Chapter Text
I gave you a piece of me before I left. Please, take care of it.
“How sad . . . ”
“Wait—”
Shouto’s heart is pounding. He’s tired, he can barely breathe, and his mouth tastes like blood. Dabi’s hand is firmly gripping Bakugou’s throat, clouds of black and purple whirling around them, almost enveloping the two completely, but Kurogiri hesitates. Dabi quirks an eyebrow up, a grin distorting the staples on his face, like he knows what Shouto is going to say.
And maybe he does.
“I’ll go,” Shouto rasps out, crawling back to his feet, holding back the urge to vomit.
Mr. Compress disappears into the warp portal, but Dabi stays, thumb pressing into Bakugou’s windpipe.
The forest is silent.
Shouto’s mouth tastes like blood, and he thinks of Stain. He thinks of their battle, thinks of everything he hates about that man and his ideology. He thinks of Stain’s connection to the League, to Shigaraki, and to Dabi. He thinks about heroes and villains, his mother, and his father.
He thinks about—
“But you’re not the target, Todoroki Shouto,” Dabi hums wickedly, hand tightening around Bakugou’s throat, eyes as bright blue as his flames.
What did Stain say again?
“T-Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya stammers from behind him, struggling to get up, face smeared with dirt. “What are you—?”
All for the sake of a better society. Ah, that was it.
“The point of this is to turn Bakugou into a villain, right? To turn him into one of you?” Shouto asks, staring right into Dabi’s eyes. Blue, like his father. Blue, like his—
“How astute of you, little Todoroki,” Dabi mocks, the fingers around Bakugou’s throat starting to tingle with blue flames.
“Don’t do this for me,” Bakugou chokes out, bloody-eyed and livid. He doesn’t even flinch as his skin starts to burn.
Shouto closes his eyes. It’s not for you, Bakugou, he thinks, heart clenching terribly in his chest. He already feels sorry for what he’s about to do.
He has a feeling he’s going to spend the rest of his life feeling sorry for it.
He looks at Bakugou, and back at Midoriya, and he bites his bottom lip so hard that it bleeds. He thinks of Stain, once again. No matter how much he claims to detest Stain’s beliefs, there has not been a single day since their battle that he hasn’t questioned about what it truly means to be a real hero.
The leaves start to rustle, hurried footsteps pattering outside the clearing. Shouto doesn’t have much time left to pull this off before backup arrives.
“Why go to the trouble of turning a hero into a villain, when I’m here and willing?”
“Tired of playing hero, are you?”
Shouto is tired; not of playing a hero, but of figuring out how to be one, figuring out if it’s right for him to be one. His mother once told him that he’s not bound by his blood, that it’s up to him to decide who he wants to become, but Shouto feels lost, more lost than ever. Shouto doesn’t know who he is and he doesn’t know who he wants to become.
“You don’t have to do this, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya gasps, eyes big in disbelief, broken arms flailing in the wind.
“I know,” Shouto says, because he does know that. He knows that he could still let Dabi take Bakugou. He knows that Bakugou won’t turn bad, because he knows that the League has mistaken every single violent, rash, and immature aspect of Bakugou as villainous, when those very traits define who he is as a hero.
Bakugou knows who he is. Shouto doesn’t have that luxury.
He takes a deep breath, glances at Midoriya, kneeling pitifully on the ground behind him, then at Bakugou, who looks more hurt and betrayed than if Shouto had just let him go, and he admits, “I want to do this.”
Because he does. He doesn’t know who he is, doesn’t know who he wants to become. He doesn’t know if this is right and he doesn’t know if this is a mistake or not. But he knows that he wants to do this, wants to take this chance. He’s spent fifteen years abiding by society’s rules, blindly believing in what everyone told him was heroic.
Shouto is tired, and frankly, he doesn’t care about being right anymore. He doesn’t care about being heroic anymore. He doesn’t think he was ever a real hero at all.
Like father, like son.
“And why should I believe you?” Dabi asks, easing his grip on Bakugou’s throat. Bakugou coughs violently, but color begins to return back to his face.
Shouto looks deep into Dabi’s eyes—blue, blue, blue—and thinks of his father, thinks of Natsuo and Fuyumi and how he catches them kneeling by the shrine in the room that no one goes in anymore when they think that no one’s looking. He thinks of his mother and how her favorite flowers are blue Rindous—not because she thinks they’re pretty, but because they remind her of her first son, even if she’s forgotten that by now.
Blue, blue, blue.
The moment he says it, he knows he’ll lose his classmates’ trust, his future as a hero, and the first friend he’s ever had—but somehow, he can’t say he’s that scared.
Shouto is too tired to be scared. So, so tired.
He gazes one last time at his classmates, because he knows this will be the last time he can call them his friends, and looks back at his brother, because this is the first time he’s felt truly alive in years. He knows he’s alive, because it hurts. This hurts. This hurts more than anything, but Shouto’s never felt more alive.
I’m sorry, Bakugou. I’m sorry, Midoriya.
“Blood runs thicker than water, Touya.”
A knowing look flashes on Dabi’s face: a moment of realization. He lets go of Bakugou and shoves him to the ground. Bakugou collapses, wheezing and hacking his lungs out; Midoriya instantly drops to his knees to help his friend and, shockingly, Bakugou doesn’t resist.
“About time you realized,” Dabi mutters, grinning maniacally as Shouto walks into the portal and takes his place beside his brother while almost everyone else is busy worrying over Bakugou.
The ones who aren’t knelt by Bakugou’s side try to stop him from going: Uraraka sprints over to touch him, and Shouji extends his arm, but Shouto blocks them both with a thick wall of ice.
Shouto has always known, probably, known that Touya wasn’t dead (or maybe that’s just how he justifies the fact that he’s never prayed at his altar, never stepped in Touya’s room since it happened) And, though he never saw much of Touya when they were children, there’s no mistaking those bright blue eyes. Shouto isn’t too surprised that he ended up in the League, either.
“You should really invest in colored contacts.”
Dabi laughs as Kurogiri begins to engulf them in dark clouds. “It’s nice to see you again too, little brother.”
“Brother?” Bakugou breathes quietly, brows knit together, and Shouto doesn’t think he’s ever seen Bakugou look this hurt, this powerless.
“TODOROKI-KUN!” Midoriya screams as the clouds grow thicker. All Shouto can see amid the inky blight is Midoriya reaching out for him and Bakugou on the ground, tears welling up in his eyes.
Shouto never pegged Bakugou for a crier.
He wants to say he’s sorry (for lying, for leaving, and for not knowing who he is), but all that comes out of his mouth is a broken, choked out, “Don’t come after me,” even though he knows that they will.
This wasn’t for you, Bakugou, it was for me.
Shouto leaves behind a piece of himself, buries it deep in Bakugou’s heart, and steals a piece of Bakugou in return. He tells himself to treasure it for as long as he’s gone.
I wish I could tell you that I regret leaving, but that would be a lie.
Somewhere deep in Kyushu, somewhere hidden in the beautiful, cherry-blossom lined city of Fukuoka, is a small, dingy apartment complex.
A boy with bleached, off-white hair and a grey colored contact in his left eye plays with ice molded into the shape of a flower, tossing it up and down as he lazes on the couch of his and his brother’s tiny, tiny studio apartment. He looks no older than nineteen.
The apartment is a twelve minute walk from the station, fifteen if they need to take the long route to shake off any on-patrol heroes or dutiful cops on their tail. It’s been more than thirty since Shouto received Dabi’s text saying he just arrived at the station, so he begins to wonder if something’s up. He and Dabi have been living together in this studio for a few months now, and he still hasn’t gotten used to his brother’s habits.
Sometimes, he comes back to their place in the middle of the night; other times, he doesn’t come back at all. Back when they first moved to Fukuoka, here to their new, permanent hideout, Dabi would hole himself up in the apartment for days on end (it was too risky for him to be out in public, especially so soon after the fall out—he’s too noticeable for that), so it would be up to Shouto to buy groceries, essentials, and hair dye. However, as time passed, he would spend less and less time in the apartment, and more and more time out. Shouto rolls his eyes just thinking about why.
Enough is enough.
He lets the ice-flower melt and steam away in his left hand and grabs his phone with his right to call Dabi, but the door finally opens.
“Where have you been?” Shouto groans. The rule is to have one person in the apartment at all times to be safe. “My shift at the cafe started five minutes ago.” He hurries to his feet, grabs his phone, and slings his bag over his shoulder.
Dabi plops down on the couch, sticks his tongue out, and curls his fingers into an O shape. “My pretty bird was rewarding me with a job well done~”
“You’re disgusting,” Shouto hisses, putting on his work shoes. He might lose his precious job because his brother was getting sucked off in a dirty alleyway. Great. “I can’t believe you’re still fooling around with the number one hero.”
“It ain’t fooling around anymore. It hasn’t been for a while.”
Until about a year ago, Hawks had been working undercover as a double agent for the Hero Public Safety Commission. Dabi had known the truth the whole time, but he kept Hawks around because, according to him, the information was good, and so were the blow jobs. And that was it; that was all it was supposed to be.
But then came the fall out.
“I find that hard to believe,” Shouto dismisses, even though he knows deep down that Dabi is sincere. “The number one hero and Japan’s least favorite fallen son going steady? ”
Dabi glares playfully at him. “Don’t kid yourself. I’m the favorite fallen son. You’re just the child who tagged along when he was fifteen. Plus, you, Shouto, my dearest brother, are not one to judge illicit hero-vigilante relationships,” he claims, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. “Don’t you have a thing with that blond kid from UA? The one with anger issues. You know, the one the League was going to take instead of you. Aren’t you fucking him?”
Shouto’s breath hitches in his lungs; his throat is dry, but he swallows anyway.
He didn’t know that Dabi knew about that. About him and Bakugou. He didn’t think that anyone knew.
“I haven’t talked to him since that night we betrayed the League. Since Hawks betrayed the Commission. Since the fall out,” Shouto mutters, hands shaking by his sides. He isn’t sure why he’s so nervous, or why his voice thins out to a whisper.
Even though what he said is the truth, it still feels like a lie.
“He’s doing well for himself,” Dabi continues, completely ignoring Shouto’s response, but eyeing him in his peripheral. “Number two just a year after graduating! Or is it number three? He’s always exchanging ranks with that annoying whiny kid. I can never keep up.”
Midoriya.
Shouto hasn’t talked to him since the fall out either.
“You know,” Dabi starts again, arrogantly lolling his head back to gaze directly at Shouto, “at first I thought you came with me for the blondie’s sake, but boy I was wrong! You sure showed them that when they tried to rescue you.”
Shouto’s mind flashes back to the rescue mission—the attempt at one. He thinks of the pros, bursting into the bar hideout, and Kamui Woods restraining the League with branches. He thinks of how he used his fire to burn away the bark and free them all. He thinks of the broken-hearted betrayal on All Might’s face.
Shouto thinks of Yaoyorozu and Sero using their quirks to slingshot Midoriya, Iida, and Kirishima up to the sky to give him a way out, an escape route. He thinks of Midoriya, his first ever friend—the hero who saved him from himself—and his hand, his scarred, mangled, broken hand reaching out to save him once again. He thinks of how he created an ice platform to launch himself upward, only to slap Midoriya’s hand away with a fire-shrouded hand of his own. He thinks of the screams, the wails Midoriya let out when all three of them came crashing to the ground hard.
And lastly, he thinks of Bakugou angrily blasting up to the sky by himself after he saw what Shouto did. He thinks of how he looked into Bakugou’s desperate, stubborn eyes, and almost took his hand. He thinks of how he hesitated, how he really, really did consider taking his hand, but ultimately chose to burn away this last attachment to the hero world, his left hand dropping to his side, limp. He thinks of how he didn’t even have a chance to say he was sorry, because Bakugou, the moment Shouto dropped his hand, looked back into Shouto’s eyes and decided it was time to give up, hands sputtering weak explosions as he freefell to the ground.
I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to—
Shouto can’t get the words out. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say.
Four years have passed since then.
“We kissed. We kissed a couple times after the sports festival. And after the internships. We held hands in the forest and made out against a couple trees before you attacked. That was it. We weren’t even a thing then. It didn’t—it never meant anything. Even when we found each other again,” he weakly defends, hands balled up into fists, fingernails digging into his palm. It feels like another lie. “Can we drop this already?”
Dabi puts his hands up, innocently, but his teasing grin is anything but pure. “You were the one grilling me about my boyfriend.”
“Just start coming back on time, okay?” Shouto requests with an exasperated sigh.
“But Keigo likes to indulge me after I finish a job.”
Shouto rolls his eyes. “Can’t you do something other than his dirty work? I would assume he’d have actual sidekicks to boss around.”
He says that, but he knows that the sort of jobs his brother takes on for Hawks aren’t entirely legal or even ethical. Even without the Hero Public Safety Commission, Hawks is still stuck in the underbelly of Japan’s hero network, doing whatever it takes to dismantle villain group after villain group despite the moral greys of it all. That’s just the type of hero, the type of person he is.
Dabi merely laughs, the burn scars and staples on his face twisting into a wicked grin. “What, and work at a silly cat cafe like you?”
Shouto frowns. He was lucky he was even hired, he had no experience, no degree, and an incredibly shitty, half-assed disguise. It’s definitely risky, working at a place where he has to interact with so many civilians, but it’s his dream job, and his coworkers are really nice.
“It’s not silly.”
“And you call yourself a vigilante.”
Shouto hates his brother sometimes. “I am a—”
“You’re an ex-villain turned cat cafe worker, Shouto. I do all of the hero work nowadays.”
Shouto can’t even argue with that. He’s eased up on the vigilantism ever since he scored his job at the cat cafe. Working inside the law is indisputably much easier than working outside it, but Dabi is starting to get under his skin, and Shouto has always had a hang-up with wanting to prove his worth.
“Fine,” he grits out, “I’ll go on your next stupid job, and I’ll pull my weight.”
“No one’s asking you to.”
“Do you want me to call Hawks myself?”
“Actually, yeah. That’d be nice. You’d save me the trouble of having to do it myself.”
Shouto narrows his eyes, flips his brother off, and leaves the studio apartment, slamming the door behind him. But he isn’t actually angry, maybe a little irritated that he lets Dabi fuck with him so easily, but he isn’t angry.
He regrets a lot of the things he’s done these past four years since he abandoned his predestined life as a hero, but reuniting with Touya is not one of them.
Do cats still hate you?
“You’re late. Third time this month.”
Shouto winces, hurriedly tying his apron around his waist, bowing awkwardly. “Sorry, Sasaki-san. My older brother—”
Sasaki—the owner of the cat cafe, the really kind middle-aged lady who hired Shouto despite his complete lack of qualifications for the job—ruffles his bleach-damaged, off-white hair with a fond sigh and cuts him off, instructing, “You’re on barista duty. No playing with the cats.”
Shouto pouts. Playing with the cats is his favorite part of the job.
“Tohru-chan called in sick, so it’s just you and me today, got it?” Sasaki asks, resting her hand on Shouto’s shoulder.
She’s taken a liking to him—even though Shouto is ninety-nine percent sure that she knows who he is. His “temperature-regulating quirk” isn’t really fooling her (for one, she caught him creating ice cubes when he broke the ice machine), nor is the fact that he never answers to his (fake) last name (after his bumpy first week on the job, she ended up just calling him Shouto).
“Got it.” Shouto nods, finding his place behind the counter, longingly and lovingly staring at the cats on the other side of the cafe.
It’s been about three months since he started this job, and he likes to think that he’s somewhat okay at it. He panics a little when it gets busy, but luckily, today seems like it’s going to be a slow day. Tucked in the back corner of the cafe are two girls his age playing with a tiny, tiny kitten (Shouto thinks they might be on a first date of sorts), and at the table closest to him is what looks like an old married couple, a calico cat sitting on the husband’s lap.
After all, Jiji’s Purring Coffee Service is a favorite hangout for couples in the neighborhood, young or old.
An hour or two passes quietly like that, Shouto making only a handful of drinks, heating up only a handful of pastries, and sneaking over to pet only a handful of cats when Sasaki isn’t looking.
Through the glass windows, Shouto can see the cherry blossoms in bloom, floating rather than falling.
“Hey, Shouto-kun,” Sasaki hums once the cafe hits a lull and is completely empty, leaning back against the counter next to Shouto. “When’s that brother of yours going to visit? He’s always making you late, so he at least owes you a drink or two. You said he has a boyfriend, right?”
Shouto grimaces. Dabi, notorious ex-villain turned vigilante, the fallen son of the former number one hero, going out in public daylight with Hawks, the current number one hero, would not be good. “I . . . don’t know about that. He—”
The bells on the front entrance violently jingle, the door banging against the wall adjacent to it, and Shouto instantly hides behind the counter when he sees who’s entered, heart lurching into his throat, eyes big like a frightened bug.
“Oi, you stupid nerd, why the fuck did you take me to a cat cafe?”
Shouto might throw up.
“Ex-boyfriend?” Sasaki whispers in confusion, keeping her eyes trained on the new customers by the door, so as to not draw their attention to the boy hiding behind the counter, for which Shouto is thankful.
Shouto bites his lower lip. “No, not really,” he mumbles, swallowing dryly and burying his face in his knees. Bakugou was never his boyfriend; he was just—
What was he again?
Shouto doesn’t think that there is a single term in any language that fully captures what they were to each other, what they meant to each other. For a short time, they were rivals, and they were classmates. And for an even longer time, they were enemies. But they were more than that; they were always more than that.
Bakugou was Shouto’s first kiss and first time. Bakugou was the first person Shouto ever held hands with and the first person Shouto ever said—
No, no. Shouto pushes the memory out of his mind. He didn’t mean it, and neither did Bakugou.
“Everything’s fine. I’m fine,” he lies.
Everything is not fine.
“Don’t be rude,” Midoriya scolds. “We’re in Fukuoka for a job, so we might as well have some fun! Look at the kitties!”
A loud yowl and a pained hiss comes from one of the cats. Shouto suspects that Midoriya had the brilliant idea of shoving one close to Bakugou’s face. The blond was never good with animals.
“Put that stupid cat down, dumbass,” Bakugou gruffs. Their voices don’t get any louder, so Shouto figures that they’re still arguing over by the entrance.
A hushed, horrified whisper: “Kacchan! Don’t swear in front of them! They’re babies.”
“Stop covering the cat’s fucking ears. Why couldn’t we just go to a regular place for lunch? This is a shitty couples’ hang out, Deku.”
“Aw, Kacchan, don’t you want to go on a date with me?”
“GO DIE!”
Midoriya giggles, sounding just as bright and cheerful as Shouto remembers. (He hasn’t heard Midoriya’s sweet, sunshine-filled laughter in more than a year, not since the battle where he turned against Shigaraki, helped Midoriya and Bakugou take him down, not since they won and he immediately fled the scene with Dabi, who was high off winning his own battle against their father.) Shouto’s heart pangs with guilt, regret, and nostalgia.
“Fine,” the smaller boy sighs disappointedly. “The real reason I wanted to come here was because earlier, Hawks offhandedly mentioned that his boyfriend’s youngest brother works at a cat cafe in Fukuoka! This might be the one! Hawks is always so secretive about his boyfriend; don’t you wanna get at least an idea of what he must look like?”
Oh no.
Sasaki’s eyes widen, and Shouto wants to bury himself in the ground. Is Hawks stupid?
“No. I’m not a fucking creep like you.”
“C’mon, Kacchan!” Midoriya whines. “I’ve been on countless hero forums on the internet, and no one even has a clue about who his mysterious boyfriend is! And it’s not creepy! Hawks is our coworker!”
If this were any other situation, Shouto would be happy to hear something so Midoriya-esque, to know that Midoriya hasn’t changed one bit since their short-lived days together at UA, but now? Now Shouto curses his ex-friend for his never ending curiosity about heroes.
“Deku, it’s not a big deal that no one knows who he’s dating, god. Some couples actually know how to be discreet, unlike you and Shitty Hair,” Bakugou scoffs. “You’re the one who outed your own relationship by posting a slutty photo of you two in bed together.”
“I told you. It was an accident! I thought I cropped him out of the selfie!”
“It was still slutty,” Bakugou grumbles. “Fucking whatever. You’re paying for my fucking food.”
Shouto hears footsteps grow louder and louder.
Shit, shit, he thinks as the two of them approach the counter. He thinks of all his escape routes: there’s the door to the staff room, the hallway to the restrooms, and the fire exit. Fuck, fuck, which one does he take? The staff room is the closest, but Bakugou and Midoriya might spot him if he’s not careful. The hallway to the restrooms and the fire exit would require stepping outside of his cover, which he cannot do.
Shouto holds his breath. Quick, what should he—
“Ground Zero! Deku! What a pleasure to have you two in my cafe,” Sasaki greets, flashing Shouto a gentle smile, kicking him softly in the direction of the staff room, as if to say, You can go. I got this. “What would you two like today?” she asks, gesturing at the drink menus on the wall above her. She kicks Shouto once more.
Heart fluttering, Shouto closes his eyes and allows himself to inhale, filling his lungs with oxygen. He truly owes this woman his life.
“Oh my god, Kacchan,” Midoriya squeals excitedly, probably tugging on Bakugou’s sleeve. “She knows who we are!”
“We’re the number two and three heroes, dumbass. Everyone knows who we are.”
“Oh, right.”
Before he sneaks away, Shouto arches his neck to catch a glimpse of his former classmates. He smiles when he sees the kitten in Midoriya’s arms hiss and bare her teeth at Bakugou as soon as the blond tries to order a black coffee.
A lot has changed, but some things haven’t.
Sometimes I think of you and my heart hurts. Sometimes I think of you and feel nothing at all.
After he, Midoriya, and Bakugou took down Shigaraki, Shouto fled the scene to go find Dabi. Midoriya was in no shape to chase after him, arms and legs broken, a bloody, limp mess in the dirt, but Bakugou fought through his own injuries, adrenaline pushing him to follow Shouto and leave Midoriya behind.
Dabi wasn’t too far; the brunt of the battles happened in Yokohama, in Kamino Ward. With Bakugou hot on his trail, Shouto found Dabi standing next to the All Might statue in Ground Zero, a gun in hand. An empty shell of a permanent quirk-erasing bullet laid next to Endeavor’s limp body. Dabi was laughing maniacally, blue flames licking at their father’s burned skin.
Ashes and glowing embers fell like snow all over the battlefield. It was truly a sight to see.
Bakugou ran to Endeavor’s side and knelt by the fallen hero, face pale with horror. “What did you—”
“Let’s go, little brother. We’ll finish the job some other day. This is more than enough,” Dabi proclaimed. He put up a barrier of blue flames, Shouto created his piercing ice wall, and they haven’t looked back since.
That was the last time he saw Ground Zero, knelt over what remained of Endeavor, the former number one hero.
He knew that they would cross paths once again (after all, ever since he left UA, they’ve found each other time and time again), but he never thought it would be at a cat cafe in the flower-lined nooks of Fukuoka.
In the corner of the staff room, Shouto is curled up into a little ball.
“So, you want to tell me why you’re hiding from Ground Zero and Deku?” Sasaki asks.
He stays quiet; it’s one of the first things he learned how to do as a child. Sasaki has shown him nothing but kindness, and maybe he does owe her the truth, but some things are best left unsaid.
Shouto has a tendency to compartmentalize: right after he left, he shoved every single memory of UA, of Midoriya, of Bakugou in a tiny little box and buried it deep in the ground so that he could pretend like they didn’t mean anything to him. But from time to time again, Shouto digs up the little box, curious to see how much he’s changed and how much of his old self he’s lost, and he remembers everything, remembers how much they meant to him and realizes how much they still mean to him.
“Fine,” she sighs, sitting down in the chair closest to Shouto. “Then tell me about your brother’s boyfriend.”
Shouto exhales, lifting his head to face Sasaki. “They were casually seeing each other for a couple years,” he mumbles shyly, deciding that there isn’t any harm in vaguely talking about them, “but they’ve started to get more serious, recently.”
“Oh yeah?” Sasaki asks, eyes lighting up. “Marriage serious? You better invite me to the wedding.”
Shouto chokes on his spit. The only image Shouto has of Dabi and Hawks together (romantically) is from the time he got back from work a couple minutes early, walked into the apartment, and caught the two of them making out against a wall.
“If they do get married,” which Shouto doesn’t ever see happening in any circumstance, except maybe for the tax benefits, “there definitely wouldn’t be a wedding.”
“Damn. I’d love to see Hawks becoming a Todoroki.”
Shouto shoots up to his feet, hands fisted by his sides. “You—”
“I’m not stupid,” Sasaki points out calmly, looking at her nails with a bored expression on her face. “Sure, you dyed your hair white, you put in a colored contact everyday, but you didn’t even bother changing your first name. Your scar combined with your temperature-regulating quirk is a dead giveaway too, kid. What Deku and Ground Zero said out there only confirmed it.”
Fuck. Shouto feels bad for making fun of Dabi for being so recognizable, all those years ago. He fixes his eyes on the ground and mutters, “I . . . ”
“Don’t worry about it too much. I’m just teasing,” she assures, getting out of her seat to pat Shouto’s head. “I gotta go to the bathroom, but you can stay here until the two of them leave. Clean up the place up while you’re at it. Whenever Tohru’s boyfriend visits and comes in here, all the cats follow him for some reason, and the place becomes a mess. And, just in case you’re worried, I won’t tell anyone about Hawks and your brother. It’s interesting for sure, but it’s none of my business.”
Shouto’s head spins. She’s known this entire time, huh.
Working at a cat cafe was never one of his plans. He came across this cafe a week or two after arriving in Fukuoka, looking for a quiet place to eat close to their apartment, but the moment he stepped inside, it felt like this was his chance to put himself back together. It was the quiet, calm existence that Shouto always dreamed of during his turbulent days as a villain.
Before she leaves, Shouto blurts out, “Why did you hire me, and why are you helping me out like this, even though you know who I am?”
Sasaki’s white hair, fading into light blue at the ends, falls over her eyes. She smiles, and Shouto thinks of his mother.
“We all deserve a second chance.”
Sometimes, Shouto wonders what his life would have been like if he hadn’t left, if he stayed at UA—if he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a hero. But if he could do it all over again, he doesn’t think he would stay.
Midoriya once told him that his power was his, and his mother once told him that he wasn’t bound by his father’s blood. But the chains of hero society cannot be broken from the inside out, and the Commission would not have fallen if it wasn’t for him and his brother.
Before double crossing Shigaraki, Shouto and Dabi let the League take out the entire Commission with the help of Hawks. It was an overwhelming victory.
Shouto isn’t proud of everything he’s done, but he knows that every decision he made was his own, and if he had the chance to do it all over again, there is only one thing he would do differently—
(“Hey, Kacchan, you can’t go in there!”
“Please, that lady went to the bathroom, and she’s manning the store alone. It’s fine. Didn’t you want to find hints about Hawks’ boyfriend’s little brother? He must have some of his stuff lying around. If we’re gonna stalk someone, we’re gonna do it right.”
“Don’t be an idiot—”)
The door swings wide open.
Shouto feels like one of those floating cherry blossoms he spotted earlier—a flower in bloom, floating, not falling. Time is suspended here: two stars in a fragile galaxy, too afraid to fall into orbit.
When Shouto thinks of Bakugou, he thinks of dragon fruits, broken promises, and chaste kisses. He thinks of pulling Bakugou into a dark alleyway, holding his hand, grinding his thigh against his crotch, and kissing him breathless. He thinks of the forest where they first held hands, the school training ground where they first made out, the love hotel in the red light district of Shinjuku where they first had sex. He thinks of how Bakugou would make his heart flutter and ache at the same time. He thinks of all the words he never had the courage to say: the apologies, the confessions, and everything in between.
He thinks of how his feelings for Bakugou are one of the few, few things that weathered through hurricane after hurricane. This, this right now, is a reminder of that very fact.
Bakugou stands still like a dead man, but Shouto feels his heart beat, beat, beat.
“Kacchan, what happened?” Midoriya groans, heading over to the staff room when Bakugou doesn’t reply. “I told you shouldn’t go in—”
Shouto’s fight-or-flight response finally kicks in.
Today, he chooses to run; he creates a miniature ice wall and jumps out the back window. He doesn’t look back.
If Shouto had the chance to do it all over again, there is only one thing he would do differently: he wouldn’t have told Bakugou he loved him.
I tried to forget you, but it didn’t work.
The cafe is a brisk fifteen minute walk from the apartment. Shouto made it there in eight.
Dabi didn’t seem surprised at all when Shouto panickedly told him that Hawks told Midoriya and Bakugou where he works (“God, he was a shit double agent for a fucking reason,” he groaned, having just woken up from a nap). He joined Shouto in shoving all his essentials into a backpack and informed him about a safe place they could stay at for a couple days until the Wonder Duo finish their job and leave Kyushu.
Initially, Shouto was worried about the mess he left in the staff room, but to his relief, while he and Dabi were packing their things, he received a text from Sasaki assuring that everything would be okay on her end. He asked her for a temporary leave of absence, which she was happy to grant him.
The new hideout is in Itoshima, along the shore. They’ve traded cherry blossom lined paths with sparkling waters and glittering sand, the cool spring breeze warmed by the sea. It’s nothing short of beautiful, but—
“When you said you had a safe hideout, I didn’t think you meant Hawks’ summer vacation house,” Shouto hisses, teeth gritted as he grabs Dabi by his collar, ice spreading to the fabric. Dabi merely laughs, both his eyes as bright blue as the ocean.
“Relax, Shouto~” Hawks sing songs, patting his head and gently pulling him off Dabi. “I’m heading over to Tokyo tomorrow morning. The place is all yours and Dabi’s!”
Shouto feels the intense urge to burn something, anything. “That’s not the problem.”
“If you’re worried about innocent, justice-loving civilians finding this place, don’t. No one knows I own this place. Plus, I bought this section of the beach, so you won’t have people making sandcastles by the shore or surfing on the waves, ‘kay? I’m the one who fucked up, I admit it, so I’m making up for it!”
Hawks is trustworthy where it counts; he would’ve turned the brothers in a long time ago if he wasn’t, nor would he be letting Dabi take on some of his less than heroic jobs.
Shouto exhales a reluctant, annoyed breath, and storms off to the closest guest bedroom. “Whatever. Just make sure Bakugou and Midoriya don’t somehow find this place.”
“C’mon,” Dabi replies, shucking off his long coat. “I’m sure that angry boy was delighted to see you again!”
Violently, Shouto slams the door behind him, flings his backpack to the ground, and plops face down onto the bed, ignoring Dabi and Hawks’ muffled laughter.
Bakugou didn’t look happy to see him. Bakugou didn’t look like he felt anything at all. His face was empty, eyes dark, like all the life was sucked out of him. The last time he saw Bakugou, crouched over his father’s limp body, Bakugou looked angry, heartbroken, and scared all at once. He looked like he did all those years ago, back at the summer training camp when Shouto betrayed him for the first time. Today, it seemed like he felt nothing at all.
Shouto doesn’t understand why that feels so wrong.
Bakugou twists around his memory like frayed wool winding around a spindle; he carries the burden of a comet orbiting a lonely star. Shouto wants to forget what it’s like to be shoved against a wall, hoisted up like the weight of his sins don’t matter, and kissed until he loses his mind. He wants to forget the fullness of having Bakugou inside of him, the ache of having his heart held tenderly in someone else’s hands.
After the sports festival, they kissed each other because they hated each other, because it made sense at the time.
Bakugou’s heavy body caging him in, his lips imprinting on his skin—bruises like tattoos, a decalcomania of touch. Bakugou’s calloused, rough fingers laced with his, like threads of fate woven together—a warm palm against cool skin, breaking him down and bringing him to ruin. It made sense.
It made sense, until it didn’t. Because by the time Shouto left, by the time Shouto realized that becoming a hero was not the right thing to do, there was no more room for the feelings they masked as hate. Because by the time they found each other again, they both knew that any feeling other than hate was a liability and that harboring those feelings was an act of betrayal.
And Shouto has tried to escape these memories, tried to escape Bakugou Katsuki’s perilous, devastating, beautiful orbit, but it doesn’t work like that, because when Shouto left, when he left that first time, he gave Bakugou a piece of him, pressed it into unwilling hands, and took a piece of Bakugou for himself to keep, to treasure, to remember.
Shouto has always had a knack for self-sabotage.
With you, my heart pumped out color. Now it just beats.
Blue colors the skies, and the sand is warm against Shouto’s back—waves languidly kissing his toes. He’s been out lying by the shore for almost an hour, and his right side is starting to burn, but he doesn’t want to leave. The air is cool, yet the sun is hot, lingering under his skin like a slow-burning fire.
He’s spent the morning deep in thought.
Bakugou found him, and he’ll probably find him again, one way or another, and Shouto doesn’t know what to do about that. Even though Shouto and Dabi have temporarily left the city, both Bakugou and Midoriya know that they’re based somewhere in Fukuoka. There have been some close calls this past year, but until now, they’ve always been able to evade the Wonder Duo—the only two people in Japan who haven’t given up their search for the Todoroki brothers.
Immediately after they double crossed the League and took down the Commission, they didn’t have any allies left, and the entire nation was on high alert for them—villains and heroes alike. However, after weeks of traveling around the country, careful never to stay in one place for more than a few days, Hawks pulled some strings in Fukuoka, and things have been quiet ever since. Moreover, those in charge started to give up once they realized that what was important was not finding and imprisoning the Todoroki brothers, but rebuilding the hero society the two had torn apart.
But with Bakugou and Midoriya, it was personal. It still is personal.
Now that they’ve been found, Shouto isn’t sure how long it’ll be until he’s found again.
And what will he do then?
Shouto can’t stop thinking about Bakugou, thinking about what it used to be like between them before the fall out, before everything fell apart: meeting each other in neon-lit cities, making out behind ramen stalls, fucking until dawn and leaving as soon as reality set in. Bakugou did his internship at Endeavor’s agency with Midoriya, so Shouto always knew where to find him—Shouto was a little harder to find, but Bakugou managed just fine.
Would it be so bad if they went back to the way things were?
Shouto’s thoughts are interrupted, and so is his view of the blue sky.
“Didn’t know you liked the beach, little brother,” says Dabi, his big head blocking the sunlight from pouring onto Shouto’s skin.
Shouto closes his eyes with a sigh. “I don’t.”
“Have you ever been before?” Dabi asks, leisurely going to sit next to Shouto, black fabric stark against the white sand.
“Midoriya dragged me one time.”
Dabi snorts. “Was that before or after the training camp?”
“Shut up. Of course it was before, asshole.”
It was early June, two months before the training camp. Iida and Yaoyorozu organized a class trip to the beach. It wasn’t mandatory, but everyone ended up going. In Bakugou’s case, Kaminari had egged him on: he laughed, saying that Bakugou wouldn’t have been any good at beach volleyball anyways, and naturally, Bakugou fell for the bait.
The trip wasn’t so bad, though. He and Bakugou snuck away and made out behind a rock the entire time.
It wasn’t bad at all, now that Shouto thinks about it.
“Just making sure,” Dabi hums, laying his scarred forearms over his eyes to block out the sun, his staples and piercings glimmering in the light. “So, if you don’t like the beach, why’ve you been out here sunbathing for the last hour?”
Shouto is inclined to tell him to go away, but he isn’t sure if he actually wants to be alone right now. With a tired sigh, he vaguely confesses, “I’ve been thinking.”
“You’re gonna have to give me more than that.”
“I’ve been thinking about things.”
“Gee, I never would’ve guessed!”
“Fine,” Shouto hisses out, even though he knew he was going to tell Dabi about it anyways. “I was thinking about Bakugou.”
He expects Dabi to tease him about it like he always does—to make little comments that hurt just enough to sting, but not enough to draw blood—but he only hums quietly, thoughtfully. For a second there, Shouto actually thinks that Dabi is going to give him real, meaningful advice, and maybe they can have a sincere conversation for once, but Dabi ruins it by opening his mouth: “You thinking about his dick or something?”
Shouto sits up. “I’m going back inside.”
“Hey,” Dabi says, grabbing Shouto’s arm. “I’m serious.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Was I wrong?”
Shouto flushes; he wasn’t thinking about Bakugou’s dick specifically, but definitely something along those lines. He shakes Dabi’s hand off and decides to answer with a placid, “Fuck off.”
“That’s a yes then,” Dabi chuckles, lying down, pillowing his head with his hands. “So what about his dick? The girth? The curvature? Is angry boy actually packing underneath all those issues?”
“I will turn you into the police myself if you don’t shut up.”
“Relax,” Dabi laughs, ruffling Shouto’s hair fondly. “If you want it so bad, just go for it.”
Shouto frowns. “It’s not that easy.”
“Yes, it actually is that easy,” Dabi argues, a serious tone to his voice, eyes the color of the sky. “You’re just overthinking it. Just do what feels good. Do what you want, and figure out the rest as you go. Don’t worry about it until you have to.”
“That’s terrible advice.” Shouto does not perform well with procrastination. Although he’s the type to make decisions on the fly, the type to act as quickly as he can, he doesn’t like to leave things unfinished, doesn’t like to mull over things for any longer than he has to. He’s impulsive, but he likes to be prepared.
“It’s what I did with Keigo, and look where I am now! Lounging in his expensive beach house.”
Shouto blinks. “He’s not even here.”
Dabi grins. “That’s right, little bro.”
For someone who grew up rich and abandoned it all in a heartbeat, Dabi surprisingly has the makings of a gold digger. It must have been all those humbling years in the League and the rat-infested paradises they called hideouts.
Shouto just ends up sighing, lying back down to stare at the sky. He wants the sun to eat him whole: that seems like a much easier fate than what he has going on right now. “I’ll think about it, I guess.”
And he does. It’s all he thinks about as he stares up at the blueness of the sky. He spends the rest of the day thinking of Bakugou, thinking and wondering what would happen if he caved in and let Bakugou back into his life again.
You taught me why hurricanes are named after people.
On the border of Nakasu was a human trafficking facility where amateur quirk-boosting drugs were being manufactured on the side. Hawks got wind of it from an old contact, back from when he was still playing double agent. But every time the police had managed to secure a search warrant, any traces of criminal activity magically disappeared; Hawks theorized that someone in the villain group must have a powerful, Overhaul-type quirk. Without definitively incriminating evidence, however, it was impossible to convince the heroes to legally raid the place, so Hawks secretly commissioned Dabi to burn the entire place down, no need to be stealthy or subtle about it. The destruction could easily be construed as the handiwork of a competing villain group. Hawks would’ve done it himself, he said, but his quirk isn’t suited to large-scale destruction efforts.
That was the mission Shouto took over for Dabi.
The job itself went well: the hardest part was sneaking into the place, careful not to attract the attention of any onlookers, but it was smooth sailing from there. It’s midnight now, and it took a little under an hour to burn everything down. Shouto snorts. If these are the types of jobs Hawks has his brother going on, Touya sure has it easy.
As the facility burns away behind him, Shouto goes back the way he came—alleyway after alleyway, ready to hitch a train back to Itoshima. Shouto is halfway to Nakasu station when he decides to look back: an orange blaze of fire colors the black of the sky, and the moon is edged out by stars and clouds of smoke. Forward: the neon-lit sandbank of the river flickers with red, like dancing dragons shrouded by water. As Shouto turns the corner, a blooming rot settles in his gut, but he doesn’t realize it until he’s pinned to the dirty wall of the narrow alley.
At first, he thinks it might be a villain: someone he didn’t account for when burning down the facility, but—
“You’re not getting away from me this time, Icy Hot.”
Bakugou’s forearm presses violently into his throat, a hand shoved against his stomach, a knee between his thighs. It’s a sticky night, and the air is humid; heat beads down Shouto’s forehead, skin flushing warm.
That was quick, Shouto thinks. It’s only been a couple days since their encounter at the cafe. Enough days, however, for Shouto to come to a decision about what he wants to do once he encounters Bakugou again.
“Get—” Shouto coughs, wheezing and choking over his own tongue, “—get off me.”
“As long as you don’t run away again.”
Shouto laughs, as much as he can with Bakugou’s forearm cutting off his air supply. “No promises.”
Bakugou glowers, but releases his arm from Shouto’s neck, instantly moving his hand upward to tug at his hair, forcing him to bare his neck. Shouto pants, chest heaving and heart lurching to his throat as Bakugou grinds his thigh into Shouto’s crotch, licking a stripe from the nape of his neck all the way up to his ear.
Do what feels good. Do what you want, and figure out the rest as you go, right?
“Gonna fuck me before you turn me in?”
“I’m not gonna turn you in,” Bakugou hums, sucking on Shouto’s earlobe, rucking his shirt up to palm at his abs. “Like hell I’d let you go again.”
Shouto bats his eyes, because he knows Bakugou finds him pretty when he does that, and rolls his hips to grind back against Bakugou’s muscled thigh. He moans sweetly and sighs, “But you are going to fuck me, right?”
The game was over the moment Bakugou stepped into the cafe, because no matter how far Shouto runs, across ocean and sea, Bakugou always ends up finding him, one way or another. Giving in is the only way to survive.
Bakugou grins, eyes as red as the dragons that color the Naka River, and mutters, “Not here.”
Shouto has missed this. (Shouto has missed him.)
Sometimes my body twitches on its own the way it would have if you touched it.
Bakugou takes Shouto by the wrist and drags him over to a love hotel, a discrete one.
A part of Shouto wants to feel ashamed for going with it so easily, but Bakugou looks so happy. Happy to see him again, happy to get to fuck him again, whatever. It doesn’t matter to him why Bakugou is happy as long as he is, because whenever Bakugou is happy, Shouto’s brain goes a little dumb and his heart is filled with warmth.
He has questions, so many questions about what the hell this is, but Bakugou’s got him naked on the bed, thighs caging him, a slick hand on his cock, stroking him from base to tip. Bakugou is just as naked as he is, but the way Shouto is splayed out prettily on the sheets, hands bound above his head with loose ribbon, emphasizes the fact that for the first time in months, Shouto is not in control.
Shouto pants quietly, trying not to let Bakugou know how turned on he is right now, and asks, “You gonna do something other than give me a shitty hand job? I’m risking my life h-here.”
For that, Bakugou squeezes the base of his leaking cock and smacks his inner thigh red. “I haven’t fucking seen you in a year,” he rasps, mouth wet against Shouto’s neck, already littered with bruises and bites. “I’m gonna take my time with you.”
Fuck. Bakugou’s dirty talk is, like, number three on Shouto’s list of ultimate weaknesses. Shouto was never good with words in the first place, but whenever Bakugou says shit like that, it’s like his entire vocabulary is reduced to incoherent, slutty moans. He hates himself for it. He hates that he almost forgot how much power Bakugou has over him when they get like this.
“Asshole,” Shouto mumbles, lips parting wetly the moment he sees Bakugou’s cock pressed to his hip. He wants it in him; the head is pink and swollen, and all Shouto can think about is getting fucked and filled to the brim. So he starts to buck his hips up into Bakugou’s hand, the wet slide of his cock against Bakugou’s palm, and spreads his legs wider and wider.
“Fuck,” Bakugou breathes out, stilling his hand so that Shouto has to do all the work. His pupils are blown wide as he watches Shouto take what he wants. “You’re so fucking hot, what the fuck?”
Shouto’s dick pulses. Whenever Bakugou praises him like that, his brain turns to absolute mush.
“C’mon,” he groans, panting softly, squeezing his eyes shut as his brain works extraordinarily hard to think of the words he wants to say, “I want you in me already.”
Bakugou laughs, voice deep and gravelly, and mutters, “Just as straightforward as ever, huh?”
His hand lingers a bit, but ultimately leaves Shouto’s dick, smoothing over his ass and effectively rubbing Shouto’s own precum all over him. Shouto’s eyes widen as Bakugou’s dry hand lifts one of his thighs up to his chest. And fuck, Bakugou’s plump cock fits between Shouto’s ass cheeks, not pushing in, just teasing. Bakugou is big, and Shouto might lose his fucking mind. Bakugou is dizzying, this is dizzying.
“God, that’s—”
“Good?” Bakugou supplies, hips rolling fluidly, rubbing against his perineum, sucking another hickey onto Shouto’s jaw. He kneads Shouto’s firm ass with one hand and presses bruises into his inner thigh with the other.
“Hot,” Shouto sighs, eyes fluttering shut again. “But I, ahh, I still want you in me for real, Bakugou.”
Bakugou curses under his breath, fingertips digging into flesh, and steals Shouto’s breath with a kiss: dirty, wet, and a lot of tongue. Spit runs down the side of Shouto’s chin, warmth unfurls in his stomach, and his heart blooms with the need to have Bakugou close to him at all times. The love-bites on his neck, all over his chest, throb headily, and Shouto can no longer keep himself quiet.
Shouto lets out a soft, needy noise, hips jerking frantically into Bakugou’s hand, and whimpers, “Finger me already.”
“Shit,” Bakugou exhales feverishly, pulling away from Shouto’s lips, wiping his swollen mouth with the back of his hand. He looks like he wants to eat Shouto whole. But he tears himself away from Shouto to finally grab the lube on the bedside table.
Shouto writhes helplessly a bit more, annoyed by his restraints as well as the lack of friction on his dick. He could always break free—the ribbon isn’t military-grade after all, and he could easily rip the fabric—but what’s the fun in that?
But there is fun in this:
While Bakugou slicks up his fingers and warms up the lube, Shouto flips over onto his stomach, arches his back prettily, and rests the side of his head on the bed so that he can see Bakugou’s face. And if his hands weren’t tied together, he’d spread his cheeks wide too, present his hole just for Bakugou. But for now—this is more than enough.
The lube bottle clatters the ground, and Bakugou makes a weird, half-aborted moan.
“What the fuck, Todoroki?”
Shouto’s eyes zero in on Bakugou’s cock, and he licks his puffy lips unconsciously. “Need you,” he groans, shame pulsing through his veins, but it only makes him feel hotter. “Need you in me.”
A hand rests on his ass, pulling him open. Two slick fingers circle at his hole, and Shouto whines, pressing back into the touch, drooling into the sheets, knees pulling closer to his chest.
“I got you—” Bakugou rasps shakily, fingers still teasing around Shouto’s entrance. And it isn’t until Shouto accidentally burns away his restraints that Bakugou finally pushes a finger inside.
“Fuck,” Shouto groans, hands grabbing at one of the throw pillows, desperately trying not to burn or freeze the fabric but utterly failing at it. Gently, he rocks against the finger prodding inside him, moaning breathily, and lets out a soft, “Didn’t, shit, didn’t mean to do that.”
“Needy,” Bakugou scolds, smacking Shouto’s ass.
“Can’t help it,” Shouto exhales, resisting the urge to bring a hand down to jerk himself off. Bakugou would murder him if he tried, so he continues white-knuckling the singed throw pillow. “It’s been a while, and, ah!” Bakugou slips a second finger inside. “And, and you’re a tease.”
“If I’m a tease, then you’re a slut.”
Shouto laughs, but the air is knocked out of his lungs when Bakugou pushes in a third finger. Fuck, fuck, he feels full. Face shoved into the pillow, moans muffled by fabric, Shouto feels his quirk start to go out of control, heat spiraling frantically, frost licking at his hair. The heel of Bakugou’s palm presses into Shouto’s tailbone, thumb dipping into the dimples on his lower back, as he finger fucks Shouto, stretches him open, gives him a reminder of what it’s like to be filled to the brim. After a little bit of prodding, he finds Shouto’s prostate; butterflies kiss at the back of Shouto’s throat as he struggles to remember how to breathe, body instinctively aching into the touch.
Bakugou leans down to kiss Shouto’s cheek, salty-wet with tears, and asks, “Can you take one more?”
Dazed, Shouto blinks, lashes wet and heavy, eyes half-lidded, and gives a little nod.
Bakugou’s eyes go soft, and he brushes the hair away from Shouto’s forehead, matted with sweat but cold to the touch. Delicately, like Shouto is going to break any moment, he presses in his pinky finger, crooning, “God, you’re pretty.”
“Shut u-up,” Shouto mewls, breath stuttering as Bakugou pushes in knuckle-deep, gasping loudly when he jabs against his prostate. “I don’t, fuck, I don’t like myself like this.”
“Like what? Needy, desperate, whiny?” Bakugou teases, punctuating each of his words with a harsh thrust and a low, throaty groan.
Vulnerable is more what Shouto was going for, but all of those adjectives work too. “You’re an asshole,” he complains with a pout.
“Well, that sucks,” Bakugou hums, flipping Shouto over, fingers slipping out. “ ‘Cause I like you like this.”
“Baku—” Shouto gasps as he sinks into the mattress, Bakugou pinning both his arms down with one hand, thumbing at a nipple with his wet fingers.
From this vantage point, all he can see is Bakugou: rippled muscles, hard lines, the body of a hero through and through. He has a couple new scars compared to when Shouto was last naked in bed with him: some white and healed, others pink and healing. Shouto’s stupid, stupid brain wants to touch —wants to smooth over his wounds with the calloused pads of his fingertips. His pupils are dilated too—dark and hungry like he wants to devour the man beneath him (Shouto would let him). Shouto wants so many things: he wants Bakugou’s pretty cock inside his mouth, wants to grind his own cock against Bakugou’s muscled thigh, to tug on his hair, moan into his mouth, spill white all over his abs. Shouto wants many things from Bakugou, but most of all, he wants him to fuck his brains out, fuck him stupid, fuck him till he can’t breathe.
Shouto is terrified by how much power Bakugou has over him in moments like these—not physically, and not sexually, there is nothing to fear there, but emotionally. Shouto has spent the past year pretending that what he had with Bakugou never existed in the first place; having Bakugou here with him right now makes him ache, makes him want. He wants more than he can have, more than he should have. He wants to love Bakugou freely and fuck him whenever he wants. He wants Bakugou, wants every part of him, wants him all to himself.
Bakugou is gorgeous, dick curved up to his stomach, grinning confidently. Tanned skin and a sturdy body; Shouto wants this all to himself.
His back arches at the sight, body trembling under Bakugou’s. He feels like a shaking, whimpering, stupid mess—a vulnerable mess, but when it comes down to it, he knows that Bakugou won’t hurt him any more than he wants to be hurt.
“Please,” Shouto chokes out, too fucked out to feel embarrassed, hiccuping stuttered gasps and moans as Bakugou presses his slick cock to Shouto’s hole. “Fuck me, please.”
“Shit, I almost forgot how hot you are when you’re needy,” Bakugou moans.
A hand presses onto Shouto’s abs to keep him from squirming; little fireworks erupt, miniature volcanos of heat, and burn Shouto’s skin. Holy fucking shit, that’s hot. One of his favorite things about fucking Bakugou is that neither of them can control themselves or their quirks around each other.
Bakugou pushes in slowly, stops when he gets just the head inside, and Shouto feels already so full. He’s barely holding himself together: the memories of Bakugou’s dick inside him, the pulsing heat, the numbing weight, the terrifying gravity of it all, could never compare to the actual thing.
“More, Bakugou,” he sighs, legs spreading pliantly for Bakugou, curling around his body, pulling him closer and closer until Bakugou has no choice but to thrust in balls deep. Fuck, fuck, Shouto’s heart flutters at the fullness, and he knows that he’s gone. Knows that he fucked up, knows that he shouldn’t have let Bakugou back into his life like this because now he doesn’t want to go a single day without feeling this sort of ache, this blaze.
Shouto shouldn’t have kissed Bakugou the night after the sports festival, when Bakugou called him out to the training grounds to fight. Shouto should’ve fought, but instead, he angrily pushed Bakugou into the dirt and kissed his face off. He hated everything Bakugou was, and he should’ve just left it at that, but instead, he let the hatred and the jealousy fester in his heart like a wound, bloom into something like comfort—like admiration. Bakugou is too good for him, was always too good for him; Shouto shouldn’t have tainted him with chaste kisses and broken promises.
“Shit, shit,” Bakugou gasps, falling into orbit, mouth pressing to Shouto’s like kissing him was what he was made to do.
He shouldn’t have let Bakugou hold his hand during that stupid test of courage in the woods. Bakugou is the epitome of everything that is good about heroes: he’s stubborn, confident, and selfish when he needs to be. He wants to save people not for the glory of it, not for the satisfaction of being a good person, but because it makes him feel good. Achieving victory is Bakugou’s core drive, and to Bakugou, saving people and achieving victory are the exact same thing. Bakugou was built to be a hero, and Shouto thinks that’s beautiful, thinks that he as a person, inward and outward, is beautiful.
Shouto feels delirious with Bakugou fully seated inside of him, fucking him slowly, but deeply. At first, his hands struggle to find purpose, nails raking into the flesh of Bakugou’s back, but he eventually settles for gripping Bakugou’s ass with a bruising touch.
The kiss is messy, tongues and teeth clashing, but it’s good—everything about Bakugou is good.
Bakugou is loud, breathy moans and aborted gasps swallowed by Shouto’s mouth, and Shouto loves every part of it.
“Harder,” Shouto groans, licking the seam of Bakugou’s lips, his Cupid’s bow, the corner of his mouth, and licks down to the dip of his neck, sucking a wet bruise right above his collarbone.
“Shut up,” Bakugou warns, letting go of Shouto’s wrists to tug at his hair with one hand and spread his ass further apart with the other, fingertips catching on his puffy rim. He feels even deeper now, even deeper as he picks up the pace and fucks Shouto harder, faster, the head of his cock nudging into Shouto’s prostate with every thrust. “You’re so, fuck, nghh, you’re so tight.”
Dizzy, Shouto feels himself blooming open, putty in Bakugou’s hands. Vulnerable. He’s so turned on, cock red and leaking all over their stomachs, his head constantly rubbing against Bakugou’s abs with the force of his thrusts.
“Missed you,” he blurts out, heart stuttering in his chest once he realizes what he said.
A beat, and Bakugou’s hips slow to a full stop. Bakugou’s eyes are dark and lidded, but his lips curl into a gentle smile. “Missed you, fuck, too.”
Shouto feels a quiet, guttural sob come over him; he doesn’t know why he feels so relieved to hear that.
Bakugou quickly resumes the brutal pace from before, and Shouto feels heat unfurl deep in his belly.
“Fuck, I think I might come,” he gasps, a line of spit dripping down the side of his jaw.
“You’re that easy, huh?” Bakugou teases, despite sounding just as ruined as Shouto, voice husky and low. Shouto’s body is burning hot, but his pillow is cold, frozen over. “Haven’t even touched your pretty cock.”
“Shut up, you were, ahh, you were touching me, ngh, earlier,” Shouto breathes out, eyes stinging with tears.
Bakugou pants, trying to pretend like he isn’t on the brink of falling apart, just like Shouto, and leans down to suck at Shouto’s left nipple, hot and budding open, and tweaks at the right one. Shouto lets out a whine, a high-pitched gasp, eyes blowing wide open.
“Nooo, fuck, fuck, Bakugou—”
His nipples aren’t especially sensitive, but with the way that his body is on fire right now, the extra touches bring Shouto closer to the breaking point.
“Mine,” Bakugou moans, licking a stripe back up to Shouto’s neck, jaw, then mouth, sucking on his bottom lip. His thrusts start to lose rhythm, erratic and violent, and Shouto is breathless.
“Yours, yours—”
“Gonna fill you up,” Bakugou promises. “Fill you up till you’re fucked and bred.” And it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t need to make sense because Shouto already feels so fucking full, all stretched open as Bakugou batters his pliant, ruined body into the sheets, both their stomachs sticky and wet with precum, sweat, and excess lube.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Shouto chants.
Shouto’s head lolls back, baring his neck even further, aching into the touch. Blooms of heat and pressure, raw and powerful, blaze all over his body. He wants this, and it’s all he can think about. Is he even thinking anymore? It feels good, stupidly good to let Bakugou use him like this, play with his body like this. He’s not even aware of himself anymore, only aware of Bakugou’s cock filling him up so well.
“Wanna come, hngh, wanna—”
“God, you’re perfect,” Bakugou mumbles, kissing Shouto’s cheek, lashes wet and pretty. “So pretty for me, don’t even need to touch your cock, huh? Fuck, fuck, Shouto, come for me.”
Shouto goes wordless, skin raw, flushed, and pink with desire, lips parting cutely, body writhing, hiccuping moans and whines as he tightens around Bakugou’s cock, dirties both their stomachs with cum. Bakugou kisses his cheek, licks his tears away as he comes, rocking slowly against his prostate, fucking him deep.
“Baby,” Shouto babbles, practically incoherent, once he finds his words, vaguely registering that half of the bed is frozen over with his ice. “Baby—Bakugou, c’mon, fuck, please, want you to come inside me, Katsuki, please.”
“Holy fuck—”
Bakugou’s moans are raw with desire; he sounds absolutely wrecked, he looks wrecked too. Pupils dilated with want and hunger. His hands find Shouto’s, like he finds solace in lacing their fingers together, mouths sliding together once more. They’re not even kissing, but that was never the goal.
He comes inside Shouto, fills him up like he promised, with a loud, guttural moan.
“You’re so good, baby,” Shouto praises, toes curling at the sudden gush of hot fluid inside of him, his own cock twitching tiredly at the overstimulation.
Shouto’s eyes are still closed, the dopamine from his orgasm rushing through his body, but he thinks that Bakugou must look just as beautiful as he sounds.
“Fuck,” Bakugou rasps, “fuck, fuck.”
Bakugou’s hips stutter, and he completely collapses on top of Shouto, rests his head atop Shouto’s chest, and listens to his heartbeat as he comes down from his high.
Can we just go back to the way things were?
“Shit,” Shouto groans when Bakugou is lucid enough to pull his dick out of his ass and roll over to the side. “You came inside.”
Cum leaks out of his ass, and Shouto resists the urge to plug himself back up with his fingers. That would turn him on too much. His head is starting clear up, and getting horny again would probably make him do something stupid, like ask Bakugou to fuck him again.
As appealing as that sounds, Shouto already got what he wanted; he shouldn’t get too greedy.
Bakugou rolls his eyes, picking up his shirt from the ground to wipe Shouto’s cum off his abs. Disgusting. Shouto hates how that kind of turns him on.
“You asked me to. Plus, I know you like it when it drips down your thigh.”
Shouto pouts, cheeks flushed because yeah, Bakugou is right, he does like it, but he isn’t going to admit it. But, because he wants to be a brat about it, he pretends to be upset and argues, “They have condoms, you know. All love hotels do.”
“You hate condoms, Halfie,” Bakugou reminds him tiredly, tossing Shouto his dirty shirt so he can at least clean his stomach. He’s right. Shouto always ends up accidentally melting them. “I’m clean, if that’s what you’re worried about. Are you?”
Fuck, Bakugou’s voice is hot, that post-sex sort of husky. His hair is slicked back with sweat, his forehead exposed, skin a pretty pink. His cock is pretty too, even when flacid. It takes everything Shouto has not to put it in his mouth. He bluntly admits, “I’ve only ever been with you.”
Bakugou’s eyes widen, and the tips of his ears turn red. “Vice versa,” he mumbles, almost inaudible, trying to hide the embarrassed look on his face. Shouto thinks he’s cute. “Whatever. Go shower. You stink.”
Shouto chuckles, and his heart feels light. “Sure thing, Bakugou.”
Bantering with Bakugou always makes him feel better, feel like there is at least one thing in his life that he hasn’t fucked up yet. But that’s a lie: Shouto already fucked things up between them a long time ago.
I’m proud of you. I don’t know if I’m proud of me.
The room is hot, humid from the air outside, and the bed is effectively ruined, scorch marks and bits of ice all over the sheets.
Shouto is still lying down by the time Bakugou is done with his shower. He isn’t exactly sure why he hasn’t left yet—he knows he should’ve gone the moment Bakugou slipped in the shower, but for some reason, he doesn’t feel like being alone right now.
Bakugou, a towel slung loosely around his neck, another low around his hips, looks just as surprised as he is to find out that Shouto hasn’t hightailed it out of here; he doesn’t say anything about it, however. He only goes to lie down next to Shouto.
“You dyed your hair,” Bakugou blurts out awkwardly.
“Had to,” responds Shouto, playing with a strand of hair, still damp from the shower. Without his split-color hair and heterochromatic eyes, his scar is easy to pass off as an accident. Bleaching his roots is a pain, but it’s definitely worth it. Though he misses his red hair sometimes, he wasn’t ever particularly attached to it. Red reminds him of his father, and Shouto doesn’t need any more ghosts haunting him.
“It looks weird on you,” Bakugou mumbles, scowling.
“Did you like my old hair?” Shouto asks with a smirk.
Bakugou blushes cutely, but he schools his expression back into a frown. “I never fucking said that.”
Shouto wants to tease him a little more, but it occurs to him that, if he’s going to stay awhile, he might as well clear some things up. “So how’d you find me?” he asks, sitting up to stare at Bakugou inquisitively.
Bakugou huffs, arms crossed over his chest. “I saw the smoke a mile away. Back in the city. You and Dabi are the only people in Japan with a fire quirk that powerful, so I knew it had to be one of you.”
“What were you doing in the red-light district?”
“You’re not the only one aware of villainous activity.”
In the back of his mind, Shouto wonders what Bakugou and Midoriya actually are in Fukuoka for. The two team up quite often, having gained the nickname “The Wonder Duo,” which Shouto is sure Bakugou hates, but from what Shouto knows, they only team up for big raids and large-scale villain attacks.
Is there more to the story that Hawks wasn’t telling him and Dabi?
Shouto is about to ask for more details, but Bakugou interrupts him with a question of his own.
“My turn,” he starts. “Why did you run away? Back at the cafe. You went along with me pretty easily in the alleyway.”
“I’ve had time to think about it, about what I want. But back at the cafe, I got scared,” Shouto admits, biting his lip nervously.
“Of what?”
Of how much I still like you. “Of you turning me in,” Shouto lies.
“I wouldn’t.”
Shouto knows that, knows that neither Bakugou or Midoriya care about bringing Shouto to justice, knows that when it comes to him, it’s strictly personal.
“Why didn’t you chase after me when I ran from the cafe?”
Bakugou doesn’t reply for a while. A full minute passes before he finally answers, “The old lady at the cafe, your boss, I think, asked me and Deku not to chase after you. Said we should let you go for now.”
“And you listened?”
Bakugou scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I wanted to go after you, but the shitty nerd physically wouldn’t let me. He used his fucking quirk on me.”
“Oh,” Shouto utters, brows knitting together in confusion. He doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand how people can just be kind like that, how they can willingly risk their lives and their careers when they have absolutely nothing to gain. People like Midoriya and Sasaki. Midoriya was his first ever hero, the hero who saved him when he needed it the most, the hero who convinced him that he had the power to decide his own path, a path separate from his father. When Shouto thinks of what it means to be a hero, a true hero, he thinks of Bakugou, but he also thinks of Midoriya, because no matter how many times Shouto betrays him, he never gives up on him.
“I think he literally just wanted to play with the kittens for longer,” Bakugou dismisses, even though neither of them actually believe that’s the case. “Stupid bastard.”
“He’s your best friend.”
“Kirishima’s my best friend,” Bakugou immediately corrects. It’s nice to see that Bakugou still pretends like he hates Midoriya.
Shouto blinks and deadpans, “He’s your other best friend.”
“He fucking overtook my number two spot in the last rankings. Deku’s fucking dead to me.”
“It’s okay. I’m still proud of you,” Shouto reassures, because he is. He’s proud of the hero that Bakugou has become.
He’s proud of Bakugou, but he isn’t sure if he’s proud of himself.
“Fuck you,” replies Bakugou, cheeks stained cherry red at the praise. Embarrassed Bakugou is number two on Shouto’s list of favorite Bakugous. It makes Shouto’s heart grow warm.
“You already did,” Shouto jokes, dimples pressed into his cheeks. Bakugou after-sex lets Shouto get away with almost anything, so Shouto likes to take advantage of it as much as he can.
Bakugou’s voice thrums low, and Shouto’s heart beats a little quicker, his dick stirring underneath his fluffy bathrobe, trying hard not to stare too much at Bakugou’s chest, the hickies he left all over his neck and the marks he left all over his ass. He places a sturdy hand on Shouto’s naked thigh. “You wanna go again?”
Shouto looks at the clock: it’s a little past two in the morning, and Dabi is probably wondering where he is. He hasn’t checked his phone in hours, either.
He considers it, he really does, but he reminds himself that he shouldn’t taint Bakugou any further. “No, I, I can’t stay.”
“You’re going to leave?” Bakugou asks, eyes blood red with betrayal—it’s the same look from the summer training camp, from Kamino, and from Kamino again. He sits up, his face contorting with disbelief. “After all that, you’re just going to leave again?”
Shouto doesn’t want to say that it was just sex, because it wasn’t. It was never just sex between them.
“What did you think I was going to do? What did you expect to happen once you found me? Did you expect us to live happily ever after or something, Bakugou? I always leave. This is no different from before—”
“I thought that things would be different now. The League is gone and the Commission isn’t pulling strings anymore. You—you’re still here, you didn’t leave immediately, so I thought—”
You’re right. I’m still here. Why am I still here?
Things are complicated enough as it is; Shouto doesn’t want to make things worse. He and Dabi are finally safe, free from the shackles of hero society—he can’t let his feelings for Bakugou cloud his judgement.
“Then I’ll leave now,” Shouto announces, getting up from the bed, putting on his clothes that were tossed haphazardly to the ground, “since I seem to be sending mixed signals.”
“Todoroki—” Bakugou yells, grabbing his arm, preventing him from putting on his shirt.
Shouto frowns, sighing and staring emptily at the hand around his wrist. “You can turn me in, but you can’t make me stay.” But he doesn’t fight the grip; he just sits back on the bed, half-dressed and tired.
Bakugou’s head is lowered, and it takes him a couple seconds to utter, “Fuyumi asked me and Deku to find you and Dabi and bring you back. Natsuo insisted that you two were best left alone.”
Fuyumi. Natsuo. Shouto hasn’t thought of them in a while. He didn’t exactly leave things on the best terms with them, with anyone.
The last time he spoke to either of them was shortly before the fall out. Shouto and Dabi knew beforehand that they were going to betray the League—they knew it was dangerous, and that there was the possibility that they wouldn’t make it out alive. Shouto wanted to see Fuyumi and Natsuo one last time.
Fuyumi was angry, angry at him for becoming a villain, and Natsuo—it was hard to pin down what Natsuo thought about everything. He was happy that Touya and Shouto were on the same side, because at least that meant Touya wouldn’t be alone anymore. He never forgave their father for what he did to their family, but when Shouto told him about the plan to take away their father’s quirk, he was conflicted.
But Shouto and Dabi didn’t have time to mend the bonds they’d broken, so they let the bridges burn behind them and carried on with the plan.
His mind flashes to his mother, how he hasn’t seen her in years, not since he was a student at UA. It’s still too risky to visit her—the psychiatric ward of the hospital she’s staying at is on high alert for Shouto, since he had been a frequent visitor.
“What do they have to do with anything?” he snaps, heart panging with guilt. (He should make things right with them. With all of them.)
“I don’t fucking know, Halfie. I don’t fucking know anymore,” Bakugou mutters, letting go of Shouto’s wrist.
Shouto frowns and finishes dressing himself. Bakugou stays quiet. “I’m sorry, Bakugou. I just—we can’t.”
Dabi might be okay with dating a hero, but Shouto isn’t. He was never supposed to get so attached.
Yet, Shouto is weak. Shouto is weak, so before he leaves, he turns around and offers, “Things can go back to the way they were, if that’s what you want, but—”
“I want more.”
Shouto’s heart stops in his chest. “Bakugou—”
Determined, Bakugou utters, “During the battle against Shigaraki, you told me you loved me.”
Shigaraki had devastated the area, furious that Shouto and Dabi had turned on him. Midoriya was passed out, bloodied and battered, lying on the ground. There wasn’t much hope left, and—
“I thought I was going to die,” Shouto reasons out. That’s what he tells himself; that’s what he always tells himself.
I didn’t actually—I don’t actually—
“I told you I loved you back,” Bakugou reminds firmly, staring right into Shouto’s eyes.
The red glow of half-lit lanterns seeps through the window and into the room, coloring Bakugou’s skin with warm tones, dragon fire on battle-weary skin.
You didn’t mean it either—you can’t have, you—
“You were gonna die too,” Shouto mutters, hands clenched into fists by his sides. “You didn’t—”
“I meant it,” Bakugou insists, shattering all the ice that Shouto has put up around his heart, forcing Shouto to lay his own heart bare. “Did you?”
Shouto shouldn’t have told Bakugou he loved him—it’s the one thing he wouldn’t do if he got to do this all over again. It doesn’t matter if he meant it or not—he just knows that it was a mistake, knows that this is a mistake, one that he makes over and over again because he’s weak, because Bakugou makes him weak.
“I have to go,” he decides, twisting the doorknob. He shouldn’t have done this. Any of this.
Someone like him doesn’t deserve someone like Bakugou. He slams the door behind him and doesn’t look back.