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No… No, no— don’t fucking go, Izuku—
Katsuki wakes up with a start.
He jolts upright as if propelled by the sheer force of a punch. Katsuki sucks in a breath, but he can’t really— his chest too tight, his heart pounding like it’s trying to break free. Every breath comes in short, choked. Everything is ringing, his vision blurry. He feels his cheeks only to find it wet. Must be why he can’t see much.
And then— his phone.
It flickers to life, stirred by his rude awakening. It reads 6 AM.
The tears still welling in his eyes sting from the burn of the screen. Fuck . He wipes it off, feeling rather lame. A nightmare got him that bad?
It’s always Izuku that gets him like this. No wonder.
It replays in his mind, unbidden.
Izuku, walking off without sparing a glance. Izuku—Deku, his Deku , dammit—fading into the pitch-black distance, leaving Katsuki behind—
Katsuki doesn’t spare himself another moment. He leaves his door unlocked, and his lone bedroom sees him off.
The crisp air hurts to breathe in, but nothing could compare to the crushing tightness in his chest, the weight of his nightmare heavy in each step, each explosion that fires off, each second without Izuku.
Would he really leave me like that?
And the worst: Am I really not enough for him?
The nightmare unfolded with a haunting clarity, too vivid to be anything but. Was it even a nightmare? Or did he grieve with alcohol and only wake up today?
None of that mattered. Katsuki’s footsteps reach Izuku’s balcony, high on the 5th floor.
To Katsuki’s surprise, it opens soon after, before he even gets a chance to rap his knuckles against the glass.
Izuku’s smiling face greets him, warm like he’s used to. Katsuki stumbles back from the sight of it, his breath catching in his throat for an entirely different reason. Izuku’s smile in his dream felt so cold that Katsuki near damn fell to his knees seeing this again.
“Knew I heard your explosions. I could tell before you even reached my street!” Izuku laughs, like it hasn’t been a while since Katsuki’s reached out. Like Katsuki warned him of his intrusion.
Katsuki makes a pained sound. “It’s 6 AM.”
Izuku grins cheekily, stepping back to make room for Katsuki. He’s swarmed with an overwhelming rush of emotion as he steps a foot past the balcony door. The air is thicker inside, heavy with the scent of Izuku’s home—of Izuku . It’s only here he can feel like he can breathe again.
“Sure it is,” Izuku says, sliding the door shut. “I have a shift in a few hours; yours isn’t until noon. So what’s your excuse, huh, Kacchan? ”
Your agency? Really, thank you, Kacchan, but —
“Izuku,” Katsuki croaks out to silence the unwanted thought that rises. He feels sick again.
It’s just a nightmare , Katsuki reminds himself, though it’s a fruitless attempt. Izuku is right here. Izuku is looking at you .
Katsuki watches with rapt fascination as Izuku’s expression twists into immediate alarm.
“Kacchan,” he says again, reaching out but never touching. “Are you okay?” Izuku shakes his head. “No, that’s stupid, don’t answer that. Are you safe, Kacchan?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know,” he admits. Nothing about what he dreamt felt safe. It felt like watching himself drive straight into a car crash. “Are you gonna leave me?”
“Leave you?” Izuku repeats softly. “Why would I do that?”
“You’re going to leave me,” he says, near venomously. “You’re gonna walk away, and go to her , and you won’t even bother lookin’ back—”
Izuku’s hands on his face feel like his skin has touched the sun. Or perhaps Katsuki’s been pale and shaking because he’s been ice cold. Izuku stares him down, searching. He flinches, then pulls his face off, but Izuku keeps him still.
The fight leaves Katsuki pretty quickly. He has never been able to deny Izuku’s touch.
“Kacchan, did you have a nightmare? You were crying.”
Katsuki bristles. Izuku’s treating him like a child.
“Kacchan, did I—” Izuku gnaws on his lip, looking pained as he says, “Did I hurt you in your dream?”
Hurt doesn’t even begin to cover half of it. The hollow ache that swallowed Katsuki whole as he watched Izuku walk off didn’t just hurt him.
“Somethin’ like that,” Katsuki says, then feels ashamed about it. He feels more like a child now. What is he even doing, running to Izuku’s apartment because of a nightmare?
“Kacchan,” Izuku says urgently, his thumb running over the skin under his scar. Katsuki’s brain shuts off promptly. “I would never leave you. You know that.”
Not really, apparently, if a dream like that has shaken him up this badly. Izuku must sense it, too.
“How did I hurt you, Kacchan? Did we fight?”
“We didn’t,” Katsuki says. It was worse.
His mind races with thousands of ways to explain how that stupid dream tore through him, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He feels like a teenager all over again. Whatever he will confess, it will change everything. Katsuki will scare him off.
“Kacchan,” Izuku says patiently. “If you don’t tell me, I might end up hurting you the same way.”
“Worse,” Katsuki immediately blurts out, prompted by the sudden pounding of his heart at Izuku’s words. “It was worse—shit. You just didn’t care about me anymore.”
Izuku tilts his head like some cute fucking puppy. “That doesn’t really sound like me.”
God , Katsuki thinks hysterically, how would I know?
“You didn’t look at me anymore. Not like this.” Katsuki noses deeper into Izuku’s palm.
“That’s a silly dream, Kacchan. You know I’m always looking,” Izuku says.
“You rejected me,” he says bitterly. “My offer, at my agency. Would’ve been ours.”
“Your agency?” Really, thank you, Kacchan . Katsuki winces, his heart twisting at the familiar words, and he braces himself for what follows—
“Kacchan! Oh, gosh —really? Me? Kacchan, for me?” Izuku gushes. He rips his fingers off Katsuki’s face, but that’s okay, because he starts freaking out, starry-eyed and flushed, that Katsuki’s okay with it. “Oh, this is amazing. Kacchan’s asking me , of all people—”
“Who else would I ask, idiot?” Katsuki bites. “Opening an agency together was our dream.”
Izuku laughs. “Kacchan, I don’t expect you to just wait for me that long! I don’t want to leave my students on an abrupt note, so if you want to open your age—”
“I fucking love you,” Katsuki says fiercely.
Izuku’s jaw drops open, the words dying on that cute fucking mouth.
“Izuku, do you get it now?” Katsuki eyes Izuku. He needs him to understand. He needs Izuku to know. If he couldn’t say it, he will make it impossible for Izuku to misunderstand what Katsuki’s truly been wanting to ask. He needs Izuku to know why that nightmare twisted him up this badly. “I would wait. I’ve been waiting. Eight years, it was all for you.”
Izuku’s staring at him quietly now, wide-eyed, but all the words Katsuki couldn’t say in his dream come tumbling over each other in a rush.
“It fucked me up when there was even a chance you wouldn’t even look back at me. Make me wait for you for eight years more; I don’t give a shit— but don’t you dare look at anyone else.” Katsuki knocks their foreheads together. “Izuku, do you understand?”
Izuku— well. He starts fucking crying.
“Kacchan!” he warbles. “That was the cutest confession ever! Oh, Kacchan just confessed to me.” He sniffles in a really disgusting way, but Katsuki can’t even pull away, too afraid to miss a single moment. “Kacchan beat me to it, too.”
“Ha?” Katsuki resists the urge to say, Of course I did , because he didn’t get it.
“Kacchan,” Izuku throws his arms around his neck. “I wanted to say ‘I love you’ first.”