Chapter Text
The first thing Katsuki noticed every morning wasn't the harsh sunlight spilling through the gaps in his curtains, nor the distant sound of the UA dorms waking up.
It was the weight.
It wasn't heavy enough to trap him beneath the heavy blankets, nor light enough for his sharp senses to ignore. It was a steady, rhythmic pressure right against his ribs,just enough to remind him that someone had crawled across the boundary of his bed sometime during the dead of night. Personal space, which Katsuki usually guarded like a rabid hound, had become an afterthought over the last two years. An inconvenience rather than a necessity.
Izuku.
Of course.
Katsuki opened one eye, staring down at the absolute disaster of messy green curls pressed directly against his collarbone. The fan on his desk hummed a low, monotonous tune, cutting through the chilly morning air of the room. He shifted slightly, feeling the damp fabric where Izuku’s face met his chest.
"...You're drooling," Katsuki muttered, his voice thick and rough with sleep.
A sleepy, entirely unbothered mumble answered him from the depths of the sheets.
"M'not."
"You literally are, Deku. It’s disgusting."
"I'm not..."
"You are."
"I'm not..."
Katsuki snorted, the vibration rumbling through his chest. He reached up, his calloused thumb catching the edge of Izuku’s jaw to push him back just an inch. "Liar. Move your giant head."
Instead of moving, Izuku buried his face farther into Katsuki's shirt, inhaling the faint, sharp scent of burnt sugar and laundry detergent. He made no effort whatsoever to shift his weight.
"Five more minutes, Kacchan."
"You've been saying five more minutes for ten minutes already."
"They're different minutes."
Katsuki stared at the ceiling, utterly exasperated. "...That's not how fucking time works."
"It is when Recovery Girl isn't timing our recovery laps," Izuku murmured, his eyes still closed, a soft, sleepy smile tugging at his lips.
Katsuki rolled his eyes so hard it practically physically hurt. "Dumbass."
But he didn't shove him away. He never did.
Their relationship had never looked like the ones in the stupid romance movies Mina forced everyone to watch in the common room. There were no dramatic declarations beneath exploding festival fireworks. No grand, sweeping gestures in the middle of the courtyard. No endless texting chains filled with obnoxious heart emojis that made Katsuki want to blow up his own phone.
Instead, there were mornings like this.
Mornings defined by Izuku ruthlessly stealing three-quarters of the blanket. Izuku complaining that Katsuki's room was kept at sub-zero temperatures. Izuku leaving heavy, tear-stained analysis notebooks scattered across the floor because he'd been muttering hero strategy ideas until three in the morning under the glow of a single desk lamp.
And Katsuki pretending to complain every single time, cursing under his breath while quietly shifting his weight to make room beside him anyway.
Two years. Two whole years of this.
Sometimes Katsuki still couldn't entirely process it. If someone had told his angry, explosive fourteen-year-old self that one day Izuku would fall asleep against his shoulder as though it were the safest place in the entire world, he would've blasted them through the nearest brick wall. They had burned each other down for years. They had bled on battlefields. Yet, here they were. Life was strange and frustrating like that.
Izuku finally sat up with a heavy groan, stretching his arms toward the ceiling until several joints in his shoulders popped loudly—a lingering reminder of old injuries and overworked muscles.
"I'm going to be late for Aizawa's homeroom," Izuku muttered, squinting at the digital clock on the desk.
"You are late."
"Oh." Izuku didn't look panicked. Instead, a slow, familiar expression crossed his face.
Katsuki narrowed his eyes, tracking the shift in the nerd's expression. "...You're smiling."
Izuku blinked, trying to look innocent. "What?"
"You only smile like that when you're about to ask me for something stupid."
"I wasn't—"
"What do you want, Izuku?"
Izuku rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks flushing a faint pink. "...Can I borrow your hoodie? The black one?"
"You already own three of mine," Katsuki snapped, though there was no real heat in it. "I saw them in your closet yesterday."
"I know."
"So wear your own clothes."
"They don't smell like you," Izuku said softly, his green eyes meeting Katsuki's with terrifying, unblinking honesty.
Silence descended on the room. Katsuki stared at him, caught entirely off guard by how casually the nerd could drop lines like that. Izuku gave a sheepish, hopeful smile, tilting his head.
"...Please?"
"Tch." Katsuki swung his legs out of bed, the cold floor hitting his bare feet. He walked over to the chair in the corner, yanked his favorite oversized black hoodie off the backrest, and aggressively threw it at Izuku's face.
It landed with a soft whump, completely burying Izuku’s messy hair.
Izuku laughed, a clear, bright sound that filled the quiet bedroom as he pulled the fabric down over his head, practically drowning in the extra fabric. "Thanks, Kacchan."
"Shut up and get dressed." But Katsuki couldn't hide the small, sharp smile tugging at the corner of his own mouth as he turned toward his wardrobe.
Their mornings always ended the exact same way. One of them remembered reality, and the fragile bubble they built between these four walls popped.
"Oh," Izuku whispered. His eyes traveled toward the heavy, wooden bedroom door. The space between them suddenly felt wider. "We should..."
"Yeah."
The lingering warmth in the room faded—not because either of them wanted it to, but because they had practiced this routine hundreds of times. They had ironed out the wrinkles of their secrecy until it was muscle memory.
No touching outside the room. No lingering looks in the hallways. No slipping up in front of the class.
At school, to the rest of Class 2-A, they had to be exactly what everyone expected them to be. Just classmates. Just fierce rivals pushing each other to the brink. Just childhood friends who argued far too much and communicated mostly through shouts and explosions. Nothing more.
Izuku walked over to the door first, his boots making quiet thuds on the rug. But before his hand touched the brass doorknob, he paused. He turned back, stepping into Katsuki’s space, and rested his forehead against Katsuki's for the briefest, quietest moment.
It was a habit. A silent anchor they had created together to survive the daylight.
"I'll see you downstairs," Izuku whispered against his skin.
Katsuki let out a low, grounding hum, closing his eyes to memorize the pressure. "Don't do anything stupid."
Then, Izuku stepped back. He opened the door. The moment the latch clicked shut behind him, everything changed. The atmosphere in the room shifted from intimate and warm to freezing and clinical.
By the time Katsuki entered the hallway exactly three minutes later,Izuku was already standing by the elevator. He was gesturing wildly, chatting animatedly with Iida about the English homework as though he hadn't spent the entire night tangled together beneath Katsuki's blankets.
No one looked twice. No one suspected a damn thing.
Katsuki shoved his hands deep into his uniform pockets and walked past them toward the stairs without so much as a glance or a nod.
It still felt entirely wrong sometimes. It wasn't because Katsuki wanted to shout it from the rooftops; he didn't need the attention, and he hated people in his business anyway. He just wanted to be able to greet his boyfriend the way everyone else greeted the people they cared about. A casual hand on the shoulder. A genuine smile. A normal, mundane conversation about what they wanted for breakfast.
Instead...nothing.
As Katsuki passed the elevator, Izuku caught his eye for a fraction of a second. A cold, professional acknowledgment. Then Izuku looked away, turning back to Iida. Just as planned. Just as always.
Sometimes, as Katsuki took the stairs two at a time, he wondered what it would be like to just stop pretending. To sit beside Izuku during breakfast because he simply wanted to be near him. To steal a piece of toast from his plate without the rest of the class assuming they were starting another screaming match. To fall asleep during Friday movie nights with his head resting against Izuku's shoulder on the common room sofa, instead of deliberately choosing opposite ends of the room to keep up appearances.
Little things. Ordinary, boring things. Things most couples took for granted and never had to think twice about.
But Katsuki never pushed. He never demanded more. Because every single time he thought about asking to loosen the rules, a specific memory locked his jaw shut.
He remembered the first real conversation they'd had after they crossed the line from rivals to whatever this was. They had been sitting on the dark floor of Katsuki’s closet, hiding from the world.
"Mom doesn't know," Izuku had whispered that night, his shoulders shaking, his fingers trembling so hard they practically tore at the fabric of Katsuki's sleeve. "She... she doesn't know I like guys, Kacchan. I don't know how to tell her. I'm scared. I'm so scared of changing how she looks at me."
Katsuki had looked at the terrified, brilliant boy in front of him for a long, heavy minute before answering. "Then we wait."
"Really?" Izuku had asked, looking up through tear-soaked lashes.
"Yeah. I ain't going anywhere."
"Even if it takes a really long time? Even if it's annoying?"
"As long as you fucking need, Deku."
He had meant every single syllable back then. And he still meant it now, even when the silence between them in public felt like a physical ache.
Down in the common room, the morning rush was in full swing. The smell of burnt rice, cheap coffee, and miso soup filled the air alongside the chaotic noise of twenty teenagers trying to wake up.
Kirishima dropped into the empty plastic seat beside Katsuki with his usual, blindingly bright grin, knocking his shoulder against Katsuki’s. "Morning, Bakubro! You look like you're ready to murder the sun today!"
Katsuki aggressively stabbed a piece of egg with his chopsticks. "Tch. Shut up, Shitty Hair."
"Wow, that's the nicest good morning I've gotten from you all week," Kirishima laughed, entirely unbothered by the hostility as he reached for the soy sauce. "I'll take it."
"Be grateful I don't blast you into the ceiling before first period," Katsuki muttered, taking a bite of his food.
Across the crowded room, past the kitchen island, a loud burst of laughter echoed. Katsuki’s gaze instinctively tracked the sound. Izuku was standing by the toaster, laughing at some ridiculous joke Uraraka had just made. He was wearing the black hoodie. The sleeves were a little too long, bunching up around his scarred wrists, and the collar sat loose on his frame.
For a split second, as Izuku turned to grab his plate, his green eyes drifted across the chaotic room.
Right toward Katsuki.
Just for one fleeting second.
It was a look meant only for him,a private acknowledgment hidden in plain sight. A tiny, barely perceptible smile appeared on Izuku’s face before vanishing just as quickly into a nod toward Uraraka.
Nobody noticed. Mina was busy gossiping, Kaminari was spilling his juice, and Kirishima was talking about training weights. Nobody saw the secret pass between the two strongest students in the course.
Except Katsuki.
He let out a quiet breath through his nose, a faint trace of warmth settling back into his chest. He went back to his breakfast, his chest feeling a little less heavy.
It was enough. It always had been. For now.
Or so Katsuki thought.
Looking back at those months, through the sharp, unforgiving lens of hindsight... he realized he should have noticed it sooner.
He should have noticed the subtle shift in the wind. Not that specific morning over miso soup and stolen glances. Not even during that particular week when the training schedule got brutal and everyone was exhausted. But somewhere along the strict, repetitive timeline of their second year at UA, things had started changing.
Slowly. Quietly.
So quietly that the silence didn't sound like a warning at all; it just sounded like peace. It happened so gradually that Katsuki hadn't even realized he was watching the distance grow between them until the chasm had already become too wide to jump. Until it had already become completely impossible to ignore.
At first, it had been the little things. The tiny, almost imperceptible alterations to a routine they had spent months perfect-tuning.
Izuku stopped staying the entire night in Katsuki's room.
The first time it happened, they had been tangled together after a brutal sparring session, the smell of sweat and liniment heavy in the air. Izuku had untangled his limbs from Katsuki’s, sat on the edge of the mattress, and started pulling his socks back on. He turned around, pressed a soft, lingering kiss to Katsuki's jaw, and smiled apologetically under the dim glow of the desk lamp.
"I should sleep in my own bed tonight, Kacchan," Izuku had murmured, rubbing a tired hand over his eyes. "Just for once. If Iida comes knocking on my door early for room inspections and I'm not there, it’ll be a whole thing. I don't want to risk it."
Katsuki hadn't questioned it. Not even for a second. Everyone wanted their own space sometimes. Katsuki himself valued isolation more than almost anyone in Class 2-A; it made perfect, logical sense that Izuku would want a night to stretch out in his own bed without worrying about waking Katsuki up with his middle-of-the-night tossing and turning.
But one night turned into three. Three nights turned into a week.
Then came the canceled plans. The fractured afternoons that used to belong exclusively to them.
"Sorry, Kacchan. All Might called me to his office last minute. He wanted to go over my notes on the Third User's quirk factors again."
"I promised Iida and Todoroki I'd help them study for the upcoming modern heroics history exam. I'm really sorry, I know we said we'd train."
"Recovery Girl asked me to stay behind after foundational training today. My joints are just acting up a bit from the cold weather. Nothing to worry about!"
Reasonable. Every single excuse sounded entirely reasonable. They were UA students; they were provisional heroes balancing a mountain of expectations, trauma, and physical exhaustion. Every word out of Izuku’s mouth carried the weight of a logical truth.
So Katsuki believed them. He swallowed the bitter taste in his throat and nodded.
Because trust wasn't supposed to feel like a high-stakes gamble. It wasn't supposed to be a ledger where you kept score of how many times someone showed up versus how many times they walked away. It was supposed to be automatic. Especially with Izuku. Especially after everything they had survived to get to this point.
But the shift didn't stop at the schedule. It bled into the quiet spaces between them.
The hugs became shorter, turning into quick, functional pressures of chest against chest before stepping away. The kisses became quicker—fleeting brushes of lips against a cheek or a forehead as they passed each other in the safety of empty stairwells. The conversations became quieter, stripped of that fierce, rambling passion Izuku usually possessed.
Izuku still smiled. He still looked at Katsuki with those wide, green eyes. He still told him he loved him in that soft, breathless voice that made Katsuki’s chest ache. He still reached out to squeeze Katsuki's hand whenever the dorm hallways were empty enough and the shadows were deep enough that no one else could see.
But something fundamental had changed. Something shifted beneath the surface, a hairline fracture in the foundation that Katsuki couldn't quite name, no matter how hard he tried to analyze it.
⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆
"You're thinking too much, Kacchan."
Izuku’s voice broke the heavy silence of the bedroom. He chuckled softly, the sound a bit thin, as they sat cross-legged on Katsuki's bed. It was a Tuesday evening. Their English textbooks lay forgotten and open between them, the fine print blurred under the lamplight.
Katsuki blinked, snapping out of his thoughts. "What?"
"You've been staring at me for like... five minutes straight," Izuku said, offering a small, playful smile. He tilted his head, his green curls bouncing slightly, but his shoulders remained strangely tense. "Did I have pen ink on my face again?"
"...Have not," Katsuki grunted, his jaw tightening.
"You have. You’re doing that little line right between your eyebrows."
"Tch." Katsuki looked away, his gaze dropping to the floorboards. The unease that had been simmering in his gut for weeks suddenly bubbled up, hot and demanding. The words slipped out before he could build his usual walls to stop them. "...You've been weird."
The room seemed to drop a few degrees. Izuku's smile faltered, the corners of his mouth twitching down for a fraction of a second before he caught himself.
"...Weird?" Izuku repeated, his voice dropping an octave.
"...Yeah," Katsuki said, turning his head back to look at him directly, demanding eye contact. "You've been busy."
"We're all busy, Kacchan. The midterms are coming up, and the agency internships—"
"You leave early," Katsuki cut him off, his voice flat, overlapping Izuku's explanation. "Every time you're here. You don't sleep here anymore. At all."
Izuku lowered his eyes, his fingers twitching against his knees. "...Sorry."
Katsuki shrugged, pulling his shoulders back, trying with every ounce of his pride to make it seem like he didn't care nearly as much as he actually did. Like the empty half of his bed didn't feel freezing cold every night at 4:00 AM.
"It's whatever," Katsuki muttered.
A lie. A pathetic, transparent lie.
Izuku sighed softly. He reached across the space between them, his scarred, calloused hand sliding over Katsuki's knuckles. His skin was warm, but his touch felt strangely tentative, as if he were handling something fragile that might shatter if he pressed too hard.
"I'm sorry if it feels like I'm pulling away, Kacchan," Izuku said softly, his eyes searching Katsuki's face.
Those specific words—pulling away—made something violently tighten deep inside Katsuki's chest, cutting off his breath. Hearing it aloud made the fear too real.
"I'm just... really overwhelmed lately," Izuku continued, his voice laced with a genuine, heavy exhaustion. "With school, and the internships, and the extra training with All Might... everything is just moving so fast. It feels like there aren't enough hours in the day." He squeezed Katsuki's hand, his expression softening into something intensely earnest. "It isn't because of you. I promise. It’s not you."
Katsuki studied his face, his sharp red eyes scanning every line, every freckle, every minute shift in Izuku’s expression. He was searching for something. For a lie, for a hidden truth, for a warning sign—he wasn't entirely sure.
But he didn't find a betrayal. He only found tired, shadowed eyes. A strained, weary smile. A boy carrying the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, looking completely spent. Nothing else.
Katsuki let out a slow, rough breath, his shoulders dropping. "...You'd tell me if something was wrong. If something happened."
Izuku didn't hesitate. Not for a single beat.
"I would," Izuku said, his voice steady, his eyes locking onto Katsuki’s with absolute clarity.
The answer came so quickly, with such effortless certainty, that Katsuki believed it entirely. Because why wouldn't he? Why on earth would he doubt him?
This was Izuku. This was Deku. The boy he've known since they were toddlers scraping their knees in the dirt. The boy he'd loved in the quiet, agonizing dark for years. The person who knew every single scar on Katsuki's hands, every horrific nightmare that still woke him drenched in sweat before dawn, every deep-seated insecurity he would rather die than admit aloud to anyone else.
If there was a single person in this entire godforsaken world that Katsuki trusted without a single shadow of a question...it was the boy sitting across from him right now.
Katsuki let the tension leave his jaw. "...Okay."
Izuku smiled, a visible wave of relief flickering across his face, clearing away some of the exhaustion. "Come here."
He leaned forward across the textbooks, his movement fluid and familiar. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss right to the center of Katsuki's forehead, his breath warm against Katsuki's skin.
"So much for thinking I'm weird," Izuku teased gently, pulling back just enough to look into his eyes, his hands resting on Katsuki’s shoulders.
Katsuki rolled his eyes, the familiar routine settling over him like a shield. "...Idiot."
Izuku laughed,a small, breathless sound. "I'll take that as a yes."
Katsuki didn't bother giving a verbal answer. Instead, he simply reached out, grabbed the front of Izuku’s oversized shirt, and pulled him closer, closing the distance until the empty space between them completely vanished. He buried his face into the crook of Izuku’s neck, breathing in the scent of him, letting the warmth ground his racing thoughts.
If there was a small, persistent voice lingering in the very back of his mind,a tiny, instinctive survival instinct whispering that something was deeply wrong, that the puzzle pieces weren't fitting together correctly...
He buried it. He crushed it beneath the weight of his devotion.
Love wasn't about constantly assuming the worst of the person you cherished. It wasn't about letting paranoia poison the few quiet moments you had left together. It was about believing the person beside you when they looked you in the eye and told you everything was fine.
So he did exactly that. He let the uneasy knot in his stomach fade away. He convinced himself that he was just being paranoid, that his explosive temper and overanalytical mind were fabricating ghosts in the dark.
After all, relationships had rough patches. People got busy. People got tired. Not every single moment could feel like the electric, terrifying beginning of their freshman year. They were growing up. They were becoming heroes.
He had absolutely no tangible reason to doubt Izuku. None at all.
And that... Katsuki would later realize, as he sat alone in the quiet wreckage of what they used to be... was the absolute cruelest part of it all.
He never once considered the possibility. He never once let his mind wander to the darkest scenario. He never once thought that the person he trusted most in the entire world,the boy he had sworn to protect, the boy who held his entire heart in his scarred palms,could be the exact one who was actively breaking it.
⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆
The following Saturday was supposed to be theirs.
It wasn't a date on paper,they didn't dare write those down,but it was an unwritten pact carved into the margins of a brutal semester. No foundational training. No intense agency internships. No mandatory weekend patrols. Just a few precious, stolen hours outside the towering walls of U.A., hidden beneath the generic anonymity of cheap baseball caps and oversized hoodies pulled low enough that nobody would recognize two high-profile hero course students wandering through the city streets together.
It had taken them nearly two agonizing weeks of cross-referencing schedules, dodging group study sessions, and turning down training offers just to find a single afternoon that worked.
Izuku had been the one to suggest it.
They had been standing in the shadow of the gym lockers, the air smelling of ozone and dried sweat, when Izuku had leaned in close, his voice a breathless whisper.
"Let's go out, Kacchan."
"Just us. Anywhere."
Katsuki hadn't admitted aloud how much those three simple words had meant to him, how they had felt like an oxygen mask being handed to a drowning man. Instead, true to form, he'd merely grunted something low and rough that vaguely resembled a gruff agreement.
Inside his own head, however... it was a different story. He'd spent the entire grueling week looking forward to that Saturday. Every time Aizawa piled on more tactical theory, or his muscles burned from heroics practice, Katsuki had anchored himself to the thought of that afternoon. Just him, the nerd, and a few hours where the rest of the world didn't exist.
They had agreed to meet outside a small, run-down café tucked away between two incredibly narrow side streets. It was an old place, its brick walls stained with soot and time, located far enough from Musutafu's busier commercial districts that they were highly unlikely to run into chatty classmates, eager fans, or wandering news reporters.
Katsuki arrived exactly twenty minutes early.
It was a pathetic detail he would fiercely deny until the day he died. He leaned his broad back against the cool, rough brick wall beside the café entrance, his hands buried deep inside his front hoodie pockets, staring fixedly at his boots to pretend he wasn't tracking every single pedestrian who rounded the distant concrete corner.
Five minutes passed. The wind picked up, kicking up a stray piece of newspaper along the asphalt.
Then ten minutes.
Then thirty.
"Tch," Katsuki muttered, shifting his weight. The brick wall was starting to leach cold right through his thick clothing.
He pulled his phone out, his thumb hovering over the glass screen. No new notifications. No unread messages on the lock screen. Typical. Izuku had always been absolutely terrible with time whenever he got caught up in his own thoughts.
Katsuki rolled his eyes, shoving the device away, trying to force down the irritation building in his chest. "Dumbass probably got distracted by some quirk analysis notebook or a third-rate hero billboard on the train," he rationalized, his jaw tightening as he stared down the empty alleyway.
So, he waited.
An hour passed.Two.Thee.The sky above began to lose its brilliant midday brightness, shifting into a duller, cast-iron gray. Still, there was no sign of messy green hair or a familiar red pair of boots.
Katsuki bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper, pulled his phone back out, and texted first.
Where the fuck are you?
The status instantly changed to Seen.
But no bubbles appeared. No typing indicator tracked across the screen. Just a cold, blank void of silence.
Another thirty minutes dragged by like molasses. Katsuki’s initial irritation was slowly, insidiously melting into a sickening coil of unease. His mind, trained for combat and threat assessment, began to spin worst-case scenarios. Maybe a villain attack had broken out near the station. Maybe One For All was acting up again, tearing Izuku’s muscles apart in some secluded alley. Maybe—
His phone violently buzzed in his palm, shattering the spiral.
Sorry, Kacchan.
Something came up.
Katsuki stared at the glowing text, reading the brief message twice. Then a third time, as if a longer explanation would magically materialize between the lines if he stared hard enough.
That was it? No frantic string of exclamation points? No paragraphs of stuttering apologies? No panicked voice message? Just... 'Something came up.'
His fingers hovered over the keyboard, his knuckles turning white as he typed back with aggressive force.
What happened? Are you hurt?
Several long, agonizing minutes passed before the response bubble finally appeared, sluggish and hesitant.
No, I'm okay! I was just helping Shouto with something.
Katsuki froze, his breath catching in his throat as he stared at the screen.
Shouto.
Not Todoroki.
Shouto.
For some inexplicable, visceral reason, the familiar use of that first name caught violently on something jagged inside Katsuki's chest. It felt like a physical blow. Since when did Izuku drop the family names of their classmates when they weren't in a group setting? Since when had that boundary vanished?
Katsuki frowned deeply, his chest tightening. He tried to reason with himself. Maybe they had simply gotten closer after their joint tactical training sessions with All Might. It wasn't strange. Classmates became close friends. That was the whole point of the stupid dorm system. It was normal. It had to be normal.
Still... the unfamiliar familiarity of that name lingered heavily in Katsuki's thoughts, casting a long, dark shadow over the alleyway.
Another message arrived almost immediately afterward, as if Izuku could sense the heavy silence radiating through the network.
I'm really, really sorry, Kacchan.
I completely lost track of time.
Can I please make it up to you tomorrow?
Katsuki looked up from the screen, his eyes tracking the empty, gray street. He looked at the quiet café they were supposed to visit together. He reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against the untouched, slightly crumpled tickets for the small, nostalgic arcade around the corner.
Three hours. He had been standing against this brick wall for nearly three fucking hours in the cold, waiting like a fool.
The logical, prideful part of him,the old Bakugo Katsuki who refused to be secondary to anyone,wanted to be furious. He wanted to explode, to text back a scathing insult, to tell Izuku not to bother ever asking again. He wanted to storm back to the heights of the U.A. dorms and pretend none of this pathetic vulnerability had ever happened.
Instead... his thumb moved over the glass, driven by a desperate, quiet fear of losing the ground beneath his feet.
Fine. Tomorrow.
He shoved the phone back into his pocket before his pride could take control of his fingers and say anything else he might regret.
⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆
The date happened the following evening instead, the Sunday twilight casting long, amber shadows across the pavement.
Izuku had insisted on planning every single detail, frantic and eager to please. He had started pouring out apologies before they had even fully cleared the heavy glass doors of the Heights Alliance dorms.
"I'm really sorry about yesterday, Kacchan. Seriously," Izuku pleaded, his hands fluttering in front of his chest like nervous birds.
"I know," Katsuki grunted, his eyes fixed firmly on the path ahead, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
"No, really, I mean it. I felt completely awful about leaving you waiting out there."
"I said I know, Izuku."
"I just... I felt so bad..."
"Tch."
Izuku let out a nervous, breathless laugh, his shoulders dropping slightly as he looked sideways at Katsuki’s profile. "You could at least pretend you're forgiving me a little bit."
"I showed up today, didn't I?" Katsuki muttered, his voice dropping low, his tone rough but lacking any real venom.
"...You did," Izuku said softly.
That confession earned Katsuki one of Izuku's genuine, radiant smiles. It was the specific kind of smile that always made Katsuki's chest tighten with a mixture of intense possession and terrifying vulnerability. It was the smile he had guarded since childhood, the one that made the coldness of the previous day seem to evaporate instantly.
They spent the next few hours wandering through the quieter, older streets of the city as the sun slowly dipped below the skyline, washing the urban landscape in warm, bleeding shades of gold, violet, and deep orange.
Izuku, fueled by a sudden burst of frantic energy, dragged him by the sleeve into a tiny, cramped bookstore that smelled of old paper and dust. Then they stopped at a small bakery, where Izuku insisted on buying a sweet pastry that he immediately ended up splitting with Katsuki anyway. Finally, they ended up in a loud, flashing arcade tucked into a basement.
Somehow, through sheer frantic button-mashing and a stroke of impossible luck, Izuku managed to beat Katsuki at a vintage racing game during the very first round.
"You cheated, you damn nerd," Katsuki barked, though there was a competitive spark in his eyes that hadn't been there in weeks.
"I absolutely did not!" Izuku laughed, his green eyes sparkling under the neon arcade lights. "It was entirely skill, Kacchan!"
"You definitely fucking cheated. Your car clipped through the barrier."
"I have literal witnesses!" Izuku gestured wildly to the empty room.
"There are literally three middle schoolers in here, and they aren't even looking at us."
"They're enough to validate my victory!"
Katsuki snorted despite himself, a genuine huff of amusement slipping past his lips. For a few minutes, under the artificial glare of the game screens, the heavy weight in his chest seemed to lift entirely.
As the night fully took hold, they sat together on a secluded concrete bench overlooking the wide, dark river. There were no crowds here. No flashing cameras, no demanding teachers, and no nosy classmates to maintain their fierce rivalry for. Just the two of them and the steady, rhythmic rush of the water below.
Izuku shifted closer, his movement hesitant at first, before he rested his head lightly against Katsuki's shoulder.
"Thanks..." Izuku whispered into the quiet night air.
Katsuki didn't move, keeping his posture steady so Izuku wouldn't shift away. "What the hell for?"
"For waiting for me. Yesterday. And today."
Katsuki looked straight ahead, his red eyes watching the city lights fracture and shimmer across the dark surface of the rippling water. The memory of the cold brick wall from the day before twinged like an old injury.
"...Don't make me wait three hours again, Izuku" Katsuki said, his voice dropping into a rare, quiet gravity.
"I won't," Izuku promised instantly.
"I mean it."
"I know. I know, Kacchan."
Izuku reached down, his fingers sliding into the dark space between them on the bench. He found Katsuki's hand, weaving their fingers together tightly, hiding their joined hands beneath the oversized sleeve of Katsuki's hoodie where the rest of the world could never see.
"I love you," Izuku murmured.
The words came out so naturally. So easily, drifting into the crisp night air without a single tremor. It sounded so pure, as though there wasn't a single hidden truth or half-lie buried right behind his teeth.
Katsuki squeezed the scarred fingers back, holding on tight. "...Love you too," he muttered back.
He didn't say it often. He never had been good at the words. But every single time he forced them past his pride, Izuku would look at him as if he had just been handed the entire world. Tonight was no different; Izuku smiled against his shoulder, a small, content sound escaping his throat.
Yet, on the long walk back toward the looming gates of U.A., Katsuki found his mind betraying him. His thoughts kept automatically replaying the crushing disappointment of the previous afternoon.
Three hours.
Helping... Shouto.
The strange, hollow feeling that had settled into his stomach yesterday afternoon refused to fully dissipate, lingering like smoke after a fire had been put out.
He glanced sideways at the boy walking beside him. Izuku was currently talking animatedly about a new underground hero analysis he'd read earlier that morning, his free hand waving so enthusiastically through the air that he completely missed his footing, nearly walking straight into a concrete lamppost.
Katsuki’s reflexes kicked in instantly. He reached out, his hand catching a fistful of the back of Izuku’s hoodie to yank him backward before impact.
"Watch where the fuck you're going, idiot," Katsuki grumbled.
Izuku flushed red, laughing sheepishly as he steadied himself. "Thanks, Kacchan. Lost my train of thought there."
There it was again. That exact smile. The brilliant, familiar expression Katsuki had loved for more years than he cared to count. It was the sight that always made his internal doubts feel incredibly ridiculous and small.
Maybe he really was just overthinking everything, letting his own aggressive nature poison something good. People got busy. Plans fell apart. Close friends spent time together outside of class. None of that had to mean something sinister was happening behind closed doors.
Besides... Katsuki trusted him. He loved this irritating, self-sacrificing boy more than he had ever thought himself capable of loving another living person. And love, Katsuki firmly believed, meant choosing trust even when the darkest corners of your mind tried to whisper otherwise.
So, he silenced the whisper. He crushed the doubt.
He reached down, taking Izuku's hand a little more firmly as they approached the dorm boundaries, letting their fingers brush one last time before they had to put their masks back on. And, for the first time in weeks, Katsuki let himself truly believe that everything between them would be completely okay.
⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆
It started as an innocent scene, a quiet Sunday evening pulled straight from their old, comforting routine.
They were sitting on opposite sides of Katsuki’s bed, surrounded by open textbooks and rough drafts of tactical hero equations. The only sound in the room was the crisp rustle of pages turning. Then, the silence was shattered by the sharp, rhythmic buzz of Izuku’s phone sitting on the mattress right by his knee.
Once.
Twice.
Three times in rapid succession, the screen flashing bright blue against the dark blankets.
Katsuki didn't move a muscle, but his sharp red eyes caught the exact moment Izuku’s features softened. A smile crept onto the nerd's face—a soft, involuntary smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and lit up his face before he even realized he was doing it.
A violent, hollow knot tied itself in Katsuki’s stomach. It wasn't standard, ugly jealousy. It was a deeper, much more agonizing realization: Izuku hadn’t smiled at him like that in weeks. Lately, the smiles Katsuki received were tired, strained, and heavy with silent apologies. This one was entirely different. This one was free.
Izuku stood up abruptly, shoving his hands into his pockets to hide the slight tremor in his fingers. "I'll be right back, Kacchan. I need to... check on a laundry load downstairs."
"Tch. Whatever."
The heavy wooden door clicked shut, leaving Katsuki alone. On the bed, abandoned just inches from his hand, Izuku’s phone remained face up.
Total silence.
Katsuki just stared at it. He sat completely frozen, tracking the small device with an intensity that made his breath catch in his throat. The screen lit up yet again, throwing a pale line of light across the sheets. New Message, the generic banner read. Because of their strict security rules to protect their private lives, the sender’s name was completely hidden.
Katsuki’s fingers twitched against his sweatpants. His hand moved a few agonizing inches across the blanket, driven by a toxic, desperate urge to quiet the roaring doubts in his head. He could look. Just one glance at the lock screen. Nobody would ever know. Nobody was in the room to judge him.
His palm hovered a mere centimeter above the glossy glass. One split second, and—
He stopped.
"...What the hell am I doing?" he whispered, his voice sounding entirely foreign in the quiet room.
He pulled his hand back so violently it practically ached, slamming his back against the wall. A wave of intense nausea hit him, a disgusting mixture of shame and self-loathing.
Izuku trusts me. The nerd had handed him his entire heart, and Katsuki was really about to invade his privacy because he was acting like a pathetic, insecure coward? He closed his eyes, breathing through his nose. For all his explosive anger and foul language, there were lines Katsuki refused to cross. His pride would never allow him to become the kind of boyfriend who snooped through phones.
"Sorry," he muttered aloud to the empty room, offering a silent apology to the phone, to the walls, and to the boy who wasn't there to hear it.
When Izuku finally walked back into the room ten minutes later, rubbing the back of his neck and offering a sheepish excuse about a crowded common room, Katsuki acted completely normal. He aggressively tapped a math problem in the textbook, insulted Izuku’s terrible handwriting, and buried the hollow ache in his chest. He refused to let paranoia change who he was.
Later that evening, the atmosphere down in the common room was a chaotic contrast to the suffocating quiet of his bedroom. The space was filled with the warm, noisy energy of twenty teenagers trying to ignore the looming threat of Monday morning homeroom.
The TV was blaring a random hero talk show, but the volume was low; nobody was actually paying attention. Mina was sitting cross-legged on the rug, balancing a couch cushion on her knees with a dramatic flare.
"So..." she started, her eyes gleaming with mischief as she looked around the room. "If we all ended up forced by the universe to date someone exclusively from Class 2-A... who do you guys think would actually make a good match?"
Kaminari immediately pointed a finger at his own face. "No self-love for me! Romance is a trap, I'm staying single and keeping my peace!"
"You're just lazy!" Sero laughed, throwing a crumpled piece of loose-leaf paper at him.
The room erupted into easy laughter, and the guessing game quickly picked up speed. People were shouting over each other, tossing out increasingly ridiculous combinations.
"Iida and Hatsume from the support course!" Kirishima roared, grinning broadly.
"No way, man! She’d literally deconstruct his engines in his sleep just to see how his calves work," Jirou countered, sparking another wave of giggles.
"Kirishima and Mina, then!" Denki yelled.
"EWW!" both of them shouted in perfect, synchronized disgust, making exaggerated gagging faces.
"Mina, you literally suggested it back during the culture festival prep!"
"I was joking, you idiot!"
It was normal. Warm. Livelier than usual. It was the exact kind of mundane chatter Katsuki usually ignored, pretending to scroll through his phone while staying just close enough to listen because, in a strange way, the noise kept his mind grounded.
Then, Sero leaned over the back of the sofa, looking toward the kitchen counter where Todoroki was quietly pouring himself a cup of barley tea. "What about Todoroki? He’s always the mystery man. Who do you guys see him with?"
Mina hums dramatically, tapping her chin. "I could honestly see Momo. They’re both recommendation students, they're serious, polite, super rich..."
Momo, who was just walking out of the kitchen with a glass of water, turned an instant, violent shade of pink. "W-What? What are you all talking about over there?"
Jirou smirked, nudging her friend’s arm. "Don't panic, Momo. She's right, you guys would make a lot of sense."
Ochako, who was sitting on the armrest of the couch right next to Izuku, tilted her head thoughtlessly. "I don't know..." she murmured, her eyes drifting across the room. "I kind of think Midoriya would be a much better match for him."
The air in Katsuki’s lungs instantly turned to ice.
The entire room grew intensely curious, the casual conversation pivoting toward the new theory with terrifying speed.
"Todoroki and Midoriya?" Satou called out from the dining table.
"I mean, if you think about it, they spend a ridiculous amount of time together" Hagakure chimed in, her invisible sleeves waving through the air. "They’ve been super close since the sports festival."
"Yeah, and they completely understand each other's fighting styles during combat training," Tsuyu added, tapping her chin. "They're both sweet, and they look out for everyone. They’re kind of cute together, ribbit."
Laughter followed. There was absolutely nothing malicious in their voices, no hidden knowledge or secret plotting. It was just harmless, stupid teasing between friends who noticed two boys spending a lot of time together.
But Katsuki froze completely.
Not because he thought his classmates had figured out his secret. But because... he had never actually thought about it before. Izuku. And Todoroki. Together in the eyes of the world. It sounded ridiculous. Absurd. A stupid fantasy made up by extras who had nothing better to do with their Sunday night.
Then Mineta’s voice cut through the noise. "I still vote Midoriya and Uraraka!"
"Really? I don't know, Todoroki wins this one!"
"I vote Uraraka!"
"Todoroki!"
Everyone started playfully arguing, their voices overlapping in a loud, cheerful blur. Nobody noticed Katsuki sitting stiffly on the end of the sectional.
Nobody, except Mina. She possessed a sharp, almost animalistic instinct for the shifts in her friends' moods, especially when the loudest, most explosive guy in the building suddenly became as silent as a grave. She nudged his shoulder with her elbow, her voice dropping a bit. "What do you think, Bakubabe? Who gets your vote?"
Katsuki blinked, pulling his eyes away from the floorboards. His answer came a little too quickly, his voice entirely flat and stripped of his usual mocking bite: "...Couldn't care less about your stupid hypothetical bullshit."
Mina frowned slightly, sensing the raw, defensive edge in his tone, but she let it go, turning back to laugh at Kaminari.
That night, Katsuki lay awake long after the dorms went entirely dark.
He stared blankly at the ceiling, watching the pale moonlight cut through his curtains, casting long, skeletal shadows across the white plaster. But he wasn't thinking about Todoroki. Not really. The half-and-half bastard wasn't the real problem tearing at his mind.
He was thinking about the distance. The agonizing, quiet space that had opened up in his life.
When had Izuku stopped falling asleep beside him? When had the breathless, midnight whispers turned into an empty mattress at 4:00 AM? When had Izuku stopped laughing that easily, that freely, whenever it was just the two of them?
Maybe... maybe it wasn't Izuku who was changing. Maybe it wasn't All Might, or the heavy training load, or the stress of the upcoming exams.
Maybe the problem was him.
Katsuki turned his head to the side, staring at the empty, cold pillow next to his own. He let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh, the sound scraping against his throat like gravel.
"I'm loud," he whispered into the dark room. "I get pissed off over every little thing. I yell. I suck at talking, and I don't know how to comfort someone without sounding like I want to fight them."
The words tasted awful, like ash and copper. They were the ugly, hidden truths he buried beneath his fierce pride, things he would never dare voice to another soul. Who the hell would want to date someone like that forever? Who would willingly choose to be loved in the dark, hidden away in corners, by a guy who communicated almost entirely through insults and clenched fists?
He turned onto his side, pulling the heavy blanket tight up to his chin.
Maybe Izuku simply needed someone calmer. Someone kinder, who knew how to listen to his endless rambling without losing their temper. Someone who didn't explode at every minor inconvenience, but instead offered a steady, warm, and comforting presence. Someone who knew exactly how to say the right things to soothe a boy who carried the weight of the world, instead of grunting like a frustrated idiot.
Maybe that was the real reason Izuku had started pulling away. He was simply getting tired of Katsuki’s rough edges. He had woken up to reality and realized he deserved someone better, someone who didn't come with a history of bruises and burns.
The thought settled heavily in his chest like a massive concrete stone, crushing his lungs. And yet... that explanation hurt less than imagining Izuku would ever betray him. Believing that he was the one who was defective,that his own harsh, explosive nature was destroying the best thing he ever had,was a scenario Katsuki could actually handle. It was safer than doubting Izuku's loyalty.
So he clung to the guilt. He held onto it tightly in the dark like a lifeline. Because if the problem was entirely him, then maybe... just maybe, he could still fix it. If he worked harder, if he learned to shut his mouth and be better, he could mend the cracks before the foundation crumbled entirely.
⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆
By Monday morning, Katsuki had decided he was completely done overthinking. He was a hero, a fighter, someone who solved problems with action, not by rotting in his own head under the covers like a pathetic coward. If the foundation of their relationship had developed a hairline fracture because of his own rough, aggressive edges, then he would simply reinforce it. He would fix it the only way he knew how,quietly, deliberately, and without making a scene.
During a rare twenty-minute break between Aizawa’s grueling law lecture and their afternoon foundational training, Katsuki took a detour. Instead of heading straight to the cafeteria with his squad, he slipped away to the campus store. He spent fifteen minutes sorting through a fresh shipment of hero merchandise until he found it: a limited-edition, sleek silver notebook featuring All Might’s Bronze Age design on the cover. It wasn't an absurdly expensive piece of memorabilia, but it was rare, the kind of specific, nostalgic item Izuku would usually spend three hours muttering about in the middle of the night.
That was how Bakugo Katsuki showed affection. He didn't write poetry, and he didn't buy roses; he remembered the small, stupid things that mattered to the person he kept in the dark.
He cornered Izuku in the secluded, narrow hallway behind the locker rooms right before third period. The air smelled strongly of laundry detergent and floor wax.
"Oi, Deku," Katsuki grunted, shoving his hands deep into his uniform pockets.
Izuku turned around, a flicker of that familiar, exhausted tension instantly tightening his shoulders. "Oh! Kacchan, hey. We shouldn't really be standing out here together, someone from the general course might—"
"Shut the fuck up and take this," Katsuki interrupted, using one hand to aggressively slap the silver notebook against Izuku’s chest.
Izuku instinctively caught it against his ribs, blinking down at the gleaming cover. His eyes widened into massive green saucers, his jaw dropping slightly as he recognized the rare Bronze Age branding. "Kacchan... is this... how did you find this? The pre-orders sold out in under four seconds online last month!"
Katsuki rolled his eyes hard, turning his back to hide the sudden, fierce heat climbing up his neck. "Tch. Don't flatter yourself. It was on sale at the campus shop because the corner of the spine was slightly dented. They practically paid me to take it off the shelf."
It was a blatant, ridiculous lie. The book had cost him three weeks of his saved allowance, and the spine was absolutely flawless.
Izuku looked from the notebook up to Katsuki’s defensive profile, and suddenly, a smile broke across his face. It wasn't the strained, practiced mask he had been wearing all week. It was a brilliant, blindingly bright expression that crinkled his eyes and made his freckles bunch up together. "Thank you, Kacchan. Really. I’m going to use it for tactical quirks mapping tonight."
Looking at that genuine smile, Katsuki felt a massive, suffocating weight lift entirely from his chest. The oxygen rushed back into his lungs. He let out a soft huff through his nose, his shoulders dropping an inch. See? he told the ugly, whispering voice in the back of his mind. You were worrying over absolutely nothing. He's still your nerd.
An hour later, the peaceful illusion shattered during their live-fire combat training simulation in Ground Beta. The concrete ruins were thick with artificial smoke, and the sound of distant concrete shattering echoed through the fake city streets as Class 2-A ran drills against automated combat drones.
Katsuki was clearing a sector three blocks away when a massive, unexpected structural collapse rocked the eastern quadrant. One of the heavier, reinforcement drones had miscalculated its payload, taking down the entire support facade of a fake five-story apartment complex.
Through the haze of gray dust and flying stone, Katsuki caught sight of a familiar green silhouette. Izuku had executed a flawless full-cowling leap to shield a simulated civilian dummy, but a jagged piece of rebar caught the side of his leg on the descent, sending him crashing hard into the fractured asphalt.
Katsuki’s brain went entirely white. The tactical overview, the rules of their secrecy, the presence of twenty watching classmates,everything evaporated in a single, terrifying heartbeat.
"Deku!" he roared.
The scream was raw, violent, and laced with a panicked desperation that didn't belong on a standard training field. It cut right through the sound of shifting rubble and crackling electricity.
Across the sector, several classmates froze. Kirishima turned his head sharply, his brow furrowing in confusion. Even Aizawa looked up from his yellow sleeping bag by the monitoring terminal, his sharp eyes narrowing as he tracked the trajectory of Katsuki’s sudden explosion. It had been months,nearly a year,since Katsuki had screamed that name with that specific type of raw, unhinged terror.
Realizing the sudden, suffocating weight of the silence around him, Katsuki’s survival instincts slammed the brakes. He launched himself forward, using a minor explosion to close the distance, landing right in front of Izuku with a harsh, deliberate stomp that kicked up a cloud of loose dirt.
"Idiot!" Katsuki barked, his voice dropping into a rough, mocking sneer to cover the violent pounding of his heart. "Watch where the fuck you're going! If you get taken out by a third-rate piece of scrap metal like that during a real raid, I'm going to murder you myself! Get the hell up!"
A collective sigh of relief washed over the field. A few people laughed, Kaminari shaking his head. "Classic Bakugo," Denki muttered from a nearby alley. "Man doesn't know how to say 'are you okay' without threatening a homicide."
No one suspected a single thing. The aggressive facade had worked perfectly.
Down on the rubble, Izuku was propping himself up on one elbow, a small trail of blood dripping from a superficial scrape on his shin. He looked up through his messy curls, his green eyes soft and shining. He gave Katsuki the tiniest, almost invisible nod,a secret, private smile meant only for the boy who had just nearly given away his own soul to make sure he was breathing. It was a look that whispered I'm okay, thank you.
Katsuki offered a harsh click of his tongue, turning around to blast another incoming drone into scrap metal, his chest burning with a fierce, protective warmth.
The fragile peace carried through into the dark hours of the evening. They didn't risk meeting in Katsuki’s room this time; instead, they crept up to the restricted maintenance roof of the dorms around midnight, the air crisp and smelling of incoming rain.
They sat side-by-side on the cold concrete ledge, their legs dangling over the edge, looking out at the distant, glittering lights of the Musutafu skyline. Katsuki had brought his large, oversized black hoodie, draped loosely over Izuku’s shoulders to keep the freezing night wind from chattering his teeth.
"I'm really sorry about earlier, Kacchan," Izuku said softly, his fingers tracing the edge of the new silver notebook he had brought up with him. "And... I'm sorry about the last few weeks. I know I’ve been completely distant and weird. I know it’s been frustrating."
Katsuki shrugged, leaning back on his hands, looking up at the scattered stars. "Whatever. Told you already, it's fine. We're both busy."
"It's not fine," Izuku insisted, his voice dropping into a quiet, intense gravity that made Katsuki look back down. Izuku turned his head, his green eyes reflecting the pale moonlight. "I hate feeling like there's a wall between us. I'm just... I have so much on my plate right now, and my head is constantly spinning. But I don't want you to think it's because of anything you did."
Katsuki stared at him for a long beat. The heavy, ugly doubts from the previous night tried to claw their way back up his throat, but looking at Izuku’s earnest face, he pushed them down. He reached over, his calloused fingers forming a loose fist, and playfully flicked the center of Izuku’s forehead.
"Ow! Kacchan!"
"Then quit fucking apologizing every five seconds, damn nerd," Katsuki growled, though the corners of his mouth twitched upward. "It’s annoying. Just do what you gotta do."
Izuku rubbed his forehead, letting out a bright, genuine laugh that echoed softly against the brick chimney behind them.
For the first time in nearly a month, the air between them didn't feel heavy. It didn't feel like a countdown. It felt normal. It felt like the early days, where they could just exist in the shadows without the rest of the world demanding pieces of them.
Ten minutes later, the wind picked up, a sign that the midnight curfew was catching up to them. Izuku stood up, sliding the black hoodie off his shoulders and handing it back to Katsuki. He stepped into Katsuki’s space, leaning up on his toes to press a soft, lingering kiss right to the corner of Katsuki’s lips.
"I love you, Kacchan," Izuku whispered, the words warm and familiar against his skin.
Katsuki caught him by the waist for a split second, squeezing once before letting go. "...Love you too," he muttered, his voice rough but steady.
Izuku gave him one last radiant look before slipping through the heavy metal roof door, leaving Katsuki alone under the stars, his heart finally feeling like it belonged to him again.
By 3:00 AM, Katsuki realized sleep was a lost cause.
It wasn't because he was anxious,for once, his mind was completely quiet, his doubts thoroughly buried by the warmth of the evening. It was just a stupid combination of drinking a can of high-caffeine black coffee during his late-night study session and the suffocating, humid heat that had settled over the second-floor hallway. His small desk fan was doing nothing but moving the warm air around.
Giving up on the mattress, Katsuki swung his legs out of bed. He was wearing nothing but a pair of loose gray sweatpants. He grabbed a clean glass from his desk and stepped out into the dark, silent corridor of the dorms, intending to head down to the communal kitchen for a glass of ice water.
The dorms were entirely dark, the quiet punctuated only by the occasional hum of the vending machines or the distant, muffled snore from one of the guys' rooms down the hall.
As he reached the ground floor, he passed the massive glass doors that led out to the rear courtyard and the training gardens. The view outside stopped him in his tracks.
The moon was completely full, casting a stark, beautiful silver glow across the manicured lawns and the dark silhouettes of the cherry blossom trees. It looked incredibly peaceful, like a painting stripped of all color.
Katsuki smiled faintly to himself, a rare, relaxed expression crossing his face. Maybe I'll take my water out there, he thought, his hand pressing against the heavy glass door to slip into the night air.
Then, a faint, rhythmic murmur cut through the quiet rustle of the leaves.
Voices.
Katsuki paused, his hand freezing on the handle. He narrowed his eyes, tracking the sound toward the shadow of the stone arches near the traditional tea house structure All Might had insisted on building in the corner of the garden.
He recognized the cadence instantly.
Izuku. And Todoroki.
Katsuki’s shoulders relaxed, a soft, amused huff escaping his nose. He didn't feel a single spark of suspicion. Not even a fraction of a percentage. After the conversation on the roof and the silver notebook, his trust was an iron fortress. Probably out here pulled into another late-night tactical rambling session, Katsuki thought, shaking his head. Two goddamn prodigies who don't know how to turn their brains off.
He adjusted his grip on the glass, stepping off the concrete porch onto the soft grass, intending to walk over, throw a vulgar insult at them for breaking curfew, and tell them to get the hell inside before Aizawa caught them.
He took three steps before Shouto’s voice cut through the dark, carrying a heavy, exhausted weight that made the hairs on the back of Katsuki’s neck stand up.
"How much longer, Izuku?"
Katsuki stopped dead in his tracks. His bare feet sunk into the cool dew of the grass. He didn't mean to eavesdrop. He genuinely, honestly didn't. He was Bakugo; he didn't hide in bushes to listen to other people's business. But his legs simply refused to move, his joints locking up as a strange, icy dread suddenly flooded his veins.
A heavy sigh drifted from the shadow of the stone archway. Katsuki watched as Shouto stepped out into the moonlight, his uniform tie completely loosened, his mismatched eyes shadowed with an intense, weary frustration.
"I'm tired of pretending," Shouto muttered, his head dropping forward slightly, his shoulders sagging. "I hate the way we have to look away in the hallways. I hate pretending I don't care when you get hurt during drills. It’s exhausting."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Then, Izuku stepped into the light to face him. He was wearing a simple green t-shirt, his hands reaching out to gently touch the sides of Shouto’s jacket.
"I know, Shouto. I know it hurts," Izuku answered, his voice soft, breathless, and laced with a terrifying, tender intimacy that Katsuki had recognized for two years. "It’s hard for me too. But please... just give me a little more time. I’m trying to figure out how to handle everything without causing a massive scene in the class. Just... a little longer. Please?"
Katsuki’s heart skipped a violent beat. Then another.
No.
Those words. He knew those exact words. He had lived those words. Those were the identical promises Izuku had whispered to him in the dark of his closet two years ago when he was too terrified to tell his mother about his sexuality. Just give me time, Kacchan. Please wait for me.
Shouto didn't answer with words. He took a slow step forward, completely closing the distance between them. He reached up, his large, scarred hand sliding gently up the side of Izuku’s neck to rest against his freckled cheek, his thumb tracing the bone.
And then, he leaned down and kissed him.
There was no sudden explosion of dramatic background music. No warning flare. No violent spark of sweat turning to nitroglycerin on Katsuki’s palms. The world didn't end with a bang; it ended with a quiet, sickening whimper.
Just... silence. Total, absolute, and freezing silence.
Katsuki couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt like they had been filled with liquid concrete, staving off any oxygen. His mind, usually capable of computing complex battlefield strategies in milliseconds, completely locked up, flatlining into a blank, terrifying void. He watched the scene play out for what felt like an eternity, though the logical part of his brain knew it was only three seconds.
He watched Izuku’s eyes close. He watched Izuku’s fingers tighten against the fabric of Shouto’s shirt, pulling him closer into the moonlight.
Then, Shouto pulled back just an inch, his breathing shallow, and gently rested his forehead directly against Izuku’s.
The ritual. Their ritual. The silent anchor Katsuki thought they had built together to survive the daylight. It wasn't theirs. It was just a habit Izuku gave to the people he kept in the dark.
Katsuki’s entire world didn't break,it shattered into microscopic pieces, the foundation completely evaporating beneath his bare feet. The silver notebook, the smile in the hallway, the look during the drone training... it wasn't a return to the golden age. It was a parting gift. A final, guilty payout before the contract was canceled.
He backed away before either of them could open their eyes and notice the shadow standing on the lawn.
One step backward, his heel sinking into the dirt.
Then another step, his hand trembling so violently the glass in his palm rattled against his skin.
He turned around slowly, his movements robotic, stiff, and heavy. He walked back toward the dark glass doors of the dorms, his legs moving entirely on survival instinct. He looked down at his own hands, his calloused palms, but he couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel the cool wind against his bare chest. He had completely forgotten how to use his own body, a stranger inhabiting a corpse as he stepped back into the silent, empty room.