when Izuku wasn't at school at all. He never engaged, never spoke, never even looked up from his stupid notebook except to write down whatever notes the teachers made on the board. During lunch, he didn't do anything but write in his book. Of course his mom made him bring lunch, but Katsuki didn't miss the way Izuku would just throw it away at the end of the hour. He also didn't miss the way people would look at Izuku and laugh at him. Whether it was the way he obviously took no care to dress himself properly, or his addiction to his notebook, or the way that no one had ever heard him talk. Anytime he heard someone say something bad about Izuku, he would get in their face and say something worse about them. Of course, old habits die hard, and he may have forgotten that he probably shouldn't call Izuku "Deku" anymore, but it was too late, and the nickname caught on. In his attempts to defend Izuku without Izuku knowing, he gained a reputation of being loud, rash, and even a bit mean, but he didn't care. He just didn't want to risk Izuku's life again.
That was until the middle of junior year, when Katsuki caught him under the stairs to the science building with some senior's tongue down his throat. There were hands all over each one of them, one of the senior's hands down the back of Izuku's pants, and the other roughly pulling his hair. Of course Katsuki didn't let Izuku see him, but that piece of shit that was with him heard his footsteps and pulled away from Izuku in a flash. He looked around in a panic, and then turned back to Izuku. Katsuki had to strain to hear what he whispered to the shorter. "Don't you tell anyone about this, do you hear me?" He watched Izuku's face. It didn't change, but he could see the dejection flashing through his dull green eyes. "I ain't a fag, okay?" The douchebag scoffed as he started to walk away, but he turned back to Izuku one more time. "You're just easy."
When he finally walked away, he continued to watch Izuku for his reaction. Izuku seemed frozen there; his eyes still on his ''partner'', his hands still a little outstretched as if waiting for him to come back and hold him. Finally Izuku sucked in a breath, wiped the tears from his eyes before they got a chance to fall, and walked away. Katsuki waited a minute before leaving, and he quickly made his way to the nearest bathroom, locking himself in the first stall he could get into. It took him a minute to catch his breath as he played the scene back in his head. How long had this been going on? Did Izuku sleep with him? How could he let himself go to someone like that? Katsuki gave himself a migraine trying to make sense of it, and why it made him so angry. He couldn't swallow the lump in his throat, or choke back the angry tears. It took him a while to understand, but he figured that maybe Izuku just didn't want to feel so useless anymore.
This type of routine continued until they graduated, where Izuku would let people treat him like shit and Katsuki would wish death upon anyone who did. They went to the same college out of complete coincidence, with Izuku majoring in Creative Writing and Katsuki in Nuclear Engineering. But of course, being freshmen, they both had to take some basic intro classes, and that's how they ended up in the same Intro to English class. Izuku would pretend not to notice him, but Katsuki would sometimes catch him staring. Izuku would sometimes talk to the brunette girl that sat next to him, who Katsuki would just call Round Cheeks because he didn't care to learn her name. At first she just made small talk with Izuku, like asking to borrow a pencil or complimenting how fast he can write notes. It didn't take long for Katsuki to notice Izuku cracking a smile at her words, even joking back to her occasionally. Then something miraculous happened: his skin started to get brighter, his hair fuller, eyes shinier. He started to become himself again, and he started acting like it too. He would come into class with a big dumb smile on his face and excitedly ramble to Round Cheeks about whatever topic he had on his mind that day, His hands waved with his words and she nodded along with him, an equally large smile on her face as she listened attentively and gave her input whenever she felt it was appropriate. He heard her call him Deku once and almost marched down there to teach her a thing or two, but he responded to it as if it were his name - almost like he liked the name now. Sometimes Katsuki would see Izuku and Round Cheeks sitting on a blanket in the big grassy area in the middle of the dorms having a picnic with a girl who had her hair tied in messy twin buns and teeth that were a little sharper than most others', and two other boys: one with his hair split red and white and a calm expression despite the burn scar covering a quarter of his face (he's calling this one Half-and-Half), and the other with his dark hair pulled into a short ponytail and a constant smile on his face, despite looking a little high more often than not (this one is called Flat Face).
Katsuki was never much of a social butterfly per se, but he somehow always ended up a bit popular despite his loud mouth and shitty attitude. Pretty early on into the year he fell into a group that he would never call his friends out loud, but they weren't so bad. The one he spent the most time with had red hair that he always wore spiked up, therefore Katsuki calls him "Shitty Hair", despite his name actually being Eijiro. He had a girlfriend who was easily one of the coolest girls he knew named Mina, but he called her "pinky" after her pink dyed hair. He was also often accompanied by possibly one of the dumbest, but admittedly funniest person he'd ever met named Denki, but for his stupidity he is called "Dunce Face". He couldn't dog on Dunce Face too much, though, because he didn't bag just one hottie, but two somehow. Both more on the emo side, a guy named Shinso who Katsuki just calls "Grumpy", and a girl named Kyoka, who he nicknamed "Ears" after her large guages. Unfortunately, they're all friends with Flat Face, which means that his friend group and Izuku's friend group are often at the same parties, or mixed together in some way.
And of course, because Katsuki just couldn't have an ounce of good luck in his life, his dorm ended up being directly beside Izuku's. And because the universe felt he still deserved karma from his middle school days, he would sometimes catch Izuku inviting random men into his room, and even worse than that, he could always hear Izuku's bed hitting the wall, and Izuku's sweet voice saying the most sour things, despite his obvious attempts at keeping himself quiet. Katsuki hated that he wasn't even mad at Izuku constantly having a guy over (very rarely the same guy; Katsuki was dying to know what deemed someone worthy of being allowed back into Izuku's space.), he just didn't understand why the fact that someone else was seeing Izuku in such an intimate way was making him so goddamn jealous. What does make him angry is when the bed stops hitting the wall, the voices cease, and then he hears Izuku's door open and close, followed by footsteps that are far too heavy to be Izuku's retreating down the hallways. He just can't understand why Izuku gives himself away to these people who clearly don't even care about him. Someone as sweet, and caring, and pretty, and funny, and smart as Izuku should be with someone who will tell him all those amazing things about him every day. Someone who knows him inside and out, someone who would stand up for him, someone who would protect him, someone... not like Katsuki.
Katsuki's hands are too rough for something as gentle as Izuku.
There are many things that Katsuki can admit about himself, like how he doesn't deserve to have Izuku in his life, or that he wishes Izuku could just forget what Katsuki did to him and live his life with some self respect. But there are also a few things that he absolutely cannot admit. Like the time he was at a party and he might've been a bit tipsy. Maybe a little more than tipsy after he saw Izuku slip out of a bedroom, followed by some random extra who looked a little too happy. Maybe he got a little too drunk, and maybe when he saw Izuku standing alone outside after smoking with Dunce Face and Flat Face, he couldn't stop his legs from carrying his body over to him. He felt magnetized, like the alcohol in his system was negative energy and the weed in Izuku's was positive, and they were just drawn to each other. Maybe at the sound of the sliding door opening behind him, Izuku turned around and saw Katsuki staring at him with another unreadable expression. Maybe as Izuku searched Katsuki's eyes, Katsuki made the decision to keep moving forward towards the shorter, and maybe he leaned down and gently pressed his lips to Izuku's. And maybe, just maybe, after the shock and anxiety wore off, Izuku leaned into him. Maybe Katsuki's warmth was finally able to bring Izuku some comfort. Maybe Katsuki's hand almost found its way to Izuku's freckled cheek, but just as soon as it had started, the moment was over.
Izuku jerked himself back when he heard Dunce Face's stupid voice cheering him on, unknowing of their history, and genuinely thinking Katsuki had just scored a kiss from some random cute guy. Izuku pushed at Katsuki's broad chest and mumbled a quiet, "Asshole," the word sounding foreign on Izuku's lips that he's only ever heard kind words from, before turning around and going back inside to find Round Face, and most likely his way back home.
As much as Katsuki refuses to admit that night even happened to anyone else, he still remembers. The next morning when he woke up with a raging hangover yet somehow still managed to hobble his way to his English class, he decided to do one more stupid thing. He quickly scribbled on a piece of loose paper and tossed it at Izuku. He cringed when it got caught in his green curls, but averted his eyes once Izuku got it untangled.
Izuku opened the piece of paper, he could feel that twist in his stomach that he felt every day up until he met Ochako. Especially after last night, when Katsuki... approached him, and Sero's friend laughed at him, he wasn't sure what to expect. He felt Ochako put her soft hand on his arm and give him a supportive smile. She was the only one who he fully told about his life before he met her. About the bullying, his suicide attempt that landed him in the hospital for a few months, his crush on Kacchan that still somehow never went away even after everything. He could easily call her his best friend. She knows that he sleeps around to try and distract himself from his feelings, and as a way to feel needed. She's seen the way Izuku watches Katsuki whenever Katsuki isn't looking, and vice versa. She can't say she really understands how Izuku could possibly forgive someone for hurting him so badly, but she also knows that she'd do anything for Toga, so maybe understanding isn't too hard.
Izuku took a deep breath before looking at the page in his hand. In Katsuki's pointy, almost messy handwriting that Izuku had memorized years ago, was the word, "Sorry." That was all, yet it took Izuku's breath away. With tears in his eyes, he turned to look at Katsuki, but the motion made him nauseous. The sudden oncome of emotion mixed with his hangover and the little bit of weed still in his system was not a good combo, so before he could say anything to the blonde, he gathered his bag and rushed out of the classroom.
It had been about a month since that night, and Katsuki and Izuku hadn't talked since. Which is how Katsuki ended up here, at yet another frat party that Shitty Hair dragged him to. His stupid friends were playing truth or dare like a group of kids, and it was Katsuki's turn. He, of course, picked dare because in his words, he's not a pussy.
"Hmmm..." Dunce Face thought for a second, trying to come up with something that'll really stump his daredevil of a friend. They've all witnessed Katsuki do whatever he's been dared to do before, whether it be dancing on a table or getting a tattoo on his asscheek of a little heart that read, "MOM" with a ribbon and all that shit. Dunce Face scanned the room for something, anything, and his eyes landed on a green haired twink that he thought he might've seen somewhere, but couldn't quite remember. He was standing in the middle of a crowd of sweaty bodies all grinding on each other to whatever shitty music was playing, and when he opened his mouth for some big hunk to pour vodka in his mouth and all over his body, turning his white t-shirt see through, an evil thought formed in Denki's head.
Turning his attention back to Katsuki, he said with a shit-eating grin, "Bakubro, I dare you to go ask out that guy over there." Katsuki's eyes slid away from the sparky blonde in front of him, and over to where he was pointing. When his gaze landed on what could've been the sexiest thing he'd ever seen, which was just Izuku and a handful of extras sharing a bit too much space, he had to swallow the lump forming in his throat. Hoping that the colorful lights were hiding the way his cheeks flared, he confirmed, "Him?"
With a stupid, drunk laugh, Denki nodded his head, "Him." Shinso leaned closer to his boyfriend and whispered something in his ear. Katsuki's stomach buzzed in the worst way at the way his face lit up. "And!" Dunce Face was quick to add, "You have to actually take him on a date, with proof!"
Katsuki thought for a moment. He allowed his eyes to once again soak in the image of Izuku across the room. He started to shake his head; a thousand thought going through his head. For one, Izuku was clearly content to bring as many guys home as he could, so Katsuki shouldn't stand his way. Another thing is that Katsuki simply doesn't deserve Izuku. He was too weak to protect him before and he can't hurt him again. But, on the other hand.... He had been wanting an excuse to talk to him again. Whether it be to give him a chance to properly apologize, or maybe even try to be the reason Izuku smiles once in a while. He wanted to apologize to Inko, but how could he bring that up? Maybe taking Izuku out could be his chance at fixing things.
Eijiro piped in, finding the whole situation amusing, "Dude, I will literally pay you!" At this, Katsuki turned his head towards his friend. "How much?" He asked him.
"I dunno, $50? To pay for a movie or something," Shitty Hair suggested. Katsuki gave him a suspicious look. "Why?"
Pinky wrapped her arm around her boyfriend's shoulders. "Come on, dude, it's time you went on a date," she rolled her eyes dramatically. "You need some action! And that guy," they all glanced toward Izuku, "looks to be your type. He also looks like he could finally get you laid." She took a handful of bills from Eijiro's wallet and held them out to Katsuki.
Katsuki let his annoyance wash over him before answering. He hadn't really talked about Izuku to any of them, so it's not like they could've known. He closed his eyes before reaching for one of the shots they had spread around their table and quickly taking it. Shuttering away the awful taste and feeling his brain ease at the burn in his stomach, he sighed and grabbed the cash.
"Fucking fine. But tomorrow." He looked back at Izuku, trying to choke back the emotion clawing at his chest. "I'm gonna do it properly, at least."