Chapter Text
WELCOME TO THE 56TH ANNUAL HARVEST FESTIVAL!
Izuku has never been to a more festive autumn celebration. It feels like he’s stepped into a movie.
The sky is a beautiful, cloudless blue, and the surrounding trees a riot of colors. It’s the perfect kind of cold today that calls for jeans and flannels and beanies. The fairgrounds are decorated with hay bales and scarecrows and dried corn stalks. There’s a live band and a pumpkin patch and a line of kids excited to take a turn on the tractor ride. Stalls of all kinds are set up in rows, selling crafts and art and jewelry. And the food , oh, the food: funnel cakes and cinnamon rolls, kettle corn and roasted corn and corn dogs, pumpkin pie and pumpkin donuts, anything you could ever want to make with an apple.
They’re waiting in line at Apples Abound, one of the many apple-focused food stalls, when Ochako is overcome by either the festive cheer or the excited anticipation of sweet treats. She throws her arms around Izuku and Iida and shakes them a little. “Oh, I am so glad you guys are here! Thank you for coming with me!”
Laughing, Izuku puts his arms around them and squeezes, picks them both up off the ground. Iida, being an extremely tall, muscular man and not used to being lifted off his feet, goes completely stiff, while Ochako giggle-screams.
“Next!”
“It’s our turn,” Iida says, giving a little oof when Izuku drops them back to the ground. He straightens his coat and his glasses and takes the lead, stepping up to the counter. “Does everyone know what they want?”
Iida orders a hot apple cider that steams up his glasses. Izuku wants one of everything, honestly, but settles for a paper bowl filled with a pile of mini apple turnovers. Ochako gazes lovingly at the stick of candied apple slices that she’s handed. She takes a bite of the top slice, drizzled with caramel and chocolate sauce, and moans. “I want to live here forever.”
The flaky breading on the turnover melts in Izuku's mouth, buttery soft and cinnamon-sweet. “Oh my god, me too.”
“I think there’s some seating over by the stage,” Iida says, squinting past the food stalls, “if you guys want to sit while you eat?”
So they sit on little hay bales and eat apple desserts and listen to live folk music and it’s the most wonderful afternoon Izuku has had in a long time. When he accepted a job offer to teach history at the local university and moved to town last year, he had no friends or family nearby. It felt incredibly isolating and lonely, and dredged up some old, painful memories of his early school days that he did not wish to relive.
Thankfully, he had attended a faculty mixer hosted by the university’s humanities department, and there he met Ochako and Iida, history professors just like him. They promptly welcomed Izuku into their friend circle, and there he's remained ever since.
Sometimes he gets a little teary-eyed if he thinks about it too long–he has friends! who like him! and want to spend time with him!–so instead of dwelling, he tries to practice acceptance instead.
Ochako nudges his boot with hers. “You okay, Izuku?”
“Yeah,” he says, blinking rapidly and looking up at the sky. “These apple turnovers are just spicy.”
She smiles knowingly and passes him a napkin.
The band starts up another song. Iida's glasses fog up every time he takes a sip of his cider. He plays along good-naturedly when Ochako laughs and takes a picture, and then leans in when she calls for him and Izuku to take a selfie with her. Once she looks through her gallery and declares them all super cute , she leans back on her hay bale seat and bobs her head along to the music. It’s a hometown folk band. Their music is upbeat and bouncy, all twangy fiddle and guitar.
Iida sips his drink and hums along.
Izuku’s stomach growls.
“I think I could eat six more of those apple slice sticks,” Ochako sighs.
“Yes!” He jumps to his feet, thankful that Ochako said something. Six more apple slice sticks, an entire bucket of apple turnovers. His mouth is watering. “Me too! I’ll go back and get us some more. Iida, do you want anything?”
“A piece of the apple bread would be great. Thank you, Izuku! Do you want–?”
Waving off Iida’s offer of cash, Izuku makes his way back to the food section of the fairground and finds a huge line waiting at Apples Abound. Every stall has a line–it’s lunchtime, and the festival is packed–so Izuku joins the back of the line and texts the group chat that he’ll be waiting for a few minutes. It’s no problem, he reassures them. It’s a nice day, and people watching is fun.
“For fuck’s sake,” someone says behind him. The voice is a low, annoyed grumble. Izuku turns to look and immediately wishes he hadn’t.
It’s a tall, scowling blonde man, hands in his pockets, looking like he just stepped out of an advertisement for black leather motorcycle jackets. All of his features are sharp: the line of his jaw, his straight nose, the cutting stare of those ruby red eyes.
Heat shoots straight through the cold, cob-webbed corners of Izuku’s heart. This angry man is beautiful. Izuku hasn’t wanted to know a stranger so much before in his life.
Talking to people outside of his small friend group is always some level of nerve-wracking. Childhood trauma is a hell of a thing, and on top of that, he knows he's not a conventionally cool person. He's a history professor and collects super hero merch and his idea of a good time is trivia night at the local pub. When the universe presents him the gift of a social situation, he tends to overthink it until his brain overheats.
But stubborn hope is written into every cell and every atom of his body, so Izuku decides he's going to try anyway. Plus ultra.
It starts off well: Angry Man catches him staring. “The hell are you looking at?”
“I-I think they’re out of apples,” Izuku says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the unmoving line of people and the huge sign advertising Apples Abound.
“Oh my god,” Angry Man pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you kidding me.”
Izuku giggles. It’s mostly the nerves. “Y-yeah, I’m just kidding.”
Angry Man drops his hand and glares, and for a moment, Izuku thinks he’s about to get his ass beaten in the middle of this family-friendly harvest festival, but then this built, six foot plus, leather-jacket-wearing model looks at Izuku laughing and just… blushes. “Shitty fuckin’ joke, Freckles.”
Izuku might be blushing, too. “‘Freckles?’”
“We’re probably gonna be stuck in this damn line for the rest of our lives, so I might as well call you something.”
“Izuku Midoriya,” he says, offering his hand.
Cocking his head to the side, Angry Man deliberates for a moment before taking a hand out of his pocket and reaching into the space between them. Unsurprisingly, his grip is firm, and he’s wearing a few rings on his fingers. His hand is so warm. “Katsuki Bakugo.”
“Kacchan, then,” Izuku says with a grin.
Kacchan heaves a world-weary sigh and drops his hand. “If you must.” His gaze shifts behind Izuku’s shoulder. “Line’s moving.”
A boisterous group of what must be twenty teenagers leaves the front of the line. They’re all carrying drinks and several snacks and they move en masse toward an empty stretch of grass at the edge of the fairground, likely the only area big enough to fit them all.
A harried-looking man wearing a red apron hefts an entire crate of apples into the stall.
Izuku laughs and turns back to Kacchan. “Told you they ran out!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kacchan says, shoving at Izuku’s shoulder. “Move your ass.”
The line has moved up significantly. People in front of them seem reinvigorated now that they may actually get to order sometime today. Izuku catches up to his spot in line and when he turns around to hopefully-maybe-please continue his, frankly, incredible conversation with Kacchan, the man is raising his phone to his ear. It would be rude to listen in, but Kacchan is not a quiet man, so Izuku is pretty sure everybody in a ten foot radius is unintentionally eavesdropping.
“No, I didn’t fuckin’ leave,” he snaps. A woman in front of them covers her small son’s ears and shoots Kacchan the nastiest stink eye. He gives it right back, relenting only when Izuku steps in front of him and blocks his view, motioning for him to lower his voice. “I’m still in line for your stupid apple things. Some guy with freckles is here trying to boss me around.”
You’re being loud! Izuku mouths.
“He says I’m being loud,” Kacchan shouts into the phone. “Can you believe that shit?”
Izuku can feel the irritated gazes of so many people around them, and because he’s standing next to Kacchan and they’ve been talking, people assume they’re together and point that gaze at him, too. “I’m so sorry, everyone.”
“I’m not,” Kacchan shouts.
“Oh my god,” Izuku whispers, covering his face with his hands. Angry Man is angry and beautiful and an unbelievable, unrepentant menace. “Kacchan.”
Kacchan laughs, and Izuku forgives him everything because right there on his left cheek is a dimple, and Izuku is a weak man. He also forgives him because Kacchan does actually lower his voice as he tells his friend to settle down and wait for him to meet them soon. Just a few minutes, he says, and then doesn’t say goodbye before hanging up.
“Are your friends waiting for you?” Izuku asks, moving up with the line. He’s kind of sad. He feels like he’s made a new friend, even though it’s only been a few minutes and they’re only standing in line for food, but still. The connection feels real. How does he go about asking if someone wants to be friends at his big age of twenty-seven? The last time he asked for someone’s phone number, it was because he ran into an old friend of his mother, and he knew she would want to talk to them again.
“Yeah,” Kacchan says, “You too?”
“Mmhmm.”
They stand in companionable silence for a long moment. The line inches forward. A cold breeze rushes past. Kacchan pushes a hand through his hair, and the cuff of his jacket sleeve moves as he extends his arm, revealing a geometric All Might tattoo on his wrist.
Not one thought crosses Izuku’s mind–his reaction is all excited instinct, to reach out and grasp Kacchan’s arm to better see the tattoo. The ink on his wrist is a deep contrast to his pale skin. “You have an All Might tattoo?”
Kacchan also seems surprised. “You recognize it?”
“Yes, of course, oh my god! This is the emblem from All Might’s stealth uniform from the limited comic run of his lost years! Those are so rare, you can’t even find them anymore! Wow, this looks so good!”
“Yeah.” Kacchan smirks. “Nerd.”
He drops Kacchan’s arm. “Y-you’re the one who has it tattooed into his skin! Wouldn’t that make you the nerd?"
“Sure, nerd.”
So they spend the rest of their time in line talking about All Might’s lost arc–or, more accurately, Izuku rambles from thought to thought, brain moving faster than his mouth, and Kacchan tells him his opinions are wrong and then goes on to support his insults with actual cited references from every piece of media that All Might appears in. Both the academic and the nerd parts of Izuku’s soul are singing, elated to be so engaged in such a conversation.
“Next!”
They get to the front of the line and Izuku doesn’t even remember where he is or what he’s doing. Kacchan snorts. He orders first. Right, duh, Harvest festival. Izuku’s friends have been waiting for him to come back for ages now; he’s supposed to be bringing more apple snacks back for them. After Izuku orders, they both pay and pick up their food, and then make way for the next person in the endless line.
“Where are you meeting your friends?” Izuku asks.
“Wherever that noise is coming from,” Kacchan says. Apples Abound didn’t have any bags, so he’s got three drinks tucked between his arm and his chest, and two cups of apple fries in that hand; on the other hand, he’s balancing an apple funnel cake and two bowls of mini apple fritters. He walks with grace, like he’s not even worried about tripping and dropping everything on the ground. It’s envious, and also kind of hot.
“Noise?” Izuku says, telling himself to stop being so thirsty. He’s got his own snacks to worry about, anyway. And what noise? “You mean the music?”
“Is that what that is?”
Izuku snorts. “Rude, Kacchan. Don’t be uncultured.”
“Uncultured? I’m gonna kick your ass. Get over here, Freckles.”
Hurrying as fast as he can towards his friends, still careful of not spilling or dropping anything, Izuku tries to escape Kacchan’s wrath. He might be giggling a little. Angry Man may have been the front that Kacchan put up at first, but Izuku knows the truth now: deep down, he’s a nerd just like Izuku.
“Kats, over here!”
A girl with pink hair and a long purple puffer coat is standing on a hay bale, waving exuberantly, uncaring of the people around her who may be looking. There’s a guy sitting on the same hay bale, holding onto her legs to balance her. To Izuku’s surprise, Iida and Ochako are right next to them. Ochako waves at Izuku. “Over here!”
Kacchan seems to have forgotten his plans for violence. “Are those your idiots over there with my idiots?”
A swell of anxiety rushes through his chest. It’s fine, he tells himself. He just made friends with the most beautiful man he’s ever seen, and he thinks they even flirted a little, and he survived! And their friends are already friends! So he can ride this wave of success to socializing with two additional people. It may even mean more time together! He nods, determined. “Those are my friends, yes, Kacchan.”
“‘Kacchan?’ Wow , that’s brave,” the pink haired girl says, wriggling free from the arms around her legs and hopping down from her perch. She puts her hands on her hips and looks Izuku up and down with a grin. “You must be Izuku Midoriya! ‘Chako and Iida have told us so much about you! I’m Mina Ashido, and this is my fiance, Eijiro Kirishima.”
“Hey, bro!” Eijiro says. He’s obviously heard the word about the jeans-and-flannel festival outfit. He's also got a beanie pulled over his cherry red hair and a shy, canine-sharp smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too!”
“Good to see you, Katsuki,” Ochako teases. “I didn’t know you and Izuku knew each other.”
Kacchan rolls his eyes. “We met in the line Raccoon Eyes made me wait in to get all these fuckin’ snacks. Now come get ‘em before I feed everything to the ground.”
Drinks and snacks are distributed. The six of them sit together while they partake. Ochako raises her eyebrows when Kacchan makes sure to sit down next to him on the same hay bale. Judging by the way she presses her lips together to hide her mischievous smile and so obviously looks away, Izuku knows he's in for an interrogation later.
“So, how do you all know one another?” Izuku asks.
Mina explains that Ochako and their other university friend Tsuyu often go to the studio where Mina teaches yoga. “Dancing is my main passion,” Mina says, gesturing a little too wildly with her apple cider, “but I teach yoga and do some modeling on the side. There’s just so many things I’m interested in! And Eijiro here is a kindergarten teacher, and the kids love him.”
“They’re so much fun,” Eijiro says. “They actually have some of their artwork set up here! I want to check it out later so that I can take pictures for them.”
It's a lot less stressful than Izuku had feared it would be. Ochako's friends are a reflection of herself: kind, attentive, and fun. Kacchan doesn’t say much except to poke fun at Mina and Eijiro, which only serves to make them laugh. He also presses the side of his thigh to Izuku’s when Izuku can’t help but bounce his knee up and down, up and down.
Slowly Izuku feels himself relax into the conversation, especially when Ochako tells the very simple story of how she and Iida met him: “It was at one of those new semester faculty mixers for the humanities at UA last year! Iida and I are the youngest professors in the history department, so it was nice to have a new friend our age. His focus is ancient history–”
“So you’re a super nerd,” Kacchan butts in.
“Says you,” Izuku says, snatching an apple fry from the cup in his hand in retaliation and crunching it loudly between his teeth.
“Last time I tried to take some of Bakubro's food, he almost bit my fingertip off.” Eijiro shakes his head in wonder. He holds a finger up, and sure enough, there's a thin, silvery scar right there below his topmost knuckle. “You must be magic, Izuku.”
Mina smirks. “Or just really cute.”
Izuku chokes on the apple fry and tilts forward, coughing between his legs. Someone pats his back–roughly, so he imagines it's Kacchan instead of Ochako, and the idea of those warm hands on him–he's already having trouble breathing, so the swarm of butterflies trying to forcibly escape his ribcage isn't helping–
“Izuku,” Iida barks, no nonsense, “put two fingers up if you require the heimlich.”
An entire hand goes up to wave off Iida's concern, switching quickly to a thumbs-up just in case Iida thought he was holding up five fingers because he is super choking.
“If he's coughing, he's fine,” Kacchan says.
“That doesn't mean there isn't a concern, Katsuki–”
“I'm good,” Izuku wheezes, sitting up and, regrettably, dislodging Katsuki's hand. He coughs again, clears his throat. Mina hands him a cup and he drinks a bit of her apple cider. “Thank you. I'm good. Wow.”
“As I was saying,” Mina begins. “Izuku–”
Kacchan immediately cuts her off by complaining about the noise again, which causes Iida to begin an impassioned lecture on the history of regional folk music. It’s an extremely effective distraction. He even draws the attention of an older couple sitting nearby, who are drawn to his professorial voice and start asking him questions.
Once they all finish their snacks, and Iida his impromptu lesson, Mina suggests walking around the festival together, which sounds like a fantastic idea to Izuku. He glances at Kacchan, who doesn’t say no, but doesn’t say yes, either. His face is angry-neutral.
Again, he catches Izuku staring. This time he narrows his eyes.
Izuku shrugs.
Kacchan raises an eyebrow and jerks his head to the side, where their friends have left them behind to walk towards the festival proper.
Izuku smiles. Together–close enough that their elbows sometimes brush, close enough that Izuku can smell Kacchan’s cologne, god–they follow their friends.
The sectioned-off art exhibit is their first stop. Eijiro has proud tears in his eyes as he looks at the hand-shaped cut-out turkeys that his kindergarten class made. Everybody else is cry-laughing at how funny they all look. “They worked so hard,” Eijiro says, tears turning less proud and more disheartened, and so Mina suggests they all take a picture with their favorite funny turkey so that Eijiro can show his class. Grinning, he stands in front of the whole wall of turkeys. They’re all his favorite.
They visit a booth filled with neat sculptures made of scrap metal and glass. They look at pottery, paintings, and wood carvings. They spend entirely too long smelling handmade soaps and candles. The whole time, Kacchan sticks nearby. He critiques the technique of the soldering on a metal windmill that Izuku shows him; he makes up a silly, violent story about an abstract painting that catches their eye; he smells every candle jar that Izuku holds up to his nose, and only admits afterwards that he was starting to get a headache.
One booth is occupied by a kind old man wielding knitting needles and displaying a huge variety of his handmade knitwear. There’s a pretty orange-red scarf that catches Izuku’s eye–it’s the color of fall leaves and would be a nice souvenir from the festival. It looks plush and warm. He wants to bury his face in it.
Kacchan pulls it from the shelf and all but hollers, “Hey, old man! How much for this one?”
“There are tags that display the price,” Iida scolds. “You don’t need to shout.”
“Can it, Four Eyes.”
“Your behavior is atrocious–”
“Here,” Izuku says, stepping into Kacchan’s space and finding the tag. He starts to say something, really, he does, the words are right there, but Kacchan is entirely too close and when Izuku looks up, Kacchan is already looking back.
Kacchan blinks, breaks the spell. “Stay here.”
Uh-huh. Yep. The intense eye contact has knocked Izuku’s nerves all helter-skelter; he doesn’t think he could go anywhere even if he wanted to, lest his knees buckle and send him face-first to the floor.
When Kacchani comes back, he’s holding the now tagless scarf. With careful hands, he loops it around Izuku’s neck, twists it into a fancy knot, and arranges the ends against his chest. Izuku watches his face, an entrancing, stern picture of focus, and wonders what is happening today. Up until now, life has been so routine, and now the most beautiful man he’s ever met is buying him a pretty scarf and wrapping it around his neck and accidentally brushing his cold fingers against Izuku’s jaw and not immediately pulling away–
“T-thank you, Katsuki,” Izuku says, touching his fingertips to the ends of the scarf. It’s so soft . “You didn’t have to.”
“I don’t ever do anything that I don’t want to do,” Katsuki grumbles. He pulls back. “C’mon, let’s catch up with our idiots.”
It’s like waking up from a dream–he looks around and his friends are nowhere to be seen. There’s a little girl trying on a pair of cat-shaped mittens and showing them to her dad, and two teenage boys looking at hats. The old man is watching him and Kacchan curiously, a little smile on his face.
“Sorry,” Izuku says, ducking his face into the scarf and hoping it covers his blush.
And it could be the cold, but Katsuki’s ears are pink as he turns away. “Shut up, Freckles.”
They regroup with their friends and finish their exploration of the festival as evening draws near. Izuku’s been dreading this–it would be so nice to just live in a little snowglobe of this day forever. A beautiful cold day, a fun festival, good food, good music, his best friends, new friends. Kacchan, wrapping a scarf around Izuku’s neck with utmost care.
“Izuku!” Mina pulls him in a hug. “It was so great to meet you! You are like, if sunshine was a person. I know Kats agrees,” she whispers before pulling away, pinching Izuku’s red cheeks. “We’ll have to hang out again sometime, all of us! This was so much fun, seriously.”
Eijiro also gives hugs to everyone. He should always give hugs, wow, Eijiro gives him a hug and Izuku feels held. “Agreed, bro,” Eijiro says, squeezing tight one last time and then moving on to the next person. “Iida, Ochako, good to see you!”
“We’ll figure out a time to get together,” Ochako says. She brings up the calendar on her phone and shows it to Mina, and Izuku tunes them out, because, well.
A few feet away, Kacchan’s hands are in his pockets, and he’s looking at Izuku, head tilted, gaze intense. Golden hour spins his hair into platinum, turns his eyes into bright carnelian. Beautiful alchemy. He never said what he does for work, Izuku realizes, and he feels almost nauseous with the desire to know. He wants to know everything. What are his favorite foods? What does he like to do on the weekends? What kinds of movies and books does he enjoy? What other tattoos might he have? What is his family like? What are his dreams and fears and goals?
What does he feel about Izuku? What is the possibility that he feels even remotely the same?
“See you around, Freckles,” Kacchan says, smiling, giving him just a peek of that dimple.
Oh, he hopes so. He has so many questions to ask. “See you around, Kacchan.”